CHAPTER V
THE HUNT COMMITTEE
ANDLEY CROSS had a very debauched look the morning after the hunt ball. The Ongar Rooms being lighted with windows round the top, with covered galleries outside, for the accommodation of milliners, ladies’ maids, and such as wish to criticize their masters and mistresses, had no protecting blinds; and a strong party having settled themselves into “threesome” reels—the gentlemen for the purpose of dancing themselves sober, the ladies, like Goldsmith’s clown, to try and tire out the orchestra—the ball seemed well calculated to last for ever, when the appearance of daylight in the room made the wax lights look foolish, and caused all the old chaperons to rush to their charges and hurry them off, before bright Phœbus exposed the forced complexions of the night. All then was hurry-skurry; carriages were called up, and hurried off as though the plague had broken out, and Johns and Jehus were astonished at the bustle of their “mississes.”
The last fly at length drove off; the variegated lamps round the festooned porch began glimmering and dying in succession, as Doleful and the remaining gentlemen stood bowing, grinning, and kissing their hands to their departing partners, while their blue coats and canary-coloured shorts exhibited every variety of shade and complexion that the colours are capable of. Doleful’s hair, too, assumed a vermilion hue. The town was clear, bright, and tranquil; no sound disturbed the quiet streets, and there was a balmy freshness in the morning air that breathed gratefully on the feverish frames of the heated dancers. The cock, “the trumpet of the morn,” had just given his opening crow, in farmer Haycock’s yard behind the rooms, and the tinkling bells of the oxen’s yoke came softened on the air like the echoing cymbals of the orchestra.
St. George’s chapel clock strikes! Its clear silvery notes fall full upon the listeners’ ears. “One! two! three! four! five! six!—six o’clock!” and youths say it is not worth while going to bed, while men of sense set off without a doubt on the matter. Some few return to the supper-room to share the ends of champagne bottles and lobster salads with the waiters.
Morning brought no rest to the jaded horses and helpers of the town. No sooner were the Rosinantes released from the harness of the flys, than they were led to the stable-doors and wisped and cleaned in a manner that plainly showed it was for coming service, and not for that performed. Bill Gibbon, the club-footed ostler of the “Swan Hotel and Livery Stables,” had eight dirty fly-horses to polish into hunters before eleven o’clock, and Tom Turnbinn, and his deaf-and-dumb boy, had seven hunters and two flys ordered for the same hour. There was not a horse of any description but what was ordered for the coming day, and the donkeys were bespoke three deep.
If Duncan Nevin had had a dozen Bull-dogs and Sontags, they would all have been engaged, and on his own terms too.
“Oh, sir!” he would say to inquirers, “that Bull-dog’s a smart horse—far too good for our work—he should be in a gentleman’s stable—Did you ever see a horse so like the field, now? I’m only axin thirty pound for him, and it’s really givin’ of him away—I couldn’t let him go out under two guineas a day, and then only with a very careful rider, like yourself. Cost me near what I ax for him, in the summer, and have had to put him into condition myself. Oats is very dear, I assure you. Perhaps you’d have the kindness not to say that he’s hired, and save me the duty?”
A little before eleven the bustle commenced; the first thing seen was Peter leaving the kennel with the hounds, Abelard, the black poodle, and “Mr. Fleeceall,” the white terrier with a black eye. Peter was dressed in a new scarlet frock coat with a sky-blue collar, buff striped toilanette waistcoat, black cap, new leathers and boots. His whip, spurs, gloves, bridle, and saddle were also new, and he was riding a new white horse. Barnington’s groom followed, similarly attired; and this being his first appearance in the character of a whipper-in, he acted fully up to the designation by flopping and cracking the hounds with his whip, and crying, “Co’p, co’p, hounds;—Go on, hounds—go on!—Drop it!—Leave it!—To him, to him!” and making sundry other orthodox noises.
