I had nothing for it but to mount the dustman's donkey (which was very quietly cropping grass in the hedge), and to make my way home; and after a weary, weary journey, I arrived at my own gate.
A whole party was assembled there. Tagrag, who had come back; their Excellencies Mace and Punter, who were on a visit; and a number of horses walking up and down before the whole of the gentlemen of the hunt, who had come in after losing their fox! "Here's Squire Coxe!" shouted the grooms. Out rushed the servants, out poured the gents of the hunt, and on trotted poor me, digging into the donkey, and everybody dying with laughter at me.
Just as I got up to the door, a horse came galloping up, and passed me; a man jumped down, and taking off a fantail-hat, came up, very gravely, to help me down.
"Squire," says he, "how came you by that there hanimal? Jist git down, will you, and give it to its howner."
"Rascal!" says I, "didn't you ride off on my horse?"
"Was there ever sich ingratitude?" says the Spicy. "I found this year oss in a pond, I saves him from drowning, I brings him back to his master, and he calls me a rascal!"
The grooms, the gents, the ladies in the balcony, my own servants, all set up a roar at this; and so would I, only I was so deucedly ashamed as not to be able to laugh just then.
And so my first day's hunting ended. Tagrag and the rest declared I showed great pluck, and want me to try again; but "no," says I, "I have been."
APRIL.—The finishing touch