Complete Works of R S Surtees

by R S Surtees

  At nine o’clock, half blinded, half baked, and quite bothered, Mr. Jorrocks gave the signal for leaving the meet. It was a wildish sort of try, and every farmer having recently seen a fox at some distance from his own farm, James Pigg just run the hounds through turnip-fields, along dike-backs as he called the hedge-rows, and through any little spinneys that came in his way, till he got them to Bleberry Gorse. What a change had come over the hounds since last they were there! Instead of the eager dash in, they trotted up to it, and not above half the hounds could be persuaded to enter.

  “Eleu in, mar cannie hinnies!” holloaed James Pigg, standing erect in his stirrups, and waving his cap; but the “cannie hinnies” didn’t seem to care about it, and stood looking him in the face, as much as to say so. “Hoic in there, Priestess! Hoic in!” continued he, trotting round the cover, and holding them at the weak places, in hopes of striking a scent. “Ne fox here,” said Pigg to himself, watching the waving of the gorse as the hounds worked leisurely through it. “Ne great odds, either,” continued he; “could mak nout on him if there was.”

  “Where will you go to next, James?” inquired Mr. Jorrocks, coming up, horn in hand, preparing to call his hounds out of cover.

  “A! ar dinna ken, ar’s sure,” replied Pigg; “mak’s little odds ar think — might as well hunt o’er a pit-heap, as i’ seck a country as this,” looking at the baked fallows round about.

  “Well, never mind,” replied Mr. Jorrocks, “this is our last day, and high time it was; but we mustn’t let it be blank, if we can ‘elp it — so let’s try Sywell plantation — the grass at all ewents will carry a scent, and I should like to hear the Jenny Linds again afore we shut up, if it was only for five minutes.”

  Out went the horns — Mr. Jorrocks determined to have a blow, if he could have nothing else, and the hounds came straggling out of cover, some lying down at his horses’ heels, others staring listlessly about.

  “Never saw such a slack pack in my life,” exclaimed Captain Shortflat, eyeing them as he spoke: “I wonder what Scrutator would say if he saw them! Never saw such a listless lot of animals — glad I’ve not wasted my season by hunting with them.”

  Captain Shortflat’s opinion was caught by Master Weekly (at home for the measles), who immediately sported it as his own to his school-fellow, Master Walker (at home for the hooping-cough); and it at length coming to Mr. Bateman’s ears, he immediately attributes their slackness to the fact of their being fed on meal before hunting, which of course he considered was done to save flesh, and thereupon Mr. Jorrocks is voted an uncommon great screw. Meanwhile our master, unconscious of the verdict, goes on at a very easy pace, feeling that a hot sun and a red coat are incompatible.

  Sywell plantations are blank, Layton spinney ditto; then they take a three-miles’ saunter to Simonswood, where they find a hare, and at two o’clock Mr. Jorrocks announces that he will draw Warrington Banks, which is the last cover in his draw, and then give in. Some sportsmen go home, others go on, among the number Captain Shortflat, who meditates an article in “Bell’s Life” on “Slackness in general, and Handley Cross slackness in particular.”

  The sun is very powerful, and Mr. Jorrocks gives his hounds a lap at a stream before putting them into cover. Warrington Banks are irregularly fringed with copsewood, intermixed with broom and blackthorn: lying warm to the sun, the grass grows early, and Old Priestess and Rummager feather across a glade almost immediately on entering. Presently there is a challenge — another — then a third, and the chorus swells. Mr. Jorrocks listens with delight, for though a kill is hopeless, still a find is fine — Captain Shortflat turns pale.

  The hounds work on, bristling into the thick of the cover. Now they push through an almost impenetrable thicket, and cross a ride beyond. The chorus increases, but the hounds move not. “Who-hoop! it’s a kill.”

  Now Pigg jumps off his horse, and leaving him to chance, bounds over head among the underwood. His cap-top is just visible as he scrambles about in search of the place. “To the right!” exclaims Mr. Jorrocks, seeing him blindly pushing the wrong way— “make for the big hash a top of the crag and you’ll have ’em.”

  On Pigg goes, swimming, as it were, through the lofty gorse and brushwood, and his well-known who-hoop! sounds from the bottom of the crag.

  “Bravo!” exclaims Mr. Jorrocks, chucking his hat in the air. (He could not afford to kick out the crown.)

