The regular attendants of either hunt were sufficiently
distinguishable as well by the flat hats and baggy garments of the one, as
by the dandified, Jemmy Jessamy air of the other. If a lord had not been at
the head of the Flat Hats, the Puffington men would have considered them
insufferable snobs. But to our day.
As usual, where hounds have to travel a long distance, the field were
assembled before they arrived. Almost all the cantering gentlemen had cast
up.
One cross-road meet being so much like another, it will not be worth while
describing the one at Dallington Burn. The reader will have the kindness to
imagine a couple of roads crossing an open common, with an armless
sign-post on one side, and a rubble-stone bridge, with several of the
coping-stones lying in the shallow stream below, on the other.
The country round about, if any country could have been seen, would have
shown wild, open, and cheerless. Here a patch of wood, there a patch of
heath, but its general aspect bare and unfruitful. The commanding outline
of Beechwood Forest was not visible for the weather.
Pages:
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426