Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/402

 which was to furnish our entertainment for the morrow, should languish in a dungeon. We arose and in a body marched to the watch-house, where any amount of bail was proffered to the astonished constable. The cell-door being opened, the veteran came forth, bent and humbled, looking not unlike an old dog-fox himself, as he sought his couch unobtrusively, vowing supernatural sobriety for the morrow.

wrote Hugh Ranclaud in his Marmion period. Slightly altered, this description might have suited our array, which, owing to circumstances, exhibited more variety and good intention than uniformity. A pink or two, a good many black cut-aways, with a green riding-coat worn by John Cox, the uniform of a Tasmanian hunt club. His tall figure as he reined The Caliph, a grand half- Arab grey sixteen- hander, up to any weight over any country, looked workman-like. Cords and tops were tolerably plentiful, though 'butcher boots,' such as most of us affected for ordinary stock-riding, were in the ascendant.

One frolicsome youngster, indeed, in default of a pink, resolved to conform as nearly as possible to the fashion of his forefathers. To this end he possessed himself of a bright red serge shirt, such as was occasionally donned by all sorts and conditions of men in those days of sincere effort. This he persuaded the village tailor to fashion into the form of a coatee, and thus arrayed, he rode proudly amid the front-rankers, congratulating himself, with perfect correctness, upon having added a fresh sensation to the entertainment. Fred Burchett had two chestnut hackneys, one a neat cob named Friendship. This day he rode the other, which he had christened Love, being, as he explained, 'very like friendship, only nicer.' Bob Cox (Robert Clerk's brother-in-law—not related to the Clarendon family) might have been there on Bessborough. I am not certain whether he did not join our band of heroes later on. But, if so, the hunt missed that day a joyous comrade, a handsome face with bright dark eyes, never unwelcome in hall or bower; one of the boldest yet most artistic horsemen that ever sat in saddle. Poor old Bob! I used often to think how I should have enjoyed