  “Delightful!” lisps Captain Shortflat, wringing Mr. Jorrocks’ hand.

  “A glorious finish!” rejoined Mr. Jorrocks, pocketing his wig.

  “Charming, indeed!” exclaims Captain Shortflat, resolving to call it twenty minutes.

  “Catch Pigg’s horse!” cries Mr. Jorrocks to a boy, the animal having taken advantage of the commotion to make his way to the well.

  After a longish pause, during which there appeared to be a considerable scuffle going on, Pigg’s voice is at length heard calling his hounds out of cover; and as his head pops above the bushes, Mr. Jorrocks exclaims, “Is’t a dog, Pigg!”

  “Yeas,” replies James,— “a banger tee.”

  “Capital, indeed!” lisps Captain Shortflat; “I’ll take a pad, if you please.”

  “There arn’t none!” exclaims James Pigg, appearing with his purpletailed coat torn in three places, and several of the hounds bleeding about the mouth. “Hounds were sae desp’rate savish, thought they’d eat me;” adding, with a wink, in an undertone to his master, “It’s nobbut a hedgehog, and ar’s gettin’ him i’ my pocket!”

  Captain Shortflat, however, is so delighted with the kill and with his own keenness in having stayed, that he forthwith lugs out five shillings for James Pigg, declaring it was perfectly marvellous that hounds should be able to run on such a day — let alone kill; that he never saw a pack behave better in his life— “Uncommon keen, to be sure!” repeated he; “declare the tips of their tails are red with blood.”

  The last day closes — Mr. Jorrocks lingers on the ride, eyeing his hounds coming to the horn, till at last all are there, and he has no other excuse for staying; with a pensive air he then turns his horse’s head for Handley Cross.

  CHAPTER LV. PRESENTATION OF THE PIGG TESTIMONIAL.

  THE PIGG TESTIMONIAL became the fashion at Handley Cross. Every subscriber, no matter how little he had given, wanted to control the total expenditure. One thought a silver salver with a suitable inscription would be the thing, another thought a highly-mounted silver horn, a third a silver cup with the Pigg arms emblazoned thereon, a fourth suggested a portrait of Pigg by an eminent local artist, while a fifth inquired if there was a Mistress Pigg, in order that they might present her with a bracelet, an armlet, or some such suitable tribute. The trading subscribers were anxious to turn the tide of benevolece into their own peculiar lines. Selvage, the tailor, thought it was of no use sharing the subscription with Frostwork, the silversmith, who would charge them nobody knew what for pattern, and fashion, and fiddle-stick; while a good suit of clothes — say a blue coat with bright buttons, a Berlin vest, with a pair of Oxford diagonal rib trousers with black stripes down the sides — would be a far more useful and sensible present than a cartload of plate to a man without a sideboard. Bunion, the bootmaker, thought a pair of new tops, or a pair of tops and a pair of Wellingtons, would be more in character for a huntsman; while De Pledge, the pawnbroker, who had a very elegant ormolu eight-light candelabrum up the spout, wanted to make the payment of his half-crown contingent on their taking it. Then Frostwork, on his part, insisted that the correct testimonial to a huntsman was a coffee and tea-pot, sugar basin, and cream-ewer, with some sporting emblematical device engraved thereon, and spoke of a very nice set he could let the committee have very reasonable, and which was fit to grace the table of the first nobleman in the land.

  Unfortunately, however, for all their schemes and calculations, the money melted almost as fast as it was collected.

  The two suppers a week ran away with nearly all that the active committee didn’t run
away with themselves, the usual allowance of twenty percent, for non-payig subscribers being taken into account.

  This was rather an awkward circumstance, no testimonial being perfect without a presentation; and Handley Cross of all places being the last that could afford to dispense with any excitement-giving proceeding.

  As usual, those who had given the least made the most noise, and it very soon became evident that nothing but a public presentation would satisfy the expectations of the place. The “Paul Pry” had inadvertently magnified our huntsman into a hero, and as it was rumoured that he was likely to recover the money his “fore elder John” had deprived him of, he began to be looked upon, by the fair sex in particular, as a gentleman in disguise. Some even hinted that he was the rightful owner of Balmoral. The more the thing was talked about, the more impossible it became to avoid letting people see to the application of their money; and at length it was settled that the testimonial, which the committee insisted on selecting themselves, should be presented at a half-crown six o’clock meal, which would serve the aristocracy for a dinner, and the democracy for a supper.

