There was a slight bustle among the "knowing ones;" two or three officers of the Life Guards stole forward a few paces; one of the officials cracked his whip; and ere I knew exactly what had happened, the hounds were streaming away over an adjoining field, "heads up and sterns down," running perfectly mute, but at a pace which would have astonished my old friends of the Heavytop country to no small extent. Several desperate speculators were making frightful efforts for a start. Two of the Life Guardsmen were settled with the hounds, and the third _would_ have been, had he not been "turned over" by an uncompromising flight of rails. Four London dealers and a young Berkshire farmer were flourishing about, determined to show their horses whilst they were fresh; the noble Master and his aristocratic friends were pounding down a lane running parallel to the line of chase. Mrs. Lumley was getting excited, and the Gitana reared straight on end. Brilliant was fighting most disagreeably with his bridle, and John nervously endeavouring to quiet our horses, and prevail on ourselves to submit to his guidance. We _did_ follow him into the lane; but here what a scene of confusion it was! Mild equestrians, much at the mercy of their infuriated steeds; hot foot-people, springing out of the way of the charging squadrons, and revenging themselves for threatened annihilation by sarcastic jeers, not altogether undeserved. "Give me a lead, sir!" implored a good-looking light-weight--who was evidently not in his usual place, and most anxious to get out of the lane--to a fat, jolly old sportsman in a green coat and brass buttons on a stiff bay horse. "Certainly, sir," said the good-natured man; and turned his horse short at the fence, closely followed by the gentleman he was so ready to oblige. The bank was rotten and the bay horse unwilling. As might have been expected, the green coat kissed mother earth, whilst his own horse and his pursuer and his pursuer's horse rolled about on the top of him in a most complicated game of all-fours. As they picked each other up, I heard the fat man in green, much to my astonishment, apologizing for the accident with the greatest _empressement_.