Complete Works of R S Surtees

by R S Surtees

  ‘I’ve hadded a few to them, indeed,’ continued Leather, looking to see how his master took it.

  ‘Have you?’ observed Mr. Sponge inquiringly.

  ‘I’ve made out that you’ve as good as twenty, one way or another,’ observed Leather; ‘some ’ere, some there, all over in fact, and that you jest run about the country, and ‘unt with ‘oever comes h’uppermost.’

  ‘Well, and what’s the upshot of it all?’ inquired Mr. Sponge, thinking his groom seemed wonderfully enthusiastic in his interest.

  ‘Why, the hupshot of it is,’ replied Leather, ‘that the men are all mad, and the women all wild to see you. I hear at my club, the Mutton Chop and Mealy Potato Club, which is frequented by flunkies as well as grums, that there’s nothin’ talked of at dinner or tea, but the terrible rich stranger that’s a comin’, and the gals are all pulling caps, who’s to have the first chance.’

  ‘Indeed,’ observed Mr. Sponge, chuckling at the sensation he was creating.

  ‘The Miss Shapsets, there be five on ’em, have had a game at fly loo for you,’ continued Leather, ‘at least so their little maid tells me.’

  ‘Fly what?’ inquired Mr. Sponge.

  ‘Fly loo,’ repeated Leather, ‘fly loo.’

  Mr. Sponge shook his head. For once he was not ‘fly.’

  ‘You see,’ continued Leather, in explanation, ‘their father is one of them tight-laced candlestick priests wot abhors all sorts of wice and himmorality, and won’t stand card playin’, or gamblin’, or nothin’ o’ that sort, so the young ladies when they want to settle a point, who’s to be married first, or who’s to have the richest ‘usband, play fly loo. ‘Sposing it’s at breakfast time, they all sit quiet and sober like round the table, lookin’ as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, and each has a lump o’ sugar on her plate, or by her cup, or somewhere, and whoever can ‘tice a fly to come to her sugar first, wins the wager, or whatever it is they play for.’

  ‘Five on ’em,’ as Leather said, being a hopeless number to extract any good from, Mr. Sponge changed the subject by giving orders for the morrow.

  Mr. Sponge’s appearance being decidedly of the sporting order, and his horses maintaining the character, did not alleviate the agitated minds of the sporting beholders, ruffled as they were with the threatening, vapouring insinuations of the coachman-groom, Peter Leather. There is nothing sets men’s backs up so readily, as a hint that any one is coming to take the ‘shine’ out of them across country. We have known the most deadly feuds engendered between parties who never spoke to each other by adroit go-betweens reporting to each what the other said, or, perhaps, did not say, but what the ‘go-betweens’ knew would so rouse the British lion as to make each ride to destruction if necessary.

  ‘He’s a varmint-looking chap,’ observed Mr. Waffles, as the party returned from the railway station; ‘shouldn’t wonder if he can go — dare say he’ll try — shouldn’t wonder if he’s floored — awfully stiff country this for horses that are not used to it — most likely his are Leicestershire nags, used to fly — won’t do here. If he attempts to take some of our big banked bullfinches in his stride, with a yawner on each side, will get into grief.’

  ‘Hang him,’ interrupted Caingey Thornton, ‘there are good men in all countries.’

  ‘So there are!’ exclaimed Mr. Spareneck, the steeple-chase rider.

  ‘I’ve no notion of a fellow lording it, because he happens to come out of Leicestershire,’ rejoined Mr. Thornton.

  ‘Nor I!’ exclaimed Mr. Spareneck.

  ‘Why doesn’t he stay in Leicestershire?’ asked Mr. Hoppey, now raising his voice for the first time — adding, ‘Who asked him here?’

  ‘Who, indeed?’ sneered Mr. Thornton.

  In this mood our friends arrived at the Imperial Hotel, where there was always a dinner the day before hunting — a dinner that, somehow, was served up in Mr. Waffles’s rooms, who was allowed the privilege of paying for all those who did not pay for themselves; rather a considerable number, we believe.

