With a yawn, a stretch, and a shake, Trimbush completed his toilet one misty morning, just as a neighbouring cock had thrice thrown his chivalrous challenge on the breeze, and invited me, with a crack of his stern across my muzzle, to follow his early example of industry.

“Come,” said he, “it’s time to be awake and stirring. How do ye fare?”

“Hearty and hungry,” replied I, reluctantly arousing myself from a dream of enjoyment.

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Trimbush. “You’ll have to wait, then,” continued he, “till sunset for a meal, unless you earn a share for yourself.”

“How so?” inquired I.

“This will be the first meet o’ the season, and your first day of regular work. Mind,” said Trimbush, admonishingly, as he showed a long row of very white and strong teeth, “to let me see that you have profited by my lessons and the experience you’ve had in cub-hunting, or your jacket may be well shaken when least expected.”

“You needn’t begin to threaten,” rejoined I, somewhat indignantly, “without any cause. A rate’s well enough,” I continued, “when a fault is committed; but there’s no occasion to meet it half-way.”

“True,” returned Trimbush, “quite true; and your remark only proves that a young head may sometimes correct an old tongue, despite what may be said to the contrary. One of the greatest faults with all whippers-in,” resumed he, “is the rating us in anticipation of our doing wrong; or, after committing it, before soaking in the double-thong; whereas, they should wait until the cause is given, and then—after blistering us with the flax—proceed to lecture upon the impropriety of the conduct. It’s quite remarkable what effect a sound drubbing has upon the memory.”

“I shall not forget the first I received,” observed I.

“But you’ll never repeat that riot,” significantly returned Trimbush. “It was a christening not to slip through the memory as if it had no knots tied in it.”

“But then,” added I, “in coming across the slot of deer, the scent was so sweet and grateful that I couldn’t refrain from carrying a head.”

“Well,” said Trimbush, “like luxuries of other descriptions, you paid for the enjoyment.”

“And dear as the cost was,” replied I, “it’s very doubtful whether I might not be inclined to have another flutter at the same feather.”

“What! swallow a hackle of the dog that bit ye?” rejoined my friend.

“It’s a common case, I’ve heard, with our betters,” returned I.

“Right again,” added my companion. “Fire puts out fire.”

“I suppose,” observed I, “that you’ve felt, before now, an inclination to repeat an error, convinced as ye may have been of its impropriety.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Trimbush, drawing in the breath between his teeth with a hissing sound; “that I have. We are as clannish as Scotsmen, and support each other through thick and thin, in the same mortar-an’-brick fashion. If one of us is a marked and confirmed rebel, he seldom repeats his fault without lots of company to back him. The season before last, a hound was sent here from the north country, and as sulky and ill-tempered a brute as was ever seen in a kennel. We all hated him; and yet, strange as it may appear, upon Ned Adams attempting to drive him from the lodging-house one morning, in consequence of his refusal to come when called, he flew at him, and, fastening upon his shoulder, was instantly joined by half the hounds in the court.”

“I can’t understand that,” replied I.

“The cause lies in our blood and bone,” rejoined my friend. “The impulse with us,” continued he, “is paramount—to follow the leader however wrong he may be in his example.”

“And what was the finish of this attack on Ned Adams?” inquired I.

“But for his lusty lungs for help,” replied Trimbush, “it might have gone hard with him. However, Will Sykes, Tom Holt, and Old Mark quickly made their appearance, and put an end to the fray with little difficulty. As for our new companion, we never saw him afterwards.”

“He was sent away, I suppose?” remarked I.

“Yes,” returned Trimbush, “to dance in the air with a hempen cord round his throttle.”

“And no wonder, either,” added I, “for such an offence.”

“Breaking up a whipper-in is certainly no joke,” said my companion. “But there was one picked as clean as ivory once, without any unpleasant interruption to the spread.”

“Gracious powers!” ejaculated I, “what do you mean?”

“Simply what I have said,” replied Trimbush, licking his jaws with a peculiar relish, and coolly adding, “I had a hand in the supper.”

“You?” I exclaimed.

“Listen,” returned the old hound, checking my impetuosity, “and you shall hear. I was not bred in this kennel, but came from the west at the end of my first season. It so happened that about the middle of this season, and when all of us were full of fire and devilry, our regular whipper-in died, and his place became filled by a perfect stranger to us. His cottage being within a short distance, he could hear any quarrel or disturbance, and was ready to quell it at a moment’s notice. Trifles light as air, I’ve heard, will frequently cause the most vital consequences; and such was the case that I am alluding to. A ray of the moon, streaming through a chink in the door of our lodging-house, occasioned a hound of the name of Restless to bay it. This broke the sleep of all; and in a few minutes a regular fight began, each running a-muck and attacking friend and foe with equal want of consideration. In order to quell the row, the whipper-in made his appearance amongst us, as he quitted his bed, undressed; but scarcely had he lifted the latch of the entrance, when—not recognising his voice or his person—he was seized by the throat; and, before the morning light, there was nothing left but a cleanly picked skeleton.”

