A DAY WITH THE SURREY HOUNDS.

Our ball had failed so completely that Jemmy, who was bent still upon fashion, caught eagerly at Tagrag’s suggestion, and went down to Tuggeridgeville.  If we had a difficulty to find friends in town, here there was none:  for the whole county came about us, ate our dinners and suppers, danced at our balls—­ay, and spoke to us too.  We were great people in fact:  I a regular country gentleman; and as such, Jemmy insisted that I should be a sportsman, and join the county hunt.  “But,” says I, “my love, I can’t ride.”  “Pooh!  Mr. C.” said she, “you’re always making difficulties:  you thought you couldn’t dance a quadrille; you thought you couldn’t dine at seven o’clock; you thought you couldn’t lie in bed after six; and haven’t you done every one of these things?  You must and you shall ride!” And when my Jemmy said “must and shall,” I knew very well there was nothing for it:  so I sent down fifty guineas to the hunt, and, out of compliment to me, the very next week, I received notice that the meet of the hounds would take place at Squashtail Common, just outside my lodge-gates.

I didn’t know what a meet was; and me and Mrs. C. agreed that it was most probable the dogs were to be fed there.  However, Tagrag explained this matter to us, and very kindly promised to sell me a horse, a delightful animal of his own; which, being desperately pressed for money, he would let me have for a hundred guineas, he himself having given a hundred and fifty for it.

Well, the Thursday came:  the hounds met on Squashtail Common; Mrs. C. turned out in her barouche to see us throw off; and, being helped up on my chestnut horse, Trumpeter, by Tagrag and my head groom, I came presently round to join them.

Tag mounted his own horse; and, as we walked down the avenue, “I thought,” he said, “you told me you knew how to ride; and that you had ridden once fifty miles on a stretch!”

“And so I did,” says I, “to Cambridge, and on the box too.”

“On the box!” says he; “but did you ever mount a horse before?”

“Never,” says I, “but I find it mighty easy.”

“Well,” says he, “you’re mighty bold for a barber; and I like you, Coxe, for your spirit.”  And so we came out of the gate.

As for describing the hunt, I own, fairly, I can’t.  I’ve been at a hunt, but what a hunt is—­why the horses will go among the dogs and ride them down—­why the men cry out “yooooic”—­why the dogs go snuffing about in threes and fours, and the huntsman says, “Good Towler—­good Betsy,” and we all of us after him say, “Good Towler—­good Betsy” in course:  then, after hearing a yelp here and a howl there, tow, row, yow, yow, yow! burst out, all of a sudden, from three or four of them, and the chap in a velvet cap screeches out (with a number of oaths I shan’t repeat here), “Hark, to Ringwood!” and then, “There he goes!” says some one; and all of a sudden, helter skelter, skurry hurry, slap bang, whooping, screeching and hurraing, blue-coats and red-coats, bays and grays, horses, dogs, donkeys, butchers, baro-knights, dustmen, and blackguard boys, go tearing all together over the common after two or three of the pack that yowl loudest.  Why all this is, I can’t say; but it all took place the second Thursday of last March, in my presence.