With this she entered into a detail of the laws of the hunting-field, which more than once threw me into fits of laughter. It seemed, then, that the code decided that each horseman who followed the hounds should not be left to the wilfulness of his horse or the aspirings of his ambition, as to the place he occupied in the chase. It was no momentary superiority of skill or steed, no display of jockeyship, no blood that decided this momentous question. No; that was arranged on principles far less vacillating and more permanent at the commencement of the hunting season, by which it was laid down as a rule that the _grand maître_ was always to ride first. His pace might be fast or it might be slow, but his place was there. After him came the _maîtres_, the people in scarlet, who in right of paying double subscription were thus costumed and thus privileged; while the ‘aspirants’ in green followed last, their smaller contribution only permitting them to see so much of the sport as their respectful distance opened to them--and thus that indiscriminate rush, so observable in our hunting-fields, was admirably avoided and provided against. It was no headlong piece of reckless daring, no impetuous dash of bold horsemanship; on the contrary, it was a decorous and stately canter--not after hounds, but after an elderly gentleman in a red coat and a brass tube, who was taking a quiet airing in the pleasing delusion that he was hunting an animal unknown. Woe unto the man who forgot his place in the procession! You might as well walk into dinner before your host, under the pretence that you were a more nimble pedestrian. Besides this, there were subordinate rules to no end. Certain notes on the _cor de chasse_ were royalties of the _grand maître_; the _maîtres_ possessed others as their privileges which no ‘aspirant’ dare venture on. There were quavers for one, and semiquavers for the other; and, in fact, a most complicated system of legislation comprehended every incident, and I believe every accident, of the sport, so much that I can’t trust my memory as to whether the wretched ‘aspirants’ were not limited to tumbling in one particular direction--which, if so, must have been somewhat of a tyranny, seeing they were but men, and Belgians. ‘This might seem all very absurd and very fabulous if I referred to a number of years back; but when I say that the code still exists, in the year of grace, 1856, what will they say at Melton or Grantham? So you may imagine,’ said Laura, on concluding her description, which she gave with much humour, ‘how manifold your transgressions have been this day. You have offended the _grand maître, maîtres_, and aspirants, in one _coup_; you have broken up the whole “order of their going.”’ ‘And run away with the belle of the château,’ added I, _pour comble de hardiesse_. She did not seem half to relish my jest, however; and gave a little shake of the head, as though to say, ‘You’re not out of _that_ scrape yet.’