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Webster Family Library of Vetef,, y -r.viicine 
 
 Cummings Scboo! of Veterinary Medicine at 
 
 Tufts University 
 
 200 Westboro Road 
 
 North Grafton. MA 01636 
 
THE 
 
 QUORNDON HOUNDS! 
 
 OR, 
 
 % Wix^mm at Ultlton ^lofokag. 
 
 BY FRAN-K FORESTER. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "my shooting-box," "tHE DEER-STALKERS," '"'tHE WAR. 
 
 "WICK woodlands," etc., etc. 
 
 WITH ORIGINAL ILLUSTEATIONS BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS; 
 
 306 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 
^<^^ -• \^' 1 
 
 "y 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by 
 
 T. B. PETERSON, 
 
 In the Clerk's OiBce of the District Court of the United States, in 
 and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 
 
 GOhi^lSB, PBIKTBK. 
 
My Dear Graham, 
 
 Allow me to dedicate to you, the following little 
 work, of wliich tlie previous part appeared in the 
 pages of your magazine. I do not say your capital 
 magazine, because for any one to praise a man to his 
 face is never in the best of taste, and to praise himself 
 is always in the worst, and I hope I am so much 
 identified with you as one of your eldest, if not the 
 eldest, inhabitants, and your most constant collaborator, 
 that we are rather arcades amho, than mius et alter. 
 Ever your friend and servant, 
 
 HENRY WM. HERBERT. 
 
 (3) 
 
%,hntl'mmtnl. 
 
 The aim and object of this little volume is to lay 
 before my sporting friends and the public in general, 
 to whom I have so often discoursed — and with so 
 kindly hearers — concerning the Field Sports of 
 America, a slight sketch of English Fox-hunting — 
 the sport of sports, par excellence, and that sport 
 carried to its acme as it is no where but with the 
 Quorndon hounds and at Melton Mowbray. 
 
 The use of real names and characters will be 
 excused, because nothing other than to the credit of 
 those specially named is herein contained — the identity 
 of those unpleasantly depicted is veiled under mis- 
 nomers. 
 
 For the rest the merit of the sketch, if it have any, 
 lies in its perfect truthfulness. Men, horses, dogs, 
 and scenery are as they were at Melton when I was 
 there last, three and twenty years ago. 
 
 HENRY WM. HERBERT. 
 
 (5) 
 
Cantents* 
 
 CHAPTER I. ^^ 
 
 9 
 
 A Club-Room 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 28 
 A Virginian 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 45 
 A Hunting Stable 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 A Trot and a Dinner-Party "' 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 A CoTERT Side • 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 A Sharp Burst and a Hard Run 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 A Ball Room and a Belle 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 lOKEN Bones 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A Breakfast and Broken Bones 
 
 1 A'i 
 
 A Bother, and — a Bride 
 
THE aUORNDON HOUNDS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A CLUB-ROOM. 
 
 Who does not know what Melton Mowbray was ? 
 Not Melton Mowbray of these degenerate days, but 
 the Melton Mowbray, when the Squire used to squeal, 
 Goodrick and Holyoke and Forester — not Frank, by 
 the way, but my lord — and Alvanley and Campbell 
 of Saddell, and Valentine Magher — the bruisingest of 
 bruising riders — and Musgrave of the north, Peyton 
 and Gardner, and ill-natured and good-natured Jem 
 M'Donald, and fifty others, we could write of an' we 
 would, to ride — ay ! to squeal and to ride to the 
 ladies'^ — to Osbaldistone's lady-pack. Nothing ever 
 ran on earth like those fleet, glossy, graceful darlings ; 
 nothing ever will run like them on earth again ; for 
 like larking ladies, as they were, they almost invaria- 
 bly ran away ! 
 
 It was in Melton Mowbray, then, in the good days 
 when George the Fourth was king — before the world 
 had heard tell of any of the ists or isms — when men 
 feared their God, honored their king, went to church 
 
 * It was the practice of that consummate sportsman and great 
 huntsman to work, feed, and lodge his dog-pack and hitch-pack 
 separately, instead of using the two sexes promiscuously. The ladies 
 were the love and delight of all true sportsmen; and in Northamp- 
 tonshire and Liecestershirc their fame will live till doomsday. 
 
 (9) 
 
10' A CLUB-ROOM. 
 
 o' Sundays, and drank their port at dinner, without 
 once dreaming that they were behind the age, much 
 less that they were robbers, insomuch as they owned 
 goodly acres; or habitual drunkards, insomuch as 
 they preferred Bordeaux to milk and water, and old 
 October to the then unsung and unhonored Croton. 
 
 It was in Melton Mowbray, then, on a dark, driz- 
 zling Saturday night, in the latter end of November, 
 1830, that we will take a peep into the interior of the 
 Melton Club-room. 
 
 There ; it is, as you see, a large, substantially fur- 
 nished, well-lighted room ; prepared with especial 
 reference to comfort, but very little heed to show. 
 The carpets are of the softest, the arm-chairs of the 
 easiest, the grates are replenished with piles of Can- 
 nel coal, blazing as if they would outvie the hun- 
 dreds of wax candles ; the arm-chairs are filled, the 
 sofas occupied, the tables surrounded by the first 
 men in England ; the first in birth and breeding, as 
 in bearing and appearance — many the first in talent, 
 as in rank ; some with hard-earned and world-wide 
 reputation ; and yet, in the means and appliances for 
 their comfort, there is none of that ostentatious dis- 
 play of glass and gilding, of satin and velvet, of huhl 
 and marquetry, which is to be seen with us in the 
 town-house of every fifth-rate merchant prince, who 
 is to-day a millionaire, to-morrow a bankrupt and a 
 beggar ; nay ! even in the saloon of every transient 
 steamboat that plies, laden with emigrants and 
 traders, trappers, and miners, backwoodsmen and 
 blacklegs, over the glittering waters of our great 
 western lakes. 
 
 A few fine pictures on the walls, by Lawrence or 
 Sir Joshua, by Stubbs and Cooper and Landseer, 
 portraits these of distinguished Nimrods of their day, 
 masters of packs, or followers of the Quorn, those of 
 theii' favorite companions and allies, the horses that 
 
A CLUB-ROOM. 11 
 
 lived to the end of the longest run, the hounds that 
 ran the fleetest and the truest ; but no mh-rors of plate- 
 glass, wherein Goliah might have viewed himself en- 
 tire, horsed on a charger up to his colossal frame ; no 
 cornices of carven gold ; no tables of invaluable por- 
 phyry, or consoles of Russian malachite. 
 
 Two or three whist-tables are distinguished easily 
 enough, by the gravity and silence of their occupants ; 
 two or three more, merrier and more noisily sur- 
 rounded, where ecartd is in full blast — at one of the 
 first, that down-looking, light-haired, uneyebrowed 
 man, with a voice clear and soft as a silver-trumpet, 
 a voice whose pleadings, it is said, no woman ever 
 heard and resisted — you would pass him in a crowd 
 utterly unnoticed, yet he has broken more hearts and 
 ruined more reputations than any man in England — 
 that is Henry de R''''^*, untainted as yet by the infamy 
 which in after days tarnished the ermine of his baro- 
 nial robes, and known only as the best and luckiest 
 whist-player, the man most a bonnes fortunes of all 
 in, or out of London. 
 
 Opposite him, that handsome, large-built man, with 
 the aquiline nose and well-opened eye, the most aris- 
 tocratic air and bearing, yet the openest and most 
 kindly manner, that is the Duke of Beaufort, the 
 dashing Worcester of past days, never to be forgotten 
 as the best-natured of the dandies. Two Georges fill 
 the party quarre, the handsome and elaborately got 
 up Anson, with his finely chiseled but somewhat un- 
 meaning features ; and his small, natty, well-dressed 
 vis-a-vis, the prince of sportsmen and goodfellows, the 
 deepest of betters, and most unmoved of losers, then 
 something new upon the turf, George Payne of Selby. 
 That slovenly, nay, almost dirty, person who has just 
 backed De R*** so heavily against Tom Gascoigne, 
 is the well known baronet Sir William Ingilby, so 
 well known for his naive replies, in after days, on the 
 
IZ A CLUB-ROOM. 
 
 De R*** investigation, whereby he avowed that when 
 a friend, who had detected the unhappy baron in the 
 act of cheating, asked his advice as to what should be 
 done, he advised him "always to be his partner, or tc 
 back him." 
 
 Perhaps, already he suspects him ; at all events he 
 backs him ; and lo ! he has won, for Tom is shelling 
 out the bank notes to a heavy figure. 
 
 About that other table, larking and laughing mer- 
 rily over their pool at ecart^, are a younger party, 
 Jardinier and the M'Donalds, Dick Gascoigne, and 
 Mount Sandford, Foljambe, and Charley Sutton, all 
 except the first named merry, and more elated with 
 their fun than minding the game, or caring about the 
 winnings ; but Jardinier's brow is bent, and his ex- 
 pression dark and sullen ; his mind is on his winnings, 
 and he plays, as he rides, boldly and very well, but 
 with a cold, ill-natured, sulky resolution, as unlike as 
 possible to the fierce, rash, furious style which marks 
 his rival, equally in daring horsemanship and despe- 
 rate bad temper — the most unpopular man in England, 
 then ill-known as Bellamy, now worse known as Gar- 
 rondale. 
 
 There again, at another whist-table, with his hat 
 pulled down over his dogged, saturnine features, and 
 his dark claret-colored cut-away — that is the clever, 
 wayward, cross, and fitful John George Lambton, not 
 yet Lord Durham ; and opposite to him, with small 
 pinched face, that you scarcely know whether to call 
 plain or handsome, and an air most fastidious, if you 
 should not rather call it contemptuous, sits most ec- 
 centric of all talents, most talented of all eccentrics, 
 Tom Duncombe. 
 
 The very fat man, Lambton's partner, is the bon 
 vivant, the wit, the welter weight, the friend, under 
 an older dynasty of fashion, of Brummel and the 
 prince, and still the cream of the cream of the London 
 
A CLUB-ROOM. 13 
 
 world, and the slashingest heavy weight in all Leices- 
 tershire, that is Lord Alvanley ; he who proposed to 
 amend the constitution of the natural and civil year, 
 by having all the frost and snow of the former, all the 
 Sundays of the latter, gathered into the months of 
 April, May, June and July, so that neither weather 
 nor worship should interfere with the sportsman's 
 occupation, from the first of shooting on the moors in 
 August until the last of fox-hunting in March. 
 
 He with a chin almost as long as that of Titus 
 Gates, of ill memory, making his mouth appear to be 
 in the centre of his face, that is Molyneux, except 
 his father Sefton, the best finger on four horses in 
 the kingdom, and second to very few at a brook or a 
 bullfinch. 
 
 Musgrave and Magher, Goodricke and Holyoke sit 
 in close conclave with the Squire, discussing points 
 of bone and muscle, breeding and^ blood, as if the 
 nation's weal thereon depended, in low tones, of which 
 nothing escaped to the general ear, except now and 
 then some such phi-ase as " splendid arm" — '' why, yes ; 
 a little cross-made, but monstrous power, and then 
 such a stride " — or, "no — by Timoleon out of an Or- 
 ville mare," or scnuething of similar import relating to 
 what was to those most veritable members of the 
 equestrian order, the only serious subject of thought 
 and object of life. 
 
 Others of less note, younger, yet ardent votaries of 
 the chase, were lounging about, sipping cofiee or cura- 
 coa, chatting of the news of the day, the best run of 
 the season, which had occurred on that very Saturday ; 
 whose horse had lived to the end of it ; how Osbaldis- 
 tone's "Clasher" had cleared the Union Canal lock 
 between Turlangton and Countisthorpe, twenty-five 
 feet of bright water in his stride ; how many of his 
 ribs, or whether it was his collar-bone, Grantly Ber- 
 keley broke in that tremendous push over the park 
 
14 A CLUB-ROOM. 
 
 gate below Arnesby ; whose wife it was Jem Trevor 
 had run away with ; and whether Schwartzenbergh 
 was going to marry Lady Ellenborough, or if it was 
 true that he had got the emperor to forbid it. 
 
 Some of the old hands were beginning to talk about 
 going home, and many of the young ones were order- 
 ing broiled bones and deviled lobsters, mulled Bur- 
 gundy or iced hock, to be prepared in the dining-room, 
 with a passing remark that it would not much matter 
 if there should be a spice of headache the next morn- 
 ing, as it was Sunday and there would be nothing 
 to do. 
 
 " Quite right," said Alvanley laughing, as he got up 
 from his whist-table, and pocketed Lambton's sover- 
 eigns, " quite right Charley ; for my own part, I find 
 it vastly improving, as the Methodists call it, to have 
 a little headache on Sunday morning; it promotes re- 
 pentance so much, and I make it a practice always to 
 repent on Sundays. I think, in fact, that the bishops 
 ought to have it seriously recommended. I'll speak 
 to Sydney Smith about it, when I see him next." 
 
 "About what, my lord?" said a tall, elegantly 
 shaped, slender man, whose black coat, though it was 
 cut in rather sporting style, pro\^ed his cloth ; and 
 who was no other than that splendid horseman, and 
 yet more splendid whip, Algernon Peyton, Rector of 
 Fen Drayton. "It is something new for you to med- 
 dle with church matters, since the bishops refused to 
 concentrate the Sundays for you. What do you want 
 the bench of incurables to recommend now?" 
 
 " Only getting drunk on Saturday nights," cried 
 Jardinier, with a rude, coarse laugh, "in order to 
 promote repentance on Sunday mornings ; what do you 
 think of it, most reverend?" 
 
 "I don't think it would do at all," said Chesliire, 
 who had been standing stupidly, and half sulkily, lis- 
 tening without speaking, suddenly giving tongue. 
 
A CLUB-ROOM. 15 
 
 << Not at all for gentlemen ; the lower orders aliivays 
 get drunk on Saturday." 
 
 "A very sage remark, Ches.," replied Castlereagh, 
 with a light laugh, for, though they were great allies, 
 he never missed a chance of giving a slap to the stupid, 
 haughty don. " On the same principle, of course, 
 you never dine or sup on Saturday nights, for that is 
 the night par excellence on which those poor devils do 
 sup, if they sup at all." 
 
 "By the same rule, gentlemen must never kiss 
 their wives on Saturday nights," said Tom Gas- 
 coigne. 
 
 " Tom, you are, out of all reckoning, behind the 
 day," returned Castlereagh. " Gentlemen of Ches's. 
 order never kiss their wives. Other men's wives are 
 your only Cheshire kissing." 
 
 What remark the snob nobleman would have made 
 to this gentle cut is unfortunately lost to the world in 
 general, and to the readers of Graham in particular ; 
 for at this moment, the door opened, and there ap- 
 peared on the threshold a very good-looking and ex- 
 ceedingly gentlemanly person, of small and rather 
 slender frame, but exquisitely made both for grace and 
 power, with dark, cui'ling hair, dark, oriental eyes, 
 and a slightly Asiatic cast of features, set off by a 
 small penciled moustache and imperial. 
 
 He had a traveling cap on his head, and a dark 
 cloth pelisse, lined throughout with the most superb 
 Babies, over a plain evening dress. 
 
 Scarcely had he shown himself before he was hailed 
 by a perfect tumult of welcome and congratulation, 
 proving the extreme popularity of the new comer. 
 Popular indeed he was, none ever more so, or more 
 deservedly so, as every one will admit, who remem- 
 bers, oris so happy as to know, the Count Matuschevitz. 
 
 A finished and thorough gentleman, as all Russian 
 gentlemen we have ever seen invariably are ; a man 
 
16 A CLUB-ROOM. 
 
 of profound accomplishment; of singular skill as a 
 linguist, speaking every modern tongue with the flu- 
 ency and ease of a native ; a diplomatist of perfect 
 ■finesse, though at the period of which we write his 
 abilities in that line were undeveloped ; he was, in ad- 
 dition to all this, as agreeable an associate, as amiable 
 a companion, and as good a fellow as ever was sent to 
 represent one foreign power near the court of another. 
 
 At this particular time, the diplomatic situation of 
 the Count Matuschevitz was somewhat anomalous, 
 for, although he was known to be connected with the 
 embassy, at the head of which then was the magnifi- 
 cent Prince Lieven, his duties were singularly unbur- 
 thensome, his sole occupations seeming to be killing 
 the time by means of all those stirring and athletic 
 exercises, games and sports which have in all ages, 
 and under all sovereigns, been the peculiar favorites 
 of the manly aristocracy of old England. 
 
 In after days it came out, that the avocations and 
 duties of the gay and gallant count were identical ; 
 and that the best shot, the best rider, the best fencer, 
 tennis-player, sparrer, in the Russian empire, he was 
 sent by the great and shrewd ruler of that wonderful 
 semi-barbarous power, all of whose rulers seem to be, 
 by hereditary right and the grace of God, great and 
 wise, and shrewd and crafty, for the express end and 
 purpose of riding and shooting, sparring and fencing 
 himself into the good graces of the English gentry and 
 nobility ; and so becoming the associate of their pri- 
 vate hours, and the judge of their characters, to a de- 
 gree unattainable by the envoys of any other court. 
 
 How far Nicholas succeeded in his purpose it is not 
 within the scope of this paper to divulge ; but this 
 much is certain, that, although in the omnibus box at 
 the opera, in the drawing-rooms, or ball-rooms of the 
 metropolis, the French or the Italian, the Austrian or 
 the Prussian envoys and attaches might keep pace 
 
A CLUB-EOOM. 17 
 
 with clever Russian, in the recess of Parliament, when 
 the peers shoot pheasants, and the members fox-hunt, 
 they had no more chance with Matuschevitz, than a 
 French hoxeur would have had with Tom Crib ; or a 
 French jochei with Jim Robinson or Chififnej, in the 
 pig-skin. 
 
 To this day and hour, no Frenchman, not even the 
 admirable Crichton of the nineteenth century, the imi- 
 tated but inimitable D'Orsay, has ever been known to 
 get even tolerably well across a country. It is not 
 pluck they lack, nor horsemanship — their cavalry are 
 better riders than the English — but somehow or other 
 it is not in them — they haven't got the go, still less 
 the judgment and coolness, the head, the hand, and 
 the seat, which must be combined to carry a man well 
 across the country in the pig-skin upon the back of a 
 flyer. 
 
 Multitudinous Frenchmen can pop over rabbits in a 
 furze brake, slaughter pheasants at a battue, shoot 
 hares from behind a rock or a bush, lying perdu, at a 
 dead aim ; but when we see one Frenchman, born and 
 bred in la belle France, do his day's walking and day's 
 shooting in good style on the moors — throw a fly 
 neatly over a trout stream — or ride, as we have said, 
 even tolerably well across a country, we shall expect 
 the next morning to see a blackamoor washed white, 
 and a leopard change his spots. 
 
 Bat this little digression, finished, we return to our 
 muttons, and beg to assm-e the reader that if no 
 Frenchman ever had the go in him for Leicestershire, 
 the Russian Matuschevitz had it in perfection. 
 
 If at first the old stagers laughed in their sleeves at 
 the somewhat dragoon seat, the tip of the toe only in 
 the stirrup, the heel well sunk and turned outward, 
 and the too accurately manege style of the whole seat 
 and turn out, no one could deny the unmistakeablc 
 firmness of that seat at the stiffest fence or widest 
 170 
 
18 A CLUB-EOOM. 
 
 brook ; no one could question the quickness and light- 
 ness of the finger in a difficulty ; no one could doubt 
 the pluck — that truly English quality — with which he 
 resumed his seat after the most weltering fall, and 
 crammed, without flinching or craning, his half-blown 
 beast at the next bullfinch. 
 
 In a short time, too, the one obnoxious thing, the 
 seat and style were altered. The count was too thor- 
 ough a horseman not to perceive and adopt at once the 
 superiority of the English jockey seat over the dra- 
 goon — or continental — style, whether in a race over 
 the flats or in getting across a country. 
 
 Before his first season was complete, his bent knee, 
 home foot in the stirrup, and low bridle-hand were as 
 correct, as his pluck and daring had from the first been 
 undeniable. The count had ridden, booted and spur- 
 red, in jockey-tops and white leathers, into the most 
 intimate afi'ections of the sporting aristocracy of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Loud, therefore, was the burst of affectionate greet- 
 ing, from young and old, dandy or country gentleman, 
 that greeted Matuschevitz as he made his entree into 
 the club-room, expected indeed, but greeted as if unex- 
 pected, and at once the observed of all observers. 
 
 " So you have come at last, count. We had almost 
 given you up, but better late than never," exclaimed 
 one. 
 
 " Deuced well mounted though, now that you have 
 come," cried another. 
 
 " Yes, indeed, they came in ten days ago," said Jem 
 McDonald ; " Alick and I went down to look at them 
 last Sunday. Your fellow, Martindale, is getting fa- 
 mously forward with them." 
 
 " You're too late, Matuschevitz, for the best thing 
 we're like to have this season. One day too late," 
 said Valentine Magher. " Only this morning. From 
 the gorse above Turlangton, into the vale, across the 
 
A CLUB-ROOM. 19 
 
 canal-lock toward Arnesby village, tlirougli the park, 
 and ran into him in a grass field on the hill over 
 Countisthorpe, twelve miles and a half as the crow 
 flies, without a single check, in an hour and ten min- 
 utes." 
 
 " The cream of every thing in the shape of fox- 
 hunting," said Sir James Musgrave. 
 
 " The worse luck mine," said the count laughing, 
 as he at length got an opportunity of getting in a 
 word, after undergoing the extremity of hand-shaking, 
 divesting himself of his sable cloak, and ensconcing 
 himself in an arm-chair by the fire. " But we must 
 try to make up for it yet. What are you going to do 
 for us to-morrow, squire ?" he continued, speaking per- 
 fectly good English, without the slightest foreign ac- 
 cent. " No, not to-morrow, for that, as the lawyers 
 say, is dies non, but on Monday." 
 
 " Something good if we've any luck," squeaked 
 Osbaldiston. "Wymondham village is our meet, and 
 if we find a good fox we may take you across the 
 Whitsendine, and down into the vale, count." 
 
 " That gray will be the thing for Monday, Matus- 
 chevitz," said Harry Goodrick, the best judge of a 
 weight-carrier in the country, unless it were Magher. 
 
 " He is a magnificent brute, such power and such 
 breeding, too ; he would carry my sixteen stone just 
 as easily as your twelve. Take my advice and ride 
 him on Monday ; the vale will be devilish heavy after 
 these rains, and the brooks are all bankfull." 
 
 "No, Sir Harry, Martindale's commands are the 
 brown mare, and the dark-chestnut, for the second 
 horse ; and, you know, Martindale brooks no question 
 of supremacy in his department." 
 
 " Oh ! Martindale be hanged ; ride the gray ; he is 
 out and out the best of the lot ; though the lot is «. 
 prime one." 
 
20 A CLUB-KOOM. 
 
 " Sorry you think so, for the gray is — " 
 
 "Is what?" asked half a dozen eager voices. 
 *' There is nothing wrong about him, I'll be sworn." 
 
 " Is — not mine." 
 
 "None of them are, for that matter, I fancy," said 
 the laird of Saddell ; " I suppose Tilbury horses you 
 as usual ; and he has done wonders for you this year. 
 By the bye, what a lot of them you've got ; I counted 
 fifty-six as they came in, beside hacks." 
 
 " He is not Tilbury's either. There were two lots 
 together : only thirty of them are mine. I wish he 
 was mine, but I can't get him, though I bid five hun- 
 dred for him at sight, without trial." 
 
 " Why, whose the devil is he then ? He looks too 
 high bred for a provincial?" 
 
 " Are we to have a new snob, count, this season?" 
 asked ill-natured Jardinier, with a coarse oath ; he 
 was expelled from Eton for foul language. " We've 
 had no one to roast, this year and more." 
 
 " The gray belongs to Mr. Fairfax," answered the 
 Russian quietly, " and from all that I have heard, I 
 don't think he will do very well for roasting, Lord 
 Jardinier." 
 
 " No, indeed, will he not," said Dick Gascoigne, 
 " Tom is the best man in Yorkshire, and neither Jar- 
 dinier nor any one else will ride much before him. 
 But I had no notion Tom was coming here. I heard 
 from him ten days ago, and he said nothing about 
 leaving Yorkshire.'* 
 
 " I don't believe, Gascoigne, he ever was in Yorkshire 
 in all his life," answered Matuschevitz with a smile. 
 
 "What, not Tom Fairfax of Newton Kyne?" 
 
 " Certainly not Tom Fairfax of Newton Kyne, but 
 Percy Fairfax of Accomac." 
 
 " Of Ace— what ?" 
 
 " Who the deuce is Percy Fairfax V* 
 
 "Where the devil is Accomac ?" 
 
A CLUB-ROOM. 21 
 
 " Is that place with an unpronounceable name in 
 Siberia, count?" 
 
 "By no means, it is in Virginia." 
 
 "Where's that?" asked Cheshire, whose hereditary 
 senatorship had not carried with it any geographical 
 lore, either hereditary or acquired. 
 
 " Oh ! don't you know that ?" cried Vauxhall scorn- 
 fully. " I thought every one knew that — it's a place 
 somewhere in Italy ; I know I used to read about it 
 in the Roman history." 
 
 "Exactly, Vaux," said Tom Gascoigne, laughing, 
 as was every one in the room at this strange jumble, 
 " The capital of Volscia, the grand-duke of it is Corio- 
 lanus — or — no, he died the other day, I think; did 
 he not, Matuschevitz ? You Russians are always mar- 
 velously posted up in history one way or other." 
 
 " To answer all your questions at once ; for, not 
 being absolutely posted up to the extent for which you 
 give me credit, I made some inquiries about Colonel 
 Fairfax, whom I met a fortnight or three weeks ago at 
 the Travelers — to answer all your questions at once, 
 Accomac is a county in Virginia ; this Virginia is not. 
 Lord Vauxhall, a place in Italy, but one of the United 
 States of North America ; and Colonel Percy Fairfax 
 is now Secretary of Legation near the Court of St. 
 James. He has been for some time with Mr. Rush 
 at Paris, and has just been appointed to London." 
 
 "The devil! a live Yankee !" 
 
 " How the deuce came he by two such names as 
 Percy and Fairfax?" asked Cheshire, who A«c? read 
 the peerage as well as the turf register. " The fellow 
 must be an impostor." . 
 
 " I rather think not," interposed Lambton, proving 
 then that he did know something about American his- 
 tory, as he proved afterward, as Earl of Durham, that 
 he knew nothing about Canadian politics. " I rather 
 think you will find, Cheshire," he continued, with a 
 
22 A CLUB-ROOM. 
 
 sweet sneer on his cynical yet half handsome features, 
 "" that, about the time when a noble ancestor of yours 
 was dancing and making bon-mots with De Grammont 
 and the other wits and bloods — as it was then the 
 fashion of the day to call them — of King Charles the 
 Second's court, the near descendants, who have now 
 both become, by chance of blood, the right heirs male 
 of the Earls Percy and the Barons Fairfax, emigrated 
 to Virginia and founded families. I suppose this gen- 
 tleman belongs to that lineage, count." 
 
 "Precisely so. Fairfax on the father's side, Percy 
 on the mother's." 
 
 " I thought as much when I heard you speak of 
 him. And what sort of person is he?" 
 
 " Very much comme il faut ; handsome enough, 
 and good manners ; tant soit peu French, rather than 
 English, in his manner ; and perhaps a little too fin- 
 ished in his English ; yet on the whole very well — a 
 fine young man I should call him, and I fancy, a good 
 fellow." 
 
 " What do you mean by too finished in his English, 
 count?" asked Jardinier, who was no great dab at 
 speaking, and no hand at all at spelling, the vernacu- 
 lar — " that must be very funny." 
 
 " Oh ! I don't know exactly ; he uses too long words 
 perhaps ; he says ' extraordinary ' when we should say 
 'odd,' and lovely' where we would say 'pretty;' and 
 he calls the 'blacks' 'our colored population.' But 
 it only sounds quaint ; no one would call it vulgar or 
 affected, and on the whole, Jardinier, I would not ad- 
 vise you to try to roast him." 
 
 "By !" exclaimed the peer, with an oath, " I 
 
 shan't try it. I have not the least taste for blunder- 
 busses in a saw-pit." 
 
 " He would hardly need those," said the Russian, 
 " though he looks likely enough to use them on occa- 
 sion. He did shoot a couple of French fellows, I fee- 
 
A CLUB-ROOM. 23 
 
 lleve, in some barbarous barrier duel whicb tbey forced 
 on him, before his breakfast. But he can shoot well 
 enough with pistols, in all conscience. I saw him beat 
 Horatio Ross, the other day, at twenty paces ; and, 
 after that, shoot a tie with D'Orsay." 
 
 "What keeps D'Orsay in town?" asked Cheshire. 
 
 "Fear of his tailor, I believe," said Matusche- 
 vitz. " But they say that Wiltshire and Pembroke 
 are going to pay his debts, so you may look for him 
 soon." 
 
 " But tell us some more about the Yankee ? Is he 
 quarrelsome that you put Jardinier on his guard 
 against him?" 
 
 "Not in the least, so far as I have ever seen ; but 
 then, you know, Jardinier sometimes is a little. Nor 
 did I put him on his guard against Colonel Fairfax, 
 only against roasting him. I like Fairfax very much, 
 as you will judge when I tell you he came with me 
 from London in my britcka, and we have taken house 
 and stables together for the season." 
 
 " Indeed ! Then you know him very well ?" 
 
 " As well as one knows a man he has known three 
 weeks." 
 
 " Rich ?" asked stingy Jardinier. 
 
 '^Par dieul I never asked him." 
 
 "No ; but you might have guessed." 
 
 "Heft that for him to do." 
 
 "Good heaven 1 You don't mean to say that he 
 \guesses,' and di*awls, and talks through his nose, like 
 Matthews in Jonathan W. Doubikins. I shall die of 
 laughing if he does, though I were sure to be shot for 
 it the next minute," said Tom Duncombe. 
 
 "No. I was only joking of course. He speaks as 
 well as you do." 
 
 "Devilish inquisitive, of course," said Jardinier 
 nothing abashed as yet — for to say the 
 
24 A CLUB-ROOM. 
 
 simple truth, it does take a good deal to abash 
 him. 
 
 ^' He never asked me if you were rich, Lord Jardi- 
 nier," Matuschevitz answered, quietly and drily ; for 
 he disliked that worthy about as much as his good-na- 
 ture and careless temper allowed him to dislike any 
 body. 
 
 " There now, for heaven's sake, Jardinier, don't 
 ask any more questions to-night," cried Tom Gas- 
 coigne, laughing enough to split his sides, " I 
 should think you'd got enough to satisfy a dozen 
 Yankees." 
 
 " I shall ask as many more questions as I please, 
 and I don't see that I've got any thing, as you call 
 it." 
 
 "Oh! don't you?" said Tom quietly, "pray ask 
 more then ; I dare say the count will answer you, and 
 it's very droll." 
 
 " That will be as I please," grumbled the other 
 doggedly, and walked off into the dining room, where 
 he called for a glass of brandy and water, drank it by 
 himself, and stalked away, as it seemed to the regret 
 of nobody. 
 
 " Well," said the riding Russian, breaking the si- 
 lence that ensued on his lordship's departure, "you 
 are a very hospitable Set of fellows, certainly ; for here 
 I have been an hour and a half, talking myself hoarse, 
 and hungry as a man who has not eaten a mouthful 
 but one tough mutton-chop at the ' Cock at Eaton,* 
 since breakfast, and not one of you have offered me a 
 glass of wine, or a mouthful of supper." 
 
 " It 's your own fault, count, for amusing us with 
 such inventions about nobly-born and highly-bred Yan- 
 kee secretaries. I believe they are all sheer imagina- 
 tion. But come along, we ordered some deviled lob- 
 sters, and broiled bones, and Grey announced the 
 arrival this afternoon of some real Colchesters. 
 
A CLUB-ROOM. 25 
 
 There Is a batch of capital Chablis in ice, nnd some 
 of Metternich's own Johannisberger, which Sefton 
 sent down the other day to Alvanley. Come along, 
 if you'll tell us the truth about this Virginian phoenix, 
 we'll feed you to your heart's desire." 
 
 '' Not a word till I have eaten, and more especially 
 drank. My tongue cleaves to my jaws." 
 
 And thereupon they adjourned to the dining-room, 
 and for a short time nothing was heard but the cluck- 
 ing of corks drawn from the long necks, and the clash 
 of knives, till the ardor of eating was repressed on all 
 sides ; and then, once more, Matuschevitz was besieged 
 by inquiries anent this new arriver at the head-quar- 
 ters and capital of fox-hunting, by general consent of 
 the world civilized or savage. 
 
 " Upon my word, I can tell you very little more 
 about him than I have told already. He brought me 
 letters from Charles de Mornay, and from our embassy, 
 the Duchess de Dino and the Vaudreuils knew him in 
 Paris, and Lord Stuart de Rothesay recommended him 
 to Sefton and Hertford ; so that of coui^se, he is comme 
 ilfaut. I think he has got letters for you too, duke," 
 he added, turning to Beaufort. '' I really think he 
 will be an acquisition to our society. He is young and 
 fresh, without being in the least raw; enjoys every 
 thino; without beino; boisterous, and is fastidious enous^h 
 without being hlaze. I am sure he is good humored, 
 for I saw him lose eight thousand the other night to 
 Dick Mildmay at ecarte, w^ithout seeming to care 
 whether he won or lost." 
 
 " Are you in earnest ?" 
 
 " Upon my honor ! He gave his check for it on 
 Coutts ; and as Dick had not seen such a sight for 
 many a day, he took a cab at ten o'clock, and they 
 paid it without looking at it." 
 
 "Ah!" said Duncombc, "that comes of Hhc colored 
 
2G A CLUB-ROOM. 
 
 population,' count. A tobacco estate or a sugar plan- 
 tation is your true El Dorado now-a-days." 
 
 *' Can he ride ?" asked Maglier. 
 
 " He sits his hack well enough, and has got a nice 
 light hand. He talks modestly enough about it 
 though, and speaks of the wild Virginia bush-hunting 
 as a poor school for Leicestershire. But, on the whole, 
 I think he will go. He is a capital judge of horse- 
 flesh, and does not stand for prices. He is better 
 mounted than I am, and you know I give what I am 
 asked." 
 
 "Yes! yes! Are you horsed by Tilbury this year, 
 or do you ride your own ?" 
 
 "A little of both. I have twelve of my own and 
 eighteen of his. Mine are the best, though ; yet not 
 quite so good as Fairfax's." 
 
 " We must call upon him, I suppose," said several 
 voices. 
 
 " Certainly. Certainly. By what Matuschevitz says 
 he must be a trump." 
 
 " Suppose you and he excuse a short notice, and 
 dine with me to-morrow," said Cheshire, on whom the 
 loss and prompt payment of the eight thousand had 
 made some impression. "I have a few friends of 
 yours, only half a dozen or so ; George Anson, Beau- 
 fort, Duncombe, Alick McDonald, Forester, and Al- 
 vanley. Lady Cheshire sees some people in the 
 evening, and it may amuse your friend as it is Sun- 
 day and a blank evening. Mention it to him, and I 
 will call upon him in the morning and do the formal. 
 What say you?" 
 
 " Oh, for myself, that I shall be charmed. For 
 Fairfax, of course I can't answer ; but I am sure he 
 has no engagement, and I have no doubt he will be 
 delighted to make his debut under the auspices of 
 such Beaux 7/eux, as will shine upon him at your 
 table." 
 
A CLUB-ROOM. 21 
 
 " I consider it an affair finished, as tlie French 
 say," answered Cheshire. ^'And in the meantime, I 
 shall say good-night, for it has grown late while we 
 have been talking about your great Virginian." 
 
 "By the bye! they used to call somehodj tJiat, 
 didn't they?" asked Vauxhall. "Who was it?" 
 
 " One General Washington," replied Lambton, 
 coolly. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! so it was ; that '11 do to talk to him 
 about." 
 
 " Admirably. But don't say any thing about Boss 
 to him." 
 
 " Why not ? Who was Boss ?" 
 
 "Why he ^6>o A; Washington." 
 
 " The devil he did. Well, you're a good fellow, 
 after all, to tell me ; for, just as likely as not I should 
 have said something ; and, if he is such a shot, it 
 would be a bore to be killed for a blunder." 
 
 "Much worse to be laughed at, hey, Yaux?" 
 
 " I believe you." 
 
 " Why yes, as to that, you're like the eels." 
 
 "What eels?" 
 
 " Used to it, you know. Ha ! ha ! Well, good- 
 night." 
 
 " Good-night, every body." 
 
 So they parted. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 A VIRGINIAN. 
 
