these and other reasons, Tom, who was probably as much hurt by the sarcasm as a duck is by a shower of rain, very discreetly allowed it to pass without even a word of comment.

Be it with hounds or without them, nothing on earth is more inspiriting to horse and rider than a wild gallop over an elastic and boundless grass-plain; but infinite zest is, of course, added to this enjoyment by the accompaniment of hounds, especially if, carrying a grand head, they are dashing forward, merciless and all but mute, on the very haunches of their game. And if that game be a foxone of those lanky, half-fed varmints that are bred on the moor, and are

'Not found

By twang of horn or babbling hound,'

the rider may congratulate himself on enjoying a foretaste of the Elysian fields even on this side the Styx. But even without hounds, however ardent the hunter may be, a ride over the moor may have other charms to commend it not a whit less attractive than those of the chase; at least so Frank thought when, side by side, as if they were yoked together, Mary Cornish and he skimmed over the mossy moor, up hill and down dale, like a pair of golden plovers racing on the wing.

This is a treat indeed!' said Mary, reining up her pony, and almost breathless from the speed at which they had been going. I had no idea Taffy could gallop so fast; and George tells me 'there is not a bank nor a wall round the moor he cannot jump. I 'should so like to try him!'

'Nothing is easier,' replied Frank, delighted at the prospect of schooling his own steed-a promising colt, bred by the Squire, and destined for the huntsman's use. We have only to drop down 'towards the Hayford inclosures to find plenty of fences broad enough and high enough for that purpose. But where on earth is 'George?'

They were then at the upper end of Dockhill Ridge, and could look back over a wide expanse of open moor without seeing a sign either of man or horse following in their wake.

'I told mama the old Gunner could never keep up with us,' said Mary, half frightened at finding herself alone with Frank after the injunction so earnestly expressed by her mother, that the attendance of the gardener was an addition to which she must of necessity submit. The breeze is so pleasant, and the view from this hill so extensive, that we may well enjoy the benefit of both for a short 'time. Our horses, too, will not object to a halt; and then, perhaps, 'we may see something of this laggard George and his stumpy steed.' The wind was blowing freshly from the west; and as their horses' heads were turned in that direction, Frank could plainly see the belt of dark pine plantation that, in spite of northerly gales, reared its hardy head at the back of Watercombe, and sheltered it in winter from the nipping frosts that desolate the moor. So different is the climate, at that season of the year, between the hill-top of

Dartmoor and its sunny valleys looking south, that while in the latter the myrtle, magnolia, and even the fuchsia are treated and flourish as hardy perennials, the former is too cheerless to sustain even the bristling furze, except in hollow spots protected from the cutting winds.

'There,' said Frank, pointing in the direction of Watercombe, 'stands my father's house, nestled under that clump of fir-trees you 'see fringing the moor. As the crow would fly, it may be some 'ten miles off; but there being so many coombs, with scarcely a lanyard of level ground between us and it, the distance to ride would, doubtless, be half as far again.'

(

So I should think,' replied Mary; for though the atmosphere is quite clear, I can only make out a black mass in the western horizon, and it seems almost in Cornwall. But see! there comes George at last. Very stupidly I've been looking for him in quite 'an opposite direction.'

There certainly was an object in the distance coming towards them that Frank had not yet remarked; but as he was well aware they had held from the first a due westerly course, he knew at a glance it could not be the old coach-horse and its rider so far ahead of them.

If that's George and the Gunner,' he said, straining his eyes to make out the figure, they must have borrowed wings to carry them where they are. No; they certainly must be a mile behind, and in a totally opposite direction.'

After some minutes, while the tails of their horses were still shaking, and their flanks quivering from the pace, Frank, who had never taken his eye off the advancing objects, and was waiting to watch their action on reaching the Aune, became aware beyond a doubt, as they dashed into the river, that the horse and its rider were no other than his father and Sweet-Pea, a discovery which, for a second or two, overwhelmed him with intense perplexity.

