Complete Works of R S Surtees

by R S Surtees

  “Monday. — At the kennel by daylight. Binjimin, as usual, to be kicked awake. The bouy seems to take no interest in the thing. Fear all the lickin’ in the world von’t drive a passion for the chase into him. Threatened to cut his coat into ribbons on his back, if he didn’t look lively. Mat Maltby recommended the ‘ounds to be coupled this time — condescended to take his advice. Told Bin. not to cry ‘boil’d Lob-sters’ as he did on Saturday, but to sing out in a cheerful woice, rich and melodious, like the boiled-lobster merchant. Axed what to sing out? Why, ‘get on ‘ounds, ven ‘ounds ‘ang (hang) back, and ‘gently there!’ when they gets too far forward, said I. Put Xerxes’s head towards kennel door this time, instead of from it. Worth a golden sovereign of any man’s money to see ‘ounds turn out of kennel. Sich a cry! sich music! old Dexterous jumped up at Xerxes, and the h’animal all but kicked me over his ‘ead. Pack gathered round me, some jumpin’ up against the ‘oss’s side, others standin’ bayin’, and some lookin’ anxiously in my face, as much as to say, which way this time, Mr. Jorrocks? Took them a good long strong trot to the pike, near Smarden, and round by Billingbrook, letting them see the deer in Chidfold Park. Quite steady — make no doubt they will be a werry superior pack in less than no time — make them as handey as ladies’ maids, — do everything but pay their own pikes in fact. Wonder Doleful don’t ride out. Keen sportsman like him, one would think would like to see the ‘ounds.”

  The Journal proceeds in this strain for two or three days more, Mr. Jorrocks becoming better satisfied with his pack each time he had them out. On the Friday, he determined on having a bye-day on the following one, for which purpose, he ordered his secretary to be in attendance, to show him a likely find in a country where he would not disturb many covers. Of course the meet was to be kept strictly private, and of course, like all “strict secrets,” Fleeceall took care to tell it to half the place, Still, as it was a “peep-of-day affair,” publicity did not make much matter, inasmuch as few of the Handley Cross gentry loved hunting better than their beds.

  Fleeceall’s situation was rather one of difficulty, for he had never been out hunting but once, and that once was in a gig, as related in a preceding chapter; but knowing, as Dr. Johnson said, that there are “two sorts of information, one that a man carries in his head, and the other that he knows where to get;” nothing daunted by the mandate, he repaired to Mat Maltby, the elder, a cunning old poacher, who knew every cover in the county, upon whose recommendation, it was arranged that a bag-fox, then in the possession of a neighbour, should be shook in South Grove, a long slip of old oak, with an excellent bottom for holding a fox. All things being thus arranged, as Mr. Jorrocks conceived, with the greatest secresy, he went to bed early, and long before it was light, he lay tumbling and tossing about, listening to the ticking of the clock below, and the snoring of Benjamin above.

  At last day began to dawn, and having sought Ben’s room and soused the boy with a pitcher of cold water, Mr. Jorrocks proceeded to jump into his hunting clothes, consisting of a roomy scarlet coat, with opossum pockets and spoon cuffs, drab shags, and mahogany-coloured tops. Arrived at the kennel, he found Fleeceall there, on his old gig mare, with his hands stuck in the pockets of a dirty old mackintosh, which completely enveloped his person. “Is Miserrimus ’ere?” inquired Mr. Jorrocks, all fuss and flurry on discovering the person of his Secretary. “Well, carn’t wait — sorry for it — know better another time;” and thereupon he ordered out the horses, gave Ben a leg upon to Xerxes, mounted Arterxerxes himself, the hounds were unkennelled with a melodious rush, and desiring Fleeceall to lead the way, Mr. Jorrocks got the glad pack about him, and went away for South Grove, with a broad grin of satisfaction on his jolly face.

