There was one exception, however, in a testy old huntsman, as hot as a pepper-corn; a meagre, wiry old fellow, in a threadbare velvet jockey-cap, and a pair of leather breeches, that, from much wear, shone as though they had been japanned.  He was very contradictory and pragmatical, and apt, as I thought, to differ from Master Simon now and then out of mere captiousness.  This was particularly the case with respect to the treatment of the hawk, which the old man seemed to have under his peculiar care, and, according to Master Simon, was in a fair way to ruin; the latter had a vast deal to say about casting, and imping, and gleaming, and enseaming, and giving the hawk the rangle, which I saw was all heathen Greek to old Christy; but he maintained his point notwithstanding, and seemed to hold all his technical lore in utter disrespect.

[Illustration:  Old Christy]

I was surprised at the good humour with which Master Simon bore his contradictions, till he explained the matter to me afterwards.  Old Christy is the most ancient servant in the place, having lived among dogs and horses the greater part of a century, and been in the service of Mr. Bracebridge’s father.  He knows the pedigree of every horse on the place, and has bestrid the great-great-grandsires of most of them.  He can give a circumstantial detail of every fox-hunt for the last sixty or seventy years, and has a history of every stag’s head about the house, and every hunting trophy nailed to the door of the dog-kennel.

All the present race have grown up under his eye, and humour him in his old age.  He once attended the squire to Oxford when he was a student there, and enlightened the whole university with his hunting lore.  All this is enough to make the old man opinionated, since he finds, on all these matters of first-rate importance, he knows more than the rest of the world.  Indeed, Master Simon had been his pupil, and acknowledges that he derived his first knowledge in hunting from the instructions of Christy; and I much question whether the old man does not still look upon him as rather a greenhorn.

On our return homewards, as we were crossing the lawn in front of the house, we heard the porter’s bell ring at the lodge, and shortly afterwards, a kind of cavalcade advanced slowly up the avenue.  At sight of it my companion paused, considered for a moment, and then, making a sudden exclamation, hurried away to meet it.  As it approached I discovered a fair, fresh-looking elderly lady, dressed in an old-fashioned riding-habit, with a broad-brimmed white beaver hat, such as may be seen in Sir Joshua Reynolds’ paintings.  She rode a sleek white pony, and was followed by a footman in rich livery, mounted on an over-fed hunter.  At a little distance in the rear came an ancient cumbrous chariot, drawn by two very corpulent horses, driven by as corpulent a coachman, beside whom sat a page dressed in a fanciful green livery.  Inside of the chariot was a starched prim personage, with a look somewhat between a lady’s companion and a lady’s maid; and two pampered curs that showed their ugly faces and barked out of each window.