  The best of everything being good enough for the guests, and profuse liberality the order of the day, the cloth generally disappeared before a contented audience, whatever humour they might have set down in. As the least people can do who dine at an inn and don’t pay their own shot, is to drink the health of the man who does pay, Mr. Waffles was always lauded and applauded to the skies — such a master — such a sportsman — such knowledge — such science — such a pattern-card. On this occasion the toast was received with extra enthusiasm, for the proposer, Mr. Caingey Thornton, who was desperately in want of a mount, after going the rounds of the old laudatory course, alluded to the threatened vapourings of the stranger, and expressed his firm belief that he would ‘meet with his match,’ a ‘taking of the bull by the horns,’ that met with very considerable favour from the wine-flushed party, the majority of whom, at that moment, made very ‘small,’ in their own minds, of the biggest fence that ever was seen.

  There is nothing so easy as going best pace over the mahogany.

  Mr. Waffles, who was received with considerable applause, and patting of the table, responded to the toast in his usual felicitous style, assuring the company that he lived but for the enjoyment of their charming society, and that all the money in the world would be useless, if he hadn’t Laverick Wells to spend it in. With regard to the vapourings of a ‘certain gentleman,’ he thought it would be very odd if some of them could not take the shine out of him, observing that ‘Brag’ was a good dog, but ‘Holdfast’ was a better, with certain other sporting similes and phrases, all indicative of showing fight. The steam is soon got up after dinner, and as they were all of the same mind, and all agreed that a gross insult had been offered to the hunt in general, and themselves in particular, the only question was, how to revenge it. At last they hit upon it. Old Slocdolager, the late master of the hunt, had been in the habit of having Tom Towler, the huntsman, to his lodgings the night before hunting, where, over a glass of gin-and-water, they discussed the doings of the day, and the general arrangements of the country.

  Mr. Waffles had had him in sometimes, though for a different purpose — at least, in reality for a different purpose, though he always made hunting the excuse for sending for him, and that purpose was, to try how many silver foxes’ heads full of port wine Tom could carry off without tumbling, and the old fellow being rather liquorishly inclined, had never made any objection to the experiment. Mr. Waffles now wanted him, to endeavour, under the mellowing influence of drink, to get him to enter cordially into what he knew would be distasteful to the old sportsman’s feelings, namely, to substitute a ‘drag’ for the legitimate find and chase of the fox. Fox-hunting, though exciting and exhilarating at all times, except, perhaps, when the ‘fallows are flying,’ and the sportsman feels that in all probability, the further he goes the further he is left behind — Fox-hunting, we say, though exciting and exhilarating, does not, when the real truth is spoken, present such conveniences for neck-breaking, as people, who take their ideas from Mr. Ackermann’s print-shop window, imagine. That there are large places in most fences is perfectly true; but that there are also weak ones is also the fact, and a practised eye catches up the latter uncommonly quick. Therefore, though a madman may ride at the big places, a sane man is not expected to follow; and even should any one be tempted so to do, the madman having acted pioneer, will have cleared the way, or at all events proved its practicability for the follower.

  In addition to this, however, hounds having to smell as they go, cannot travel at the ultra steeple-chase pace, so opposed to ‘looking before you leap,’ and so conducive to danger and difficulty, and as going even at a fair pace depends upon the state of the atmosphere, and the scent the fox leaves behind, it is evident that where mere daring hard riding is the object, a fox-hunt cannot be depended upon for furnishing the necessary accommodation. A drag-hunt is quite a different thing. The drag can be made to any strength; enabling hounds to run as if they were tied to it
, and can be trailed so as to bring in all the dangerous places in the country with a certain air of plausibility, enabling a man to look round and exclaim, as he crams at a bullfinch or brook, ‘he’s leading us over a most desperate country — never saw such fencing in all my life!’ Drag-hunting, however, as we said before, is not popular with sportsmen, certainly not with huntsmen, and though our friends with their wounded feelings determined to have one, they had yet to smooth over old Tom to get him to come into their views. That was now the difficulty.

  CHAPTER VIII

  OLD TOM TOWLER

  THERE ARE FEW more difficult persons to identify than a huntsman in undress, and of all queer ones perhaps old Tom Towler was the queerest. Tom in his person furnished an apt illustration of the right appropriation of talent and the fitness of things, for he would neither have made a groom, nor a coachman, nor a postillion, nor a footman, nor a ploughman, nor a mechanic, nor anything we know of, and yet he was first-rate as a huntsman. He was too weak for a groom too small for a coachman, too ugly for a postillion, too stunted for a footman, too light for a ploughman, too useless-looking for almost anything.

