elings enough, don't doubt. But you are right. There is
something very characteristic in the way in which the English countryman
never shows grief, never lets it interfere with business, even with
pleasure."

"Hillo! Mr. Trebooze!" says the old fellow, looking up. "Here it is!"

"Spraint?--Spraint?--Spraint?--Where? Eh--what?" cries Trebooze.

"No; but what's as good: here on this alder stump, not an hour old. I
thought they beauties starns weren't flemishing for nowt."

"Here! Here! Here! Here! Musical, Musical! Sweetlips! Get out of the
way!"--and Trebooze runs down.

Musical examines, throws her nose into the air, and answers by the rich
bell-like note of the true otter hound; and all the woodlands ring as
the pack dashes down the shingle to her call.

"Over!" shouts Tom. "Here's the fresh spraint our side!"

Through the water splash squire, viscount, steward, and hounds, to the
horror of a shoal of par, the only visible tenants of a pool, which,
after a shower of rain, would be alive with trout. Where those trout are
in the meanwhile is a mystery yet unsolved.

Over dances the little terrier, yapping furiously, and expending his
superfluous energy by snapping right and left at the par.

"Hark to Musical! hark to Sweetlips! Down the stream?--No! the old girl
has it; right up the bank!"

"How do, Doctor? How do, Major Campbell? Forward!--Forward!--Forward!"
shouts Trebooze, glad to escape a longer parley, as with his spear in
his left hand, he clutches at the overhanging boughs with his right, and
swings himself up, with Peter, the huntsman, after him. Tom follows him;
and why?

Because he does not like his looks. That bull-eye is red, and almost
bursting; his cheeks are flushed, his lips blue, his hand shakes; and
Tom's quick eye has already remarked, from a distance, over and above
his new fussiness, a sudden shudder, a quick half-frightened glance
behind him; and perceived, too, that the moment Musical gave tongue, he
put the spirit-flask to his mouth.

Away go the hounds at score through tangled cover, their merry peal
ringing from brake and brier, clashing against the rocks, moaning
musically away through distant glens aloft.

Scoutbush and Tardrew "take down" the riverbed, followed by Campbell. It
is in his way home; and though the Major has stuck many a pig, shot many
a gaur, rhinoceros, and elephant, he disdains not, like a true
sportsman, the less dangerous but more scientific excitement of an