Lamp-black was that morning in great request. Broken knees, collar, and crupper marks had to be effaced, and some required a touch of lamp-black on their heads, where they had knocked the hair off in their falls. The saddling and bridling were unique! No matter what sort of a mouth the horse had, the first bridle that came to hand was put into it.
Stephen Dumpling’s horse, having travelled from home, was the first of the regulars to make his appearance in the street. He was a great, raking, sixteen hands chestnut, with “white stockings,” and a bang tail down to the hocks. He was decorated with a new bridle with a blue silk front, and a new saddle with a hunting-horn. Stephen’s lad, dressed in an old blue dress-coat of his master’s, with a blue and white striped livery waistcoat, top boots, and drab cords, and having a cockade in his hat, kept walking the horse up and down before the Dragon Hotel, while Stephen, with a feverish pulse and aching head, kept sipping his coffee, endeavouring to make himself believe he was eating his breakfast. At last he lighted a cigar, and appeared, whip in hand, under the arched gateway. He had on a new scarlet coat with a blue collar, the same old red-ended neck-cloth he had worn at the ball, and an infinity of studs down an ill-fitting, badly-washed shirt, a buff-waistcoat, and a pair of make-believe leathers—a sort of white flannel, that after the roughings of many washings give gentlemen the appearance of hunting in their drawers. His boots had not been “put straight” after the crumpling and creasing they had got in his “bags”; consequently there were divers patches of blacking transferred to the tops, while sundry scrapings of putty, or of some other white and greasy matter, appeared on the legs. Independently of this, the tops retained lively evidence of their recent scouring in the shape of sundry up and down strokes, like the first coat of white-washing, or what house-painters call “priming” on a new door.
Dumpling’s appearance in the street was the signal for many who were still at their breakfasts to bolt the last bits of muffin, drink up their tea, and straddle into the passage to look for hats, gloves, and whips. Doors opened, and sportsmen emerged from every house. Round-the-corner Smith’s roan mare, with a hunting horn at the saddle-bow, had been making the turn of Hookem’s library for ten minutes and more; and the stud of Lieutenant Wheeler, the flash riding-master—seven “perfect broke horses for road or field,” with two unrivalled ponies—had passed the Dragon for the eight Miss Mercers and their brother Tom to go out upon to “see the hounds.” Then sorry steeds, with sorrier equipments, in the charge of very sorry-looking servants, paced up and down High Street, Paradise Row, and the Crescent; and a yellow fly, No. 34, with red wheels, drove off with Dumpling’s nondescript servant on the box, and the three Miss Dobbses, and Mother Dobbs, in scarlet silk pelisses, with sky-blue ribbons and handkerchiefs, inside. Jaded young ladies, whose looks belie their assertions, assure their mammas that they are not in the “least tired,” step into flys and drive away through High Street, kissing their hands, bowing and smiling, right and left, as they go.
Abel Snorem, having purchased a pair of new top-boots, appears in the sky-blue coat, lined with pink silk, and the canary-coloured shorts of the previous evening, looking very much like a high-sheriff’s horse foot-man going out to meet the judges. Not meaning to risk his neck, although booted, he makes the fourth in a fly with Mr. and Miss Mordecai, and fat old Mr. Guzzle, who goes from watering-place to watering-place, trying the comparative merits of the waters in restoring appetite after substantial meals: he looks the picture of health and apoplexy. Mrs. Barnington’s dashing yellow barouche comes hurrying down the street, the bays bearing away from the pole, and the coachman’s elbows sticking out in a corresponding form. Of course all the flys, horses, and passengers that are not desirous of being driven over by “John Thomas,” the London coachman, are obliged to get out of the way as fast as they can, and he pulls up with a jerk, as though he had discovered the house all of a sudden. Out rush two powdered flunkeys in red plush breeches, pink silk stockings, and blue coatees, when, finding it is only their own carriage, a dialogue ensues between them and Mr. Coachman, as the latter lounges over the box and keeps flanking his horses to make them stand out and show themselves.
