And soothing hope my bosom fills.
The lambkin bleating on the plain,
The swallow seen with gladdened eye,
The welcome cuckoo’s merry strain,
Proclaim the joyful summer nigh.”
It was the second week in April, and the last day of the season, that we jogged slowly along the road to the meet. The season had been unusually forward, and the air was fragrant with the early violets and primroses, decking the roadside banks. There was a haze rolling along the valleys, and the boughs and branches of the trees, now unfolding their luxuriant and freshest green, were glittering with myriads of dew-drops, flashing in the light of the young spring morn.
Punctuality being the standing order with our Squire, Will often consulted his watch to regulate our pace, so that we should be at the fixture exactly at the time named; and as we approached Duvale village, the church clock was striking the hour of ten. Turning on to a patch of green, where a few geese and a lonely dejected-looking donkey cropped the meagre herbage, and a host of round-faced chubby children played, and madly screamed with joy to see us arrive, we formed a group around Will’s horse in eager expectation of the Squire’s coming. The hum of the last stroke had scarcely ceased, when the sharp pit-a-pat of a horse’s feet was heard, and immediately afterwards the Squire came cantering up, accompanied by three or four of his friends.
I was glad to see that the field comprised those only who hunted regularly with us, and, although many of them were generally too anxious to get forward, and thought of little more than showing well in the first flight, yet there was no fear of much unsportsman-like conduct on their part.
Without the loss of a minute we trotted off to our first draw, a long and narrow belt of fir trees, with thick brushwood at the bottom, which proved a blank. We then drew a line of small spinnies, and in one of them, at the furthest end up wind, I saw two or three old hounds flourish their sterns at one spot, and before I could reach it, a first-seasoned one, like myself, called Boaster, threw his tongue.
“Gently, Boaster,” hallooed Will, giving an admonitory crack of the whip. “Gently, Boaster.”