‘Ah! but it’s a rare good country when you get to it,’ replied his lordship, shortening his rein and spurring his steed.

The lane being at length cleared, the road became more practicable, passing over large pastures where a horseman could choose his own ground, instead of being bound by the narrow limits of the law.  But though the road improved, the day did not; a thick fog coming drifting up from the south-east in aid of the general obscurity of the scene.

‘The day’s gettin’ wuss,’ observed Jack, snuffling and staring about.

‘It’ll blow over,’ replied his lordship, who was not easily disheartened.  ‘It’ll blow over,’ repeated he, adding, ’often rare scents such days as these.  But we must put on,’ continued he, looking at his watch, ’for it’s half-past, and we are a mile or more off yet.’  So saying, he clapped spurs to his hack and shot away at a canter, followed by Jack at a long-drawn ‘hammer and pincers’ trot.

A hunt is something like an Assize circuit, where certain great guns show everywhere, and smaller men drop in here and there, snatching a day or a brief, as the case may be.  Sergeant Bluff and Sergeant Huff rustle and wrangle in every court, while Mr. Meeke and Mr. Sneeke enjoy their frights on the forensic arenas of their respective towns, on behalf of simple neighbours, who look upon them as thorough Solomons.  So with hunts.  Certain men who seem to have been sent into the world for the express purpose of hunting, arrive at every meet, far and near, with a punctuality that is truly surprising, and rarely associated with pleasure.

If you listen to their conversation, it is generally a dissertation on the previous day’s sport, with inquiries as to the nearest way to cover the next.  Sometimes it is seasoned with censure of some other pack they have been seeing.  These men are mounted and appointed in a manner that shows what a perfect profession hunting is with them.  Of course, they come cantering to cover, lest any one should suppose they ride their horses on.

The ‘Cross-roads’ was like two hunts or two circuits joining, for it generally drew the picked men from each, to say nothing of outriggers and chance customers.  The regular attendants of either hunt were sufficiently distinguishable as well by the flat hats and baggy garments of the one, as by the dandified, Jemmy Jessamy air of the other.  If a lord had not been at the head of the Flat Hats, the Puffington men would have considered them insufferable snobs.  But to our day.

As usual, where hounds have to travel a long distance, the field were assembled before they arrived.  Almost all the cantering gentlemen had cast up.

One cross-road meet being so much like another, it will not be worth while describing the one at Dallington Burn.  The reader will have the kindness to imagine a couple of roads crossing an open common, with an armless sign-post on one side, and a rubble-stone bridge, with several of the coping-stones lying in the shallow stream below, on the other.