Complete Works of R S Surtees

by R S Surtees

  Some men “stand fire” better than others.

  We remember once dining at a great Russian Jew’s, whose drawing-room table was garnished with nothing but New Monthly Magazines — New Monthly Magazines in every stage of life, from the well-thumbed “yearling,” down to the newly-issued number of yesterday.

  Presently the door opened, and Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, the avowed editor, was announced.

  “Shir Edward Shir,” said our host, taking up a number as soon as the baronet’s back had subsided into still life, “Shir Edward Shir, I do not like dis article of yours, on de state of parties, it is far too—” something, we forget what, and so he went on lecturing and commenting on the numbers in succession, till “dinner” put an end to the scene.

  Our former admiration of Sir Edward’s talents was now divided at the heroic way in which he stood fire.

  This digression will have told the reader two things, first, that we don’t want any body to buy this book on the Bluff principle; secondly, that we shall consider it a greater compliment of those friends who do buy it, if they will keep it out of sight, than if they were to parade it before us.

  We now come to the more immediate purport of this chapter. Our friend Bluff’s reproof has made us anxious to give this volume a flavour of usefulness, were it only to save us from the labour of writing a dictionary, but the difficulty is, how to give a work relating so entirely to a pleasurable pursuit a flavour of usefulness.

  In the course of our cogitations, it has occurred to us that the only possible way of doing it is to give a sort of meteorological register of the season in which our friend Tom Scott’s adventures are laid. Tom’s adventures will do as well for one season as another, because, generally speaking, they refer to the sport and not to the weather; but an actual matter-of-fact register may be useful hereafter, and perhaps save some from supposing that future seasons are the worst that ever were known. To do the full measure of usefulness we will begin with a glance at the season which preceded it.

  The season of 1844-5 was perhaps the best hunting one of modern times. The harvest was late, and some packs got little or no cub hunting, but from November up to the last week in March, there was a continuous ran of fine hunting weather, and generally speaking first-rate sport. A snow storm then intruded, but like all spring storms it was of short duration, and April again presented a fine moist favourable month to those who live in countries where hunting can be pursued so late. The summer of 1846 was unusually hot, and the harvest remarkably early. Cub hunting began correspondingly early, as we have shown in Chapter I. of this work, yet, with such a favourable commencement, what an apology of a season it was! What a hoperaising, spirit-crushing affair all through! If we look back upon it from the commencement, have we any pleasing recollection of it, any “run of the season,” any joyous reminiscencè, any realised pleasure, any greenest or reddest spot on memory’s hunting waste, any thing handsome to say of it? Is there anybody to speak to its character? as the judge asks prior to trouncing a prisoner. No one. Let us review it.

  We will begin with November. What was November like? More like a bad March than the glorious, sloppy, poachy, wet-me-through month we have long known by that name. We contend that a free-born fox-hunter has a perfect indefeasible right to have his feet well wet every day he goes out hunting in the month of November. Yet we know we didn’t get ours wet once, and as to a general good soaking, a sort of return when one first sends a shower from the hat by running the finger round the rim, down to the squeeze out of the purply coat tails, and the sucking, corkdrawing blob of the boots, our garments are none the worse for any thing they did last year.

  In fact, we don’t feel as if we had any hunting. True we saw a stud of boots standing ranged like Major Ponto’s library, and a “pink” folded lining outwards, lying atop of the drawers, but they were so seldom used, that the whole thing appears more like those occasional visits that one makes to fairs or country races throughout the year than the compact three or four months into which we compress as much hunting and pleasure as lasts us the twelvemonth. We have had no such winter these ten years. The season of 1836-7 was unfavourable in some countries, and was well cut through in the middle, particularly in the south, by a tremendous snow storm, but it did not arrive till Christmas Day, a period when nobody has any right to object. The papers of that day said, that “On the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth of December the country generally was visited by a fall of snow, heavier and more serious in its consequence than has been experienced for many years, which not only put a stop to hunting, but interrupted the internal communication of the country.” The great storm, however, was only of short duration, and hunting was resumed in the course of January, and continued in a catching sort of way, now on, now off, according to the arrival of the floods, the frosts, the falls of snow, and the gales with which it was interspersed. Indeed the seasons of 1836-7 and 1846-7 have been somewhat alike, with the qualification, that the latter being the freshest in our recollection, of course appears the worst of the two. There was snow in the middle of April, 1837, but we have had snow at Epsom races since then, which of course throws the April performance into the shade. There was a long stop to hunting in 1838, but we had better say nothing about it, lest we should rouse young 1848 to retaliate. We will therefore just stick to our text, the season 1846-7.