  The day seemed auspicious, and there was a balmy freshness in the air that promised well for scent. Added to this, Mr. Jorrocks had cut the left side of his chin in shaving, which he always considered ominous of sport. — Bump, bump, jolt, jolt, jog, jog, he went on his lumbering hunter, now craneing over its neck to try if he could see its knees, now cheering and throwing bits of biscuit to the hounds, now looking back to see if Benjamin was in his right place, and again holloaing out some witticism to Fleeceall in advance. Thus they reached the rushy, unenclosed common, partially studded with patches of straggling gorse, which bounds the east side of South Grove, and our sporting master having wet his forefinger on his tongue, and held it up to ascertain which quarter the little air there was came from, so as to give the pack the benefit of the wind, prepared for throwing off without delay. Having scrutinised the wood fence most attentively, he brought his horse to bear upon the rotten stakes and witherings of a low, ill, made-up gap. In the distance Jorrocks thought of jumping it, but he changed his mind as he got nearer. “Pull out this stake, Binjimin,” exclaimed he to the boy, suddenly reining up short; “Jamp a top on’t! jamp a top on’t!” added he, “so as to level the ‘edge with the ground,” observing, “these little places often give one werry nasty falls.” This feat being accomplished, Benjamin climbed on to Xerxes again, and Jorrocks desiring him to keep on the right of the cover, parallel with him, and not to be sparing of his woice, rode into the wood after his hounds, who had broken away with a whimper, ripening into a challenge, the moment he turned his horse’s head towards the cover.

  What a cry there was! The boy with the fox in a bag had crossed the main ride about a minute before the hounds entered, and they took up the scent in an instant. — Mr. Jorrocks thought it was the morning drag, and screamed and holloaed most cheerily— “Talliho!” was heard almost instantaneously at the far end of the wood, and taking out his horn, Mr. Jorrocks scrambled through the underwood, breaking the briars and snapping the hazels, as he went. Sure enough the fox had gone that way, but the hounds were running flash in a contrary direction. “Talliho! talliho! hoop! hoop! hoop! away! away! away!” holloaed Mat Maltby, who, after shaking the fox most scientifically, had pocketted the sack.

  Twang, twang, twang, went Mr. Jorrocks’s horn, sometimes in full, sometimes in divided notes and half screeches. The hounds turn and make for the point. Governor, Adamant, Dexterous, and Judgment came first, then the body of the pack, followed by Benjamin at full gallop on Xerxes, with his face and hands all scratched and bleeding from the briars and brushwood, that Xerxes, bit in teeth, had borne him triumphantly through. Bang, the horse shot past Mr. Jorrocks, Benjamin screaming, yelling, and holding on by the mane, Xerxes doing with him just what he liked, and the hounds getting together and settling to the scent. “My vig, wot a splitter!” cried Mr. Jorrocks in astonishment, as Xerxes took a high stone wall out of the cover in his stride, without disturbing the coping; but bringing Ben right on to his shoulder— “Hoff, for a fi’ pun note! hoff for a guinea ‘at to a Gossamer!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, eyeing his whipperin’s efforts to regain the saddle. — A friendly chuck of Xerxes’s head assists his endeavours, and Ben scrambles back to his place. A gate on the left, let Mr. Jorrocks out of cover, on to a good sound sward, which he prepared to take advantage of by getting Arterxerxes short by the head, rising in his stirrups, and hustling him along as hard as ever he could lay legs to the ground. An open gate at the top fed the flame of his eagerness, and, not being afraid of the pace so long as there was no leaping, Jorrocks sent him spluttering through a swede turnip field as if it was pasture. Now sitting plum in his saddle, he gathered his great whip together, and proceeded to rib-roast Arterxerxes in the most summary manner, calling him a great, lurching, rolling, lumbering beggar, vowing that if he didn’t lay himself out and go as he ought, he’d “boil him when he got ‘ome.” So he jerked and jagged, and kicked and spurred, and hit and held, making indifferent progress compared to his exertions. The exciting cry of hounds sounded in front, and now passing on to a very heavy, roughly ploughed upland, our master saw the hind-quarters of some half-dozen horses, the riders of which had been in the secret, disappearing through the high quick fence at the top.

  “Dash my vig, here’s an unawoidable leap, I do
believe,” said he to himself, as he neared the headland, and saw no way out of the field but over the fence — a boundary one; “and a werry hawkward place it is too,” added he, eyeing it intently, “a yawnin’ blind ditch, a hugly quick fence on the top, and may be, a plough or ‘arrow, turned teeth huppermost, on the far side.

