I

QUITE agree with the distinguished foreign nobleman who declared, that 'Nothing was too good to go foxing in,' and with the immortal Jorrocks of Handley Cross notoriety, I exclaim, Unting, my beloved readers, is the image of war with only ten per cent. of its dangers.'

Ever since I was an unbreeched urchin, and my only steed a rough Shetland pony, across whose bare back my infantine legs could scarcely stride, I have looked forward to a day's hunting with the keenest

relish. The preliminary sport of cub-hunting, with its early-dawn meets, bad scent, consequent upon fallen leaves and decayed vegetable matter, riotous young hounds,

VOL. V.-NO. XXVII.

which can scarcely be brought to hunt upon any terms; timid, nervous young foxes, who hardly dare poke their sharp noses out of covert, only serves to give a greater zest as it were to the opening day. One or two woodland runs, just sufficient to breath the well-trained hunter, or take the exuberant spirits (the accompaniments of high feeding and no work) from the young one, after a stripling Reynard, who as yet has no line of country of his own, and hardly dares to venture far from the place of his birth, ending with a killing just to blood the young hounds, only makes the longing for the first day of the season more intense.

Not one of her Majesty's subjects

I

throughout her vast dominionsso vast indeed are they that, as the song tells us, The sun never sets on their might.' Not one, I say, of her Majesty's lieges, looked forward more anxiously than I did to the first day of the hunting season of 18-, for why should I be too explicit about dates, or let all the world know that I am so ancient as to remember anything so long buried in the past? I had just returned to old England with a year's leave from my regiment, then in India. I was possessed of capital health and spirits, was only just six-and-twenty years of age, had five hundred pounds at my banker's, and two as good nags in my stable as ever a man laid his leg across. 'Hunting for ever!' I cried, as I strolled into 'Seamemup and Basteemwell's,' the unrivalled breechesmakers' establishment in the Strand, to order a few pair of those most necessary adjuncts to the sporting man's toilet, previous to leaving town. 'Hunting for ever, and of all the packs in England, commend me to my old acquaintance, those friends of my boyhood, the Easyallshire Muggers.' I am not sure but that, strictly speaking, the term mugger ought only to be applied to those packs of hounds which are used for that peculiar pastime which, to again quote the immortal Jorrocks,

Is only fit for cripples, and them as keeps donkeys,' viz., harriers. Be that as it may, the pack I now speak of were, though called muggers, bonâ fide foxhounds, and as such, only used in the 'doing to death' of that wily animal.

The county which had as it were given birth to this distinguished pack, presented to the hunting man very much the same features as do most parts of England. There were the same number of ditches and dingles to be got over somehow, the same gates which would and would not be opened, the same fences, stiles, and heavers, to be cleared, the same woodland parts to be hunted, from which it was next to impossible to get a fox away, and to which every one said they would never come again, but for all that no one ever kept their word, for

there were just the very same number of sportsmen to be seen at the very next meet held in the district; thus proving that foxhunting, even under difficulties, is still a most fascinating diversion; and there were the same snug-lying gorse coverts, from which a run was sure to be obtained over a flat, well-enclosed country, which gave both man and horse as much as ever their united efforts could accomplish, to be there or thereabouts at the finish. Nor were the meets of the Easyallshire Muggers, advertised in Bell's Life,' dissimilar in any respect to those of other packs of hounds, for there were an equal number of cross roads, turnpike gates, public houses, gibbets, woods, signposts, and milestones, as elsewhere. Well, to enjoy a season's sport with this so distinguished hunt was my intention; and no sooner had I completed the requisite arrangements with regard to my hunting toggery, which a residence of some half-dozen years in India had rendered necessary, than I took up my abode in the little town of Surlyford, at the comfortable hotel rejoicing in the mythological sign of the Silent Woman,' a fabulous personage surely, to be classed with