“I’m not surprised at his death, under the circumstances,” rejoined I; “but to eat him!”

“In my opinion,” added Trimbush, “that was the most innocent part of the affair.”

“And how,” said I, curious to learn further particulars, “how did he taste?”

“Take my word for it,” replied the old hound, in a tone and manner conveying much conviction of the correctness of the assertion, “take my word for it,” repeated he, “that with a little broth, daintier food could not be eaten.”

“Who was the first to discover the remains?”

“Our feeder,” returned he.

“And what did he say?”

“Well!” added Trimbush, scratching an ear with his off hind foot, as if tickled with the reminiscence which the question created, “I should observe, in the first place,” continued he, “that Harry Bolton, our feeder, was one of the coolest fellows that ever boiled a copper of kit, and never known to exhibit the slightest astonishment at anything. Whenever he read an astounding piece of news in the County Chronicle—natural phenomenon, accident, or offence, or anything sufficient to cause the generality of his neighbours’ hair to stand on end was related to him—his short unchanging observation was, ‘Shouldn’t wonder!’ However, thought I, the ice of your surprise will be broken at last.”

“And was it?” inquired I.

“You shall hear,” resumed Trimbush. “When Harry came to the kennel, as was his wont just at break o’ day, and his eyes fell on the white bones of the unfortunate whipper-in spread upon the ground, he continued puffing a short black pipe, constantly between his lips, for a few seconds in silence, and then taking it from them with a slow deliberate movement, ejaculated, ‘Shouldn’t wonder! D—n me if they an’t hashed the whip.’”

“And was that all he said?” I asked.

“Every word,” returned my companion.

At this moment Will Sykes arrived mounted, accompanied by the two whippers-in; and to his order, Mark threw back the door of the court upon its hinges, and out we rushed with a chorus of merry tongues ringing for our freedom, and the joy that we knew to be in store for us.

“Unkennelling hounds,” remarked Trimbush, as we trotted along the road, side by side, “is one great illustrative fact of the difference between high-bred and low-bred animals. A puddle-blooded mongrel, or one of low caste, licks and fondles only the hand that gives him food; but we, and all possessing similar tendencies, love him and those who show and give us sport. See the difference with which we hail our feeder’s appearance, and that of our huntsman. We have affection for both; but there is no comparison between either the kind or strength of the feeling.”

“We may like Will, too, all the better,” I observed, “on account of his not flogging us.”

“A huntsman should never use the thong,” replied my companion. “It should be his study to be on such terms of friendship and good-will with his pack, that each hound is ready to fly to his voice like a bird to her nest; and among the varied tempers and dispositions which he has to deal with, this is impossible if he unites with his office the duties of whip.”

“I always feel inclined to head just the other way when I hear Ned Adams,” observed I.

“To be sure,” returned Trimbush. “The thrashed hound fears the whip; and getting away to his cry of ‘for’ard’ is as essential as obeying the huntsman’s horn; but the feelings for the two are far from being akin.”

We now turned a sharp angle in the lane, down which we were gently trotting: and on a large open piece of waste ground—the coarse grass, patches of thistles and rushes, being cropped by a few donkeys and a flock of desolate-looking geese—my eyes first saw the assembled members of “our hunt.”

Deny it who will—it is a heart-stirring, gladsome, inspiring, English sight, to witness a country gentleman and popular master in the field. There are his friends and neighbours, his tenants and yeomen, stout and true, his servants and dependents, met together for a noble amusement, and one which unites them in the bond of goodly fellowship. It has been well observed, “What is a gentleman without his recreations?” and, to alter the query slightly, it might be said, “What is a country gentleman unless he be a sportsman?” Like a fish out of water, a bull in a china shop, a bear in a tea-garden, or anything else strangely awkward and much out of his element.

There they were, in showy red and Lincoln green, in leather, cords, and kersey drabs; white tops, brown, and black; hats, caps, and thatch; some mounted and some afoot. From the high-mettled hunter with his shot-silk and glistening coat, to the rough and shaggy tailor’s pony; in short, all sizes, shapes, colours, and conditions, might be seen congregated, expectant, and prepared for our arrival.

“Here they are!” shouted an urchin, perched on the topmost limb of a tree. “Here they are!” repeated he, hallooing to the stretch of his lungs; and then a whooping crew of his fellows took up the cry, making the welkin echo with their din.

“Your servant, gentlemen,” said Will Sykes, touching the peak of his cap; and during a short delay, waiting the arrival of the Squire, he proceeded to point out the young hounds, making me an especial object of notice.

