At half-past ten, TomMoody, Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone's huntsman, was seen trotting up the avenue, followed by the noble pack of hounds in a compact body-- the rear being brought up by the two whips clad in stained scarlet frocks--light hard-featured lads on well-bred lean horses, possessing marvellous dexterity in casting the points of their long heavy whips at the thinnest part of any dog's skin who dares to straggle from the main body, or to take the slightest notice, or even so much as wink, at the hares and rabbits starting under their noses.

Next comes boy Jack, TomMoody's son, who weighs five stone, measures eight-and-forty inches, and will never be any bigger.

TomMoody rides up to the door of the Hall, where he is welcomed by the butler, who offers him drink, which he declines.

The hounds are drawn up to the hall-door, and little Rawdon descends amongst them, excited yet half-alarmed by the caresses which they bestow upon him, at the thumps he receives from their waving tails, and at their canine bickerings, scarcely restrained by TomMoody's tongue and lash.

The Reverend Bute Crawley (who has been too modest to appear at the public meet before his nephew's windows), whom TomMoody remembers forty years back a slender divine riding the wildest horses, jumping the widest brooks, and larking over the newest gates in the country-- his Reverence, we say, happens to trot out from the Rectory Lane on his powerful black horse just as Sir Huddlestone passes; he joins the worthy Baronet.

Then they collect round the pack in the corner and talk with TomMoody of past sport, and the merits of Sniveller and Diamond, and of the state of the country and of the wretched breed of foxes.