 Breakfast was over in the snug hunting-quarters 
 of Count Matuschevitz and his Virginian friend, al- 
 though the materials had not yet been removed ; and 
 the remnants of the cold grouse pie, the rognons au 
 vin de madere, the omelette aux huitres, the chocolate 
 pot, and the two empty long-necks, redolent still of 
 the bouquet of chateau margaux, still spoke volumes 
 for the nature of the feed which had been set before 
 the representatives of the two most opposite powers, 
 the greatest despotism and the only republic of the 
 modern world. It was a calm, soft, genial morning, 
 such as is rarely seen in England during the dull and 
 depressing month of December — the month par excel- 
 lence of mist and melancholy, suicide and snow-squalls 
 — with a sun shining warmly through the fleecy va- 
 pors which partially veiled his lustre ; and a breath 
 of south-westerly wind, that fanned the brow and re- 
 galed the senses, like the first sigh of spring-time. 
 So grateful, indeed, was the weather, and so agreeable 
 this lingering of a gentler season into the very lap of 
 winter, that one of the windows of the breakfast-room 
 was left open, and that the friends sat on the broad, 
 soft cushions, with which the window-seat was spread, 
 gazing out into the unpaved yellow road, along which 
 the mingled groups of peasantry and gentry were re- 
 turning from the little village church, morning service 
 just ended. 
 
 The Russian minister has been introduced already ; 
 his comrade, Colonel Fairfax, was a much taller and 
 (28) 
 
A VIRGINIAN. 29 
 
 more manly-looking person ; indeed, he was consider- 
 ably above the average height of men, and was built 
 in proportion, with broad shoulders, a deep, round 
 chest, thin flanks, and limbs of singular symmetry 
 and grace. 
 
 His face was rather expressive than handsome, al- 
 though the features were well-cut, regular, and 
 shapely ; and it would not have been easy, even for a 
 practical physiognomist, to say whether the expres- 
 sion was pleasing or the reverse. 
 
 The brow was broad and well developed, and the 
 dark brown hair, which clustered over it in rich, loose 
 waves, was silky and luxuriant ; but there was some- 
 thing like an habitual frown, of gloom or discontent, 
 it would seem, rather than of temper, which kept the 
 face continually ruffled. His eyes were well opened, 
 dark and lustrous, but there was at times a quick and 
 fiery light in those clear orbs, that told a strange tale 
 to the wary observer, of fierce dormant passions, kept 
 at rest only by a resolute and energetic will. There 
 were some lines, too, from the angles of the nostril 
 downward, though these were partially concealed by a 
 long upturned hussar moustache, which it was clear to 
 see could easily degenerate into a sneer. The lips 
 were thin, and in their ordinary state, compressed so 
 firmly as to indicate a character of indomitable force 
 and firmness ; a character which was in no sort belied 
 by the bold and square-cut outlines of the chin, par- 
 tially shaded as it was by a long, soft imperial a V 
 Henri Quatre. His complexion was singularly dark 
 for an European, or one of European descent, but per- 
 fectly clear and free from swarthiness, or the imputa- 
 tion of arising from any admixture of blood. 
 
 On the whole, while his features were at rest, though 
 no one could have failed to pronounce him a good- 
 looking, perhaps even a handsome man, no one would 
 have thought of calling him attractive or pleasing ; 
 
30 A VIRGINIAN. 
 
 tliat he possessed intellect in an unusual degree would 
 hardly be doubted, but the perusal of his features sug- 
 gested more than a doubt as to whether that intellect 
 were not hard, and keen, and dry, as well as subtle 
 and pervading, whether it would not in all probability 
 lean rather to the stern realities of necessity and na- 
 ture, than to "the soft side of the heart" in " which 
 the affections are." Certainly he was not the man to 
 whom an innocent child would come up spontaneously 
 to seek acquaintance ; or on whose knee a dog would 
 be likely to lay its head, craving a caress, uninvited. 
 Still, when he smiled, the whole of the dark, gloomy 
 face lighted up, as if by magic, for that smile was no 
 less benignant than it was ineffably bright, imagina- 
 tive and cheery. 
 
 In short, grave and animated, he was two different 
 beings. In his fits of gloom and abstraction you 
 might have taken him for the gloomy and jealous Lu- 
 cifer of Paradise Lost. Animated and joyous, you 
 might have deemed him a seraph of love and mercy. 
 
 At the moment of our glancing at him for the first 
 time, however, there was nothing especially seraphic 
 either in his aspect or employment ; for he was loung- 
 ing on the divan which we have described, completely 
 dressed, in a close-fitting waistcoat and very tight 
 trousers of black cloth, setting gaiter-wise over a pair 
 of patent-leather boots, the whole turn out a good deal 
 too elaborate for the English idea of a gentleman's 
 morning garb, in the country more especially. He 
 had a voluminous black silk scarf fastened with two 
 large pearl pins about his neck ; a rich brocade dress- 
 ing-gown, and an Algerine fez to answer the purpose 
 of a smoking cap upon his head. 
 
 Thus got up, as we have said, rather too extensively 
 for Melton Mowbray, he had lounged for nearly an 
 hour, languidly and carelessly inhaling the fumes of a 
 great chibouque, the bowl of which rested on the car- 
 
A VIRGINIAN. 31 
 
 pet, looking out of the window as earnestly as if lie 
 was noting every thing that passed by, but without 
 uttering one word to his friend, who was deeply enga- 
 ged in an article of the Edinburg Review, on the 
 treaty of Unkiar SJcelessi, and the policy of Russia. 
 
 At this moment the door opened, and a servant out 
 of livery came in, bearing two notes and as many vis- 
 iting cards upon a silver waiter, which he tendered 
 first to Fairfax and then to his master. 
 
 "Ah ! just so," exclaimed Matuschevitz, " Cheshire's 
 visiting cards, and begs me to apologize to you for 
 short notice, and so forth, but trusts you will excuse 
 want of formality from consideration of desire to make 
 your acquaintance — my lady wrote that note, I'll be 
 sworn ; Chess couldn't have managed that to save his 
 life. Yours is of course the regular thing. Yes, I 
 see." 
 
 " The Earl and Countess of Cheshire request the 
 honor of Col. Fairfax's company to dinner on Sunday, 
 19th, at eight o'clock. 
 
 R. S. V. P." 
 
 " Well, take your pen, colonel, and indite — happy 
 to do yourself the honor, and so forth ; what are you 
 looking so gloomy about, one would think you weie 
 invited to fight, not to dine?" 
 
 " To tell you the truth, count, I had about as soon 
 do the one as the other ; but I suppose the thing is 
 unavoidable, and that I cannot in ordinary decorum 
 shun it if I would." 
 
 " Of course, you cannot ; and why should you ? 
 You did not come to Melton to live like a hermit, I 
 suppose." 
 
 *'No, I came to hunt," replied Fairfax, somewhat 
 ungraciously, " but as this has occurred, I'll prepare 
 the answer." 
 
32 A VIRGINIAN. 
 
 " Is Lord ChesMre's man waiting, Langton V" asked 
 the count ; " Ah ! exactly," he continued, as the man 
 answered in the affirmative, " then reach me the wri- 
 ting things, I'll write a line too." 
 
 And by the time Fairfax had completed his elabo- 
 rate and formal billet, the count had scrawled ten lines 
 and sealed them, and the companions were again left 
 alone. 
 
 " What in the name of heaven, my dear fellow, can 
 be your dislike to dining at Cheshire's ? You will meet 
 all the best fellows here at his table, not to say two of 
 the most beautiful women in England. No one gives 
 better feeds — what can it be?" 
 
 " In the first place, tell me what sort of person is 
 this Cheshire?" 
 
 " Oh ! very much like other people — like other men 
 of fashion, I mean ; no saint, of course ; but no 
 greater sinner than his neighbors. He is very well 
 bred to people to whom he chooses to be well bred ; 
 very good humored when he is pleased ; he plays high ; 
 rides pretty well ; and is as agreeable when he holds 
 his tongue, as at any other time ; nature certainly did 
 not endow him too liberally with brains ; and, for all 
 his Eton education, I do not think that he has assisted 
 nature much." 
 
 "Just as I expected," answered Fairfax; "except 
 that you look at him, or at least depict him as you do 
 every thing and every body, couleur de rose. 1 be- 
 lieve this Cheshire to be the most heartless, brainless, 
 soulless voluptuary that ever drew the breath of life — 
 no kind, no generous, no feeling action is recorded of 
 him. An insolent, ungenerous, overbearing aristocrat ; 
 unscrupulous with men, faithless and false with women. 
 If he be honorable in his play and turf transactions, it 
 is because he lacks the temptation to be otherwise. 
 No one who knows his conduct to women, can doubt 
 how he would behave to men if he dar^. or if it were 
 
A VIRGINIAN. 33 
 
 Lis interest to behave ill. I hate to consort with such 
 a man, even casually." 
 
 " Yet you must do so, or if you do not, you must 
 live in absolute seclusion. You can go no -where with- 
 out meeting him ; and if no one — which I suppose no 
 one does — esteem him au fond very deeply, still he 
 is hand-in-glove with every one ; and there is not a 
 pleasanter house than his in Melton, or in May Fair." 
 
 "All very true, I dare say," replied Fairfax, shrug- 
 ging his shoulders, a la mode de France; "still I 
 don't like it. Four men here I have resolved to avoid 
 as much as I can, in consequence of what I have 
 learned of their characters since I have been in Eng- 
 land ; and though I shall, of course, be civil when I 
 do meet them, I shall avoid meeting them as far as in 
 me lies." 
 
 " And who may be the four ?" 
 
 " Your friend, Lord Cheshire, Henry de R*, Lord 
 Jardinier, and Bellamy. I'll none of them." 
 
 " Pardon me, Colonel Fairfax, if I speak to you 
 plainly ; you know that I cannot mean to offend you, 
 and that I have seen much more of English society than 
 you have. There is nothing which is held in such con- 
 tempt and ridicule here, among the three hundred peo- 
 ple who constitute the worlds as the affecting to be 
 better than your neighbors, to take up the part of the 
 Quixotic reformer, and to attempt to put down things 
 or persons in accordance with your own opinion, and 
 not with the dictates of society. To eschew a man 
 markedly on account of those petty, if paltry, vices, 
 which, though contemptible and odious, do not come 
 fairly before the tribunal of the public, is to attack 
 the public itself; and any attempt at dictation of that 
 kind the public will resent and punish. If you avoid 
 Jardinier and Bellamy, for instance, even to dropping 
 their acquaintance quietly^ that is one thing. The 
 temper of both those men is overbearing and detesta- 
 171 
 
34 A VIRGINIAN. 
 
 ble, and it is your concern, whether your associates 
 are pleasant and good temjiered or no. To exhibit 
 any marked avoidance on the other hand of De R* 
 and Cheshire, because of vices which cannot directly 
 interfere with you, is to meddle with what is not 
 your concern. If a man cheats at cards, refuses his 
 debts of honor, suflfers his nose to be pulled, or does 
 any other overt act, for this, society will cut him in 
 an instant, if he were their nearest and dearest friend. 
 And the same of a woman who commits a faux pas 
 avowedly, and runs away from, or is divorced by, her 
 husband. Men who are merely stingy, selfish, heart- 
 less, or fools, and women who flirt, coquette to the ut- 
 most limit of opinion, they may despise and laugh at, 
 but they will not cut ; and rightly, for such things be- 
 ing matters of opinion and of rumor ma7/ be contemned, 
 but must not be, and ought 7iot to be punished. 
 Therefore, as a friend, I would advise you, my dear 
 colonel, to avoid setting yourself up for a reformer or 
 revolutionizer on your first debut. They would not 
 stand it from one of themselves, much less from a for- 
 eigner ; and to receive the soubriquet of the Virginia 
 Quixote would be a blow which you never would re- 
 cover." 
 
 " I believe you are in the right, count," said Fairfax, 
 laughing, " and, at all events, right or wrong, I will 
 take your advice. Still, such characters as that I 
 have heard ascribed to this man particularly, are most 
 odious to me. I hear he takes positive pleasure in 
 slighting and giving actual pain to young men or 
 girls just coming out, as noble as himself, but not yet 
 established by the caprice of fashion. That he is ha- 
 bitually rude and haughty to subordinates and inferi- 
 ors, and worst of all, that, vicious, a voluptuary, and 
 a gambler himself, he spares no pains to make every 
 one with whom he associates as hard, and cold, and 
 selfish, as cruel and as base as he is himself. It will 
 
A VIRGINIAN. 35 
 
 be hard work for me to keep up the common show of 
 civility toward him." 
 
 " I did not know you were so straight-laced, colo- 
 nel," replied Matuschevitz, laughing; " and paidon 
 me, if I say that I do not think your practice agrees 
 altogether with your principles." 
 
 "Who, I straight-laced?" exclaimed the Virginian, 
 starting to his feet. " Not the least bit of it, I assure 
 you, count. On the contrary, if there be one thing on 
 earth that I do most cordially and utterly detest, it ia 
 the hypocrite. I, heaven knows ! I have no claim to 
 superior virtue ; I drink sometimes, I play sometimes 
 — and both of them more than is either wise or good ; 
 I make love very often — almost as often as I see a 
 very pretty or a very piquante woman. I dare say I 
 do all sorts of bad things, sometimes ; but what I mean 
 to say is, that I do not make such things the rule and 
 object of my life — that if I do such things at all, I do 
 them from impulse, not from calculation, and am very 
 sorry for them afterward. For the rest, if I da 
 wrongly myself, I had rather cut oflf my right hand 
 than induce another to do likewise." 
 
 " I believe you, my dear fellow, entirely ; and I 
 think as you do myself. I have no respect whatever, 
 nor regard for such characters as Cheshire myself; 
 nor do I lead him to suppose I have ; but I treat him, 
 when I meet him in society, as one gentleman is ex- 
 pected to treat another. I go to his house because I 
 meet every body that I know, and many persons whom 
 I value there ; and I ask him to mine in return, be- 
 cause I am expected so to do, and because some sac- 
 rifice of our own prejudices is due to society. But 
 enough of this for the present. It has got to be three 
 o'clock while we are talking morals ; suppose we have 
 some luncheon, and then walk down to the stables and 
 take a look at the horses." 
 
86 A VIRGINIAN. 
 
 " I'm agreed — but I don't care mucli about lun- 
 cheon." 
 
 " We don't dine till eight, remember, and Cheshire's 
 eight is very certain to be nine." 
 
 "Well, as far as some oysters and a glass of Cha- 
 blis, I don't mind." 
 
 The bell was speedily rung, the breakfast things re- 
 moved, and the natives on the shell, with no condi- 
 ment save simple lemon juice, and the ice-pail, with 
 the long-neck protruding, took their place. 
 
 Meantime, the friends retired to complete their rig, 
 and in ten minutes made their appearance again be- 
 low ; Fairfax having replaced his dressing-gown with 
 a most elaborate French black frock, with a glossy hat 
 of the most extreme ton, lemon kid gloves, and a cane 
 with a great emerald at the top of it. Matuschevitz, 
 more au fait to the Melton style, wore a dark brown 
 Newmarket coat with Good-wood club buttons, shep- 
 herd's plaid trousers, and a shawl waistcoat, with a 
 blue bird's eye round his neck, doeskin gloves on his 
 hands, and a heavy jockey-whip under his arm. 
 
 At any time an English country town or village is 
 a pleasing or interesting sight, but Melton Mowbray 
 is much more than this, it is a curious, a singular, an 
 unique sight, for Melton Mowbray is a capital; yes, 
 gentle reader, as distinctly a capital as London or 
 Paris, Washington or St. Petersburgh ; Melton Mow- 
 bray and New Market, two purely English, siii generis, 
 capitals ; the one of fox-hunting, the other of racing 
 — each with its ministry, officials, senate, representa- 
 tives, its every article, point, device, which constitutes 
 an imperium in imperio. Time was, until James and 
 Charles the First, the one of evil, and the other of 
 unhappy memory, betook themselves to deer-hunting 
 and racing. New Market was but a petty village in the 
 midst of Chalky Wolds, distinguished only by the 
 dykes and ditches — since nicknamed of the devil 
 
A VIRGINIAN. 37 
 
 — extant to this day, and still almost inaccessible, by 
 which Boadicea and her brave Iceni strove to repef 
 the brazen infantry of the first C^sars. 
 
 Time was, when the grandsires of the now rising 
 generationj the grandsires of Young England were in 
 the prime of manhood, that Melton Mowbray was but» 
 a humble country town, though the centre of the' 
 greatest hunting country the wide world has ever wit- 
 nessed. 
 
 In those days fox hunting was a rude and barba- 
 rous sport. Fox-hunters rose in the dead of the night 
 to meet at the covert-side by daylight, and trail the 
 fox to his lair, and thence rouse him. They hunted 
 with huge, long-eared, slow, crook-kneed, dew-lapped 
 hounds ; they rode short-barreled, short-backed, ac- 
 tive half-bred cobs. They found their fox at sunrise, 
 and, if they were very fortunate, killed him about sun- 
 set. Now, all is changed. Fox-hunting is a science ; 
 the feeding, the physicking, the exercising, the break- 
 ing of the hounds, the wintering, the summering, the 
 conditioning the hunters, is a matter of as deep lore, 
 of as much difficult indoctrination, as the training of 
 a racer for four mile heats, or preparing a man for a 
 prize-fight or a foot-race. 
 
 The men who do the thing, too, are no less changed 
 than the thing itself. 
 
 Then it was, the Squires Westerns — the muddy- 
 beer drinking, bad-tobacco smoking, ignorant, illite- 
 rate blockheads, who never visited cities., nor thought 
 of decencies or decorums. Now it is the cream of the 
 first men of the first society in the world, for manhood 
 and cultivation, Saxon hardihood and Norman chiv- 
 alry, aristocratic refinements and popular simplicity 
 combined. 
 
 And of these characteristics Melton shows the type. 
 It is still a country town — during the summer season, 
 nothing but the merest of country towns — in shops, in 
 
38 A VIRGINIAN. 
 
 public buildings, in any thing belonging solely to it- 
 self* unequal to any village of five hundred inhabi- 
 tants in the United States. Yet it is filled with villas, 
 empty for one half the year, redolent of every luxury, 
 overflowing with every comfort during the other half; 
 built up with lines of stables, more solid than our 
 most massive warehouses, handsomer, and better fin- 
 ished within than most of our country churches, capa- 
 ble of containing the horses to mount ten regiments 
 of cavalry. 
 
 On an average a hundred gentlemen would turn out 
 in those days, in scarlet, white leathers and top-boots, 
 six days in the week from Melton Mowbray ; and with 
 a less stud than twenty-five or thirty horses no man 
 could do that. 
 
 No one could dream of riding to the Quorn without 
 two horses daily in the field; the second ridden by a 
 light boy, with a quick eye and good judgment, hov- 
 ering on the outskirts of the run, riding the chords of 
 arcs and hypothenuses of triangles, and ready at a 
 moment's notice to remount his master, in case of ac- 
 cidents or emergency. 
 
 No horse, not the best that ever trod on a shodden 
 hoof, can come again above three times in a fortnight, 
 very few above twice ; and therefore taking casualties, 
 coughs, lameness, and sometimes deaths, into account, 
 no man can hope to hunt every day at Melton, during 
 the season, without at least twenty-five — scarcely with- 
 out thirty horses in his stable. 
 
 To every five horses one man and two boys are al- 
 lowed ; besides a stud-groom to each stable, a man in 
 his way and line no less important or esteemed than 
 John Scott, the great English, or Sam Laird, the 
 great American trainer, to overlook and be answera- 
 ble for the whole. 
 
 The whole array cannot be counted at less than 
 twenty men and thirty horses, for the field work of 
 
A VIRGINIAN. 39 
 
 every gentleman who hunts regularly at Melton Mow- 
 bray ; besides which, half of them bring their families 
 along, beautiful wives, accomplished sisters, French 
 soubrettes, English nursery-maids, men cooks and va- 
 lets, persons far more important than their masters, 
 in their own eyes, and those of the gazing rustics. 
 
 During one half the year, so utterly deserted, that 
 in a walk through its main street you shall not meet 
 one man in five who can do much more than write his 
 name ; during the other six months, two men out of 
 every three you meet will be of noble birth, every 
 fourth a baronet, and one in six a peer of a realm — 
 three thousand hunters, worth, taken en masse, not 
 less than £350,000 sterling— §1,750,000— and two 
 thousand stable followers. 
 
 Conceive this in a town not half so big, nor one- 
 tenth part as pretty as Springfield or Newhaven. 
 
 Of a truth, if Melton Mowbray be not a capital, 
 and one of the most wondrous that ever has been 
 seen in this world, we should rejoice to know what 
 were one. 
 
 Some such thoughts as these, I presume, had been 
 wandering vaguely through the head of Percy Fair- 
 fax, as he walked silently down a bye-street, into 
 which they had turned instantly on leaving their own 
 door, leading to the open country, and the exercising 
 grounds immediately about the town, in the suburbs 
 of which stand the stables. 
 
 For some time they met no persons of their own 
 rank, but scores of neatly-dressed, knee-breechesed 
 and top-booted, or kerseymere-gaitered men, with 
 smooth-shaved faces, and short-cropped hair, whom 
 you could have sworn, whether you had met them in 
 Texas or Caifraria, on Mont-Blanc or the summits of 
 the Himmalaya, to be English grooms, every one of 
 whom smirked and nodded, and pulled his top-knot 
 down over his forehead in gnostic greeting to the Rus- 
 
40 A VIRGINIAN. 
 
 sian coimtj of whose name they made most unuttera- 
 ble havoc. 
 
 Mcituschevitz, it may not be denied, watched his 
 friend closely, and he certainly did fancy that he could 
 trace something of secret wonder and admiration con- 
 cealed beneath an exterior which he set down as a 
 mixture of Mohawk impassibility of feature, and Par- 
 isian nil admirari. 
 
 " Upon my conscience," said the American at 
 length, "these English are an astonishing people." 
 
 " True, gallant colonel," replied Matuschevitz, 
 laughing. '' But since when have you discovered the 
 fact, or what now moves your admiration?" 
 
 "It is not admiration," answered Percy gravely, 
 " but astonishment. Though after all there is some- 
 thing almost admirable in the method and regularity 
 of all this. But to think that all these men, the rich- 
 est in this land of riches, should annually leave their 
 own demesnes, each larger than a German principal- 
 ity, their country-houses more magnificent than an 
 Italian palazzo, to come and winter in little cottages 
 at which a New York merchant would turn up his 
 nose, while they lodge their horses in stables and 
 their hounds in kennels equal to foreign palaces !" 
 
 " There is something in what you say, colonel. 
 Whatever an Englishman thinks it worth while to do 
 at all, he thinks it worth while to do well. Field 
 sports are the natural taste of every Englishman, 
 from a peer of the realm to the cadger in his cart, or 
 the tailor on his shop-board ; and whatever science 
 can effect, experience substantiate, or wealth procure, 
 that is brought to bear upon the pursuit. I have no 
 hesitation in saying, Fairfax, that there are a hun- 
 dred stud-grooms, farriers, veterinary surgeons and the 
 like, who have devoted more time to the anatomical 
 and physical study of their patients, the dog and 
 horse ; who understand their diseases better, and reap 
 
A VIRGINIAN. 41 
 
 a larger profit from attending them, in this little coun- 
 try town, than the majority of your country practi- 
 tioners in the United States have done, or do, in re- 
 gard to their human clients." 
 
 " I don't doubt it, count," said Fairfax, with a 
 smile. "I can't say much for the scientific attain- 
 ments, or the profits either of a Yankee country doc- 
 tor. But how the deuce do you know so much about 
 our internal life and habits ! you, who say you have 
 never crossed the Atlantic, although sometimes I 
 doubt it?" 
 
 "Ah! cest mon metier ca,'' answered Matusche- 
 vitz. " We diplomats are cense to know every thing." 
 
 " Upon my life ! I believe you Russians do know 
 every thing. Are you sure count, that you are not 
 born knowing every thing ? But who are these two 
 coming to meet us ? I suppose you know that." 
 
 " I rather suppose I do. Wait a moment, however, 
 and you will know also." 
 
 The two who were approaching, though two, were 
 by no means a pair ; for they were as dissimilar in 
 character as in stature and appearance. 
 
 He to the right was a middle-sized man at that 
 time of some twenty-eight or thirty years, rather 
 thickly-set than otherwise, and with some early symp- 
 toms of a tendency to run to fat. His face was full 
 and florid ; and, though his features were very regular 
 and his profile decidedly handsome, there was such an 
 expression of listless, languid superciliousness, and 
 such an insipidity in the lack-lustre eye, that the tout 
 ensemble was any thing but agreeable. He had a pro- 
 fusion of light auburn — in many persons it would be 
 called red — curly hair, on top of which his hat was 
 set very jauntily aside. He wore a broad-checked red 
 and white batiste cravat, a claret-colored cut-away, 
 into the left hand skirt pocket of which he had thrust 
 his hand, holding a silver-mounted riding-whip, so a£ 
 
42 A VIRGmiAJT. 
 
 to bring the tail over upon his hip, a canary-colored 
 waistcoat, and drab riding-trousers fitting as close as 
 his skin. 
 
 If he had been, as from his appearance and air he 
 well might, a west-end shopman doing the genteel, or 
 a sporting stock-broker cutting it fat, he would have 
 been voted by every one who saw him, what he really 
 was, a disagreeable, over-done snob, and a most insuf- 
 ferably vulgar puppy. But as he was a very rich, 
 and very-long-descended earl, none of whose ancestors 
 had in the least resembled their descendant, he was 
 the fashion, and the bad exemplar of the dissolute of 
 Young England. 
 
 The gentleman who walked beside him was taller 
 by a head, admirably well proportioned, and as fine a 
 specimen of an English nobleman as ever gladdened 
 the eyes of bluff King Harry, or his man-minded 
 daughter, Royal Bess, of both whom it is recorded 
 that they loved to look upon the thewes and sinews of 
 a man. 
 
 His features were as fine, as noble, and as hand- 
 some as his person and his mien ; and his expression 
 the openest, the kindest, and the most unaffected 
 that ever encouraged an inferior to present his suit 
 with confidence. 
 
 Whereas the other, despite his insufferable air of 
 pride, affectation and superciliousness, despite his 
 flashy clothes and jaunty air, could hardly be mis- 
 taken for a gentleman, this one had such an air of in- 
 born natural aristocracy that, despite the plain, good- 
 humored simplicity of his address, even had he been 
 disguised in the meanest and most clownish garb, no 
 one could doubt for a moment, that he stood in the 
 presence of a nobleman. 
 
 "" Ah, Matuschevitz, how do?" 
 
 " How are you, count ?" 
 
 ^'Well, Ches — Good morning to you, duke. Let 
 
A VIRGINIAN. 43 
 
 me make you know Colonel Fairfax. Colonel, the 
 Duke of Beaufort, Lord Cbeshire." 
 
 ''I thought as much," thought Fairfax within him- 
 self, but he said nothing, only bowed and touched his 
 hat, without shaking hands a V Americaine." 
 
 " A-h — Colonel Fairfax — charmed— a-h. Had the 
 pleasure — a-a-h — to send my card this morning — a-h. 
 Happy to have the honor, a-h — dinner at eight — yes 
 — Lady Cheshire — a-h." 
 
 Very different was the greeting of the Duke, who, 
 when the peer had got through with his stultified St. 
 James Street a-ahing, offered his hand frankly. 
 
 " I have had the pleasure of hearing of you before, 
 Colonel Fairfax. Rothesay wrote to me about you. 
 I believe you have a letter for me from our mutual 
 friend Talleyrand. Delighted you have come to see 
 us here ; this is the place of all others for a foreigner 
 to see, who wishes to see what is most worth seeing, 
 most peculiar, in us English — this and New Market. 
 On the Continent you will find a thousand things as 
 fine as any we can show you, some perhaps finer, 
 palaces, pictures, architecture, armies — but the world 
 has but one New Market, but one Melton Mow- 
 bray." 
 
 " I was making nearly the same observation to 
 Count Matuschevitz, just as we met you, sir. In 
 England you make your rudest sports, many of our 
 republican sovereigns would call them toils, into a 
 luxury." 
 
 " I hope you will not think, on further trial, that 
 ive make our luxuries a toil. Our mediseurs do charge 
 us, I believe, with something of the kind. But which 
 way are you bound?" 
 
 " We are going to the stables to inspect the cattle 
 and make arrangements for to-morrow." 
 
 *'Are your stables mysterious, or visible to th& 
 uninitiated?" 
 
44 A VIKGINIAN. 
 
 " Exceedingly visible, I assure you. Pray come 
 along, if you have no better way of killing the time 
 before dinner." 
 
 " No better way in the world." 
 
 " Let us go then. It is not a hundred yards, and 
 I have got some things I am not ashamed to show 
 you, particularly a pair of very fast New York 
 trotters." 
 
 "Very fast?" 
 
 "Yes. Three minutes together." 
 
 '^ Andiamo.'' 
 
 And therewith they went. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 A HUNTING STABLE. 
 
 Less than five minutes walking brouglit the party 
 to the door of the stables, which, unvisited as yet by 
 Percy Fairfax, contained the gallant horses on which 
 he was to make his debut, on the following day, before 
 the great convention of the best sportsmen in all Eng- 
 land. He had never as yet ridden once to English 
 fox-hounds, and every one who has ever seen the two 
 knows how widely different is that glorious sport, as 
 pursued in Virginia and some of the southern states 
 of North America, and as performed even in the pro- 
 vincial countries of England, much more at the very 
 metropolis of fox-hunting, Melton Mowbray. 
 
 In the latter, no fields less than forty acres, smooth 
 as a Turkey carpet, without a bush or brake to stint 
 the rattling gallop of the thorough-breds, nothing less 
 than which can live behind the racing, high-drawn, 
 fine-bred modern fox-hounds; old white-thorn fences 
 with double rails and ditches, insuperable obstacles to 
 any thing short of the indomitable bottom of English 
 horses and the unconquerable pluck of English riders, 
 or timber palings six feet perpendicular height, or 
 rivulets, like the Whissendine, with ten yards of bright 
 water between its level banks, all to be taken in the 
 stride, without the time to choose a favorable place to 
 take them ; foxes that are found in small furze coverts, 
 or gorses as they are called in Leicestershire, and go 
 away straight as an arrow, across country, never 
 doubling or running rings, till they either go to ground 
 without the limits of the hunt, and are so saved, or 
 
 (45) 
 
46 A HUNTING STABLE. 
 
 are run into by the pack, in the middle of some wide 
 grass field, game to the last ; and render up their 
 lives to the triumphant chorus of who-whoop !" add to 
 this a scent so burning, that the hounds rarely stoop 
 to pick it from the tainted herbage ; but drinking it 
 with dilated nostrils from the free atmosphere on every 
 breath of which it steams aloft, where pug has passed 
 by, sweep along, heads up and sterns down, all to- 
 gether, so that a table cloth shall cover them, fre- 
 quently running twelve miles in the hour ; no slight 
 pace to be maintained by horses, with twelve or four- 
 teen stone weight upon their backs, often through 
 ground so heavy as to hold them fetlock-deep, some- 
 times hough-deep, in tenacious clay, and this coupled 
 to the extra exertion of clearing not less than thirty 
 fences, such as I have described, to every mile of 
 country. 
 
 In the latter, wide woodlands to be traversed, full 
 of dense brakes and swamps impassable for horses, to 
 which the hunted fox clings for the dear life, running 
 short rings, doubling and dogging before the heavy, 
 deep-flewed, dew-lapped, black and tan, or blue-mot- 
 tled dogs of the old Southern strain which form the 
 principal material of the Virginian packs ; and never 
 facing the open, unless where a field or two intervenes, 
 like a narrow channel parting two continents of wood- 
 land ; few heavy leaps to be taken, save now and then 
 a snake-rail fence in the open — and a deuced nasty 
 jump it is, too, were they more frequent — and once 
 and again a fallen tree, a drain, or a rivulet in the 
 woodland, the whole not amounting to a dozen fences 
 in a run, and these trivial as compared to English 
 bull-finches, or stake-and-bound raspers ; the pace 
 nothing to distress even an ordinary hack in ordinary 
 condition ; to conclude, no riding to the hounds, for 
 to ride up to hounds, or even oicar to hounds, in such 
 country were impossible, and to gallop along the 
 
A HUNTING STABLE. 47 
 
 wood-roads, or througli the opener tracts of -woodland, 
 cutting off angles and keeping in the inner curve of 
 arcs, so as to hold the unseen pack within hearing, is 
 the acme of excellence in the sportsmanship of tho 
 American fox-chase. 
 
 All this was of course well known to Percy Fairfax, 
 who was not only thoroughly practical as a sportsman 
 in his native land, but well read, and thoroughly im- 
 bued, though theoretically only, in all the principles 
 of the science of sportsmanship abroad. He was a 
 capital horseman, as a horseman ; and there was pro- 
 bably no single leap, however dangerous or awkward, 
 at which he would not have put his horse as well, and 
 carried him as clearly over it, as the best rider in all 
 Leicestershire. But to take one fence at your ease, 
 and to take a long succession at your speed, as you 
 may chance to find them in your line, out of bad 
 ground, perhaps with your horse blown or laboring, 
 are two things widely different. Nay, even to gallop 
 a horse across the mole-hill knotted pastures, and the 
 deep meadow-land of Leicestershire and the vale of 
 Belvoir, as he must be galloped, not cantered, or held 
 hard-in-hand, in order to keep a place with hounds, is 
 a thing to be learned, and that difficulty, not to be 
 hit off at first sight by a tyro. 
 
 Nor was this, either, unknown to Fairfax ; and, in- 
 deed, had it been in the man ever to be diffident or 
 shy, or distrustful of his own powers, he would have 
 been something nervous at exhibiting himself in a 
 capacity so strange and so new to himself, before a 
 field so exquisitely mounted, so perfectly accomplished 
 in the art, so critically fastidious in their tastes and 
 judgments, and so likely to regard with polite and 
 courteous tranquillity of sarcasm any failure on the 
 part of a foreigner so bold as to enroll himself a fol- 
 lower of their more than royal pastime, and so unskill 
 ful as to fail of going through with it. 
 
48 A nUNTINQ STABLE. 
 
 But to say truth, a want of confidence in his own 
 capabilities, of a secret belief that he can do any thing, 
 whether tried or untried before, as well at least as 
 any other man, if not better, is rarely the defect of 
 any American ; it certainly was not that of Percy 
 Fairfax. Nor was it, indeed, to be wondered at, that 
 he had a sufficient stock of self-reliance ; for in a youth 
 and manhood spent in many vicissitudes of tempta- 
 tion, trial, and peril, he had been many times cast 
 upon his own resources, and as they had never failed 
 him, it scarcely could be a matter of surprise that he 
 should place much reliance on his own foresight, judg- 
 ment, and execution. 
 
 This self-reliance was not, however, the blind, stul- 
 tified, arrogant self-confidence peculiar to the ignorant, 
 vulgar, and prejudiced Yankee, who is at all times 
 ready to guess that he can do any named thing, not 
 because he has any cause to believe himself able, but 
 because he has no conception of the difficulties of the 
 thing to be done. Fairfax, on the contrary, clearly 
 b'aw the obstacles in his way before he could become a 
 thorough across-country-rider ; and not expecting to 
 electrify older and better sportsmen than himself, or 
 to astonish all Melton Mowbray "with noble horse- 
 manship," was yet confident that he should acquit 
 himself in the field, as not only to avoid ridicule or 
 censure, but to acquire for himself some credit, in an 
 arena so difficult to a foreigner by common consent of 
 all, as an English hunting-field. 
 
 He had traveled, moreover, so long and so widely, 
 being moreover as fastidious in his perception of nice- 
 ties, and as jealously sensitive of ridicule as if he had 
 been an English nobleman, that he had attained that 
 ne plus ultra the 7iil admirari^ as perfectly as though 
 he had inherited it as his birthright, and was, there- 
 fore, trebly unlikely to be guilty of the least faux j^as, 
 
j|r!J!illt''i'ii'' i4 
 
A BUNTING STABLE. 49 
 
 which should make him ring false metal in the ears of 
 the hard-riding exquisites around him. 
 
 "While he was walking, silently himself, along with 
 his three noble companions of the moment, some such 
 thoughts as these were passing through his brain, and 
 he was prepared to be astonished, and yet determined 
 to exhibit no astonishment, at what he had never yet 
 seen, the internal nicety and perfect order and ar- 
 rangement of an English stable menage. For though 
 perhaps there are no men in the world more perfect 
 both in the theory and the practice of managing, con- 
 ditioning and training race-horses, especially for four 
 mile heats, which closely resemble the management ot 
 the thorough-bred English hunter, or steeple-chaser, 
 than the Virginians, it must also be admitted that 
 their stables are built and furnished and conducted in a 
 scrambling, make-shift kind of way ; as different from 
 the regular method of an English stable-department, 
 as are the tactics of a regular regiment from the dis- 
 orderly movements of a raw militia, or the discipline 
 and silence of a ship of war from the brawl and bustle 
 of a French or Italian merchantman. 
 