“What’s his pedigwee?” lisped a pale-faced gentleman in spectacles, famous for riding hard along roads and over nothing but hounds at check.

“By Osbaldeston’s Furrier out of Crafty, sir,” replied the huntsman.

“By Fuwier out of Quafty!” repeated the interrogator.

“Yes,” rejoined Will; “and I’m much mistaken if he doesn’t equal the celebrity of his father.”

“What do you call him?” further inquired he of the ghostly countenance.

“Ringwood, sir,” returned the huntsman.

“Wingwood, eh?” added the questioner.

“That’s one of the sort,” said Trimbush to me, “I was mentioning some time ago. He comes out just to show himself and have an excuse for wearing a red coat; but as for taking any interest in either the sport or us, he fears the one and knows nothing of the other. A man, from age, or other causes, may be unable to ride straight and live with us, and yet take as much pleasure in joining the meet, nicking in, and pottering on to the end of a run, as those who are in the first flight from the find to the finish; but I am certain, from what I have seen, that if a man is so naturally timid as to be afraid to ride to hounds, he can never be—in the sense of the word—a foxhunter.”

“And who is he?” I asked, pointing to a thick-set and jolly-looking man in a green coat, and occupied in the act of taking up the girths of his saddle.

“A very different description of sportsman,” replied Trimbush; “that’s farmer Stockdale, a tenant of the Squire’s, who has forgotten more about hounds and hunting than the majority of men ever learn. You see,” he continued, “that he’s making a careful examination of his horse, and the few alterations necessary, whilst there is plenty of time; as none but the greenhorns leave them to the last moment. I remember a man, upon one occasion, tightening a curb-chain at the moment we unkennelled our fox; and such were the impatient plunges of his horse, that he could not mount him again in time to get away with us, and he never saw an inch of the run—long and gallant as it proved.”

My attention being turned to a young man superbly mounted, and dressed with the most scrupulous care, I inquired of my companion if he was one of the timid school.

“No,” rejoined Trimbush; “that he is not. From the delicate look of his boots, breeches and gloves, one might feel disposed to imagine that he was not in the habit of dirtying them; but so far from that being the case, he is not only the boldest but the best rider in the hunt—for the two do not always go together. It used to be thought,” continued he, “by men of the old school, that a white top was the certain mark of a he-haw, know-nothing, gal-drawing, watering-place snob; but I have no hesitation in saying that the white tops of the present day could show the dark and mahogany ones their heels without the slightest difficulty, or more than ordinary exertion.”

“You think, then, that men ride bolder and better now?” I remarked.

“Without a doubt of it,” replied Trimbush. “The stamp of horse—thorough-bred and up to the mark in condition—the pace we go, and the modern style of racing a fox down, require both bolder and better riding than in the days when they found him at cock-crow and killed him at noon. Not only is courage indispensable to be near the ‘sinking one,’ but hands, head, and heels must be exercised with the best of judgment. I grin,” continued he, “to see a first-flight man, after a fifteen minutes’ burst, blown to a stand-still; while farmer Stockdale gives him the go-by with his goose-rumped, short-legged, long-necked nag, just in the wind.”

“And does that often take place?” I inquired.

“Very frequently,” replied my companion. “Head and hands will beat heels all the world over.”

At this moment the Squire came trotting briskly up on his hack; and as he rode through the throng, hats were lifted and salutations exchanged. Our master, be it remembered, although an old English gentleman, was not a gentleman of the old school. He neither swore the roundest oaths, nor horsewhipped those whom he dared or could afford to pay; he boasted not of the number of bottles it took to make him oblivious of sublunary matters, or laughed only at the practical joke and coarsest jest. His object was not to be the oracle of grooms and stable-boys, or the subject of discussion in the village tap-room. With an affable bearing, he possessed a kind and generous disposition, and a heart more ready to befriend the deserving and destitute than to check the imposter and depraved. His house was one wherein hospitality reigned the seasons round; and it mattered not who were the guests, a hearty welcome awaited each and all. In the pursuit, too, of his favourite sport, he never permitted an injury to pass unrecompensed, although careful that no false application should succeed. Not a gate nor a bar was broken, a head of poultry lost suspiciously, or the most trifling damage done, but what, instantly and liberally, amends were made. Sternly discountenancing all unfair riding over wheat, young grass, and layers, he was regarded by the farmers as a friend to their interests; and so far from objecting to a fixture in their neighbourhood, they were glad when it came to their turn. By proper and simple judicious means the end is always attainable; and if those masters of hounds who complain of a dearth of foxes, and opposition to their sport, would but take a memorandum out of the note-book of “our Squire,” many a blank day might be rendered as fruitful as the vine “clustering with a thousand rings.”