jolly and thin they look to walk through." About a shilling would pay for the damage done in either of these crops, and I do not find that farmers object to my trying them. When I think they do, as every consideration is due to them, I only go in under circumstances of great provocation-a long walk, and no birds, but a covey of sixteen marked down and well spread in the beans or barley. The farmer's absence at dinner or market should be also considered "What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve at." A shilling or two to the men is also a way to the hearts of the persons most concerned, and most capable of giving valuable information in partridge-shooting. Wheat, I confess, is another matter without the especial permission of the friendly agriculturist, I eschew wheat; it does harm, and the look of it is not agreeable. Here, however, a brace of birds goes a great way, particularly if you can kill them in a workmanlike manner; for though not often good shots, most farmers are fond of seeing good shooting. All things considered, I like standing crops and a late season for partridge-shooting. Neph.-Are you fond of shooting alone? Uncle S.-Yes, if the sport is good. I will tell you the companions I like one or two good dogs, according to circumstances; fine powder I prefer, and No. 6 shot. Man is a meditative animal, and there is no better opportunity for meditation than when wandering alone in a beautiful country, with the occasional excitement of a handsome point. You are very apt to miss the chance birds which rise under your feet, and nearly knock your hat off; but there are certain cases and times in which a companion is desirable: about luncheon time, the more so if he smokes a social weed after it; on a very hot, parching day, when you are following some poaching bagman, or lawyer's clerk, or publican, or sinner, or pot-hunter, over miles of country, which he has beaten before you, a companion is desirable, for he sympathises with your sorrows, or responds to your execrations, as the case may be. Then, like man and wife, my boy, you go together, cheering and supporting one another on a toilsome journey; and if, towards the end of the day, you come into a land of promise, your pleasure is double in having some one to share it with you. Something like it I had on the 2nd of September. I am not fond of a battue, as you know; but I like to see a few birds, and have a few shots; it enlivens the business, and I should say that, upon the whole, this was a very fair season for partridge-shooting. ERNEST ATHERLEY; OR, SCENES AT HOME AND ABROAD. BY LORD WILLIAM LENNOX. CHAPTER XXVII. Extracts from my Journal in Canada continued:-Sports of the world-Quebed races. Each country has its national sports: England her hunting, steeplechasing, racing, cricketing, coursing, shooting, yachting, and fishing. Spain has her bull fights-sanguinary, but daring, spectacles bequeathed by the Moors. In Russia-ambitious, tyrannical Russia— the arena of sporting exhibitions is the frozen surface of the lakes and rivers, where splendid sledging and graceful skating are seen in perfection. In Germany battue shooting is carried on, to the destruction of thousands. In Africa they hunt the lion; in Bengal, the tiger. In Northern India, particularly at Cabool (according to Sir Alexander Burnes' authority) horse-racing is a favourite amusement; the course is generally twenty or thirty "kos" (forty or fifty English miles) across the country, sometimes through morasses and rivers. The scene on these occasions is highly animating, as not only the races (generally a field of twenty) set off, but the whole of the sporting assembly, perhaps nearly two hundred, accompany them for the first four or five miles. A judge has been sent on in advance, and the competitors seldom return until the second day. Wherever Englishmen congregate, sport is sure to be carried on with spirit; and there is no part of the habitable globe where our countrymen have remained for any time, that the fine, manly exercises of our native isle have not been introduced. Europe, Asia, Africa, and America have all witnessed them. The country in which I was now located (Canada) had adopted all the English sports enumerated at the commencement of this chapter, and the garrison races were about to take place. A detailed account of the sport would be uninteresting; not so perhaps an adventure that befel me on the occasion. On the evening of the first day's races I was returning to Quebec, when a small, thin, shrivelly man, with hollow cheeks, black twinkling eyes, and long lanky hair, mounted on a good bay horse, somewhat out of condition, overtook me, and drawing up, said "I guess, Mister, you're one of the Britishers that have been racing on the plains?" "I am, sir," I replied, not a little surprised at the tone of the new comer. "Now, I calculate," he continued, "that you know as much about racin' as a Chippewa Ingian does of a pair of dancing pumps. But, to the point. I've a four-year-old colt which I raised, half-blood, though a perfect pictur' of