 They soon reached the doors of the stabling, which 
 had been selected and ordered by the old and experi- 
 enced stud-groom of Count Matuschevitz for his mas- 
 ter, and the young American, who now stood nattily 
 dressed in his close-bodied cut-away coat, long-waisted 
 waistcoat, loose-cut drab-breeches and white-top boots, 
 expectant at the entrance. 
 
 "Well, Roberts," said the Duke of Beaufort, who 
 knew him of old for a veteran Meltonian, and whose 
 confidence in his own true nobility and perfect good- 
 natured self-reliance, kept him entirely free from any 
 touch of that snob-aristocracy, which has been alluded 
 to in the case of Cheshire, Jardinier, and others, 
 which led them to treat those who were^ or whom they 
 affected to hold as being their inferiors in degree or 
 172 
 
50 A HUNTING STABLE. 
 
 fashion, witli ill-natured superciliousness, or yet more 
 impertinent condescension. "Well, Roberts, we have 
 come to look at your stud ; what sort of a lot have 
 you got this year ? I suppose I shall find some old 
 acquaintances among the count's, hey ?" 
 
 "Why yes, your grace," replied the man, with the 
 quiet but unabashed civility of one of those yeoman 
 servants of England, who know thoroughly their own 
 station, and never presuming on it at all, yet appre- 
 ciate it fully. "Why yes — we've got pretty much all 
 the old ones, except old Reveller, for he never came 
 over that hard thing in the spring from the Coplow, 
 when he got into the Whissendine in a hot lather, and 
 the brook ice cold ; and the Rantipole colt, for he 
 threw out a spavin. We 've all the rest of the old 
 ones, and a prime young one or two, 'specially one 
 by Comus out of a Whisker mare, and a spanking 
 Blacklock out of Czarina. The Colonel has got a 
 fine lot, too, your grace ; one a silver-gray by Orville 
 from a Whalebone, that will fill your eye, I am cer- 
 tain. I mean to put you on the gray to-morrow, 
 colonel, if you please. The country is pretty deep, 
 and he is all right to go." 
 
 " All right, Roberts," answered Fairfax ; " but let us 
 get in and see the cattle ; what sort of quarters have 
 you got for them ?" 
 
 " Oh, you have no need to be uneasy on that score, 
 there are no better stables than these in the markets. 
 Master Roberts is a good judge of .that, besides these 
 have been the count's quarters, these — how many sea- 
 sons, Matuschevitz ?" 
 
 " Seven or eight," replied the Russian ; " but I 
 have made them increase them, double them, in fact, 
 since you saw them. There are two separate menacjes 
 now, thirty stalls and six loose boxes to each. Come 
 in — come in — whose quarters are the first, Roberts ?" 
 
 " Colonel Fairfax's, count," answered the groom, 
 
A HUNTING STABLE. 51 
 
 pulling his forelock down as he made answer, and 
 throwing open the heavy nail-studded oak-door which 
 gave them admittance into a brick-paved vestibule, 
 with a door on each hand, one opening into the feed- 
 room and the other into the harness-room, in which a 
 bright fire was burning, beside which two or three 
 boys were busily employed burnishing bits and stirrup- 
 irons, with store of which the walls were decorated. 
 
 A second oaken-door admitted them into the stable, 
 a vast square apartment of sixty-feet in each direction, 
 lighted by a cupola from above, well fitted with venti- 
 lators, so that the temperature was equal and pleasant, 
 and the air unpolluted by the odors of ammonia from 
 the litter, which in general render the interior of a 
 stable so detestable to the biped visiters, and so insa- 
 lubrious to the quadruped inhabitants. 
 
 On each of the three sides of this fine hall, was a 
 range of ten large, roomy stalls, nicely bedded with 
 straw, the beds bound at the edges by elaborate plait- 
 ings and devices, and the alcoves above fringed with 
 a deep, fantastic hanging of wrought straw, to attract 
 the notice of the flies ; and each one of those thirty 
 stalls was occupied by a powerful and well-bred horse, 
 many of which turned their heads and winnied at the 
 well-known step of the stud-groom, making their chain 
 halters and blocks run and rattle through the elects 
 of the mangers. They were of almost all colors, three 
 or four blacks, with coats glistening like polished mar- 
 ble, one splendid silvery gray, two or three roans and 
 dapples, and the rest blood-bays and deep chestnuts, 
 with a sprinkling of dark browns with cinnamon muz- 
 zles and inner thigh markings, but not a single dun or 
 piebald, or soft, fiery light sorrel. 
 
 Some were stout, full-quartered, and somewhat cob- 
 made horses, although large and roomy, and with 
 length enough of leg and neck to show that whatso- 
 ever qualities they did possess, there was no lack ia 
 
62 A HUNTING STABLE. 
 
 their veins of good blood and strain of noble ancestry, 
 and these had, for the most part, the old, short-square 
 cut docks of the olden school 
 
 Man;^ more were tall, muscular, long-reached thor- 
 ough-breds, with splendid crests and long bang tails, 
 the hair trimmed squarely off at the termination of the 
 dock — horses, looking in all respects like racers — 
 horses, which in all probability would have made 
 the best four mile horses in all England, but for 
 the evil practice, which is, I believe, beginning to act 
 seriously in the deterioration of the breed of English 
 race horses ; I mean the practice of commencing the 
 racing career of all colts and fillies when they are 
 merely in the gristle, and not half come to the bone, 
 at the infantine age of two and three years, during 
 which all the great prizes are run for. This practice 
 not only tending to break down and destroy, by the 
 tremendous system of training thus rendered neces- 
 sary, two-thirds of the produce of each year, but ma- 
 terially injuring even those that have powers to go 
 through the training, come out from the fiery ordeal 
 sound, and distinguish themselves as victors ; and yet 
 more than all this by incapacitating one-third of the 
 year's stock from going into the training stables at all, 
 as too big, too leggy, too bony, and too roomy, to be 
 brought by any possible process of forcing or condi- 
 tioning into sufficient flesh, form and muscle to give 
 them even a remote chance of winning as three year olds. 
 
 Could these very horses be left untrained and un- 
 molested until five or six years, they would then I be- 
 lieve prove to be the best horses ever raised in Eng- 
 land, and we should have far fewer rickety, deformed, 
 light-boned and puny colts and fillies in five years, 
 than are now produced annually to disgrace our turf 
 and discredit our breeding. 
 
 Unfortunately the present system of three year old 
 racing, all the great stakes, as the Kiddlesworth, the 
 
A HUNTING STABLE. fS 
 
 Oaks, the Derby and the St. Leger, being for at this 
 age, and nothing but the Goodwood stakes and a few 
 comparatively unimportant cups being open to all 
 ages, it is not worth the while of any one to keep his 
 horse, however promising, until he shall have attained 
 his fiill powers, when there are no adequate prizes, 
 not even of renown and glory, to compensate him for 
 the time, the risk, and the expenditure of money. 
 
 It is these horses, which, purchased cheap at the 
 spring racing sales, and suffered to run at large until 
 five or six years old, then turn out the prodigies and 
 paragons, which they prove to be across country with 
 enormous weights, from one hundred and sixty-eight 
 pounds to two hundred and upward on their backs ; 
 taking incessant leaps, and running from nine to 
 twelve miles at a stretch across very deep, wet meadow 
 land, at their best pace ; and thereby, as I hold, prov- 
 ing themselves fully competent under a proper system 
 of training and racing to run four mile heats against 
 any class of horses in the universe. 
 
 If, however, this system has proved injurious to the 
 racing stable, as it can undoubtedly be shown that it 
 has done, it has proved in the same degree advanta- 
 geous to the hunting stables throughout the land, 
 and more especially in Leicestershire, Northampton- 
 shii-e, and the midland counties, in which the enclo- 
 sures are so large and the ground in general so gt)od 
 for galloping, that nothing short of thorough breds 
 have any chance of living with fox-hounds, the breed- 
 ing and pace of which has been improved within the 
 last few years, so that hunting now, and hunting in 
 the days when Somervill and Beckford wrote, may be 
 regarded as two different species of sport. 
 
 In accordance with this change the stables of Colo- 
 nel Fairfax had been modeled, and as he was person- 
 ally a capital judge of a horse, and very regardless of 
 expense, he had found little difficulty in filling his 
 
34 A HUNTING STABLE. 
 
 Stalls with as fine a collection of hunters as can ordi- 
 narily be seen within the four walls of a single gentle- 
 man's stable. Out of the thirty horses which it con- 
 tained all but nine were perfectly thorough-bred, and 
 the remainder having all at the least three or four 
 crosses of pure blood, coupled to such bone and beauty, 
 could scarcely fail to carry a heavy man well up to 
 the hounds. 
 
 Several of the thorough-breds were animals of the 
 rarest symmetry — that one especially, of which Ro- 
 berts had spoken, as a silver-gray by Orville out of a 
 Whalebone mare, and which was alone brought out of 
 his stall and stripped of his body clothes for the in- 
 spection of the gentlemen. 
 
 He was a trifle over sixteen hands in height, of a 
 rich silvery-gray, with a jet-black mane and tail, and 
 legs from the houghs downward ; but in his points and 
 figure it was immediately conceded, even by those crit- 
 ical and most fastidious judges, that he was nothing 
 below perfection. 
 
 " Upon my soul," drawled Cheshire in his lazy affec- 
 ted manner, " he is the biggest and stoutest thorough- 
 bred I ever saw. Well up to fourteen stone, I am 
 Bure." 
 
 "Well up to sixteen, Ches," returned the duke, 
 " and so clean that there is no mistake about his 
 breeding. The finest arm and best let-down quarters 
 I have looked at these six years — and see how finely 
 his withers taper down, what a short back and what a 
 length below. If his action matches his shape he is 
 worth more than a trifle." 
 
 " His action on the road is equal to any thing, your 
 grace," replied the stud-groom, speaking for his mas- 
 ter. " We havn't had a chance to give him much of 
 a trial beyond a gallop or two and his sweats over the 
 green, but I'll answer for him he can go. He's got a 
 mouth like a feather, but he'll take a pull, too, from 
 
A HUNTING STABLE. 55 
 
 ^lear spirit, and if he don't leap, why I don't know 
 what like a leaper should be." 
 
 " Oh ! he must leap, there's no doubt of that, with 
 those legs under him," said Beaufort. "Where did 
 you pick him up, Roberts ?" 
 
 " It was Colonel Fairfax himself picked him up, 
 your grace ; not to say that I should have let him slip, 
 if I'd a had the luck to have 'lighted on him." 
 
 "He's a north country horse, duke," continued 
 Fairfax. "I heard by chance of a good stable to sell 
 down in Yorkshire in October, which had been stable- 
 summered and were in condition, given up in conse- 
 quence of the owner's taking to matrimony on a 
 sudden. So I put myself on the top of the Glasgow 
 mail and ran down myself to look at them. I picked 
 up this horse, and a good chestnut in the corner there ; 
 let one of the men unblanket him and bring him out 
 — he is hardly as fine a horse as this, but he has a 
 good reputation both with the Duke of Cleveland and 
 Lord Harewood ; as well as a brace of neat covert- 
 hacks, at a figure which, though a pretty big one for 
 the lot, brings this horse and the chestnut pretty low." 
 
 "If it brings this horse lower than four hundred, 
 you've made no mistake. If his go is up to his looks, 
 I'll give you five hundred for him any day." 
 
 "Well, it tvas under four, but I don't think I'd take 
 five till I had tried him once or twice." 
 
 "And afterward, I'm sure you wouldn't," put in 
 Roberts. "Here's the chestnut, your grace," he 
 added ; " he's a fine hunter, and a powerful one, and 
 well-bred at that, but he's scarcely equal to the gray, 
 to my notion." 
 
 "He does'nt show quite so much breeding," re- 
 plied the duke, " but he has got blood enough I 
 fancy. A little too close coupled perhaps for our fly- 
 ing country, but he has got stuff enough to send him 
 well through the dirt, and I'll be bound he is a fence) . 
 
66 A HUNTING STABLE. 
 
 Those north country horses are almost always steady, 
 well-made hunters, and are both quick and clever at 
 their fences, but the countries of the packs you name, 
 especially Lord Harewood's, are very close and pewy, 
 and the fault of the horses is, that four-fifths of the 
 time, they have never learnt properly to gallop. Tho 
 enclosures there are so small that your horse is 
 scarcely over one rasper before he's getting ready to 
 rise at another." 
 
 '' Well in that case, we must try to teach them, 
 duke," answered Fairfax, laughing; "but the worst 
 of that is we shall have first to learn ourselves." 
 
 " I don't believe it will take you very long to do 
 that. But let us move round. Deuced clever bay 
 horse that, and I like that brown next to him, with 
 the cinnamon muzzle. He's not unlike Valentine 
 Magher's ' Slasher,' is he Ches ? — and if he is as good, 
 you'll not find fault with his carrying you through the 
 worst part of the valley." 
 
 " He is devilish like him indeed. How is he bred, 
 colonel, and how old is he ? He might be ' Slasher's' 
 brother, easily enough." 
 
 "He's by Smolensko, out of a Waxy mare, and 
 seven years old last grass." 
 
 " Slasher is by Smolensko, too, but I don't know 
 what out of." 
 
 " Out of Miss Liddy, my lord, by Sultan," said Ro- 
 berts, touching his hat. "This horse, we call him 
 ' Thunderbolt,' is bred by the same gentleman as 
 raised ' The Slasher,' and Miss Liddy she's half-sister 
 to ' The Slasher's' dam ; so that they're near akin, 
 at any rate. He's been ridden two seasons with the 
 Berkeley Hunt, and they call him a good one there, 
 and they used to know." 
 
 " By Jove ! I thought I knew his cut," cried Beau- 
 fort. "He was Codrington's, was he not, colonel?" 
 
A HUNTING STABLE. 57 
 
 " He was, indeed. I hope your report of tlm Is a 
 good one, duke ?" 
 
 "None ever better. I don't know a horse any 
 where, much better, and I have seen him go in the 
 first flight all day long through the vale of Blackmoor, 
 which as a country is only one step behind, if it is be- 
 hind, the vale of Belvoir. So you may set yourself at 
 ease as to his being well up to the mark." 
 
 "And now," said Cheshire, " if I may make amove 
 it would be to go and look at these fast trotters, for 
 they're a style of cattle I have heard a good deal said 
 about, without ever having seen many. Aint they a 
 deuced bore to drive, lug your shoulders out of the 
 sockets, or something of that sort, hey ? I think I've 
 heard Wortley, or some of them say so, hey ?" 
 
 " They have a trick of taking a dead pull, boring I 
 think you'd call it here, when they first come out of 
 the trainer's hands especially, and of expecting to be 
 hallooed at in a most hideous style, but there is not 
 the least utility or object in continuing to drive them 
 so. In fact, as soon as they fall into gentlemen's 
 hands they get broke almost instantly of these habits. 
 I have seen several teams in New York, one of four 
 
 blacks, owned some years since by H n AV 's, 
 
 and another of four bays by De B s H r, 
 
 which could do their three and a half together witli- 
 out breaking their trot, under as light and quick a fin- 
 ger as should needs be. I hate a hard, dead puller 
 myself, and though, driving as we do trotters entirely 
 on snaffle bits, it is necessary to hold them well to- 
 gether and feel their mouths steadily all the time, 
 there is no more reason why they should be hard- 
 headed or stiff-necked brutes than your hunters. I 
 flatter myself mine are neither. But, as you say, 
 we'll go and look at them — where are your trotters, Ja- 
 cobs — and by the bye, there's plenty of time before 
 dinner, why should not we put them to the wagon, 
 
^8 A HUNTING STABLE. 
 
 and let you h<aye a look at them for half an hour ? I 
 can give one of you a seat, and mount the other on a 
 nice cantering hack that shall give you a chance to 
 see their action — what do you say to that move?" 
 
 " That it's a good one, I" — said Beaufort, looking 
 at his Breguet. " It's only five o'clock now, and you 
 don't dine till eight, Ches, do you?" 
 
 " What we call eight, and that is a good deal nearer 
 nine. We 've lots of time to see the Yankees go. 
 Which will you do, Beaufort, take the seat with Colo- 
 nel Fairfax, or back the cantering hack?" 
 
 ^' Oh ! behind the trotters for me, by all manner of 
 means," said the duke. 
 
 " For my part then, I '11 ride," said Cheshire; " if 
 it be a little more work one will have a little better 
 chance to see them." 
 
 "I would have my curricle got out," said Matus- 
 chevitz, laughing, " but I think the saddle is a better 
 place for galloping in than a curricle, even with a pair 
 of thorough-breds before it; and my high-stepping 
 grays have no more chance of touching Fairfax's trot- 
 ters, or letting you get a glimpse, except of the dust they 
 leave behind them, unless at a gallop, than you or I 
 of seeing the ladies across the vale on foot. Fairfax 
 can mount you well enough, or I for that matter." 
 
 " A — a if it 's not too much trouble, I shall be 
 charmed. Have you more horses than you know what 
 to do with, colonel ? We have pretty hard work for 
 them here, I can tell you." 
 
 " Oh ! never fear me, I've got nine or ten beside 
 the trotters. A short gallop will do them good. • Put 
 a saddle on Selim, Roberts, and have the sorrels har- 
 nessed to the light trotting-wagon. I don't believe, 
 duke, you ever entrusted yourself to so slight and 
 crazy a looking egg-shell, but it is as strong as it is 
 light and easy-running, and over j^our smooth turn- 
 pikes it will almost fly." 
 
A HUNTING STABLE. 59 
 
 " I'll run the risk with your pilotage, colonel. And 
 while they are getting them ready, suppose we go and 
 take a look at the count's stables. You half-promised, 
 Matuschevitz, that you'd have a Cossack thorough- 
 bred or two out here for covert hacks this season. 
 Have you forgotten that ?" 
 
 "Neither the promise nor the horses, Beaufort. I 
 have not said any thing about them yet, because I 
 wanted to get a little flesh upon, and a little condition 
 into them, before letting you fellows criticise them, 
 after a journey of so many versts and a voyage of so 
 many leagues. But I will have the saddle put upon 
 ' Moscow,' and you shall see one nag from the farthest 
 east, and a pair from the far west together. Fairfax 
 tells me, by the way, that two of the fastest trotters 
 in his country are called ' Moscow ' — Lord and Lady, 
 I believe. Is it not so, colonel V 
 
 '' Something of the sort, count," said Fairfax. 
 "But you must not pride yourself on that, for if they 
 are called Moscow, it is not after your sacred city, I 
 assure you." 
 
 " I never supposed it was," answered Matuschevitz, 
 with a droll smile and a slight leer. " I took it for 
 granted it was after some small western village con- 
 sisting of a blacksmith's shop, a court house and a 
 tavern, with one bank, built of pine lumber on the plan 
 of the Acropolis, and a Baptist church exactly like 
 the Pantheon. I know you have got a St. Peters- 
 burgh about ten miles from Rome, and as many more 
 from Athens, so why not a Moscow, too?" 
 
 "Why not, indeed," said Fairfax ; "and for aught I 
 know, there may be not one Moscow in the United 
 States, but one in every county of every state in the 
 Union — still our Moscows cannot claim your Russian 
 title even at second or third hand, being so styled as 
 I am informed, by corruption, from the Indian name 
 ' Yamaska,' of a Canadian river, on the banks of which 
 
60 A HUNTING STABLE. 
 
 they were bred ; which title has dwindled, or increased, 
 whether of the twain you will, by transmission 
 through sundry mouths of horse-jockeys from the three 
 syllables into simple Moscow. But see, here come 
 the sorrels, duke ! Shall we be moving?" 
 
 " And here is the Cossack, too," said Cheshire, 
 " with hair enough on his mane and tail to make all 
 the judges' wigs in England for these three hundred 
 years to come — and this trim, bang-tailed bay, for 
 your humble servant. Well, they 're all beauties in 
 their way, past all denial." 
 
 *'The trotters, most of all," said Beaufort; "they 
 are almost perfection." 
 
 "I thought you'd like them, duke." 
 
 " I am glad you thought so, colonel, for you must 
 needs have thought me a mere dunce otherwise." 
 
 " We had better be off then, or we shall keep Lord 
 Cheshire's dinner waiting, and that would not be alto- 
 gether comme ilfaut." 
 
 "• Allons, I'm ready." 
 
 And they started. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A TROT, AND A DINNER PARTY. 
 
 The trotters were, indeed, as the duke liad said, 
 almost perfection; and although of a cut and charac- 
 ter not much understood, nor at that day very often 
 seen in England — for that matter a first-rate pair are 
 no common spectacle in the island to this day, the 
 style not exactly coinciding with the sporting tastes 
 of the people — were yet such as to attract very gene- 
 ral attention, and to be adequately appreciated and 
 admired by all good judges of horse-flesh. 
 
 Standing about fifteen hands and an inch, with high 
 clean withers and sharp thin crests, they gave a con- 
 siderable show of blood, though of a very difierent 
 strain from that of the delicate-limbed, long-striding, 
 arch-necked thorough-breds by which they were sur- 
 rounded. Yet they had both the neat, small, well set 
 on heads, and one of them had the broad front and 
 hasin face, as it is technically termed, which is held 
 to imply the existence of an oriental descent. The 
 legs of both were as clean of hair, as compact of bone, 
 and as wiry of sinew, as if they had sprung from a 
 race that could number its ancestors backward in a 
 direct line, to Marske, Highflyer, Regulus, Eclipse, and 
 through them directly to the Godolphin Arabian, the 
 Byerly Turk, or the Darley Arabian, the only three 
 horses of Eastern origin, out of the many hundreds 
 imported, which are believed by the best sportsmen to 
 have really improved the English and thence the 
 American thorough-bred. 
 
 Beyond this, however, they difiered considerably 
 
 (61) 
 
62 A TROT, AND A DINNER PARTY. 
 
 from that which would have been in England the type 
 of equine beauty. It is true they had fine sloping 
 withers, excellent shoulders, arms of colossal strength, 
 were well ribbed up, and short-barreled, that their 
 quarters were powerful almost to a fault, and well let- 
 down to the houghs, but their rumps had that peculiar 
 angular fall from a little way behind the whirlbone to 
 the tail, which is known to the sportsman as the 
 goose-rump, and is in Europe generally regarded as a 
 proof of Irish blood, many of the best hunters of that 
 country, as also many, I might almost say most, of 
 the best trotters of this, are observable for this malfor- 
 mation- -for such it must be regarded, so far at least 
 as beauty is concerned, though not perhaps activity or 
 speed. 
 
 The color of these clever animals, which certainly 
 bore no similarity to the celebrated English cob, much 
 less to the stanhope or cabriolet horse, with which all 
 the bystanders were acquainted, was a deep, rich, 
 glossy chestnut, very far removed, indeed, from the 
 dull and washy tint which is generally known as sor- 
 rel ; for in the shadow they would certainly have been 
 esteemed browns, perhaps even blacks, but the moment 
 the sunshine played on the smooth and satin lustre ot 
 their well-groomed and well-conditioned coats, there 
 was no hue or tint of metallic gloss and radiance 
 which might not be seen playing over them. 
 
 Their long, thin manes, and well squared docks 
 were of the same color as their coats, perhaps a shade 
 or two darker ; but they had each four white stock- 
 ings up to the very houghs, and a broad white blaze 
 down the centre of their faces, which, however, far 
 from detracting from their beauty, rather increased 
 it, by increasing their similitude each to the other, and 
 by adding I know not what to their style of jauntiness 
 and peculiarity. 
 
 The vehicle to which they were attached by rounded 
 
A TROT, AXD A DINNER PARTY. 63 
 
 traces and harness so light, without hreechings, crup- 
 peis, bearing-reins or blinkers, and fitted Vith Dutch 
 collars crossing their breasts, instead of the usual 
 heavy collars, that the Meltonians looked at with won- 
 dering eyes, perhaps expecting to see it go to pieces 
 like cobwebs at the first stroke of the horses, was an 
 ordinary light trotting wagon, with wheel-spokes about 
 as thick as ordinary walking-sticks, and every thing 
 corresponding thereto in style and finish. And so 
 fragile and toy-like did the whole apparatus show in 
 eyes accustomed to the solid and massive finish of 
 English carriage-builders, that gallant as he was in 
 all senses of the word, and thoroughly acquainted with 
 horsemanship and coaching in all its various branches, 
 the Duke of Beaufort paused one moment, and re- 
 garded it with a distrustful eye before he made up his 
 mind to trust his goodly sixteen stone to its slender 
 springs, thin spokes, and tray-like body. 
 
 "Never fear, duke," said Fairfax, who had already 
 taken the soft white hand-pieces of the trotting reins 
 into his hands, with a gay smile, "it has carried a 
 much heavier weight than we two, and that, too, over 
 a much rougher ground than we are like to cross to- 
 day. Why our trotting courses are rough to your 
 Macadamized turnpikes, though they are not so hard 
 upon our horses' feet, that must be admitted ; and as 
 for our best roads, with a few far between exceptions, 
 they would make a sorry show beside the worst of 
 your lanes and bye-roads." 
 
 " Oh, I assure you, I'm not afraid of your pilotage 
 or your wagon either, but at the same time, after one 
 of our phnetons or curricles, it does look rather like a 
 cock-boat after a man-of-war." 
 
 "Get away, lads," said Fairfax, in a low tone, with 
 a gentle whistle, so soon as he saw that the Eussian 
 count had bestridden "Moscow," and the dandy earl 
 climbed to " k^elim's" back, giving his reins a slight 
 
64 A TROT, AND A DINNER TARTY. 
 
 shako as he spoke, and at his word the two clever 
 nags got under way at once, his long, straight whip 
 standing erect in its socket, as i^ they had been actu- 
 ated by a single impulse, taking precisely the same 
 stroke, and lifting their legs with bent knees and 
 square action, as truly and precisely as if they had 
 been lounged and trained for months to go together, 
 and stepping rather like the duplicate of one fine trot- 
 ter, than the best pair that were ever lapped in horse- 
 hide. As they wheeled into the back lane by which 
 the party had walked up to the stables, already going, 
 though they had not started many seconds, at the rate 
 of nine or ten miles the hour, so quickly did the true 
 and fleet little animals get to their work, half a dozen 
 or more of the grooms and supernumeraries, who were 
 lounging about on that comparatively leisure day, 
 paused and turned to look after them, with many a 
 whispered comment on the speed, style and appearance 
 of the clippers, and many a murmured note of admi- 
 ration as to who the strange gentleman might be who 
 was tooling the duke ; for with the kindest and most 
 popular man in Melton, if not in all England, there 
 were none there who were not well acquainted. 
 
 By the time they had got to the end of the bye-lane, 
 where it turned round the corner of Fairfax's lodging, 
 at the distance of perhaps a mile from his stables, into 
 the main street, they were going well together at the 
 most slapping pace that ever had been seen in the 
 streets of Melton Mowbray, not less certainly than at 
 the rate of a mile in three minutes or twenty miles an 
 hour, as was very evident from the fact that Matus- 
 chevitz and Cheshire, though both mounted on thor- 
 ough-breds, and no bad ones either, had about as much 
 as they could do to keep side by side with them ; for 
 tlie lane having a firm sandy soil, which had been ren- 
 dered compact by late rains, without being made deep 
 or heavy, was, indeed, as Fairfax said, very nearly 
 
A TROT, AND A DINNER PARTY. 65 
 
 equal both in smoothness and consistency to the best 
 of American race-tracks. 
 
 As they reached the angle, which was a very sharp 
 one, Fairfax took them in hand ^ little, soothing them 
 at the same time with a whispering word, and slack- 
 ing his hand to them a trifle after the pull, when they 
 came up quite handily with a toss of their proud heads, 
 and a snort or two, and dropped into a rapid square 
 trot of about ten miles the hour, as steadily and with- 
 out a fret, as if they had been going no faster from 
 the start, and as if the Cossack thorough-bred, fierce, 
 fiery and intractable, had not been plunging, wheel- 
 ing, and cui'veting like a wild horse, side by side with 
 them, impatient of the restraint which would not suf- 
 fer him longer to maintain with his rival trotters, that 
 hard gallop which could have availed in the long run 
 nothing, against the steady and supported speed of 
 his American antagonists. 
 
 " This is astonishing, indeed !" said Beaufort, ad- 
 miring the perfect breaking no less than the admira- 
 ble condition of the trotters, which had not cast a gout 
 of spume over their shining coats, nor dimmed the lus- 
 tre of their glancing chestnut hides by one stain or 
 shade of moisture. '^ We must surely have been go- 
 ing, then, at the rate of twenty miles an hour." 
 
 " I suppose you know, duke," replied Fairfax, " that 
 twenty miles has actually been done recently in New 
 York, within the hour, at a trot." 
 
 " Indeed, I did not ; nor would I have believed it 
 possible. Why twenty miles in an hour is good gal- 
 loping for a thorough-bred." 
 
 " Undeniably it is ; nevertheless, a half-bred colt, 
 out of a trotting chestnut mare known as Fanny Pul- 
 len, got by imported English Trustee, did it handily. 
 These little nags of mine have done seventeen and a 
 half together in the hour, and at any moment ; and at 
 a moment's notice, I would back them to go a single 
 173 
 
66 A TROT, AND A DINNER PARTY. 
 
 mile together, driving them myself alone, in two min- 
 utes forty seconds, or five miles in 16 minutes. That 
 off-side horse, duke, which is a thought the fastest, has 
 done a mile in 2. 27 J. in single harness, and the other 
 can do it under 2.30. ' 
 
 " And are such wonders common in America — what 
 are such cattle worth ?" 
 
 " To say truth, they are neither wonders nor com- 
 mon. There are always a good many, say a dozen or 
 two, perhaps more, in the different large cities, kept 
 not for pleasure, but for matches, that can do a good 
 deal under 2.36 from that down to 2.29 ; but still their 
 number is not legion ; nor though a good many pri- 
 vate gentlemen in all parts of the country keep 2.36 
 horses for their own private amusement, still such do 
 not number by hundreds in the whole country. 
 Their price varies according to shape, beauty, endu- 
 rance, soundness, and the like. These stood me in 
 four thousand dollars and a little more — you may 
 call it about 900 pounds. You can scarce get sound 
 and showy horses cheaper." 
 
 " Despardieux ! I should think not. But here comes 
 a Stanmore livery, Cheshire's carriage, with la belle 
 comptesse, whom you have not seen, I believe, but 
 with whom you are to be dazzled at dinner to-day, 
 and Anson, riding by the window like a dutiful sposo 
 and brother ; so I suppose his pretty wife is there too. 
 Suppose you show them what the Yankees can do, 
 colonel. Let them go here a bit, I beseech you. 
 The mile stone is just opposite the club-room yonder ; 
 and you have just room to get them going before you 
 pass it. The next is at the fork of the road straight 
 a-head ; I want to time them ; and there, by Jove, 
 are Vauxhall, and Cecil Forrester, and both the Mac 
 donalds, and Jardinier, and I can't see who besides, all 
 lounging at the door, or in the windows. Let them 
 go, if you love me, colonel, and give them something 
 
A TROT, AND A DINNER PARTY. 67 
 
 to talk about, just for once. It will be a cbarity, I 
 assure you." 
 
 ''As you say, duke," replied Fairfax; "but take 
 my watch if you want to time, it is an independent 
 quarter second. Stop her now, and start her just as 
 we pass the mile stone ; and stop her again as we 
 pass the second — are you up to it?" 
 
 " Tant soit peu. I picked it up a little from a com- 
 patriot of yours, Mr. Corbin." 
 
 " Oh, Frank — of course. Not a compatriot only, 
 but a CO- Virginian. If you learned of him, you are a 
 good hand at it I doubt not. Get away, lads. Off!" 
 
 And away they went at the word at a tearing pace ; 
 for though by far too well broke to rake or pull, or* 
 even snatch their bits when it was not their cue to go, 
 still both their bloods were well up, and the instant 
 they knew by the tightened rein and taughted hand 
 of their driver that go was the word ; go they did, 
 and in earnest, increasing their pace at every stroke, 
 and making the gravel and small stones, launched by 
 their quick falling hoofs against the sounding dash- 
 board, rattle and patter like a March hail-storm. So 
 rapidly did they shoot past the carriage of Lady Ches- 
 hire that, although Percy Fairfax looked with all his 
 eyes, he could catch but a passing flash from a pair of 
 beautiful black eyes, framed as it were by a profusion 
 of black ringlets, which waved across the lovely fea- 
 tures, as she leaned a little forward from the window 
 to catch a glimpse of that fast fleeting meteor-wagon, 
 and to recognize with a rapid kiss of her gloved fin- 
 gers the deep bow of the Duke of Beaufort. 
 
 But as they whirled past the windows of the club- 
 houses, now crowded to overflowing, and went by the 
 mile-stone which was in this instance to act as their 
 starting post, with Beaufort evidently marking the 
 time on a stop-watch, and Cheshire and the count 
 tearing along, literally as who should say the devil 
 
68 A TROT, AND A DINNER PARTY. 
 
 take the hindmost, the wonder and admiration of the 
 young cog7ioseenti and trtrtoSa/tot of Melton broke out 
 into a loud hubbub of questions and answers, and odds 
 bet and taken, cries of surprise and admiration, not 
 less than of delight, at the occurrence of any thing 
 that should break the long and slow monotony of a 
 Melton Mowbray Sunday morning. 
 
 Before they had cleared the first mile-stone, the oc- 
 cupants of the club windows were all on the steps or 
 in the street ; and happy they whose hacks were wait- 
 ing at the door, for as quick as they could grasp the 
 reins and mount without so much as setting foot in 
 stirrup, Jiey presto ! they were off at full gallop, ri- 
 ding as if for the dear life, in pursuit of Matuschevitz 
 and Cheshire, who were now literally spurring, and 
 unable at that to overtake the spanking square trot of 
 those rattlers — for there was not a particle of darting 
 or pointing in their regular and even step. The horse- 
 men had been perchance sixty or eighty yards behind 
 the wagon when it started, and though if abreast and 
 at their speed when the trotters passed the mile-stone, 
 they could undoubtedly have kept abreast with them, 
 even at that slashing pace, they had not a chance of 
 making up the lost way, nor did they gain upon them 
 a yard until they had shot past the second mile-stone 
 on the Lincoln turnpike, and had slackened their pace. 
 A minute or two afterward they had pulled up and 
 were standing stock still, champing their bits, tossing 
 their heads, and evidently by no means disinclined to 
 try another heat of it. 
 
 The duke had jumped out of the wagon the moment 
 they stood still, and was now walking round them, ob- 
 serving every symptom of wind in their slightly heav- 
 ing flanks and wide-extended nostrils, but not one sign 
 could he discover of weariness or blowing after what 
 had seemed to him an extraordinary exertion, much 
 
A TROT, AND A DINNER PARTY. 69 
 
 less of distress, or any defect in their wind, bone, or 
 sinew. 
 
 The next moment they were suiTOimded by a crowd 
 of eager and animated inquirers, some begging to be 
 introduced to the owner of the wonders, some all agog 
 to know their history, their local habitation, and their 
 name ; som^j earnest to learn what the time had been, 
 whereby to solve the question of the "ponies," the 
 "fifties," and the "hundreds" which had been liber- 
 ally bandied to and fro and the result, and all agreed 
 on one point, that never before had such trotting been 
 seen in England. 
 
 " "What was the time, Ches ?" cried young Peyton, 
 one of the best judges of pace in the United Kingdom ; 
 " was it a match against time ?" 
 
 "Nothing of the sort — only a spurt, to show us 
 what they could do." 
 
 " The devil !— and what did they do ?" 
 
 " You must asTv Beaufort, he kept the time. Some- 
 thing better than a mile within three minutes." 
 
 "Oh, you be hanged!" cried coarse Jardinier; 
 "why that's fifteen miles an hour almost, ain't it?" 
 
 " Almost, Jardinier," shouted Tom Gascoigne. 
 " Yes, a mile in three minutes is almost fifteen miles 
 an hour. Three times fifteen is sixty-one, you know ; 
 and there are just sixty minutes in the hour." 
 
 " There, did not I tell you so, A^auxhall," said Jar- 
 dinier, triumphantly to his companion, who was laugh- 
 ing at him. " Did not I tell you it was almost fif- 
 teen." 
 
 " Didn't they teach 'rithmetic as well as reading 
 and 'riting at the Charter-liouse, Jardiner," asked Ce- 
 cil Forrester, almost splitting his sides at the hard- 
 riding viscount's magnificence of snobbish ignorance. 
 
 " Confound the Charter-house !" responded Jardi- 
 nier sulkily ; " who the deuce knows what they do ? 1 
 
70 A TROT, AND A DINNER PARTY. 
 
 was not at the Charter-house. Who the deuce ever 
 was — what gentleman, I mean?" 
 