A few minutes elapse, and out comes the portly butler, with a “Now then! Missis coming down!” whereupon the Johnnies rush to their silver-laced hats on the hall table, seize their gold-headed canes, pull their white Berlins out of their pockets, and take a position on each side of the barouche door. Mrs. Barnington sails majestically down stairs, dressed in a sky-blue satin pelisse, with a sky-blue bonnet, lined with pink, and a splendid white feather, tipped with pink, waving gracefully over her left shoulder. She is followed by Barnington and Doleful, the former carrying her shawl and reticule in one hand, and his own hunting-whip in the other. Barnington, as usual, is well-dressed, having on a neat-fitting, single-breasted scarlet coat, with a blue collar, and rich gilt buttons, sky-blue cravat, canary-coloured waistcoat, well-cleaned leathers and gloves, and exquisitely polished boots, with very bright spurs. Doleful, who is rather in disgrace, for having introduced a partner to one of the three Miss Dobbses over night, and has just had a wigging for his trouble, sneaks behind, attired in a costume that would have astonished Tom Rounding himself, at the Epping Hunt. It consists of an old militia coat, denuded of its facings and trappings, made into a single-breasted hunting coat, but, for want of cloth, the laps are lined, as well as the collar covered, with blue: his waistcoat is pea-green, imparting a most cadaverous hue to his melancholy countenance, and he has got on a pair of old white moleskin breeches, sadly darned and cracked at the knees, Hessian boots, with large tassels, and black heel spurs. He carries his hat in one hand, and a black gold-headed opera cane in the other, and looks very like an itinerant conjuror. What strange creatures fine women sometimes fancy!
Mrs. Barnington steps listlessly into the carriage, throws herself upon the back seat, while Barnington and Doleful deposit themselves on the front one; the door is shut with a bang, the “Johnnies” jump up behind, “whit” cries the coachman to his horses, off they go, the fat butler, having followed them up the High Street with his eyes, closes the door, and away they bowl at the rate of twelve miles an hour, round the Crescent, through Jireth Place, Ebenezer Row, Apollo Terrace, past the Archery Ground, and Mr. Jackson’s public gardens, and along the Appledove Road, as far as the Mount Sion turnpike-gate—leaving pedestrians, horsemen, and vehicles of every kind immeasurably in the distance.
At the gate a crowd is assembled—Jones Deans, the “pikeman,” has wisely closed the bar, and “No trust” stands conspicuously across the road. As the carriage approaches, it is thrown wide open. Off goes Jones’s hat; Mrs. Jones Deans drops a hasty curtsey, that almost brings her knees in contact with the ground; and the little urchins on the rails burst into an involuntary huzza. John Thomas cuts on, and turns at a canter into the grass-field on the left of the road, where poor Peter has been walking his hounds about for the last hour or more. What a crowd! Grooms of every description, with horses of every cut and character, moving up and down, and across and around the field; some to get their horses’ coats down, others to get their legs down, a few to get their horses’ courage down, others to try and get them up: some because they see others do it, and others because they have nothing else to do.
There are thirteen flys full of the young ladies from Miss Prim’s and Miss Prosy’s opposition seminaries, the former in sky-blue ginghams, the latter in pink; Mrs. Fleeceall driven by her dear Fleecy with a new hunting whip, in a double-bodied one-horse “chay” with four little Fleecealls stuck in behind; Mr. Davey, the new apothecary, with his old wife, in a yellow dennet drawn by a white cart mare; Mr. and Mrs. Hookem of the library, in Jasper Green the donkey driver’s best asscart; farmer Joltem in his untaxed gig, with his name, abode, and occupation painted conspicuously behind; old Tim Rickets, the furniture-broker, in a green garden-chair drawn by a donkey; the post-man on a mule; Boltem, billiard table-keeper, and Snooks his marker, in an ass phaeton; Donald McGrath, “Squire Arnold’s” Scotch gardener, on “Master George’s Pony”; and Sam Finch, the keeper, and Thomas, the coachman, on the carriage horses.