a horse, which, if you'll give me a little start, I'll run any horse in the country; winner to be sold for three hundred dollars." I replied that I would at once accommodate him, with a slight alteration in his proposal-that, instead of a little start, I would make him a handsome allowance of weight for age and breed. After some little demur, the Yankee agreed to run his four-year-old American colt Eagle, 8st. 11 lb., against my thorough-bred English mare Camilla, aged, 11st., best of heats; the first a mile, the second two miles, and the third three miles; for 200 dollars each, p.p. Stakes to be made that evening at the Union Hotel. To As my friend trotted off, I fancied I heard him say, "I reckon I'll slip into those Britishers afore I've done, as slick as a whistle. I calculate I can see as far into a millstone as the best of 'em." The stakes were duly made, the articles drawn up, and the following morning I was proceeding to the race course, when I heard a clatter behind me, and on looking round saw my unknown friend of the day before. Anxious not to have any further communication with him for the present, I pushed my hack on faster and faster to his best trot. I guess that's a pretty considerable smart horse; legs all under him-gathers all up snug-no rollin' or wabblin'-all steady," said the stranger as he came beside me, and apparently reined in to prevent his horse passing me. I felt humbled; my favourite trotting hack Dick Turpin was beaten. This might be ominous of the fate hanging over me. continue this unequal contest was humiliating; I yielded, therefore, before the victory was palpable, and pulled up. "Yes," continued my tormentor, "a horse of pretty considerable good action, and a fairish trotter, too, I guess.' These words cut me to the quick; Dick Turpin-the "observed of all observers "-to be pronounced by a Yankee dealer to be merely "a fairish trotter." Anxious to change the conversation, I made the usual common-place English remark upon the weather, and deservedly was I punished for this piece of nationality. "It's generally allowed," said he, "our climate in America can't be ditto'ed. And Canada, before you Britishers spilt it, was none so bad; but in the States it stumps the whole universal world. It whips English weather by a long chalk. None of your hangin', shootin', drownin', throat-cuttin' weather; but a clear sky, raal cheerfulWe reached the race-course, and my 'little unknown" weighed and mounted. Eagle was a thin leggy animal, very unlike his owner's description: "a real daisy-a perfect doll-dreadful pretty-a genuine clipper-could gallop like the wind, beat a cannon-ball by a neck or so; had an eye like a weasel, and nostril like Commodore Rodger's speaking trumpet." The jockey was equipped in an old pair of dark-coloured corduroy unmentionables, shoes and garters, a waistcoat that once had been yellow, and a red silk pocket-handkerchief tied round his head. No sooner was this American " Chifney," as he thought himself, in his seat, than the brute upon which he was mounted began rearing, kicking, and plunging. After one or two false starts we both got away, the Eagle making tremendous running; before we had got half-a-mile, however, he put his foot upon a stone, fell, and the rider some. 66 pitched over his head. As the Eagle had flown across the plain, I of course pulled up, and expressed a hope that the jockey was not hurt. Don't stand starin' and jawin' there," said the prostrate man, "but help me up; I'm proper tired; I blow like a horse that has got the heaves, and I guess I had better wash my face, for I've ploughed up the ground with my nose the matter of a foot or two." I was too wary to dismount (which I afterwards ascertained was the Yankee's object), as he hoped by that manoeuvre to get me distanced; so, calling to some soldiers of the artillery to help Jonathan to the weighing-stand, I cantered over the course. No sooner was his trick seen through, than up he jumped, and, mounting his horse, which had now been caught and brought to him, tried to overtake me; but that was not to be done: I had passed the winning-post ere he had arrived at the distance flag, and he was declared distanced. A wrangle now ensued, the American loudly declaring that no distance had been mentioned, and that we must run the race out. The stewards were appealed to; who, of course, decided that all matches run on the Garrison Racecourse were subject to the usual laws of racing; that all bets were to be paid; and the stakes now given up to me, upon my horse walking over, when, anxious to give the Eagle a chance, I consented to run one heat, either of a mile, two, or three, for the stakes, provided an additional 100 dollars were posted on each side. This was agreed to, and the last race of the day was to decide the bottom of the English and American horses, for the three mile course had been selected. The event came off as I expected; the Eagle went again on the "go-a-head" system, and at the end of two miles completely shut up: I made a waiting race of it-winning by a neck. Camilla