y
grovelling until the next revolution of his noble steed, when the animal
caught him up by the baggiest portion of the trousers and carried him
round the arena as a terrier might a rat! But, oh, what mingled joy and
admiration, when out from the worried mass of coats leaped the nimble
rider, now no longer a miserable tailor, but a roseate young man in
tights and spangles, featly posturing over all the available area of his
steed, and "witching the world with noble horsemanship"!

All these memories crowded upon me with a tremendous shock the very
first time I saw the name of William Button upon the dingy swinging
sign. Afterwards, when I became intimate with that curious person, I
discovered that he was a capital "whip,"--first-rate, indeed, as a
driver of the fast trotting horse, as well as a good judge of that
superior article. With respect to his experiences as a rider he was more
reserved; and it was not until after I had known him a long time that he
confided to me the particulars of a ride once taken by him, which bore,
in its principal features, a singular resemblance to the one performed
by his great name-sake of the sawdust-ring.

There is a pack of fox-hounds kept at Montreal, maintained chiefly by
officers of the garrison, as a shadowy reminiscence, perhaps, of the
real thing, which is essentially of insular Britain and of nowhere else.
Button happened to go to Montreal, on one occasion, for the purpose of
picking up a race-horse, I think, for the Quebec market. Somebody who
used to ride with the hounds had a horse which he wanted to get rid
of, on account of headstrong tendencies in general and inability to
appreciate the advantages of a bit. I remember the animal well. He was
a fiery chestnut, with white about the legs, and very good across a
country so long as he was wanted to go; but no common power could stop
him when once he began to do that. On this animal--"The Buffer," he was
called--Button was persuaded to mount, "just to try him a little,"
his owner said; and by way of doing that with perfect freedom from
restraint, they rode out to where the hounds were to throw off, a couple
of miles from the city. Button used to say that the term "throw off,"
which was new to him in that application, haunted him all the way out,
like a bad dream. It was a bag-fox day, I believe: that is, the hunt was
provided with a trapped animal, brought upon the ground in a sack and
let out when the proper time came,--a pro