  “Oh, John Jorrocks, John Jorrocks, my good frind, I wishes you were well over with all my ‘eart — terrible place, indeed! Give a guinea ‘at to be on the far side,” so saying, he dismounted, and pulling the snaffle-rein of the bridle over his horse’s head, he knotted the lash of his ponderous whip to it, and very quietly slid down the ditch and climbed up the fence, “who-a-ing” and crying to his horse to “stand still,” expecting every minute to have him a top of him. The taking-on place was wide, and two horses having gone over before, had done a little towards clearing the way, so having gained his equilibrium on the top, Mr. Jorrocks began jerking and coaxing Arterxerxes to induce him to follow, pulling at him much in the style of a school-boy, who catches a log of wood in fishing.

  “Come hup! my man,” cried Mr. Jorrocks coaxingly, jerking the rein; but Artexerxes only stuck his great resolute fore legs in advance, and pulled the other way. “Gently, old fellow!” cried he, “gently, Arterxerxes my bouy!” dropping his hand, so as to give him a little more line, and then trying what effect a jerk would have, in inducing him to do what he wanted. Still the horse stood with his great legs before him. He appeared to have no notion of leaping. Jorrocks began to wax angry. “Dash my vig, you hugly brute!” he exclaimed, grinning with rage at the thoughts of the run he was losing, “Dash my vig, if you don’t mind what you’re arter, I’ll get on your back, and bury my spurs i your sides. Come Hup! I say, YOU HUGLY BEAST!” roared he, giving a tremendous jerk of the rein, upon which the horse flew back, pulling Jorrocks downwards in the muddy ditch. Arterxerxes then threw up his heels and ran away, whip and all.

  Meanwhile, our bagman played his part gallantly, running three quarters of a ring, of three quarters of a mile, chiefly in view, when, feeling exhausted, he threw himself into a furze-patch, near a farm-yard, where Dauntless very soon had him by the back, but the smell of the aniseed, with which he had been plentifully rubbed, disgusting the hound, he chucked him in the air and let him fall back in the bush. Xerxes, who had borne Ben gallantly before the body of the pack, came tearing along, like a poodle with a monkey on his back, when, losing the cry of hounds, the horse suddenly stopped short, and off flew Benjamin beside the fox, who, all wild with fear and rage, seized Ben by the nose, who ran about with the fox hanging to him, yelling, “Murder! murder! murder!” for hard life.

  And to crown the day’s disasters, when at length our fat friend got his horse and his hounds, and his damaged Benjamin scraped together again, and re-entered Handley Cross, he was yelled at, and hooted, and rid coat! rid coat! — ed by the children, and made an object of unmerited ridicule by the fair but rather unfeeling portion of the populace.

  “Lauk! here’s an old chap been to Spilsby!” shouted Betty Lucas, the mangle-woman, on getting a view of his great mud-stained back.

  “Hoot! he’s always tumblin’ off, that ard chap,” responded Mrs. Hardbake, the itinerant lollypop-seller, who was now waddling along with her tray before her.

  “Sich old fellers have ne business out a huntin’!” observed Miss Rampling the dressmaker, as she stood staring bonnet-box on arm.

  Then a marble-playing group of boys suspended operations to give Jorrocks three cheers; one, more forward than the rest, exclaiming, as he eyed Arterxerxes, “A! what a shabby tail! A! what a shabby tail!”

  Next as he passed the Barley-mow beer-shop, Mrs. Gallon the landlady, who was nursing a child at the door, exclaimed across the street, to Blash the barber’s pretty but rather wordy wife —

  “A — a — a! ar say Fanny! — old fatty’s had a fall!”

  To which Mrs. Blash replied with a scornful toss of her head, at our now admiring friend —

  “Hut! he’s always on his back, that old feller.”

  “Not ‘alf so often as you are, old gal!” retorted the now indignant Mr. Jorrocks, spurring on out of hearing.

  CHAPTER XV. THE COCKNEY WHIPPER-IN.

  “WHEN WILL YOUR hounds be going out again think ye, Mr. Benjamin?” inquired Samuel Strong, a country servant of all work, lately arrived at Handley Cross, as they sat round the saddle-room fire of the Dragon Inn yard, in company with the persons hereafter enumerated, the day after the run described in the last chapter.

  Samuel Strong was just the sort of man that would be Samuel Strong. Were his master to ring his bell, and desire the waiter to tell the “Boots” to send his servant “Samuel Strong” to him, Boots would pick Sam out of a score of servants, without every having seen him before. He was quite the southern-hound breed of domestics. Large-headed, almost lop-eared, red-haired (long, coarse, and uneven), fiery whiskers, making a complete fringe round his harvest moon of a face, with a short thick nose that looked as though it had been sat upon by a heavy person. In stature he was of the middle height, square-built and terribly clumsy.

