by R S Surtees
‘Eu leu, in!’ cries old Tom, with a wave of his arm, finding he can no longer restrain the ardour of the pack as they approach, and thinking to save his credit, by appearing to direct. ‘Eu leu, in!’ repeats he, with a heartier cheer, as the pack charge the rotten fence with a crash that echoes through the wood. The whips scuttle off to their respective points, gentlemen feel their horses’ girths, hats are thrust firmly on the head, and the sherry and brandy flasks begin to be drained.
‘Tally ho!’ cries a countryman at the top of the wood, hoisting his hat on a stick. At the magic sound, fear comes over some, joy over others, intense anxiety over all. What commotion! What indecision! What confusion! ‘Which way? — Which way?’ is the cry.
‘Twang, twang, twang,’ goes old Tom’s horn at the top of the wood, whither he seems to have flown, so quick has he got there.
A dark-coated gentleman on a good family horse solves the important question— ‘Which way?’ — by diving at once into the wood, crashing along till he comes to a cross-road that leads to the top, when the scene opening to ‘open fresh fields and pastures new,’ discloses divers other sections struggling up in long drawn files, following other leaders, all puffing, and wheezing and holding on by the manes, many feeling as if they had had enough already— ‘Quick!’ is the word, for the tail-hounds are flying the fence out of the first field over the body of the pack, which are running almost mute at best pace beyond, looking a good deal smaller than is agreeable to the eyes of a sportsman.
‘F — o — o — r — rard!’ screams old Tom, flying the fence after them, followed by jealous jostling riders in scarlet and colours, some anxious, some easy, some wanting to be at it, some wanting to look as if they did, some wishing to know if there was anything on the far side.
Now Tom tops another fence, rising like a rocket and dropping like a bird; still ‘F — o — o — r — rard!’ is the cry — away they go at racing pace.
The field draws out like a telescope, leaving the largest portion at the end, and many — the fair and fat ones in particular — seeing the hopelessness of the case, pull up their horses, while yet on an eminence that commands a view. Fifteen or twenty horsemen enter for the race, and dash forward, though the hounds rather gain on old Tom, and the further they go the smaller the point of the telescope becomes. The pace is awful; many would give in but for the ladies. At the end of a mile or so, the determined ones show to the front, and the spirters and ‘make-believes’ gladly avail themselves of their pioneering powers.
Mr. Sponge, who got well through the wood, has been going at his ease, the great striding brown throwing the large fields behind him with ease, and taking his leaps safely and well. He now shows to the front, and old Tom, who is still ‘F — o — o — r — rarding’ to his hounds, either rather falls back to the field or the field draws upon him. At all events they get together somehow. A belt of Scotch fir plantation, with a stiffish fence on each side, tries their mettle and the stoutness of their hats: crash they get through it, the noise they make among the thorns and rotten branches resembling the outburst of a fire. Several gentlemen here decline under cover of the trees.
‘F — o — o — r — rard!’ screams old Tom, as he dives through the stiff fence and lands in the field outside the plantation. He might have saved his breath, for the hounds were beating him as it was. Mr. Sponge bores through the same place, little aided, however, by anything old Tom has done to clear the way for him, and the rest follow in his wake.
The field is now reduced to six, and two of the number, Mr. Spareneck and Caingey Thornton, become marked in their attention to our hero. Thornton is riding Mr. Waffles’ crack steeple-chaser ‘Dare-Devil,’ and Mr. Spareneck is on a first-rate hunter belonging to the same gentleman, but they have not been able to get our friend Sponge into grief. On the contrary, his horse, though lathered goes as strong as ever, and Mr. Sponge, seeing their design, is as careful of him as possible, so as not to lose ground. His fine, strong, steady seat, and quiet handling, contrasts well with Thornton’s rolling bucketing style, who has already begun to ply a heavy cutting whip, in aid of his spurs at his fences, accompanied with a half frantic ‘g — u — r — r — r along!’ and inquires of the horse if he thinks he stole him?
The three soon get in front; fast as they go, the hounds go faster, and fence after fence is thrown behind them, just as a girl throws her skipping-rope.
Tom and the whips follow, grinning with their tongues in their cheeks, Tom still screeching ‘F — o — o — o — rard! — F — o — o — o — rard!’ at intervals.