  Any one looking at him in ‘mufti’ would exclaim, ‘what an unfortunate object!’ and perhaps offer him a penny, while in his hunting habiliments lords would hail him with, ‘Well, Tom, how are you?’ and baronets ask him ‘how he was?’ Commoners felt honoured by his countenance, and yet, but for hunting, Tom would have been wasted — a cypher — an inapplicable sort of man. Old Tom, in his scarlet coat, black cap, and boots, and Tom in his undress — say, shirt-sleves, shorts, grey stockings and shoes, bore about the same resemblance to each other that a three months dead jay nailed to a keeper’s lodge bears to the bright-plumaged bird when flying about. On horseback, Tom was a cockey, wiry-looking, keen-eyed, grim-visaged, hard-bitten little fellow, sitting as though he and his horse were all one, while on foot he was the most shambling, scambling, crooked-going crab that ever was seen. He was a complete mash of a man. He had been scalped by the branch of a tree, his nose knocked into a thing like a button by the kick of a horse, his teeth sent down his throat by a fall, his collar-bone fractured, his left leg broken and his right arm ditto, to say nothing of damage to his ribs, fingers, and feet, and having had his face scarified like pork by repeated brushings through strong thorn fences.

  But we will describe him as he appeared before Mr. Waffles, and the gentlemen of the Laverick Wells Hunt, on the night of Mr. Sponge’s arrival. Tom’s spirit being roused at hearing the boastings of Mr. Leather, and thinking, perhaps, his master might have something to say, or thinking, perhaps, to partake of the eleemosynary drink generally going on in large houses of public entertainment, had taken up his quarters in the bar of the ‘Imperial,’ where he was attentively perusing the ‘meets’ in Bell’s Life, reading how the Atherstone met at Gopsall, the Bedale at Hornby, the Cottesmore at Tilton Wood, and so on, with an industry worthy of a better cause; for Tom neither knew country, nor places, nor masters, nor hounds, nor huntsmen, nor anything, though he still felt an interest in reading where they were going to hunt. Thus he sat with a quick ear, one of the few undamaged organs of his body, cocked to hear if Tom Towler was asked for; when a waiter dropping his name from the landing of the staircase to the hall porter, asking if anybody had seen anything of him, Tom folded up his paper, put it in his pocket, and passing his hand over the few straggling bristles yet sticking about his bald head, proceeded, hat in hand, upstairs to his master’s room.

  His appearance called forth a round of view halloos! Who-hoops! Tally-ho’s! Hark forwards! amidst which, and the waving of napkins, and general noises, Tom proceeded at a twisting, limping, halting, sideways sort of scramble up the room. His crooked legs didn’t seem to have an exact understanding with his body which way they were to go; one, the right one, being evidently inclined to lurch off to the side, while the left one went stamp, stamp, stamp, as if equally determined to resist any deviation.

  At length he reached the top of the table, where sat his master, with the glittering Fox’s head before him. Having made a sort of scratch bow, Tom proceeded to stand at ease, as it were, on the left leg, while he placed the late recusant right, which was a trifle shorter, as a prop behind. No one, to look at the little wizen’d old man in the loose dark frock, baggy striped waistcoat, and patent cord breeches, extending below where the calves of his bow legs ought to have been, would have supposed that it was the noted huntsman and dashing rider, Tom Towler, whose name was celebrated throughout the country. He might have been a village tailor, or sexton, or barber; anything but a hero.

  ‘Well, Tom,’ said Mr. Waffles, taking up the Fox’s head, as Tom came to anchor by his side, ‘how are you?’

  ‘Nicely, thank you, sir,’ replied Tom, giving the bald head another sweep.

  Mr. Waffles.— ‘What’ll you drink?’

  Tom.— ‘Port, if you please, sir.’

  ‘There it is for you, then,’ said Mr. Waffles, brimming the Fox’s head, which held about the third of a bottle (an inn bottle at least), and handing it to him.

  ‘Gentlemen all,’ said Tom, passing his sleeve across his mouth, and casting a side-long glance at the company as he raised the cup to drink their healths.

  He quaffed it off at a draught.

  ‘Well, Tom, and what shall we do to-morrow?’ asked Mr. Waffles, as Tom replaced the Fox’s head, nose uppermost, on the table.

  OLD TOM TOWLER

  ‘Why, we must draw Ribston Wood fust, I s’pose,’ replied Tom, ‘and then on to Bradwell Grove, unless you thought well of tryin’ Chesterton Common on the road, or—’

  ‘Aye, aye,’ interrupted Waffles, ‘I know all that; but what I want to know is, whether we can make sure of a run. We want to give this great metropolitan swell a benefit. You know who I mean?’

