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CHAPTER XIII.

THE PICTURESQUE SPORT.

"Resounds the glad hollo,
  The pack scents the prey;
Man and horse follow,
  Away, hark away!
Away, never fearing,
  Ne'er slacken your pace—
What music so cheering
  As that of the chase."


It is dawn. The cool black darkness pales to tender gray. Singeth not the ballad-monger—

"A southerlie wind, a clouded skye
Doe proclaime it huntynge morning?"

Now the long notes of mellow-winded horns come strongly up-wind, undervoiced with a whimpering chorus from the hounds. The fox-hunters are out. What a picture! Eleven blue-grass beauties, all roundnesses and curves, mounted upon eleven Kentucky horses. An equal number of cavaliers put in, made a fair and gallant sight. The company willingly recognized as their chief, the new arrival and visitor, whose noble head and