Swans with Two Necks,' 'Green Men,' and other creatures who never had any existence. The first meet of the Easyallshire Muggers was advertised, so said the county paper, to take place at the fourth mile-stone on the Surlyford road. Thither I repaired fully equipped in all the splendour of a new pink immaculate, cords, brown tinted tops, my blue birds'-eye scarf, neatly folded and fastened with a pin bearing a most appropriate device, viz., a real fox's tooth. In my impatience to be up and doing on this our opening day, I arrived at the trysting-place, from whence I was to woo my favourite pastime, some half hour or more before the master and his pack were due. I had, therefore, ample leisure to receive the greetings of my numerous old friends and acquaintances, as they came up from all parts, and in all directions, on all sorts and all sizes of nags, and at all kinds of paces,

to the place of meeting. First to arrive on that useful steed, yclept 'Shanks's pony,' slouching along, clad in rusty velveteen, baggy brown cord breeches and gaiters, billy coek, as he termed his wide-awake hat, on head, a stout ashen stick cut from a neighbouring coppice in hand, and ten to one a quantity of wires in his pockets, was handsome, darkeyed, good-for-nothing, scampish, dishonest Gipsy Jim - the some time gamekeeper, when he could get any one to employ him, but oftener the poaching, drinking, thieving vagabond of the neighbourhood. A broad grin of recognition and a touch of the hat on the part of the Gipsy one, and an exclamation on mine of 'Bless me, Jim! not hanged yet?' placed us once again on the old familiar footing of I will tell you all I know about foxes' (and who could afford better information than one whose habits and disposition partook more of the verinin than the man?), ' providing you give me a shilling to drink your health.' Gipsy Jim and I had hardly interchanged these civilities, when, trotting along on a stout, handsome, six-year old, in capital condition, though, if anything, a little too fat (not a bad fault, however, at the beginning of the season), came farmer Thresher, of Beanstead, a florid, yellow-haired, red-whiskered, jovial, hard-riding, independent agriculturist, who, on the strength of having been at school in years gone by with some of the neighbouring squires, myself amongst the number, called us all freely by our surnames, forgetting to prefix the accustomed Mister, and thus giving great umbrage to some, and causing them always to pointedly address him as Mr. Thresher.' Our mutual salutations had hardly come to an end than we are joined by half a dozen more sturdy yeomen, able and willing to go, let the pace be ever so severe, and all of them contributing their five pounds yearly to the support of the Easyallshire Muggers, spite of wheat, sir, at fourteen shillings a bag.'

Young Boaster next turns up, a swaggering blade from a neighbouring hunt, who is always abusing

The

the Easyallshire' hounds, and bragging of his own prowess, which consists of riding extraordinary distances to far-off meets, and doing nothing when he gets there, save telling wonderful and fabulous stories of what he had done last time he was out, and what he intended to do then. He is succeeded by Dr. Bolus, 'the sporting Doctor,' as he is called, who must be making a very handsome fortune in his profession, if his knowledge of medicine is anything like his judgment in horse-flesh, his skill in the pigskin, or his acquaintance with the line of a fox. After Bolus, on a three-legged screw, a wonder to every one how it is kept at all on its understandings, comes Aloes, the veterinary surgeon, a pleasantspoken, florid, little old man, skilful in his business, ever agreeing, with his That I would, sir,' and one who I would much prefer to attend me when sick than many a professor of the healing art among men. majesty of the law is next upheld by Mr. Sheepskin, the attorney, a gentlemanly man, a light weight, and one who rides, when need be, as hard, if not harder than any one. is the church absent (for we have not a few clerical subscribers to the Easyallshire Muggers), but is well represented in the person of the Rev. Mr. Flatman, a good-looking, well-built, foxy-whiskered divine, whose handling of the ribbons on the coach-box, and seat on horseback, would entitle him to a deanery at the very least, could the Broadchurch party but come into power. His small country parish, however, does not suffer by the fondness of its rector for the sports of the field; a hard-working and most exemplary curate, he is still a painstaking and estimable parish priest, and much preferred, I doubt not, by all his parishioners to any more busy and interfering divine of either of the other two schools of divinity. I myself am by no means the sole member of the military profession present, for we are here of all ranks, from the just-joined ensign to the gallant colonel of the county militia, a stout, fine-looking veteran, none of your feather-bed soldiers, and

Nor

one who, spite of his weight, is an exceedingly difficult man to beat across country. Mammon,' as it is the fashion now-a-days to call that useful article, money, is seen approaching in the person of the Surlyford banker, who wisely flinging business to the winds at least twice in the week, gets astride a good-looking, nearly thoroughbred nag, and finds accepting bullfinches, negotiating ditches, and discounting gates, stiles, &c., a much more healthy and more pleasant, if not more profitable, occupation than everlastingly grubbing after filthy lucre.

