ther, certainly, for the country. Have you had much sport with the gun, Squire ?" And thus Mr. Maggs runs on, as if it were imperative on him to find conversation for his customers, as well as hunters; and with the further view of putting off as much as possible the transaction of actual business till after luncheon. The Squire is a good judge of a horse, as Maggs well knows; and accordingly, although he cannot resist the usual practice of showing us every brute in the stable before we arrive at "the plums," the enforced inspection is gone through in half the time it would have taken had I been there alone; and after passing in review one or two weedy, long-tailed five-year-olds, an overgrown bay horse with curbs, and a broken-down steeple-chaser, none of which are worth the trouble of having out, we are introduced to a grey of very promising appearance, and contemplate him for some minutes in mute admiration. After you have ascertained that a horse is quiet in the stable, felt his crest, passed your hand down his legs, and picked up his foot, into which you glance as you might look at your watch, and from which you derive about as much information, there is always an awkward pause, during which the customer is at a loss what he ought to say or do next. Now is the time for the dealer; and now Mr. Maggs begins "You don't see many shoulders like those, Squire !" (observe, the grey is a good-shaped horse, but his shoulder is the worst point about him)-" they can't help riding pleasant when they're made like him! feel his legs, Mr. Nogo-famous legs and feet, and some rare hocks and thighs those, Squire, to help him through the dirt! But I never take notice of make and shape. Give me performances, says I: let me see a horse perform, Mr. Nogo, and I estimate his value by what he does in the field. Now I sent that horse last week with 'Naylus,' to meet Mr. Wildrake's hounds cub-hunting; and I says to 'Naylus' says I-—you keep with the hounds. Well, they ran from Torwood Vale to Wild-Overton—and the Squire knows what that is—and 'Naylus' he never left them There was only three of them would have the Tiverley Brook -no, I beg pardon, Mr. Nogo, I'm telling you a lie-there was five charged it, but only three got over; 'Naylus' he led the field upon the grey: Mr. Wildrake's huntsman followed him, and wanted his master to buy the horse; but I kept him for the Squire here to see. I think there's few like him in any country, but I may be deceived. Will you see him out, Squire ?" And "Naylus" is forthwith summoned to saddle the grey, whilst we pass on to the next box, containing a strong useful brown horse, short in his legs, and with all the appearance of a hunter. Here we have nearly the same "recitative," varied with the different exploits performed by this sober-looking animal in timber-jumping, which appears to be his forte, and in the indulgence of which taste the heroic "Naylus” is related to have ridden him over a complicated double post-andrail, no later than the end of last season, which had previously been the terror of all the neighbouring hunts. The brown horse, after an observation of mine, derogatory to his beauty (for he has a large plain head), and which Mr. Maggs passes over in silent contempt, is likewise ordered to be saddled; and in the mean time the dealer courteously entreats us to "step in and take a little refreshment;" without which no transaction in the way of business is ever supposed to be able to proceed. A comfortable parlour hung round with sporting prints, a slice of pork pie washed down by a glass of sparkling homebrewed ale, the newest of bread, the freshest of butter, and the raciest of cheese, the whole put to rights by a small glass of undeniable white brandy, prepare one to look upon all sublunary matters-quadrupeds or otherwise-with an indulgent and favourable eye; nor when you have offered your hospitable host a capital cigar, and lit another yourself, do you find that its wreathing fumes at all discompose or decrease this charitable frame of mind. Both the Squire and myself liked the grey horse a good deal better when we saw him out; and as the short-legged "Naylus" trotted, cantered, and galloped him here and there, he really looked, under his pigmy burden, a fine powerful animal. "Take him over those rails, Naylus,'" said Mr. Maggs in an off-hand manner; and "Naylus," nothing daunted, turned him at a fair sized timber fence, bounding the soft level meadow in which he was careering. Like most horsedealers' men, "Naylus" possessed better nerves than hands; but the grey, though held in a grasp like a vice, and urged upon the off side by a single