450 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



more so that I had permitted myself the liberty of joining 

 personally in the chaff over an old friend's vicissitudes, 

 but I think I must tell you, if only as a hint how most 

 effectually to re-enter public life. Now, there used to be 

 among us one whose beaming face and twinkling eye were 

 in themselves a welcome to the covertside, and whose 

 courage never failed when we turned to him to open a 

 bullfinch or to shiver a top-rail. For the last season he 

 had been missing from our midst, I should say, from our 

 front. What had become of " Smasher," or, with the 

 more customary and affectionate prefix, " little Smasher " ? 

 Many a time we looked for him in vain when the way was 

 closed and the timber was strong. Given up hunting, 

 probably. Waiting till the Stock Exchange is once again 

 a Tom Tiddler's Ground. Such and such like conjectures 

 were rife for a while ; then, the nine days' memory which 

 will attach to very few of us being exhausted, they were 

 given up, and Smasher's place to a certain extent knew him 

 no more. In the spring noontide of Saturday, however, it 

 happened, while these few dry tillage-fields were being 

 traversed by the huntsman and his baffled pack, we were 

 all — a goodly company, and familiar with all who make it 

 a business to hunt in the Grass Countries — drawn up in a 

 road, to which at right angles ran a green lane. Over the 

 green lane and slightly behind us (not an altogether un- 

 usual reversal of position in these bustling regions) Wilson 

 and his first lieutenant had just appeared, popping neatly 

 in and out of the two tolerably high fences, with the pack 

 between them. Nothing more to come, was there ? Yes, 

 if you please, there was Smasher I — "little Smasher" — flying 

 as if from the heavens, through the top twigs of the second 

 hedge ! On his back and alone he lit among the astonished 

 hounds and before our still more astonished eyes ; and it 

 was only when he rose to his feet, to beam upon us with 

 his well-remembered smile and with the same laughing 

 glitter in his eyes, we fairly realised that this was our own, 

 our long-lost Smasher. The welcome that greeted him, 

 as he walked up to the crowd, and turned into the green 

 lane to seek his horse (who had, you understand, stopped 

 suddenly half-way), could not have been more cordial and 



