A COVERT SIDE. 83 



manly, lie will get on at Melton past a doubt, and 

 make both acquaintances and friends, even though he 

 came unintroduced and a stranger." 



^' I note your advice, and will take it. But I see 

 our hacks are before the windows, and here comes 

 James with our hats and overhauls. Hand me that 

 taper, and I will light a cigar ; then, unless you have 

 still another last word, let us be off. I want to be 

 at work, and I am dying for a look at the lady-pack." 



" I have a last word — but one. Here it is; remem- 

 ber, the worst thing you can do is to refuse a neces- 

 sary fence, because that looks like funking. The 

 next worst is to take an unnecessary one, because that 

 looks like display, which is snobbish, and takes the 

 powder out of your prad, which is, or may be, 

 ruinous. And now to horse and away! and see, 

 there go Beaufort and Forrester, and here come the 

 McDonalds, and half Melton at their back — away ! 

 deuce take the hindmost." 



The hacks were, indeed, waiting — and two cleverer 

 or better need not to be bestridden by mortal man ; 

 Fairfax's was a switch-tailed iron gray, quite thorough- 

 bred; and though a little pertaining to that type 

 of beast which is familiarly known as a weed, being 

 somewhat ewe-necked, and a little tucked-up in the 

 flank, it yet had so very many good points in the 

 long, sloping shoulder, the deep and roomy chest, and 

 the breadth of its loins, beside having four as good 

 legs under it as often falls to a covert-hack, after its 

 second season, that none but a very superficial obser- 

 ver would have apprehended its sufficiency to carry 

 even a heavier weight than that of Fairfax for a short 

 distance. 



Matuschevitz did not on this occasion bring his 

 Cossack, Moscow, into play, but backed a powerful 

 chestnut trotting cob, for which style of monture^ a 



