OLD FRIENDS. 181 



tlie little black spinney that last time split the lucky and 

 the luckless. Good lellow, kind man, swing it cleverly 

 and swing* it wide ! And innocently, scandalously, half 

 a dozen of your comrades will cro\Yd you out — less in 

 malice, than in wild and wicked thoughtlessness. A 

 bullock track bids them and the sufferer walk placidly 

 through the side fence ; and then the rush again spreads 

 hurriedly. The old chestnut Akbar''-' proclaims all his 

 ancient dash as he rushes the tall forbidding bullfinch on 

 the brow ; while we of milder metal slink through a gate 

 beside. Halloa, Mynheer Hearsay 1 Here's your choked 

 gateway — thorns, sheep tray, and a couple of ashralls to 

 form " two on top." Good take-off, and good landing — 

 the pack swinging across the front, and the railway 

 bridge, about which you jumbled your evidence so cul- 

 pably, now again bearing hounds and field as through a 

 floodgate to the open pasture lands of Owston and 

 Sowerby. There he goes ! up tlie very next slope, with 

 his head for Burrough, the pack running as If they too 

 could see him — and we riding In all excitement of a 

 gallop in full swing. Field after field brings us opposite 

 Hearsay's gaps ; and we bless those that went before 

 that they made a strong country so easy. But It must 

 have been since then that the heap of stones was shot 

 down exactly where we must land into the Tilton and 

 Burrough road ? Twenty sets of hoofs in turn drop into 

 it, with a clatter that turns each man In his saddle to 

 learn what may have happened to the next comer. And 



* Akliar, for some seasons past tlie property of Capt. Brocklolmrst, 

 formerly belonged to Sir- Beaumont Dixie. 