  ‘The gen’leman as is com’d to the Brunswick, I ‘spose,’ replied Tom; ‘at least as is comin’, for I’ve not heard that he’s com’d yet.’

  ‘Oh, but he has,’ replied Mr. Waffles, ‘and I make no doubt will be out to-morrow.’

  ‘S — o — o,’ observed Tom, in a long drawled note.

  ‘Well, now! do you think you can engage to give us a run?’ asked Mr. Waffles, seeing his huntsman did not seem inclined to help him to his point.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ replied Tom, cautiously running the many contingencies through his mind.

  ‘Take another drop of something,’ said Mr. Waffles, again raising the Fox’s head. ‘What’ll you have?’

  ‘Port, if you please,’ replied Tom.

  ‘There,’ said Mr. Waffles, handing him another bumper; ‘drink Fox-hunting.’

  ‘Fox-huntin’,’ said old Tom, quaffing off the measure, as before. A flush of life came into his weather-beaten face, just as a glow of heat enlivens a blacksmith’s hearth, after a touch of the bellows.

  ‘You must never let this bumptious cock beat us,’ observed Mr. Waffles.

  ‘No — o — o,’ replied Tom, adding, ‘there’s no fear of that.’

  ‘But he swears he will!’ exclaimed Mr. Caingey Thornton. ‘He swears there isn’t a man shall come within a field of him.’

  ‘Indeed,’ observed Tom, with a twinkle of his little bright eyes.

  ‘I tell you what, Tom,’ observed Mr. Waffles, ‘we must sarve him out, somehow.’

  ‘Oh! he’ll sarve hissel’ out, in all probability,’ replied Tom; carelessly adding, ‘these boastin’ chaps always do.’

  ‘Couldn’t we contrive something,’ asked Mr. Waffles, ‘to draw him out?’

  Tom was silent. He was a hunting huntsman, not a riding one.

  ‘Have a glass of something,’ said Mr. Waffles, again appealing to the Fox’s head.

  ‘Thank you, sir, I’ve had a glass,’ replied Tom, sinking the second one.

  ‘What will you have?’ asked Mr. Waffles.

  ‘Port, if you please,’ replied Tom.

  ‘Here it is,’ rejoined Mr. Waffles, again handing him the measure.r />
  Up went the cup, over went the contents; but Tom set it down with a less satisfied face than before. He had had enough. The left leg prop, too, gave way, and he was nearly toppling on the table.

  Having got a chair for the dilapidated old man, they again essayed to get him into their line, with better success than before. Having plied him well with port, they now plied him well with the stranger, and what with the one and the other, and a glass or two of brandy-and-water, Tom became very tractable, and it was ultimately arranged that they should have a drag over the very stiffest parts of the country, wherein all who liked should take part, but that Mr. Caingey Thornton and Mr. Spareneck should be especially deputed to wait upon Mr. Sponge, and lead him into mischief. Of course it was to be a ‘profound secret,’ and equally, of course, it stood a good chance of being kept, seeing how many were in it, the additional number it would have to be communicated to before it could be carried out, and the happy state old Tom was in for arranging matters. Nevertheless, our friends at the ‘Imperial’ congratulated themselves on their success; and after a few minutes spent in discussing old Tom on his withdrawal, the party broke up, to array themselves in the splendid dress uniform of the ‘Hunt,’ to meet again at Miss Jumpheavy’s ball.

  CHAPTER IX

  THE MEET — THE FIND, AND THE FINISH

  EARLY TO BED and early to rise being among Mr. Sponge’s maxims, he was enjoying the view of the pantiles at the back of his hotel shortly after daylight the next morning, a time about as difficult to fix in a November day as the age of a lady of a ‘certain age.’ It takes even an expeditious dresser ten minutes or a quarter of an hour extra the first time he has to deal with boots and breeches; and Mr. Sponge being quite a pattern card in his peculiar line, of course took a good deal more to get himself ‘up’.

  An accustomed eye could see a more than ordinary stir in the streets that morning. Riding-masters and their assistants might be seen going along with strings of saddled and side-saddled screws; flys began to roll at an earlier hour, and natty tigers to kick about in buckskins prior to departing with hunters, good, bad, and indifferent.