by R S Surtees
“Dog’s wife!” roared Pigg; “Ne sike thing. It’s a gun, man! Just pop a few shot corns into fox’s hint-legs, and h’unds ‘ill soon catch him.”
“My vig!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, with an air of sudden enlightenment, “I’ve often seen chaps in welweteen with guns at cover sides, but never knew what they were there for. Ah, but,” added he, with a shake of his head, “Hego will be up to the black-bitch rig — No, no, that wont do — no use tryin’ to ‘oax him — it must be summut genuine. Oh, Pigg, if you could but manage to give him a real tickler, so that he might have summut good to put in his book, the gratitude of John Jorrocks should rest with you for ever and ever — you should drink brandy out of a quart pot for breakfast, dinner and supper.”
“You dinna say se!” exclaimed Pigg, with delight. “Let’s see — dang’d if ar ken — yes, ar de tee — run a drag and sheck a bag fox at far end loike.”
Mr. Jorrocks.— “That von’t do — no not it. He’ll be sure to find out, and trounce us to all eternity; besides, if any of the Bell’s Lifers were to catch us, they’d never let us ‘ear the end on’t.”
“Not they,” replied Pigg: “nebody ‘ill find out if ye de but had your gob — start i’ big wood — run drag round — bother him well — then out o’ur big loup — give him summut to glower at, instead o’ h’unds.”
“No, Pigg, no,” replied Mr. Jorrocks, shaking his head and jingling a handful of silver in his pantaloon pocket; “it must be summut more genuine — Tally ho! yonder he goes! then elbows and legs — elbows and legs;” Mr. Jorrocks suiting the action to the word, by straddling and working an imaginary horse with his arms.
“Give him that tee,” replied Pigg; “stick chap up a tree to holloa away — another on a hill to had up hat, and so on.”
“Ah, but so many cuks will spoil the broth, Pigg; so many cuks will spoil the broth. S’pose, for a moment, one should peach! S’pose Hego should find us out! I should sit on pins — on wool-combers — with nothin’ but summer drawers on, till the account appeared, and then I question I should have courage to cut the pages. Oh, hambition! hambition! wot a troublesome warmint you are! Wish I’d let the great man alone.”
Pigg.— “A, man alive niver fear; he cannot de thee ne harm. Let me manish him, — ar’ll give him summut to bragg on.”
Mr. Jorrocks.— “I vish I dirst — you Scotchmen are cliver fellers; but s’pose he should smell a rat, ’ow he would trounce us, as much to show his own ‘cuteness, as to punish us for our imperance!”
“Ye’ve nout to fear, ar tell ye,” replied Pigg, confidently; “ye’ve nout to fear; just leave it arl to me, and had your jaw about it, and dinna call me a Scotchman, and keep thy bit bowdekite quiet — ar’ll manish matters.”
With much fear, and many misgivings for his rashness in asking Ego to come, Mr. Jorrocks at length consented to intrust the management of the day’s sport to his northern huntsman, and the feeder.
By these it was arranged to run a drag of aniseed and red-herring over some of the best of their country, and to turn down a fox at the far end, in some convenient unsuspicious-looking place. The evening before Mr. Ego was to arrive, James Pigg communicated the find, the run, and the finish, to Mr. Jorrocks, with such other information as would enable our master to ride to points without exciting suspicion, and Mr. Jorrocks undertook to say as much to Benjamin as would put the boy on his mettle, without letting him too much into the secret.
Accordingly, when Stobbs left the dining-room to play his usual game of beggar-my-neighbour with Belinda, Mr. Jorrocks rang the bell, and desired Betsy to send in the boy. The latter entered in his usual sneaking way, knowing that he had been guilty of several “piccadillies,” as his master would call them, for which he deserved to be well bastinadoed.
“Now, Binjimin,” said Mr. Jorrocks, eyeing his whipper-in with one of his most scrutinising looks; “now, Binjimin,” repeated he, with great dignity, “you are on the eve of a most mo-men-tous crisis!”
“Yez-ir,” replied Benjamin, wondering what sort of a shaped thing it was.
“That renowned man, Mr. Pomponious Hego, ‘unts to-morrow with our unrivalled ‘ounds, and I would fain give him a stinger.”
“Yez-ir,” replied Benjamin.
“Now, then, you see, Binjimin, James Pigg is a mighty ‘unter — keen and game to the backbone, and thinks he can ‘stonish him. Now, Binjimin, you must lend us a hand.”
“Yez-ir,” replied Benjamin.
“You are werry fond o’ marmeylad,” observed Mr. Jorrocks, after a short pause, during which he considered how he had best put the point.
“Uncommon!” exclaimed Ben, with a grin of delight.
