"Now-now!" cries the clerk-sexton and bag-carrier, familiarly; "nothing like time present. Ishall be weak as a weasel if we hav'nt some provender." With that, he dives into a supernumerary wallet, and brings into sunshine and shadow the cold pigeon-pie and the etceteras. A small white cloth is spread on the grass; Shears extracts from his pocket a large bowie-knife, and the parson produces a curiously constructed piece of Sheffield ware, covered with the longitudinal sections of a fox's foot; and which, by the touch of a spring, immediately is cast asunder into the form of a bona fide knife and fork. They make a very enthusiastic attack on the pie; and the same zeal in the process of time is manifested towards the other edibles.

The refrigerator is not forgotten, and when a repast has concluded, well worthy the succession of the preceding meal at the parsonage, Mr. Shears, with some apparent difficulty, rises on his feet, and by means of a small reflector, very ingeniously concentrates the sun's fiery rays into the bowl of a short smoke-begrimed tobacco-pipe, and

when he has given a few hearty whiffs, politely communicates the igneous element to the meerschaum of the rector.

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The lemon-and-whites have all the while been anxiously awaiting for any crumbs that perchance might fall from their master's table, and at length voraciously clear up the refuse, not even rejecting certain fragments of cheese-cake. A little conversation is carried on by the bipeds, and a little repose enjoyed by the quadrupeds. Master and man are in good humour because, as Shakespeare has it their veins are filled; and Mr. Shears now ventures on alittle free and easy tete à tete, and after having told one or two witty narratives, founded on facts which have transpired within the bounds of their own little Arcadia, and these having the effect of eliciting peals of laughter from the parson (who, it must be told the reader, is given to boisterous cachinnations), he next ventures on the recital of certain pieces of scandal, which are a reflection on certain of the Elleringaytonians. A sense of propriety orders the deportment of the rector during

this voluntary offering of news. But Shears is a man of tolerably natural parts, and he can perceive the ecclesiastic to be internally amused. It only remains to be said, that they are in a state of extreme felicity. Ere the evening shadows have obscured that distant horrizon, the cool northerly-aspected larder, previously mentioned, has had a very good addition to its cool custody in the way of ten brace and a half of partridges, three hares, a plover, and a rabbit. Thus ends the first day of shooting, to be followed by many such during the ensuing season.

For the mere sake of having a little conversation on fox hunting he would frequently, at eventide, stroll on to the hall, especially on those days on which he had joined in a good run; and then he and Godfrey would, with the utmost pertinacity, in tallying back, revert to every twist and turn in the chase. The reader must not forget that Godfrey, in former days bestrode swifter steeds than the Corporal; and it is to such palmy times that we at this particular moment refer. There was a great consentaneousness of taste-a sympathy of

feeling between these two individuals, and a friendship long ripened and undiluted by many friends, had rendered them intimate as Damon and Pythias of yore. Field sports of every description, a little magisterial news picked up at the quarter sessions (we had forgotten to say the rector held a commission of the peace, as Godfrey would have no bother with litigious business), county scandal, and a smattering of politics, of course, acquired by reading one side of the question in a Tory paper, published every Saturday at the county town; these constituted the all-absorbing topics.

Mrs. De Bohun had learnt to dread the parson's fox-hunting yarns, and she had not unfrequently ventured on giving very unmistakeable reproofs, in archly observing that he was a "catcher of foxes, and a fisher of men;" she had told him of a report current in the neighbourhood that he had read the burial service in his boots and spurs to save time in not having to dress afterwards to join the meet-that he did not mind hitting a baptism at a distant part of his parish,

when he was equipped in the velveteen, white smalls, and yellow gaiters, to save himself the trouble of a profitless walk afterwards, which was, in truth, oddly killing two birds with one stone. But no lady could offend the parson, and onslaughts of this kind fell powerless on his good nature, and were forgotten in his loud laughter. He referred such to those canting hypocrites the dissenters, who, as noxious weeds, were springing up and practising and saying all sorts of heterodoxies.

But, reader, behold him 'tis an evening in the latter end of October-he has gone on to the manor-house, in a friendly way, to tea -afterwards come candles and jokes, and then in the course of time the servant brings in tumblers and a bottle of Scheidam, or some other of the strong waters, which, bythe-bye, as poor Charles Lamb would have said, he loves better than all the waters of Damascus; Godfrey is ideally a-hunting, too, and glorious runs, ten years previously, are ardently run over again.

"I shall never know again the glorious

VOL. I.

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