The seedy-looking gentleman in black, on the too palpable three and sixpence a sider, is Mr. Catoheside, the County Court bailiff, with his pocket full of summonses, who thinks to throw a round with the Major into the day’s hire of his broken-knee’d chestnut, and the greasy-haired, shining-faced youth with him, on the longtailed white pony, is Ramshaw, the butcher’s boy, on the same sort of speculation. Then we have Mr. Meggison’s coachman availing himself of his master’s absence to give the family horse a turn with the hounds instead of going to coals, as he ought; and Mr. Dotherington’s young man halting on his way to the doctor’s with a note. He will tell his mistress the doctor was out and he had to wait ever so long till he came home. The four truants seem to herd together on the birds-of-a-feather principle. And now the reinforced party reach the meet below the grey ivy-tangled rocks, and Solomon pulls up at the accustomed spot to give his hounds a roll, and let the Major receive the encomiums of the encircling field. Then there is a repetition of the kennel scene: “Lovely! Lovely! Lovely!—beautiful bitch that—Chaunter. Chaunter! Chaunter!—there’s a handsome hound—Bustler, good dog!” Only each man has his particular favourite or hound that he has either bred or walked, or knows the name of, and so most of the pack come in for more or less praise. It is agreed on all hands that they never looked better, or the establishment more complete. “Couldn’t be better if it had cost five thousand a-year!” Most grateful were their commendations to the Major after the dry, monotonous “yarses” of Billy, who sits looking unconcernedly on, a regular sleeping partner in the old established firm of “Laudation and Co.” The Major inwardly attributes his indifference to conceited fox-hunting pride. “Looks down upon haryers.”