by R S Surtees
The hounds bend again to the right, the stain of cattle rather slackens their pace, and some heavy sticky fallows at length bring their noses to the ground. “‘Eavens be praised!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, easing his horse, and eyeing them topping the fence between the pasture and arable land: “we may now have a little breathin’ time, and see if they can ‘unt as well as run. Oh, the beauties, ’ow they spread! one, two, three, and now altogether — oh, beautiful! beautiful! He’s up the furrow. Where’s Hego?”
And echo answered, “Where?”
Mr. Jorrocks is right. The mock “thief o’ the world” has gone up the wet furrow, to the injury of the firm of Herring and Aniseed, who carry on business very languidly. Old Priestess’s unerring nose alone keeps the pack on the line. Pigg, however, is at hand, with a good idea of the run of his fox, and now carries away a rood of fence as he crashes into the field to his hounds. His horse’s neck begins to stiffen, and there have been one or two ominous throat-rattles, but Pigg hustles him along, and casts his hounds forward to Sywell Wood. What a crash! The feeble whimper that barely owned the scent, is changed into a full and melodious chorus; every hound throws his tongue, and echo answers them a hundred-fold! There’s a rare scent!
The cover being open at the bottom, the hounds are quickly through, and Pigg, catching Benjamin at the far end, pulls him off his horse, and makes a fresh start on the boy’s.
Grass again greets the pack. The red-topped house is neared, and the scent improves. The hounds run stout, though, perhaps, not carrying quite so good a head as might have been desirable, had Ego been near. On they go; and now a sudden check ensues at the corner of the stackyard. The music that lately rent the air is lulled, the hounds having swung a rocket-like cast, stand staring with their heads in the air.
“Who-hoop, gone to ground!” exclaims some one in the rear, anxious for a termination of the enjoyment.
“Not a bit of it,” replies Mr. Jorrocks, knowing better. “Old ‘ard!” roars he to the forward roadsters, who are now getting among the hounds. “You ‘air-dresser on the chesnut ‘oss!” holloaing to a gentleman with very big ginger whiskers; “Pray ‘old ‘ard!”
“Hair-dresser!” exclaims the gentleman, in a fury; turning short round; “I’m an officer in the ninety-first regiment!”
“Then you hossifer in the ninety-fust regiment, wot looks like an ‘air-dresser, ‘old ‘ard,” replied Mr. Jorrocks, trotting on, adding most unconcernedly, “Cast ’em forrard, Pigg! Cast ’em forrard! or make a patent all round my hatter.”
On goes Pigg, making good the line the warmint should have gone. Not a hound speaks! — all mute as death.
“Werry rum, Pigg,” said Mr. Jorrocks winking significantly to his huntsman, as the latter trotted round with his hounds; “werry rum — for once cast back — clear the way there, gen’lemen, if you please, clear the way, who knows but you are right upon the line o’ scent!” cried Mr. Jorrocks to the horsemen who were clustering about, thinking of any thing but what they ought.
That would not do.
“Oh dear! oh dear! that’s bad,” muttered Mr. Jorrocks to James Pigg; “where the deuce can the fool ha’ gone?”
We may here state that Giles Gosling the farmer having seen Pigg and his comrade setting out the line, and not exactly relishing their progress over his wheat a little farther on, had watched Maltby’s coming, and seizing him, drag and all, had stowed him away in his cellar.
“Ar mun just try to cross the line on him,” observed Pigg, pulling his horn out of his boot, and giving it a twang; “put hunds forrard ‘ard, man,” said he to his master, trotting on, and blowing as he went.
“Who ever saw such a cast?” exclaimed Ego, who had now got draggled up; “your huntsman must be mad, Mr. Jorrocks!”
“Ill lay a guinea ‘at to a ‘alf-crown wide awake he recovers his fox for all that,” replied Mr. Jorrocks, with a good deal more confidence than he felt.
“If he does I’ll eat him!” rejoined Pomponius Ego, with an air of importance.
This prediction, coming from so high an authority, combined with the state of the steam had the effect of stopping the majority of a pretty well exhausted field, who all clustered round Ego to relate their daring leaps, in hopes of monthly immortality. “I leapt Dribbleford Brook.” “I charged the ox-fence on the far side.” “I never left the hounds.” “I did this — I did that!” Ambitious men!
With fear and anxiety on their faces, Pigg and his master bumped on, in hopes of hitting off the scent. Mr. Jorrocks was in a desperate stew.