Enveloped in a large dirty old Macintosh, in a single-horse fly, with a dirty apology for a postillion on the animal, with hands stuffed into his front pockets, and a hunting whip peeping above his knees, the mighty Dennis O’Brien wends his way to the meet, his brain still swimming with the effects of the last night’s champagne. As he diverges from the road into the grass-field, he takes his hunting whip from its place, loosens the thong, and proceeding to flagellate both rider and horse, dashes into the crowd in what he considers quite a “bang-up way.” “Now, Peter, my boy!” he roars at the top of his voice, as standing erect in the vehicle he proceeds to divest himself of his elegant “wraprascal,” “be after showing us a run; for by the piper that played before Moses, I feel as if I could take St. Peter’s itself in my stride.—Och blood and ’ounds! ye young spalpeen, but you’ve been after giving that horse a gallop,—he’s sweating about the ears already,” he exclaims to a little charity-school boy, whom the livery-stable keeper has despatched with a horse Dennis has hired for the “sason,” warranted to hunt four days a week or oftener, and hack all the rest—a raw-boned, broken-knee’d, spavined bay, with some very going points about him. “Be after jumping off, ye vagabond, or I’ll bate you into a powder.”
Romeo Simpkins then comes tip-tup-ing up on a long-tailed dun, with a crupper to the saddle, surrounded by the four Miss Merrygoes, all ringlets and teeth, and the two Miss Millers, all forehead and cheeks,—the cavalcade mounted by the opposition riding-master, Mr. Higgs, who follows the group at a respectful distance to see that they do not take too much out of the nags, and to minute their ride by his watch.1 Romeo is in ecstasies! He has got on an ill-made, cream-bowl-looking cap, with a flourishing ribbon behind, a very light-coloured coat, inclining more to pink than scarlet, made of ladies’ habit-cloth, a yellow neckcloth, his white waistcoat of the previous evening, and very thin white cord breeches that show his garters, stocking tops, and every wrinkle in his drawers; added to which, after a fashion of his own, his boots are secured to his breeches by at least half a dozen buttons, and straps round the leg. The ladies think Romeo “quite a dear,” and Romeo is of the same opinion.
“Now, Barnington, don’t ride like a fool and break your neck,” says the amiable Mrs. Barnington to her sapient spouse, as he begins to fidget and stir in the carriage, as the groom passes and repasses with a fine brown horse in tip-top condition, and a horn at the saddle; a request that was conveyed in a tone that implied, “I hope you may with all my heart.” Then turning to Doleful, who was beginning to look very uneasy as mounting time approached, she added, in a forgiving tone, “Now, my dear Captain, don’t let Barnington lead you into mischief; he’s a desperate rider, I know, but there’s no occasion for you to follow him over everything he chooses to ride at.”
Mrs. Barnington might have spared herself the injunction, for Doleful’s horse was a perfect antidote to any extravagance; a more perfect picture of wretchedness was never seen. It was a long, lean, hide-bound, ewenecked, one-eyed, roan Rosinante, down of a hip, collar-marked, and crupper-marked, with conspicuous splints on each leg, and desperately broken-kneed. The saddle was an old military brass-cantrelled one, with hair girths, rings behind, and a piece of dirty old green carpet for a saddle-cloth. The bridle was a rusty Pelham, without the chain, ornamented with a dirty faded yellow-worsted front, and strong, cracked, weather-bleached reins, swelled into the thickness of moderate traces—with the head-stall ends flapping and flying about in all directions, and the choak-band secured by a piece of twine in lieu of a buckle. The stirrups were of unequal lengths, but this could not be helped, for they were the last pair in Handley Cross; and Doleful, after a survey of the whole, mounts and sticks his feet into the rusty irons, with a self-satisfied grin on his spectral face, without discovering their inequality.
