88 A COVERT SIDE. 



thorougli-bred at an impracticable fence ; Sir Harry 

 Goodriche and Sir Richard Musgrave, crack riders, 

 and good sportsmen both, arcades ambo, both true 

 Yorkshire tykes ; Jem Baird, longer of limb than 

 Longshank was of old ; George Payne ; and Bellamy, 

 characteristically employed in fighting with a horse, 

 which seemed to be almost as wicked and ill-tempered 

 as himself; and half a dozen others of less note in the 

 general sporting world, although well known at Mel- 

 ton, and thence to the broad waters of the brimming 

 Trent. 



In the foreground of the animated picture at least a 

 hundred grooms were leading to and fro as many no- 

 ble hunters in their body-clothes, awaiting the arrival 

 of their masters, who as they dropped in one by one 

 — and they might be seen on all sides, skurrying in 

 across the country, like so many shooting-stars, all 

 concentrating toward a common nucleus — doffed over- 

 coats, and Macintoshes, and mud boots, and turned 

 out as spick and span as if for a huntball, mounted 

 their horses, glittering as if their skins were of shot 

 satin or highly burnished metal, and formed little 

 groups, the coffee-house of the hunting-field ; wherein, 

 as the ladies are wont to insist, more scandal is talked, 

 and more characters are ruined, than in the most gos- 

 siping cotery of antiquated spinsters that ever congre- 

 gated round a village fire to stimulate their acerbities 

 with cogniac and lubricate their excess with hyson. 

 Be that, however, as it may, it was a brilliant and 

 soul-stirring spectacle, if regarded as a spectacle alone, 

 the rather that in addition to all that has been de- 

 scribed there were six or eight phaetons, pony-curri- 

 cles, and barouches, filled with the fairest of the fair, 

 pre-eminent among whom were the magnificent daugh- 

 ters of the ducal house of Rutland, each surrounded 

 by a chosen knot of adorers, as it would seem, beyond 

 measure, bj the "becks and nods and wreathed 