  Nor were the defects of nature at all counterbalanced by the advantages of dress, for Strong was clad in a rural suit of livery, consisting of a footman’s morning jacket of dark grey cloth, with a stand-up collar, plentifully besprinkled with large brass buttons, with raised edges, as though his master were expecting his crest from the herald’s college. Moreover, the jacket, either from an original defect in its construction, or from that propensity to shrink, which inferior clothes unfortunately have, had so contracted its dimensions, that the waist-buttons were half-way up Samuel’s back, and the lower ones were just where the top ones ought to be. The shrinking of the sleeves placed a pair of large serviceable-looking hands in nervously striking relief. The waistcoat, broad blue and white stripe, made up stripe lengthways, was new, and probably the tailor, bemoaning the scanty appearance of Sam’s nether man, had determined to make some atonement to his front, for the waistcoat extended full four inches below his coat, and concealed the upper part of a very baggy pair of blue plush shorts, that were met again by very tight drab gaiters, that evidently required no little ingenuity to coax together to button. A six shilling hat, with a narrow silver band, and binding of the same metal, and a pair of darned white Berlin gloves, completed the costume of this figure servant.

  Benjamin Brady — or “Binjimin” — was the very converse of Samuel Strong. A little puny, pale-faced, gin-drinking-looking Cockney, with a pair of roving pig-eyes, peering from below his lank white hair, cut evenly round his head, as though it had been done by the edges of a barber’s basin. Benjamin had increased considerably in his own opinion, by the acquisition of a pair of top-boots, and his appointment of whipper-in to the hounds, in which he was a good deal supported by the deference usually paid by country servants to London ones.

  Like all inn saddle-rooms, the Dragon one was somewhat contracted in its dimensions, and what little there was, was rendered less, by sundry sets of harness hanging against the walls, and divers saddle-stands, boot-trees, knife-cleaners, broken pitchforks, and bottles with candles in their necks, scattered promiscuously around. Nevertheless, there was a fire, to keep “hot water ready,” and above the fire-place were sundry smoke-dried hand-bills of country horses for the by-gone season— “Jumper — Clever Clumsy — Barney Bodkin — Billy Button, &c.” — while logs of wood, three-legged stools, and inverted horse-pails, served the place of chairs around.

  On the boiler-side of the fire, away from the door — for no one has a greater regard for No 1 than himself — sat the renowned Benjamin Brady, in a groom’s drab frock coat, reaching down to his heels, a sky-blue waistcoat, patent cord breeches, with grey worsted stockings, and slippers, airing a pair of very small mud-stained top-boots before the fire, occasionally feeling the scratches on his face, and the bites the fox inflicted on his nose the previous day — next him, sat the “first pair boy out,” a grey-headed old man of sixty, whose jac
ket, breeches, boots, entire person, in fact, were concealed by a long brown holland thing, that gave him the appearance of sitting booted and spurred in his night-shirt. Then came the ostler’s lad, a boy of some eight or nine years old, rolling about on the flags, playing with the saddle-room cat; and, immediately before the fire, on a large inverted horse-pail, sat Samuel Strong, while the circle was made out by Bill Brown, (Dick the ostler’s one-eyed helper) “Tom,” a return post-boy, and a lad who assisted Bill Brown, the one-eyed helper of Dick the ostler — when Dick himself was acting the part of assistant waiter in the Dragon, as was the case on this occasion.

  “When will your hounds be going out again think ye, Mr. Benjamin?” was the question put by Samuel Strong, to our sporting Leviathan.

  “‘Ang me if I knows,” replied the boy, with the utmost importance turning his top boots before the fire. “It’s precious little consequence, I thinks, ven we goes out again, if that gallows old governor of ours persists in ‘unting the ‘ounds himself. I’ve all the work to do! Bless ye, we should have lost ‘ounds, fox, and all, yesterday, if I hadn’t rid like the werry wengeance. See ’ow I’ve scratched my mug,” added he, turning up a very pasty and much scratched countenance. “If I’m to ‘unt the ‘ounds, and risk my neck at every stride, I must have the wages of a ‘untsman, or blow me tight as the old ‘un says, he may suit himself.”