CHAPTER III

A CHOKER

MR. SCOTT’S noble friend — for, like most rustics, he has one noble acquaintance, whom he dignifies with that title when he is coming it strong — Mr. Scott’s noble friend, Lord Lionel Lazytongs, son of the Marquis of Fender and Fireirons, says that when Lady Lazytongs’ maid calls him on a hunting morning, and he halloos out to know “what sort of a day it is,” the invariable answer he gets is, “A bad morning and very cold.”

The question seems superfluous; for few men, let alone a tender delicate maid, are capable of forming an opinion whether the weather is favourable for hunting or not.

We never ask any questions, but somehow there are certain indications that give us an idea as to what sort of a day it is before we get to the finishing touch of the toilette. One’s razors give the first indication of a raw ungenial atmosphere; and an eye into the fields or towards the road shows how the country people are clad. If the carters have their duffle coats on, and the poor turnip pullers their thick shawls wrapped across their breasts, it is a sure sign of a raw unkindly atmosphere—an atmosphere warranting the warm-backed waistcoat, if not the lambswool and fleecy-hosiery also.

The November of 1846, to which season the following adventures of our friend Mr. Scott are confined, was the worst hunting November that perhaps ever was known. It was more like a bad March than the glorious, sloppy, burning scent sort of weather peculiar to that month. November is generally the freshest, greenest spot on memory’s hunting waste, but the one in question will be remembered more as a nasty, harsh, windy, mutton-broth, cold-in-the-head, shivering-shaking sort of affair, than for the sterling qualities associated—in a sportsman’s mind at least—with November’s existence.

The fact is, the year 1846 was a month in advance of itself all the way through, and we had November in October.

There was very good hunting in October in many counties—that is to say, the huntsmen and whips had very good hunting.

We will describe a November day of 1846, for the benefit of posterity, should the plates save our work from the trunk-maker or butter-man.

On Monday, the 16th, Mr. Neville’s hounds met at Horndean Toll-bar, midway between the towns of Scrapetin and Skinflint, and having scarcely recovered from a half-suppressed, half-cured, aguish sort of cold, which had prevented his taking the field before, Mr. Scott was anything but pleased at the dull, unblooming look of the clipped horse’s coat, when he went into the stable, confirming the suspicions he had indulged in while dressing, of its being a nasty cold day.

When he got upon the road he found his worst fears confirmed, for the mudscrapings were dry on the north side, and the whole surface of the turnpike gave indications of its being a cold drying day.

The horse didn’t like it, and champed the bit, and set up his back, as though anxious to warm himself with a gallop.

There are some days of so dubious undefined a character, that one may ring the changes with the people we meet between a “fine day” and a “bad day” with the probable chance of success with each, but it would have required an extremely complaisant person to agree that this was a pleasant day—a nice day, or a day deserving any of the various forms of phraseology denoting approval of the weather. It was an arid drying day, with just sufficient wind to send the cold cutting air through one’s carcase. Even fox-hunters—of all men the most merciful and least hasty in condemning a day — could only observe “that it might be better than it looked.” A day certainly may be so bad as to be good for nothing but fox-hunting, but these are generally of the sloppy order, not your withering, dust-raising sort of days. Moreover such a day in November is perfectly discreditable, for the least one can expect is to come home with one’s feet well wet up to the ankles from the slushiness of the ground.

A scarlet coat is generally considered a better specific against cold than the stoutest double-milled broad-cloth or extra strong Saxony; but on this day its charms were gone. Mr. Scott shivered as he went along. The few men he overtook were flopping their arms, or had their mouths tied up in shawls or cravats, as though they were coming from the dentist’s. The greetings were of the desponding order, as if each thought he would be better at home. If Tom had been ordered by the Horse Guards, the Admiralty, the Home Secretary, or any one in authority, to turn out on such a day, how he would have grumbled! What a pretty kick up he’d have made. Nevertheless, there he was, trotting along, trying to delude himself into the belief that it was pleasure.

It must be a marvellous day, or a wonderful country, when the advertisement of a regularly established pack of fox-hounds fails to bring some one. When he got to the toll-bar, Tim Bilk, the collector, had half filled his white apron pocket with coppers, and it was gratifying to see some one looking happy. The hounds did not, neither did the horses, while the quick movement and the thumping of hands against thighs, plainly told how cold it was. A drop hung to old Ben, the huntsman’s, nose, which, as he chased away with his worsted mitten, was quickly succeeded by another. Still many people did not seem to think it so cold as it was, simply, we believe, because it was early in the month of November. Had it been about Christmas, they would have exclaimed against waiting, and showered blessings on the heads of all late comers. Mr. Neville, we may observe, did not even send a horse on; and there, we think, he showed he had not hunted so many years for nothing. In the absence of the master a regent is generally appointed, and some time was consumed by old Ben in expectation of some one either appointing himself or being appointed by the field. As, however, a regency imposes the propriety of staying with the hounds till the end of the day, it did not seem in request, and at last they put into cover without one.