 " Why I was for one ; and you might as well have 
 been, I think, for I am sure you might have learned 
 there that twice three make six, and twenty times 
 three sixty," said the son of a rich banker, rather a 
 favorite with the young dandies and nobleman, on ac- 
 count of his manliness and good-nature, as well as his 
 aptitude and skill at all bold sports and gallant pas- 
 times, which ever wins its way, in England especially, 
 among the upper classes. 
 
 There was a general laugh in which every one 
 joined heartily except the sulky, proud, and penniless 
 peer, who had been expelled from Eton before he had 
 cleared the fourth form, and who now answered dog- 
 gedly, and with an air of undoubted superiority, 
 
 " I was at Eton, my good fellow, and they don't 
 teach that kind of thing there, you know — no buying 
 and selling there. This orthography^ or whatever you 
 call it, these two-and-two tables are all very good for 
 bankers, you know, and merchants, old fellow: we 
 don't trouble ourselves about such things, you know — 
 we don't !" 
 
 Fairfax raised his eyes quickly to meet the eyes of 
 Matuschevitz, as though he would have reminded him 
 of the conversation which had passed between them 
 that morning ; and his friend who had anticipated his 
 glance, and met it, smiled merrily, and nodded his 
 head, and then laying his finger on his lips, and shak- 
 ing his brow in dissent, looked away toward Beaufort, 
 who just then took up the word. 
 
 "Yes, yes, Jardinier," said he, "you're quite right. 
 There was no orthography at Eton in my time ; and 
 why should there ? it is part of our parliamentary 
 privilege to be held excused from any thing so ' base 
 and mechanical,' as old Claverhouse, or Rob Roy, 
 would have said, as reading, 'riting, or 'rithmetic. 
 
A TROT, AND A DIXNER PARTY. 71 
 
 And we peers ought certainly to stick to our privi- 
 leges as we would to our order." 
 
 " Of course we ought," said Jardinier, with sullen 
 and dignified assent, for he was by far too thick 
 headed to perceive, and too conceited to imagine that 
 he could be the subject of mockery to whom he deemed 
 or termed his friends, never having been in all the 
 course of his days, himself, a friend to any man. 
 
 " But wh© ever heard of such time as this ?" contin- 
 ued the good-natured duke, almost repenting the well- 
 deserved, though by the culprit unappreciated, casti- 
 gation which he had inflicted on the stupid and arro- 
 gant lordling. "What do you say to that, Anson — 
 what say you, Forrester?" as these two rode up a lit- 
 tle way in advance of Cheshire's handsome carriage. 
 " A mile done, on a square trot with myself and Colo- 
 nel Fairfax, not an ounce short of 28 stone the two, 
 I'll bet a cool hundi-ed on it, without a word, or a 
 break, or a touch of the whip, in — what do you think ? 
 Not one of you'll believe it — two minutes and thirty- 
 seven seconds !" 
 
 " The deuce !" " You don't say so !" " Whose are 
 they?" "Where do they come from?" And again 
 there was a hubbub of inquiries, admirations, glorifi- 
 cations, and what not, until Fairfax, who had gone 
 out to drive that morning an obscure, and so far as 
 Melton Mowbray was concerned, an almost unknown 
 individual, got out of his wagon at the steps of the 
 club-house, to which he was heartily welcomed, and 
 found himself, as Byron had done before him, on 
 awakening after the publication of Childe Harold, 
 famous. 
 
 Two of his grooms had followed him at a conve- 
 nient distance, and to one of these, hight " Woodruff," 
 a scion of that renowned family of trotting trainers, 
 drivers, and riders, who have won so many laurels on 
 the Centreville course at New York, and the Hunting 
 
72 A TROT, AND A DINNER PARTY. 
 
 Park at Philadelphia, were the pair of phenomenons 
 entrusted, and after being duly blanketed, were led 
 away as fast as the admiring concourse, first of gen- 
 tlemen, then of gentlemen's gentlemen, and lastly of 
 stud-grooms, boys, and riders would allow it, to their 
 stable. 
 
 An hour or two glided away very pleasantly at the 
 club; our Virginian was introduced to every one 
 worth knowing, and, what was more agreeable, every 
 one that was worth knowing, seemed very glad to 
 know him. Nor did any thing happen in any way 
 likely to annoy his amour propre^ or tread, sensitive 
 and jealous as he was of men's opinions, upon what a 
 lively Frenchman has not inaptly called the corns of 
 his mind. Once he did, indeed, overhear Jardinier 
 expressing his wonder to Tom Gascoigne, Dick Oliver, 
 Cecil Forester, and a few others, that Colonel Fair- 
 fax, who after all was only an American — he would 
 have said " Yankee," but that he supposed that term 
 to indicate some almost unknown variety of the hu- 
 man race — should be so white, and should dress and 
 speak so much like other people. " One has heard, 
 you know," this genius continued, who has latterly 
 become by the way a poetical contributor to the fash- 
 ionable annuals — " that they are copper-colored, you 
 know, and wear scalp-locks and blankets, and make a 
 strange sort of snuffing through their noses, which they 
 call talking, you know ; and which white folks call a 
 war-whoop. I've half a mind to ask him about it." 
 
 " I would keep it a half mind," replied Tom Gas- 
 coigne, laughing as if he would kill himself; '' at least 
 I would not do it, were I you, for a thousand ; for 
 whether he wears. a scalp-lock himself, or takes scalps 
 from others, I don't know ; but I don't think he looks 
 a very likely fellow to take much nonsense, or to have 
 the most profound respect for the privileges of peers, 
 whether they understand arithmetic or no." 
 
A TROT, AND A DINNER PARTY. 73 
 
 But the absurdity and ignorance of the young 
 puppy rendered it impossible to be annoyed, much less 
 seriously angry with him ; and when Matuschevitz 
 whispered in his ear that it was getting to be time to 
 walk home and dress for dinner, the Virginian left the 
 company certainly with modified dislikes or disinclina- 
 tions even toward the very snobdom of the English aris- 
 tocracy, and with a very cordial feeling of respect and 
 liking for the simple mannered, frank-spoken, open, 
 cheerful, manly, and unpresuming gentlemen who, he 
 was not slow to perceive, formed at least nine out of 
 ten out of the collectaneum of sportsmen, whether en- 
 nobled or no, who had offered him so earnestly and 
 unaffectedly the right hand of good fellowship, on this 
 his first introduction, as an unknown foreigner, to one 
 of their most intensely national and thoroughly ex- 
 clusive cliques. 
 
 Nor could he refrain from expressing something of 
 this strain of feeling to his Russian friend, as they 
 sauntered slowly homeward. "Our people," he said, 
 " could not believe at home, that these men are the 
 very flower of that English aristocracy of which they 
 have heard so much, and whom they believe to be so 
 haughty, so arrogant, so ignorant, and so exclusive. 
 I assure you, count, there is much more of that sort of 
 social impertinence and cliqueism, much more of arro- 
 gance and exclusiveness among the soi-disantes fashion- 
 able sets of our American mercantile cities, than among 
 these men, who are supposed to hold themselves the 
 very creme de la or erne de la terrey 
 
 "And who do really so hold themselves, monclier^'^ 
 replied the minister. " But, though very generally 
 believed, there is no greater error than the opinion 
 that most or many Englishmen of good standing at 
 home are exclusive or arrogant. They associate, when 
 at home, with their own caste, because there is no 
 other caste with which they can agreeably or consist- 
 
74 A TEOT,.^ND A DINNER PARTY. 
 
 ently associate. Abroad they seek out those with 
 whom they have feelings and ideas, and yet more 
 amusements in common — those who have not they 
 neither exclude nor avoid, but simply do not chance 
 to notice or seek out, because they find no cause why 
 they should do so. There are ignorant asses, and ill- 
 natured assuming puppies in all classes ; and I dare 
 say, my dear colonel, your knowledge of New York, 
 and its fashionable characters, might call to your mind 
 some ignoramuses as great as Jardinier, and some dan- 
 dies more exclusive and insolent than Cheshire, who 
 have no merit equal to the fearless horsemanship of 
 the former, and the savoir vivre of the latter, and who 
 are more assuming and ridiculous, than either." 
 
 " Of course, and their name is not one or two, but 
 legion," said the Virginian, laughing ; " but, once 
 more, how comes it that you always locate, as we 
 should say, your American characters so well ? You 
 ask me that question about New York, and perforce I 
 am bound to answer ' ay !' Had you put the same 
 about Boston, or Philadelphia, or any of our southern 
 cities, I could, perhaps, have conscientiously said ' no.' 
 How is it, Matuschevitz ?" 
 
 "I told you before," said the count, laughing, 
 " que eest mon metier a moi, en qualite de diplomat, 
 and who knows perhaps en qualite de Russe aussi, or 
 as you would term it at a public meeting, as a Boos- 
 sian Barbarian, to know something about all countries 
 with which we have or may chance to have foreign re- 
 lations. De plus, we have had two or three people of 
 our own among you who have seen something of soci- 
 ety in America, and have marked the differences be- 
 tween the different cities, so that we are not so igno- 
 rant of the great New York fashionables — the J — eses, 
 and M — ns, and J — dds, and P — ans, H — nies, and 
 S — ras, and all the other tailors and candle-makers, 
 and slave-traders, and chandlers, who are too aristo- 
 
A TPtOT, AXD A DINNER PARTY. 75 
 
 cratic to know common lawyers, or authors, or physi- 
 cians — as you would suppose us to be. But enough 
 of this for the present at least. Let us go dress ; and 
 then at least if you don't admire the noble men, I'll 
 make a bet of it I show you something to admire in 
 the noble women of England, two of the very loveliest 
 of whom you will meet to-night." 
 
 Half an hour sufficed for the appareling in all due 
 form of our friends for the dinner party, and a drive 
 of ten minutes or more in a Russian phaeton brought 
 them to Cheshire's hunting quarters ; and nothing, 
 perhaps, that he had yet seen, so much moved Fair- 
 fax's admiration of the thoroughness of English system, 
 as the furnitui-e, the inhabitableness, the keeping, tout 
 ensemble, and the complete domestic air of this, a mere 
 hunting-box for three or four months of the season, 
 which in all respects resembled the permanent abode 
 and accustomed residence of some rich proprietor. It 
 was small, indeed, but every part was unexceptionably 
 perfect ; the ladies' drawing-rooms full of bijouterie 
 and trinkets, of feminine work and feminine accom- 
 plishments, redolent of those delicate sounds, sights, 
 accompaniments, and odors, which ever announce and 
 accompany the presence of high-bred, refined and ac- 
 complished women — the other rooms replete with 
 every thing that could be possibly desu-ed, yet showing 
 no superfluity of any thing, not only attracted his at- 
 tention and pleased his fancy, but elicited from him 
 some self-admitted satisfaction with that standard Eng- 
 lish principle of doing every thing that it is worth the 
 while to do at all, as well as it possibly can be done, 
 and in one place as well as another. 
 
 When the ladies, too, made their appearance, he 
 could not but admit the truth of Matuschevitz's boast 
 that he would show him two of the loveliest women he 
 had ever looked upon, and neither while he gazed upon 
 their charms, and laughed and talked merry and soft 
 
76 
 
 nonsense witli them, nor when lie pondered over the 
 different styles of their extraordinary loveliness, could 
 he bring to his recollection any thing so fair as either 
 of the two sisters, much less any thing fairer nor could 
 he make up his mind which was the lovelier of the two. 
 
 The dark-ringleted and dark-browed Cheshire, with 
 her wild, flashing, dark eyes full of unearthly spiritual 
 light, her high and somewhat attenuated features, her 
 slender, graceful figure, her high-born air, and proud, 
 majestic gait, that seemed almost too proudly delicate 
 to tread the earth which might mar the divinity of her 
 footsteps. 
 
 The soft, voluptuous Isabella A*, with her great, 
 full blue eyes, her skin whiter than mountain snow, 
 yet flushed with a rosy lustre as of the sunset on the 
 stainless glaciers of Mont Blanc ; her lips ripe as a 
 peach in August, and rich as the tints of a clove car- 
 nation ; her plump and falling shoulders, her exquisite 
 and womanly bust, round arms, and glorious figure — 
 oh ! pair not to be surpassed, not to be equaled in your 
 day, from east to west, from north to south, round the 
 wide world ; years have elapsed, the fourth part of a 
 century has rolled over, since first I saw your maiden 
 sister bloom, out-dazzling the eyes of all beholders, 
 out-shining all the rivalry of loveliest coeval beauties. 
 Wives now, and happy mothers, with daughters scarce 
 so lovely as yourselves, glittering and enthralling 
 where ye shone enchantresses of old, I think of ye, 
 but as I saw ye last, ere time or sorrow, which must 
 be to all mortals, had dimmed one sparkle of those lus- 
 trous eyes, or blanched one hair of those glorious 
 tresses, lovely ye must be still, and lustrous ; but with a 
 loveliness and lustre different from what I then beheld, 
 diff'erent from what yet a little later than I, Percy 
 Fairfax beheld, and would have perhaps loved to ad- 
 miration and to madness, but that he was saved by the 
 presence of two beings exquisitely, yet how equally 
 
A TROT, AND A DINNER PARTY. 77 
 
 bright, and with a brightness how wondrously dis- 
 similar. 
 
 The evening passed like a dream, nor did the young 
 Virginian feel himself for a moment out of place, or a 
 stranger at that table, so distant far from his own 
 home, so different in all things from the wildest and 
 most romantic of his imaginings. It needs not to say 
 that the cuisine, the wines, the every thing was ex- 
 quisite, when Cheshire was the host, the guests Beau- 
 fort and Forrester, Anson, the two McDonalds, Jem 
 and Aleck, and with the world-famous Alvanley, be- 
 sides our hero, and those two radiant sisters. 
 
 It was a late hour before they broke up, for the 
 gentlemen followed the ladies to the drawing-room 
 early, and music and singing were interchanged with 
 ecarte and chicken-hazard ; and it was not until he 
 awoke next morning from dreams of Cheshire's bright 
 eyes, and Isabella's glowing form, that Fairfax recol- 
 lected that during the whole evening in that the me- 
 tropolis of horsemanship and the chase, there had been 
 no fields fought over again, nor any mention of fox- 
 hunting or of hunters. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 A COVERT SIDE. 
 
 Had every thing been prepared to order, with a 
 view of gratifying to the utmost the wishes of the 
 keen assembled fox-hunters, it could not have been 
 improved on the Monday morning succeeding Fair- 
 fax's arrival at Melton Mowbray. 
 
 There had been rain enough during the past days 
 to render the country more suitable for holding scent, 
 and yet not enough to make it inconveniently heavy 
 for horses of sufficient stamina. It was precisely such 
 a dawn as is prescribed in the famous old hunting song, 
 for "a southerly wind and a cloudy sky " did, indeed, 
 "proclaim it a hunting morning;" nor was there a 
 single dew-drop gemming the thorn-bushes, or any of 
 that low-creeping mist on the low grounds, or rising 
 net-work on the grass, which augur badly for the lying 
 of the scent, inasmuch as while the process of exhala- 
 tion is going on, it would appear that the delicate par- 
 ticles which hold the effluvium of the beast of chase in 
 suspense, are exhaled likewise together with the watery 
 globules among which it was deposited. 
 
 At an early hour — early for them, be it understood, 
 for it is not now the mode of Melton to get up as our 
 forefathers did, hours before the sun, and painfully 
 hunt up the cold trail of the fox to his lair — when 
 Matuschevitz and his friend were aroused by the valet 
 with shaving water and the needfuls of the toilet, the 
 word went that the sun had shone brightly an hour or 
 two before — that is to say an hour or two after his 
 late December rising — but that the sky was now all 
 (IS) 
 
A COVERT SIDE. 79 
 
 overclouded, and tlie south-westerly wind as soft as if 
 it were young May and not mid-winter. 
 
 Half past nine found them in the breakfast-parlor, 
 similarly rigged in plain scarlet dress-coats, white 
 kerseymere waistcoats, white buckskin breeches, and 
 top-boots, with blue-bird's-eye handkerchiefs about 
 their necks — the true dress, and the only true one for 
 the genuine Meltonian— though a few years before the 
 time of which I write, it was the fashion to run down 
 the leathers as snobbish, and to vote nothing correct 
 but white cords— and the handsomest dress, be it ob- 
 served, in the wide world for a well-made man, whether 
 sportsman or no. 
 
 There was no necessity under the sun for hurrying, 
 since more 3Ieltonico the hounds do not meet until 
 eleven, nor are thrown into covert until half-after, or 
 by'r lady ! nearer twelve. 
 
 ''Very well — very well, faith!" said the count, 
 laughing, as the Virginian made his entree perfectly 
 self-possessed and quiet. " You look as if you had been 
 born in pink and leathers, as I believe Osbaldiston 
 was, and Sir Tatton into the bargain, for that matter ; 
 though I would lay a hundred to a shilling you never 
 had a top-boot on your leg before in your life." 
 
 " You may swear to that, count. But these fellows 
 get one up with no trouble to himself whatever." 
 
 "Trust them for that," replied Matuschevitz, "with 
 Pike and Elphick for his leathers, Dean and Davis for 
 his tops, and Stultz, Willis, or Nugee for the rest of 
 his outfit, one may be pretty sure of not putting his 
 foot in it. By the w^ay, whose saddles do you use ?" 
 
 " Whipple's, of course. I used his saddlery long 
 enough before I left Virginia, and I should hardly cut 
 him here. Give me a cup of black tea while you are 
 about it, I don't go the cafe" in a morning — some of 
 that prawn curry, Antoine, and a slice of that dry 
 toast." 
 
80 A COVERT SIDE. 
 
 "Lay in a good stock, Fairfax; no luncheon to- 
 day, recollect ; and as likely as not, a late dinner to 
 boot." 
 
 " How far off is the meet — uck — uckle — what the 
 devil do you call it ? It is as bad as some of our Vir- 
 ginian names, which stuck so fearfully in poor Tommy 
 Moore's jaws.' 
 
 ''Uckleby Gorse. Why yes, it is almost as great a 
 jaw-breaker as ' Rappahannock,' ' Occoquan.' Oh ! 
 not more than eight miles off. We can do it in half 
 an hour easy. If we get off by eleven, or a quarter 
 before, it will be lots of time. What horse do you 
 ride first, Fairfax?" 
 
 " 'White Moonbeam ' for my first ; and * Thunder- 
 bolt,' brother or half brother, or whatever he is, to 
 'Slasher,' for my second." 
 
 "No one better mounted in the whole field than 
 you will be. Only mind you don't discredit them. 
 Give me a wing of that cold partridge, will you ; and, 
 Antoine, a glass of the white Maraschino. Now, par- 
 don my giving you a word or two of advice mon chere, 
 as I am an old hand here, and you a novice ; not that 
 I doubt you can sit and manage a horse as well at 
 least, very likely better than I can myself; but there 
 are two or three things that it will be just as well you 
 are put up to. In the first place, nothing is so desi- 
 rable for a man, who wants to take his own line and 
 go well to the hounds, as to get a good start, for then 
 you are out of the crowd in a twinkling, and can get 
 away with them handsomely without being either 
 crossed at your fences, or ridden over, if you chance 
 to get a fall." 
 
 " I see — I see ; but the how — show us the how, 
 count." 
 
 " Why, as soon as the fox is holloaed away, get re- 
 solutely forward at once ; let nothing stop you ; bet- 
 tor take two or three big ugly fences in cold blood at 
 
A COVERT SIDE. 81 
 
 first, when other people, not liking them, are jamming 
 the gateways, and blocking up the bridges, than twice 
 as many later in the day." 
 
 *' Well, that is easily done enough. Who is the best 
 man to look to ? I don't mean to follow, you know, 
 but to look to for the direction in which the fox is 
 heading before the hounds are out of covert." 
 
 ^' Oh, there's half a dozen ! None better than Val. 
 Magher, or Harry Goodriche, or Frank Holyoke, or 
 Campbell of Saddell — any of these are good as gold; 
 but pin your faith on the sleeve of no man. Ride 
 hard and ride steady. Lay yourself forty or fifty 
 yards to leeward, nearly abreast of the leading hound, 
 but perhaps thirty yards or so back of him. Keep 
 your eye on him all the time, and as he turns, so tui^n 
 you; and look out if he throws up his head, or turns 
 short upon you, hold hard — pull your horse short up 
 on the instant." 
 
 "Any thing more ?" 
 
 " Not much. Take your fences as you find them. 
 No time for looking out for easy places. Hold your 
 horse's head hard and straight at it, and if it needs 
 be, cram him. Take care to cross no man's line, 
 'specially at a fence. If there is a check, jump down 
 from your saddle and turn your nag's nose to the 
 wind, if it be but for a minute. It shall be w^orth a 
 mile to you in a long run. You see I don't fear for 
 your nerves, but only for your knowledge of this 
 English science — for to ride w^ell to fox-hounds is a 
 science, and a hard one too, I assure you." 
 
 " I thank you for your good opinion, and I do not 
 think you need fear me on that score ; if I were 
 inclined to be nervous, it would be rather at the idea 
 of doing a gaucherie, or, as your friends here would 
 call it, something snobbish, than of getting a fall at a 
 rasper.'* 
 
 " Or of coming to grief, colonel." 
 174 
 
82 A COVERT SIDE. 
 
 " Coming to grief — ah ! tliero you are too mucli foi 
 me, count. Coming to grief — and what may that be, 
 I prithee?" 
 
 " Why, you will understand, my good friend, that 
 in modern fox-hunting, we ride no longer, as they did 
 in King George the Third's day, when the man who 
 came in first at the death, it mattered not how, per- 
 haps by riding all the lanes, cutting off corners, and 
 shirking fences, by knowledge of the country, was the 
 best man, and won the honors of the day. Nous 
 avons change tout celd, now-a-days, and the best man 
 is he who lives longest, nearest to the hounds, riding 
 his own line manfully and straight, no matter for his 
 jdace at the end, though, of course, he who is best 
 from first to last, is the best of all. When you fall 
 into the second flight, when you get so thrown out, 
 either by such a false turn, or such a fall as prevents 
 your being in the same field w^ith the hounds, or if 
 your horse stands still, or dies, you are said to come 
 to grief. But some one must come to grief, remember, 
 always ; and if it do not happen till at the butt-end 
 of a severe burst, or if it be by an unavoidable mishap, 
 there is no shame in it — it may be in case of a very 
 bold, though unsuccessful leap, the reverse." 
 
 "I see. I shall try not to come to grief, then, in 
 the first field, or at the very first fence. That, I sup- 
 pose, will save a novus homo from ridicule." 
 
 "A novus is never ridiculed here, if he rides boldly, 
 and makes a good offer at his own line. Every one 
 here knows that riding well to fox-hounds requires a 
 great many combinations — a very bold heart, a very 
 light hand, a very firm seat, and these three are 
 nothing, unless combined with a very quick eye, a 
 very cool head, and a very clear judgment. So that 
 for every stranger who goes tolerably, ten go wretch- 
 edly at the first start ; and if one give himself no airs, 
 commit no absurdities, but bo simple, frank, and 
 
A COVERT SIDE. 83 
 
 manly, lie will get on at Melton past a doubt, and 
 make both acquaintances and friends, even though he 
 came unintroduced and a stranger." 
 
 ^' I note your advice, and will take it. But I see 
 our hacks are before the windows, and here comes 
 James with our hats and overhauls. Hand me that 
 taper, and I will light a cigar ; then, unless you have 
 still another last word, let us be off. I want to be 
 at work, and I am dying for a look at the lady-pack." 
 
 " I have a last word — but one. Here it is; remem- 
 ber, the worst thing you can do is to refuse a neces- 
 sary fence, because that looks like funking. The 
 next worst is to take an unnecessary one, because that 
 looks like display, which is snobbish, and takes the 
 powder out of your prad, which is, or may be, 
 ruinous. And now to horse and away! and see, 
 there go Beaufort and Forrester, and here come the 
 McDonalds, and half Melton at their back — away ! 
 deuce take the hindmost." 
 
 The hacks were, indeed, waiting — and two cleverer 
 or better need not to be bestridden by mortal man ; 
 Fairfax's was a switch-tailed iron gray, quite thorough- 
 bred; and though a little pertaining to that type 
 of beast which is familiarly known as a weed, being 
 somewhat ewe-necked, and a little tucked-up in the 
 flank, it yet had so very many good points in the 
 long, sloping shoulder, the deep and roomy chest, and 
 the breadth of its loins, beside having four as good 
 legs under it as often falls to a covert-hack, after its 
 second season, that none but a very superficial obser- 
 ver would have apprehended its sufficiency to carry 
 even a heavier weight than that of Fairfax for a short 
 distance. 
 
 Matuschevitz did not on this occasion bring his 
 Cossack, Moscow, into play, but backed a powerful 
 chestnut trotting cob, for which style of monture^ a 
 
84 A COVERT SIDE. 
 
 good deal to tlic wonderment of the Meltonians, he 
 had no inconsiderable penchant. 
 
 Meanwhile their cigars were lighted, their heavers 
 donned and secured by a black ribbon to the collars 
 of their pinks, their buckskin gloves had been assumed, 
 and the hunting-whips, or, to speak more correctly, the 
 stocks of the hunting-whips, minus the thongs, thrust 
 under the left arm as they mounted ; and just as a clat- 
 tering cavalcade, all in scarlet jackets, with cloth spat- 
 terdashes over their bo:>ts and white leathers, came 
 tearing down the street at a hard gallop, smoking like 
 as many animated steam-engines, they, too, wheeled 
 from their door to the left, and then to the right, and 
 greeted by a merry shout of gratulation, rode onward 
 merrily, surrounded by that gay and goodly companye, 
 on the high road toward Lincoln. 
 
 After they had ridden perhaps a couple of miles, 
 the party, consisting of Aleck and Jem McDonald, 
 than whom two better fellows never rode, Tom and 
 Dick Gascoigne, Horace Pitt and Harry Peyton, be- 
 sides our friends, the Virginian and the hunting diplo- 
 matist, just as they were slackening their pace a little, 
 seeing that there was a toll-gate just ahead, which, 
 with the hounds not running, it behooves every man 
 to pay, there came a harsh cheer from behind, and as 
 two or three of the company turned in their saddles to 
 see who or what was come, the short and slender form 
 of Jardinier was seen bending over the withers of a 
 neat black filly, which he was spurring furiously along 
 in mad emulation, seeking, although there was not the 
 slightest hurry, to overtake those ahead of him, till 
 she was covered from counter to tail with white lather. 
 
 "Just like Jardinier," said Cecil Forrester, " cursing 
 her with all his breath at every dig of his spurs, I'd 
 almost take my oath. What a d — d shame!" 
 
 "I almost wish she'd break his neck," said another. 
 "I'm sure he richly deserves it." 
 
A COVERT SIDE. 85 
 
 As the last charitable wish was uttered, the party- 
 had all pulled up in front of the gate, about opening 
 which, from some not very apparent reason, there waa 
 some little delay, when a second shout from Jardinier 
 made them first turn round for the second time, and 
 then open their ranks in haste, moving to the right 
 and left in order to make way for the madman. 
 
 "Out of the way! out of the way!" he shrieked; 
 *'d — n it all, are you afraid of a little gate like that, 
 or do you funk the pike-man. Out of the way, and 
 let me show you how to do it!" 
 
 They scattered at the cry, for knowing the reckless 
 character of the rough-rider, they were well assured 
 that the next minute he'd be in the thick of them; and 
 on he came at full speed, over the hard Macadamized 
 road, intending evidently to take the stiff five-barred 
 gate in his strike. 
 
 " Don't, Jardinier, don't — what folly !" cried Lord 
 McDonald, holding up his hand to wave him back. 
 "He's opening the gate now." 
 
 But the warning was all in vain to one who never 
 in his life gave any heed to warning. On he came at 
 full tilt, giving the black mare the spur, and lifted her 
 at the leap with a sort of cheer. Bravely she rose, 
 and although half-blown, and put full too fast at it, 
 would certainly have cleared the gate ; but in the very 
 point of time when she rose at it, the turnpike-keeper 
 unconscious of what was passing, having received from 
 Matuschevitz payment for the whole party, flung the 
 gate open, so that it swung out directly in front of the 
 filly as she took it. No horse that ever was foaled of 
 a mare could now have got over in safety ; and after 
 a fruitless writhing scramble to clear herself of the 
 obstacle, she went down on her knees and nose on the 
 hard stony road, on the farther side, breaking the 
 former fearfully, and throwing her rider on his head 
 with such violence that his hat flattened like a crushed 
 
86 A COVERT SIDE. 
 
 efrg-sliell, and that he, after stretching out his arms 
 with a deep groan, lay stunned and senseless. In an 
 instant the whole party was dismounted and around 
 the sufferer ; and Tom Gascoigne, whose words had so 
 strangely coincided with the occurrence, and were so 
 widely at variance from his warm feelings and kind 
 heart, was prodigal of his care and assistance. 
 
 "Poor fellow! poor fellow!" said he, "I am afraid 
 he is gone, indeed, and forever ! bring water some of 
 you, for God's sake." 
 
 A bucket was speedily appropriated, and on the 
 application of a very sufficient dose of cold water, the 
 patient soon opened his eyes, stretched himself, and a 
 moment afterward stood erect as if nothing had hap- 
 pened, giving the earliest symptom of a return to his 
 senses, not by thanks to the friends around him, but 
 by a deep and beastly oath at the unfortunate beast 
 which had given him the fall, and which, though inno- 
 cent, was by far worse hurt than her merciless and 
 reckless master. 
 
 So soon as it was ascertained that the fellow — for 
 if he were a peer, he was no less a fellow, and a low 
 one — had sustained no serious hurt, not one of the 
 party felt the slightest sympathy for him, or desire to 
 assist him further, but mounting as quickly as they 
 could they rode off at a hard gallop toward Uckleby, 
 leaving him plante la beside his lame hack, wondering 
 how the deuce he should get to covert, and swearing 
 furiously at the idea of being late for the meet, until 
 when his patience and his hopes had both well nigh 
 expired, a phaeton came up from Meltonwards, con- 
 taining two or three of his acquaintances, who gave 
 him a seat, leaving his poor hack to such accommoda- 
 tion as the cow-stable of the turnpike could afford, 
 until the man who had charge of his hunter should re- 
 turn for her. 
 
 Meantime Faiifax and the rest had pricked gayly 
 
A COVERT SIDE. 87 
 
 but steadily onward, until at tlie distance of about a 
 mile, to the left of the road, they got the first sight 
 of Uckleby Gorse, a long, irregular, straggling furze 
 covert, stretching along the northern brow' of a gentle 
 acclivity with a few tall old trees scattered here and 
 there above the low undergrowth, but nothing that 
 one could call a wood. 
 
 Even at this distance the scene was gay and ani- 
 mated in the extreme, and such as no other land but 
 England ever has exhibited, or probably ever will ex- 
 hibit. In a large grass-field, divided by two or three 
 enclosures from the covert, and containing at least 
 fifty acres of pasture, the many-colored and glossy 
 pack were slowly parading to and fro, to the number 
 of full five-and-twenty couple, not varying an inch in 
 stature between the highest and lowest, and so well 
 matched in speed and strength that they could run 
 together on a breast-high scent through the longest 
 run, in as close array as ever flew a plump wild fowl. 
 These were attended by no less than four men, a 
 huntsman and three whips, easily distinguished from 
 the field by their scarlet frocks and round caps, in 
 addition to the master, no less a personage than the 
 far-famed Squire Osbaldiston, who hunted them in 
 person, and now sat a little way aloof, clad like his 
 men, and mounted on nothing less than the far-famed 
 and almost immortal Clasher, who probabl}^, in his day, 
 was the best hunter j>ar excellence of all that went to 
 hounds in England. 
 
 He was surrounded by a group of veterans, easily 
 recognized, even at a distance, by some peculiarities 
 of size, form, or dress, and who turned out to be Lord 
 Alvanley, conspicuous then for his jack-boots a la 
 Horse-guards, at that time worn by him alone in Eng^ 
 land ; Valentine Magher, the king of the heavy 
 weights ; Campbell of Saddell, the best son of tho 
 Gael, Kintore not excepted, that ever cramuied t> 
 
88 A COVERT SIDE. 
 
 thorougli-bred at an impracticable fence ; Sir Harry 
 Goodriche and Sir Richard Musgrave, crack riders, 
 and good sportsmen both, arcades ambo, both true 
 Yorkshire tykes ; Jem Baird, longer of limb than 
 Longshank was of old ; George Payne ; and Bellamy, 
 characteristically employed in fighting with a horse, 
 which seemed to be almost as wicked and ill-tempered 
 as himself; and half a dozen others of less note in the 
 general sporting world, although well known at Mel- 
 ton, and thence to the broad waters of the brimming 
 Trent. 
 
 In the foreground of the animated picture at least a 
 hundred grooms were leading to and fro as many no- 
 ble hunters in their body-clothes, awaiting the arrival 
 of their masters, who as they dropped in one by one 
 — and they might be seen on all sides, skurrying in 
 across the country, like so many shooting-stars, all 
 concentrating toward a common nucleus — doffed over- 
 coats, and Macintoshes, and mud boots, and turned 
 out as spick and span as if for a huntball, mounted 
 their horses, glittering as if their skins were of shot 
 satin or highly burnished metal, and formed little 
 groups, the coffee-house of the hunting-field ; wherein, 
 as the ladies are wont to insist, more scandal is talked, 
 and more characters are ruined, than in the most gos- 
 siping cotery of antiquated spinsters that ever congre- 
 gated round a village fire to stimulate their acerbities 
 with cogniac and lubricate their excess with hyson. 
 Be that, however, as it may, it was a brilliant and 
 soul-stirring spectacle, if regarded as a spectacle alone, 
 the rather that in addition to all that has been de- 
 scribed there were six or eight phaetons, pony-curri- 
 cles, and barouches, filled with the fairest of the fair, 
 pre-eminent among whom were the magnificent daugh- 
 ters of the ducal house of Rutland, each surrounded 
 by a chosen knot of adorers, as it would seem, beyond 
 measure, bj the "becks and nods and wreathed 
 
A COVERT SIDE. 89 
 
 smiles," of the delighted delicate hcings ^\ho disdained 
 not to be observers of the rude sports, and witnesses 
 of the pluck and peril of their admirers. 
 
 By this time Matuschevitz and the Virginian had 
 betaken themselves to their hunters, after looking duly 
 and warily to the length of stirrup-leathers, the 
 strength and tightness of girths, and all those nice 
 minutiae which may not be neglected save at severest 
 risk of a fall ; a thing never desirable, and no where 
 less so than at Melton, where it is, unless a fortunate 
 check intervene seasonably, almost synonymous with 
 the loss of a place in the run ; and the count being 
 well horsed on a fine brown hunter by Lottery, while 
 Fairfax bestrode "Moonbeam" with his Tiger upon 
 " Thunderbolt," the nigh of kin to Valentine Magher's 
 famous Slasher, they had no reason to fear their ina- 
 bility, cseteris jyai^ibus, to go in the first flight, and live 
 as long as their neighbors. 
 
 " " The first words that the Russian spoke, were, 
 " Just in the right time, by Jove ! Osbaldiston look- 
 ing at his watch. Yes ! now he nods to Jack Ste- 
 vens — they'll be in covert in five minutes or less. 
 Come along Fairfax !" 
 
 Then as the other followed him easily, but promptly, 
 toward the hounds, he turned in his saddle to his 
 friend, and said laughingly, '' Ah, ha ! you'll have to 
 win your laurels before you wear them to-day, my gal- 
 lant colonel, for yonder I see Valentine is mounted on 
 the very horse they were talking about in our stables 
 yesterday. There he goes — that's Slasher — and nei- 
 ther he nor his master are very easy to beat, I can tell 
 you." 
 
 " He is very heavy to look at it, whatever he may 
 be to go," answered the Virginian. 
 
 " Don't plume yourself too much on your weight, 
 I'd advise you. It is a common saying here that the 
 feather-weights take more out of their horses by rash 
 
90 A COVERT SIDE. 
 
 riding than makes up the difference between them- 
 selves and the welters. Ah, how do Goodricke ? 
 Ilolyoke, how are you ? Fine scenting morning, I 
 fancy. Let me name Colonel Fairfax, Sir Harry 
 Goodricke, Sir Francis Holyoke." 
 
 And they all rode on together, chatting about any 
 thing rather than the business of the hour. Jardinier'a 
 absurd riding and heavy fall not being forgotten. 
 
 " How like him," said Ilolyoke. " Well, if he get 
 here in time, I would not be his horse for something ; 
 whenever he gets a fall before we find he rides as if 
 he were possessed by the very fiend incarnate." 
 
 " Tliis way," said Goodricke, turning his horse's 
 head abruptly to the right, as they entered the field 
 immediately adjoining the gorse-covert, while Osbal- 
 diston and the hounds, which were a hundred yards or 
 so ahead, diverged a little in the opposite direction. 
 
 " This way. They'll cast them in at the south- 
 west corner, and draw this way." 
 
