CHAPTER XXXVI

JAMES PIGG AGAIN!!!

Just as Mr. Jorrocks was reining in his horse to blow his hounds together, a wild, shrill, view holloo, just such a one as a screech-owl gives on a clear frosty night, sounded through the country, drawing all eyes to Camperdown Hill, where against the blue sky sat a Wellington-statue-like equestrian with his cap in the air, waving and shouting for hard life.

The late lethargic hounds pricked their ears, and before Mr. Jorrocks could ejaculate the word “Pigg!” the now excited pack had broke away, and were streaming full cry across country to where Pigg was perched.

“Get away hooic! Get away hooic!” holloaed our master, deluding himself with the idea that he was giving them leave. “Get away h-o-o-ick! Get away h-o-o-ick!” repeated he, cracking his ponderous whip.

The hollooing still continued—louder if possible than before.

“Blow me tight!” observed Mr. Jorrocks to himself, “wot a pipe the feller ’as! a’most as good as Gabriel Junks’s!” and returning his horn to his saddle, he took a quick glance at the country for a line to the point instead of crashing after Charley Stobbs, who seemed by the undue elevation of his horse’s tail on the far side of the fence, to be getting into grief already. “There ’ill be a way out by those stacks,” said Mr. Jorrocks to himself, eyeing a military-looking line of burly corn stacks drawn up on the high side of a field to the left: so saying he caught Arterxerxes short round by the head, and letting in the Latchfords, tore away in a desperate state of flutter and excitement, the keys and coppers in his pockets contributing to the commotion.

Mr. J. was right, for convenient gaps converged to these stacks, from whence a view of the farm-house (Barley Hall) further on was obtained. Away he next tore for it, dashing through the fold-yards, leaving the gates open as if they were his own, and catching Ben draining a pot of porter at the back-door. Here our fat friend had the misfortune to consult farmer Shortstubble, instead of trusting to his own natural instinct for gaps and gates, and Shortstubble put him on a line as wide of his own wheat as he could, which was anything but as direct a road as friend Jorrocks could have found for himself. However, Camperdown Hill was a good prominent feature in the country, and by dint of brisk riding, Jorrocks reached it in a much shorter time than the uninitiated would suppose he could. Now getting Arterxerxes by the mane, he rose in his stirrups, hugging and cramming him up the rugged ride to the top.

When he reached the summit, Pigg, whose sight was much improved, had hunted his fox with a very indifferent scent round the base of the hill, and having just got a view, was capping the hounds on as hard as ever his horse could lay legs to the ground, whooping and forcing the fox away into the open.

“Wot a man it is to ride!” ejaculated Jorrocks, eyeing Pigg putting one of Duncan Nevin’s nags that had never seen hounds before at a post and rail that almost made him rise perpendicularly to clear. “Well done you!” continued Mr. Jorrocks, as with a flounder and scramble James got his horse on his legs on the far side, and proceeded to scuttle away again as hard as before. “Do believe he’s got a view o’ the varmint,” continued Mr. Jorrocks, eyeing Pigg’s cap-in-hand progress.

“Wot a chap it would be if it could only keep itself sober!” continued Mr. Jorrocks, still eyeing James intently, and wishing he hadn’t been too hard upon him. “Of all ’bominable vices under the sun that of himtemperance is the most degradin’ and disgustin’,” continued our master emphatically, accompanying the assertion with a hearty crack of the whip down his leg.

Jorrocks now gets a view of the varmint stealing away over a stubble, and though he went stouter than our master would have liked if he had been hunting himself, he saw by Pigg’s determined way that he was master of him, and had no doubt that he would have him in hand before long. Accordingly, our master got Arterxerxes by his great Roman-nosed head, and again letting the Latchfords freely into his sides, sent him scrambling down-hill at a pace that was perfectly appalling. Open went the gate at the bottom of the hill, down Jorrocks made for the Long Tommy ford, splash he sent Arterxerxes in just like Johnny Gilpin in Edmonton Wash,—

Then, having got through, he seized the horse by the mane, and rose the opposing bank, determined to be in at the death if he could. “Blow me tight!” ejaculated he, “do believe this hungry high-lander will grab him arter all!” And then rising in his stirrups and setting up his great shoulders, Jorrocks tore up the broken Muggercamp lane, sending the loose stones flying right and left as he went.

