cotton-spinners madly glutting the markets in the teeth of 'no
demand.' The steam crawled out of the dank turf, and reeked off the
flanks and nostrils of the shivering horses, and clung with clammy
paws to frosted hats and dripping boughs. A soulless, skyless,
catarrhal day, as if that bustling dowager, old mother Earth--what
with match-making in spring, and fetes champetres in summer, and
dinner-giving in autumn--was fairly worn out, and put to bed with
the influenza, under wet blankets and the cold-water cure.

There sat Lancelot by the cover-side, his knees aching with cold and
wet, thanking his stars that he was not one of the whippers-in who
were lashing about in the dripping cover, laying up for themselves,
in catering for the amusement of their betters, a probable old age
of bed-ridden torture, in the form of rheumatic gout. Not that he
was at all happy--indeed, he had no reason to be so; for, first, the
hounds would not find; next, he had left half-finished at home a
review article on the Silurian System, which he had solemnly
promised an abject and beseeching editor to send to post that night;
next, he was on the windward side of the cover, and dare not light a
cigar; and lastly, his mucous membrane in general was not in the
happiest condition, seeing that he had been dining the evening
before with Mr. Vaurien of Rottenpalings, a young gentleman of a
convivial and melodious turn of mind, who sang--and played also--as
singing men are wont--in more senses than one, and had 'ladies and
gentlemen' down from town to stay with him; and they sang and played
too; and so somehow between vingt-un and champagne-punch, Lancelot
had not arrived at home till seven o'clock that morning, and was in
a fit state to appreciate the feelings of our grandfathers, when,
after the third bottle of port, they used to put the black silk
tights into their pockets, slip on the leathers and boots, and ride