CHAPTER III. 



A HUNTING STABLE. 



Less than five minutes walking brouglit the party 

 to the door of the stables, which, unvisited as yet by 

 Percy Fairfax, contained the gallant horses on which 

 he was to make his debut, on the following day, before 

 the great convention of the best sportsmen in all Eng- 

 land. He had never as yet ridden once to English 

 fox-hounds, and every one who has ever seen the two 

 knows how widely different is that glorious sport, as 

 pursued in Virginia and some of the southern states 

 of North America, and as performed even in the pro- 

 vincial countries of England, much more at the very 

 metropolis of fox-hunting, Melton Mowbray. 



In the latter, no fields less than forty acres, smooth 

 as a Turkey carpet, without a bush or brake to stint 

 the rattling gallop of the thorough-breds, nothing less 

 than which can live behind the racing, high-drawn, 

 fine-bred modern fox-hounds; old white-thorn fences 

 with double rails and ditches, insuperable obstacles to 

 any thing short of the indomitable bottom of English 

 horses and the unconquerable pluck of English riders, 

 or timber palings six feet perpendicular height, or 

 rivulets, like the Whissendine, with ten yards of bright 

 water between its level banks, all to be taken in the 

 stride, without the time to choose a favorable place to 

 take them ; foxes that are found in small furze coverts, 

 or gorses as they are called in Leicestershire, and go 

 away straight as an arrow, across country, never 

 doubling or running rings, till they either go to ground 

 without the limits of the hunt, and are so saved, or 



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