THE aUORNDON HOUNDS. 



CHAPTER I. 



A CLUB-ROOM. 



Who does not know what Melton Mowbray was ? 

 Not Melton Mowbray of these degenerate days, but 

 the Melton Mowbray, when the Squire used to squeal, 

 Goodrick and Holyoke and Forester — not Frank, by 

 the way, but my lord — and Alvanley and Campbell 

 of Saddell, and Valentine Magher — the bruisingest of 

 bruising riders — and Musgrave of the north, Peyton 

 and Gardner, and ill-natured and good-natured Jem 

 M'Donald, and fifty others, we could write of an' we 

 would, to ride — ay ! to squeal and to ride to the 

 ladies'^ — to Osbaldistone's lady-pack. Nothing ever 

 ran on earth like those fleet, glossy, graceful darlings ; 

 nothing ever will run like them on earth again ; for 

 like larking ladies, as they were, they almost invaria- 

 bly ran away ! 



It was in Melton Mowbray, then, in the good days 

 when George the Fourth was king — before the world 

 had heard tell of any of the ists or isms — when men 

 feared their God, honored their king, went to church 



* It was the practice of that consummate sportsman and great 

 huntsman to work, feed, and lodge his dog-pack and hitch-pack 

 separately, instead of using the two sexes promiscuously. The ladies 

 were the love and delight of all true sportsmen; and in Northamp- 

 tonshire and Liecestershirc their fame will live till doomsday. 



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