  November we have seen through. We now come to December. What shall we say of December? Oh lauk! up to the hocks in snow all the month. But we will take the rough outline as booked in our pocket-book. Thus it stands. We should, however, premise that November went out with snow. The twenty-ninth and thirtieth have that ominous word opposite their dates. December entered with a hard frost atop of the snow, which continued throughout the first week. On the seventh there was a thaw, which lasted till the ninth. The tenth brought a hard frost with more snow; the eleventh ditto with more ditto; the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth, ditto in the way of frost; on the eighteenth came another thaw, which on the nineteenth was very rapid, and continued on to the twenty-third, when, with Thursday the twenty-fourth, came a hard frost, backed on the twenty-fifth by more snow, and so the month continued to the end, with the trifling variation of a make-believe thaw on the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth. Not a day’s hunting throughout a month!

  The new year opened doubtfully. We had alternate snow and thaw for the first week. The seventh of January we have booked as wet. But what ominous words follow! — Ninth, frosty; tenth, frost; eleventh, hard frost; twelfth, very hard — and so on from the twelfth to the twentieth without variation, save that the words “and snow” are added to the last day. Twenty-first was frost and snow, twenty-second ditto and sleet, twenty-third ditto, twenty-fourth very cold rain and high wind, twenty-fifth thaw, twenty-sixth thaw continued, with the usual ominous predictions resulting from the snow still lying on the hill tops, the twenty-seventh was very fine, and hounds began to stir again, but the month closed with a white frost and snow on the evening of the thirty-first. So much for January.

  February the first has the word “snow” booked opposite to it; the second has “more snow and frost” affixed to it; the third and fourth have “frost;” the fifth, “thaw;” the sixth, “thaw, changing to frost at night;” the seventh the ominous words “hard frost;” the eighth is distinguished by the words “bitter frost;” the ninth ditto; the tenth has “snow” to it; the eleventh, “more snow;” the twelfth, “frost;” which appears to have continued to the fourteenth, when there came a thaw, followed on the fifteenth by a frost, succeeded again on the sixteenth by a thaw, which lasted till about the end of the month — the twenty-seventh — the day on which our pocket book says “hare-hunting ends,” though Mr. Trumper says “it does nothing of the sort,” for he reckons a March hare as good as most foxes. March we do not expect much from, and therefore have not much right to find fault with it. It is generally a worse month than either January or April, supposing all countries admitted of hunting in April. This ye
ar we had snow in the second week, making the fourth winter of the season, and there was frost enough to stop hounds in many parts about the middle of the month. In the third week the fallows were flying, and the ground was too dry for any thing but farming towards the end. April, however, rectified that, for the smiling month, entered with another fall of snow, the fifth, winter of the season, which continued to fall at night and clear off during the day for the first three or four days. So we think we may say the season was a very bad one.

  And now having said our utilitarian say, we will conclude this chapter, and finish our volume with a description of Tom Scott’s visit to the man who provoked it.

  CHAP. XVI.

  THE MORNING MEET.

  OUR FRIEND TOM had put his red coat to bed, that is to say, in the topmost drawer of the wardrobe, and had commenced stripping his horses, when he got the following note from his friend, Sylvanus Bluff: ——

  “DEAR SCOTT,— “Cavil House.

