CHAPTER XIX. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind- Was never halloa'd to, nor cheered with horn. Midsummer Night's Dream. As the kennel-door opened, and I stepped into the savoury precincts of Mr. Topthorne's hunting establishment, my first feeling was one of thankfulness to that prudence and foresight, which had supplied me with a long-skirted upper garment, something like a weather-beaten dressing-gown, and a formidable weapon for repressive measures, in the shape of a most efficient hunting-whip; not the light, cane-shafted, silver-mounted gimcrack with which the dandy "customer of "the shires" condescends to open those propitious handgates, which make his ox-feeding and blackthorn-fenced country practicable to man and horse, but a huge and ponderous weapon, iron-handled, and heavy-thonged, with a punishing power that can cut "old Benedict" into ribbons, and a crack like the report of a pistol. Nor was my gratitude for such protection misplaced, for no sooner had the Squire put his foot over the threshold of their habitation than an immediate rush of four-and-twenty couple of working hounds, mostly dogs, square of head, and large of limb, deep, long, thick-throated, and tough-skinned, threatened to carry us clean off our legs into the middle of the coming hunting season. "Get over, Trueboy! Have a care, Bellman! Back, hounds! back!" accompanied by a sweep of Ike's professional hunting-whip, modified the first eager demonstrations of his favourites, and gave the master space to descant upon the different ornaments of his kennel. Topthorne, though on ordinary occasions a man of few words, had a surprising flow of eloquence upon the one subject which most deeply interested him, and, under the impression that he had got hold of a brother enthusiast, he now opened out voluminously. "The lot you see here, Nogo, are the whole of my working hounds, twenty-four couple of dogs and bitches, and they come out three days a-week, and a bye-day when required. 'Plenty of flesh, and plenty of work,' is my motto. 'Wellclothed ribs, empty bellies, blood and whipcord;' and, though I say it, that should not, no hounds in England can carry a better head when working, or come home fresher after a heavy, tiring day. Put 'em over, Ike; how long does it want to feeding-time?" Ike consults a huge warming-pan, which he drags up by a tiny key from the recesses of his brown cords, and correcting its report by a solar observation, replies "About an hour and a-half, zur !" So that I am evidently in for it! The Squire's face brightens as he remarks— "We shall have plenty of time to draft the young ones 'by litters,' and then the whole of them one by one." (What a prospect for a summer's afternoon!) "It is so seldom I find a man that really cares for hounds, that it is quite a pleasure to get a sportsman like yourself into the kennel; so we will go through them regularly," proceeds the unrelenting Squire; and, disarmed by this undeserved compliment, I am compelled to submit, and with suppressed yawns and feigned interest I go through the enforced ordeal. First we have "Reveller," and "Rantipole," and "Ruby," by the Duke of Beaufort's "Ragman," out of "Our Red-rose." And the great sprawling brutes, combining the playfulness of puppyism with the weight of maturity, disturb me in a brown study about the widow, by nearly knocking me down. After a minute inspection, this "promising litter" are dismissed to give place to "Galloper" and "Ganymede," by Mr. Horlock's "Bondsman," out of "Gertrude ;" and as there is a doubt as to which of these great white monsters is to be kept, they are submitted to a close survey for the establishment of their claims to superiority. "Galloper" is a little "throaty," but then he is the larger limbed of the two, against which "Ganymede" is declared to be the image of old "Gertrude" about the head (who must have been an exceedingly forbidding, not to say ferocious-looking animal), and I remark that Ike inclines, if anything, towards the canine cup-bearer. The Squire at last appeals to me, and, taking the chance of the servant being in all probability a better judge than the master, I unhesitatingly declare in favour of "Ganymede." By degrees we get through the entry, and arrive at the drafts. Here I find it somewhat difficult to preserve my assumed character as a judge of the animal, for even to my inexperienced eye it is evident that the symmetry and appearance of these "pickings from other packs" will not counteract the latent evil qualities for which they have left their respective homes; however, it is always safe to abuse a draft, if such abuse be properly tempered, by comparison with the receiving establishment; and when I condemn a lame, crooked-legged, overgrown brute, called "Watchman," as only fit to be hanged, the Squire and Ike, with admiration pourtrayed upon their countenances, sentence him forthwith. I