passed with the butt of his massive horse-whip, and humming, with the air of a
chasseur of Louis Quatorze,
 
Pour la chasse ordonnée il faut préparer tout,
Ho la ho! Vite! vite debout.
 

                              Chapter Thirteenth.

                       A Moke Rational Day Than the Last.

The Baron of Bradwardine, mounted on an active and well-managed horse, and
seated on a demi-pique saddle, with deep housings to agree with his livery, was
no bad representative of the old school. His light-coloured embroidered coat,
and superbly barred waistcoat, his brigadier wig, surmounted by a small
gold-laced cocked-hat, completed his personal costume; but he was attended by
two well-mounted servants on horseback, armed with holster-pistols.
    In this guise he ambled forth over hill and valley, the admiration of every
farm-yard which they passed in their progress, till, »low down in a grassy
vale,« they found Davie Gellatley leading two very tall deer greyhounds, and
presiding over half-a-dozen curs, and about as many bare-legged and bareheaded
boys, who, to procure the chosen distinction of attending on the chase, had not
failed to tickle his ears with the dulcet appellation of Maister Gellatley,
though probably all and each had hooted him on former occasions in the character
of daft Davie. But this is no uncommon strain of flattery to persons in office,
nor altogether confined to the bare-legged villagers of Tully-Veolan: it was in
fashion Sixty Years since, is now, and will be six hundred years hence, if this
admirable compound of folly and knavery, called the world, shall be then in
existence.
    These gillie-wet-foots,24 as they were called, were destined to beat the
bushes, which they performed with so much success, that after half-an-hour's
search a roe was started, coursed, and killed; the Baron following on his white
horse, like Earl Percy of yore, and magnanimously flaying and embowelling the
slain animal (which, he observed, was called by the French chasseurs faire la
curée) with his own baronial couteau de chasse. After this ceremony he conducted
his guest homeward by a pleasant and circuitous route, commanding an extensive
prospect of different villages and houses, to each of which Mr. Bradwardine
attached some anecdote of history or genealogy, told in language whimsical from
prejudice and pedantry, but often respectable for the good sense and honourable
feelings which his narrative displayed, and almost always curious, if not
valuable, for the information they contained.
    The truth