The master now makes his appearance, tall and upright, knowing thoroughly the duties of his office, and if not quite so bold and determined a rider as in years gone by, still making up for want of nerve in knowledge of the country, and for lack of dash in careful riding and judicious nicking-in. Suffice it to say, that at the finish, his absence is never observed, though how he came to be there is better known to the second rank horsemen than to the fliers. The huntsman and whip are much the same as those worthies are everywhere; but the hounds, how to describe them I know not.

The Easyallshire Muggers' set all rules regarding the make, size, and symmetry of fox-hounds at defiance. They show almost better sport, and kill more foxes than any pack in the kingdom; and yet they are as uneven as a ploughed field, and as many shapes and sizes as a charity school. I can only say, 'handsome is what handsome does; and if my canine friends are not pleasant to the eye of the connoisscur-if they come not up to Bective, Somerville, and other writers on hunting description of a perfect foxhound, still they act beautifully— which to my mind is far preferable to looking beautiful-and will run and kill foxes with any hounds in England. The huntsman and whip, though not so well mounted (economy is the order of the day with the Easyallshire Muggers), as we would wish to see them, yet manage somehow to get across the coun

try, and to be with their hounds; though for the matter of that, such is the sagacity of the Easyallshire pack, that they can very frequently do quite as well without the assistance of their ruler and guide as with it. The 'Easyallshire' Hunt, as the name implies, is an easy-going sort of concern, in which every man, gentle and simple, has a finger in the pie; every subscriber imagining that he has a perfect right, on the strength of his subscription, to hunt, whip-in, or otherwise direct the movements of the hounds whenever opportunity occurs. But forrard! for-rard on! or I shall be at the fourth mile-stone on the Surlyford Road all day, instead of drawing that inviting piece of gorse covert which lies so pleasant and warm, with its southern aspect on yonder bank. A guinea to a gooseberry, a fox lies there!

Joe, the huntsman, now trots along through the somewhat bare and brown pasture-fields towards the covert; the pack eager and keen for the fray, clustering round the heels of his horse. A few moments only elapse and the sea of gorse is alive with hounds poking here, there, and everywhere, seeking the lair of sly Reynard. Old experience having taught me that Gipsy Jim's knowledge of the fox and his habits (for being halfbrother to the varmint in his nature, how can it fail to be otherwise?) would serve me in good stead, I station myself near to him in order to have a good view of Mr. Reynolds,' as Jim calls the cunning animal when he breaks covert. am I wrong in my conjecture, for after a few pleasant notes from old Bellman, who hits upon the place

Nor

where master fox crossed a ride early this morning, and a 'hark to Bellman' from Joe the huntsman, out jumps, almost into Jim's arms, as fine a fox as ever wore a brush. Master Reynard looks somewhat astonished at being brought so suddenly face to face with a two-legged monster, and seems half inclined to turn back again to his hiding-place; but perhaps, judging from Jim's varmint look, that no danger might be apprehended from that quarter, and

huntsman, whip, and all the horsemen; but Hold your noisy tongues' they cry in vain. Tallyho! tallyho! tallyho! yell the footmen, totally regardless of all expostulation. But crafty Jim, knowing the idiosyncrasy of the Yokels, has made all safe by his silence, until the redcoated rascal is well away. 'Hark!

halloa!' 'hark! halloa!' roar the field. Tootle, tootle!' goes Joe's horn, re-echoed by an asthmatical effort in the same direction, on the

part of the worthy master, who blows as if his horn was full of dirt. The hounds, however, are accustomed to the sound, feeble as it is, and all rush to the spot where master, huntsman, and Gipsy Jim, are all cheering them exactly at the place where foxy broke away. What a burst of music now strikes upon the car, far superior to the delights of any concert it has ever been my lot to be present at, as every hound acknowledges with joy the rapture