ry cautiously and stopping every
now and then to listen. At last a thundering old grey-backed fellow went
away before the whole field, making for the steep declivities that
lead into the downs, and though the brow of the hill was covered with
foot-people who holloa'd and shouted enough to turn a lion, he would
make his point, and only altering his course so as to avoid running
right among the mob, he gained the summit of the hill and disappeared.
This hill, being uncommonly steep, was a breather for hounds that had
been running so long as they had, in a thick cover too, and neither they
nor the horses went at it with any great dash. The fox was not a fellow
to be caught very easily, and nothing but a good start could have given
them any chance, but the hounds never got well settled to the scent, and
after a fruitless cast his lordship gave it up, and Jorrocks and Co.
trudged back to Cheltenham, J---- highly delighted at so favourable an
opportunity of seeing the hounds. Indeed, so pleased was he with the
turn-out and the whole thing, that finding from Skinner, one of
the whippers-in, that they met on the following morning at Purge
Down-turnpike, in their best country, forgetting all about his
indigestion and the royal spa, he went to Newman and Longridge, the
horse dealers and livery stable keepers and engaged a couple of nags "to
look at the hounds upon," as he impressed upon their minds, which he
ordered to be ready at nine o'clock.

This day he proposed to give the landlord of the "George Inn," in the
High Street, the benefit of his rapacious appetite, and about five
o'clock (his latest London hour) they sat down to dinner. The "George"
is neither exactly a swell house like the "Royal Hotel" or the "Plough,"
nor yet a commercial one, but something betwixt and between. The
coffee-room is very small, consequently all the frequenters are drawn
together, and if a conversation is started a man must be deuced
unsociable that does not join in the cry.

As three or four were sitting round the fire chatting over their tipple,
and Jorrocks was telling some of his best bouncers, the door opened
and a waiter bowed a fresh animal into the cage, who, after eyeing the
party, took off his hat and forthwith proceeded to pull off divers
neckcloths, cloaks, great-coats, muffitees, until he reduced himself to
about half the size he was on entering. He was a little square-built
old man, with white hair and plenty of it, a long stupid re