My old mentor, who had given me much valuable instruction in the details of hunting, was vastly disgusted at the result, and broke out with, "Ah! it's all up with old England, I doubt; these confounded railways have killed sport. There's no hunting to be had any longer, for their infernal cutting up the country in this way. I've hunted with these hounds under fifteen different masters, but I've about done, and I sha'n't lose much,--it's all up. However, I suppose we could never pay the interest on the national debt without the railways; but it's all up with hunting." At that, he called away the young lady, bade me a melancholy "good-by," and rode half sadly home. I galloped back to Stratford with my handsome old host,--a little more knowing in the ways of the field, but without yet having had a fair taste of the sport. * * * * * Seven miles from Peterborough, in the dismal little village of Wansford, near the borders of Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire, is, perhaps, the only remaining old posting-inn in England that is kept up in the unchanged style of the ante-railroad days. The post-horses are gone, but the posting-stables are filled with hunters; the travelling public have fled to the swifter lines, and Wansford is forever deserted of them; but the old Haycock keeps up its old cheer, and Tom Percival, who boasts that he has had the Princess Victoria for a guest, and has slept five dukes in one night, has little occasion to complain of neglect. The good wine that needs no bush still makes his cellar known, and no one should criticise English cooking until he has dined once at the Haycock. Nowhere is the inn-maid of whom we have read so much to be found in such simple, tidy, and courtesying perfection; and nowhere, in short, can one find so completely the solid comfort of hostelry life. Half old farm-house and half wayside-inn; with a marvellous larder, through whose glass-closed side the guest sees visions of joints and jams and pastry in lavish profusion; backed by a stable-yard where boys are always exercising good horses; and flanked by a yardful of quaint clipped yews,--the old house at Wansford (in spite of its dull-looking road front) is worth a visit from those who would get out of the sight and sound of steam, and see the old, old country life of England. The visitor is not numbered and billeted and pigeon-holed, as in the modern hotel; but the old fiction of host and guest is well kept up. Your coming should be announced in advance; and you are received as in some sort a member of the family, whose ways are made to conform more or less to the wishes of yourself and your convives, mainly young swells from London, who are few, and who are there, as you are, not for business, but for rest, good living, and regular sport. Three packs of hounds are within reach; and on the days when none of the meets is near, there is always the "larking"--the training of young horses--to