A big stone wall, built with mortar, and coped with heavy blocks of stone, is taken by the three abreast, for which they are rewarded by a gallop up Stretchfurrow pasture, from the summit of which they see the hounds streaming away to a fine grass country below, with pollard willows dotted here and there in the bottom.
‘Water!’ says our friend Sponge to himself, wondering whether Hercules would face it. A desperate black bullfinch, so thick that they could hardly see through it, is shirked by consent, for a gate which a countryman opens, and another fence or two being passed, the splashing of some hounds in the water, and the shaking of others on the opposite bank, show that, as usual, the willows are pretty true prophets.
Caingey, grinning his coarse red face nearly double, and getting his horse well by the head, rams in the spurs, and flourishes his cutting whip high in air, with a ‘g — u — u — ur along! do you think I’ — the ‘stole you’ being lost under water just as Sponge clears the brook a little lower down. Spareneck then pulls up.
When Nimrod had Dick Christian under water in the Whissendine in his Leicestershire run, and someone more humane than the rest of the field observed, as they rode on,
‘But he’ll be drowned.’
‘Shouldn’t wonder,’ exclaimed another.
‘But the pace,’ Nimrod added, ‘was too good to inquire.’
Such, however, was not the case with our watering-place cock, Mr. Sponge. Independently of the absurdity of a man risking his neck for the sake of picking up a bunch of red herrings, Mr. Sponge, having beat everybody, could afford a little humanity, more especially as he rode his horse on sale, and there was now no one left to witness the further prowess of the steed. Accordingly, he availed himself of a heavy, newly-ploughed fallow, upon which he landed as he cleared the brook, for pulling up, and returned just as Mr. Spareneck, assisted by one of the whips, succeeded in landing Caingey on the taking-off side. Caingey was not a pretty boy at the best of times — none but the most partial parents could think him one — and his clumsy-featured, short, compressed face, and thick, lumpy figure, were anything but improved by a sort of pea-green net-work of water-weeds with which he arose from his bath. He was uncommonly well soaked, and had to be held up by the heels to let the water run out of his boots, pockets, and clothes. In this undignified position he was found by Mr. Waffles and such of the field as had ridden the line.
‘Why, Caingey, old boy! you look like a boiled porpoise with parsley sauce!’ exclaimed Mr. Waffles, pulling up where the unfortunate youth was spluttering and getting emptied like a jug. ‘Confound it!’ added he, as the water came gurgling out of his mouth, ‘but you must have drunk the brook dry.’
Caingey would have censured his inhumanity, but knowing the imprudence of quarrelling with his bread and butter, and also aware of the laughable, drowned-rat figure he must then be cutting, he thought it best to laugh, and take his change out of Mr. Waffles another time. Accordingly, he chuckled and laughed too, though his jaws nearly refused their office, and kindly transferred the blame of the accident from the horse to himself.
MR. CAINGEY THORNTON DOESN’T ‘PUT ON STEAM ENOUGH’
‘He didn’t put on steam enough,’ he said.
Meanwhile, old Tom, who had gone on with the hounds, having availed himself of a well-known bridge, a little above where Thornton went in, for getting over the brook, and having allowed a sufficient time to elapse for the proper comp
letion of the farce, was now seen rounding the opposite hill, with his hounds clustered about his horse, with his mind conning over one of those imaginary runs that experienced huntsmen know so well how to tell, when there is no one to contradict them.
Having quartered his ground to get at his old friend the bridge again, he just trotted up with well-assumed gaiety as Caingey Thornton spluttered the last piece of green weed out from between his great thick lips.
‘Well, Tom!’ exclaimed Mr. Waffles, ‘what have you done with him?’
‘Killed him, sir,’ replied Tom, with a slight touch of his cap, as though ‘killing’ was a matter of every-day occurrence with them.
‘Have you, indeed!’ exclaimed Mr. Waffles, adopting the lie with avidity.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Tom gravely; ‘he was nearly beat afore he got to the brook. Indeed, I thought Vanquisher would have had him in it; but, however, he got through, and the scent failed on the fallow, which gave him a chance; but I held them on to the hedgerow beyond, where they hit it off like wildfire, and they never stopped again till they tumbled him over at the back of Mr. Plummey’s farm-buildings, at Shapwick. I’ve got his brush,’ added Tom, producing a much tattered one from his pocket, ‘if you’d like to have it?’