“Keep a good hold of her mouth, sir,” says the fly-man groom, whose property she is, gathering up the reins, and placing them in a bunch in Doleful’s hands; “keep a good hold of her head, sir,” he repeats, an exhortation that was not given without due cause, for no sooner did the mare find herself released from her keeper, than down went her head, up went her heels, off went the captain’s hat, out flew the militia coat laps, down went the black gold-headed cane, and the old mare ran wheel-barrow fashion about the field, kicking, jumping, and neighing, to the exquisite delight of the thirteen fly-fulls of pink and blue young ladies from Miss Prim’s and Miss Prosy’s opposition seminaries, the infinite satisfaction of Mrs. Fleeceall, whom Doleful had snubbed, and to the exceeding mirth of the whole field.
“Help him! save him!” screams Mrs. Barnington, with clasped hands and uplifted eyes, as the old mare tears past the barouche with her heels in the air, and the loose riding M.C. sitting like the “Drunken Hussar” at the Circus, unconsciously digging her with his black heel-spurs as she goes. “Oh, heavens! will nobody save him?” she exclaims; and thereupon the two powdered footmen, half dying with laughter, slip down from behind, and commence a pursuit, and succeed in catching the mare just as she had got the Master of the Ceremonies fairly on her shoulders, and when another kick would have sent him over her head. Meanwhile Mrs. Barnington faints. Fans, water, salts, vinegar, all sorts of things are called in requisition, as may be supposed, when the queen of Handley Cross is taken ill; nothing but a recommendation from the new doctor that her stays should be cut, could possibly have revived her.
Peace is at length restored. Doleful, sorely damaged by the brass cantrel and the pommel, is taken from the “old kicking mare,” as she was called at the stable, and placed alongside the expiring Mrs. Barnington, in the carriage, and having had enough of hunting, Mr. John Thomas is ordered to drive home immediately.
Whereupon Peter takes out his watch and finds it exactly five minutes to one, the hour that he used to be laying the cloth for Michael Hardey’s dinner, after having killed his fox and got his horses done up. Barnington having seen his wife fairly out of sight, appears a new man, and mounting his brown hunter, takes his horn out of the case, knocks it against his thigh, gives his whip a flourish, and trots up to the pack, with one foot dangling against the stirrup iron.
Peter salutes him with a touch of his cap, his groom whipper-in scrapes his against the skies; and Barnington, with a nod, asks Peter what they shall draw? “Hazleby Hanger, I was thinking, sir,” replied Peter with another touch; “the keeper says he saw a fox go in there this morning, and it’s very nice lying.”—“Well then, let us be going,” replies Barnington, looking around the field.—“No!” roars Stephen Dumpling, taking a cigar from his mouth; “Hoppas Hays is the place; the wind’s westerly,” wetting his finger on his tongue, and holding it up to the air,—“and if we can force him through Badger Wood and Shortmead, he will give us a rare burst over Langley Downs, and away to the sea.”—“Well, what you please, gentlemen,” replies Peter; “only we have not much time to lose, for the days are short, and my fellow servant here doesn’t know the country; besides which we have five couple of young hounds out.”—“I say Hazleby Hanger,” replies Barnington with a frown on his brow, for he was unused to contradiction from any one but his wife. “I say Hoppas Hays,” replies Dumpling loudly, with an irate look, and giving his boot an authoritative bang with his whip.—“Well, gentlemen, whichever you please,” says Peter, looking confused.—“Then go to Hazleby Hanger,” responds Barnington.—“Hoppas Hays!” exclaims Dumpling; “mind, Peter, I’m your master.”—“No more than myself,” replies Barnington, “and I find the whipper-in.”—“Where’s Smith?” shouts Dennis O’Brien, working his way into the crowd, with his coat-pockets sticking out beyond the cantrel of his saddle, like a poor man’s dinner wallet. “Here! here! here!” responded half a dozen voices from horses, gigs, and flys.
