“I don’t think I ever had one that could go on like ‘Supple-Jack.’ I called him Supple-Jack, Mr. Softly, on account of his breed. He was by Bamboo, that horse,—was out of a mare they called Twisting Jane; and no pace was too good, no day too long for him. We didn’t think so much of jumping in my day as they do now; at least, we didn’t _talk_ about it so large; but you might lay the rein on Supple-Jack’s neck, and trot him up to any gate in this country, and he’d take you safely over it. Why, Jem there will tell you, when he was a boy, he’s seen the old horse, when he was past twenty, jump the gate backwards and forwards, into the paddock by the little orchard, only to come and be fed. Jump, indeed! they couldn’t go far without knowing how to jump, in _my_ day. “Well, sir, you talk of runs; why, I rode that horse the famous Topley day, with these very hounds, when we found in Topley Banks, immediately after the long frost, and killed our fox on the lawn at Mount Pleasant, eight miles as the crow flies, in thirty-four minutes. Talk of pace, sir! you can’t beat that in these flying days. I never got a pull at my horse from first to last; and, barring a bit of a scramble at the Sludge, where the banks were rotten from the sudden thaw, he never put a foot wrong. Zounds, sir! I don’t believe he ever changed his leg. The late Earl and myself got away together from the Banks, close to the hounds. He was a good man across country, but he couldn’t ride like his son. There were a dozen more close behind us, but they never got near enough to speak; and the Earl and I went sailing on, side by side, over the Sloppington Lordship, and all along by Soakington Pastures, not far from where you’re staying now, Mr. Softly, till we got within sight of Tangler’s Copse, where you were to-day. That and the prospect of a nasty overgrown bullfinch, with only one place in it, made up uncommon strong, tempted the Earl a little out of his line, and I never saw _him_ again. Supple-Jack and I had it all to ourselves after that, and he carried me over the ha-ha, on to the lawn at Mount Pleasant, just as the hounds rolled their fox over, under the drawing-room window. There was a large party staying in the house (your poor mother was one of them, Jem), and they all thought the frost was not sufficiently out of the ground to hunt, and so had remained at home. “‘Where do you hail from?’ said old Squire Gayman, the proprietor, who had served under Nelson. “‘From Topley Banks!’ I answered, taking the fox from the hounds, and putting him across the branch of a tree in the shrubbery, whilst I kept a sharp look-out for the Earl and the huntsman, and the whips and the rest of the field. “‘Why, it’s scarcely gone eleven?’ said the Squire, looking at his watch; ‘you haven’t wasted much time this morning. When did they put the hounds in?’