ots off,
finds he does not know half as much about the hunt, or can tell half as
correctly where the game went, as our, quiet-going friend, whose hack
will probably go out on the following morning under the car, with the
mistress and children. Such a one was Parson Armstrong; and when Lord
Ballindine and most of the others went away after the hounds, he coolly
turned round in a different direction, crept through a broken wall into
a peasant's garden, and over a dunghill, by the cabin door into a road,
and then trotted along as demurely and leisurely as though he were
going to bury an old woman in the next parish.

Frank was, generally speaking, as good-natured a man as is often met,
but even he got excited and irritable when hunting his own pack. All
masters of hounds do. Some one was always too forward, another too near
the dogs, a third interfering with the servants, and a fourth making
too much noise.

"Confound it, Peter," he said, when they had gone over a field or two,
and the dogs missed the scent for a moment, "I thought at any rate you
knew better than to cross the dogs that way."

"Who crossed the dogs?" said the other--"what nonsense you're talking:
why I wasn't out of the potato-field till they were nearly all at the
next wall."

"Well, it may be nonsense," continued Frank; "but when I see a man
riding right through the hounds, and they hunting, I call that crossing
them."

"Hoicks! tally"--hollowed some one--"there's Graceful has it
again--well done, Granger! Faith, Frank, that's a good dog! if he's not
first, he's always second."

"Now, gentlemen, steady, for heaven's sake. Do let the dogs settle to
their work before you're a-top of them. Upon my soul, Nicholas Brown,
it's ridiculous to see you!"

"It'd be a good thing if he were half as much in a hurry to get to
heaven," said Bingham Blake.

"Thank'ee," said Nicholas; "go to heaven yourself. I'm well enough
where I am."

And now they were off again. In the next field the whole pack caught a
view of the fox just as he was stealing out; and after him they went,
with their noses well above the ground, their voices loud and clear,
and in one bevy.

Away they went: the game was strong; the scent was good; the ground was
soft, but not too soft; and a magnificent hunt they had; but there were
some misfortunes shortly after getting away. Barry Lynch, wishing,
in his ignorance, to lead and show himself off, and not knowing
how--scurrying along among