“Well then, now you see, Binjimin, if you hact well your part, obey James Pigg, and do all wot he tells you — if all goes on smoothly and well on your part — wen you comes ‘ome, I’ll give you a pot o’ marmeylad as big as your ‘ead!”
“Crikey, oh!” exclaimed Benjamin, in ecstasies.
“But, ‘ark to me again, Binjimin,” continued Mr. Jorrocks, holding up his finger, and knitting his brow at the boy; “‘Ark to me again, Binjimin, if by any chance you bitch the thing, if all does not go on smoothly and well on your part, so far from givin’ of you any marmeylad, I’ll take you to one of the new-fangled matrimony-shops, and tie you hup with a stout gipsey wench, with sich a small hindependence of her own as ‘ill find you in tons of misfortin’ and black language, fresh from the pit’s mouth, and make you miserable from now till the first Monday arter eternity.”
“Oh-o-o!” groaned Benjamin, inwardly, at the thought.
“So now make yourself scarce, and mind wot you’re at,” said Mr. Jorrocks, dismissing him. Our master then adjourned to the parlour, and endeavoured to compose himself for bed with a couple of very stiff glasses of B. and W., and got through the night better than might have been expected.
CHAPTER LI. THE POMPONIUS EGO DAY.
A THICK WHITE rind powdered the face of nature, and Mr. Jorrocks found himself with a beautiful silver-foliaged window in the morning. Still the evergreens in the garden exhibited no symptoms of a nipping, and as the night-clouds cleared off and the sun stood forth all lurid in the firmament, he congratulated himself on the appearance of opening day. Mrs. Jorrocks, Belinda, Stobbs, Betsy, and Benjamin, were up with the lark, all busy preparing for the great, well-known unknown. A fly was despatched to the Datton station of the Lily-white-sand railway to meet him, and punctual to his time, Ego turned out at Diana Lodge, enveloped in shawls, numerous great coats, and a pair of French-jointed clogs to keep his feet warm. Mutual salutations being over, and having got rid of his husks, breakfast was attacked with a true railway appetite — kidneys, chops, eggs, muffins, crumpets, toast, red herrings, all the delicacies of the season in short, that make one’s mouth water to write, vanished in succession, aided by large draughts of undeniable tea and coffee from “the Lane,” as Mr. Jorrocks calls his place of business. At length they completely topped up, and after begging some brandy to put in his flask, Ego rose from his seat and began pacing about the room and looking out of the window, as men are in the habit of doing who want to be commencing a “New Series” of the periodical occupations of life. Stobbs had a bad headach — or pretended to have one, not wanting to be butter’d.
Ten o’clock came, and as it struck, James Pigg and Benjamin appeared outside the white rails before Diana Lodge, clad in their best habiliments, mounted, and each leading a horse. Uncommonly spicy they all looked, for Pigg, regardless of expense, had generously divided a penny’s-worth of ginger among the four, so that their tails stuck up like hat-pegs, and, as if in sympathy with the horses, Gabriel Junks flew on to the summit of the gateway arch, and expanded a glorious tail to the rays of the sun, at the same time setting up a scream that startled the horses. Forth sallied Ego and Jorrocks; up went the bed-room window for Betsy to look out, Mrs. Jorrocks appeared framed in the lower one, with a face of most rubicund hue, while Belinda peeped past the green and white c
hintz curtain, and had her glimpse of the scene.
“There!” said Mr. Jorrocks, pulling up short at the gate, seizing Ego by the arm as he pointed to his stud; “there! there are a lot of nags for you — none of your cat-legged, tumble-down, kick-me-off, brik-my-neck, split-my-skull beggars; but real seasoned ‘unters, sure and steady, with an eye for each foot, and one over. Binjimin,” said he, turning to the boy, “take up those stirrups three ‘oles, and don’t let me catch you ridin’ like a dragon. Now, Mr. Hego, be arter mountin’ — time’s precious, and punctuality is the purliteness of princes. There,” said he, as Ego got himself into his saddle on Talavera, “you are mounted — delightful! make a pictor for Leech! Gave a mint o’ money for that ‘oss, but I doesn’t care a dump ‘bout money, further nor as it enables one to pursue the plisurs o’ the chase. — Pigg, put Arterxerxes next the rails, so that I may get on easy. Whoay, ‘oss! Whoay!” roared Jorrocks, as the horse began fidgetting and hoisting, on feeling his foot in the stirrup. “Whoay! I say, you hugly brute!” adding, “rot ye, but I’ll take the gay insolence out o’ your tail afore night.” A bold effort lodged him in the first floor of the saddle, and, gathering up his reins, Jorrocks turned Arterxerxes’ head from the house, the horse walking with his fore legs, and kicking with his hind ones, an example immediately followed by the other three. Away they all go, kicking and snorting, amid the renewed screams of the peacock and the shouts of the little boys who had congregated about. “And one and all aloud declare Twas a fit sight for country fair, Far better than a dancing bear.”
