y judge whether there
is anything in the wide world to be compared to the Surrey, for if I
remember right, Mr. Nimrod described them as werry, werry fine, indeed."

Having formed this resolution, Jorrocks stamped on the floor (for the
bell was broken) for the little boy who did the odd jobs of the house,
to bring up his Hessian boots, into which having thrust his great
calves, and replaced the old brown great-coat which he uses for a
dressing-gown by a superfine Saxony blue, with metal buttons and pockets
outside, he pulled his wig straight, stuck his white hat with the green
flaps knowingly on his head, and sallied forth for execution as stout a
man as ever. Knowing that the kennel is near the Winchcourt road, they
proceeded in that direction, but after walking about a mile, came upon
a groom on a chestnut horse, who, returning from the chase, was wetting
his whistle at the appropriate sign of the "Fox and Hounds," and who
informed them that they had passed the turning for the kennel, but that
the hounds were out, and then in a wood which he pointed out on the
hillside about two miles off, into which they had just brought their
fox. Looking in that direction, they presently saw the summit of one of
the highest of the range of hills that encircle the town of Cheltenham,
covered with horsemen and pedestrians, who kept moving backwards and
forwards on the "mountain's brow," looking in the distance more like a
flock of sheep than anything else. Jorrocks, being all right again and
up to anything, proposed a start to the wood, and though he thought they
should hardly reach it before the hounds either killed their fox or he
broke away again, they agreed to take the chance, and away they went,
"best leg first" as the saying is. The cover (Queen Wood by name, and,
as Jorrocks found out from somebody, the property of Lord Ellenborough)
being much larger than it at first appeared and the fox but a bad one,
they were in lots of time, and having toiled to the top of the wood,
Jorrocks swaggered in among the horsemen with all the importance of an
alderman. For full an hour after they got there the hounds kept running
in cover, the fox being repeatedly viewed and the pack continually
pressing him. Once or twice he came out, but after skirting the cover's
edge a few yards turned in again. Indeed, there were two foxes on foot,
one being a three-legged one, and it was extraordinary how he went and
stood before hounds, going apparently ve