Jorrocks and The Old Surrey 45 



loved hounds and hunting. Surrey was, for them, the 

 only available paradise, and they enjoyed it accordingly. 



The indomitable Jorrocks next gives us a glimpse of Tom 

 Hills, the hero of our previous chapter. Referring to a 

 meet at the " Fox " at Keston, where a numerous assem- 

 blage of true sportsmen await the usual hour for throwing 

 off, our author discourses in the following lively and 

 elegant strain, having caught the right note : — 



" Hounds approach the covert. ' Yooi in there ! ' shouts 

 Tom Hills, who has long hunted this crack pack ; and 

 crack, crack, crack ! go the whips of some scores of sports- 

 men. c Yelp, yelp, yelp ! ' howl the hounds ; and in about 

 a quarter of an hour Tom has not above four or five 

 couple at his heels. This number being a trifle, Tom 

 runs his prad at a gap in the fence by the woodside ; the 

 old nag goes well at it, but stops short at the critical 

 moment, and, instead of taking the ditch, bolts and 

 wheels round. Tom, however, who is ' large in the boil- 

 ing pieces,' as they say in Whitechapel, is prevented by 

 his weight from being shaken out of his saddle ; and, 

 being resolved to take no denial, he lays the crop of his 

 hunting whip about the head of his beast, and runs him 

 at the same spot a second time, with an obligato accom- 

 paniment of his spur rowels, backed by a c Curm along, 

 then ! ' issued in such a tone as plainly informs his quadru- 

 ped he is in no joking humour. These incentives succeed 

 in landing Tom and his nag in the wished-for spot, when 

 immediately the wood begins to resound with shouts of 

 " Yoicks, Trueboy ! Yoicks, Trueboy ! Yoicks, push him 



