146 THE BE8T SEASON ON RECORD. 



the stone portal steps, enumerate a score or two of the 

 brave gentlemen — clad so trimly, even gaiidil}^, yet with 

 every point of their dainty attire so admirably adapted for 

 work — making their bow before mounting. He might 

 even pay a graceful tribute to the cup of welcome in 

 waiting within ; and thus refreshed (metaphorically only, 

 if his wisdom teeth be cut and the healthy recklessness 

 of early youth be his no longer) proceed to scan and of 

 course eulogise the pack which, by the way, never looks 

 so little worth eulogy as when shivering and petulantly 

 whining on a lawn. He would put each man on his 

 "well-known" brown, bay, grey, or chesnut — though 

 Melton alone has on its booivs about three hundred horses, 

 extraordinarily well-known to each Meltonian, it is true, 

 but lost from their very confusion of number to all the 

 profanum vuljjus beyond the walls of the metropolis, and 

 at least a hundred of which are at the present time mere 

 stable adornments — flourishing in leg buckets like hya- 

 cinths in drawing-room glasses, under the ruthless exac- 

 tion of an uninterrupted season. As a matter of fact, the 

 good old-flishioned sportsman, who never fails to give 

 himself, and the horse that is to carry him all day, at 

 least ten minutes alongside the pack at the meet, is a rare 

 bird on these waters. His sprightlier prototype never 

 goes to covert at less than three parts speed, and would 

 as soon think of being first man at a ball as an early 

 lounger at a meet. A smoking hack, a cool hunter — 

 another to follow — " good morning " while galloping 

 across the first field from covert, " good night " at the 

 last check, twelve miles an hour home, a hearty meal at 



