at length intruded on by a couple of gentlemen who had evidently come in to talk business. At first they seemed half inclined to leave me in undisturbed possession; but supposing, no doubt, there could be nothing to fear from a fresh-coloured, good-looking youth in white cord trousers and a basket-buttoned cut-away, they made good their point, and came in, while I went on with my divided occupation of looking out of the window and grinding a tooth-pick. I did not listen, but I could hardly help gathering something of this from the observations of the shorter man of the two, who spoke in a tone offensively confident, and looked, in a suit of seedy black, like an undertaker's man out for a holiday:-"The chase was all squared ; the Weaver was meant; and as for the others in agen him"-language wasn't powerful enough to express the little gentleman's feelings here, and so he gave a most expressive and contemptuous snap of his fingers; answered by as peculiar a grunt from his companion, a fifteen-stone piece of solidity, with an acre or so of countenance, on which was legibly inscribed this simple record-that he was ever willing to hear anything anybody had got to say, but that he should reserve to himself that glorious privilege of an Englishman, of believing just as much as he liked of it and no more: the grunt was but an echo of the expression.

The thing is all "squared," then, is it, thought I, as I looked at poor Archy, who was looking at himself, and gradually fitting his neck to a bit of well-folded cambric that "the Dean" himself might have taken a notion from. Still I had too much tact to tell him what I had learned, and so on we went to business. Rumour was right on the other tack too; the line was a stiff one-not a mere plastered and pointened make-up, but a regular home-made rough one, with some very curious doubles-a lane that was neither good to get into or out of and a brook about a mile from home, with very much the same kind of recommendation. Of course we weren't going to grumble; and whatever the Weavers thought, they didn't. In fact, their jockey, a good-tempered, black-whiskered, dark-visaged fellow, whom everybody seemed to know, and everybody as regularly hailed as "Tom," had a reputation for riding at anything required, while the Weaver himself was a known good-hearted one. I cannot say I troubled myself much about the other four who, with these two, were taken some way down to fight it out, while I went into the Stand to compose my feelings, and see what I could of it.

The fame of the Weaver, or nothing else "on," had brought down a portion of the regular ring-men; conspicuous amongst whom was the sable-suited, sallow-faced one I saw in the coffee-room. The offensive tone was stronger than ever. I never heard a man say what he had to say in such a disagreeable voice in my life: and the defiant jarring way in which he repeated his offer to "Lay agen the grey," almost drove me wild. He didn't appear to deign to know the horse had a name on the card, though he had what we thought a very good as well as a very classic one-"Apelles" to wit-but round and round he went, with "I'LL LAY AGEN THE GREY!" And whenever he got a taker, which he did occasionally, out came the defiant stronger than ever, with a sort of sneering "Would you like to do it again, sir?" I was positively compelled to take his thirty to five to

H H

prevent my doing something yet more outrageous; though I felt, as he asked my name and booked the bet, it was all " squared," and no mistake.

"They are off!" says somebody, who appears to have a peculiar pleasure in being the first to proclaim it; but it is a long way "off," and we only get a bird's-eye view now and then. There is a bit of a hitch, though, at the third fence, one of the big doubles already mentioned. White-jacket, leading, turns right away from it-No go, sir; and three are well away again before he jumps into it. A little more coquetting and he is out again; but white-jacket won't do here. "Well saved" at the next fence: the little chesnut mare was on her head, but nothing worse; and round the hill they rattle, a good-looking grey horse making play, with a great slashing brown pulling hard on his quarter; three more in a cluster, and whitejacket still in the rear. We shan't see any more of them for some time; not well, indeed, till they top the hill again for the run home; while here, in the interim, the excitement becomes greater than ever: "Three to one against anything, bar one." "I'll take six to four I name the winner ;" and "I'LL LAY AGEN THE GREY," of course from my vindictive friend in the suit of sables.

*

"Here they are again," sings out Sister Anne, from his corner of the stand; and Apelles, screwed famously through an unshorn bullfincher, comes "a stunner for the brook. There are only three with him, but the black-whiskered hero is one of them, pulling his horse beautifully together, and certainly looking as well, or better, than anything. Hurrah! well jumped, by Jupiter! and Archy is over and away again-" The Weaver's down!" says everybody almost at the same moment: a less interesting gentleman is nearly out of sight in the full luxury of his cold bath; while the chesnut mare is the only other safely landed. I hardly dare what to hope; it is barely a mile from home, and if it is "squared" still

"Done

"THE GREY FOR A PONY!" roars out somebody at my elbow in the voice of a Stentor. "THE GREY WINS FOR A PONY." wi' you." "Yes, I'll do it again." "Done wi' you, sir." lay odds on one."

'I'll

Conceive my astonishment, it was my old enemy, the undertaker, who, with an utter disregard for all consistency of character and conduct, was now as vehemently supporting my horse as he had just previously been decrying him. But it is all the way of the world, thought I to myself, as I moved from him to watch the race home -a pretty close one between the two, for the chesnut mare showed a turn of speed, and had been very carefully ridden all through; so close, indeed, did they finish, that when an over-excited man in spectacles, who hadn't a shilling on it, and didn't know a soul in it, asked me in much trepidation, "What had won?" I really hesitated a bit as I stammered out I thought that my-I mean the

"O, Apples' won, safe enough," declared the gentleman in black once more, in his over-confident way; "and I loses a hundred on it, s'help me!"

He was right; " Apples" had won; and it was past ten o'clock, I'm afraid, before Archy and I reached the vicarage that night.

There must have been some suspicion, too, I fancy, as to what kept us; for in addition to the Doctor asking pointedly after the health of the back sinew, Bessie Gradus remarked, in her quiet way, at breakfast

"What a funny term a steeple-chase is: I wonder what it is. Wasn't there one near the town, yesterday? Did you hear who won, Mr. Softun?"

She knows all about it now, though; for the degree was a good one after all, and somehow-but isn't this "immaterial" here?

A CLEAR CASE.

BY CLARENCE.

ENGRAVED BY J. WESTLEY, FROM A PAINTING BY G. ARMFIELD.

Oh! what are you at, Mr. Reynard ?—oh dear!
Oh what have you done there ?-oh fie!

I fear that the case is against you so clear,
That like bigger rogues you must fly.

Yet 'tis hard to give up the game but just won-
I admit it, yet take my advice:

Cut your stick! and be off, you old son of a gun!

And over the hills in a trice.

For though "Time the Avenger" you may not have read,
And your conscience be void of remorse,

If but for one instant you'll raise up your head,
By the next you'll be off for the gorse.

Yes! I know it is hard-deuced hard!-to be caught
At a moment like this-to be caught in the fact:

But foxes, like men, by experience are taught
That in moments like this they must act.

I confess all the joys-and share the delight
Of sporting, in every fair kind of a way:
But my notion is this-It is better by night
Your poaching to do, than thus brave it by day.

I admit it was varmint, and dashing, and plucky,
So close to the keeper's to go for your prog!
But if you escape, you may think yourself lucky,
From friend Plush's remarkably wide-awake dog!

Then drop the poor victim you caught while at rest,
Thus craftily, cruelly taking her life!
Paws off! from her mangled and still-heaving breast,
And away like a shot, or 'tis war to the knife!