“Oh, Pigg!” exclaimed he, as they got out of hearing, “I’d give the world to finish wi’ blood. If you could but manish to kill him, ’ow gratefully obleged I should be to you and your heirs for ever! You shall drink brandy out of a pint-pot for breakfast, dinner, and supper!”
“Ye said a quart!” observed the man of the north, eyeing his hounds.
Jorrocks.— “Did I? I’ll be as good as my word.”
Pigg. Ords wuns, ard man, fetch hunds on; does think, thou ard gouk, ar can hit him off o’ mysel’?” looking back at the hounds all straggling behind Mr. Jorrocks’s horse.
Mr. Jorrocks pockets the rebuke, and bestirs himself to get the hounds on to his huntsman; Pigg trots on, letting them feel for the scent as they go.
Mr. Jorrocks bumps on, vowing all sorts of vows to Diana, if she will only ‘ave the kindness to assist him that once. He would give her a hat and feather! He would give her a swan’s-down muff and tippet! Nay, he would stand a whole rig-out at Swan and Hedgar’s; pettikits, bustle, and all!
Pigg’s eagle-eye lights up, as a hat is waved near the windmill on the rising ground.
“Yonder he is!” exclaims James, grinning with delight.
“Vere?” inquires Mr. Jorrocks, all eyes, like Gabriel Junks’s tail.
Pigg spurs his horse, and trots on to the holloa.
It is the man, who has been waiting in anxious expectation, and has just shook the fox.
After staring about, Reynard proceeds from a crawl to a trot, and then sets his head for the vale, from which the hounds have just come.
Pigg views him stealing past a plantation end, and lays his hounds quietly on; they quickly take up the scent.
A stranger in the land, the fox goes stoutly down wind, with the hounds too near to give him much chance for his life. As if anxious for the promotion of the sport, he makes for the vale, and the pack come swinging down the hill in the view of the field planted below. Fresh ardour is caught at the sight! Those who ridiculed the cast are now loudest in its praise. They reach the bottom, and fox and hounds are in the same field. Now they view him! How they strain! It’s a beautiful sight. Old Priestess is tailed off, and Rummager falls into the rear. Ah, age! age! Now Vanquisher turns him, and races with Dexterous for the seize! Who-hoop! Fox and hounds roll over together!
Now Pigg crushes through the Bullfinch at the far end, followed by Mr. Jorrocks, who doesn’t even ask “What there’s on t’other side?” Master and man race for the brush, but Pigg throws himself from his horse, and has the fox high in air just as the field come up in the opposite direction. What delight is in every countenance! There is Pigg holding the fox above his head, grinning and gaping, with his cap on one side, his white neckcloth ends flying out, and a coat-lap torn to ribands. Mr. Jorrocks gets off his horse, and throwing his hat in air, catches it again, and then kicks the crown out, while his heaving horse stretches and shakes himself after his unwonted exertion. Lather! lather! lots of lather! Even dribbling Ben catches the infection, and whoops and holloas at the top of his voice.
Up comes Ego, and Mr. Jorrocks, with brush in one hand and crownless hat in the other, greets him on one leg, waving the proud trophy about, and hurraying at the top of his voice, “Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! Allow me, Mr. Pomponius Hego,” says he, “to present you with the brush of the werry gamest old thief o’ the world whatever was seen. Time, one hour and twenty minutes, with only one check — distance, wot you please to
call it. Am sorry you wern’t hup to see the darlin’s run into the warmint! Did it in style!
“Never were sich a pack as mine; best ‘ounds in England! — best ‘ounds in Europe! — best ‘ounds in Europe, Hasia, Hafrica, or ‘Merica!” So saying, Mr. Jorrocks, resuming his equilibrium, presented Ego with the brush, who received it with laudable condescension.
“Now, vot will you do?” inquired Mr. Jorrocks; “eat your sandwiches and find another fox, or eat your sandwiches and cut away ‘ome?”
“Why, for my part, I should like to try again,” replied Ego; “but I fear your horse’s condition is hardly equal to another burst; added to which, there’s a frost in the air that will harden the ground, and, perhaps, damage your hounds’ feet. I think, perhaps, we had better leave well alone.”
“So be it,” replied Mr. Jorrocks. “Here, then, you chap with the nandy legs!” calling to a knock-kneed lad on the other side of the ring; “fatch me my ‘at-crown, the cold strikes through my cocoa-nut.” Having got it, Mr. Jorrocks stuck the crown in the best way he could, and, remounting his horse, returned to Handley Cross in state, and great exultation.
