36 Tally ho, 



hundred and five miles in all, at the very least. I 

 willingly accepted his statement that " it was a very 

 good little horse he was riding ^' — and so he ought to 

 be to carry a man of thirteen stone sixty-four miles, 

 which was his share of the day^s work. 



At nine o^clock Melton begins to awake : grooms 

 and second-horse men are taking the hunters to cover ; 

 by ten o^clock the town is all alive ; broughams and 

 carriages of various descriptions are in waiting ; nice- 

 looking hacks are being walked about, whilst from 

 nearly every door emerges a ^^bit of pink.''^ Soon 

 after ten my hack is announced_, and I jog leisurely 

 through the town, studying the manners and customs 

 of the visitors to the metropolis of sport. I see one 

 fair lady wearing an Ulster of unmistakable fashion, 

 who steps into a pony dogcart, handling '^the 

 ribbons^' with the air of one accustomed, and, draw- 

 ing her whip across the smart little nag, she dashes off 

 in good style. As I gallop along the undulating road 

 leading to Langham, admiring the splendid pastures 

 and fair fences, I overtake numbers of well-mounted 

 men in scarlet, and smart grooms taking the favourites 

 of the stud carefully to cover ; then a horn is heard, 

 and up dashes Lady Florence Dixie, in her four-in- 

 hand pony wagonnette, tooling along at a slapping 

 pace, and looking as if she liked it. 



Next comes a hack carriage drawn by two sporting- 

 looking animals, going at a pace which only admits 

 of a cursory glance at the occupant, allowing me 

 sufiicient time, however, to catch a glimpse of a pretty 

 face, a natty hat, a well-gloved and symmetrical hand, 

 holding a light hunting-crop, a vision which afterwards 

 resolves into a well-proportioned figure in a close 



