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TEE AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



giving his rider a nasty fall. Vean was 

 boiling with rage, and, a slight check oc- 

 curring, Just enough to give the horses 

 a blow, he rode up to the stranger, and, 

 grasping his whip hard, exclaimed: "Do 

 that again, and I'll horsewhip you!" At 

 that instant a hound gave a whimper, and 



" Hark to Wanton, cries Jack ; and the rest 



were not slack, 

 Fo;- Wanton's no babbler, esteemed in our 



pack ; 



Little Bonnie and Collier came merrily in, 

 And every hound joined in the musical din : 

 Had Nimrod, the mightiest of hunters, been 

 there. 



He, gad, he'd have shook like an aspen from 

 fear !" 



There was a rush for the next fence, 

 and they were off again full cry; but after 

 a big ring, over Ascotfield, skirting Ship- 

 ton and Lyneham, and through the 

 Norrells' back to Sausler Pillars— the old 

 entrance to the old Abbey— the fox, 

 trying to make his way back 

 to his starting point, was run 

 into, and killed, not a mile from 

 Canon Court. Vean, who had ridden 

 his mount out in the Everlook 

 meadows, turned bridle, and rode 

 home, but came back at once on a fresh 

 horse, before the fox was thrown to the 

 hounds. The fences had been heavy, 

 and the ground deep; and there were not 

 more than a dozen men, st-mding 

 round, by their panting horses. Among 

 them was the stranger in the old pink, 

 who, riding up to Vean, and shaking his 

 fist in his face, shouted: " You said you'd 

 horsewhip me! now do it! But if you do 

 — the first day you'll be food for the sur- 

 geon; and the next day you'll be food for 

 the undertaker"- — "and," shouted an old 

 farmer from the outside of the small 

 circle, "the third day he'll" bury thee 

 himself!" It transpired that the man in 



the seedy pink was Badger, of H , a 



notorious sporting parson of a sort that 

 was a rarity in those days, and was fast 

 dying out. I need not say that the far- 

 mer's finale was a relief to Vean, who wa,s 

 not ungrateful. The stranger's grey 

 horse then was recognised as a famous 

 fencer, to M'hom it's owner had given the 

 name of Gehazi, "because," said he, "he's 

 a lepper (leaper) as white as snow!" 



And now we come back to the dog. Vean 

 was a born dog-breaker; for, like poets, 

 they must be born; you cannot make 

 them. All his dogs were remarkable 

 sjiecimens of educated intelligence, but 

 chief of them all M^as the dog whose jiame 

 lieads this article. 



My first introduction to Sambo took 

 place on a day in September, somewhere 

 in the last half of the thirties, when, my 

 father having entrusted me with a letter 

 of some importance, which I was to de- 

 liver into Vean's hand, I chose to ride 

 up Limekiln Lane, which runs into Eui- 

 tone Fields, and which, before Chipping 

 Norton took rank as a post-town, had 

 formed a portion of the road between 

 London and Worcester; but had been 

 abandon d long before I was born. ^ I 

 believe carts did occasionally travel along 

 it, ljut how they managed, I cannot say; 

 for there were many places where a horse 

 could not pass without sinking — not to 

 his hocks merely, but over the stifle joint: 

 indeed, I believe a horse might have been 

 buried in some of those qaagmires, ^nd 

 never discovered till the bones were 

 turned to stone, and some new Huxley 

 arose to found new theories on theremaius. 

 However, my horse and I got on some- 

 how, now squeezing through a gap and 

 cantering along two or three fields, and 

 now returning to the lane where it ran 

 on high ground — till we came to ^ the 

 cross road leading to Canon Court. Just 

 as I turned into the road, which was new 

 and sound, I heard the report of a double 

 barrel, and, a little further on, near a 

 gale, caine upon a saddled horse with the 

 stirrup leathers crossed over the saddle, 

 and the snaffle rein hanging in front, and 

 held in the moiith of a liver-coloured 

 dog, between whom and the horse a per- 

 fect understanding seemed to exist. I 

 could see Vean at the other end of the 

 fields which was an old-fashioned stubble 

 with plenty of cover and a brace of 

 pointers drawing steadily up wind ; and 

 while I looked, another covey was flushed, 

 and a brace of birds fell, one to each 

 barrel. Presently, a hare was started, 

 but carried off the best part of a charge 

 in its hind leg. Vean looked np,aud blew a 

 whistle, at the same time calling to me 