In the evening he entertained Mr. Ego to a sumptuous banquet, the particulars of which are recorded by him in the following chapter.
CHAPTER LII. A BAD CHURNING.
AFTER MANY PREFATORY twangs of his trumpet, the following account of the visit at length appeared in the “Heavy Triumvirate.”
“A DAY WITH MR. JORROCKS’S HOUNDS: BY POMPONIUS EGO.
“All the world has heard of the renowned John Jorrocks — renowned as a citizen — renowned as a wit — and renowned as a sportsman; but all the world may not know, until I have the pleasure of proclaiming it, that I have lately done Mr. Jorrocks the honour of paying him a visit at Handley Cross Spa. But a few words by way of introduction: I first became acquainted with Mr. Jorrocks at a soapey-tailed pig-hunt at Mousley Hurst, which I attended for the purpose of furnishing an original article on our great national sports and pastimes for the ‘Encyclopedia’ the ‘Quarterly Review’ the ‘Heavy Triumvirate,’ ‘Fraser,’ and ‘Blackwood’s’ Magazines; and liking Mr. Jorrocks’ looks, I entered into conversation with him, without his having the slightest idea who I was. I subsequently met him at our excellent friend Ackermann’s, when, on a regular introduction, he fully developed those feelings of reverential awe that necessarily pervade even the most obtuse when suddenly ushered into the presence of transcendent genius, that — means — me. Of Mr. Jorrocks’s early life, habits, tastes, pursuits, &c., I would gladly furnish the numerous and intelligent readers of the ‘Heavy Triumvirate’ with some account, but unfortunately it does not lie in my power to accomplish so desirable an object. Many of my readers will doubtless ask why not? I answer them, because I do not know any thing! Of his present fame, however, there is no doubt; and if he owes his position in the commercial world solely to the efforts of his own head, who will deny that it does him very great credit? An English merchant, in my eyes, is one of the most honourable and enviable of men. ‘Stat nominis umbra’ as the elegant Junius writes, for his name is in a blaze of light. Though some may affect to decry the lustre of civic honour, such sentiments meet with no response in the breast of Ego, who knows what is estimable in commerce as well as in cover. But to my point.
“One day, as I was polishing off, and weaving the quotations into an admirable article on the breed of the unadulterated ‘Genuine Jack-Ass,’ which many of the readers of the ‘Heavy Triumvirate’ will doubtless anxiously look for, I received an invitation from Mr. Jorrocks to inspect the Handley Cross hounds, of which I need hardly inform my readers he is the master. Now, this offer was very kind, and I will briefly explain why it was so. In the first place, Mr. Jorrocks, being a master of hounds, will naturally be supposed to have to mount his own men, and offering me the loan of a horse under such circumstances, converted such a favour into a double obligation. But have I no other reason for expressing myself in this manner? Undoubtedly I have. He accompanied the offer with an invitation to stay with him. Could I be so unwise as to neglect such an invitation? No; for in the language of the classic moralist — I feel ‘Nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit!’ I regret that it was not in my power to go to him overnight, or I should doubtless have been able to present my numerous readers with many excellent jeu d’esprits, or bon mots, from the lips of this amiable man; but I hope the following sketch of our day’s sport will make some atonement for the omission.
“The meet was on Bumpmead Heath, a choice fixture, but though it has the reputation of never failing to show sport, I could discern on mine host’s countenance, as we rode along, an evident anxiety for the result. His conversation at first was strangely monosyllabic, and seeing little probability of getting ‘a rise’ out of him, I trotted on to have a little chat with his huntsman, a fellow of the appropriate name of Hogg. But what an example of a man was he! A great, lanky, hungry, ill-conditioned, raw-boned Borderer, speaking a language formed of the worst corruptions of Scotch and English, intelligible only to a master of languages like myself — a man devoid of the slightest idea of civility or respect, and whose manner would have baffled any one who was to be borne down by impudent assurance. Thank God, however, such is not the case with Pomponius Ego! ‘Yet if my name were liable to fear I do not know the man I should avoid So soon as that spare Cassius.’
Still fame will work its way, and even this illiterate loggerhead, for I question if the fellow can write his own name, knew and venerated the name of Ego. May not I, then, without incurring the charge of vanity, exclaim with the ancient philosopher— ‘Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?’ I think I may!
