red coats may be caught passing the gaps and weak parts of the fence, among whom we distinctly recognise the worthy master of the pack, followed by Jorrocks, with his long coat-laps floating in the breeze, who thinking that “catching-time” must be near at hand, and being dearly fond of blood, has descended from his high station to witness the close of the scene.  “Vot a pace! and vot a country!” cries the grocer, standing high in his stirrups, and bending over the neck of his chestnut as though he were meditating a plunge over his head; “how they stick to him! vot a pack! by Jove they are at fault again.  Yooi, Pilgrim!  Yooi, Warbler, ma load! (lad).  Tom, try down the hedge-row.”  “Hold your jaw, Mr. J——­,” cries Tom, “you are always throwing that red rag of yours.  I wish you would keep your potato-trap shut.  See! you’ve made every hound throw up, and it’s ten to one that ne’er a one among ’em will stoop again.”  “Yonder he goes,” cries a cock of the old school, who used to hunt with Colonel Jolliffe’s hounds, and still sports the long blue surtout lined with orange, yellow-ochre unmentionables, and mahogany-coloured knee-caps, with mother-of-pearl buttons.  “Yonder he goes among the ship (sheep), for a thousand! see how the skulking waggabone makes them scamper.”  At this particular moment a shrill scream is heard at the far end of a long shaw, and every man pushes on to the best of his endeavour.  “Holloo o-o-u, h’loo o-o-u, h’loo—­o-o-u, gone away! gone away! forward! forrard! hark back! hark forrard! hark forrard! hark back!” resounds from every mouth.  “He’s making for the ’oods beyond Addington, and we shall have a rare teaser up these hills,” cries Jorrocks, throwing his arms round his horse’s neck as he reaches the foot of them.—­“D—­n your hills,” cries “Swell,” as he suddenly finds himself sitting on the hindquarters of his horse, his saddle having slipped back for want of a breastplate,—­“I wish the hills had been piled on your back, and the flints thrust down your confounded throat, before I came into such a cursed provincial.”  “Haw, haw, haw!” roars a Croydon butcher.  “What don’t ’e like it, sir, eh? too sharp to be pleasant, eh?—­Your nag should have put on his boots before he showed among us.”

“He’s making straight for Fuller’s farm,” exclaims a thirsty veteran on reaching the top, “and I’ll pull up and have a nip of ale, please God.”  “Hang your ale,” cries a certain sporting cheesemonger, “you had better come out with a barrel of it tacked to your horse’s tail.”—­“Or ’unt on a steam-engine,” adds his friend the omnibus proprietor, “and then you can brew as you go.”  “We shall have the Croydon Canal,” cries Mr. H——­n, of Tottenham, who knows every flint in the country, “and how will you like that, my hearties?” “Curse the Croydon Canal,” bawls the little Bromley barber, “my mule can swim like a soap-bladder, and my toggery can’t spoil, thank God!”