  “I’m worried alive with Mr. Neville’s foxes, and heartily wish you’d come over and kill me some of them, for I really think they won’t leave me a lamb, or a goose, or a head of game about the place. I have written to Mr. Neville and Old Ben till I’m tired, and it’s perfectly ridiculous expecting me to preserve foxes, which I do most sedulously, when they never come near to hunt them. I have therefore got the Scratchley dogs coming over on Thursday, and we are going to turn out by daybreak to see what we can do with a drag. I wish you would come over and assist, as you know more about these things than I do. Dinner at six. —

  “Yours sincerely,

  “S. BLUFF.”

  Bluff — like a great many of us — is a capital fellow in his way — that is to say, if he has his own way — but he doesn’t like to be thwarted; least of all to have any of his live stock injured, or destroyed. Still he preserves foxes; indeed, he calls himself a sportsman — a sportsman who is content with two hunts a year, one in the spring, the other in the autumn. When among non-hunting men, he talks big about hunting, and his doings with the hounds; but when among members of the hunt, he always parades his patriotism in preserving what are a “downright nuisance to him.” Like a good many other men, he never makes allowances for the seasons, and if he has not the hounds at his house when he wants them he considers himself slighted. Mr. Neville not having got to him, had caused him to worry and fidget himself into a belief that he was in danger of being eaten up by foxes; and, partly as an act of self-preservation, and partly, perhaps, by way of what he calls “keeping Mr. Neville in order,” he had invited Sam Jubberknowl of Badstock to bring over the Scratchley dogs. Jubberknowl is a loose fish of a brewing, inn-keeping saddler at Badstock, who, what they call, “heads the Scratchley dogs;” that is to say, is answerable to the tax-gatherer for the ten couple which they return as seven. It is generally observed that half the Scratchley dogs disappear about taxing time.

  When we see a pack of hounds advertised to meet at half-past eight or nine o’clock in the morning, or hear them spoken of in the country as “dogs,” one has a pretty good idea what to expect; and, even if Scott had not known Jubberknowl and his establishment, he would have had little difficulty in picturing the concern. As it was, our friend Tom had often been puzzled to make out whether Jubberknowl is a sportsman, or merely one who busies himself about the “dogs” for the purpose of furthering his other callings of saddler, publican, and sinner. The few times Tom had seen him out with Mr. Neville, he observed that he always came very late, and went away very early, and never passed a public-house without stopping to refresh himself. The latter, however, might be on the reciprocity principle.

  It so happened that Scott was going over on the afternoon of the day on which he got Mr. Bluff’s letter to have a field day on the flags with the entry, and he took an early opportunity of telling Mr. Neville about it, expecting nothing but that he would give Bluff, and Jubberknowl, and the Scratchley dogs, a good blessing for their intended unceremonious intrusion.

  “I’m very glad you’ve mentioned it,” observed Mr. Neville, “for it reminds me that I’ve had two letters from Mr. Bluff about the damage the foxes are doing him, which I have quite forgotten to answer, and Ben has had no end of complaints from Steeltrap his keeper. What can I do? You know,” added he, with a shrug of the shoulders, “I can’t make the season. I should only have been too glad to have gone over and hunted his foxes for him; but we couldn’t go in the snow — we couldn’t go in the frost — we couldn’t go in the wind — and it was no use going when the country got as dry and as hard as these flags,” continued he, stamping upon them as he spoke.

  “But what do you say about the Scratchley dogs?” asked Tom, expecting to get Mr. Neville’s bristles up at the very idea of any one invading his country.

  “Why, as to that,” replied our master, shaking his head and looking very solemn, “I suppose Mr. Bluff must just do as he thinks right. It’s true he always preserves foxes for us, and he has some good covers in the centre of our country, so that it wouldn’t be prudent to quarrel with him. One can’t tell a non-hunting man like him that he shall not do what he likes with his own, and if he does not kill a vixen, he mayn’t do us any great harm.”

  “Perhaps,” added he after a pause, “the best thing you could do would be to go over and see what they do do, and if you should have such a misfortune as to kill a vixen, which is almost the only chance Bluff has of getting blood this dry weather, you could secure the cubs at all events. We are short on the Cannonbridge side of the country, notwithstanding we have killed so few there this season.”