 " All right," said Matuschevitz, nodding to him. 
 " We'll join you in five minutes ; but I fancy my 
 friend here would like to see them draw — we'll go 
 along with the hounds, Fairfax." 
 
 "Very well," said Goodricke, laughing, "but you'll 
 have to make up for it by and bye, I can tell you ; 
 for he's sure to go away down wind this morning, the 
 more so that the wind and the hill are together." 
 
 The hunting plenipotentiary nodded again, and rode 
 away after the Squire, while Fairfax observed that fall 
 nine-tenths of the sportsmen did the same, though a 
 few, and those the men who had been pointed out to 
 him as the best men, first loitered behind in groups, 
 and then sauntered slowly along in the direction taken 
 by Goodricke and his friends. 
 
 At the extreme southern angle of the gorse-covert, 
 which was a long hanger, bounded on the upper side 
 by a ditch and plashed hedge, on the further side, run- 
 
A COVERT SIDE. 91 
 
 ning along the crest of the hill, and sloped gently 
 downAvard for the breadth of perhaps two hundred 
 yards, while it must have been at least a thousand in 
 length, Osbaldiston paused, and di'awing in his bridle, 
 s;U for a few moments perfectly quiescent in the mid- 
 dle of his hounds, while the field diverged a little in 
 all directions, according to their ideas of the chances 
 of a start. 
 
 The hounds, all perfectly aware that the decisive 
 moment had arrived, stood gazing with full, eager 
 eyes, heads erect, and waving sterns, toward the de- 
 sired covert; but so perfectly were they disciplined to 
 obey, that not one stirred or attempted to move on, 
 nor did a single whimper denote their intense eager- 
 ness. In a moment, casting his eyes right and left to 
 the second and third whips, who instantly took their 
 cue, and rode off toward the two lower angles of the 
 gorse, Osbaldiston waved his hand forward with the 
 shrill cry — 
 
 "Eleu! Eleu in ! Eleu! in, good lasses!" 
 And without one impatient cry, twenty abreast, 
 the beauties dashed at the ditch and fence, as if by a 
 single impulse and a single motion. It seemed to 
 Fairfax that the hedge crashed but once, as their lythe, 
 sleek, many-spotted bodies were seen for one instant 
 writhing upon the top as they struggled over it, and were 
 then lost among the dark green prickly foliage, if foliage 
 it can be called, of the dense furze. Without another 
 word, the Squire gave the rein to Clasher, and press- 
 ing his knees gently to his side, but giving him no 
 spur, the good horse made three easy strides in ad- 
 vance, cleared the bank and plashed hedge, as if it 
 had been nothing, and landed over the steep drop be- 
 yond, as steadily as a troop-horse performs some or- 
 dinary evolution. Jack Stevens and the other whip 
 followed, and with now and then a wo)-d of encourage- 
 meut, and now and then a gentle rate, that proceeded 
 
92 A COVERT SIDE. 
 
 to draw for tlie first fox, tlie far-famed gorse of 
 Ucklcby. 
 
 Meanwhile, the bulk of the field had moved onward, 
 taking the fence to the south of the gorse, and were 
 riding slowly down hill along its western border ; but so 
 soon as the hounds were in covert, Fairfax and the Rus- 
 sian trotted gently forward, and soon joined the group 
 of veterans, who waited coolly and collectedly at the 
 northern corner, above the fence on the ridge, assured 
 by the sportsman's instinct that if the gorse held a 
 fox — and when did Uckleby not hold one — he would 
 go away somewhere near the north-eastern corner, at 
 which stood or rather sat, one of the whips, still as a 
 carved statue on his horse, which was equally motion- 
 less, and which gave no token, save in the erected ears 
 and the occasional quivering of the whole frame, how 
 deeply it felt the excitement. 
 
 Before them stretched away a long, long slope, so 
 gentle that it seemed almost a plain, divided by huge 
 bull-finches, and occasional barriers of heavy timber, 
 into pastures of fifty and sixty acres in extent, with- 
 out an acre of plough-land or fallow in sight, till, at 
 about five miles distance, the occasional gleam of blue 
 water, and the long line of pollard willows told the 
 presence of a large brook, while several smaller streams 
 were indicated midway by fringes of alder, and an 
 ozier bed or two. Beyond the brook there was another 
 long gentle acclivity, headed far, far away to the 
 southward by the majestic woods and turreted heights 
 of Belvoir ; and surging up, nearly north-east of the 
 point at which they stood, into a gentle knoll, crested 
 by a small patch of high wood-land and a long stunted 
 covert, apparently distant from the gorse they were 
 drawing by some nine or ten miles, 
 
 ^'I am glad you have come," said Beaufort, who 
 had joined the veterans. " This, Colonel Fairfax, is 
 the finest bit of country in all Leicestershire — that is 
 
A COVERT SIDE. 93 
 
 the "Wliissendlne which you see glittering in the bot- 
 tom, and he is bank full after these rains ; that 
 covert on the hill is Billesdon Coplow, and if we have 
 any luck, with the wind as it is, that will be his point 
 to-day." 
 
 "Hist! Beaufort!" 
 
 *' A challenge, by all that's holy !" 
 
 The faint whimper of a hound came up the wind, a 
 sharp, shrill, treble challenge, and then Osbaldiston's 
 scream — " Have at him — Ha-ark to Charity ! Have 
 at him !" 
 
 " Charity, hey ?" said Magher. " All's right, then, 
 for a thousand." 
 
 An instant of breathless silence, again Charity's 
 shrill voice, and then another, and another, and an- 
 other — 
 
 " Ha-ark ! Ha-ark — to Vengeance ! Hark to Blue- 
 bell !" 
 
 Now, now it is one crash of terrible, discordant, 
 furious music — and now one more scream of the 
 Squire, " Hark together !" 
 
 "A sure find — and they are coming to us," said 
 Goodricke. 
 
 Magher gathered up his reins, and moving a little 
 to the left, sat ready facing the fence. Holyoke 
 pulled off his gloves, and Alvanley pulled up his boots. 
 
 The whipper-in at the corner below them, pulled off 
 his cap, and lifted it high in air. " He has broke by 
 him !" cried Dick Musgrave. "Not a word, boys, or 
 we'll have him back." 
 
 "Tallyho! whoop! Tally ho !" burst from the lips 
 of the whipper-in ; and the next moment pug was seen 
 going straight away across the grass-field in a right 
 line for the Coplow, having broken about a hundred 
 yards to the south of the corner, where the wliipper-in 
 was waiting, and perhaps three hundred from the 
 
94 
 
 A COVERT SIDE. 
 
 group, who were watching at the upper angle, in a 
 right line above him. 
 
 Osbahliston's yell, " Gone-away 1 whoop — go-one- 
 a-wa-ay !" might have been heard a league, three 
 quick toots of the horn followed, and the gorse was 
 alive with the rush and rivalry of the fierce ladypack, 
 and rang merrily but wildly to their furious chiding. 
 
 "Plenty of time, gentlemen," said the whip, raising 
 his hand with a gentle caution, as one or two of the 
 youngsters leaped the hedge impetuous. 
 
 "Hold hard! hold hard! for Heaven's sake!" 
 shouted Musgrave. " You can't catch him with your 
 mouths. Hold hard !" 
 
 "Heaven knows there's time enough for all!" cried 
 Goodricke. 
 
 "And what's more, a fair field and no favor," said 
 Valentine Magher, as cool as a cucumber. 
 
 As they stood on the crest of the ridge, the same 
 fence which the men had taken as they threw ofi", lay 
 before them, a deep ditch of perhaps twelve feet, with 
 high bank and a plashed hedge on the other side, and 
 a nasty drop over it ; then came a narrow strip of up- 
 land pasture with a second hedge, a tremendous ox- 
 fence of old thorn, with a double ditch and a rail on 
 each side of it; being a continuation of the lower 
 boundary of the gorse. In this, however, there was a 
 gate close to the angle of the gorse, which the whip- 
 per-in was holding open. Above the upper fence 
 about thirty horsemen were collected, Fairfax being 
 the farthest from the crest on the extreme right ; 
 Cecil Forrester and Aleck McDonald had jumped the 
 first fence, but ashamed of their impetuosity, stood 
 rebuked and motionless. 
 
 Another crash, nearer and now close at hand, of 
 shrill dog-music, and then twelve abreast, the leading 
 hounds topped the edge of the gorse, the tail hounda 
 
A COVEKT SIDE. 95 
 
 came tumljling each over each, across it, and away, on 
 a breast-high scent, over the open. 
 
 "Now go it!" shouted Magher; and at the word, 
 almost in a line, thirty horses shot over the drop-leap. 
 Fairfax had cleared it cleverly ; a score at least of the 
 others were rushing blindly toward the gate ; ten or 
 a dozen only of the old ones had taken their own line ; 
 Fairfax remembered. Holding the brave horse hard 
 by the head, and gripping him, monkey-like, from 
 crotch to ankle-joint, he rushed him at the great leap, 
 giving him the spur sharply as he rode to it. 
 
 For an instant the sensation was that of being en- 
 throned on the back of a soaring bird, so easy was the 
 long swinging stride ; then came the crash of the top- 
 most branches of the tall bullfinch, as he was borne 
 violently through them ; and then, firm as a rock, the 
 good steed alighted well in the next field, with an un- 
 shaken rider on his back, and went away without stop 
 or stagger at a long slashing gallop. 
 
 So Percy Fairfax saw the finding of his First Fox 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A SHARP BURST AND A HARD RUN. 
 
 The first sound tliat met Fairfax's ear, as he landed 
 well over the fence into the second field, was a wild 
 or J, half curse and half cheer ; and a loud crash in- 
 stantly succeeded it, as yet another rider plunged 
 through the abattis of branches offered by the bullfinch, 
 and spurring up savagely alongside half checked a fine 
 black Smolensko horse, equal to double his weight, a few 
 yards ahead of '' Moonbeam." It was Lord Jardinier, 
 who, by aid of the lift he got in his friend's phaeton, 
 had come up to the ground just in time to hear Osbal- 
 diston's scream, as "pug" was viewed away, had 
 sprung to his hunter's back, and seeing of whom the 
 group at the northern end of the gorse covert con- 
 sisted, had made up his mind on the instant what was 
 the thing to be done, and by dint of desperate riding 
 had done it, so as just to make up for lost way and 
 no more. 
 
 The hounds were going heads up and sterns down, 
 never stooping for an instant to the tainted grass, but 
 taking the scent as it reeked up on the air hot from the 
 traces of the recent quarry, racing as it were in eager 
 emulation each against the other, and running all so 
 well together, with twelve or fourteen nearly abreast 
 in the front rank, that it seemed as if a well-spread 
 table-cloth might easily have covered them. 
 
 The Squire and Jack Stevens, who had come full 
 
 tilt through the gorse close at the tail of the leading 
 
 hounds, had leaped into the field almost abreast of 
 
 them, and were now bowling away a few yards more or 
 
 (96\ 
 
A SHARP BURST AND A HARD RUN. 97 
 
 less to the left of tlie pack, which were bearing slightly 
 to the left, while Magher, Beaufort, Campbell, Good- 
 ricke, Holjoke, and Alvanley, lay close at the right 
 hand of the tail hounds, though a few yards astern of 
 them. Matuschevitz and Fairfax lay yet further to 
 the right, but the latter was almost abreast of the 
 leading hounds, having kept his line quite straight, 
 instead of bearing to the southward, by which he had 
 gained something in headway, though he had increased 
 nis distance from the pack. At this moment Jardi- 
 nier came next yet farther to the right, standing up 
 in his stirrups, and pointing forward with his hunting- 
 whip toward the next fence, as if to challenge Fairfax, 
 to whom, either from jealousy or the mere natural 
 perversity of his temper, he seemed to have taken an 
 instinctive dislike. 
 
 Some fifty or sixty yards to the rear of this the 
 first flight, came fifteen or twenty others, who, though 
 many of them capital horsemen and bold riders, had 
 lost time and way through indecision, by riding for 
 the gateway instead of breasting the ox-fence, and it 
 was clear enough that if the scent held and the present 
 pace were to be kept up they would have all they 
 could do to maintain their present ground, without 
 gaining on their leaders. 
 
 Half a mile to the left, or the southward, the bulk 
 of the field, who had chosen the western edge of the 
 gorse at the throw ofi", might be seen to the number 
 of two hundred scarlet jackets, with a sprinkling of 
 green, indicative of Ned Christian and his burly bro- 
 ther yeomen, and a few neat black cut-a-ways, well to 
 the front of these latter — for who ever saw a fox-hunt- 
 ing parson who did not fly the first soar — were seen 
 streaming straight away in a line nearly parallel to 
 the course taken by the fox, though somewhat favored 
 by the southwardly inclination of his line, and hoping 
 175 
 
98 A SHARP BURST AND A HARD RUN. 
 
 therefore with good show of reason to nick in cleverly 
 at the end of a mile or two. 
 
 In spite of Jardinier's half insulting manner and 
 expression, the Virginian was neither himself hurried, 
 nor hurried his good horse, but keeping a steady hand 
 on his snaffle sat firm and galloped, not like a provin- 
 cial, but like one who knew Melton. The field acrosrs 
 w^hich they were going was rather wet, without being 
 very deep or heavy, and became more splashy, with a 
 few tufts of rushes interspersed as it neared the head- 
 land, where it would seem there was a drain on tliia 
 side the fence, which was a tall, newly plashed, stake 
 and bound rasper, full four feet in height at top of a 
 moderate bank, the whole coupled by a recent binding, 
 that no horse which touched it could hope to break 
 and so escape a fall. 
 
 All this Fairfax twigged with half an eye, and ap- 
 prehending that it might be boggy, drew a little fur- 
 ther to the left, where a sound, recently mended cart- 
 track, led direct to a stout gate, a few inches lower 
 than the fence, doing the whole so gradually and so 
 quietly that his horse never lost his stride, nor fell at 
 all to the rear. 
 
 "Aha!" said Dick Musgrave, who rode close behind 
 him, as he saw the manoeuvre, "Yankee or no Yan- 
 kee, that chap knows what he is about." 
 
 The next moment they were at the fence, with his 
 hands down, his heels dropped, no touch of the spur or 
 flourish of the whip, the Virginian popped his horse 
 over the difficult gate, as if he had been doing it all 
 his life, neither slackening his pace nor increasing it 
 the least. Jardinier, who had gone a little too fast at 
 the plashed hedge, felt the ground shiver under him, 
 when he was within three strides of taking off — a less 
 daring and sagacious rider would have tried to get 
 him in hand too late, checked his horse, made him 
 flounder, and as likely as not brought him, chest on, 
 
A SHARP BURST AND A HARD RUN. 99 
 
 upon the binding. But the viscount was too knowing ; 
 and probably his impetuous and obstinate mood would 
 not have suffered him in any event to pull up. As it 
 was, he did what was unquestionably for the best, 
 kept him held hard but spurred him right onward 
 through the deep, and by a vigorous and well-timed 
 lift carried the Smolensko clear over the hedge, though 
 his heels tipped it, as he landed safely. 
 
 Still he had taken something, if it were but a little, 
 out of his horse, and as much Fairfax had saved, and 
 two or three of the old hands nodded their approba- 
 tion. 
 
 The whole of the first flight got over safely, but two 
 or three crashes in the rear, and a stray horse or two 
 coming up riderless, with flowing reins and flying 
 stirrups, showed that the field was already thinning 
 rapidly. The next field was one of the worst in 
 Leicestershire to gallop over cleverly — an old piece of 
 grass, which would have been wet had it not been 
 laid down in very deep furrows, almost as deep as 
 grips, and steep, high-backed ridges, dotted and broken 
 up by mole-hills. Instinct led Fairfax, for certainly 
 he had never seen, much less ridden across a field in 
 the least degree like that before, to lay his horse a 
 little diagonally across the furrows, and he of course 
 did so to the left, bringing him still closer to the line 
 of the leading hound, and as he raised his eyes he ob- 
 served that the others had done the like, and so felt 
 that he had done well. His horse, too, a great advan- 
 tage, evidently was a made hunter, and knew tho- 
 roughly what he was about, being previously accus- 
 tomed to such ground, so that he got along very well, 
 skimming over the furrows in his stride, and alighting 
 stout and steady on the crown of every ridge. His 
 good fortune, of which in this instance he was not un- 
 aware, for he perceived himself deficient in the pecu- 
 liar qualities of hand and horsemanship which would 
 
100 A SHARP BURST AND A HARD RUN. 
 
 have enabled him, as he saw at once it would Magher, 
 Goodricke, and Saddell, and even Jardinier, to com- 
 pel a raw horse so to measure his stroke, lent him 
 courage and confidence ; and, finding how strongly 
 and solidly his horse strode under him, when not one 
 or two, but many, of the others were laboring heavily, 
 he ventured to make play a little, and without putting 
 him to his full speed, shook him a length or two 
 ahead, and took the next fence foremost of the field 
 at a fly. It was a very nasty one, a tall, ragged oak 
 paling, leaning toward him from the top of a bank two 
 or three feet high, with a broad drain on the hither 
 side, and what he neither saw nor suspected, a little 
 ditch or grip about two feet wide and a foot deep, at 
 some yards distant from the paling on the other side. 
 This sort of arrangement, seeming, as it does, to be 
 intended precisely for the purpose of catching the fore- 
 feet of any horse leaping the fence in that direction 
 at full swing, is termed a squire-trap, and is perhaps 
 more dreaded by the fox-hunter than any other modi- 
 fication of ditch, rail, and bank, that he is in the habit 
 of encountering. This place, lying in so famous a piece 
 of country as it did, between the two most crack co- 
 verts in the hunt, was of course well known to every 
 one who had hunted Leicestershire even a single sea- 
 son, and it was always taken warily and with the ut- 
 most exercise both of hand and judgment, so that in the 
 very point of time when Fairfax charged it, quite too 
 quickly for that style of leap, the oldsters were screw- 
 ing themselves well down into their pigskins, and the 
 youngsters were, to say the truth, some of them shaking 
 in their stirrups. All presaged, as they saw him shoot 
 ahead, a certain fall to the bold stranger ; Jardinier 
 grinned a malicious smile of triumph, and Matusche- 
 vitz, who was almost as anxious for his protege's suc- 
 cess as for hi^ own place in the run, would have shouted 
 
A SHARP BURST AND A HARD RUN. 101 
 
 a warning, but that lie feared to disturb him rather 
 than put him on his guard. 
 
 But friend and foe were both destined to be disap- 
 pointed, for the brave horse "Moonbeam," whether 
 it was that he knew what was to be done better than 
 his rider, or what is more probable, that he baulked 
 for the tenth part of a second at the unexpected sight 
 of bright water, checked himself instinctively at the 
 drain's brink, and took the upstanding pales by what 
 is called a buck leap, barely clearing them, and doing 
 so only by bringing his hind legs quite close under 
 him up almost to his belly, and then by a sudden twist 
 alighting on them. That is a very common trick of 
 leaping with Irish hunters accustomed to perpendicular 
 stone walls with no ditches, but is unusual with En- 
 glish horses, and not in them considered an advan- 
 tage, since in most of the midland and many of the 
 northern counties the hedges are backed by broad 
 drains or brooks, into which a buck leap is sure to 
 precipitate both horse and rider, neck and crop. It is, 
 moreover, a very hard leap to sit, and shakes an un- 
 practised rider more than any other. At this crisis, 
 however, it stood our friend in good stead, for used to 
 timber jumping, most of any, he sat it firmly, and the 
 good horse seeing the trap at a glance, barely tipped 
 the bank with his heels, stretched over the second grip 
 without an effort, and was galloping, the next instant, 
 at his ease across the best and soundest piece of green 
 sward they had yet traversed. 
 
 Meanwhile the man-trap had done its work as usual, 
 for no precautions of management or lifting can be 
 certain to avail even with the best riders, especially 
 where, as in this instance, the first leap is of great 
 magnitude. Fairfax would have given much to look 
 round and see how his followers fared, for he was now 
 well nigh three lengths ahead, but he knew it would 
 not be courteous, so he galloped right forward, if any 
 
102 A SHARP BURST AND A HARD RUN, 
 
 ihmcr pulling upon his horse a little, on the sound land, 
 with his eye riveted on Charity, the leading hound of 
 the pack up to this moment. 
 
 Osbaldiston on the unrivaled Clasher, whom he 
 swung at it hard held, with a dig of the persuaders, a 
 cut of his whip across the haunches and a scream, 
 cleared the whole at a stride, drain, palings, bank and 
 man-trap, covering nine-and-twenty feet in length from 
 toe to heel prints. Magher purposely achieved what 
 Fairfax had by luck accomplished. Jack Stevens fol- 
 lowed suit, so Holyoke and Matuschevitz, but Good- 
 ricke, whose weight had told severely on his horse in 
 the bad ground, and Jardinier, who was watching the 
 Virginian instead of minding his own business, liter- 
 ally put their feet into it — in the ditch of course, and 
 rolled over and over it. The former with his welter 
 weight getting such a squelch as stunned both his 
 horse and himself for a moment or two, the latter with 
 genuine and characteristic pluck holding on to his 
 reins like grim death, and being again in his saddle 
 and under way within a minute after his downfall. 
 The others fared as they might, some baulked it alto- 
 gether, some got over safely, some were nabbed in the 
 squire trap, one unfortunate chested the palings with 
 a blown horse, and went backward into the train, and 
 thence home, with a lamed horse, a wet jacket, and a 
 sprained ankle ; but, save with the first flight, we have 
 nothing to say. 
 
 Up to this moment the line of the run had lain con- 
 siderably to the left, or south-westward, of the point 
 whence the fox had broken, and the leading hounds 
 were looking up a full mile to the south-west of Billes- 
 don Coplow, the point for which every one had sup- 
 posed he must be making, so that every thing up to 
 this time had favored the party who, taking the west- 
 ern instead of the eastern end of Uckleby Gorse, 
 would so have been to a certainty thrown out had the 
 
A SHARP BURST AND A HARD RUN. 103 
 
 hounds gone stralglit away due soutli from the gorse. 
 Had they kept on six fiekls farther as they were going 
 they wouki have crossed the line of these skirters, and 
 so placed them on an equality with the eight or ten 
 men who had ridden from the beginning side by side 
 with the pack. They had not, however, gone above 
 half way across the good sound pasture-field, in which 
 they were now running, before the leading bitch threw 
 up her head for a second, cast herself beautifully to 
 the right, and without checking carried the scent right 
 off on an opposite tangent to the eastward, right across 
 the head of the Virginian's horse. He pulled up on 
 the instant, and though it was but for half a minute, 
 no one but he who has ridden long to fox-hounds 
 knows how vast is the relief given to a horse, which 
 has been going twenty minutes at three-quarters speed, 
 by a dead stop even for ten seconds. 
 
 Away they went, as hard as they could lay legs to 
 the ground, now in a direct line for the Coplow, run- 
 ning so fast that they literally were unable to give 
 tongue, and that only a solitary yelp or whimper from 
 time to time showed that they would have spoken to 
 the trail if they had had the breath to do so. 
 
 This turn, of course, favored Fairfax, who had been 
 riding from the start to the right of the pack, and who 
 was now, of course, riding the inner circle, while all 
 the old Meltonians, who had been previously a horse's 
 length or two behind him, were now thrown a length 
 or two farther behind, and left with the option of rid- 
 ing the outer circumference, or checking their horse's 
 stride and crossing behind the Virginian, so as to get 
 the inside of him. This was a point of judgment, 
 and one did one thing, one another ; but there was one 
 person to whom that sudden turn was victory, or 
 the chance of it — that person was Jardinier, the 
 last of the whole squad since his fall, and far the 
 outermost to the right, now made the innermost, and 
 
104 A SnAEP LURST AND A HARD RUN. 
 
 enabled, by laying up direct for the leading honnd, to 
 ride the chord of an arc, and to bring himself once 
 more fairly abreast of our hero. He had still, how- 
 ever, this disadvantage, that whereas his rival, having 
 been from the first well up to the hounds, had been 
 able to take the profit of every variation of pace — for 
 it must not be supposed that hounds, even when run- 
 ning at their best speed across a country, always go 
 at their very fastest, for scent will differ "vn ith soils, and 
 so pace likewise — he had been able to pull up his 
 horse once or twice, and once to give him a fair stand- 
 still with his nose to the wind for a few seconds, 
 while Jardinier being all the time a little, though but 
 a very little, way behind, and striving to make up lee- 
 way, had never an opportunity of easing or sparing 
 his fine black hunter for a single yard. On the other 
 hand he had the advantage in weight considerably, in 
 perfect knowledge of the ground, and in being a thor- 
 ough practised and old fox-hunter, though but a young 
 man, against a comparative tyro. Away ! away went 
 the lady pack, as if they had been winged ; wo to the 
 fox whose ill fate had set him before them on that 
 sporting morning. Of all the skirting squad, late so 
 hopeful of nicking in, their fate was sealed forever, 
 should the fox hold to his point for the Coplow. 
 
 There were but a handful now of the whole field, 
 which must at the break have numbered full three 
 hundred scarlet jackets, within two fences of the 
 hounds. All the rest had come to grief. 
 
 First rode, abreast, on parallel lines, literally neck 
 and neck, taking every fence as they found it in their 
 stroke, Jardinier, the crack young one of the country, 
 and Fairfax, already mentally admitted by good 
 judges to be a good one. Close behind these, and all 
 nearly abreast, not following their leaders, but each 
 resolutely riding his own line, came Osbaldiston, Al- 
 vanley^ Musgrave, the Duke of Beaufort, Holyoke, 
 
A SHARP BUKST AND A HARD RUN. 105 
 
 and Campbell of Sacldell. The weight of Val. Magher, 
 and his hard pounding had told the tale and he was 
 tailing. Goodricke, though riding game, had not yet 
 made his loss good, though he was up with the McDo- 
 nalds, the Gascoignes, Oliver, Ciss Forrester, and 
 Henry Peyton, who were doing all that could be done 
 to retrieve the time lost at the first gate, and who, 
 though far behind, were still in the same field with the 
 hounds. 
 
 On they went, faster, and yet faster — or it seemed 
 that they went faster as the stride of the good horses 
 gradually shortened. Fields flitted by unseen, fences ' 
 were topped unnoticed, and by this time the Virginian 
 blood of Fairfax, never the coldest in the world, was 
 getting up ; and as he saw that the viscount was mak- 
 ing a dead set at him, like a true Virginian, he met 
 him half way — and so by this time they had admitted 
 to themselves, what all the field who were within eye- 
 shot had seen the last half hour, that they were riding 
 no less at one another than to the hounds. 
 
 Together they plunged through a crashing bull- 
 finch, so stout, that had they been going one iota 
 slower, it would have hurled them backward, into a 
 good grass-field of about twenty acres, falling away 
 from them a little, and bounded on the farther side, 
 by the brimming bankfuU Whissendine, the broadest 
 jumpahle brook in England, now slightly overflowed, 
 and running with a furious current. 
 
 " Have at you now," cried Jardinier, forgetful in 
 his impetuosity of the laws of conventional courtesy, 
 and he pointed with his whip ahead, then rushed the 
 Smolensko at it. At that very moment Fairfax took 
 a pull on Moonbeam, and dropped two horse's lengths 
 at least astern of Jardinier. The viscount thought his 
 heart had failed him, and that he would blink his pace, 
 and rode yet more fiercely forward. It was his tem- 
 per not his judgment, that so swayed him; for no man 
 
106 A SHARP BURST AXD A HARD RUN. 
 
 of all tlie field knew better tliat no horse can sweep 
 the Whissendine unless he has the puff well in him. 
 
 Till within some ten strides of the red surging river, 
 Fairfax held hard, then set him at it straight, that he 
 could neither stop nor swerve, and in w^ent the per- 
 suaders twice ; but he knew too well to raise his whip, 
 and with both hands well down, he charged it as if 
 his name had been *' Thunderbolt." 
 
 The black Smolensko, although half blown, cleared 
 it nobly, but scarce far enough, for the treacherous 
 verge gave way under his hind feet, and he went down, 
 though finding foot-hold in the bank, he recovered, 
 after a heavy lurch, and brought his rider up, cling- 
 ing to him like a bull-dog, though clean out of the sad- 
 dle, and upon his withers. " Moonbeam" had not 
 only cleared it as though it had held no water, but 
 landed high and dry with good four feet to spare, and 
 went on steadily without stint or stumble. All the 
 next flight cleared it cleverly ; but when the loiterers 
 came up^ two or three heavy splashes gave note of wet 
 jackets ; and the leaders learned afterward that it was 
 not wholly without risk and difficulty that three or 
 four horses were got out of their cold bath. 
 
 On the bank several second horses were waiting for 
 their masters ; and to these all eyes were turned wist- 
 fully, for the pace had told more or less on all, and at 
 the pace they were going, it was certain that no 
 horse could stand it many minutes longer. But it so 
 chanced that not one of the party in advance had a 
 horse there, not even Jardinier, who wanted his the 
 most. Goodricke's was there, and Magher's, and 
 those of one or two gallants who were nowhere. But 
 of all the first flight, the boys with the second 
 horses had taken the west end of the gorse, where 
 they found, and were now a mile to windward, and no 
 hope of coming up at all. 
 
 About fifty yards below the spot where they leaped 
 
A SHARP BURST AND A HARD RUN. 107 
 
 tlie rivulet, a muddy drain falls into it, with an osier 
 patch of about two acres in the angle between the two ; 
 this the pack had already passed, when on a sudden 
 they threw up tlieir heads, and were at fault badly. 
 On the instant Fairfax was out of his saddle, in an- 
 other Moonbeam's nose was well to windward, and 
 half a pint of sherry from his master's flask was down 
 his gullet, and his nostrils sponged out, for the first 
 time, probably, in his life with a cambric handkerchief, 
 redolent of extrait de jockey-club. 
 
 " The best thing of the season by all odds," said Sir 
 Richard Musgrave, looking at his watch; " five miles 
 and a half as the crow flies in twenty-three minutes !" 
 
 '' I wish you joy, Fairfax," cried Beaufort, good- 
 naturedly. "If this is really your first day with 
 fox-hounds, though I can scarce believe it." 
 
 "His first day!" said Musgrave, laughing. "He 
 has been at it all my life." 
 
 "No he only takes to it very kindly;" said Matus- 
 chevitz, laughing ; "as I was sure he would to any 
 thing, when I saw him stick a pig that every body 
 else was afraid of, in a chasse aux sangliers near 
 Kennes." 
 
 " No, but you don't mean that it is really your first 
 day, Colonel Fairfax;" said Dick Musgrave; "for if 
 you do, this is a — a — I don't know what." 
 
 "A d — d thing,'' said Jardinier, who had just come 
 up with his horse limping, and himself dripping ; " a 
 d — d thing, ain't it, to be done this way?" 
 
 "It is really my first day in England," said Fair- 
 fax, quietly. 
 
 " In England ! — why where do they hunt foxes 
 else? In England, quoth'a!" said Holyoke, laughing. 
 
 " In Virginia, a little ; though not in such style, 
 certainly, nor across such a country," he replied. 
 
 " Virginia ! Where the deuce is that ?" asked Jar- 
 
108 A SHARP BURST AND A HARD RUN. 
 
 (llnier, half recurring to his first idea that he had been 
 riding against a Hottentot. 
 
 " Somewhere in Southern Africa, I believe, near 
 the Cape," answered Beaufort, gravely. ^'But what 
 the deuce are the hounds about. It is a curious at- 
 fault this." 
 
 Osbaldiston had made by this time a short cast for- 
 vrard in the line of the Coplow, but not hitting it off, 
 was coming back at full trot, with the ladies at his 
 heels. 
 
 " Overrun it, I fancy," he squealed, as he passed 
 them, " and laid up in the osier holt. Eleu-in ! Eleu- 
 in there, good lasses !" 
 
 And in an instant the osier holt was crashing as the 
 high-strung pack dashed into it, and the next moment 
 made ring with a full-mouthed chorus. 
 
 " Have at him there ! Hark a-wa-ay !" and a 
 " whoop" of a countryman at the other end followed, 
 and all who had dismounted sprang back into their 
 saddles. 
 
 " Exactly three minutes to a second," said Mus- 
 grave, as he put up his watch ; " but it's a cursed bore 
 his running back to those out-siders." 
 
 But even as he spoke. Jack Stevens' rate was heard 
 from the other end, " Hark back ! Hark back, I tell 
 you Charity ! Get away. Bedlam Bess ! Ha-rk back!" 
 followed by the sharp reports of his heavy whip ; and 
 at the next instant, black with sweat, tongue out, and 
 brush down, the hunted fox dodged out under their 
 very horses' feet, and skurrying through them unhurt, 
 went away on his old line as good as new. 
 
 " Whoop ! gone-away, whoop !" shrieked the Squire; 
 and at that well known yell, " the ladies" came 
 streaming up and away again, breast-high for the 
 Coplow. 
 
 "A fresh fox went away back, sir," said Jack Ste- 
 vens, " and the place was so foiled with the ould devil, 
 
A SHARP BURST AND A HARD RUN. 109 
 
 I don't wonder, if Cliaritj did take it. They 're set- 
 tling on him now, sir ;" and he touched his cap. 
 
 " Now for his brush," squealed the Squire ; " he'll 
 scarce reach the Coplow." 
 
 And away they went for four miles farther ; and 
 now up hill, all with a fair start ; all with horses that 
 had been well tried, wind and limb, that morning, all 
 emulous and abreast. 
 
 It boots not to dwell on fences ; for, after all, ex- 
 cept as you ride at them, they are all pretty much 
 alike. There were no checks any more, nor falls, until 
 at the very last fence, when " Sloonbeam" chested a 
 high stake and bound-fence, and came on his knees 
 and nose, to be cleverly recovered by his rider, just as 
 the Squire's incomparable and indescribable scream, 
 " Who-whoop ! who-whoop ! who-whoop ! was heard 
 from Billesdon Coplow on the hill — within three 
 fields of which they killed him, fairly run into in the 
 open — all the way back down wind to the Whissen- 
 dine, where it met the ears of the stragglers, and told 
 them that the best fox was dead who had run that 
 year before the ladies. 
 
 Point to point, from the find to the kill, it was nine 
 miles and a quarter as the crow flies ; and there was 
 about half a mile to add — so nearly straight was the 
 gallant fox's line — for the one deviation he had made 
 in the true course. 
 
 In forty-four minutes it was done, the check in- 
 cluded, over difficult ground, and some of the hardest 
 fencing in England. The greatest speed ever held for 
 an hour, is twelve miles, and that across common land 
 without fences ; so that it is no wonder if that burst 
 be remembered and quoted as one of the best and 
 hardest ever known ; and if that fox's scalp be visible 
 to this day, as it is, marked with three crosses as 
 super-excellent, on the doors of the Quorndon kennels. 
 
 From that day forth Percy Fairfax was free of Mel- 
 
110 A SHAKP BURST AND A HARD RUN. 
 
 ton Mowbray ; and it was quite useless that lie af- 
 firmed and asseverated that it was his first day with 
 the hounds in England. So he gave up saying so. 
 
 And Jardinier swears to this day that it is all non- 
 sense about Fairfax being a Virginian, because every 
 one knows the Fairfaxes are a Yorkshire family ; be- 
 sides, he knows that the people are all black in that 
 country ; and as to their fox-hunting at the Cape, or 
 in South Africa, he is not quite such a fool as not to 
 know that it's too hot to hunt there ; and besides, 
 there are no foxes there, only jackals ; for didn't poor 
 Power tell him so ; and hadn't he been there himself 
 — Power, not Jardinier — and so mustn't he know. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AND A BELLE. 
 
 The fox was hardly pulled to pieces, before up came, 
 in a long weary string, the boys on the second horses ; 
 but, instead of having ridden, as they ought to have 
 done if skilful and fortune-favored, the chord of an 
 arc or the hypothenuse of a triangle, they had unfor- 
 tunately on that day been thrown, by the singular 
 straightness of the fox's line, and the more remarka- 
 ble singularity of his one short angle, entirely on the 
 outside of the circle, and being thus forced to make up 
 leeway, instead of nicking in, and taking it easy, they 
 proved the truth of Matuschevitz's remark, about the 
 small advantage, if not disadvantage, possessed by 
 light weights over welter weights in a sharp burst. 
 For as they came streaming in over the upland, a long 
 straggling, panting line, it quickly became evident to 
 the chiefs of the hunt that the feather-weight young- 
 sters had taken more out of the second horses, than 
 had the welters out of the first, which had borne all the 
 brunt and burthen of the day. Osbaldiston gave a 
 low whistle, as a grand black horse by Jerry, came up 
 white with foam, and showing red clay marks of a 
 heavy fall — Jardinier swore hideously as bruising 
 Jem, his pet tiger, brought in a bright chesnut Comus 
 colt, staggering and dead-blown — Fairfax, also, saw 
 Thunderbolt, half-brother to Slasher, kicked up the 
 upland, with bellows to mend plainly written in his 
 distended nostrils, heaving flanks, and blood-shot eyes, 
 and evidently more distressed than either his half- 
 brother, Slasher, who had done miracles under the 
 
 (111) 
 
112 A BALL ROOM, AND A BELLE. 
 
 bruising pluck of Maglicr, or Clasher, who from first 
 to last had flown in the first flight under the dauntless 
 daring and grand piloting of the Squire. In a word, 
 Alvanley, Goodricke, Holyoke, Sir Richard Musgrave, 
 all the cracks, were nonplussed ; and what was worse, the 
 second horses of the men were worse beat, if possible, 
 than those of their masters ; and it was clear to be 
 seen that the death of that rattling fox was the end 
 of the day's sport, although the sun had not yet seen 
 his meridian. 
 
