school, who could not be too civil to the
friends of their own set, were as proud of
their systematic rudeness as if it had been
both wise and witty.

But, the falling of war rents, and the change
of times which brought the corn and cattle of
other districts, better provided with roads,
to compete with Blankshire; not to mention
the inroads which a few generations of four-
bottle men had made on ancestral estates,
gradually diminished the income of the
Blankshire Foxhound Club. As it was impossible
to admit as subscribers any of the new
men—sons of millers, agents, and lawyers
who had grown up in a new generation—the
suggestion of the Honourable Mr. Fastman,
when on his visit to his uncle the Canon of
the Blankshire Cathedral, of inviting young
Lord Bullrush to take the mastership of the
hounds (then vacant by the death of Squire
Blorrington, of apoplexy, the day after the
Annual Hunt dinner at the close of the
season) was entertained, grumbled at, and
finally agreed on: with the understanding
that my lord was to pay half the expenses,
and they were to manage.

Behold us then installed in the Grange,
with everything new about us, except the
black and white timber-laced house; everybody
calling on my lord, and my lord
calling on every body. Oh, those were queer
times! Chiefly, the country people were
puzzled how to treat me; but, as I kept
in the background, and secured the goodwill
of the steward, and the stud groom,
by a little timely attention to their wives,
and agreeable prescriptions for themselves,
when they made too free with Bullrush claret,
which mixed with Blankshire ale rather
badly, I had good rooms, good attendance,
and the best of the quiet horses to ride. I
was supposed to hold a sort of secret-service-
post direct from the countess, and the squires
were tolerably civil.

It was astonishing how Lord Bullrush, who
had been brought up in a nursery almost
all his life, bloomed and flowered into
importance. In a month, when the Dowager
came down to visit him, she found that her
influence had faded to a shadow; he came
up to her, with his hands in his pockets,
smoking a cigar. But to return to the
Blankshire squires.

Lord Bullrush would shake hands, and
would make friends with all who came out
with the hounds; he broke through all the
county etiquette; he greeted a hard riding
young farmer quite as cordially as Squire
Beechgrove or Squire Oldoak; he even asked
Sheepskin the young lawyer to dinner, the
day he beat all the field and jumped the
Gorse Park palings.

One day—it was in December, after three
weeks' hard frost—we met at the Three Ponds.
When we came up, there was a strange, knowing
groom leading two horses about, of a
stamp we did not see every day—great wellbred
weight carriers, quite fresh on their
legs; one of them, a black, with a side saddle.
Whose could they be? It was not Miss
Blorrington: we knew Miss Blorrington's
old grey cob; it was not Mrs. Beechgrove;
she was there, staring with all her eyes.
Some one had asked the groom, and he had
answered in a sort of Yorkshire accent, "My
maister's."

"And who is your master, my man?" said
my lord.

"There he is, a coming," said the man,

"and perhaps you'll ask him yoursen."

"Fellow," cried Squire Grabble, "do you
know who you are speaking to? That is the
Master of the Hounds, Lord Bullrush."

"I don't care who the hang he be; my
orders is to answer no questions and tell no
lees."

Up drove a Stanhope, drawn by a fast
trotting bay; out of it got, first, a tall,
broad-shouldered young man, dressed in a
costume that set the whole hunt, except Lord
Bullrush, in a ferment. None of them had
ever seen anything like it before; but my
lord always liked something new, and does
now. A scarlet single-breasted coat and cap
—all the Blankshires wore hats; leathers
—all the Blankshires wore brown cords;
hunting jack-boots— and all the Blankshires
wore mahogany tops. Worse than all, the
stranger wore moustaches. With a grave bow
to the master and more ceremony to his
companion, he handed out a pretty cherry-cheeked
girl, in a black Spanish hat, with plump
rosy lips, and nice teeth; a short saucy nose;
and a remarkably neat flexible figure.

In an instant they were both mounted;
and it did not look likely from their style
and seat, that they were French— as Grabble
had suggested, with a contemptuous point at
the black boots and moustaches.

On that morning there was not much time
for inquiries. The hounds found a fox
five minutes after being thrown into cover,
ran him a run of ten minutes back to cover,
there changed him for another who put his
head straight and gave us (that is to say,
those who like riding over hedge, ditch,
brook, rail, and gate— I don't) one of the
quick things of the season. Here, perhaps,
it may be expected that I shall relate how
the two strangers took the lead, kept it, and
pounded the whole field at some tremendous
fence. But, they did not do anything of the
kind; it is true they did not follow my
example, and keep with Farmer Greenleigh and
Lord Bullrush's second horse man to the high
road and the bridle roads; no, they kept
tolerably straight, rode a fair second place
out of the crowd, and made no display except
once, when the old jealous brute, Grabble,
let the wicket gate of a covert fly back as
the lady was cantering up to it. She never
slackened her pace; but with one touch and
one word flew it, and the next moment
dashed the mud of a heavy ploughed field into