  So unexpected a permission completely staggered our friend Tom, and it was not until he was on his way home that it occurred to him that a visit to Cavil House would again enable him to kill two birds with one stone — see the fun, and consult Mrs. Bluff about the teeth. Accordingly, he so arranged it, and on the Wednesday rode over, “bags and all,” trusting to chance for getting his horse taken care of.

  It was a fine afternoon, the weather every thing that a farmer could wish, and a fox-hunter object to — warm sun, cold east wind, cracking clays, flying fallows, and parched roads.

  When Tom got to Cavil House, he found Mr. Bluff with the now common accompaniment of a country gentleman, a draining-pipe, in his hand, which he flourished about like a fiddlestick, or a field-marshal’s baton. He was in the usual stew of people who have got hold of something they don’t quite understand. We don’t mean his draining-pipe, for with these he is quite at home, but he found that boarding and lodging the Scratchley dogs was not quite so convenient as having Mr. Neville’s well-appointed pack trotted on to his lawn at twenty minutes past ten.

  “Most ravenous devils! most ravenous devils!” exclaimed he, grasping Tom’s hand, and flourishing the draining-pipe like the leader of a band, with his face as red as a turkey-cock’s thropple, and his green cut-away thrown back, displaying not only his striped calamanco waistcoat, but his cotton braces at the arm-holes. “Have lapped up all the skim milk! have lapped up all the skim milk! and now they want porridge! and they want porridge! Glad to see you, however! glad to see you!” and thereupon he again shook Scott heartily by the hand.

  Tom was just going to say, “What they’ve come, have they?” when a most appalling chorus from the back yard saved the question, and caused Bluff to point his draining-pipe towards it.

  “By gad, what a row they make!” said he; “by gad, what a row they make! I really think they’ll drive Mrs. Bluff mad, for she hates dogs any-how, and our youngest boy’s just out of the hooping-cough, and she’ll swear that this will throw him back! and she’ll swear that this will throw him back.”

  Another chorus more riotous than its predecessor filled the air, and echo prolonged the sound. “If we are to stand this all night,” observed Bluff, with a solemn shake of the head, grounding his draining-pipe as he spoke, “we might as well have a menagerie at our door.”

  “Let’s have them out,” said Scott, getting off his horse, “and see if we can
’t quiet them by walking them about a bit.”

  “ — Out!” screamed Bluff. “Out!” repeated he; “but how do you expect to get them in again? We have had to carry them in one by one as it is, and they’ve bitten two of my men desperately. Mrs. Bluff declares they are all mad, and has locked herself into her room, and won’t come out at any price.” —

  “Well, but where’s Jubberknowl?” asked Scott, seeing poor Bluff’s perturbation— “he can quiet them, at all events.”

  “Jubberknowl be hanged,” responded Bluff, “Jubberknowl be hanged” repeated he with greater emphasis— “he’s behaved very ill! he’s behaved very ill! See what he’s sent! see what he’s sent!” added he, producing a dirty slip of paper with the following: —

  “DEAR SIR,

  “I send the dogs, and hop they will answer your purpose. Am sorry he can’t come myself, having got for to go to Croppydock Fair, but Joshua knows all their names, and is very bidly. They had better be coupled before they leave the kennel. —

  “Your dutiful Servant,

  “SAMUEL JUBBERKNOWL.”

  The “bidly” gentleman now appeared, carrying two pig pails in a stable hoop.

  “By Jove, there goes all my pigs’ meat!” ejaculated poor Bluff, inwardly wishing he had let the whole alone. “Might as well have a regiment of soldiers billeted on one — might as well have a regiment of soldiers billeted on one adding, “It’s to be hoped he’ll get them pacified at last — it’s to be hoped he’ll get them pacified at last.”

  Joshua was a stout-set, square-built, drayman-like fellow, of a uniform breadth from the shoulders to the heels; he was dressed in a sort of third-hand suit of hunting things, the cap being a rusty brown, the scanty coat deep purple, the abundant breeches very dirty, and the almost black boots so short and scant as to keep the majority of his swelling calves above the tops. His square, coarse-featured, freckled face was indicative of little except drink.