'Acting on old Twigg's information, and coming to look for me, ' and no mistake!' he said to himself, as he observed the little mare breasting the rocky stream in her usual undaunted style; but he's nearly a mile off yet, and, as we have been stationary, has probably never caught sight of us at all. So there's lots of time to get away, ' and let my anxious parent go on to Heathercot. It would be a great bore to be balked of our fun just as we were going to enjoy it.'

He then wheeled his horse round, saying, jauntily, to Mary, Now then for the fences. I'm longing to see how Taffy can 'jump, and whether I can't pound you at the first fence. The ( pony must be a good one if I can't.'

So he is-good as gold at everything; but won't you wait to see if that is George or not?'

'It will be only a waste of time,' replied Frank, eagerly. That 'horse is a light bay, and the Gunner is as black as a heathpoult. It cannot be your servant.'

Mary, apparently well satisfied with this explanation, laid her whip with a gentle touch on Taffy's off shoulder, and again they were swinging away at a merry pace over the breezy down, pointing directly for the inclosures in the vale below.

Frank, however, had calculated without his host when he came to the conclusion that they had escaped the observation of his father's keen and practised eye. Not only had he seen but known them at a glance; and he would have tallied a fox between him and the skyline at even a greater distance. Believing, too, that they had recognised him, Mr. Raleigh eased the little mare up the steep ascent, and, walking leisurely by her side, pondered over what he had best say to the youthful gallant. After all, the boy is but seventeen,' he said to himself, repeating the very words of Lady Susan; and 'unless he gives me strong grounds for interference, I had probably 'better not rate him at present for what may only turn out to be an 'innocent and resultless amusement. If he is in love with the girl, C opposition is far more likely to clench the nail than loosen it, as I too well know by experience. No; if I attack him at all, it must 'be on the ground of his dismissal from school and his cool, I may 'say his audacious, conduct in not returning directly to his home.'

By the time he had arrived at this determination, the hardy Squire of Watercombe had picked his way by the rocky clitter of Woolholes, the favourite stronghold of many a mountain fox, and, clambering thence, he soon gained the summit of Dockhill Ridge. There, however, to his infinite surprise, appeared not a single vestige of a human being. Moorwards and seawards he swept the horizon on every side, as an eagle would have swept it; but all was still, not a living animal moved within his ken, and the solitude of the wide and dreary waste appeared to be undisturbed for miles around him.

'I couldn't be deceived,' he said, gravely, as he proceeded to examine the turf in the direction of the spot on which he had last seen the pair. Here they certainly were in bodily form only ten ' minutes ago, and now they seem to have taken wing or vanished

' into thin air.'

A close inspection, however, of the grassy sod, broken at various points by the recent and deep indentations of two horses' feet, soon convinced the Squire that the objects he had viewed were not the mere creation of a fanciful brain, but in reality the persons he had judged them to be-his own son and Mary Cornish. He not only recognised at a glance the impress of the colt's feet on which Frank was mounted, but on a bare spot, where it was more sharply defined, could have sworn to the peculiar web of the shoe made expressly for that animal by his own blacksmith. Still, where were they? for neither horses nor riders could be seen, and their sudden flight appeared to him a mystery beyond his comprehension.

A man, however, so thoroughly versed in the shifts and wiles of a sinking fox, or in the tactics of an otter when fathoms down below the surface of the waves, was not likely to be long baffled by Frank's manœuvre. Following up the tracks at a rapid trot, 'the

'bottom' below Hayford became quickly revealed to view, and, casting his eye from Holne Moor downwards, he detected on the very edge of the inclosures the objects of his search, Frank in the very act of taking a moor fence, and his companion, preparing to follow him, close on his heels.

The colt almost took it in his stride, just scattering a few loose stones from the coping, and carrying Frank, as if impelled by a catapult, far into the adjoining field. But when Taffy, held by too tight a rein, scrambled rather than jumped to the top of the fence and there stood balancing himself for some seconds on the narrow apex, as if he was just as likely to fall backwards as spring forwards, the Squire held his breath, feeling sure that an accident of a serious nature would be the too probable result.

