just passed, and also the clattering of horses' hoofs on the highway.
The hounds came out several times on to the road, evidently carrying the
scent, but as often threw up and returned into the cover. The huntsman
was puzzled at last; and quite convinced that the deer was not in the
wood, he called them out, and proceeded to make a cast, followed by the
majority of the field. They trotted about at a brisk pace, first to the
right, then to the left, afterwards to the north, and then to the
south, over grass, fallow, turnips, potatoes, and flints, through three
farmyards, round two horse-ponds, and at the back of a small village or
hamlet, without a note, save those of a few babblers. Everyone seemed to
consider it a desperate job. They were all puzzled; at last they heard
a terrible holloaing about a quarter of a mile to the south, and
immediately after was espied a group of horsemen, galloping along the
road at full speed, in the centre of which was Jorrocks; his green coat
wide open, with the tails flying a long way behind that of his horse,
his right leg was thrust out, down the side of which he kept applying
his ponderous hunting whip, making a most terrible clatter. As they
approached, he singled himself out from the group, and was the first to
reach the field. He immediately burst out into one of his usual hunting
energetic strains. "Oh Jonathan Griffin! Jonathan Griffin!" said he,
"here's a lamentable occurrence--a terrible disaster! Oh dear, oh
dear--we shall never get to Tunbridge--that unfortunate deer has escaped
us, and we shall never see nothing more of him--rely upon it, he's
killed before this." "Why, how's that?" inquired Griffin, evidently in a
terrible perturbation. "Why," said Jorrocks, slapping the whip down his
leg again, "there's a little girl tells me, that as she was getting
water at the well just at the end of the wood, where we lost him, she
saw what she took to be a donkey jump into a return post-chaise from the
'Bell', at Seven Oaks, that was passing along the road with the door
swinging wide open! and you may rely upon it, it was the deer. The