ould they do? The Comte
d'Espagne is always mounted on a slow horse: _he_ couldn't overtake me;
then the _maitres_ couldn't pass the grand maitre.'

'What!' cried I, in amazement; 'I don't comprehend you perfectly.'

'It's quite clear, nevertheless,' replied she; 'but I see you don't know
the rules of the _chasse_ in Flanders.'

With this she entered into a detail of the laws of the hunting-field,
which more than once threw me into fits of laughter. It seemed, then,
that the code decided that each horseman who followed the hounds should
not be left to the wilfulness of his horse or the aspirings of his
ambition, as to the place he occupied in the chase. It was no momentary
superiority of skill or steed, no display of jockeyship, no blood that
decided this momentous question. No; that was arranged on principles far
less vacillating and more permanent at the commencement of the hunting
season, by which it was laid down as a rule that the _grand maitre_ was
always to ride first. His pace might be fast or it might be slow,
but his place was there. After him came the _maitres_, the people in
scarlet, who in right of paying double subscription were thus costumed
and thus privileged; while the 'aspirants' in green followed last, their
smaller contribution only permitting them to see so much of the sport as
their respectful distance opened to them--and thus that indiscriminate
rush, so observable in our hunting-fields, was admirably avoided and
provided against. It was no headlong piece of reckless daring, no
impetuous dash of bold horsemanship; on the contrary, it was a decorous
and stately canter--not after hounds, but after an elderly gentleman
in a red coat and a brass tube, who was taking a quiet airing in the
pleasing delusion that he was hunting an animal unknown. Woe unto the
man who forgot his place in the procession! You might as well walk into
dinner before your host, under the pretence that you were a more nimble
pedestrian.

Besides this, there were subordinate rules to no end. Certain notes on
the _cor de chasse_ were royalties of the _grand maitre_; the _maitres_
possessed others as their privileges which no 'aspirant' dare venture
on. There were quavers for one, and semiquavers for the other; and,
in fact, a most complicated system of legislation comprehended every
incident, and I believe every accident, of the sport, so much that I
can't trust my memory as to whether the wretched 'aspirants' were not
limite