“No, Round-the-corner Smith I mean,” replies O’Brien. “Yonder he is by the cow-shed in the corner of the field;” and Smith is seen in the distance in the act of exchanging his hack for his hunter. He comes cantering up the field, feeling his horse as he goes, and on being holloaed to by some score of voices or more, pulls short round and enters the crowd at a trot. “What shall we draw first, Smith?” inquires Mr. Barnington; “I propose Hazleby Hanger.” “I say Hoppas Hays,” rejoins Dumpling.—“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-zleby Ha-ha-hanger, or Ho-ho-ho-ho-hoppas Ha-ha-ha-ha-hays! I should think Fa-fa-fa-farley Pa-pa-pasture better than either.”—“Well then, let us draw lots,” replied Dennis O’Brien, “for it’s not right keeping gentlemen and men of fortune waiting in this way. By the great gun of Athlone, but the Ballyshannon dogs, kept by Mr. Troddennick, would find and kill a fox in less time than you take in chaffing about where you’ll draw for one. See now,’ added he, pulling an old racing Calendar out of his capacious pocket, and tearing a piece into slips, “here are three bits of paper, the longest is for Hazleby Hanger, the middle one is Hoppas Hays, and the short one shall be Farley Pasture, and Peter shall draw;” whereupon Dennis worked his way through the crowd, advanced into the middle of the pack, and just as Peter drew a slip, Dennis’s spavined steeplechaser gave Abelard, the French poodle, such a crack on the skull as killed him on the spot. The field is again in commotion, two-thirds of the young ladies in pink ginghams burst into tears, while one of the sky-blue pupils faints, and a second is thrown into convulsions and burst her stays with the noise of a well-charged two-penny cracker. “Who-hoop!” cries Dennis O’Brien, “here’s blood already!” jumping off his horse and holding the expiring animal in mid air; “Who-hoop, my boys, but we’ve begun the season gallantly! Killed a lion instead of a fox!” and thereupon he threw the dead dog upon the ground amid the laughter of a few pedestrians, and the general execration of the carriage company.
We need not say that the sport of the ladies was over for the day. There lay poor Abelard, the only dog in the pack they really admired; whose freaks and gambols, in return for buns and queen-cakes, had often beguiled the weariness of their brother’s kennel lectures. The sparkling eye, that watched each movement of the hand, was glazed in death, and the flowing luxuriance of his well-combed mane and locks clotted with gory blood!—Alas! poor Abelard.
| “Oh name for ever sad! for ever dear! |
| Still breathed in sighs, still ushered with a tear.” |
The hounds alone seemed unconcerned at his fate, and walked about and smelt at him as though they hardly owned his acquaintance, when “Mr. Fleeceall,” the white terrier with a black patch on his eye, having taken him by the ear, with the apparent intention of drawing him about the field, Miss Prim most theatrically begged the body, which was forthwith transferred to the bottom of her fly, to the unutterable chagrin of Miss Prosy, who was on the point of supplicating for it herself, and had just arranged a most touching speech for the occasion. Eyes were now ordered to be dried, and the young ladies were forthwith got into marching order. Pink ginghams wheeled off first; and when they got home, those that did not cry before were whipped, and made to cry after; while the sky-blue young ladies had a page of Sterne’s Sentimental Journey, commencing “Dear sensibility! source unexhausted of all that’s precious in our joys or costly in our sorrows!” &c., to learn by heart, to make them more feeling in future.
The field, reduced one-half, at two o’clock set off for Farley Pasture; the procession consists of five flys, twenty-three horsemen, four gig-men, and a string of thirteen donkeys, some carrying double, and others with panniers full of little folk.