The kennel reached, the pack were soon round Pigg’s horse’s heels, and after a few consequential cracks of his whip, and cries of “Go on, hounds! go on! to him! to him!” from Benjamin, as they proceeded through the streets, which, as usual, were all commotion to see them pass, they cleared the town and entered upon the hedge-rows of the country.
Jorrocks now began to feel the full force of his situation, and inwardly wished himself well out of it.
“A niceish lot of hounds,” observed Ego, casually, as he brought his horse alongside James Pigg, “to look him over,” as he calls it; and Pigg, who was rather sprung, instead of capping him, gave him a most unceremonious stare.
“A dom’d nice pack! ar should say,” replied Pigg.
“Humph!” said Ego to himself, “a rummish genius this, I guess — I am Pom-po-nius Ego,” observed he, with an air of annihilation.
“Sae they say,” replied Pigg, turning his quid. “What’s your cracks?”
“What’s your whats?” repeated Ego to himself, without being able to hit off the scent. “Who told you I was Ego?” inquired he, after a pause, during which he kept scrutinising Pigg.
Pigg.— “Whe tell’t me? Why, Jorrocks, to be sure! Whe else should?”
“Whe else should?” repeated Ego, in disgust, “you’re a pretty fellow for a huntsman.”
“Ye’ll be wantin’ a ticket, ar’s warn’d,” observed Pigg, pulling one of his 5s. pink pasteboards out of his waistcoat pocket and tendering it to him.
Ego looked unutterable things.
“Well, my frind, and vot do you think of the ‘ounds?” inquired Mr. Jorrocks, who had had a suck at his monkey, riding up at this critical period. “Some of the real sort for makin’ them cry ‘Capivi’ — all workmen — no skirtin’, babblin’ overrunnin’ beggars kept for show merely because they are ‘andsome— ‘andsome is wot ‘andsome does, is my happhorism?”
“A very good motto, Mr. Jorrocks,” observed Ego; “a very good motto. We shall see presently what they are made of. They seem a goodish sort of hound — level — if anything, rather full of flesh.”
“A werry good fault, too, at this time o’ year, we shall soon work them fine enough,” replied Mr. Jorrocks.
“As fine as Sam Nichol had his, eh? — that poor John Warde used to say a man had only to take his shaving-pot into the kennel, lather his face, and scrape his face with the back of a hound — he, he, he! good joke that, Mr. Jorrocks, eh?”
“Haw! haw! haw! werry good joke, Mr. Hego, werry good joke, indeed — have laughed at it werry often — werry old friend o’ yours and mine, that joke. S’pose it will be due again soon? Shall be ready to laugh at it again when it appears.”
“Mixed pack, I see,” now observed Ego, who had been scrutinizing the hounds as they trotted quietly along.
Mixed pack,” repeated Jorrocks, gaily, adding: “dogs I thinks correct the wolatile natur’ o’ the betches. I ‘old wi’ Mr. Craven Smith,” continued he, “that though the betches are quicker nor the dogs, they do not always show the same sport, or kill the most foxes — another thing is, I likes plenty o’ music, and the betches are not so free wi’ their tongues as the dogs, and sometimes slip away without one’s knowing it, which is inconwenient, as it doesn’t look well for a gen’l’man, ‘specially for an M.F.H., to go gallopin’ ‘bout the country, exclaimin’, ‘‘Ave you seen my ‘ounds? ‘ave you seen my ‘ounds?’”
“That will not often happen with you, Mr. Jorrocks, I should think,” observed Ego, smiling at our friend’s substantial form.
“Not often,” replied our master, with a chuck of the chin; “not often — still it might, and one doesn’t like bein’ left i’ the lurch.”
“Certainly not,” assented Ego; “certainly not — nothing like being on good terms with your hounds and your banker.”
“Nothin’,” replied Jorrocks, “‘specially wi’ sich beauties as mine,” looking lovingly down upon the pack.
“Some fairish looking animals among them,” observed Ego, with up-turned lip.
“Fairish lookin’ hanimals ‘mong ’em,” retorted Jorrocks; “fairish lookin’ hanimals ‘mong ’em; I tells ye wot,” continued he, drawing breath, “if they’re not ‘zactly the ‘andsomest pack o’ ‘ounds i’ the kingdom, they’re the steadiest — the wisest — and the best!”
“In-deed!” bowed Ego, with a supercilious smile.
“True guiders of a scent in ‘ard runnin’, close, patient ‘unters with a cold scent, and as stout as steel.”
“In-deed!” bowed Ego again.
