lack of matter was easily supplied from the magazines
and new books. In this department, indeed, in
the department of elegant light literature generally,
Mr. Grimes was ably assisted by his eldest daughter,
Lucy, a young lady of a certain age—say
liberal thirty—an ardent Bloomer—with
a considerable taste for sentimental poetry, with
which she generally filled the poet’s corner.
This assistance enabled Grimes to look after his auctioneering,
bleaching, and paper-hanging concerns, and it so happened
that when the foregoing run arrived at the office
he, having seen the next paper ready for press, had
gone to Mr. Vosper’s, some ten miles off, to
paper his drawing-room, consequently the duties of
deciding upon its publication devolved on the Bloomer.
Now, she was a most refined, puritanical young woman,
full of sentiment and elegance, with a strong objection
to what she considered the inhumanities of the chase.
At first she was for rejecting the article altogether,
and had it been a run with the Tinglebury Harriers,
or even, we believe, with Lord Scamperdale’s
hounds, she would have consigned it to the ‘Balaam
box,’ but seeing it was with Mr. Puffington’s
hounds, whose house they had papered, and who advertised
with them, she condescended to read it; and though
her delicacy was shocked at encountering the word ‘stunning’
at the outset, and also at the term ‘ravishing
scent’ farther on, she nevertheless sent the
manuscript to the compositors, after making such alterations
and corrections as she thought would fit it for eyes
polite. The consequence was that the article
appeared in the following form, though whether all
the absurdities were owing to Miss Lucy’s corrections,
or the carelessness of the writer, or the printers,
had anything to do with it, we are not able to say.
The errors, some of them arising from the mere alteration
or substitution of a letter, will strike a sporting
more than a general reader. Thus it appeared
in the middle of the third sheet of the Swillingford
Patriot:
SPLENDID RUN WITH MR. PUFFINGTON’S HOUNDS.
This splendid pack had a superb run from Hollyburn Hanger, the property of its truly popular and sporting owner, Mr. Puffington. A splendid field of well-appointed sportsmen, among whom we recognized several distinguished strangers, and members of Lord Scamperdale’s hunt, were present. After partaking of the well-known profuse and splendid hospitality of Hanby House, they proceeded at once to Hollyburn Hanger, where a fine seasonal fox, though some said he was a bay one, broke away in view of the whole pack, every hound scorning to cry, and making the welkin ring with their melody. He broke at the lower end of the cover, and crossing the brook, made straight for Fleecyhaugh Water Meadows, over which there is always an exquisite perfume; from there he made a slight bend, as if inclining for the plantations at Winstead, but changing his mind, he faced the rising ground, and crossing over nearly the highest