The Master had just fallen to the rear, after a brief conference with the huntsman. He sits there, you see, with a listless indifference on his dark handsome face, as if henceforth he had no earthly interest in the proceedings; but in reality he is watching everything and everybody with keen, inevitable eyes. Lord Roncesvaux is a cold, stern man, born with tact and talent enough to have made him great in his generation, if he had not devoted both exclusively, together with half his fortune, to the one favourite pursuit. He speaks seldom in society--never in the senate; but if a thrusting rired gets a step too forward at the gorse, or presses on his hounds to-day, you will hear that well shaped mouth open very much to the purpose. A little to the left, with a clear space round him, is Clydesdale, looking hot and savage, even this early hour. The horse would be quiet enough if the rider would only let his mouth alone; but the Earl has a knack of bullying his dependents, equine as well as human; so "Santiago's" temper is getting fast exasperated, and his broad brown chest is already flecked with foam. Do you mark that lithe erect figure, on the wicked-looking bay mare, moving from one group to another in the foreground? Everybody seems glad to see him, and he has a jest or a smile ready for each successive greeting. That is Major Cosmo Considine, who began life as a Guardsman, and has served since in a more Irregular corps than he now chooses to remember. The habitual expression of the face is gay and pleasant enough, but sometimes the features look strangely haggard and worn, as if the past was trying to tell its tale; and the thin lips, under cover of the huge blonde moustache, will set, as though in anger or pain. Redoubtable in battle--dangerous, they say, in a boudoir--he is especially hard to beat when hounds are running straight and fast; no matter how big the fencing may be, if it is a real good thing, Satanella's lean eager head will be seen creeping to the front; and once there, like her master on certain other occasions, "she is not to be denied." Major Considine married a wife, wealthy and fair, some three years ago, and has ever since been purposing, gravely but vaguely, to become steady and respectable. The pious intentions have not been carried out with uniform success. The weak mind of his unhappy spouse is supposed to oscillate almost daily between furious jealousy and helpless adoration; but the silver tongue of the incorrigible Bohemian is still seductive as when, in spite of relatives' advice and warning, it won him his bride; about twenty minutes' persuasion always reduces her to the dreamy, devotional phase, in which she remains till the next offence awakes her. To do Cosmo justice, his aberrations are much more harmless than the world gives him credit for; nor does he often seek now to illustrate his theories practically.