“I’m not a conceited hass,” observed Jorrocks, boiling up, “wot thinks every thing I ‘ave is the best, and if I ‘ears of good blood anywhere, I’ll ‘ave it — as I said afoor, I doesn’t care twopence ‘bout tin, further nor as it enables me to pursue the plisures o’ the chase.”
“That’s your ticket!” exclaimed Ego.
“Sink ye, ye wadn’t ha’ it just now,” observed Pigg over his shoulder, thinking the great man had changed his mind, and wanted his insurance ticket against hunting accidents.
“To hobtain a good run,” continued Mr. Jorrocks, vehemently, without noticing either of these interruptions, “to hobtain a good run, your ‘ounds should not only ‘ave good abilities, but they should be hexperienced and well ‘quainted with each other. To guide a scent well over a country for a length o’ time, through all the hintricacies and difficulties o’ the chase, requires first chop abilities,” added he with a hearty slap of his thigh.
“So it does,” assented Ego.
“Keep the tambourine a roulin’!” exclaimed Pigg, who had been reining in his horse to hear his master bounce.
“Yooi doit! there, Warrior!” added he, with a crack of his whip to a hound that was leading others out of ear-shot.
“There’s a fine ‘ound,” observed Mr. Jorrocks, again arresting the great man’s attention, by pointing out old Ravager, now trotting singly along the footpath.
“You’ll most likely be wishin’ to say summut soapey and plisant ‘bout the pack, and you can’t lay it too thick on to him — Ravager, by Lord Yarborough’s Rallywood out of his Ringlet. Would gladly give fifty guineas a couple for a few more sich. That’s a nice dog too, Fugleman,” pointing a speckled black and white one out. “Fugleman, by the Beaufort Potentate out of Foljambe’s Frantic; so’s that,” pointing to a mealy coloured hound; “Dorimont, by Drake’s Duster out of the Belvoir Blameless.
Dorimont! old bouy!” continued Mr. Jorrocks, rising in his stirrups, and chucking him a bit of biscuit for answering to his name. “Dorimont, old bouy! mind the heyes of Hengland are ‘pon you! In fact,” continued Mr. Jorrocks, sousing himself into his great saddle, and dropping his voice as he took Ego confidentially by the elbow, “in fact, you can’t say too much in praise o’ the pack — Quads neither. I’m not a wain man,” continued Mr. Jorrocks, “far from it — but merit should be noticed, and it’s not never of no manner of use keepin’ one’s candle under a bushel. Is it?” asked he, anxiously.
“Not a bit!” replied Ego, with another slight upward curl of his lip.
Our friends then bumped on for some time in silence, Jorrocks wondering what Ego thought of him, and Ego wondering if Jorrocks was really the liberal indifferent man about money he represented himself to be. Jorrocks was half inclined to ask Ego how he proposed buttering him, lest there might be any mistake, but just as he was going to pop the tender question, Arterxerxes gave such a terrible stumble, as nearly sent him out of his saddle. He then took to jagging and objurgating the horse, which put it out of his head, and by the time he got himself and his horse appeased, he was thinking of his dinner.
As they proceeded, the spangled hedges dropped their jewels — the fields gradually resumed their pristine hue — and on reaching Bumpmead Heath, all nature smiled with the sweetness of premature spring. What a concourse was there! Flys, carriages, gigs, hunters, hacks, donkeys, all to see an author on horseback!
“There!” said Mr. Jorrocks, pointing to the field as they turned from the road and entered the wide expanding common, “wot an ‘unt mine is! Shall present them to you in reg’lar rotation — largest subscribers fust, and so on, down to the three-guinea coves. This little podgy cock on the cob is Latitat the lawyer. Bein’ a werry thick-winded little sinner, they call him Whezey, junior. Yon bouy on the brown, that is fidgetin’ about as though he didn’t like his load, is Squire Barnington, the man wot wanted to be master; he gives fifty. My missis and his don’t ‘it it, but we are werry good friends. He buys ‘osses like a brick, without bringin’ all the relations and frinds of this world to ‘sist ’im. Barnington!” holload Jorrocks to him, “come and be presented to the mighty Hego. This be him, with the bird’s-eye fogle round his squeeze — coolish mornin’ you see, and Hegotists are scarce — keeps his throat warm.” Mr. Barnington and Ego made mutual salutations with their hats. “Hooi, Fleecy!” roared Jorrocks to his secretary, who was poking about among the group on a long-tailed rat of a pony, with a slip of paper in his hand and a pencil between his teeth, “come and pay your devours to Hego, the man wot makes us all famous. This be my sec.,” observed Mr. Jorrocks to Ego, adding, in a lower tone, “Does a little word-combin’ himself at times — signs himself Junius Secundus — you twig!”
