es in London. After pacing up
and down some minutes, the sound of a horse's hoofs were heard turning
down from Long Acre, and reaching the lamp-post at the corner of James
Street, his astonished eyes were struck with the sight of a man in a
capacious, long, full-tailed, red frock coat reaching nearly to his
spurs, with mother-of-pearl buttons, with sporting devices--which
afterwards proved to be foxes, done in black--brown shag breeches, that
would have been spurned by the late worthy master of the Hurworth,[7]
and boots, that looked for all the world as if they were made to tear up
the very land and soil, tied round the knees with pieces of white tape,
the flowing ends of which dangled over the mahogany-coloured tops. Mr.
Jorrocks--whose dark collar, green to his coat, and _tout ensemble_,
might have caused him to be mistaken for a mounted general postman--was
on a most becoming steed--a great raking, raw-boned chestnut, with a
twisted snaffle in his mouth, decorated with a faded yellow silk front,
a nose-band, and an ivory ring under his jaws, for the double purpose
of keeping the reins together and Jorrocks's teeth in his head--the nag
having flattened the noses and otherwise damaged the countenances of his
two previous owners, who had not the knack of preventing him tossing
his head in their faces. The saddle--large and capacious--made on the
principle of the impossibility of putting a round of beef upon a pudding
plate--was "spick and span new," as was an enormous hunting-whip, whose
iron-headed hammer he clenched in a way that would make the blood curdle
in one's veins, to see such an instrument in the hands of a misguided
man.

[Footnote 7: The late Mr. Wilkinson, commonly called "Matty Wilkinson,"
master of the Hurworth foxhounds, was a rigid adherent of the
"d----n-all-dandy" school of sportsmen.]

"Punctuality is the politeness of princes," said Mr. Jorrocks, raising a
broad-brimmed, lowish-crowned hat, as high as a green hunting-cord which
tackled it to his yellow waistcoat by a fox's tooth would allow, as he
came upon the Yorkshireman at the corner. "My soul's on fire and eager
for the chase! By heavens, I declare I've dreamt of nothing else all
night, and the worst of it is, that in a par-ox-ism of delight, when
I thought I saw the darlings running into the warmint, I brought Mrs.
J---- such a dig in the side as knocked her out of bed, and she swears
she'll go to Jenner, and the court for the protection of