‘Thank you, no — yes — no,’ replied Waffles, not wanting to be bothered with it; ‘yet stay,’ continued he, as his eye caught Mr. Sponge, who was still on foot beside his vanquished friend; ‘give it to Mr. What-de-ye-call-’em,’ added he, nodding towards our hero.
‘Sponge,’ observed Tom, in an undertone, giving the brush to his master.
‘Mr. Sponge, will you do me the favour to accept the brush?’ asked Mr. Waffles, advancing with it towards him; adding, ‘I am sorry this unlucky bather should have prevented your seeing the end.’
Mr. Sponge was a pretty good judge of brushes, and not a bad one of camphire; but if this one had smelt twice as strong as it did — indeed, if it had dropped to pieces in his hand, or the moths had flown up in his face, he would have pocketed it, seeing it paved the way to what he wanted — an introduction.
‘I’m very much obliged, I’m sure,’ observed he, advancing to take it— ‘very much obliged, indeed; been an extremely good run, and fast.’
‘Very fair — very fair,’ observed Mr. Waffles, as though it were nothing in their way; ‘seven miles in twenty minutes, I suppose, or something of that sort.’
‘One-and-twenty,’ interposed Tom, with a laudable anxiety for accuracy.
‘Ah! one-and-twenty,’ rejoined Mr. Waffles. ‘I thought it would be somewhere thereabouts. Well, I suppose we’ve all had enough,’ added he, ‘may as well go home and have some luncheon, and then a game at billiards, or rackets, or something. How’s the old water-rat?’ added he, turning to Thornton, who was now busy emptying his cap and mopping the velvet.
The water-rat was as well as could be expected, but did not quite like the new aspect of affairs. He saw that Mr. Sponge was a first-rate horseman, and also knew that nothing ingratiated one man with another so much as skill and boldness in the field. It was by that means, indeed, that he had established himself in Mr. Waffles’ good graces — an ingratiation that had been pretty serviceable to him, both in the way of meat, drink, mounting, and money. Had Mr. Sponge been, like himself, a needy, penniless adventurer, Caingey would have tried to have kept him out by some of those plausible, admonitory hints, that poverty makes men so obnoxious to; but in the case of a rich, flourishing individual, with such an astonishing stud as Leather made him out to have, it was clearly Caingey’s policy to knock under and be subservient to Mr. Sponge also. Caingey, we should observe, was a bold, reckless rider, never seeming to care for his neck, but he was no match for Mr. Sponge, who had both skill and courage.
Caingey being at length cleansed from his weeds, wiped from his mud, and made as comfortable as possible under the circumstances, was now hoisted on to the renowned steeple-chase horse again, who had scrambled out of the brook on the taking-off side, and, after meandering the banks for a certain distance, had been caught by the bridle in the branch of a willow — Caingey, we say, being again mounted, Mr. Sponge also, without hindrance from the resolute brown horse, the first whip put himself a little in advance, while old Tom followed with the hounds, and the second whip mingled with the now increasing field, it being generally understood (by the uninitiated, at least) that hounds have no business to go home so long as any gentleman is inclined for a scurrey, no matter whether he has joined early or late. Mr. Waffles, on the contrary, was very easily satisfied, and never took the shine off a run with a kill by risking a subsequent defeat. Old Tom, though keen when others were keen, was not indifferent to his comforts, and soon came into the way of thinking that it was just as well to get home to his mutton-chops at two or three o’clock, as to be groping his way about bottomless bye-roads on dark winter nights.
As he retraced his steps homeward, and overtook the scattered field of the morning, his talent for invention, or rather stretching, was again called into requisition.
‘What have you done with him, Tom?’ asked Major Bouncer, eagerly bringing his sturdy collar-marked cob alongside of our huntsman.
‘Killed him, sir,’ replied Tom, with the slightest possible touch of the cap. (Bouncer was no tip.)
‘Indeed!’ exclaimed Bouncer, gaily, with that sort of sham satisfaction that most people express about things that can’t concern them in the least. ‘Indeed! I’m deuced glad of that! Where did you kill him?’