  Mr. De Pledge, the pawnbroker, who had the care of a very extensive assortment of first-rate jewellery, agreed to job a handsome gold watch with a Watherston and Brogden chain, provided he were allowed to strip Pigg of the same when the party broke up; and these preliminaries being arranged, they began to look about for a chairman. This was rather a difficult point, it requiring a gentleman, while the “Salmon,” though extremely comfortable, was only, as its tariff shows, a second or third-rate house. Many gentlemen were named, but there were objections raised to them all. One couldn’t speak, another couldn’t drink; a third, Pigg or some of them had insulted; while a fourth was so entirely a townsman, that he would be sure to keep the country people away. At last they hit upon Puppy Cackler, as he was improperly called, a sort of social bat hovering between town and country. The country people wouldn’t have him, and he wouldn’t have the townspeople, so between the two he was badly off for society. Before Handley Cross became what it is, his place, Vernal Court, was in the country, and he had no notion of losig caste because the town had chosen to build up to it.

  At first he demurred to taking the chair, because, though the hunt might be considered a country thing, yet the testimonial was a town one.

  However, his great natural love of a let-off prevailed, and he consented to preside, first informing himself as accurately as he could, for he was no sportsman, of Mr. Pigg’s habits and antecedents.

  The walls of Handley Cross then became alive with red-lettered bills, announcing that

  HORATIO CACKLER, ESQUIRE, OF VERNAL COURT, would present the PIGG TESTIMONIAL at the SALMON HOTEL

  at six o’clock on Thursday evening, and forthwith the dandified Horatio began to comb out his words, and string together his sentences in his usual inflated much-ado-about-nothing style.

  The committee had then to bestir themselves to prepare Pigg both outwardly and inwardly for the occasion — outwardly in the way of clothes, and inwardly in the way of a speech expressive of his gratitude. As they thought to catch a few more subscribers by making out that there was still a slight deficiency in the price of the Watherston and Brogden chain, it was at first proposed to dress Pigg up as a Highlander; but our friend rebelled and libelled the costume in terms not fit to be reproduced. His own wardrobe, consisting of the clothes in which Mr. Jorrocks hired him (vide ), being clearly inapplicable, his hunting ones were then canvassed; but considering that he was to appear in the character of an out-of-luck gentleman, it was determined to draw on De Pledge’s ample stores for a becoming suit.

  The speech was the most difficult thing to manage, for though Taws, the schoolmaster, wrote him out several most appropriate ones, Pigg could never be induced to get one by heart, relying, like many untried orators, on the occasion supplying the needful.

  Whenever Taws came to get him to recite, he was always too busy to attend to him.

  On the appointed day, Batsay having borrowed one of Mr. Jorrocks’s best frilled shirts, and Mr. Barnington’s washerwoman having supplied him with one of that gentleman’s orthodox collars, Pigg was seen turning out of De Pledge’s side-door in an uncommon “get up.” Blash, the barber, had cut and curled him, at least what there was of him to curl, while the imposing-looking frill was further developed by a much amplified lace-tipped Joinville, and a broad roll-collared white waistcoat, with imitation blood-stone buttons. From his roomy-sleeved blue dress-coat pocket peeped a cambric kerchief — a thing altogether beside Pigg’s wants, as were the braces that now preserved the equilibrium of a pair of candle-light kerseymeres over his red-legged patent leather boots. A damaged Gibus hat sat at an uneasy sort of half-cock on his head, while he flourished a pair of eighteenpenny lemon-coloured kids in his hand. Thus attired, he proceeded along Columbine Street through Larkspur Crescent to Longpod Lane, eliciting the grinning laughter of the grown, and exclamations from the little boys of “L-a-u-k, that’s Pigg!” “Did you ever?” “No I never!” and so on.

  Arrived at the Salmon Inn, there was such a crowd about the door, that De Pledge and Taws, who had agreed to walk at a respectful distance behind Pigg — near enough of course to prevent his bolting with the clothes — now came up, and with their authoritative “make way there, make way!” informed the starers that the gaunt elbower was the hero of the night. Pigg then pushed through the doorway, and was presently in the bar at the end of the passage, where, finding a couple of glasses of gin on a tray ready for serving, he just swigged them off, and then demanded where he was to gan? His keepers, who were close upon him, now took each an arm, and led him up the crowded old-fashioned staircase, for the “Salmon” was Roger Swizzle’s old original Handley Cross house, to the low reception room — his supporters urging him to mind his P’s and Q’s, and “be’ave like a gentleman.”