 The run had been so brilliant, however, that all who 
 had gone well were well contented : and it was only 
 Jardinier, ever malcontent, and a few others of the 
 illustrious thrown out, who were disposed to cavil at 
 the dispositions of the Squire. 
 
 " I can't say, Fairfax, that I'm sorry it's all over 
 for the day," said Matuschevitz, ''and you for reasons 
 of your own ought to be glad, if you are prudent, I 
 mean, more than ambitious — v/hich by the way I don't 
 believe you are." 
 
 " I'm sure, at least, I never said I was, mon clier,'' re- 
 joined the other, laughing, " but why ? why oiigltt I 
 to be glad?" 
 
 " Is that ignorance or afi'ectation, Fairfax ? stupid- 
 ity or vanity ? — of the two whether ?" 
 
 "Vanity and affectation, I trust. But, again, I 
 repeat why ?" 
 
 "You have gone so devilish well to-day, and made 
 so favorable an impression that you would do w^ell to 
 repose on your laurels, 'till with renewed morning 
 come reinvigorated sinews." 
 
 " Oh ! is that all ? — but you forget, Matuschevitz, 
 that I ride for excitement and to amuse myself, not to 
 be admired or made a ten-days wonder." 
 
 " Oh, aye ! the nil admirari, I had forgotten that 
 was your hobby ; but I think you misconstrue your 
 Latin admirari ; Jardinier will tell you, as an Etonian 
 
A BALL ROOM, AND A BELLE. 113 
 
 — for the J do teach Latin there, if they don't teach 
 orthography — means to admire, not to he admired ; 
 and old Horace almost in the same breath that he re- 
 commends the nil admirari as the one recipe for real 
 distinction, declares against you when he avows that 
 it is pleasant to be pointed out with the finger, and to 
 have it said of you "that's the fellow!" But the truth is 
 
 You have won of late 
 Golden opinions from all sorts of people, 
 Which should be worn while new, being in the gloss, 
 Not cast aside so soon — 
 
 and as my protege and pet-lion, in some sort, I desire 
 to see you maintain yourself with all your blushing 
 honors thick about. But hold ! — your pardon — Amer- 
 icans don't blush, I fancy." 
 
 "" Precious honors truly, to be envied by Jardinier, 
 pronounced almost the equal of Bellamy, and pro- 
 nounced ' so-so' with a shrug of the aristocratic shoul- 
 ders of the noble Cheshire." 
 
 "'Whatever it is worth while to do at all, it is 
 worth the while to do well.' I think yesterday I 
 heard you pronounce that sentiment almost admirable. 
 Yet now that you have wrested admiration even from 
 the admired, behold I out breaks the lightning gleam 
 of Byronian or Satanic sneer, and the hero of the 
 minute waxes too proud to be proud of his own success. 
 Oh, Virginia ! Virginia, is this the philosophy of thy 
 first families !" 
 
 " A truce ! a truce ! no more of that, an thou lov'st 
 me Hall, and I will cry Peccavi! but upon my soul 
 this exceeding desire for the approbation of fox-hunt- 
 ing Lords, appears to a poor republican, such as I, 
 somewhat contemptible." 
 
 " Not that they are English Lords, but that they are 
 English Fox-hunters, that is to say the fox-hunters of 
 the world par excellence. But let us see most doughty 
 176 
 
114 A BALL ROOM, AND A BELLE. 
 
 compatriot of Washington, most philosophic fellow- 
 citizen of Franklin, whether thy noble democratic 
 ardor, and fine contempt of aristocratic admiration, 
 will lead you to indifference as intact and superb to- 
 ward the admiration of the fox-hunting ladies, as of 
 their fox-hunting lords. That will be proved. Colo- 
 nel, this very evening. Look that you tarnish not 
 your new won laurels." 
 
 " This evening — how ? what do you mean, count ?" 
 cried Fairfax, with his eyes sparkling and a deeper 
 hue coloring his nut-brown cheek — for he fancied 
 himself smitten with one of the fair sister goddesses 
 of yester-even, to whom he supposed Matuschevitz to 
 allude, though he did not exactly know whether it was 
 the volatile and bright brunette of Cheshire or the 
 voluptuous, soft, blonde Isabella A*. 
 
 " Did you not know that there's a Hunt-Ball to- 
 night ? The Hunt-Ball. Every thing worth seeing 
 within a hundred miles round Belvoir will be there ! 
 Look to yourself once more. Jardinier boasts, if you 
 did beat him at the Whissendine, he can beat you at a 
 gallope. There will be one girl in the rooms, he'll 
 bet a poney, won't dance a war-dance with any In- 
 dian, whatever the men may say of it!" 
 
 "Name! name!" cried Fairfax, laughing, "name 
 your girl, and I'll stake the poney. Name, your girl, 
 as they say in the house. Count, or never more be 
 friend of mine." 
 
 "I never break faith," replied the Count gravely, 
 " even with Jardinier. I will only tell you that she 
 has the prettiest name of any girl in the room, when 
 you find it out." 
 
 " Confound her name, one don't flirt with names, 
 much less fall in love with them. Has she the pret- 
 tiest face, the prettiest person in the room ? Is her 
 hair as fine, her eyes as bright as Lady Cheshire's ? 
 Her arms as round, her shoulders as dimpled her 
 
A BALL ROOM, AND A BELLE. 115 
 
 bust as exquisite as Isabella A * 1 ? If so, my lord 
 Jardinier, have at you!" 
 
 " You must find out, Colonel ; you must find out, 
 for after all it's all opinion, you know. Skin-deep ! 
 Skin-deep ! what have politicians like you and I to do 
 with waists, and busts, and beauty?" 
 
 " Talleyrand was a politician. Count, and Lieven is 
 an ambassador, and Marie Esterhazy an ambassa- 
 dress." 
 
 ^' True, most republican," cried Matuschevitz, but 
 before he could proceed farther a shout came from be- 
 hind, as they cantered along a green lane leading to 
 the high road, heard clear above the clatter of the 
 galloping hoofs ; and the next moment the fine, portly 
 person of the Duke of Beaufort reined up beside 
 them. 
 
 " AVhat ho ! Count — what ho ! Colonel Fairfax, ex- 
 cuse ceremony, pray, and dine with me en garcon. 
 We shall not sit late, but be good boys, for we must 
 be at the Hunt ball. You go, of course. Colonel Fair- 
 fax — of course they have sent you a card. Every 
 body will be there — that is to say, every body of the 
 three hundred people whom every body calls every 
 body." 
 
 " Thanks, Duke, I shall be very happy. I never 
 heard of the ball 'till Matuschevitz named it just now. 
 But I think I should like to go, that is to say, if they 
 have sent me a card." 
 
 "There is no if about that," said the duke. "If 
 any one had known you were coming, before you made 
 your appearance, from Cafii'aria or the moon, as some 
 of these hereditary geniuses seem to suppose, you 
 would have found your table covered with such things. 
 As it is I know it was spoken of last night." 
 
 "And I know it was sent this morning," rejoined 
 the Russian, " for it came under cover to me before 
 breakfast ; but I did not say a word about it to him, 
 
116 A BALL ROOM, AND A BELLE. 
 
 for, although I well knew that my Hyperborean blood 
 could endure the prospect of the blaze of beauty to 
 which it will be exposed to-night, I feared lest the 
 southern temperament of this ardent son of Virginia 
 would be inflamed beyond all hope of his ' witching 
 the world with noble horsemanship.' " 
 
 " Which he certainly has done, or ought to have 
 done to-day," said the Duke, with a smile and a half 
 apologetical bow to Fairfax, and then added, " you 
 must pardon me for seeming to flatter you to your 
 face, but frankly you have gone to-day as no provin- 
 cial, much more no foreigner has ever gone before 
 you ; all our best and oldest sportsmen admit that ; 
 and Jardinier, sweet youth, is well prepared to cut his 
 own throat at thought of your victory." 
 
 " How fatal a victory, if it should deprive England 
 of so bright an ornament to the peerage." 
 
 "And Bellamy would undoubtedly have been as 
 well prepared to cut yours, if he and his good-natured 
 horse had not got themselves pounded so early in the 
 run, that it was not you, but Bellamy, who beat Bel- 
 lamy," said Matuschevitz, for all the world were in 
 the habit of talking openly about these worthies. 
 
 " Pleasant fellows, very !" said Fairfax, drily. 
 
 "Very pleasant, colonel," said the Duke, "but 
 pardon me for saying to you as a stranger, that we 
 make it a point to take no notice whatever of their 
 rudeness — which never becomes impertinence at least 
 with their equals or superiors, but is limited to brusque 
 coarseness, or dogged ill-temper — except by silent con- 
 tempt, a sharp epigram, or a quick jest at their ex- 
 pense. This puts them so utterly wrong that they 
 dare not quarrel, turns the laugh against them, and 
 increases their mulish sullenness. For let me say to 
 you, and do not think I am presuming to lecture you, 
 that what is considered the worst thing against a nian 
 in England, except refusing to fight, is fighting a duel. 
 
AND A BELLE. 117 
 
 Public opinion of men of his own caste arranges the 
 things here for a man, which in France, or with you 
 I presume, would be settled by the small-sword, or 
 the rifle." 
 
 " I am very much obliged to you, Duke, and, so far 
 from fancying that you are lecturing me, know that 
 the greatest favor a gentleman in your position can 
 confer upon a stranger in his own country is to make 
 him au fait, to those small usages of society, to 
 which no foreigner can be up, on his first arrival." 
 
 " I certainly should not have said as much to every 
 one." 
 
 " And I certainly must say that Lord Jardinier was 
 to-day unpardonably rude to me, not only as a foreigner 
 but as a personal stranger." 
 
 " He was, indeed, and he will be told so at a proper 
 time, from a quarter whence he will regard what he is 
 told. I was afraid only that you would have conde- 
 scended to resent it, to do which, I assure you, would 
 have been a descent." 
 
 " My dear duke," replied Fairfax, earnestly and 
 gratefully, "if you will permit me so to call you, I 
 am not, though I hope a thorough American, one of 
 those propagandizing, make-mischiefs, and marplots, 
 who pass their whole time while abroad in a lively at- 
 tempt to render themselves as detestable and their 
 country as ridiculous as possible, by endeavoring to 
 force their own manners, I should say want of man- 
 ners, down the throats of all and sundry. I am quite 
 content when in Rome to be as Romans are, and to 
 try to conduct myself in every country, as I see the 
 best bred men of that country conduct themselves. 
 For this, I have no doubt, I shall be denounced at 
 home, if they ever learn it, by all the stump orators 
 of the great unterrified from Maine to Mississippi, as 
 a soulless southern aristocrat, and as a fawning flat- 
 terer of European monarchists. But I don't think 
 
118 A BALL ROOM, AND A BELLE. 
 
 that will deter me mucli from any course I judge it 
 good to follow." 
 
 "I do not think it will, colonel," said the duke, 
 with a quiet smile, " and if you stand the artillery of 
 our ladies' eyes, as coolly as you do the puppyism of 
 our scape-graces, and the — what shall I call it, of your 
 sovereign lords and masters the people, I shall set you 
 down as second in insouciance only to that far-famed 
 hero in the play, who, when his wife was consumed at 
 table by spontaneous combustion, was disturbed so far 
 only from his equable indifference, as to desire John 
 to ^ sweep up his mistress and bring clean glasses.' " 
 
 "The new test will be the hardest," said Fairfax, 
 laughing, " if they are all as lovely as two we saw 
 last evening." 
 
 "Not all — oh ! no, not all, but plenty," said Beau- 
 fort, " and plenty too, more attainable or at least 
 more legitimately so, as not being yet appropriated 
 girls, than which Henry R says, all married wo- 
 men are nothing else." 
 
 "I am afraid," said Matuschevitz, "the appro- 
 priated will find the colonel more dangerous, than the 
 unappropriated. He is not much of a marrying man 
 I've a notion." 
 
 '^1 guess, you ought to say, count." 
 
 " Luckily for him if it be so. For he'll see one un- 
 appropriated to-night who will as certainly gallop into 
 his heart, if it has an open gate or a practicable fence 
 into it, as he would have gallopped into hers if she had 
 been out to-day. Hey, Matuschevitz?" 
 
 " Not a word more, duke," cried the plenipo, "not 
 a word more, or he'll be on his guard, on his high 
 horse, and, which is worse than all, on his Virginian 
 high mightiness-ship ! Besides, there's a bet about it 
 already!" 
 
 "What, the same?" asked Fairfax gaily, "the 
 same, whom I am to detect untaught, the gare a elU ! 
 
AND A BELLE. 119 
 
 gave a lui ! I dare all to the lists, though upon my 
 life, I have not ridden at the ring, since the last tour- 
 nament I witnessed at the White Sulphur Springs, 
 where I, in the fifteenth year of my precocity, bore 
 away the ring against all comers, all for the love of 
 Sukey Smithson, whom I crowned queen of love and 
 beauty, two days before she eloped with a long, slab- 
 sided Vermont midshipman as green as the mountains 
 that he came from, with a laugh like a horse's neigh, 
 and a voice like an asthmatic bag-pipe. After that 
 my lacerated heart became hard as the nether mill- 
 stone, and I defy — " 
 
 "■ Don't be rash, don't be rash. And what is more 
 to the purpose, don't be late for dinner ; to-day it is 
 sharp score. This lane takes me to my stables, that 
 to yours. Au 7'evoir T' 
 
 " Au revoir. JSe is a gentleman, at least," said 
 Fairfax to his friend, as they turned off homeward. 
 
 "One often thousand, Fairfax," said the count, 
 " and what is more to your purpose, he thinks you one. 
 I never saw or heard of his concerning himself so far 
 as to advise any foreigner before, though I have 
 seen him made known to hundreds, myself among the 
 number." 
 
 " Advice from him, at all events, is a compliment, 
 and in this case worth having, and what is more 
 taking. And now for some advice from you — since I 
 have letters to write which will keep me busy 'till din- 
 ner time — what is the dress den'giieu?', for a hunt-ball, 
 a thing unknown to us Caffrarians ? Is there a cos- 
 tume?" 
 
 " Yes ! for the stewards, and members proper of the 
 club — pinks with white waistcoats, continuations, and 
 silk stockings. For nous autres^l'nm evening dresses, 
 selon moi the plainer the better, but you must take 
 your choice between the simple and the sublime, 
 
120 A BALL EOOxAf, AND A BELLE. 
 
 whether to win by sap, or conquer by assault, and who 
 a better judge?" 
 
 Two or three hours later the friends met again, and 
 somewhat to the surprise, but yet more to the pleasure 
 of Matuschevitz, Fairfax made his appearance per- 
 fectly well dressed, but without any thing of that over 
 elaborate or dressy air Vvdiich he sometimes adopted 
 much to his detriment, as it must necessarily be to 
 that of all dark-haired and dark-complexioned men. 
 His linen was exquisite, and his white waistcoat sheeny 
 as if it had been varnished, with large oriental pearls, 
 the only valuable things he wore; as his well-starched 
 waistcoat, and well-polished shoes were the only bright 
 things. For the rest his coat did not look the least 
 as if it had been stitched upon his back, and his 
 trowsers did look as if they had been made to walk, 
 to dance, or even to sit down in. Certainly he was a 
 very well made, a very handsome, and a very well, 
 though not extensively, got up man ; and Matusche- 
 vitz thought so as he surveyed him, with a slight nod 
 of approbation. But the next minute he nodded more 
 drolly and said, with an arch smile : 
 
 '' What is this, colonel ? I don't see a vast diamond 
 breastpin, worth a cargo of tobacco, in your shirt bo- 
 som ; and I don't smell patchouli on your handker- 
 chief." 
 
 ^' No, 3fo7isieur V Ambassadeur, grace au bon 
 Dieu ! You don't see a New York merchant-prince 
 snob, or a young New York japonicadom snob, before 
 you ; but simply a Virginian gentleman." 
 
 " Of the first families !" said the Russian with a 
 low inclination, as the French novelists call it, when 
 they want to be excruciating. " Now let's go to din- 
 ner." And they went to dinner, and a mighty plea- 
 sant dinner it was too, as who ever heard of Beaufort 
 giving a dinner which was not pleasant. Every thing 
 was exquisite, nothing /we from the champagne to the 
 
A BALL ROOM, AXD A BELLE. 121 
 
 conversation ; every thing was of course, and every 
 body from the gentlemen, to the gentlemen's gentle- 
 men, showed that they felt it to be so. Again Fairfax 
 ^vas surprised that among a bachelor party of sports- 
 men not a word of dog or horse talk — among a party 
 of fox-hunters not a word of fox-hunting — among a 
 party of hereditary legislators, not a word of politics 
 was spoken. The only possible allusion to the pur- 
 pose of their congregation at Melton, discoverable 
 during the evening, was when a very old and very il- 
 lustrious peer, himself an old master of fox hounds, 
 who sat opposite to him, but to whom he had not been 
 introduced, asked him to drink champagne, and hoped 
 he was well enough satisfied with his first day at 
 Melton. 
 
 Fairfax was sorry when the dinner party broke up, 
 so quickly had the hours flown, and so gay and clever 
 withal had been the table talk, with no great guest to 
 monopolize and oratorize, but a dozen skilful players 
 ready to catch up the ball of conversation ere it fell, 
 cast it back each to his neighbor, and maintain an in- 
 cessant fire of repartee and epigram and persiflage, 
 mixed with much poetry and some few touches of 
 romance, but nothing of enthusiasm or even eagerness. 
 
 He was half inclined, before he entered the ball-room, 
 to wish that the ball was at the devil, for taking him 
 away from the dinner party ; but before he had been 
 in the room half an hour, he almost wished the dinner 
 party had been at the devil for keeping him so long 
 away from the ball. 
 
 The rooms were filling, but not yet full when the 
 party entered with Fairfax in the middle, for he did 
 not think it necessary because he was a republican to 
 prove his republicanism by taking the pas of peers of 
 the realm on their own ground. 
 
 The first coup d'oeil of the rooms did not strike him 
 very much, for there was none at all of the pomp and 
 
122 A BALL nOOM, AND A BELLE. 
 
 false glare and glitter to wliicli he had been used in 
 the United States and on the European Continent. 
 WsRls of plain white enamel with the slightest gold 
 moulding, white muslin curtains, plain benches and 
 settees of bamboo around the walls, a profusion of 
 wax lights in cut glass chandeliers, that was all. No 
 ormolu, no marquetry, no velvet, no brocade, no at- 
 tempts in the furniture at the Middle Ages or the re- 
 naissance. But the floor was waxed 'till it was as 
 slippery as ice, the music admirable, for it was flippant, 
 and the assemblage such as no other land can show. 
 But, then, the women — women, mature in youthful 
 beauty, delicate, graceful, and slender of proportion, 
 yet perfect in the rounded symmetry, the soft swell- 
 ing charms of Hebe's lovely womanhood, with eyes, 
 hair, shapes, unrivalled ; diff'erent from all other women ; 
 from the girls, the exquisite frail sylph-like girls of 
 America, with slender swaying willowy shapelyness 
 of form, and colorless, pearly-white complexions, 
 never alas ! or scarcely once in a thousand times, to 
 be developed into the full-blown ripeness of form, or 
 the rich flush of perfect beauty ; but to fade away, too 
 soon, and wither ere their prime half-budded — from 
 the irregular features and angular forms of the women 
 of la belle France, unequalled in the secrets of car- 
 riage and demeanor, in the mysteries of the toilet, in 
 the affectations, coquetries, misauderies, of grace, per- 
 fect in all the artificial, but how deficient in the natu- 
 ral beauties of the sex. 
 
 And the men, the flower of manly power and mas- 
 culine grace, easy of bearing, courteous, calm, self- 
 possessed, and most afiable to those farthest below, 
 because confident of their own position — admirably 
 dressed, yet perfectly unconscious that they are 
 dressed at all, graceful, because grace of carriage is 
 native to the well-made, well-nurtured, the well-born 
 — dancing and dressing and bearing themselves, in a 
 
AND A BELLE. 123 
 
 word, like gentlemen ; that is to say as unlike as pos- 
 sible to New York dandies, or Frenchmen their mo- 
 dels, or dancing-masters, the archetypes of both — 
 their tailors and dancing masters being merged in the 
 gentlemen, not the gentlemen lost in the conscious- 
 ness and concentration of dancing-master, posturer, 
 and tailor. 
 
 In such company as that, there is never a blush, a 
 surprise, or even an enthusiasm, much less a flutter at 
 the entrance even of royalty, except on state occa- 
 sions, and then shown only by a stir and silence. No 
 excitement, therefore, occurred as the Duke's party 
 entered, though it was composed of the very cream of 
 the men of Melton Mowbray, the favorites of the fair, 
 the flower of the peers of England. There is little 
 demonstrativeness in the English character, unless 
 when the heart of England is stirred to its core by 
 some grand emotion. 
 
 Therefore the girls went on, just as usual, flirting 
 and chatting and laughing, with that low, soft, into- 
 nated voice, that infectious ringing laughter pecu- 
 liar to themselves, with their partners in the pauses 
 of the dance — the married belles flirted, and talked 
 more earnestly as they sat in corners with their fa- 
 vorites — the nice young men philandered, the exqui- 
 sites sauntered and simpered, the puppies impudently 
 stared and ogled, and the lady-killers made deep, low, 
 earnest love in whispers ; and no notice was taken of 
 the new comers beyond a sidelong glance shot from 
 beneath the lashes of some young beauty seeming to 
 say, I wish it were you instead of this dandy sim- 
 pleton. 
 
 Before they had stood, however, five minutes within 
 the door»tlie set of quadrilles ended, and the dancers 
 breaking up into a promenading crowd, left the floor 
 practicable, and our group at once dispersed, each in 
 quest of his peculiar lady. 
 
124 A BALL ROOM, AND A BELLE. 
 
 Fairfax liad discovered, immedi^-tely on his entrance, 
 the only two lady acquaintances he had made at Mel- 
 ton, the dark-flashing Cheshire, and the sweet languid 
 Isabella at the upper end of the room, and had been 
 discovered in turn, as the slight nod and smiling glance 
 and wafting of the welcoming fan told him ; and he 
 w\as making his way slowly toward them through the 
 highborn throng, who were all by chance streaming in 
 the same direction, when a pair glided sidelong into 
 the string close before him, so that he could only see 
 their backs, who yet rivetted for a moment his atten- 
 tion. The gentleman was young, and much like other 
 young gentlemen, but there was that about the female 
 figure that could not have been overlooked in any 
 crowded mart of beauty. 
 
 It was only her back that met the eye of Fairfax, 
 but he was a connoisseur in female charms, and even 
 from that slight glance, he knew that she before him 
 was a perfect woman. A figure considerably above 
 the middle stature, for her classically shaped and ex- 
 quisitely set on head rose far above her partner's shoul- 
 der, coukl not have been called tall, so perfectly was it 
 proportioned ; a long rounded swan-like neck, broad, 
 sloping shoulders, white and firm as Parian marble, 
 with a soft, satin skin, so plump and dimpled that they 
 wooed the touch almost irresistibly ; a waist shaped to 
 love's wish, not whaleboned into deformity, as every 
 supple and sinuous motion showed, but capable to fill 
 the arms of an Antinous ; a fall of white satin dra- 
 peries below, so fully flowing in lines so serpentine and 
 suggestive that the perfection of the form and motion 
 they concealed could not be questioned; a mass of 
 silky, glistening braids knotted low down at the nape 
 with a flood of mazy ringlets of half dishe"velled hair, 
 of that pale, pale brown which but for its golden ra- 
 diance would be called flaxen, waving beside each rosy 
 ear quite to the shoulder ; a pair of white dimpled 
 
AXD A BELLE. 125 
 
 arms sTiaded only by a lace sleeve of a hands-breadth 
 below the shoulder, with one massive gold bracelet 
 and short white gloves lace-fringed — that was all. 
 Yet it was enough to inspire Percy Fairfax with — 
 what ? Aye, what ? — Not love, fair and gentle reader, 
 no — certainly not love. But a sensation, half of rest- 
 less curiosity to see the front and face of that soft and 
 graceful form ; half of wonder if the features were m 
 harmony with the harmonious shape and movement ; 
 were the eyes deeply, beautifully blue, or was it but a 
 pale, insipid white-eyed and white-eyebrowed blonde, 
 that swam so swan-like, yet so womanly withal, before 
 him ? And he half smiled at his own romance, as ho 
 caught himself fancying that he had met that woman's 
 figure ; for he set her down at once too full blown for a 
 girl ; somewhere — was it in his dreams ? before, and, 
 yet more absurd that she was in somewise connected 
 with his own fate. 
 
 But his ball-room romance was soon and shortly 
 ended. He reached the spot where the sister-graces, 
 of whom he was in quest, stood revealed before him, 
 and ere the fair unknown had turned so far as to show 
 him so much as the outline of a cheek, he halted, in 
 pleasure as in duty bound, slave to those Cynthias of 
 the minute. And the light, merry welcome, and the 
 gentle persiflage half just concealing real praise, hail- 
 ing him 
 
 " Victor of tlie day, 
 And champion of well-won fi'ay, 
 Even as the Lord of Fontenaye, 
 And Lutterworth and Scrivelbave, 
 And Tamworth tower, and town — " 
 
 and that most fascinating of all flatteries, the mute 
 adulation of a beautiful woman's eyes, long detained 
 him ; and the memory of soft dimpled shoulders and 
 pale golden tresses 
 
126 A BALL ROOM, AND A BELLE. 
 
 *' In which a ray 
 Of the enamored sun had lost its way," 
 
 was soon obliterated by the wreathed smiles and elo- 
 quent floating glances of the siren Cheshire. 
 
 Men came up too, and gathered around the sisters, 
 and all that inimitable grace of frank, natural, unre- 
 strained mirth and merriment, and quip and epigram, 
 unattainable except by the highly cultivated, flashed 
 round him. He was enchanted by the brilliancy of 
 all about him, and, drinking in the inspiration, was not 
 himself the least brilliant of the group. 
 
 Suddenly looking up in his face, the dark enchan- 
 tress over whom he was leaning, dazzled and en- 
 chanted, but not touched, said with afi"ected innocence, 
 ^'but why do you loiter here with us matrons, as they 
 call us ; why are not you dancing with some of our 
 blue-eyed belles ; you ought to swear by blue eyes for 
 the contrast's sake. Do you never dance. Colonel 
 Fairfax ?" 
 
 " Never, unless it be the war-dance with my tribe, 
 as Lord Jardinier will have it. But I will try, if you 
 will help me." 
 
 "• I'll help you to do any thing ; but I'm mistakefn 
 if you are not pretty good at helping yourself, sir." 
 
 So she laid her little white gloved-hand on the right 
 shoulder of his black coat, and yielding her waist to 
 his arm stepped forward to join the galloppade, the 
 performers in which were standing just in front of 
 them. And, as they waited for their turn, he was im- 
 pressing on her mind with earnest words how intensely 
 he admired black eyes and sparkling brunettes, and 
 how insipid he thought all blondes and all blue eyes, 
 when he suddenly lifted his own eyes from the espiegle 
 face beside him ; and there close before him, almost in 
 contact with liis partner, were the beautiful shoulders, 
 and voluptuous figure, the snow-white neck and golden 
 ringlets of the unknown. She was just moving for- 
 
A BALL ROOM, AND A SELLE. 127 
 
 ward in the first steps of the galloppe— it was that bril- 
 liant and favorite one from the postillion with the 
 clinking bells and cracking whip, and all the couples 
 were wheeling at their utmost speed — ^when down 
 came, leading and outstripping all the dance, Jardinier, 
 and merriest, prettiest, and sauciest of spirits. Carry 
 Free, and as they whirled round, the rough-dancing 
 as well as rough-riding, insolent peer came into rude 
 contact with Fairfax's belle unknown, and that so for- 
 cibly as to send her reeling back from her partner's 
 support. She slipped on the slippery floor, lost her 
 balance, fell — but, in an instant, almost before she 
 w^as off her equilibrium, the stout arm of Fairfax had 
 caught her, gently but steadily, round the waist, and 
 set her fairly on her feet, ere one flowing line of her 
 draperies was disordered. It was but a second, but 
 in that second her soft round shoulder had weighed 
 hard on his breast, and those silky, golden ringlets 
 had fanned his face, the fragrance — I know not what 
 it is, certainly not perfume — of highborn beauty had 
 penetrated his very soul. 
 
 Perfectly self-possessed, desirous to avoid eclat, and 
 anxious to spare her the embarrassment of having 
 rested but for an instant in a stranger's arms, he re- 
 covered his place by his partner's side, and, as she 
 turned to see who had helped her, with thanks on her 
 tongue, intentionally bowed so low as to avoid her 
 eyes, sure more by instinct than by sight, that she 
 half curtsied, and the next moment was whirling 
 away with the brilliant Cheshire at a rate and with 
 an ea^e that showed him no novice in that graphic 
 dance. 
 
 Panting as she was and out of breath, when they 
 paused, his dark enchantress, who had noted all that 
 passed, not unpleased, for she attributed his noncha- 
 lance, as she fancied it, to the impression she had 
 made upon him — not that she cared for him the nine- 
 
128 A BALL ROOM, AND A BELLE. 
 
 tietli part of one of her own jet black love-locks, but 
 that she wasfemme et coquette jusq aux ongles — said, 
 as she leaned on him for support : 
 
 *' That was beautiful. Colonel Fairfax. Beautifully 
 done — Foi de Cheshire, you are a veritable preux che- 
 valier. And such a pretty, self-obliged bow too. You 
 don't know what that bow cost you. The softest blush, 
 and the most grateful glance, and the nicest curtsy 
 from the prettiest girl in England, so the gentlemen 
 call her." 
 
 " Is she pretty ? I did not see her face at all, and 
 from her figure I did not fancy her a girl — a little en 
 embonpoint ; is she not ?" 
 
 " Yes, perhaps so," said Ches, the fault of whose 
 tournure was the reverse of embonpoint, "• perhaps a 
 little ; but she is a girl, quite a girl, not above eighteen, 
 
 and unappropriated too, as De R calls it. Yes, 
 
 she is very pretty, but I suppose you would not think 
 so, for she is very blonde. Look at her now, she is 
 coming directly toward us." 
 
 Turning quietly around, Fairfax saw her, and al- 
 most started, so extreme was his surprise and admira- 
 tion. If the figure were exquisite as seen from be- 
 hind, what was it in full face, a bust of ideal symmetry 
 such as no nymph or goddess ever wore in the Parian 
 of Praxiteles or Phidias, warm, palpitating, white as 
 snow, tinged with a faint sunset flush, intersected by 
 myriads of small sinuous veins of azure ; a waist to 
 be imagined not described, and then the downward 
 sweep of those most womanly outlines ; and the small 
 feet peering out timidly from beneath the hem of her 
 train 
 
 Suggesting the more secret symmetry 
 
 Of those fair forms, that terminate so well ; 
 
 and then the face, the more than Corinthian capital of 
 
AND A BELLE. 129 
 
 the human column — was it that of a pale-eyed, in- 
 sipid, white-browed blonde — or — ? 
 
 "My God! how wonderfully lovely !" rose almost 
 to the lips of Fairfax, but he checked the impulse, and 
 gazed in mute wonder, silent adoration. Was ever 
 any thing so strangely, wonderfully, beautiful. 
 
 Those exuberant masses of soft light hair, every 
 mazy tendril glittering in the candle light a ring of 
 gold — that low, broad, ivory forehead, those straight 
 fine-cut brows, and long-fringed lashes, black as night ; 
 those large eyes, deep, deep velvet brown, humid and 
 lustrous ; the regular oval of the pale, transparent 
 face ; the shapely Grecian nose, the least in the world 
 retrousse, gi^iiig an arch character to the whole ; the 
 dark carnation lips, softly pouting, the pearly teeth 
 sparkling between them ; the rosy-rounded chin, set, 
 how deliciously, upon the swelling throat 
 
 Percy Fairfax had from his boyhood been a, fanatic 
 for beauty, and — though he had in badinage forsworn 
 it to his dark Cleopatra of the minute — a fanatic for 
 blonde beauty. A poet and a dreamer, he had dreamed 
 aif ideal not as yet found, never he fancied to be found 
 except in the fairy regions of the mind. 
 
 And now she stood before him. Self-possessed 
 conventionalist, case-hardened citizen of the world as 
 he was, his heart fluttered fast for a minute, his brain 
 swam, his eyes were darkened, he was recalled only by 
 the arch voice and liquid laugh of the Cheshire at his 
 ear. 
 
 " Oh ! traitor. So you do think the insipid blonde 
 beautiful ! She is unappropriated, I told you. Colonel, 
 shall I present you?" 
 
 *' Not for the world !" 
 
 "Not for the world! La!" said Lady Ches. 
 " Why ? Do you think her too dangerous ? I thought 
 you did not admire blondes ?" 
 177 
 
130 A BALL ROOM, AND A BELLE. 
 
 " Who can admire any one, when he is at year foot* 
 stool ?" 
 
 " Too late ! false knight, too late," she cried, laugh- 
 ing merrily. "Had you said that ten minutes ago, 
 you might have deluded poor little me — who knows ? 
 by your soft nonsense. But now it is too late. Never 
 try that again with me, I warn you, on your alle- 
 giance;" and she shook her finger at him in sportive 
 menace. 
 
 Meanwhile the beautiful unknown was passing close 
 before them. Her eyes had met the fiery glance of 
 Fairfax rivetted upon her, though he lowered his the 
 moment they encountered. From the roots of her 
 hair to the top of her boddice, brow, cheeks, neck, 
 bosom, she flushed crimson, nay ! her shoulders 
 blushed, and her arms to the fingers' end, painfully. 
 Her eyes sank to the ground and she trembled, to 
 Lady Cheshire's observant glance visibly, as she went 
 by. She thought herself, perhaps, avoided, slighted, 
 her thanks rejected, and the married brunette preferred 
 before her. Could it be so? It might— women are 
 singularly constituted creatures, and love to be lo\^d 
 even where they love not themselves — and are vexed 
 often to see other women admired by whom they care 
 not to be admired themselves. Was this so now ?" 
 
 "Now, Colonel Fairfax, I insist upon it — I will in- 
 troduce you. She is a beautiful girl, as any one must 
 be blind not to see ; and as good a little girl as ever 
 lived, and the greatest pet at Melton. And it is really 
 too absurd that two great grown up people, like you, 
 should be making petite mine; she blushing to her fin- 
 gers from real shame, and vexation that you could not 
 see and acknowledge her pretty curtsy and mille 
 graces ! and you affecting — for of course in you it is 
 the merest affectation — to be very bashful and re- 
 tiring all on a sudden. I don't believe you were ever 
 ashamed or bashful in your life, mon Colonel, moro 
 
A BALL ROOM, AND A BELLE. 131 
 
 especially with a lady in the case, though I dare say 
 you have given plenty of them cause to blush, and to 
 be ashamed, too. Come, I always have my own way 
 — and I am resolved for once that you shall know 
 Mary Merton." 
 
 " Mary Merton ! what a pretty name !" 
 
 *' So pretty that I don't believe she'd care to change 
 it even for Fairfax, though you were to ask her, in the 
 same voice that you asked me to dance with, half an. 
 hour since. What's your Christian name ?" 
 
 *' Heavens ! why ? Percy, at your pleasure." 
 
 " Miss Mary Merton — Mrs. Percy Fairfax. I don't 
 know which is prettiest. Come, will you obey me ?" 
 
 " I'd rather not, indeed. That is, not just noiv. 
 I'm sure she would rather not. It will only distress 
 her. Did not you see how she blushed just now ?" 
 
 " I'd rather just now. I'm sure she would much 
 rather dance with you, for you dance — there ! don't 
 look up for a compliment — pretty well, for an Ameri- 
 can. It will not distress her at all. It never does 
 distress girls to make them blush. Besides, she only 
 blushed because she thought you were flirting and 
 making soft eyes at me, when all your eyes ought to 
 have been on her, and her li»ttle curtsy." 
 
 " You would make me out something very — " 
 
 " There ! there ! You need not say that. Not 
 half so much a something, as you think of yourself. 
 Show me an American, who does not think more of 
 himself than any one else does in the wide world, and 
 I'll give you — " 
 
 "No, will you?" 
 