“If they can but pash him past Ravenswing-scar,” observed Mr. Jorrocks, eyeing the leading hounds approaching it, “they’ll mop ’im to a certainty, for there’s nothin’ to save ’im arter it. Crikey! they’re past! and it’s U.P. with old Pug! Well, if this doesn’t bang Bannager, I doesn’t know what does! If we do but kill ’un, I’ll make sich a hofferin’ to Bacchus as ’ill perfectly ’stonish ’im,” continued Mr. Jorrocks, setting Arterxerxes agoing again. “Gur-r-r along! you great ’airy ’eeled ’umbug!” groaned he, cropping and rib-roasting the horse with his whip.

Arterxerxes, whose pedigree, perhaps, hasn’t been very minutely looked into, soon begins to give unmistakable evidence of satiety. He doesn’t seem to care much about the whip, and no longer springs to the spur. He begins to play the castanets, too, in a way that is anything but musical to Mr. Jorrocks’s ear. Our master feels that it will very soon be all U.P. with Arterxerxes too.

“Come hup, you snivellin’, drivellin’ son of a lucifer match-maker!” he roars out to Ben, who is coming lagging along in his master’s wake. “Come on!” roared he, waving his arm frantically, as, on reaching the top of Ravenswing-scar, he sees the hounds swinging down, like a bundle of clock pendulums, into the valley below. “Come hup, I say, ye miserable, road-ridin’, dish-lickin’ cub! and give me that quad, for you’re a disgrace to a saddle, and only fit to toast muffins for a young ladies’ boardin’ school. Come hup, you preter-pluperfect tense of ’umbugs!” adding, “I wouldn’t give tuppence a dozen for such beggarly boys; no, not if they’d give me a paper bag to put them in.”

Mr. Jorrocks, having established a comfortable landing-place on a grassy mound, proceeded to dismount from the nearly pumped-out Arterxerxes, and pile himself on to the much fresher Xerxes, who had been ridden more as a second horse than as a whipper-in’s.

“Now go along!” cried our master, settling himself into his saddle, and giving Xerxes a hearty salute on the neck with his whip. “Now go along!” repeated he, “and lay yourself out as if you were in the cut-me-downs,” adding, “there are twenty couple of ’ounds on the scent!”

“By ’eavens, it’s sublime!” exclaimed he, eyeing the hounds, streaming away over a hundred-acre pasture below. “By ’eavens, it’s sublime! ’ow they go, screechin’ and towlin’ along, jest like a pocket full o’ marbles. ’Ow the old wood re-echoes their melody, and the old castle seemingly takes pleasure to repeat the sound. A Jullien concert’s nothin’ to it. No, not all the bands i’ the country put together.”

“How I wish I was a heagle!” now exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, eyeing the wide stretching vale before him. “How I wish I was a heagle, ’overin’ over ’em, seein’ which ’ound has the scent, which hasn’t, and which are runnin’ frantic for blood.”

“To guide a scent well over a country for a length of time, through all the changes and chances o’ the chase, and among all difficulties usually encountered, requires the best and most experienced abilities,” added he, shortening his hold of his horse, as he now put his head down the steep part of the hill. Away Jorrocks went wobbling like a great shape of red Noyeau jelly.

An accommodating lane serves our master below, and taking the grassy side of it, he pounds along manfully, sometimes hearing the hounds, sometimes seeing Pigg’s cap, sometimes Charley’s hat, bobbing over the fences; and, at more favoured periods, getting a view of the whole panorama of the chase. Our master is in ecstasies! He whoops, and shouts, and grins, and rolls in his saddle, looking more like the drunken Huzzar at the circus, than the sober, well-conducted citizen.