The only drawback to Horndean is its proximity to the towns of Scrapetin and Skinflint. These at times pour forth rather a troublesome population. As a harbour for foxes, as a good place to get away from, and as a cover commanding a run, if a fox does but get clear, it is second to none in the country. Had it been a moderate sort of meet Scott would not have troubled it, but there is no such thing as staying away from Horndean. The cover is about a mile long, with all sorts of lying, timber, plantation, underwood, gorse, broom, fern, every accommodation, as the lodging-house keepers say. The deepest and strongest part is at the end where they meet, the whole hill, or rather precipice side, being covered with gorse in every stage of health and every variety of growth, open here, close there, middling elsewhere, with occasional slides of bluish slate or bare patches of ground, giving the occupants on the opposite side a fine panoramic view of Reynard’s peregrinations. The bunnies, too, are plentiful, and many a capering yard wand goes home on his “three and sixpence a side,” with the full conviction that one of these dotting, popping, burrowing little beggars is the animal he has hired his horse to come out to see hunted.

“Tallyho!” exclaimed Tom Scott. “I declare there he is, bounding out of yon thick patch of gorse, straggling up to the hill top; and now he comes banging down the side like a rocket. Tallyho! Tallyho! Confounded old fool that I am! I declare I am just as keen about seeing him as I was the first time out, and that’s a quarter of a century ago,” added our friend to himself.

What commotion the hunt has created in the lately untenanted valley! The hills are clustered with spectators, and the few leafless ashes by the road-side are crowded with boys. All are agog with excitement, all straining their eye-balls in the hopes of seeing him, and most of them looking the wrong way. Even Bilk has left the gate in charge of his niece, and stolen away to see the find.

“There’s a better scent than I thought,” said Scott, eyeing the pack flying together. Now they pour down the steep hill-side, right on the line bold Reynard has taken. What a crash! what a melody! The old gorse bushes snap under their weight, and the green masses shake and tremble with their bustling. “They’ll have him out before long,” said Tom, and then he began hugging himself for coming. “Never does to stay at home because the morning doesn’t look well,” said he, cocking up a leg and drawing his girths: “shouldn’t wonder if we have a run; and then, how vexed all the follows will be that hav’n’t come!”

And now “hats off” further up shows that Reynard is viewed, but the second whip being there prevents any noisy ebullition of delight. The hounds are working on the line, and will soon be at the spot. He’s on, by Jove! horses’ heads turn to the west, and rising shoulders bob above the opposite wall to where Scott is—he cuts away through the old-established gaps on his side of the dean, for there never was a fox cover yet without its regular way all round, though few people care to learn more than one side.

What a clatter the roadsters make on the opposite side! and how they hurry on regardless of the hounds! —yon gentleman in the linen trousers on the runaway chestnut is going at score.

In vain the huntsman shouts, in vain the whip imprecates—on, on, he goes, like Gilpin, and, in all probability, with a similar result.

They say that every woman has one chance of being married, and every fox one chance of breaking cover, and we believe this fox had every intention of going, if it hadn’t been for this genius. There is a narrow gulley near the west end of the dean that nine flying foxes out of ten emerge by, facing as fine a tract of open country, chiefly pasture, as eye can traverse, but the chestnut got there first, and Reynard declined following. A fox, like a sovereign, must be first or nowhere. It’s all nonsense depriving him of precedence—people who go out hunting must make up their minds to let the fox go first.

A cold east wind shivered a chill of disappointment, as the field, on turning their horses’ heads to the now baffled hounds, met it careering up the valley. The warmth of excitement seemed to die out all at once. The hounds even seemed disappointed, and came lagging along, now on the scent, now off, in a far different style to what they had flown with the first outburst of joy, produced by a close proximity to the brush. Who doesn’t know the result of such a mishap as this? Who doesn’t know the blighting influence such a catastrophe has on the spirits of the field? how what might have been the finest day that ever was seen becomes tainted with the title we have placed at the head of our paper?

