RIDING RECOLLECTIONS 



Eve. " Of course you had no pace with so good 

 a point?" 



"Pace, sir!" answers the indignant parent; 

 "my hounds run because they can hunt. I tell 

 you, they were never off the line for an hour and 

 three-quarters ! Matthew would try to cast them 

 once, and very nearly lost his fox, but Charmer 

 hit it off on the other side of the combe and put 

 us right. He's as like old Challenger as he can 

 stick ; a deal more like tha.n you- are to me." 



Young Rapid concedes the point readily, and 

 the Squire continues his narrative : " I had but 

 eighteen couple out, because of a run the week 

 before, — I'll tell you about it presently, — five-and- 

 thirty minutes on the hills, and a kill in the open, 

 that lamed half the pack amongst the flints. You 

 talk of pace — they went fast enough to have 

 settled the best of you, I'll warrant ! but I'm 

 getting off the line — I've not done with the other 

 yet. I never saw hounds work better. They 

 came away all together, they hunted their fox 

 like a cluster of bees ; swarming over every 

 field, and every fence, they brought him across 

 Tinglebury Tor, where it's always as dry as that 

 hearthstone, through a flock of five hundred 

 sheep, they rattled him in and out of Combe- 

 Bampton, though the Lower Woods were alive 

 with riot — hares, roe, fallow-deer, hang it ! apes 

 and peacocks if you like ; had old Matthew not 



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