THE PUPPIES 131 



There is not more study afforded by the physiognomy of a 

 school of boys and girls. Here is a group of careless creatures 

 at a game of boisterous play ; while in corners sit the timid, as 

 well as those regretful of the friends they have left behind. 

 Others walk about in surly moods and challenge their new 

 acquaintances to fight ; while the more forward ones begin tar 

 make love to the ladies. But hush, while we contemplate those 

 that are still arriving. There is a scuffle at the kennel door ! 

 A man appears, very hot, having, as he assures us, "had a 

 deuce of a job to get the puppy along." He had to carry him, 

 on his thumb it would seem, for there is a deep gash in it 

 where the holders of the puppy have met. The old boiler 

 Curnoch looks at it, and, because he boils horses and lives 

 among hounds, he is deemed " to know summut of bites." 

 Curnoch takes the wounded labourer to the boiling house, sends 

 to the stable for some hot horse-oils, pours a spoonful into the 

 wound and rubs it well in, fastens up the lips of the scar with 

 some cobblers' wax, sticks on a bit of old cord breeches, and 

 binds it tight mth some tar twine. The man then repairs to 

 the Castle, gets a skinful of stronger ale and cider than he is in 

 the habit of drinking, with a lot of cold meat, and rises to his 

 work next morning cool and comfortable ! 



Harrogate was a great favourite of Mrs. Berkeley's, and 

 when at exercise in the field at Harrold, where the rookery on 

 the lime tree is, he would break away from the pack, leap the 

 haha on to the lawn, and go round to the drawing-room window 

 for a biscuit or a bason of sopped bread, and then return to me 

 or my men, who, if I was not there, were ordered to let him do 

 so. "When Mrs. Berkeley attended, either in the carriage or on 

 horseback, to see the hounds throw off, Harrogate always left 

 the pack to acknowledge her ; and this led, for years after, to a 

 curious circumstance often seen with the Duke of Grafton's 

 hounds, ^^'^^en the meet was at any popular spot, and was 

 attended by ladies in carriages, a fine lengthy grey-pied hound, 

 unchided by whipper-in, was seen to quit the pack, and gallop 

 up to the carriage in which he distinguished, at a distance, the 