Thus intently occupied, he had failed to notice the approach of a horseman, who, pulling up within a few yards, accosted him with the following inquiry: Plaize, yeur honour, have ee zeed aught of a young gen'leman and lady on they moors? I was sent out to look arter 'em by my mistiss; but, lor! I may zo well a stapped home and scared away they jays as try to catch 'em on thikky old broom'stick. They'm like two stags, bless ee! and the farder I go, the 'farder I be behind.'

So I should think,' replied the Squire, as he ran his eye over the round legs of the Gunner and listened to the tale of distress so pathetically told by his unmusical pipes. Your mistress, of course, meant you to keep at a respectful distance, and I doubt not you

' have fulfilled her wishes to the letter.'

Ees, ees, may be zo. I've a heared tell that three is no company, and I zim the young gen'leman wid like it too, for he zim'th nation 'sweet on Miss Mary.'

The Squire gnashed his teeth, and looked as ill-pleased by this blunt remark as if he had just heard that Tom Franks had destroyed a whole litter of foxes in Stoford Cleaves. But without replying to it, he looked round in the direction of the inclosures, and, to his great surprise, saw that not only had Mary landed on the right side, but was sailing away over the rough pastures, taking the broad banks one after the other like a bird on the wing, and clinging as closely to Frank as if she had been coupled up to him. Their very horses, to the Squire's eye, appeared to be going lovingly together, keeping stride and stride with each other, as if eager by their even pace and close proximity to contribute in every way to the happiness of their riders.

Had Frank's companion been any other girl in the county or Devon except Mary Cornish, the Squire would have been absolutely charmed with the scene; but, daughter as she was of that poaching 'pirate' who had so often bearded him on the bench, and turned him into ridicule before his own tenantry, the sight galled him to the quick. Yonder they go,' he said, hoarsely; and if I don't bring my son to book for this, may I never look upon a tor again.'

Mr. Frank might du wuss, I reckon,' said the man, indignantly,

than kip company with my young mistiss. There ain't a maiden in these parts fit to hold a can'le to her, nor it come of better 'havage.'

Scarcely a word, however, of the honest fellow's eulogy reached the Squire's ears; for, striking both rowels fiercely into the mare's sides, he dashed off at full speed down the eastern slope of Dockhill Ridge, sitting square and firm in his seat, and pointing directly for the inclosures in the vale below. But Sweet-Pea's defect in refusing to rise at a fence, even as high as a nursery fender, had not escaped the Squire's recollection. He was making for a narrow lane which, skirting the fields and crossing the valley in the direction of Walliford Down, would bring him again to the open moor, and enable him to head the unsuspecting pair just as they were quitting the inclosures at that point.

The manoeuvre was the common one of many a veteran in the hunting field; but the fox will sometimes balk the calculation of even the craftiest strategist; either he is coursed by a sheep-dog, or is headed by an object he does not care to pass, and away he goes at a sharp angle from the straight line he had hitherto kept. A parallel case precisely was that of the hunted game on the present occasion. Frank had vigilantly watched his father's movements, and, seeing him descend at a fearful pace towards the green lane, so well known to himself, he at once divined his object; and, then doubling short back, led his companion over a few fences, and fairly baffled the Squire's tactics.

He, indeed, being on lower ground, remained utterly ignorant of this counter-move, and spurred on and on directly for Walliford Down; while George, who still kept his post on the upper ridge, stood watching the game with intense interest, and could scarcely forbear a cheer when he saw how completely the youngsters had foiled the Squire's scheme.

Cuss un !' muttered the man, 'he'th a ill-wisht my young mistiss, 'I know he hath; but there, I'll go mysel' and zee the white witch 'to Exeter, and then, bless the dear blood of her! Miss Mary can " come to no harm.'

TOM SPRING'S BACK PARLOUR.

I HOPE I shall not get a reputation for being a pothouse_snob because I turn up again in a tavern parlour. Last month I was smoking a pipe with Fuller Pilch at the Saracen's Head; now I invite the readers of Baily' to come into Tom Spring's private parlour. In the month of February, 1842, I was launched into the little village of London. I fancy ny candour proved my deathwarrant, for on paterfamilias suggesting the propriety of my commencing a profession at the age of eighteen off, my reply was, 'Let me have six months more, sir, at school, or I shall miss playing in