Market Harborough, and Inside the Bar

MOST men have a sunny spot to which they look back in their existence, as most have an impossible future, to attain which all their energies are exerted, and their resources emp...

THE ancient Persians, who seem also to have been wonderful fellows to ride, had a pleasing system of deliberation, which has somewhat fallen into disuse in our modern Parliament...

“MORNIN’, sir,” says Mr. Sloper, scenting a customer as he accosts his guest. “Oh, it’s you, is it, Mr. Sawyer? Won’t ye step in and sit down after your walk? Take a glass of mi...

ISAAC was a character in his way—quite an institution at The Grange, where, by dint of indomitable tenacity of opinion, and a singular talent for silence, he had contrived to ex...

LONDON is in the way to everywhere. I have an old friend,—an honest Lincolnshire squire,—who, paying his sister a visit in Norfolk, always goes and returns by London. I do not t...

WHEN Mr. Sawyer awoke in the morning, his first impression was, that he had never left The Grange, but that the pattern of his bedroom paper was strangely altered, and the situa...

“I suppose it’s all right,” said the Honourable Crasher, putting his horse into a canter, with the loose rein and easy off-hand seat peculiar to a gentleman riding to covert.

I THINK it is the observant author of “Soapy Sponge,” who makes that sporting tourist declare that “women never look so well as when you come home from hunting.” Certainly the c...

I SHOULD be sorry for my reader to suppose that John Standish Sawyer was what is termed “a susceptible man.” On the contrary, since his well-remembered rejection by Miss Mexico,...

WHEN we read in _Bell’s Life_, the _Morning Post_, or the Northampton paper, that the Pytchley hounds will meet on Wednesday at Crick, we confess to the same sensation which the...

A MILE-AND-A-HALF of grass, some six or eight fences, and the sustained brilliancy of the pace, have had their usual effect on the moving panorama. A turn in his favour, of whic...

IT is needless for me to observe that Mr. Sawyer was one of those individuals who are described in common parlance as not having been “born yesterday.” He had lived long enough...

I NEVER can understand upon what principle the rate of a groom’s wages is always inversely proportioned to the work he performs. For instance, Major Brush’s excellent domestic—a...

AN unshaved face, blotched and parti-coloured from waning inebriety, upturned and open-mouthed in all the imbecility of profound sleep; a recumbent form snoring loudly under a p...

NO man alive subscribed more heartily than did the Honourable Crasher to Mr. Sheridan’s aphorism, that “If the early bird catches the worm, what a fool must the worm be to get u...

IF Mr. Sawyer had kept a hunting journal (which he didn’t) he would have noted down the meet at Barkby, as one of those gorgeous spectacles, which makes an ineffaceable impressi...

AND now for the well-pleased John Standish Sawyer, came in what may be called the “sweet of the day.” His horse disposed of, two hundred and sixty-two pounds ten shillings in hi...

LET us take a peep into Dove-cote Rectory, smiling in the wintry sun, as it lies snugly sheltered from the north winds by a thick plantation, and rejoicing in that most desirabl...

MEANWHILE in the stable of the Honourable Crasher is considerable consternation and bewilderment. The helpers look wise, and wink at each other, as they pass from stall to stall...

TO walk a horse twice round a grass-field, in a set of light harness, allowing him afterwards to stand for half an hour in the stables without taking it off, can scarcely be cal...

WHEN the Reverend’s butler came in the first time with a fresh supply of claret, he found the assembled guests making themselves happy each in his own way. His master and Strugg...

“SIT tight,” exclaimed the Honourable, as the phaeton bumped forcibly against the stone post of the Rectory entrance, and proceeded into the road with what sailors call “a consi...

ABOUT this period there might have been—and indeed, by his intimates, there _was_—remarked an obvious change in the appearance, habits, and general demeanour of our friend. No l...

WHEN a man has not been provided by Nature with more than an average share of personal advantages, that same process of dressing for a ball _after_ a bachelor’s dinner-party is...

WITH many men, and those not the least dashing and brilliant horsemen, courage is apt to be very much a question of caloric: their pluck rises and falls with the thermometer. Wh...

LOUNGING past Tattersall’s one baking day in June, I had the good fortune to encounter Mr. Savage, apparently as busily employed as myself in the agreeable occupation of doing n...

“I HOPE you feel your arm a little easier, sir, this evening?” says Miss Lushington, reappearing in her own peculiar department, fresh and blooming from the revision of her toil...

“IT’S a long business, a broken collar-bone,” I observed to Miss Lushington, as I sipped my tea comfortably in the arm-chair she had vacated for my use. “I am only thankful to b...

AS Tips took his departure, with a respectful inclination to myself, and a most polite bow to Miss Lushington, I observed that lady to adjust her shining locks, as it were mecha...

THE hasty departure of Mr. Naggett seemed to produce a corresponding effect of drowsiness on Miss Lushington—an unusual weakness, to which I am bound to admit she was by no mean...

IN a day or two, with the constant attendance of my medical man, himself rather a character in his way, and the considerate cares of Miss Lushington, I was sufficiently recovere...

I ALWAYS think convalescence is a more tedious process than actual illness. A man of active habits, who has lived a great deal out-of-doors, pines to be at work in the open air...

AT length, by our joint efforts, the basket was extricated and placed upon its—what shall I say?—on its right end, in the landing. The pretty maid smoothed her hair and adjusted...

I SUPPOSE no man sleeps the sounder for a broken collar-bone, even when it is getting well. Determined to be up in time, even if I lay awake for the purpose, I spent what invali...

“YOU’LL go with _me_, Softly, of course!” observed young Plumtree, otherwise “Jovial Jem,” just as I expected. “There’s a Waterborough ’bus runs right by our lodge-gate: your se...

THE dinner passed off far more pleasantly than I should have imagined possible. Drawn out by their brother, and gradually losing their awe of myself as a stranger, both Rebecca...

A FORTNIGHT’S frost tempted me to leave my comfortable quarters at the Haycock, and the delights of Miss Lushington’s society, for the metropolis. Somehow hunting men never _do_...