"THE COTTESMORE IN 1826." 21 



administers a slight rebuke : " Hold hard, gentlemen ; 

 please hold hard please hold hard, gentlemen, and 

 let the hounds get out." In the days I am speaking 

 of there was a kind of honour amongst thieves, 

 and though many a man was ready to ride over the 

 hounds, or his neighbour, and over anything he 

 ought not, the greater part of those who hunted 

 had, I think, more of the real sportsman in them 

 than they have in these days ; and from this cause 

 a man was hardly permitted by the rest of the field 

 to spoil his own sport and the sport of others, and 

 put the temper of the Master of the hounds and 

 his huntsman and even whips to the severe test it 

 is often done in the present generation. 



But amongst all the goodly company, with their 

 souls on fire and eager for the fray, there is no 

 one - that appears more bent upon mischief than 

 a certain dapper little man in black. He is fault- 

 lessly got up in all respects ; his hat .shining like 

 satin, his white cord breeches particularly well cut 

 and fitting without a wrinkle below the knees, where 

 they are tied in a most artistic manner by a white 

 leather bow, so faultless in its sit that nothing 

 but the actual sight of it could describe the pains 

 that must have been taken to achieve such perfection. 