  Mr. Jorrocks, though rather jealous of the whole proceeding, had arrived sky-blued and canaried all the same, and was forming part of a select circle round the intense swell of a chairman, when “Mister Pigg!” came towering in after his name.

  The sea of society dividing as Pigg approached, the chairman and he were presently vis-à-vis.

  “Ho’o ist, canny man? ho’o ist?” exclaimed James; “give us a wag o’ thy nief,” tendering his horny fist to the thin-skinned Mr. Cackler. Then turning to his astonished master, he added, “Sink, thous’ beat me here then, ‘ard man!”

  The chairman hearing this, rather recovered the shock of his own salute, and attributing the roughness of Pigg’s manners to the ruggedness of his country, “Caledonia stern and wild,” proceeded to try and ingratiate himself with him notwithstanding.

  “Beautiful weather,” said Mr. Cackler, rubbing his hands as if he was washing them.

  “Varra,” replied Pigg, with a hitch of what he thought were his brace-less breeches.

  “Hope you’ve got a good appetite,” observed the chairman, as the smell of dinner came mounting up stairs.

  “Can’t say ar hev,” replied James, fumbling about for his baccy box. “Can’t say ar hev,” adding— “ar’s ne greet eater at ony time — drinkin’s better for the teeth nor eatin’. Sink,” continued he, still fumbling about for his baccy box, which he had left in his own coat pocket, and catching a sight of himself in the opposite mirror. “Sink, ar wonder what mar coosin Deavilboger would say gin he were to see me rigged out like a squeire, toppin’ arle corled, and sark lap stickin’ out ahint,” Pigg ducking and bending and turning about to examine himself as he spoke.

  “What sort of weather have they in the north — do you hear, Mr. Pigg?” asked the chairman, thinking to fix his exact locality.

  “A, grand weather! grand weather!” replied Pigg; “its arleways grand weather there. Sink,” continued he, speaking full gallop— “Ar wish ar was there — gin ar had me reets, ar de believe ar’d been a gen’lman this day, and hontin’ my own hunds, only you see mar fore elder John you see, John Pigg you see, willed a
rle wor brass to the formary ye see, and left me wi’ fairly nout — gin ye gan to the formary ye’ll see it arle clagged up i’ great goud letters gin the warll,” Pigg fibbing away at the chairman until he got him “clagged up ‘gin the warll” too.

  At this critical moment, Owen Sherry, the landlord, announced that dinner was served, whereupon a bowing match took place between Pigg and the chairman, Pigg not understanding what Mr. Cackler’s motioning towards the door meant. The latter at length put an end to the controversy by running his arm through Pigg’s, and leading him out of the room — presently bringing him to anchor on the right of the chair, with a round of beef under his nose. Jorrocks followed, closely pressed upon by the company at large, who soon filled the not very long, long room of the Salmon. After the usual rushing, and scrambling, and fighting for seats, silence was at length obtained, when grace being said, they fell to with the voracity of fox-hounds.

  The delicate-feeding Pigg astonished the chairman by asking for a third help of beef, after he had had what appeared to Mr. Cackler two most sufficient ones, together with an inordinate quantity of winter cabbage, carrot, and peas pudding. The half-crown only affording eatables, the company were soon invited to give their orders for fluids, and the table presently became dotted with pint decanters, which in a more aristocratic house would have done duty for bottles. The guests then began challenging Pigg to take wine, upon which our friend desired them to send up their bottles, observing “that it was ne compliment to a man to ax him to drink at his own expense.” Thus Pigg, who had bargained for a bottle of rum to himself, got a very considerable quantity of other liquor to the saving of his spirit. Not that he did save it much, for he kept applying to it pretty freely between times, drinking nearly a pint during dinner. So the entertainment proceeded amidst great clamour, and the astonishment of Mr. Cackler, at the manner in which the chieftain eat with his knife. At length the most vigorous appetite was appeased, the clatter gradually died out, and the guests began puffing, and wheezing, and ruminating on what was to follow.