Next day, we posted across the country to Liverpool, as fast as four horses could carry us; but neither will I attempt to describe the joy of our meeting. Uncle Lathom was quite pleased with my choice, lamenting over and over again, however, what a pity it was, that she had not been an _Irishman_. Here, to while away the time, the old gentleman chartered a pair of spanking hunters, and took a day now and then with the Cheshire hounds. One fine, you may call it summer, day, the last of the season, there was a noble field, and not a scanty sprinkling of Liverpool cotton brokers. Some time previous, a London dealer had brought down a batch of _grey_ horses, that were _too good_ for Tattersall's, in order to clap the leek, as the Welshman says, into the wealthy Liverpoolonians--"all real good, well-made hunters, sir." The fox at length broke cover in good style, and away we all went at a killing pace, my uncle leading with the coolness and skill of an old hand. We came to one or two stiffish jumps, and there was nothing like the greys; aware that they were marked, from the conspicuous colour of their horses, the men of the _long_ and _short staple_ rode like devils, and for a time the Cheshire aristocracy were at a puzzle what to make of it. At length we came to a post-and-rail fence, with a deep ditch beyond, which seemed to be a poser. "Hold hard," cried Mr Frenche to me, as he settled himself in his saddle, and gathered up his reins; "hold hard, Benjie, and let the greys lead." A tall military-looking personage had for some time hung on the flank of the Liverpool cavaliers, who, being strangers, kept pretty well together. He appeared to be reconnoitering their horses carefully, with that knowing sort of look as if he had recognised them to be old friends. Having satisfied himself, apparently, he winked to a well-mounted sportsman near him, and reining in a little as they came up to the fence, he sung out, in a clear, sharp voice, "Loud as a trumpet with a silver sound," "Halt!"--_Stock-still_, as if touched by an enchanter's wand, on the instant stood each gallant grey, gathering himself on his haunches, as he slid several yards with his fore-feet on the moist sward, grooving out regular ways in the blue clay, as if they had been so many boats a-launching; and _away_ flew a shower of cotton-brokers, like a volley of stones from a catapulta, leaving each an empty horse looking at him, with one exception, where the _raw material_ was accounted for, sticking on his horse's neck, with an ear in each hand, admiring his _departed_ friends in the ditch, as the gay field, fifty horsemen at the fewest, flew over them in a rainbow. It was now fixed that we were to be married in June, and I accompanied Mr Frenche to Ireland, in order to pay my duty to my dear old mother, who was comfortably settled in a nice cottage in the outskirts of Kilkenny.