The Jovial pulled up short, not without considerable difficulty. “They’re away, by all that’s lucky,” exclaimed he, shifting his reins into his whip-hand, that he might give me a congratulatory slap on the back, which knocked all the breath out of my body. “Never knew a fox to leave Tangler’s Copse before, and bearing right down upon us too, or I’m a Scotchman! There’s the fox, by jingo! Hold your tongue, Softly!” The injunction was quite unnecessary, for I am not one of the halloaing tribe. Moreover, my handkerchief was pulled up to my nose, and I did not myself see the cause of my companion’s excitement. He was right, however; presently two or three couple of hounds straggled into the field adjoining that in which we were stationed, ran to and fro along the hedge-side, put their noses down, threw their tongues, and followed by the whole pack, streamed across the pasture on the line of their prey. It was great fun, and a new sensation, to watch the progress of the field, as one sat an unoccupied spectator, perched in a thing like a tea-tray on a pair of tall red wheels. I can quite understand the pleasure an old gentleman has, who rides quietly out on his cob, to see them “find and go away.” A couple of simultaneous _crashes_ in the fence announced the arrival in the same field with the hounds of the Earl himself, and a hard-riding gentleman with moustaches, a visitor at the castle. Fifty yards or so to their right again, and somewhat nearer the pack, a beautiful grey horse, having been quietly trotted up the hard pathway that led to it, landed in artistic form over a hog-backed stile with a foot-board, ridden by an elegant figure in a lady’s habit, of whom it was impossible at that distance to recognise the face. Happening, however, to glance at my companion’s countenance (who caught his breath by the way, during this performance), and observing it to become a deep crimson, my surmises that the daring Amazon was none other than Miss Merlin were to a certain extent corroborated. Then came a bay, and a brown, and a chestnut, the latter falling at his fence, but inflicting no damage on his rider, who never let go the bridle, but was up and at it again without delay. These were followed by another bay, who refused to jump, and a dark-coated gentleman on a roan, whose heart failed him at the last stride, and who faded ignominiously away from that moment. The huntsman and first whip must have come a different line altogether, for we saw their velvet caps bobbing up and down in the distance, but could not otherwise have identified them. The Jovial, however, was now waxing visibly impatient. “Dash it!” said he, “we may as well see the finish. I’m game, Softly, if you are. Come along, Kate!” And without waiting for the consent, which as a partner in the firm I think I was entitled to withhold, he laid the rein on the mare’s back, and we were once more jolting and bumping across the fields in search of some dubious and unfrequented bridle-road.