Many young gentlemen cantered up on thoroughbred hacks, spatter-dashed to the knee, and entered the house to pay their respects to the ladies, or, more modest and sportsmanlike, divested themselves of their mud-boots, exchanged their hacks for their hunters, and warmed their blood by a preliminary gallop round the lawn. Then they collected round the pack in the corner, and talked with Tom Moody of past sport, and the merits of Sniveller and Diamond, and of the state of the country and of the wretched breed of foxes. Sir Huddlestone presently appears mounted on a clever cob, and rides up to the Hall, where he enters and does the civil thing by the ladies, after which, being a man of few words, he proceeds to business. The hounds are drawn up to the hall-door, and little Rawdon descends among them, excited yet half alarmed by the caresses which they bestow upon him, at the thumps he receives from their waving tails, and at their canine bickerings, scarcely restrained by Tom Moody's tongue and lash. Meanwhile, Sir Huddlestone has hoisted himself unwieldily on the Nob. "Let's try Sowster's Spinney, Tom," says the Baronet; "Farmer Mangle tells me there are two foxes in it." Tom blows his horn and trots off, followed by the pack, by the whips, by the young gents from Winchester, by the farmers of the neighbourhood, by the labourers of the parish on foot, with whom the day is a great holiday; Sir Huddlestone bringing up the rear with Colonel Crawley; and the whole train of hounds and horsemen disappears down the avenue, leaving little Rawdon alone on the doorsteps, wondering and happy.