“From the appearance of early morning I feared we should not have been able to hunt so keen was the frost at the dawn; but the genial influence’ of an extremely powerful sun dispelled all fears, and before we reached the place of meeting, the country had quite laid aside its coat of white. I thought, what language can elevate the charms of Nature, and exclaimed, with the Tuscan poet— ‘Difficile est propria communia dicere.’ Prior to throwing off, Mr. Jorrocks presented the principal members of his hunt to me, by all of whom I was received with marked respect, and, I am sorry to add, that he was also thrown off himself, by his horse pitching him over its head — an accident which I saw once occur to my friend Count Pitchinstern, at his château one morning, when I was chatting, with the charming Countess on my arm. I also remember, many years ago, as my readers may suppose it is, when I say it was in the days of Mr. Corbet, in Warwickshire, seeing Will Barrow, his huntsman — and a better never cheered hound — get precisely a similar fall, at the same time of day, just as he was turning his horse’s head for the cover, and strange to say, I observed Mr. Jorrocks acted just as Will did on that occasion — he scrambled up as quick as he could, and remounted his horse.
“Now, then, for the sport! We quickly found our fox, and the scent being good, he soon saw it prudent to leave the cover and try his fortune in the open. The hounds got well together, and every thing seemed indicative of sport, when one of those ‘untoward events’ to which all countries are liable, occurred, and completely changed the aspect of affairs. The fox was shamefully headed by a man at work, forced from his line — one of the best he possibly could have selected — and driven upon ground all foiled with the stain of sheep and cattle. Seeing what had occurred, I pulled up in perfect despair, and almost vowed I would never come out hunting again. How strange it is that men will hoop and holloa when they see a fox, as though their lives depended on this exercise of their lungs! I have often meditated a paper upon holloas, and the events of this day made me more resolved to execute the intention than ever. The readers of this lively publication may now look for its appearance.
“All prospect of sport being unhappily annihilated, I complacently resigned my place of leader of the front rank, and contented myself with trotting quietly on, and observing the performances of the others. Of those who went well, I may particularly mention a Cheshir
e gentleman, of large fortune, by the name of Barnington, whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making some years since in Oxfordshire, when the late Sir Thomas Mostyn hunted the country Mr. Drake now has, and I was happy to see that the fine hand and nerve he then possessed, had matured, with experience, into the formation of a good sportsman. Mr. Barnington asked me to dine and stay all night at his house, which, I was given to understand, is the best in Handley Cross — every thing done in the most elegant style, which I so greatly admire — and kindly accompanied the invitation with the offer of a mount the next day the hounds went out; but the duties of preparing this article imperatively recalled me to my desk, at home. But did Mr. Barnington do nothing else for me? I answer yes; he gave me some gingerbread-nuts! Unexampled kindness! He would seem to have sat for the picture so felicitously hit off by the ancient bard,— ‘Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer!’
“But I fancy I hear some of your readers exclaiming ‘Get forrard, Ego; get forrard; or you will be having Oxoniensis, or some of the saucy critics flanking you.’ I answer, I do not care a sou for Oxoniensis or any critic on the face of the earth. I will, however, dismiss this subject in a few words. After a good deal of cold and slow hunting, we at last worked up to our fox, and Mr. Jorrocks most politely presented me with the brush, in terms far too flattering and complimentary to admit of my repeating it here. We then returned home. Arrived there, my most enthusiastic friend, who was evidently bent on showing off to advantage, proceeded to introduce me to his bet won hats, accompanying each castor with an account of how he got it. ‘This’ said he, balancing a fine Jolliffe punt on the point of his finger, ‘I won by the Water-Witch beating the Weazel from Wapping to Margate. This’ said he, producing a cream-bowl shallow, ‘I won at my great Maid of Honour match at Richmond — eat eighteen maids of honour while Billy Buttonhole was tucking in ten;’ an appalling feat, my myriads of fair friends would exclaim, were I not to add, that said ‘maids’ are a species of cheese-cake made at that beautiful locality on the Thames. Then a woolley whitey-brown hat was the product of prowess at the ‘Cope;’ a shaved drab, the fruits of his gun at the Red House; a green wide-awake was won at Hornsey Wood, and a horse-hair drab felt at Jemmy Shaw’s rattery, somewhere in Windmill Street. Having got through the history of these, he out with his foxes’ brushes, and proceeded to expatiate on them, each brush furnishing an account of the ‘finest run that ever was seen!’ At length he talked himself out of breath, blew himself, in short; and as he proceeded to arrange the brushes becomingly in the hats, and set them out on the side-board, like racing-cups, against dinner, I retired to the privacy of my apartment, there to ruminate o’er the doings of the day, and think how best I could furnish an account that would delight my anxious readers, and maintain the lustre of a glorious name.