‘At the back of Mr. Plummey’s farm-buildings, at Shapwick,’ replied Tom; adding, ‘but, my word, he led us a dance afore we got there — up to Ditchington, down to Somerby, round by Temple Bell Wood, cross Goosegreen Common, then away for Stubbington Brooms, skirtin’ Sanderwick Plantations, but scarce goin’ into ’em, then by the round hill at Camerton leavin’ great Heatherton to the right, and so straight on to Shapwick, where we killed, with every hound up—’
‘God bless me!’ exclaimed Bouncer, apparently lost in admiration, though he scarcely knew the country; ‘God bless me!’ repeated he, ‘what a run! The finest run that ever was seen.’
‘Nine miles in twenty-five minutes,’ replied Tom, tacking on a little both for time and distance.
‘B-o-y jove!’ exclaimed the major.
Having shaken hands with, and congratulated Mr. Waffles most eagerly and earnestly, the major hurried off to tell as much as he could remember to the first person he met, just as the cheese-bearer at a christening looks out for some one to give the cheese to. The cheese-getter on this occasion was Doctor Lotion, who was going to visit old Jackey Thompson, of Woolleyburn. Jackey being then in a somewhat precarious state of health, and tolerably advanced in life, without any very self-evident heir, was obnoxious to the attentions of three distinct litters of cousins, some one or other of whom was constantly ‘baying him.’ Lotion, though a sapient man, and somewhat grinding in his practice, did not profess to grind old people young again, and feeling he could do very little for the body corporate, directed his attention to amusing Jackey’s mind, and anything in the shape of gossip was extremely acceptable to the doctor to retail to his patient. Moreover, Jackey had been a bit of a sportsman, and was always extremely happy to see the hounds — on anybody’s land but his own.
So Lotion got primed with the story, and having gone through the usual routine of asking his patient how he was, how he had slept, looking at his tongue, and reporting on the weather, when the old posing question, ‘What’s the news?’ was put, Lotion replied, as he too often had to reply, for he was a very slow hand at picking up information.
‘Nothin’ particklar, I think, sir,’ adding, in an off-hand sort of way, ‘you’ve heard of the greet run, I s’pose, sir?’
‘Great run!’ exclaimed the octogenarian, as if it was a matter of the most vital importance to him; ‘great run, sir; no, sir, not a word!’
The doctor then retailed it.
Old Jackey got possessed of this one idea — he thought of n
othing else. Whoever came, he out with it, chapter and verse, with occasional variations. He told it to all the ‘cousins in waiting’; Jackey Thompson, of Carrington Ford; Jackey Thompson, of Houndesley; Jackey Thompson, of the Mill; and all the Bobs, Bills, Sams, Harrys, and Peters, composing the respective litters; — forgetting where he got it from, he nearly told it back to Lotion himself. We sometimes see old people affected this way — far more enthusiastic on a subject than young ones. Few dread the aspect of affairs so much as those who have little chance of seeing how they go.
But to the run. The cousins reproduced the story according to their respective powers of exaggeration. One tacked on two miles, another ten, and so it went on and on, till it reached the ears of the great Mr. Seedeyman, the mighty WE of the country, as he sat in his den penning his ‘stunners’ for his market-day Mercury. It had then distanced the great sea-serpent itself in length, having extended over thirty-three miles of country, which Mr. Seedeyman reported to have been run in one hour and forty minutes.
Pretty good going, we should say.
CHAPTER X
THE FEELER
BAG FOX-HUNTS, BE they ever so good, are but unsatisfactory things; drag runs are, beyond all measure, unsatisfactory. After the best-managed bag fox-hunt, there is always a sort of suppressed joy, a deadly liveliness in the field. Those in the secret are afraid of praising it too much, lest the secret should ooze out, and strangers suppose that all their great runs are with bag foxes, while the mere retaking of an animal that one has had in hand before is not calculated to arouse any very pleasurable emotions. Nobody ever goes frantic at seeing an old donkey of a deer handed back into his carriage after a canter.
Our friends on this occasion soon exhausted what they had to say on the subject.
‘That’s a nice horse of yours,’ observed Mr. Waffles to Mr. Sponge, as the latter, on the strength of the musty brush, now rode alongside the master of the hounds.