 " Yes — credit for modesty. There — now stay just 
 where you are, and talk to prosy old Lord Glenlivat, 
 but not a glance or a soft word to any woman on your 
 life, 'till I come back to you." 
 
 And with a playful gesture of command, she sailed 
 across the room and placed herself beside Mary Mer- 
 
182 A BALL ROOM, ANB A BELLE. 
 
 ton, whose partner had just seated her on a sofa be- 
 side a portly old dowager, and bowed himself off with 
 a simper. 
 
 She was on an errand of good nature, for she was 
 very, really, good natured; and in spite of all her 
 little flirtations, and coquetries, and her love of admi- 
 ration, and passion for making men in love with her 
 for whom she did not care a straw, and her little, free, 
 naughty speeches — there was not a bit of harm in her 
 — not a bit. Not a breath even of calumny ever 
 soiled the whiteness of her ermine, and all the world 
 wondered how she could be so good a wife, and so pre- 
 serve her kindness of heart and purity of soul, when 
 coupled to so heartless, sensual a snob as Lord Che- 
 shire ; when exposed daily to the contamination of his 
 presence, his conversation, his atmosphere, which cor- 
 rupted all men^ even, who ever came within reach of 
 his contagion, 
 
 Fairfax obeyed orders, and talked with prosy old 
 Lord Glenlivat about Burgundy and Verzenay, the 
 only topics within the sphere of that noble intellect ; 
 but still he kept a furtive watch upon the pretty move- 
 ments of the pretty creatures opposite. 
 
 They shook hands, and smiled, and Mary Merton 
 blushed a little, and looked down ; and Lady Cheshire 
 talked earnestly and eagerly, and looked toward him- 
 self, and Mary half raised her eyes, and then blushed 
 more, and looked down more. And then Lady Ches. 
 talked more eagerly, and gesticulated more, and then 
 laughed heartily, and made Mary Merton laugh 
 heartily too, and then blush more. And so, after a 
 chat of some ten minutes, she came swimming back 
 with a very merry eye and a malicious smile. 
 
 " There, I told you so. She'll be very happy." 
 
 " It took you a hard struggle to mnkc her very 
 happy.' 
 
 ^' I didn't. I leave you to do that. Come, give mo 
 
133 
 
 your arm, and take me. No ; not that way" — as 
 Fairfax turned as if to go straight across the room to 
 her. " Good God — do you want to charge the girl, 
 as if she were a bullfinch. She can do that, by-the- 
 bye, as well as you can, they say. No, come along, 
 quietly this way, restrain your southern ardor and make 
 love to me as hard as you can, 'till we get round the 
 room and come upon pretty Mary unawares, so as to 
 give her a chance of being unconscious." 
 
 It was done as she desired, and as they began to 
 approach, Mary was seized by a strong impulse to con- 
 verse earnestly with the portly dowager ; and to do so 
 leaned forward and turned round, thereby exhibiting 
 a very lovely flexure of the neck and shoulders to 
 Fairfax and his sparkling companion, and was of 
 course utterly unconscious of their vicinity, 'till Lady 
 Cheshire's gloved finger was pressed upon her shoulder, 
 when she started, rose from her seat as Lady Ches 
 took her hand, and looked inquiringly toward Fairfax, 
 once more blushing a little, but not painfully. 
 
 " Mary, my dear, let me make you know Colonel 
 Fairfax. Colonel, Miss Mary Merton, the Die Vernon 
 of the Quorndon." 
 
 "Are you engaged for the next galloppe?'* 
 
 "For the next — I believe not." 
 
 " And will you dance it with me ? 
 
 "Willingly." 
 
 "There, I told you so. Colonel," laughed Lady 
 Ches, maliciously. " I told him you would dance with 
 him willingly J and he ' knew that you would rather 
 not.* There now I'll leave you to yourselves ; so be 
 as agreeable to one another as you can — that means, 
 I bequeath to you my parting doom of silence and 
 stupidity.'" 
 
 Her words were not fulfilled, however ; for though 
 it is true in general, that such an injunction laid on 
 tvio recent acquaintances is productive of embarrass- 
 
134 A BALL ROOM, AND A BELLE. 
 
 ment and gaucherie, neither of the persons to whom 
 the words were now sportively addressed were to be 
 so put to silence; and, perhaps to conceal her own 
 feelings, it was Miss Merton who spoke first. 
 
 " Have you long known Lady Cheshire, Mr. Fair- 
 fax ? What a beautiful and kind person she is ; don't 
 you think so ?" 
 
 " No, and yes. Miss Merton, only since Sunday eve- 
 ning, when I first had the honor of dining with her. 
 Beautiful she is exceedingly — more beautiful, save 
 one, than any I have ever seen, and very charming, 
 and I do not doubt, kind too." 
 
 " Save one. Then you are an admirer of blue eyes, 
 and prefer Isabella. She is lovely, but I don't agree 
 with you. But then one's likings afi'ect one's admi- 
 rings so strongly that I may be biassed. I love Lady 
 Cheshire dearly." 
 
 " And ^ou have known her long." 
 
 " Almost as long as I have known any thing — ages 
 before she was Lady Cheshire." 
 
 " The idea of your having known any thing, ages.'* 
 
 " Please, Colonel Fairfax, don't pay me any com- 
 pliments, I detest them." 
 
 " And I — but you don't call that a compliment ? I 
 never say any thing to those whom I respect or ad- 
 mire, that I do not feel from my heart." 
 
 " But it is not always well to say every thing that 
 one feels from his heart to every one, or at all sea- 
 sons." 
 
 "Is it not? Why?" 
 
 " I don't know ; do you always do it ?" 
 
 " Too often, I'm afraid^ if you disapprove. We 
 are held to be very impetuous and impulsive beings in 
 my country." 
 
 She had began to hold up her finger warningly, 
 though with a very lightsome smile, as he uttered his 
 
AND A BELLE. 135 
 
 first sentence ; but as she heard his last word, she 
 looked surprised, and asked : 
 
 " Your country. Why ? are you not an English- 
 man ?" 
 
 " Nor ever was in England, 'till within the last two 
 months." 
 
 " An American then of course, though I never met 
 one before ; were you ever in Canada, Colonel Fair- 
 fax, in Montreal or Quebec?" 
 
 " The last autumn before I sailed for France I was 
 there ; God bless me, Miss Merton, it must be so ; 
 you are Charley Morton's sister, of the 71st Lights." 
 
 " Only his sister. Colonel ; and you knew, and — 
 and liked him ?" 
 
 " More than liked him ; we are friends, and have 
 corresponded for some years ; how curious that I 
 should meet his sister here ?" 
 
 '' And how pleasant," said she, softly, " it is so 
 much pleasanter to owe thanks and kindness to friends 
 than to strangers." 
 
 " Much pleasanter ; but you owe me none of the 
 first, though as much as you will of the second." 
 
 "Hush! Don't, please. The greatest obligation" 
 — she said, artlessly and innocently laying her small 
 hand on his arm — " think if I had fallen. I never 
 would have danced again." 
 
 "A strong reason why I should be thankful," said 
 Fairfax ; " but won't you dance now ; they are stand- 
 ing up ?" 
 
 " Certainly," and she stood up, and took his arm. 
 But, at this moment, Jardinier came up, and it was 
 evident at a glance that he had been dining out, and 
 drinking hard, to say the least. He walked straight 
 up to Mary Merton, drawing on his kid glove as he 
 came, with an air of dogged insolence, affecting not to 
 recognize Fairfax, who felt Mary's hand tremble on 
 his sleeve at his approach. 
 
136 A BALL ROOM, AND A BELLE. 
 
 " My turn now, I believe, ain't it, Miss Merton ?" 
 muttered the peer. 
 
 "Your turn for what, my Lord ?" she answered in 
 a low voice, turning white and red rapidly in succes- 
 sion. 
 
 "Engaged to me, I mean, for this galloppe?" 
 
 " Certainly not, my Lord, for this or any other. 
 You have not even asked me to dance, or spoken to 
 me this evening." 
 
 " Short memory, I'm afraid," replied Jar dinier with 
 a sneer, and an insolent glance at Fairfax. " Old 
 promise since last meeting ; got a new partner, and 
 short memory, hey?" 
 
 Mary turned deadly pale for one moment, and felt 
 that she was on the point of fainting, but she had a 
 resolute will, and exerted it resolutely, mastering her 
 fears and feelings. But ere she could answer him, 
 she heard Fairfax say as smoothly and serenely as if 
 he had been asking the lout to take a glass of wine 
 with him. 
 
 " Miss Morton's memory is not so short, my Lord 
 Jardinier, but that she remembers how nearly you 
 knocked her doAvn this evening, and how completely 
 you forgot to ask if you had hurt her. Come, Miss 
 Merton, there is a clear space now ;" and, passing 
 his arm lightly round her waist, he swung her off into 
 the swift maze, leaving the peer discomfitted and sav- 
 age, gazing like Satan upon paradise. 
 
 As they paused and began to talk, he suddenly saw 
 Matuschevitz's laughing face opposite, nodding to 
 them both from the other side the circle, with an arch 
 look, which at once recalled to Fairfax the conversa- 
 tion before dinner. 
 
 Mary nodded, and beckoned to him with her fan. 
 ** He is a friend of yours I know," she said half apol- 
 ogetically, "Lady Cheshire told me so. How odd 
 
AND A BELLE. 13T 
 
 that out of so few mutual acquaintances, we should 
 have so many mutual likings — " 
 
 '' And dislikings— " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You don't read Sallust, Miss Merton, or you 
 would know what that wise judge of humanity says 
 about that." 
 
 " What does he say ?" 
 
 " ' In short, to like and dislike the same things, that 
 is true — love\ he w^as about to add. 
 
 "Nonsense," she interrupted, before he could finish 
 his sentence. 
 
 " Upon my honor, he says so." 
 
 "But you don't believe him." 
 
 "In this case — yes!" 
 
 "Let us take another turn;" and away they spun, 
 dancing so well and gracefully, that many of the by- 
 standers stood in their places enquiring and admiring. 
 
 When they paused, and she leaned panting on his 
 arm for breath, Matuschevitz was waiting for them. 
 
 " Aha ! Colonel. Well done ! Did I not tell you 
 so ? Aha ! Miss Mary, I foretold his fate to him, in 
 you, and you see he has found it. So to reward me 
 take a turn with me." 
 
 She looked enquiringly at Fairfax, he nodded and 
 smiled " of course." 
 
 " Then volo7it{ers," and away she went with the gay 
 diplomat ; and the half smitten Virginian had an op- 
 portunity to observe how exquisitely and modestly she 
 danced, and how beautiful was her every movement. 
 Just as she was coming back to him, Jardinier came 
 up once more sneering fiendishly. " Colonel Fairfax, 
 I believe?" 
 
 " At your service, my Lord." 
 
 " I think you were rude to me, sir." 
 
 " Do you thinJc so, my Lord ? you should know it, 
 before you intrude upon a gentleman." 
 
138 A BALL ROOM, AND A BELLE. 
 
 At tills instant Matuschevitz came up with Mary 
 Merton, who immediately took the arm of her partner. 
 But pertinacious Jardinier was not to be repulsed ; step- 
 ping forward again, " One turn with me. Miss Merton, 
 to make friends." 
 
 "Pardon me, sir, Miss Merton is my partner ;" in- 
 terrupted the Virginian, whose hot blood was up by 
 this time. 
 
 *' But I presume you do not compel the lady's in- 
 clinations — " 
 
 " By no means, my Lord ; if they are with you, 
 you may have them volontiers.'' 
 
 "Come Miss Merton. Don't you hear, he has 
 given you leave?" 
 
 " I require no one's permission to beg you to leave 
 me at once, and never address me more. Sir Henry 
 Merton is not yet too infirm to protect me from your 
 Lordship's insolence ; though he was the brother in 
 arms of your Lordship's father, who was, I have heard 
 him say, a very brave and honorable sailor. Come, 
 Colonel Fairfax, one more turn with me if you please, 
 and then take me to Papa." 
 
 The turn ended ; Mary was very grave and silent. 
 Fairfax was touched. 
 
 " Miss Merton, I regret much — I trust you are not 
 • —angry with me — hurt I mean — " 
 
 " Hush — no. Oh, no. Hush ! please don't speak 
 — here is papa — don't mention Charley to him. I'll — 
 I'll tell you when we meet again. Thanks, Colonel 
 Fairfax. Papa let me make you know Colonel Fair- 
 fax. He has been very good natured to me." 
 
 " Happy to make your acquaintance. Colonel Fair- 
 fax," said the blufi", portly, gray-haired sailor, stretch- 
 ing out his hand. "Almost know you already, 
 Colonel. The duke, and Magher, and Goodricke, 
 have been telling me all about you, and your riding. 
 Well, Mary, have you got your shawl ? So Colonel, 
 
AND A BELLE. 139 
 
 IS tbe hounds draw my coverts to-morrow to throw off, 
 *f you'll come and breakfast with us, you'll meet some 
 old friends at Merton Hall, and two new ones, hey, 
 Mary ? And you shall see my little girl ride too. She 
 can take a rasper in her stride with the best of them, 
 I mean her chesnut mare can.' Will you come, 
 Colonel?" 
 
 He looked at Mary's eyes, and Mary's eyes said, 
 yes. So he said "yes" too, on the strength of it; 
 shook hands with the old admiral, and on the strength 
 of that shook hands with Mary too. And so the ball 
 ended. 
 
CHAPTER YIIL 
 
 A BREAKFAST, AND — BROKEN BONES. 
 
 It falls not within mj department to describe the 
 thoughts of people — whereas I am neither Judge Ed- 
 monds, nor Mesdames Fish and Eox, nor myself a 
 medium, nor the owner of a medium through whom to 
 converse with Benjamin Franklin, or Beelzebub, or 
 any other of the omniscients — I shall not therefore 
 attempt to look through the windows of his bosom into 
 the secrets of Colonel Fairfax's heart ; but as I was 
 present at Melton Mowbray in those days, and myself 
 a follower of the Quorndon, and moreover Percy's sole 
 confidant in this matter, I can tell you, fair reader, 
 what he said and did, and from that I doubt not you 
 will be able to form, if you desire to do so, some idea 
 of his thoughts also — for although to many men lan- 
 guage is given to conceal and acts to contradict their 
 thoughts, it was not so with Fairfax. 
 
 First, then, after handing Mary Merton into her 
 carriage, he wrapped his cloak around him, lighted 
 his cigar, and walked homeward without returning in- 
 to the ball room, or giWng any hint to the count of 
 his proceedings. Secondly as soon as he got home he 
 sent for his groom, ordered " Thunderbolt" to be sent 
 as his first, and the strawberry roan mare by Sher- 
 wood out of Emma for his second horse, to Merton 
 hall-door at half-past eleven, and " Crazy Jane" to be 
 at his own door at half-past nine — for he had ascer- 
 tained that Merton was some twelve miles distant — in 
 the capacity of covert-hack. Thirdly, he went to bed. 
 So that when Matuschevitz came home, having dis- 
 (140) 
 
AND— BROKEN BONES. 141 
 
 tinctlj heard the invitation to breakfast given and ac- 
 cepted, he perfectly understood what was passing in 
 the mind of the Virginian, and merely nodding his 
 head knowingly, said to himself, " Hardly fair, master 
 Virginian, hardly fair ; but in love and war — in love 
 and war. Ha ! ha ! ha ! so it goes and has gone in 
 all ages. Droll enough too ! that I should have fore- 
 seen it all. Droll enough ! but it's sure to come off 
 if he don't break Jardinier's neck, which would be a 
 public benefit to all the world but himself and the 
 peer. Well ; I'm glad I gave Beaufort a hint of what 
 was in the wind. If any one can bring that cub to 
 reason it is he. And as for you, Master Fairfax, since 
 you are on the secret line I won't see any thing, or 
 hear any thing, or think any thing, or do any thing, 
 'till you tell me, and then — I'll be deuced surprised, 
 and — and — help you I suppose any way I can," and 
 therewith he lighted a flat candle, swallowed a tumbler 
 of curagoa and soda, and went to bed heart-easy. 
 
 The next morning, occurrence most unusual, Fair- 
 fax was afoot before his servant brought in his hot 
 water, and was down in the breakfast room ere Matus- 
 chevitz had aroused himself from his first slumbers, 
 left a note apologising for his absence and explaining 
 it, and was in his saddle at the minute. A few mi- 
 nutes spent in accurately learning his way, off he went 
 at " Crazy Jane's" long loping canter, thinking to 
 be above an hour on his way, but time and tide, though 
 they wait for no man, are at times devoured by the 
 eagerness of his will, and so it was that morning with 
 the bold Percy Fairfax. The village clocks were 
 barely striking ten as he cantered through the village 
 of Merton in the vale, and pulled up at the neat lodge 
 gates of Merton Park, Avith its long avenues of leaf- 
 less elms casting long shadows over the trim green- 
 sward, never sere in merry England, and the old Eliz- 
 
142 
 
 abethan hall, ivj-mantled and diamon(?-paned, at the 
 end of the long perspective. 
 
 Then for the first time it occurred to his mind, 
 ■whether he were not perchance too earljy for with his 
 sagacity of American woodcraft he saw at a glance 
 that no hoof track had as yet broken the humid sod. 
 Then he half repented, and half drew in his bridle. 
 But the next moment, his own unconfessed and un- 
 shaped half-purpose dimly limning itself on his fancy, 
 rather than on his mind, he threw the gate open, hum- 
 ming to himself the words of gallant Montrose — 
 
 For sure he either fears too much, 
 
 Or his deserts are small, 
 "Who would not put it to the touch 
 
 To win or lose it all ; 
 
 and without debating the matter any further, perhaps 
 without wishing to deba^je, rode directly up to the 
 Hall-door. 
 
 It stood open with a natty groom and a fat butler 
 standing on the steps, the former of whom sprang to 
 his stirrup, while the other bowed low, saying in a 
 voice of quiet aflfirmation rather than enquiry, " Colo- 
 nel Fairfax, sir." 
 
 "Just so. Is Sir Henry at home?'* 
 
 " Sir Henry has gone down to the home farm, sir ; 
 he will be home in half an hour. Miss Mary is in the 
 library, sir, if you please to walk this way." 
 
 Now Fairfax did please to walk that way, and was 
 pleased also that Sir Henry was without and Miss 
 Mary within ; so he made no fuss about it, but did 
 just as he was bid. 
 
 The library door was thrown open, and a very pretty 
 picture lay before him. It was one of those queer 
 old-fashioned rooms, full of odd corners and nooks, all 
 filled with some appropriate piece of furniture, harmo- 
 nious, but not symmetrical ; here an old oaken prie dieu 
 
A BREAKFAST, AND — BROKEN BONES. 143 
 
 of the Tudors, then a black walnut clock of the Stu- 
 arts, in that niche a full tilting suit of the Plantage- 
 nets, in that the baginet and corslet, petronel and 
 broadsword of the commonwealth, and covering all the 
 walls, where they were not pierced by the oriel win- 
 dows, or the low-arched chimney in which a pile of 
 oak-wood was blazing, were massive Gothic book- 
 cases of oak, curtained with green damask. At a 
 centre-table covered with writing implements, portfo- 
 lios, papeteries, and other articles more purely femi- 
 nine, sat the presiding genius of the place, holding a 
 book in her hand, which I think she was not reading 
 very attentively. 
 
 The purplish lustre through the stained glass of the 
 oriel window fell like a glory over her light, golden 
 hair, now braided closely round her classical head, and 
 over her soft and pensive face, to which the decided 
 black brows, and long jetty lashes, now relieved by 
 her transparent cheek, lent so peculiar a character. 
 She was so busily engaged either by her book or by 
 her thoughts, that she did not hear the opening of the 
 door until the butler announced, " Colonel Fairfax." 
 
 Then she rose suddenly, but without any flutter, and 
 came forwa-rd to meet him. "How do you do, Colo- 
 nel Fairfax ; Papa, though he expected you early, was 
 obliged to go down with the bailiff to the home farm on 
 some sudden business, and left me to receive you. So 
 here I am equipped for the field already." 
 
 Beautiful as he had thought her last night, she was 
 lovelier still this morning, from the very contrast af- 
 forded by the serene and innocent style of her features 
 impressed with a strong tinge of romantic fancy, and 
 the huntress' garb, which on any form, less intrinsi- 
 cally womanly, might have been deemed too much a 
 la Die Vernon. A scarlet riding habit, fitting close to 
 her exquisitely moulded bust and shoulders, and cling- 
 ing as if it had been a part of it to her rounded waist, 
 
144 
 
 swelled evenly downward, without any plaiting or 
 sharp division between the skirt and corsage, into a 
 fall of massive draperies, perfectly concealing yet as 
 perfectly suggesting the contour of her tall, lythe and 
 rounded person. The tip of a brightly-polished Wel- 
 lington boot, with a bright silver spur, glanced from 
 beneath the hem, which she lifted a little with her left 
 hand, as she stepped forward to welcome her father's 
 guest, extending her right to greet him. A low- 
 crowned broad-leafed hat, with a short black veil 
 scarcely descending to the chin, lay on the table with 
 a pair of white doe-skin gauntlets and a heavy straight 
 silver-mounted jockey whip beside it. 
 
 So grave and even melancholy was her usually bril- 
 liant face, that the idea occurred to Fairfax, as he took 
 the fair hand in his own, and bowed over it with some- 
 thing of the grace of the ancient regime, that La Pen- 
 seroso was before him masking in the character of L' 
 Allegro, or that the Christian Saint, Cecilia, had donned 
 the heathenish garb of the huntress Diana. 
 
 A feeling, the like of Avhich he had certainly never 
 felt before, and which he could not explain to himself, 
 came over him ; and came over him too in some sort 
 unpleasantly ; for it was a sentiment of something 
 nearly akin to reverence, and he was one who, if he 
 reverenced at all, chose to reverence according to 
 what it pleased him to call the dictates of reason, not 
 of impulse. The worst features of his character, his 
 pride, which was cold, and his obstinacy, which was 
 perdurate, were aroused to resist what he chose to 
 consider his weakness, and he listened to these ill- 
 counsellors, and did ill. 
 
 *' To speak frankly," she added, almost without a 
 pause, ^' as I think best to do, I am not altogether 
 sorry that Papa is not at home, for I want to speak a 
 few words alone with you, and did not know when I 
 
A BREAKFAST, AND — BROKEN BONES. 145 
 
 should have an opportunity, but I'm afraid you will 
 think me a very strange girl — " 
 
 " A very charming one." 
 
 She did not draw herself up, nor blush now, nor 
 snatch away her hand, which had rested in his one se- 
 cond, unconscious of evil, but she withdrew it quietly 
 and said in a firm voice, with some melancholy, but 
 no anger in her large soft eyes, 
 
 *' Why did you say that ? Oh ! I wish you had not 
 said that. You do not understand me. You treat me 
 like any merry, bold girl — larking girl, I suppose 
 you'd call it — when I would have met you as a friend, 
 because you said you were my brother's friend. Nay, 
 do not interrupt me, for I don't want apologies, they 
 are just as empty as compliments, besides there is 
 nothing to apologise for, since I know you did not 
 wish to offend me, and I am not offended. You do 
 not understand me, and it does not matter, whether 
 you do or no — that's all, and there's no more to be 
 said about it. Still I want to speak to you. It is 
 about my brother. I asked you not to mention him 
 before Papa, and I was going to tell you the reason. 
 I choose to tell you that reason now, since what I said 
 last night, if unexplained, would naturally lead you to 
 imagine something dishonorable which should estrange 
 such a father from a son — " 
 
 But here Fairfax, who had listened thus far atten^ 
 tive and a little surprised, but unabashed, for his evil 
 pride was still in the ascendant, interrupted with so 
 brief and convincing a disclaimer of the possibility of 
 such an idea crossing his mind in reference to Charley, 
 and spoke with such earnest warmth, and with such 
 indignant truth flashing from his clear eyes, of that 
 beloved brother, that the sister's heart warmed some- 
 thing to the speaker. Still her woman's heart was 
 wounded, and she spoke sadly — 
 178 
 
146 A BREAKFAST, AND — BROKEN B0^ ** 
 
 " It is well so. You understand lilm, still il it \ .<r 
 per that you should hear me out. Will you listen i'* 
 
 " Miss Merton, can you doubt it ? Pray go on. You 
 will know me better one day." 
 
 " There is little to tell. Papa, though the best of 
 men and kindest of fathers, loving us both — we are 
 liis only two — with his whole heart, and desiring to 
 render us happy Avith all his soul, believes that we can- 
 not possibly be happy except by following his advice 
 — commands I should say — for his counsel is ever a 
 command, and not to take it is to be a disobedient 
 child, a rebel ! — -and if there is one thing on earth he 
 hates, it is a rebel. He hates a rebel as much at least 
 as he loves his king, and him he loves second only to 
 his God. Charley is, as I conclude you know, quick 
 when aroused, reluctant under injury, and resolute 
 under threats. Papa, it seems, had set his mind on a 
 match for Charles, unsuspected by either him or me, 
 with a very nice girl, a cousin of ours, much too 
 nearly a sister in feeling ever to be a wife. Charley 
 fell in love with the dearest little girl that ever lived, 
 won her consent, and came in rapture to ask Papa's, 
 when to his wonder, even more than his dismay, he 
 was met by a command instantly to marry a woman 
 he had never thought about more than he had about 
 me, and who — he had every reason to believe — herself 
 loved another. All this he pleaded, and much more, 
 and last that his honor was committed — and to this it 
 was replied that there was no honor above that of 
 obeying orders ; and the order followed that he should 
 instantly marry her whom he did not love and who 
 does not love him, on pain of being cut off with our 
 mother's fortune, which was happily settled upon him, 
 the family estate being settled on me. If Charley- 
 would have waited but a while, as I advised and im- 
 plored him, if he would have plainly asked our cousin 
 to become his bride, he Avould have been as plainly re* 
 
A BREAKFAST, AND — BROKEN BONES. 147 
 
 fused, for within a fortnight Emily married her lover, 
 a young nobleman of great worth and talents, and on 
 her would all my father's wrath have fallen. He 
 would not. He answered my father,'at the end of three 
 days which had been allowed him for his decision, as 
 he should not have answered him, and on the third 
 day was married at Gretna Green to the choice of his 
 heart. No sooner did papa hear it than his word was 
 kept, as we all knew it would be. Charley succeeded 
 to my mother's fortune of a few annual hundreds, and 
 I am the unhappy heiress of more than as many thou- 
 sands, but that inheritance I never will receive. Sir 
 Henry has never once even named his name since he 
 accepted a staff appointment in Canada, and sailed 
 thither with his charming and excellent young wife, 
 and it only excites his anger to hear him named, above 
 all, with praise. I knew that you would naturally 
 name him, when to do so would have been injurious to 
 him, perhaps ruinous, and painful to yourself. It was 
 this which made me wish to speak with you alone for 
 five minutes ; and, therefore, I told you frankly that 
 I was glad papa was not at home when you came in. 
 I thank you. Colonel Fairfax, that you have taught 
 me that it is unwise, if not unwomanly, in a young 
 woman to speak frankly, or I should say bluntly, to a 
 gentleman." 
 
 There was something in her manner, in her beauti- 
 ful calm dignity, sincere truthfulness, and severe 
 straightforwardness of purpose and deed which struck 
 Fairfax very forcibly. Here was a character such as 
 he had never met before — an intellect of the firmest, 
 a disposition of the softest. A mind so clear, a will 
 so purely strong, united with a soul so gentle, and a 
 form so lovely, he had never before encountered — 
 never dreamed of. He knew, too, that if he had not 
 really wronged her, or misinterpreted her motives in 
 his own mind, he had given her deep cause to believe 
 
148 A BKEAKFAST, AND — BROKEN BONES. 
 
 that he had so. It was not easy to make her perceive 
 this, yet he knew that he could make her feel it. 
 Again he saw that it was not quite the time to attempt 
 it, and this, with a lingering of pride, and an unwill- 
 ingness to humble himself, perhaps in Vain, so far as 
 he ought to humble himself, led him to answer her — 
 
 "You do not wish, I suppose, to hear the explana- 
 tion, which, upon my honor ! I believe will satisfy you, 
 that—" 
 
 " Pardon me, for interrupting you," she said sweetly, 
 " but I had rather not. I will not deny that you have 
 wounded me in a manner I did not expect from you. 
 No explanations can remove the sense of humiliation 
 which I feel ; and we had better remain as we are." 
 
 "It is not you that I would humiliate; but," he 
 proceeded bitterly, "you do not wish me to speak — 
 and I am silent. You say, ^ we had better remain as 
 we are' — I hope that is ' friends. ' " 
 
 " All who are friends to my brother are my friends," 
 she answered, with a smile which was as cold as that 
 of an April morning, when an early frost has checked 
 the growing verdure of the spring. " This has been 
 an unpleasant topic, when I meant it should have been 
 agreeable — let us say no more about it. And hark ! 
 here comes papa." 
 
 Perhaps even as Mary Merton spoke these words 
 she half repented — perhaps she felt that the explana- 
 tion, the apology, for such it must have been, of so 
 proud a man once rejected never would be renewed or 
 tendered any more — perhaps she reflected that to be 
 grieved and refuse consolation, to be olFended and re- 
 ject reparation is neither wise nor just — perhaps she 
 half admitted that the explanation might have made 
 her happier not only than she was, but than she had 
 ever been before. She knew that she felt sadder now 
 than she had ever felt, and was half angry at herself, 
 for being sad she knew not wherefore. 
 
AND — BROKEN BONES. 149 
 
 The conversation was, however, summarily dis- 
 posed of, for Sir Henry came into the room booted 
 and spurred, but equipped in morning jacket as fresh 
 from his farming avocations, which were his hobby, 
 and, as every one very well knew, a pretty expensive 
 one too, and his hearty and somewhat prolix greet- 
 ings set aside every thing else for the moment, and in a 
 few minutes after the Duke of Beaufort, Sir Harry 
 Goodricke, Magher and Lord Alvanley were severally 
 announced, and then, ^' Breakfast is on the table, if 
 you please, ma'am," from the stately butler, ushered 
 the fair company to a handsome breakfast-room over- 
 looking the park from a pretty bay window, and to 
 that pleasantest, most cheerful and most degage of 
 meals, an English breakfast. 
 
 Around the hospitable board a merry half-hour was 
 soon spent, but spent less merrily by Fairfax than any 
 other person, perhaps, of the party ; for just at the 
 moment when he was beginning to be sensible that she 
 was something much more than a charming girl, hun- 
 dreds of whom he had met already in all quarters of 
 the world, from the AVhite Sulphur Springs and Sara- 
 toga, to the Bains de Mont d' Or in Auvergne, to 
 Schlangenbad and Baden, to Almacks and the Fau- 
 bourg St. Germain, and something very nearly ap- 
 proaching to his ideal of a very woman, he felt that he 
 had by an idle word deeply wounded her in the ten- 
 derest point of a truly feminine nature, and he began 
 to feel that what he had done was irreparable, even if 
 he could subdue his pride into even a new advance. 
 
 While he was thus torturing himself to no purpose, 
 and she was doing the honors of her table charmingly, 
 chatting playfully with the Duke, of whom she was an 
 especial pet, and keeping up the ball of conversation 
 ^with all the world and the rest of mankind,' seeing 
 all the while out of the corner of her eyes the discom- 
 posure of the Colonel, and beginning very shrewdly to 
 
150 A BREAKFAST, AND— BROKEN BONES. 
 
 suspect — for what woman ever excited the smallest 
 spark of passion in a male breast without being con- 
 scious of it — that the handsome Virginian really did 
 think her a charming girl, a distant rate and the clang- 
 ing report of a hunting whip turned the current of all 
 thoughts and eyes to the park. 
 
 And lo ! across the green, well-kept lawn, the beau- 
 tiful dog-pack, twenty couple of glossy, many-colored 
 beauties, with great bland fawning eyes, and high- 
 waving feathery sterns, came trotting along as steadily 
 as veterans, at the heels of '' Clinker," bestridden by 
 Jack Stevens, and kept in order by the voices and 
 whips of three or four light scarlet-frocked whippers-in. 
 
 The squeal of the squire was next heard, and in he 
 came, full of fun as usual, clamoring for his cup of 
 coifee and thimblefull of curagoa, with half the hunt at 
 his heels ; and the quiet breakfast-room was converted 
 into a levee of gay scarlet jackets and white leathers, 
 worn by cavaliers as gallant and as daring as ever 
 rode the ring before the hapless Mary, or her hard 
 rival, lion-hearted Bess of England. 
 
 A few minutes more; and the squire looked at his 
 watch, and asked the admiral which of his coverts was 
 likeliest to hold a fox. 
 
 " The osier holt by the Arningsby brook-side. My 
 keeper tells me a large dog-fox has haunted it all the 
 season." 
 
 " The osier holt be it then," said the squire. " Ma- 
 gher, as you're going to make a start, I see, be good 
 enough to tell Stevens to get forward to the osier holt. 
 Now, gentlemen, boot and saddle is the word. I hope 
 the chestnut mare is in trim. Miss Mary, for the flats 
 will be hough deep to-day, if pug heads toward 
 Loughborough and the river, which with this south- 
 easter he is like enough to do." 
 
 "Look at her, squire," she answered, pointing with 
 her whip to the fine, highly groomed chestnut mare, 
 
A CREAKFAST, AND — BROKEN BONES. 151 
 
 wMcli a smart boy of some five stone odd was leading 
 up and down before the steps of the terrace. " Don't 
 you think she has got the go in her to-day?" 
 
 "I think you have, at all events," said the squire, 
 laughing. ^' Only don't go too far, that's a good las- 
 sie. Come, lads, to the pigskin — to the pigskin, and 
 you, who have got to find your hunters, had better 
 gallop, I can tell you, for Jack Stevens waits for nei- 
 ther man nor money, and I shall throw ofi" without 
 stopping a minute, even for you, Miss Mary. So make 
 your bows like me, and go aivay^ like the fox we hope 
 for.'; 
 
 His words were obeyed to the letter, all the party, 
 oldsters and youngsters alike, bowing or shaking hands, 
 and following their favorite, Osbaldiston. But as Fair- 
 fax, like young Edwin in the ballad, " bowed among the 
 rest," with a very blank and disconsolate aspect indeed, 
 Mary's heart relented, and she addressed him with a 
 smile, '' Colonel Fairfax, if you can find your way to 
 the library, and will bring me my hat, gloves and rid- 
 ing whip which I left on the table, you will oblige me, 
 and you shall be my cavalier en guerdon^ unless you 
 are in too great haste to be off with these mighty 
 hunters." 
 
 The grateful glance of the Virginian aroused her as 
 he turned away to execute her bidding, and when he 
 returned she was alone with the admiral, who was fuss- 
 ing about his sandwich-box and his flask of sherry, 
 without which he would about as soon have gone 
 into the field, as he would into action without ports 
 open and matches lighted. 
 
 " Thanks," and she hatted, veiled and gloved herself 
 before the mantle glass, without a shadow of coquetry 
 or affectation, and then, taking his arm, said gently, 
 " and now if you will help me to mount Bonnibelle, 
 we shall be ready by the time Papa has got his 
 sandwiches and sherry. There is no hurry at all, 
 
152 A BREAKFAST, AND — BROKEN BONES. 
 
 for the squire told me he should draw the Long 
 Rearsby wood before the osier holt, and there is no 
 more chance of a find in it, than in this breakfast- 
 room." 
 
 " Thank you," said Fairfax ; and the words, little 
 as they said in themselves, spoke volumes in the deep, 
 low, modulated tones which contained them. 
 
 " Ah Bonnibelle, pretty Bonnibelle," she said, kiss- 
 ing the white star on the beautiful mare's forehead, 
 while she laid down her ears, and arched her neck, 
 and whinnied at the well-known voice and expected ca- 
 ress. "Now, colonel," and, raising the long skirt of 
 her habit with her left hand, she laid her right on the 
 pummel, and extended the tip of the prettiest little 
 foot in the world to the gloved hand of Fairfax. 
 
 In a moment, and without an effort, she was on Bon- 
 nibelle's back, the picture of grace and elasticity at 
 rest, settling her ruffled draperies, arranging her 
 white gauntlets, shredding her reins, flattering her 
 mare's neck with soft caresses, the fairest and most fe- 
 minine of amazons. Fairfax spoke not, but gazed, 
 and — I suppose — thought. 
 
 Sir Harry's robust voice came through the open 
 door, " Mary, Mary, this tiresome devil of a fellow, 
 Battersby, is at me again, about the new Alderney 
 cows, and I cannot come for half an hour. Ride on 
 with Fairfax, and I'll overtake you before they find." 
 
 Their eyes met mutually, spontaneously — neither 
 knew, neither meant to convey any thing by that sud- 
 den glance ; yet as the eyes met the same thrill shot 
 through each, a heart spasm, instantly understood — 
 instantly confessed. 
 
