[Footnote 1:  The date of this description, it must be remembered, is put many years back.]

At length the hour of ten approaches; bills are paid, pocket-pistols filled, sandwiches stowed away, horses accoutred, and our bevy straddle forth into the town, to the infinite gratification of troops of dirty-nosed urchins, who, for the last hour, have been peeping in at the windows, impatiently watching for the exeunt of our worthies.—­They mount, and away—­trot, trot—­bump, bump—­trot, trot—­bump, bump—­over Addington Heath, through the village, and up the hill to Hayes Common, which having gained, spurs are applied, and any slight degree of pursiness that the good steeds may have acquired by standing at livery in Cripplegate, or elsewhere, is speedily pumped out of them by a smart brush over the turf, to the “Fox,” at Keston, where a numerous assemblage of true sportsmen patiently await the usual hour for throwing off.  At length time being called, say twenty minutes to eleven, and Mr. Jorrocks, Nodding Homer, and the principal subscribers having cast up, the hounds approach the cover.  “Yooi in there!” shouts Tom Hills, who has long hunted this crack pack; and crack! crack! crack! go the whips of some scores of sportsmen.  “Yelp, yelp, yelp,” howl the hounds; and in about a quarter of an hour Tom has not above four or five couple at his heels.  This number being a trifle, Tom runs his prad at a gap in the fence by the wood-side; the old nag goes well at it, but stops short at the critical moment, and, instead of taking the ditch, bolts and wheels round.  Tom, however, who is “large in the boiling pieces,” as they say at Whitechapel, is prevented by his weight from being shaken out of his saddle; and, being resolved to take no denial, he lays the crop of his hunting-whip about the head of his beast, and runs him at the same spot a second time, with an obligato accompaniment of his spur-rowels, backed by a “curm along then!” issued in such a tone as plainly informs his quadruped he is in no joking humour.  These incentives succeed in landing Tom and his nag in the wished-for spot, when, immediately, the wood begins to resound with shouts of “Yoicks True-bo-y, yoicks True-bo-y, yoicks push him up, yoicks wind him!” and the whole pack begin to work like good ’uns.  Occasionally may be heard the howl of some unfortunate hound that has been caught in a fox trap, or taken in a hare snare; and not unfrequently the discordant growls of some three or four more, vociferously quarrelling over the venerable remains of some defunct rabbit.  “Oh, you rogues!” cries Mr. Jorrocks, a cit rapturously fond of the sport.  After the lapse of half an hour the noise in the wood for a time increases audibly.  ’Tis Tom chastising the gourmands.  Another quarter of an hour, and a hound that has finished his coney bone slips out of the wood, and takes a roll upon the greensward, opining, no doubt, that such pastime is preferable to scratching his hide among brambles