'Talli ho!' 'Talli
ho!' 'Talli ho!' 'Hoop!' 'Hoop!' 'Hoop!' cried a score of voices, and
'Twang! twang! twang!' went the shrill horn of the huntsman. The whips,
too, stood in their stirrups, cracking their ponderous thongs, which
sounded like guns upon the frosty air, and contributed their 'Get together!
get together, hounds!' 'Hark away!' 'Hark away!' 'Hark away!' 'Hark' to the
general uproar. Oh, what a row, what a riot, what a racket! Watchorn being
'in' for it, and recollecting how many saw a start who never thought of
seeing a finish, immediately got his horse by the head, and singled himself
out from the crowd now pressing at his horse's heels, determining, if the
hounds didn't run into their fox in the park, to ride them off the scent at
the very first opportunity. The 'chumpine' being still alive within him, in
the excitement of the moment he leaped the hand-gate leading out of the
shrubberies into the park; the noise the horse made in taking off
resembling the trampling on wood-pavement.
'Cuss it, but it's 'ard!' exclaimed he, as the horse slid two or three
yards as he alighted on the frozen field.
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