A quick turn to the five couple of leading hounds, that he spied racing down the side of a hedgerow, and the happy negotiation of a very nasty place, with a stake in it that would certainly have impaled a more costly nag, placed our friend on terms with the pack. A fine grass country lay spread out before him. The fox, evidently a good one, bore straight across the middle of the fields. The hounds, without forcing any extraordinary pace, appeared well settled to the scent, and not inclined to flash over it a yard. A large fence and a little brook had combined to afford them more room than usual. Everything seemed to look uncommonly like a run; and the Honourable Crasher, shooting by our friend, on Confidence, whom he rode with a shamefully loose rein, observed that “It was all right; and he shouldn’t wonder if they were going to have a gallop.” Mr. Sawyer laid hold of the grey, and determined to assume a place in the front rank—of which the occupants would have been equally at home in the rows of stalls nearest the orchestra at the Opera. There was more than one lady riding as he never saw lady ride before—perfectly straight; turning aside from no obstacle; jumping a gate with extreme cordiality, if it should be locked; and taking it all in the earnest, yet off-hand, graceful manner, with which a woman sets about doing what she likes best. The Meltonians, stride for stride, and fence for fence, were sailing away with perfect ease, looking as if they were scarcely out of a canter; yet, do what he would—and it must be owned he was _very_ hard upon the grey—Mr. Sawyer could not, for the life of him, decrease the distance between himself and these leading horsemen. The Honourable Crasher, having got Confidence amongst some very intricate fences on the right, though a little wider than he liked of the hounds, was disporting himself therein with considerable gratification. Struggles and the Reverend Dove (to-day without the daughter) were forward with the flyers, though the former was already beginning to calculate on a check. The double posts and rails about Norton-by-Galby were already visible: but the fox had evidently no intention of entering the gorse. Albeit much against the grain, and what he was totally unaccustomed to in the Old Country, when hounds were running, Mr. Sawyer found himself obliged to ride to a leader. That chestnut five-year-old was for ever in front of him, now doing an “in-and-out” cleverly, now topping a flight of rails gallantly, then creeping under a tree, with a discretion beyond his years, and anon facing and rasping through a bullfinch, in the successful temerity of youth, Mr. Varnish sitting very far back the while, with the graceful ease of a man who is playing a favourite instrument in an arm-chair.