ana fight their battles o'er again, and describe thrice-told
historic runs, which grow longer with every repetition, others discuss the
prospects of the coming season, and indulge in hopes of which, let us
hope, neither Jack Frost, bad scent, nor accident by flood or field will
mar the fruition.

Nearly all are talking, for there is a feeling of _camaraderie_ in the
hunting-field which dispenses with the formality of introductions, its
frequenters sometimes becoming familiar friends before they have learned
each other's names.

Yet there are exceptions; and one cavalier in particular appears to hold
himself aloof, neither speaking to his neighbors nor mixing in the throng.
As he does not look like a "sulky swell," rendered taciturn by an
overweening sense of his own importance, he is probably either a new
resident in the county or a "stranger from a distance"--which, none whom I
ask seems to know. There is something about this man that especially
attracts my attention; and not mine alone, for I perceive that he is being
curiously regarded by several of my neighbors. His get-up is faultless,
and he sits with the easy grace of a practiced horseman an animal of
exceptional symmetry and strength. His well-knit figure is slim and almost
youthful, and he holds himself as erect on his saddle as a dragoon on
parade. But his closely cropped hair is turning gray, and his face that of
a man far advanced in the fifties, if not past sixty. And a striking face
it is--long and oval, with a straight nose and fine nostrils, a broad
forehead, and a firm, resolute mouth. His complexion, though it bears
traces of age, is clear, healthy, and deeply bronzed. Save for a heavy
gray mustache, he is clean shaved; his dark, keenly observant eyes are
overshadowed by black and all but straight brows, terminating in two
little tufts, which give his countenance a strange and, as some might
think, an almost sardonic expression. Altogether, it strikes me as being
the face of a cynical yet not ill-natured or malicious Mephistopheles.

Behind him are two grooms in livery, nearly as well mounted as himself,
and, greatly to my surprise, he is presently joined by Jim Rawlings, who
last season held the post of first whipper-in.

What manner of man is this who brings out four horses on the same day, and
what does he want with them all? Such horses, too! There is not one of
them that has not the look of a two hundred-guinea hunter.

I was about to put the