spur, jumped his fence cleverly, and landed in the field beyond in undeniable form. Back comes "Naylus" over the hedge, and again the horse does what is required of him tractably and well. He "reins up" where we are standing, arches his neck, snorts as though he liked the fun, and I begin to covet him. The Squire lays his leg over him, and gallops round the field, and I like him better and better. Mr. Maggs does not interfere with the favourable impression by any ill-timed remarks, but merely says, "Would you like to feel his action, Mr. Nogo?" and much as I hate an unknown "mount," I too have a taste of the grey. With stirrups the wrong length, and a confused mass of hard, thick reins in my hands, I cannot make him go unpleasantly; and as I return to where Maggs and his man are standing, and hear the former remark, as if he did not know I was within hearing, "Evidently a workman, 'Naylus.' I should say a gent, from Leicestershire!" I decide upon buying the grey "coûte qui coûte." Elevated by the luncheon, the brandy, and the gallop, I proceed forthwith to mount the brown horse, who is now brought out to sustain his character, and as he is very fresh, and the saddle not yet warm to his back, narrowly escape getting kicked off for my rashness. However, a sharp canter round the field makes us acquainted, and with a lively faith in Mr. Maggs's representations of his jumping powers, and a lurking ambition to show these west-country sportsmen the capabilities of a 66 gent, from Leicestershire," I turn the brown horse's great fiddle-head, not without trepidation, at the rails. He faces them boldly enough; but at the last moment stops dead-short, and refuses with, as I suspect, a touch of temper. The Squire laughs, and I feel in honour bound to ride him at them again, with an inward anticipation of a fall, and a confirmed disgust for "larking." I give him another chance: again he stops short, but thinking better of it at the last moment wriggles his fore-hand over, and clears the remaining portion of his frame with a lash of his powerful hind-quarters, that sends me clean over his head, to alight on the broad of my back in the splashing water-meadow. I get up rueful, crestfallen, and irritated, but not the least hurt; whilst the brown horse careers round the field with streaming rein and tail on high, in undisguised exultation at his liberty. There is nothing for it but to buy him as well as the other, to show that I can ride him; and after a good deal of desultory conversation, a glass of hot brandy and water, much haggling as to price, many compliments from Mr. Maggs, and a curious arrangement entered into, by which a certain sum is specified as the price of a certain article, and a certain per-centage on that sum returned for luck! I re-enter the Squire's pony-carriage a richer man in the amount of my personalities by one grey and one brown gelding, warranted sound in wind and limb; and a poorer one in my funded property by the sum of one hundred and seventy-five pounds-the price of the quadrupeds aforesaid; besides one golden sovereign bestowed as a free gift on the one-eyed Cornelius, and requested by that enterprising functionary wholly and entirely for luck! CHAPTER XXI. "Yelled on the view, the opening pack, Lady of the Lake. My old friend Jack Raffleton, in his hunting days, used to avow that the happiest moment in his life was when he said to his servant, "Call me to-morrow morning at half-past seven; and let the hacks be at the door by nine." Mr. Jorrocks, that most immortal of Nimrods, dearly loved the ride to cover, "the mud on his top-boots, and the smell of the morning h'air." Whilst many an aspiring sportsman, I verily believe, prizes beyond all other hours of the day, that moment of relief in which he dismounts from his jaded hunter, and hies to his long-wished for "dressing-gown and slippers," and the welcome embrace of his "too easy-chair." But none of these authorities, however much they may disagree as to the exact period which brings them their greatest amount of felicity in connection with the chase, will venture to deny the charm of that most sociable of meals a hunting-breakfast; not the uncomfortable repast taken in the dark, with a fork in one hand and a buttonhook in the other, by the hurried citizen, who makes "the express" his covert-hack, and who knows not what it is to start for his destination in "The Vale" at a later hour than six A.M.: not the modicum of milk and soda-water which, with half a devilled kidney, forms the sole support of the dissipated youth, whose two thorough-bred hacks must be "told out" between Melton and Keythorpe, because their |