was claimed. I regretted her loss; but consoled myself with having received, including the stakes, six hundred dollars for her. The loser bore his disappointment with the greatest good humour, declaring that his horse was "clear grit-ginger to the back-bone and actilly equal to cash"-adding, "that he had purchased Camilla for a friend, as he himself had no likin' for the critter." Pleased with the manner in which my antagonist had borne his defeat, I presented him with a small gratuity, and he took his departure. On the following day I discovered the cause of his good humour, which did not in the slightest degree add to mine. A few weeks previous to the races I had given a friend of mine a commission to purchase an American horse, which, according to common report, had been winning everything in the States. Unfortunately my friend fell in with a 'cute Yankee horse-dealer, who agreed to purchase the horse for him for three hundred dollars. Being at that time rather green in the ways of the world, I had written to an agent at Montreal to pay that sum as soon as the horse arrived there. This was accordingly done, (as was I, in the sequel); but instead of remaining in that town with the new purchase, and which I was anxious should be the case, as the races were shortly to take place there, and there was a large allowance for American bred horses in the great sweepstakes open to all nations, the dealer proceeded to Quebec in the steam-boat, horse and all. No sooner had he arrived, than he sought me out in the way I have described, without, of course, telling me that he had brought my steed with him; nor until the day after the races did I discover that I had not only been running for my own money, which the "artful dodger" had staked, instead of paying to the gentleman from whom the horse was purchased, but that I had beaten my own newly-bought flyer Eagle, as the sailors say, "on every point" of running, and had parted with "Camilla" for three hundred dollars. To sum up all, I had presented the rogue with a gratuity, and had to refund nearly fifteen pounds to my Montreal agent for money advanced to the dealer for his expences, independently of three hundred dollars, the price I had consented to give for this miserable specimen of Yankee horse-flesh, which, as a matter of course (I mean no pun) was beaten at Montreal by the very animal I had sold-Camilla; in the following winter the high-mettled racer, Eagle, was reduced to the situation of wheeler in my sledge, if such a term (as appropriate as the common mistake of asking a Jew his Christian name) can be used where wheels are dispensed with. To resume-the time had now arrived when our American friends were compelled to return to New York, and upon a lovely summer morning we embarked in the steam-boat for Montreal. Just as we passed the citadel, and were admiring the view of the city from the deck of the vessel, a man approached me, and in a true Yankee dialect, addressed me as follows:-"That's your stronghold, I reckon." I bowed assent. "Well," continued the intruder, "we flogged you pretty considerably last war; and next time you dare show your teeth, we'll bring that fort about your ears, I calculate." To this I made no reply, and, anxious to prevent a disturbance in the presence of ladies, I passed forward, in the hopes of getting rid of my persecutor; but he would not be so easily shaken off. "I guess, mister, you arn't much of the British Lion about you," continued he, as he followed me towards the forecastle, where at that moment the captain of the steamer was standing. "You're hard of hearing, mister, I reckon!" said he. My anger was now roused, and turning short round, I replied-"Not hard of hearing, but hard of hitting you'll find ;" and suiting the action to the word, I planted such a right-handed blow in the face of the aggressor, that he measured his length on the deck. Thus, or to adopt a poetical description from Tom Moore "As the Yankee went down, I tipped him a dose of that kind, that when taken, No sooner had my prostrate foe recovered his legs, than he launched forth such a tirade of oaths and invective, that at the London police magisterial price of five shillings per oath, it would have taken the change out of a twenty-pound note. He first threatened law, and then rifle practice at five-and-twenty yards, declaring that nothing short of my, life could atone for the disgraceful chastisement I had inflicted upon him. During this period, my friend the Commodore, who had been informed of the fracas, and was acquainted with the cause of it, approached, and at that moment, to my great surprise and delight, my Yankee pest skulked away. "What, Mr. Jefferson Drakelaw, is it you?" said the good-humoured sailor, "I've an old reckoning to settle with you," and following the culprit to the forecastle, entered into what I looked upon as a remonstrance. Nor was I wrong in my conclusion, for in a few seconds, Mr. Drakelow returned, and offering me the most abject apology, assured me that I should hear no more of the affair. Of course |