A COVERT SIDE. 87 



but steadily onward, until at tlie distance of about a 

 mile, to the left of the road, they got the first sight 

 of Uckleby Gorse, a long, irregular, straggling furze 

 covert, stretching along the northern brow' of a gentle 

 acclivity with a few tall old trees scattered here and 

 there above the low undergrowth, but nothing that 

 one could call a wood. 



Even at this distance the scene was gay and ani- 

 mated in the extreme, and such as no other land but 

 England ever has exhibited, or probably ever will ex- 

 hibit. In a large grass-field, divided by two or three 

 enclosures from the covert, and containing at least 

 fifty acres of pasture, the many-colored and glossy 

 pack were slowly parading to and fro, to the number 

 of full five-and-twenty couple, not varying an inch in 

 stature between the highest and lowest, and so well 

 matched in speed and strength that they could run 

 together on a breast-high scent through the longest 

 run, in as close array as ever flew a plump wild fowl. 

 These were attended by no less than four men, a 

 huntsman and three whips, easily distinguished from 

 the field by their scarlet frocks and round caps, in 

 addition to the master, no less a personage than the 

 far-famed Squire Osbaldiston, who hunted them in 

 person, and now sat a little way aloof, clad like his 

 men, and mounted on nothing less than the far-famed 

 and almost immortal Clasher, who probabl}^, in his day, 

 was the best hunter j>ar excellence of all that went to 

 hounds in England. 



He was surrounded by a group of veterans, easily 

 recognized, even at a distance, by some peculiarities 

 of size, form, or dress, and who turned out to be Lord 

 Alvanley, conspicuous then for his jack-boots a la 

 Horse-guards, at that time worn by him alone in Eng^ 

 land ; Valentine Magher, the king of the heavy 

 weights ; Campbell of Saddell, the best son of tho 

 Gael, Kintore not excepted, that ever cramuied t> 



