from sheer necessity, were most
likely to do so from laughing at their neighbors. The pace may not have
equalled Melton, nor the fences have been as stubborn as in Leicestershire,
but I'll be sworn there was more laughter, more fun, and more merriment,
in one day with us, than in a whole season with the best organized pack in
England. With a lively trust that the country was open and the leaps easy,
every man took the field. Indeed, the only anxiety evinced at all, was to
appear at the meet in something like jockey fashion, and I must confess
that this feeling was particularly conspicuous among the infantry. Happy
the man whose kit boasted a pair of cords or buck skins; thrice happy he
who sported a pair of tops. I myself was in that enviable position, and
well remember with what pride of heart I cantered up to cover in all the
superior _eclat_ of my costume, though, if truth were to be spoken, I doubt
if I should have passed muster among my friends of the "Blazers." A round
cavalry jacket and a foraging cap with a hanging tassel were the strange
accompaniments of my more befitting nether garments. Whatever our costumes,
the scene was a most animated one. Here the shell-jacket of a heavy dragoon
was seen storming the fence of a vineyard; there the dark green of a
rifleman was going the pace over the plain. The unsportsmanlike figure of
a staff officer might be observed emerging from a drain, while some
neck-or-nothing Irishman, with light infantry wings, was flying at every
fence before him, and overturning all in his way. The rules and regulations
of the service prevailed not here; the starred and gartered general, the
plumed and aiguilletted colonel obtained but little deference and less
mercy from his more humble subaltern. In fact, I am half disposed to think
that many an old grudge of rigid discipline or severe duty met with its
retribution here. More than once have I heard the muttered sentences around
me which boded like this,--

"Go the pace, Harry, never flinch it! There's old Colquhoun--take him in
the haunches; roll him over!"

"See here, boys--watch how I'll scatter the staff--Beg your pardon,
General, hope I haven't hurt you. Turn about--fair play--I have taught
_you_ to take up a position now."

I need scarcely say there was one whose person was sacred from all such
attacks. He was well mounted upon a strong, half-breed horse; rode always
foremost, following the hounds with the same steady pertinacity wit