“F-o-r-rard on!” is still his cry. Hark! They’ve turned and are coming towards him. Jorrocks hears them, and spurs on in hopes of a nick. Fortune favours him, as she generally does the brave and persevering, and a favourable fall of the land enables our friend to view the fox still travelling on at an even, stealthy sort of pace, though certainly slower than the still pressing, squeak, squeak, yap, yap, running pack. Pigg and Charley are in close attendance, and Jorrocks nerves himself for a grand effort to join them.

“I’ll do it,” says he, putting Xerxes at a well broken-down cattle-gap, into Wandermoor Common. This move lands him well inside the hounds, and getting upon turf, he hugs his horse, resolved to ride at whatever comes in his way. Another gap, not quite so well flattened as the first, helps our friend on in his project, and emboldened by success, he rams manfully at a low stake and rice-bound gateway, and lands handsomely in the next field. He thus gains confidence.

“Come on, ye miserable, useless son of a lily-livered besom-maker,” he roars to Benjamin, who is craning and funking at the place his master has come so gallantly over. “Rot ye,” adds Jorrocks, as the horse turns tail, “I’ll bind ye ’prentice to a salmon pickler.”

The next field is a fallow, but Jorrocks chooses a wet furrow, up which he spurts briskly, eyeing the country far and near, as well for the fox, as a way out. He sees both. The fox is skirting the brow of the opposite heathery hill, startling the tinkling belled sheep, while the friendly shepherd waves his cap, indicating an exit.

“Thank’ee,” cries Jorrocks, as he slips through the gate.

There is nothing now between him and the hounds, save a somewhat rough piece of moorland, but our master not being afraid of the pace so long as there is no leaping, sails away in the full glow of enthusiastic excitement. He is half frantic with joy!

The hounds now break from scent to view and chase the still flying fox along the hill-side—Duster, Vanquisher, and Hurricane have pitched their pipes up at the very top of their gamut, and the rest come shrieking and screaming as loudly as their nearly pumped out wind will allow.

Dauntless is upon him, and now a snap, a turn, a roll, and it’s all over with Reynard.

Now Pigg is off his horse and in the midst of the pack, now he’s down, now he’s up, and there’s a pretty scramble going on!

“Leave him! leave him!” cries Charley, cracking his whip in aid of Pigg’s efforts. A ring is quickly cleared, the extremities are whipped off, and behold, the fox is ready for eating.

“Oh Pigg, you’re a brick! a fire brick!” gasps the heavily perspiring Mr. Jorrocks, throwing himself exhausted from his horse, which he leaves outside the now riotous ring, and making up to the object of his adoration, he exclaimed, “Oh, Pigg, let us fraternize!” Whereupon Jorrocks seized Pigg by the middle, and hugged him like a Polar bear, to the mutual astonishment of Pigg and the pack.

“A—a—a wuns, man, let’s hev’ him worried!” roared Pigg, still holding up the fox with both hands high above his head. “A—a—a wuns, man, let’s hev’ him worried,” repeated James, as Jorrocks danced him about still harder than before.

“Tear ’im and eat ’im!” roars Pigg, discharging himself of the fox, which has the effect of detaching Jorrocks, and sending him to help at the worry. Then the old boy takes a haunch, and tantalizes first Brilliant, then Harmony, then Splendour, then Vengeance, all the eager young entry in short.

Great was Mr. Jorrocks’s joy and exultation. He stuck his cap on his whip and danced about on one leg. He forgot all about the Cat and Custard-Pot, the gob full of baccy, and crack in the kite, in his anxiety to make the most of the victory. Having adorned the head-stall of his own bridle with the brush, slung the head becomingly at Pigg’s saddle side, and smeared Ben’s face plentifully with blood, he got his cavalcade in marching order, and by dint of brisk trotting reentered Handley Cross just at high change, when everybody was abusing him for his conduct to poor Pigg, and vowing that he didn’t deserve so good a huntsman. Then when they saw what had happened, they changed their tunes, declaring it was a regular preconcerted do, abused both James and Jorrocks, and said they’d withdraw their subscriptions from the hounds.