heard the loud echo of the huntsman's hallo in
my ear, summoning me to rise and away, for the sons of Nimrod had beset
the house; information which I found, upon looking through the window,
was alarmingly true, but which did not appear either to surprise or
affright the fair occupants of the cottages, who observed, it was only
some of the "Berkeley Hunt going out," (See Plate), who, if they did
not find any where else, generally came looking after a brush in that
neighbourhood.

[Illustration: page268]

"Then the best thing we can do," said Transit, "is to brush off, before
they brush up stairs and discover a couple of poachers among their
game." This, however, the ladies would by no means admit, and the
huntsmen quickly riding away, we took our chocolate with the lady abbess
and her nuns, made all matters perfectly pleasant, saluted the fair at
parting, and bade adieu to the Oakland Cottages.

Upon our return to our inn, we received a good-humoured lecture from
Blackstrap, who was just, as he phrased it, on the wing for Bristol and
Bath, "where" said he, "if you will meet me at old Matthew Temple's,
the Castle Inn, I will engage to give you a hearty welcome, and another
bottle of the old particular;" a proposition that was immediately agreed
to, as the route we had previously determined upon. One circumstance
had, during our sojourn in the west, much annoyed my friend Transit
and myself; we had intended to have been present at the Doncaster
race meeting for 1825, and have booked both the betting men and
their betters. Certainly a better bit of sport could never have been
anticipated, but we were neither of us endowed with ubiquity, and were
therefore compelled to cry content in the west when our hearts and
inclinations were in the ~269~~north. "If now your 'Spirit in the
Clouds,' your merry unknown, he that sometimes shoots off his witty
arrows at the same target with ourselves, should archly suspect that
old Tom Whipcord was not upon the turf, I would venture a cool hundred
against the field, that we should have a report from him, 'ready cut
and dried,' and quite as full of fun and whim as if you had been present
yourself, Master Bernard, aided and assisted by our ally, Tom Whipcord
of Oxford." "Heaven forgive you, Blackmantle, for the sins you have
laid upon that old man's back! You are not content with working him hard
in the 'Annals' every month, but you must make him mount the box
of some of the short stages,