Dumpling and Barnington look unamiable things at each other, but neither having carried his point, they ride along the sandy lane that leads to the cover in pouting sullenness. The cavalcade rides the hill that commands the cover in every quarter, where Peter and the pack wait until the long-drawn file have settled themselves to their liking. The cover is an unenclosed straggling gorse of about three or four acres in extent, rising the hill from a somewhat dense patch of underwood, bounded on the east by a few weather-beaten Scotch firs; the country around being chiefly grass-fields of good dimensions. Dumpling canters round the cover, and takes a position among the firs, while Barnington plants himself immediately opposite; and Smith, determined not to be outdone in importance, establishes himself to the south. “Yooi in there!” cries Peter at last with a wave of his cap, his venerable grey hair floating on the breeze; “yooi in there, my beauties!” and the old hounds, at the sound of his cheery voice, dash into the gorse and traverse every patch and corner with eagerness; “Have at him there!” cries Peter, as Belmaid, a beautiful pied bitch, feathers round a patch of gorse near a few stunted birch and oak trees; “have at him there, my beauty!”—“yooi, wind him!” “yooi, push him!”
“Talli-ho!” cries Abel Snorem, in a loud, deep, sonorous voice from his fly, rubbing his eyes with one hand and raising his hat in the air with the other; “talli-ho! yonder he goes.”—“It’s a hare!” exclaims Peter; “it’s a hare! pray hold your tongue, sir! pray do!”—It is too late! the mischief is done. Three couple of young hounds that did not like the gorse, having caught view, dash after her; and puss’s screams at the corner of the ploughed field are drowned in the horns of the masters, who commence the most discordant tootleings, puffings, and blowings, as soon as Abel Snorem’s talli-ho was heard. Meanwhile the whipper-in has worked his way round to the delinquents, and, jumping off his horse, seizes the hind quarters of puss, whereupon Vigilant seizes him “a posteriori” in return, and makes him bellow like a bull. The masters canter round, the field rush to the spot, and all again is hubbub and confusion. “Lay it into them!” exclaims Barnington to his groom whipper-in; “cut them to ribbons, the riotous brutes!” “Don’t!” interposes Dumpling, “I won’t have the hounds flogged;” whereupon the ladies laud his feeling, and mutter something that sounds very like “Barnington and brute.” Just as stuttering Smith is in the midst of a long string of stammers upon the question of corporeal punishment, a loud, clear, shrill talli-ho is heard proceeding from the neighbourhood of the fir trees, and Peter on the white horse is seen standing in his stirrups, cap in hand, holloaing his hounds away to their fox.—“Hoic together, hoic!” and the old hounds rush eagerly to the voice that has led them to a hundred glories.—“Yonder he goes by Mersham Hatch, and away for Downleighcrag,” exclaims a lad in a tree, and eyes are strained in the direction that he points.
“Forrard away! forrard.” “Crack! crack!” go a score of whips; “talli-ho!” scream a dozen voices. “Away! away! away!” holloas Peter, settling himself into his saddle. “Away! away! away!” echoes the groom-whipper-in, as he stands rubbing himself, debating whether to mount or go home to the doctor. Barnington races round the cover, Dumpling takes the opposite side, followed by Smith, and Dennis O’Brien shoves his spavined steed straight through the cover, and goes bounding over the high gorse like a boat off a rough shore. Romeo Simpkins and his tail trot after a fat old gentleman on a black cob, dressed in a single-breasted green coat, with mahogany-coloured top-boots, and a broad-brimmed hat, who makes for Ashley Lane, from thence over Downley Hill, from whence there is a full view of the pack running like wildfire over the large grass enclosure near Ravensdeen village, with no one but Peter within a quarter of a mile of them. Away they speed; and just as Peter’s white horse looks like a pigeon in the distance, and the rest diminish into black specks, a curve to the left brings them past Arthingworth clump, leaving the old tower on the right, and, skirting the side of Branston Wood, far in the distance they enter upon the tract of chalky land beyond. The old gentleman’s eye catches fresh fire at the sight; he takes off his low-crowned hat, and mops his bald head with a substantial snuff-coloured bandana, and again bumps off at a trot. He pounds along the lanes, turning first to the right then to the left; now stopping to listen, now cutting through the backs of farm buildings, now following an almost imperceptible cart-track through a line of field-gates, until he gains Surrenden Lane, where he pulls up short and listens. “Hark!” he exclaims, holding up his hand to Romeo and his female friends, who are giggling and tittering at the delightful canter they have had: “hark!” he repeats, in a somewhat louder voice. A short sharp chirp is borne on the breeze; it is Heroine all but running mute. A deeper note follows,—another, and another, which gradually swell into chorus as the pack carry the scent across the fallow and get upon turf nearer hand. The old gentleman is in ecstasies. He can hardly contain himself. He pulls his cob across the lane; his hat is in the air, no one views the fox but himself, the hounds pour into the lane; a momentary check ensues. Villager speaks to it in the next field; Dexterous has it too,—and Coroner, Harmony, Funnylass, and Ravenous join cry!—they run the hedge-row—a snap and crack is heard just by the large ash tree. “Whoo-whoop!” holloas the old gentleman, putting his finger in his ear, and Peter comes bounding over the fence, and is among his pack fighting for the fox.