know not how long I could have kept up the deception, but I confess to have been overjoyed when the time for release came without my ignorance of the subject being discovered by the Squire. I thought once or twice I could perceive a look of comic malice on Ike's rough features as he asked my opinion about this puppy or that bitch; but if he had any suspicions of my imposture he kept them to himself, and when feeding time arrived, and I stood complacently at the troughs, and suffered my boots to be trodden on, and my lower habiliments soiled by the slobbering gluttons, as they unwillingly relinquished their hasty meal, I could not but see that I was winning golden opinions from my enthusiastic host. He put his arm within mine as we re P turned to the house; and when the dressing bell rang, and I proceeded with more than usual care to make my evening toilet, my head was dizzy, and my ears rang with a confused jumble of "Champion" and "Marygold," "Wanton" and Wilful," "Guardsman" and " 99.66 Graceless," legs and feet," "backs and loins," "capital timber," "famous in his back ribs," "deep about his heart," and "a lengthy lashing-looking young hound." As I descended the stairs, in hopes of a five minutes' tête-à-tête with Mrs. Montague Forbes ere the dinner-bell should summon us to table, I had an opportunity of judging of the former tastes and pursuits of the Topthornes, by the different pictures and articles of curiosity which adorned the hall and landing-place. Sportsmen they seemed to have been one and all, to judge from the pictorial subjects and other trophies which covered the walls. Uncouth representations of Newmarket in the olden time, ere Frank Grant and Landseer were born, before the pencil of an Alken and the brush of a Herring had done justice to the make and shape of the noblest of animals, displayed a series of wooden-legged rocking-horses, with short square tails, apparently just taken from the plough, to be ridden in military style, at a slow canter, by individuals in cocked hats, periwigs, and jack-boots. How unlike the "run in for the Derby," which in the present day attracts its crowd of theoretic sportsmen at every print-shop window! Interspersed with these purchases of some turf-affecting ancestor was a variety of smaller portraits, showing how the favourite hunter, in his snaffle-bridle, was used to jump his gates standing, in the presence of a numerous pack of hounds running over a flowerenamelled sward, that suggested the month of June as being in those good old times the most favourable season for the chase. Here and there was a full-length representation of a former Topthorne, long since demised, delineated with a lofty disregard for drawing, and a bold taste in colours, as attired in bright-yellow breeches, brown top boots, a grassgreen coat, and a flowing peruke. Even the ladies of the family, the ancestral housewives, who had fulfilled their destiny of "suckling Topthornes and chronicling small beer," seemed to have been ambitious of being handed down to posterity in a manner befitting the wives and mothers of a race of Nimrods; and for one that was clad as a long-waisted shepherdess, holding a posy of flowers to her bosom, there must have been half a dozen attired in Spanish hats and buxom riding-habits. Beneath these family pictures, glass-cases contained representations of the different beasts of chase, on which the originals of the portraits had during their lifetime exercised their prowess. There they were cunningly stuffed to ape real life and infinitely better resemblances of nature than the specimens of the limner's art. Pied badgers were plodding on, in their sidelong canter; and lithe, twisting otters grinning up at you with their death-snarl of defiance. An amiable-looking fox, with bright brown eyes, appeared to be caressing a prostrate pheasant, whose plumage was fresh and radiant, as if he had just fluttered away his life by the side of some leafless spinny; whilst harmless hares, in the old conventional attitudes, the one eating, the other sitting up, gazed at you with a placid expression of listless wonder, far different from the startled glance with which the last you killed regarded your retriever after you had tailored her by shooting "too far behind." Such and such-like were the decorations of the staircase, down which I now descended into a comfortable and wellcarpeted hall, not too large for a sitting-room, and in which the Squire kept his guns, fishing-rods, landing-nets, huntingwhips, sticks, umbrellas, hats, gloves, and camp-stoolseverything, in short, which could be wanted at a moment's notice; and the fire-place of which was the general rendezvous of every one staying in the house previous to all expeditions of sport or amusement. The different apartments, dining-room, drawing-room, and billiard-room, all opened into the hall, and vied in comfort and snugness with that |