 Those, who have felt what I mean, will understand 
 me, for to them I speak * ^coraj^ra ^wstoisi ; to those 
 who have not, I speak Hebrew To one it said, " she 
 
 * Literally, " tvords speahing (intelligible) to the wise." — Pindar. 
 
AND — BROKEN BONES. 153 
 
 likes me — to the otlicr, ''he loves me." For the wo- 
 man's perception is ever the first, and she jumps 
 quickest to the ultimate conclusion. 
 
 Neither said, this time, ''I am not sorry papa is 
 not coming," but her eyes spoke it very audibly to 
 him, and his replied no less palpably to her that she 
 was something more than " a very charming girl." 
 
 He saw her on a nearer view, 
 
 A spirit yet a woman too ; 
 
 Her household motions light and free, 
 
 And steps of virgin liberty ; 
 
 A countenance in which did meet 
 
 Sweet records, promises as sweet ; 
 
 A creature not too bright and good, 
 
 For human nature's daily food 
 
 For transient sorrows, simple wiles, 
 
 For praise, blame, kisses, tears, and smiles ; 
 
 and then both smiled as they smiled last night, only, 
 as the Virginia nigger said, more so. 
 
 "We are friends," he whispered. 
 
 "When I do things, I never do them by halves,*' 
 and she cast down her eyes. 
 
 " And you will hear me now ?" 
 
 " I'd rather not, but if you wish it — " 
 
 "I'd rather." 
 
 "Then I will." 
 
 And did he not vault to the back of Thunderbolt, 
 merely gathering the reins in his right, scarcely 
 poised on the thin mane and high withers, in a fashion 
 that astonished that steadiest and most sober-minded 
 of veteran hunters, to the very extremity of horse ca- 
 pacity to be astonished. A fact clearly proved by the 
 execution of a curious caracole by that serious qua- 
 druped, the first probably since the days of his foal- 
 caperings by his mother's side. 
 
 The whole made Mary laugh, a merry, silver laugh 
 which sealed the treaty — made the West-Riding York 
 
154 A BREAKFAST, AND — BROKEN BONES. 
 
 feliire groom — who had been thrown into the bargain 
 with "Thunderbolt," because he had looked after him 
 BO long, and knew his ways — stare with eyes as big as 
 saucers, while he pulled his forelock, and mutter, as 
 the handsome pair rode away, " God ! an if t' Yankee 
 raide that gait he'll be aif, afore at they faind." A 
 prophecy which I do not find to have been fulfilled ac- 
 cording to my notes of the events, as they occurred, 
 made on the spot. 
 
 Meanwhile, one thing is certain, that they rode away 
 very lover-like ; there is nothing on earth like a little 
 quarrel, a passing cloud over the first sunshine of May 
 morning, and a little reconciliation, for ripening the 
 dawn of fancy into love. 
 
 And yet, though either party confessed readily that 
 the other was desperately in love, neither was in the 
 slightest degree prepared to confess the same in re- 
 gard to self. Oh ! self ! and yet when such things be 
 at all, for the most part — aye ! ninety and nine times 
 out of the hundred — they be simultaneous. 
 
 On they rode, along the lanes, the green winding 
 lanes of England, green still, even in mid- winter, with 
 rathe grass, and furze, and hollybrakes, and here and 
 there a misletoe bough upon the giant limb of some 
 gnarled oak, as leisurely as if the Quorndon had not 
 heard the squire's "Eleu! Eleu ! in. Eleu in ! good 
 lads," ten minutes before, and as if the sailing flight 
 of the shy wood pigeons at first, and then the whir- 
 ring of the startled pheasants skating above their 
 heads alarmed, ought not to have informed them that 
 Long Rearsby wood was half drawn already. 
 
 Never was there a much longer, and never — to 
 judge from the attracted attention of both parties — a 
 much more satisfactory explanation or confession, or 
 whatever it might be called, than that of Colonel Percy 
 Fairfax of Accomac, Virginia. To judge from the 
 lady's rosy blushes ; but perhaps they were only the light 
 
A BKEaKFAST, AXD — BKOKEN BONES. 155 
 
 reflected upward from her scarlet habit — lils explana- 
 tion was not very humiliating to her self-esteem. Nor, 
 to judge from the sparkling eyes of the gentleman — 
 though they might have been flashing with indigna- 
 tion at his own Avickedness — was his self-humiliation 
 very distressing ; though, God knows, I believe he ac- 
 cused himself' of a lonf]^er cataloOTe of all the cardi- 
 nal vices, than the Pope of Rome ever listened to on 
 Palm Sunday. 
 
 The absolution, however, was soon granted, it would 
 seem ; and it is very certain that whether Colonel 
 Fairfax understood Mary Merton or not, whether he 
 understood himself or not, or any thing else "on the 
 earth, or in the heavens above the earth, or in the 
 waters under the earth," it is very certain that with- 
 in five minutes after he began explaining, Mary Mer- 
 ton understood him from the crown of his hat to his 
 under spur leather. But she did not tell him so, I 
 suppose, because she wanted to understand him better. 
 
 Two or three farm servants whom they had sauntered 
 past unnoticing, but not unnoticed, nudged one another 
 as they stared ; and of the last two who stood stock- 
 still scratching their shock heads and glaring after them, 
 one said : 
 
 " Lauk a' maighty, Tummas, beant they two a love- 
 talking ?" 
 
 But desperately was honest Hodge out ; not love-talk- 
 ing a whit ; for not a syllable about love had passed the 
 lips of either ; only love-making, with all their hearts, 
 and souls, and eyes, and tongues ; only for hands and 
 lips the love-making had been perfect. 
 
 Yet neither had the smallest suspicion of the love- 
 making, and she only had a faint suspicion that she 
 was being — made-love-to — if I may coin a word foi 
 the occasion. 
 
 There came a loud lubberly whoop just before their 
 noses, and they awoke. 
 
156 A BREAKFAST, AND — BROKEN BONES. 
 
 A farmer's boy was holding a gate wide open be- 
 fore them ; for at this point the lane ended in a wide, 
 open pasture, sloping downward, with a wide stretch 
 of grass land below it, to a wide brook, with an osier 
 bed on the farther bank, about a mile and a half to the 
 left, ha.rd before them. The w^hoop had been extracted 
 from the lout by the view of a magnificent dog-fox, 
 who was crossing their paces at about three fields' dis- 
 tance, pointing down to the river bed. And both saw 
 at once that the air must have been alive for ten min- 
 utes at the least with the challenges of single hounds, 
 the crash of the pack, the cheers of the whippers-in, 
 and the squealing yell of Osbaldiston. For Long 
 Rearsby wood lay about a mile distant from them, on 
 the same ridge on which they stood, in their rear, to 
 the right, and midway the declivity between the fox 
 and the wood came the pack, heads up and sterns 
 down, the nucleus of the comet, whose tail of horse- 
 men was scattered already a mile long, back to the 
 skirts of Rearsby. A table cloth might have covered 
 the hounds, so well together did they run. Their 
 pace was tremendous. 
 
 In the same field with them, foremost of the post 
 flight, in which were the Squire, Val. Magher, George 
 Paine, Campbell of Saddell, Goodricke, and Alvanley, 
 and Holyoke, and half a dozen other good ones, rode 
 Jardinier, whose light weight told, while his horse, a 
 splendid bay, well up to fifteen stone, was fresh ; which 
 he did not appear like to be very long, so fiercely, 
 though quite needlessly, was his rider bucketing him 
 along. 
 
 The fact is, that worthy was in a worse temper even 
 than was usual with him. He had, from the first, 
 jealous of Fairfax, conceived a violent dislike to him 
 at being beaten in their first trial of strength as ri- 
 ders, a dislike no wise diminished by his subsequent 
 
AND — BUOKEN B^NES. 157 
 
 defeat in their second trial of courtesy and temper in 
 the ball-room. 
 
 He had begun, therefore, to say very disagreeable 
 and rude things about the Virginian funking and back- 
 ing out, when he saw that he was late at the covert 
 side. ' At last, as the first hound challenged, and no 
 Fairfax was to the fore, he cried out aloud, close to 
 Matuschevitz, who had a shrewd enough guess how 
 matters were going, 
 
 '' By G — I knew it. The militia colonel Jias 
 backed out. Fifty to a poneyhe don't show to-day." 
 
 Long Rearsby wood stands on the highest knoll of 
 a long crest of knolls ; the lane by which Fairfax and 
 Mary were sauntering unconsciously along, lay below 
 it, and in one place a cross lane ran up from it in a 
 right line, to the spot where Jardinier and the Russian 
 Count were standing, as the former uttered this choice 
 morsel of the vernacular. 
 
 In the very point of time in which he spoke, it so 
 chanced that the pair crossed the opening of the lane, 
 full in view of the field. Mary Morton's fair neck 
 was bent, and her eyes fixed on Bonnibelle's mane just 
 above the withers, her hands lying listlessly in her lap, 
 the reins flowing loose, and the mare choosing her own 
 path. Fairfax was leaning toward — almost over — 
 her ; and the animation of his demeanor was visible 
 even at that distance. 
 
 Matuschevitz twigged it all in a minute, pointed ma- 
 liciously with his whip to the graceful couple, and 
 said — 
 
 " You would lose, to a certainty, Jardinier ; for 
 there he comes with his elle ; and by all appearance , 
 they are both listening to sweeter sounds, than this'' 
 dog-music, melodious as it is — " At this second the 
 fox broke straight for the osier holt. " By Jove !" 
 shouted the Count, " if pug holds that line, Fairfax 
 
158 A BREAKFAST, AND — BUOKEN BONES. 
 
 ■will have a fair start yet. Two ponies to your one, 
 Jardinicr, that he beats you again to-day." 
 
 "Done I" roared the peer, " I'll kill him and my- 
 self too, first," and down came his whip-stock like a 
 sabre-cut on "Merlin's" flank, and away he w^ent 
 abreast of the first hound that broke covert, amid a 
 volley of oaths from the squire, and the cui'ses, deep 
 not loud, of the whole field. 
 
 " I hope hell kill you ; and I think he will," said 
 the Russian to himself, in hard, cold earnest, and fol- 
 lowed at a more reasonable, though still a slashing 
 pace. So stood affairs as they two awoke from their 
 day-dream. 
 
 " They actually have found, in Rcarsby w^ood. Miss 
 Morton." 
 
 "Actually, they have," she replied, with an arch 
 smile, " and we have the luck of the turn. Colonel. 
 A little more to the left. Now, Bonnibelle, good girl," 
 and with the words she gave her bridle rein a shake, 
 and, like a swan in the air or a ship on the sea, they 
 swept, graceful girl and graceful mare, down the gen- 
 tle declivity ; Fairfax followed, scarce half a length 
 behind. 
 
 The Colonel and his elle^ as Matuschevitz had mis- 
 chievously termed her to plague Jardinier, on the left, 
 the fox, the pack, and the field on the right, riding on 
 two converging lines which would meet if produced at 
 the osier holt. But the line of our friends, who were 
 already nearer to the fox than were the hounds them- 
 selves, was so much shorter than the other that it was 
 only necessary for them to maintain a good hard gal- 
 lop in order to nick the field at the brook-, and then 
 fresh horses against blown ones, ho ! 
 
 The grass-land, so far, was firm, level, and unbroken 
 by furrow or molehill, and Mary Merton kept her 
 hands well down, and her rein slack, yet on a pull, and 
 gallopped. 
 
A BREAKFAST, AND— BROKEN BONES. 159 
 
 The first fence was what would be called a rasper 
 for most men and most horses. It consisted of a small 
 grip of some three feet width, a bank of about twelve 
 inches, with a post and three rail fence, and an old 
 clipped thorn hedge of not less than three feet and 
 a half, within it. Beyond this was a drain full of 
 bright water, at least ten feet in width. 
 
 The color of her cheek did not flush or pale, her 
 eye laughed wickedly, her moistened lip almost smiled, 
 as she gave Bonnibelle her head, and let her go at it, 
 without a pull, hands down, and as easy in her saddle 
 as a New York merchant-princess in a rocking chair. 
 
 Nothing on earth is more graceful and easy than 
 the sweep of a thorough-bred over a rasper, and when 
 to the beautiful curves of the animal were added the 
 more exquisite lines of beauty of the girl's supple 
 swaying figure, nothing can be conceived more lovely. 
 No centaur of old fable ever was more thoroughly one 
 animal than Mary showed with Bonnibelle over that 
 spanking leap. 
 
 Another grass field swallowed in the increasing gal- 
 lop of the hunters — another fence, a nasty lean to 
 paling of five feet, with no ditch on either side ; and 
 Mary tui'ned her rosy cheek — rosy with the blythe in- 
 nocent excitement — to her admirer, who held "Thun- 
 derbolt" unemulous, one length behind her, as if to 
 see how he handled his horse ; nodded her head, took 
 Bonnibelle in hand a bit, and then, when close in on 
 the ugly fence, up went the little elbows, and in went 
 the little heel, and Bonnibelle was popped over the 
 palings before she knew where she was. Another 
 grass field, and a stifi" up leap, to clear a sunken ditch 
 faced with strong masonry, and still the lady kept the 
 chesnut mare's head straight, and never wavered in 
 her seat, or shook in her stirrup. 
 
 One more field of above fifty acres grass, still grass, 
 a little plashy as it sank toward Arnesbj brook, which 
 
160 A BREAKFAST, AND — BEOKEN BONES. 
 
 bounded it — a deep brimful rivulet, with steep banks 
 of eighteen or nineteen feet of bright water. On the 
 farther bank lay the osier holt, of about three acres, 
 a little to their right, which the gallant fox had dashed 
 through without stopping, and had been viewed away 
 in good style. Down this grass field Mary and the 
 Virginian, headmost now of the field, gallopped at 
 racing pace alone. But in the next, divided from them 
 by but a single parallel fence, thundered the field, 
 about a hundred yards behind, but riding parallel. 
 The hounds swept over the brook, and the osiers 
 crashed but once as they broke into them. 
 
 Mary put the mare's head, held hard, right at the 
 bright water ; the marshy ground, half quagmire, shook 
 under her — but she increased her pull, sent in her 
 single spur, and skimmed it like a seagull, turning in 
 her saddle, as she soared over it, to laugh at Fairfax, 
 with a wave of her silver-handled whip above her head, 
 and a musical " hurrah ! first over !" 
 
 It was a wondrous sight, even though the ground 
 had favored her, to see a girl leading a field of men, 
 and such men, and so mounted, and yet withal so fe- 
 mininely soft, so full of every woman grace and woman 
 mirthfulness. 
 
 In a second, " Thunderbolt" was at her side — the 
 noble brute would be held back no longer, the stufi* was 
 in him, and must out. 
 
 A moment after, Jardinier's yell was heard as he 
 cleared the Arnesby, the leader of his own squad, by 
 a hundred yards, as he was a hundred yards in the 
 rear of his leaders. 
 
 Her eyes were fixed on tie Virginian's face, and she 
 saw it pale, and his lipn whiten, and his eye lighten, 
 as he heard Jardinier's yell of defiance. She saw that 
 his soul was in it — that he must conquer. 
 
 " Never mind me ! go on !" she whispered, '' never 
 ttiind me ! no one docs I Go on, and beat liim, please." 
 
AND — BROKEN BONES. 161 
 
 He looked at her half doubtfully ; and again that 
 glance was interchanged, and she said : 
 
 "I'd rather." 
 
 He nodded, with a world's eloquence in eye and lip, 
 though he spoke not. 
 
 "Beside," she added, "the pace will soon be too 
 much for Bonnibelle." 
 
 As he had crossed the holt the fox lay up a little to 
 the right, enabling Jardinier also to lay up a little, and 
 take a pull, still improving his position toward the 
 lead. The next fence, a rasping bull-finch, was taken 
 abreast in their stride by Bonnibelle and Thunderbolt, 
 the lady leaving a fragment of her riding skirt, flut- 
 tering like a banner among the topmost branches. 
 Jardinier took it a hundred yards to their right, 
 now not above fifty in their rear. More to the right 
 lay up the hounds, and this brought Jardinier aim jst 
 abreast of Fairfax. He would have been quite so, had 
 he laid up too, as he ought. 
 
 But he kept doggedly on, with his horse's head 
 pointed right at Thunderbolt's quarter. Bonnibelle was 
 thrown by the turn six lengths behind either. 
 
 The hounds topped the fence, a tremendous five-barred 
 post and rail of solid timber, at the head of a steep 
 drop. 
 
 The first rule of riding to hounds — the very first — 
 is never to cut in before, or across, or upon, a rider, 
 going at his fence on his own perpendicular line. And 
 no one knew this better than Jardinier. But he felt 
 that his own horse had half his puff out, while he saw 
 that " Thunderbolt" was as fresh as when he started. 
 He must be beaten again ; or — make his word good. 
 
 He held resolutely on. The fence was about fifty 
 yards distance, both horses at their full stretch ex- 
 tended. 
 
 Had Fairfax persevered, as his was the right to do, 
 on his own straight line, Jardinier would have leaped 
 179 
 
162 A BREAKFAST, AND — BROKEN BONES. 
 
 upon his quarters, as he leaped diagonally ; he meant 
 to do so. 
 
 Fairfax too knew the rules of riding, and his right, 
 and saw Jardinier's felon movement, but gave no sign, 
 
 Mary Merton saw it too, and turned pale as death, 
 but, like a brave girl as she was, screamed not, but 
 rode onward, firm and cold as death. 
 
 The horses still at speed, the fence ten yards dis- 
 tance — on a sudden, in a twinkling of an eye, Fairfax 
 stood bolt up in his stirrups, and by one mighty efibrt 
 pulled Thunderbolt up a length — Jardinier shot across 
 him, rose at his leap, diagonally, right before his nose, 
 but as suddenly as he had risen in his stirrups, so sud- 
 denly sank Fairfax into his seat, lifted the fresh, pow- 
 erful brown hunter into his stride again, sent the per- 
 suaders in three times to the road-heads, and, firm as 
 a 1 ock, with a rein taut as the rigging of a ship, 
 rushed him at it. With a savage yell, almost an In- 
 dian whoop, he rose him at it, and the good horse made 
 good his strong name, " Thunderbolt." 
 
 The felon lord was taken in his own trap — full on 
 his flank as he cleared the rails, counter on, plunged 
 Thunderbolt, and, in a cloud of dust, both horses and 
 both men rolled over. 
 
 But the girl — the glorious girl ! not a man in the 
 whole field dreamed that in any event she would have 
 cleared those bars — much less, with such a tragedy 
 before her. 
 
 Not one of them knew a true girl's heart. 
 
 Pale as a marble statue, and as firm and as cold, 
 both of pulse and purpose, she set Bonnibelle under a 
 hard pull at it, and with a lift that a New Market jock 
 might have envied, carried the good chesnut mare clear 
 over it, though her toes grazed the top rail. 
 
 A simultaneous, heartfelt cheer, scul-fraught, burst 
 from the whole of that cold, unimpressive, unimpas- 
 Bioned, unadmiring, high-born field — never before was 
 
163 
 
 such a sight seen, such a sound heard, at Melton Mow- 
 bray. 
 
 Matuschevitz, anxious for his friend, was the first 
 over the barrier, and what a picture lay before him. 
 
 " Thunderbolt" stood erect, covered with dust, 
 scratched skin-deep in many places, but otherwise un- 
 scathed, whinnying for his master. Fairfax sat on a 
 low bank, pale as death, with a thin stream of blood 
 trickling from his temple, and his right arm hanging, 
 with a ragged sleeve, limber by his side. But his 
 senses were about him, for he was smiling at Mary, who 
 knelt beside him, fanning him with her hat, while Bon- 
 nibelle, with reins and stirrup flying masterless, led 
 the chase far aloof. 
 
 Jardinier and the beautiful bay. Merlin, lay, as they 
 had fallen, motionless, seemingly dead. 
 
 " By heaven ! he has killed him. I thought so,'* 
 said Matuschevitz. "Fairfax, old fellow, how are 
 
 you?" 
 
 " Oh ! I shall do," replied the Virginian faintly. 
 "Look to them. They are far worse — I fear the 
 worst. I take you all to witness, it is his deed, not 
 mine. I must have done as I did, or died tamely. His 
 blown horse must have crushed me." 
 
 "You did right, nobly, all that you could do," said 
 Beaufort, who had just come up, and then Mary Mor- 
 ton looked up into the Duke's face, smiled, burst into 
 tears, fainted. 
 
 It was for a while confusion worse confounded. But 
 water was soon brought, and a surgeon was in the 
 field. 
 
 Jardinier had fared better than he deserved. A 
 collar bone and six ribs broken, with a slight concus- 
 sion of the brain, rewarded his attempt at deliberate 
 murder. For it was scarce less than murder, and self- 
 murder. But the beautiful bay Merlin colt was dead 
 —the fii'st vertebra of the neck broken. 
 
164 A BREAKFAST, AND — BROKEN BONES. 
 
 So much for a brutal temper, and ungoverned pas- 
 sions. 
 
 Fairfax came cheaply off in comparison, with a sim- 
 ple fracture of the arm, a dislocated ancle, and a few 
 scratches. 
 
 Brave "Thunderbolt** had saved his master, and 
 was uninjured. 
 
 Mary Morton's faint was soon over, and the news 
 made her, when she heard it, as well as ever. The old 
 admiral had come up too, and Mary and he both in- 
 sisted that Fairfax should be carried no whither but to 
 Merton Hall, and no whither else was he carried. So 
 for the present there we'll leave him. 
 
 Jardinier was not carried to the devil then — though 
 no one would have cared a farthing if he had been. 
 
 Whither he may be carried some day, is more 
 doubtful. 
 
 Should I hear, and you care about it, I'll tell you, 
 gentle reader. 
 
CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 For two long months Percy Fairfax lay, after the 
 first week, on the sofa in the drawing-room at Mor- 
 ton Hall; and for two long months Mary Merton 
 nursed him— not as the ladies of the middle ages 
 nui'sed their preux chevaliers, with lint and simples, 
 and the homely medicaments of their gentle skill ; 
 but with her soft society, her sparkling conversation, 
 her low voice, clear as a silver bell, reading to him, 
 her rare contralto, magnificent, singing to him. 
 
 Happy man, Percy Fairfax ! 
 
 They had no need to make love, it was made to 
 them ; or it had existed from the beginning unmade, 
 uncreated, awaiting only the touch of Ithuriel's spear 
 for its full revealment. 
 
 They had no need to talk love, for they inhaled it 
 at every breath, expired it every breath, fed on it in 
 their minds, drank it in their wine, lived on it by day, 
 dreamed of it by night. Yet they never spoke of it 
 —-they seemed content to let time flow on in this hap- 
 piness unquestioned, so long as it would flow on. 
 Every one took it for granted. 'The admiral smiled 
 without speaking. He had inquired of the American 
 minister — nothing could be more satisfactory. A 
 birth, noble, in England— wealth, fabulous, in Virgi- 
 nia tobacco, South Carolina Cotton, Georgia rice, 
 Louisiana sugar, not to mention the niggers, unname- 
 able in English ears humane. 
 
 And Fairfax has recovered, and the cream of the 
 
 (165) 
 
166 A BOTHER, AND— A BRIDE. 
 
 hunting season is over, and his leave of absence has 
 expired. To-morrow he must return to his bureau. 
 
 It is dark, cold March evening — the rain is loud 
 upon the casements ; the wind is loud among the tur- 
 rets ; a bright wood fire is flickering on the hearth in 
 the library ; and Mary Merton sits — where we saw her 
 sit on that hunting morning — with her beautiful head 
 bowed upon her hands, weeping, silently, bitterly. 
 
 The door opened noiselessly, and the fine head of 
 Fairfax was intruded. With an inaudible step he 
 crossed the room ; and, before she knew he was near 
 her, one arm was round her waist, one hand had 
 clasped her cold fingers. 
 
 '' Mary, my own, are these tears for me ?" 
 
 Her form thrilled in his embrace, like the aspen in 
 a breeze ; she raised her beautiful large eyes, gazed 
 on him wistfully, but with a sad, sad gaze. She made 
 no effort to withdraw herself from his arm, but only 
 shuddered, from head to foot, as if in an ague fit. 
 
 " Oh ! Fairfax — don't, please don't — you hurt me." 
 
 "Hurt you?" 
 
 "Yes ! sadly, cruelly. I can't bear it." 
 
 "/hurt you, who could die for you — who owe my 
 life to you. Oh ! Mary Merton, I hurt you ! 
 
 " Yes ! that is it — that is it. How could I do so ? 
 What a wicked, wicked girl I am." 
 
 " For saving me, Mary ?" 
 
 For one moment her old smile lit up her face, but 
 she burst into tears again. " Oh, no ! not that — not 
 that. Oh ! you will hate me now, Percy Fairfax." 
 
 "I do not understand you." 
 
 " God help me, I don't know if I understand my- 
 self. But I — I — Fairfax — Fairfax — I — I can't he 
 — your's. There — it is spoken." 
 
 And she burst into a wilder paroxysm of tears than 
 ever. 
 
 " Great God ! and can I have misunderstood you ?" 
 
167 
 
 She raised her head slowly, shook hack her hair 
 from her eyes, and looked full in his face. " No I" 
 
 "What is it then? — speak, for the love of God! 
 Bpeak to me, Mary Merton." 
 
 "I cannot tell you." 
 
 " Is it your father who opposes ?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " Another, whom you prefer — ?'* 
 
 She looked at him, but spoke not. 
 
 " Pardon ! whom you are forced to wed ?'* 
 
 " Death could not force me." 
 
 " You torture me." 
 
 " I know it — yet myself am tortured more. I can- 
 not tell you any thing, but only this : I cannot be 
 yours 710W — I fear I cannot ever. And yet I cannot 
 tell you wherefore, and I must bear your ill opinion ; 
 you must think me wicked, heartless, false — " 
 
 " Hush ! hush ! I will not hear you !" and he spoke 
 for the first time in his life, to her, sternly. " One 
 question. You say, you cannot wed me now T' 
 
 "I cannot." 
 
 " And, perhaps, never T' 
 
 "Perhaps never." 
 
 "And you will not tell me wherefore ?" 
 
 "I cannot,'" 
 
 "And yet, Mary Merton, you — you — Mary Mer- 
 ton — you — ?" 
 
 "Love you, Fairfax, now and for ever, here and 
 hereafter. Love you through joy and hope, through 
 anguish and despair. You, and you only." 
 
 " I am not all unhappy." 
 
 And he caught her close, close to his embrace, and 
 she forbid him not, but returned his embrace ; but the 
 embrace and the kiss were clay cold, and her icy tears 
 bedewed his brow. 
 
 " And you do not hate me ?" she said, with a strange, 
 calm expression. 
 
168 A BOTHER, AND — A BRIDE. 
 
 " Mary — my angel, my own soul !" 
 
 " And you believe me, and that I have a reason — a 
 true reason ?" 
 
 " As I believe that I am a man, and * that in my 
 flesh I shall see God.' " 
 
 ^' Noble, good, glorious Fairfax — and must I make 
 you wretched ?" 
 
 " Can you give me no hope ?" 
 
 "I dare not." 
 
 "But, when we meet again — ?" 
 
 " When shall we meet again, or where?" 
 
 " In London." 
 
 " We never go to London. You and I must never 
 meet more, unless — there !" and she pointed upward. 
 
 " God's will be done. It is almost more than I can 
 bear ; but I am a man, and will bear it. Mary, best 
 and most beautiful, do not forget me, as, through life 
 unto death, I never will forget you. And if — if — if 
 this barrier pass away, you — " 
 
 " I will, Percy Fairfax, by my life — on my soul — 
 I will." 
 
 " Mary, my own, own Mary Merton." 
 
 " Through life and in death, if never, ever yours!" 
 
 He clasped her, and released her. It was over. 
 
 He turned ; and, as he reached the door, looked 
 back to her and said, solemnly, in the language of his 
 land's greatest poet — 
 
 " The setting of a mighty hope is like the close of day." 
 
 He was gone. Alas ! for Mary Merton. 
 
 A bright balmy afternoon in July, Hyde Park 
 crowded ; all the world of England's patrician beauty 
 in their equipages, unrivalled for taste and horseflesh 
 
-A BRIDE. 16& 
 
 the world over ; in the ring, the flower of England's 
 manhood, a-horse and around them. 
 
 A pony phaeton, with four wee white ponies and two 
 lady charioteers, the beautiful black-glancing Cheshire 
 and soft Isabella, creeps slowly round the ring, pauses 
 near Buckingham gate ; a dark cavalier, on a superb 
 white horse, leans over them, his hand resting on the 
 hood of the phaeton. But his face is very sad ; more 
 than sad, melancholy — more than melancholy, apa- 
 thetic ! he smiles, but it is with his lips only, from his 
 teeth ; not with his eyes, from his heart ; and he talks 
 earnestly with those lovely beings, and they are earnest 
 in reply. He loves them not, but likes, almost more 
 than loving. They are bound to him by the memory 
 of a time. He is Percy Fairfax. He starts, his eye 
 has caught something, his hat is off, he bows, his spur 
 is in white Moonbeam's side — he is away, among the 
 press ; through the gate ; in Rotten Row. 
 
 What was it caught his eye ? The vision of a beau- 
 tiful chesnut thorough-bred mare, sweeping, like a 
 swan through the air — a ship through the sea— among 
 the high-bred throng, and on her back a supple, sway- 
 ing figure, a long dark riding habit, a low-crowned, 
 broad-brimmed hat, a black veil scarcely shadowing 
 the rosy chin. 
 
 Away ! Hope is on the wind, and life ! Away ! 
 
 Again a glimpse — those sloping shoulders, the bend 
 of that slender neck, those tresses of pale gold of the 
 rider — those round muscular long, let-down quarters, 
 that full, swinging bang tail, of the ridden — out of 
 ten thousand they are Bonnibelle, and Mary Merton. 
 
 Moonbeam is at his speed, he devom^s the Row — 
 they are almost overtaken, but she has pulled up, and 
 he pulls up too, to sate his eyes on that presence. It 
 is she, and the old admiral, and another female figure ; 
 and is it ? — it is Charley — by her side. 
 
 They wheeled. Fairfax and Moonbeam halted, and 
 
170 A BOTHER, AND — A BRIDE. 
 
 met them face to face. Brow, cheeks, neck, blazed as 
 onee before ; but she rode out a horse's length before 
 the others, and met him midway. 
 
 They shook both hands, horses and reins unheeded. 
 
 "I am so glad to see you, Mary." 
 
 '' And I ; so vert/ — so very, ver^ glad. And here 
 are papa, and your old friend Charley, Colonel Fair- 
 fax ; and here is little Fan, Mrs. Charles Merton, I 
 should say; and they have brought home a little 
 Henry Merton, and papa has forgiven him." 
 
 A strange gleam of day-light appeared to dawn 
 upon Fairfax. He thought he saw light through the 
 cloud which had so strangely, so unexpectedly, come 
 between them — and which, so inexplicable had the 
 whole mystery appeared to him, he had never dared 
 so much as to try to penetrate, lest he should wrong 
 her in his thoughts. 
 
 " And 7/ou have forgiven me, Mary ?" said Fairfax, 
 all his pride forgotten. 
 
 "No. But can you forgive me V she answered. 
 
 She had time to say this much only, before they 
 were surrounded, and all was for a time welcome, and 
 joy, and congratulation. Fairfax joined their party; 
 Charley was joyously, almost boisterously, happy; 
 little Fan full of gentle mirth ; the admiral more than 
 cordial. 
 
 " Could not Percy Fairfax — be hanged if he could 
 help calling him Percy, since the day he saw him so 
 smashed — could not Percy Fairfax ride home with 
 them and dine in Grosvenor Street, as he had done at 
 Merton Park, twenty times, without making a fuss 
 about it ?" 
 
 " Percy Fairfax would have been too happy ; but 
 — there always must be a hut — he was on duty that 
 evening ; his chief had an official dinner, he really was 
 very sorry." 
 
 And he really was. But, before they parted at 
 
A BOTHER, AND — A BRIDE. 171 
 
 Grosvenor gate, he found a moment to whisper to 
 Mary, " And may I come and see you, Mary?" 
 
 " Do YOU not know you may?" 
 
 "And' when?" 
 
 '' Whenever you please, Fairfax." 
 
 "This evening?" 
 
 "Please, do:' 
 
 "And when I do come, you'll say — " 
 
 "Yes, sii* — " with such an innocent, fond glance, 
 and such a radiant smile. 
 
 " Mary — my own, own Mary Merton." 
 
 "You said so, once before." 
 
 "And meant it." 
 
 "So did I, when I said I will, and so — and so — T 
 teased papa 'till he brought me to London." 
 
 "And you will, dearest ?" 
 
 " I said it, once, but if ' you'd rather,' I'll say it 
 again." 
 
 "I'd rather." 
 
 "Then, a will.'" 
 
 " Then I will come and see you this evening." 
 
 And so he did ; but the American minister's dinner 
 party did most assuredly, long and slow as it was — • 
 for it was a dainty spread given to those most 
 unutterable of all snobs and hypocrites. Corncob. 
 Splendid, and the rest of the League-men — seem to 
 him longer and slower than ever one had seemed be- 
 fore. He would have been perfectly willing to swear 
 that the soup was cold, though it was reeking from 
 Soyer's most particular marmite ; that the champagne 
 was hissing hot, though it was frappe au mo7nent, 
 with the best ice of Wenham Lake. But slowest 
 things, as well as fastest, must have their end. 
 
 And if the minister's dinner had been about the 
 slowest thing of the season, the pace at which Percy 
 Fairfax's cab went from Wilton Square to Lower 
 Grosvenor Street, after it, was certainly quite the 
 
172 A BOTHER, AND — A BRIDE. 
 
 fastest. " Miss Mary Merton was at home," said the 
 tall footman, with a serai-conscious smile. " Would not 
 Colonel Fairfax walk up stairs ? Mr. and Mrs. 
 Charles had gone to Yauxhall," he believed; "but the 
 admiral would be back from the United Service in 
 half an hour; he had been obliged to attend a ballot." 
 
 " How very opportune," thought unsuspicious and 
 transparent Percy Fairfax, as he walked into the 
 shadowy, half-lighted drawing-room, and found her 
 alone, trying to cheat herself into the belief that she 
 was reading something ; very pale, very tremulous, 
 with the trace of a tear or two on her cheek, yet 
 lovelier than ever. 
 
 '' And was that your reason, Mary ?" he said, after 
 he had thanked her for saying, "Yes, sir," and "I 
 will," as he could not thank her in the Park, because 
 she was on horseback, and there were so many persons 
 near ; " and was that your reason ?" 
 
 "A silly, but a woman s reason." 
 
 "A beautiful, because a woman's reason. But why 
 not give me a clue ? that was — " 
 
 " Silly, Mary," she interrupted him, half smiles, 
 half tears. 
 
 " Was it not ?" 
 
 " You might have guessed it." 
 
 " Impossible. You had told me that your father 
 had disinherited Charles, and threatened to make you 
 his heiress ; but that you would die sooner than rob 
 him of his rights. Could you think me so base as to 
 covet my friend's rights to my friend's loss ?" 
 
 "No ; 0, I was a little fool."' 
 
 " Why did you not speak out, dearest ? why did 
 you distrust me, Mary?" 
 
 " I did not distrust you ; but I am a woman — and, 
 And — I thought you might have guessed ; and Percy 
 — don't be angry, Percy, please. I knew you would 
 let me do what I wished ; but I was afraid.'' 
 
173 
 
 "Afraid of what, love?" 
 
 " That you might not be the noble soul I thought 
 you." 
 
 "And so—" 
 
 "And so — " and she burst into tears as she spoke, 
 " I tortured myself and you, and very nearly lost you, 
 Percy — not that I did not love enough, but that I loved 
 too much, and feared to disenchant myself with my 
 ideal. But I'll never do so again, if you'll forgive 
 me, Percy," and she laughed up in his face, well 
 knowing that there was nothing to forgive, and that 
 if there had been, she was forgiven long ago. 
 
 "I ought to have guessed," he said ; "it is I that 
 should ask to be forgiven; but henceforth, Mary 
 dearest, that word must be unknown, between us 
 two — 
 
 * One feeling in two bosoms, 
 Two hearts that beat like one,' '* 
 
 " Amen," said Mary ; and she sank coy, but not re- 
 luctant, into his arms. 
 
 "And Amen," replied the old admiral, who re- 
 turning quietly from his club, had entered the twi- 
 light room so noiselessly, that neither heard him 
 coming, " and now let's go to supper, for, though this 
 love-making is meat and drink to you young folks, 
 we old boys can always do as well with an oyster and 
 a glass of old Sercial, and not quite so well without 
 them." 
 
 Happy Percy Fairfax ! Happy Mary Merton ! I 
 don't know exactly what became of them afterward, 
 but I never heard that either of them ever foigot the 
 Virginian's debut at Melton Mowbray. 
 
 THE END. 
 
^'^.-y\^ 
 
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