Then up come the field, the horses heaving, panting and blowing, all in a white lather, and the perspiration streaming off the red faces of riders. There has been a desperately jealous tussle between Barnington and Dumpling which should ride first; and nothing but the badness of the start has prevented their being before the hounds. Dumpling has knocked in the crown of a new eight-and-sixpenny hat; while a strong grower that he bore before him through a stiff bullfinch, returned with a switch across Barnington’s nose, that knocked all the skin off the bridge.
“I claim the brush!” exclaimed Dumpling, still in the air. “No such thing!” responds Barnington, as they land together in the deep lane, from the top of the high bank with a strongly pleached hedge on the top. “I say it’s mine!” “I say it isn’t!” “I say it is!” “Peter, it’s mine!” “Peter, it isn’t!” “At your peril give it to him!” “You give it to me, or I discharge you!”
“Well, gentlemen,” replies Peter, laying the fox before him, “whichever way you please.” “Then, give it me.” “No, give it me.” “Isn’t it mine, sir?” says Dumpling, appealing to the gentlemen on the cob, “my horse touched ground first, and, according to all the laws of steeplechasing that ever I’ve heard, or read of in ‘Bell’s Life’ or elsewhere, that’s decisive.” “I should say it was Squire Hartley’s,” observed Peter, looking at the green-coated gentleman on the cob.
“Squire Hartley’s!” exclaimed Dumpling and Barnington at the same moment; “Squire Hartley’s! How can that be? He’s not even a member of the hunt, and doesn’t give a farthing to it.” “It was his cover we found in,” replies Peter; “and in old master’s time we always gave the brush to whoever was first up.” “First up!” roars Dumpling, “why, he’s never been out of a trot!” “And ridden the road!” adds Barnington. “What do we know about your old master?” rejoins Dumpling, “he was a skirting, nicking, Macadamizing old screw.” “He was a better sportsman than ever you will be,” replied Peter, his eyes sparkling anger as he spoke. “Let us have none of your impertinence,” replies Barnington, nettled at the disrespect towards a member of the committee; and let me advise you to remember that you hunt these hounds for the amusement of your masters, and not for your own pleasure, and you had better take care how you steal away with your fox again as you did just now.” “That he ha-ha-ha-had,” exclaims Round-the-corner Smith, as he creeps down the side of the bank, holding by the pommel of his saddle, into the lane, after having ridden the line with great assiduity without seeing a bit of the run; “I never saw such an impudent thing done in all the whole course of my li-li-li-life before.”
Poor Peter made no reply. An involuntary tear started into the corner of his eye, when, having broken up his fox, he called his hounds together and turned his horse’s head towards home, at the thought of the change he had lived to see. Arrived at Handley Cross, he fed his hounds, dressed his horse, and then, paying a visit to each of his masters, respectfully resigned the situation of “huntsman to the committee of management of the Handley Cross fox-hounds.”
