r whole
lives in the huntin' field; but at the first obstacle you'd see their
faces go white as their stocks, and then all over you they'd ride from
tail to ears, their arms sawin' at your mouth fit to rip your under jaw
off, like they thought it was a backin' contest they were entered for.
And sure back to the rear it soon was for them, back till the hounds
were mere glintin' specks flyin' across a distant hill-crest, the
riders' red coats noddin' poppies; back till only faint echoes reached
them of the swellin', quaverin' chorus of the madly racin' pack; back
for all but him or her whom old Sol had his will of,--for rider never
lived could hold me to the wrong jump or throw me from my stride, nor
was fence ever built I'd not find a place to leap without layin' a toe
on it.

"Once the hounds give voice, it's the divil himself couldn't hold me,
whether it's the short, sharp war-cry of the Irish or the sweet, deep
bell-notes of these Yankee hounds that to me ever seem chantin' a
mournful dirge for the quarry. Sure, it's the faster Irish hounds that
make the grandest runnin', but it's the deep-throated mellow chorus of
a Yankee pack I love best to hear.

"_Nouveaux riches_, whatever kind of bounders that spells, is what Bob
Berry calls the lot of mouth-sawers New York sends us; and whenever the
patron is out or Jack has his way, it's niver one of them I'm disgraced
with.

"Sometimes it's me good old Jack up; sometimes hard swearin', straight
goin' Bob; sometimes little Raven, as true a pair of hands and light
and tight a seat as hunter ever had; sometimes Lory Ling, as reckless
as the old Roscommon sire of him I used to carry when I was a
five-year-old, with a ring in his swears, a stab in his heels, and a
cut in his crop that can lift a dead-beat one over as tall gates as the
best and freshest can take; sometimes it's Priest, that with the
language of him and the hell-at-a-split pace he'll hold a tired one to
but ill desarves the holy name he wears; and sometimes--my happiest
times--it's a daughter of the patron up, with hands like velvet and the
nerve and seat of a veteran.

"Horse or human, it's blood that tells, every time, me word for that.
Be they old or young, you can niver mistake it. Can't stop anything
with good blood in it--gallops straight, takes timber in its stride,
and finishes smartly every time. Know it may not, but it balks at
nothing, sets its teeth and drives ahead till it learns.

"And perha