The sportsmen were presently all back in their places, just like people who had gone out of a French theatre between acts. There was old Ben with a fresh drop on his nose, yoicking his hounds, himself and his horse embedded in gorse—there was the second whip again standing erect in his stirrups, looking out for a view—and Tom, the first whip, was back on our friend Scott’s side of the dean, ready to attend Reynard away should he be inclined for a trip to the south.

Up and down, and round about, the hounds worked him, the scent getting weaker, and the ground getting worse the more it was foiled. Now they’d give it up, and now they wouldn’t; now Ben viewed him, and now Joe, but Tom and Mr. Scott, who sat on the opposite side, saw that the chance of getting him away again grew worse and worse.

“Some may call this fox a coward,” said Scott to himself, as he sat eyeing the proceedings, and ruminating on the mutabilities of the chase, “but he certainly has no right to that title for both his performances this day. According to the common doctrine of courage, he who flies at once is a coward, and viewed in that light Reynard would be censured for doing what we want him. He started away at once, and if the linen leggings interposed, that was no fault of his, nor should he be blamed for keeping where they do not come. “I’m not sure,” continued he, “but it requires more courage to stand the efforts of those two-and-twenty couple of slapping hounds in that small hill than to fly the country, and take the chance of sheltering hedge-rows, friendly woods, and other contingencies. Yet we call the fox a coward for not running away. The doctrine of fox courage is not clearly defined. The doctrine of cold is, though,” continued he, sneezing and shrugging up his shoulders as the keen wind took him across the back.

“Thank God! there’s old Ben putting his horn to his mouth at last,” exclaimed he, and the clear shrill noise sounded through the country. The willing hounds gladly left the unkindly gorse, and came straggling up to Ben’s horse’s heels.

“If it wasn’t that I have broken into the day, and shouldn’t be able to settle to anything after, I’d go home,” said Scott to himself; “for there’s no sure find within four miles of this, and the day is getting colder, and the wind higher.” Moreover the day, without being absolutely stormy, was just boisterous enough to prevent hounds hearing, and consequently bad enough to prevent hunting.

The choice now lay between Hunter’s Oak Spinney and Kenley Gorse—the one being in Scott’s way home, the other out of it. Of course they chose the one out of it, and after four miles’ trot, trot, bump, bump, at that most uncomfortable postboy pace that hounds jog from cover to cover, they arrived at the gorse just in time to see two shooters emerge from it.

We need hardly say they drew it blank; indeed, after so much gorse work, we were only surprised that Ben drew it at all; but huntsmen must make out a day somehow when master is absent, and that with as little unnecessary disturbance of country as possible.

Farmer Buckwheat then came up, and assured Ben that he had seen a fox an hour before rolling on his neighbour Rush’s fallow—a piece of intelligence that Ben eagerly availed himself of, and drew the hounds across and across as though he really expected to find him.

That performance being over, and eleven redcoats remaining, nine of whom lived to the north, Ben announced his intention of drawing Parkham Bush Dean, a most impracticable cover, to the south—impracticable at least in as far as getting foxes away is concerned—an intimation that acted like lightning upon the field, causing the red-coats to stop short, those who had comforters in their pockets to tie up their mouths, those who had warm gloves to produce them from their horses’ girths, and all to make preparations for cutting home,—declaring that they had had enough, and that it was the most beastly day they had ever been out in.

Cold, dejected, cheerless, dispirited, and chilled, our friend sought his solitary home, and having got rid of an hour in the stable, at last found himself in the old red morocco chair with cane sides that has grown old, and tattered, and shabby in his service. There, as he dozed over the fire, with the melancholy light of a pair of mutton fats, he reviewed the flight of life, and glanced at the prospect of the future.

“Hunting,” said he, “has been the balm and charm of my youth—it has solaced the seclusion of my summers, and delighted the retirement of my winters; but, hang it, if this November is to be taken as a sample of what’s to come, it’s precious little use persevering in the line.”

Thereupon he gave a tremendous sneeze.

“What a fool I was to go out on such a day!” continued he, burying his face in a capacious bandana,” “far more likely to increase a cold than to cure one.” A-whitz — a-whitz — a-whitz —“regularly in for it, and nobody to nurse one. Poor Lydia Clifton? If it hadn’t been for this hunting I’d have married you long since.” A-whitz — a-whitz — a-whitz. “James!” hallooed he to the boy he now heard fistling in the passage, “take a foot-bath full of hot water upstairs directly—boiling! d’ye hear? I really think I’ll give up hunting and marry her still,” added Tom, rising from the morocco chair, “for it’s no use keeping horses for such work as this.” So saying, he stumped upstairs, to parboil his feet and think over the pro’s and con’s of matrimony.