by R S Surtees
In addition to all this, the Duke had the political and other tendencies of the parties to consider, for he was “a nothing for nothing man,” and always liked to see his way to a return. Asking people to come and shoot at a battue with a Prince, was quite a different thing to giving them a day’s leave over hill and dale, from Eastgate rim to Westfield corner, or from Broomey Banks to Limefield Lawn. And this leads us to observe, that it is hardly possible to imagine that one and the same amusement can be followed in such ways as to look like two distinct pursuits, as in the case of shooting and battueing. In one case a man goes out with his dogs and gun, just as he would with his walking stick; roves the fields, looks at his stock or his drains, or his turnips, or the coming corn; goes just as fancy prompts him, or his dog inclines to his game; if he gets his two or three brace of birds, well and good, if not, he gets healthy exercise, and the birds are there for another day; he has looked over the manor, and let the country see that the Squire is astir. He has used shooting much as Beckford used hare-hunting, who said that it “should be taken instead of a ride after breakfast to get one an appetite for dinner. If you make a serious business of it,” says he, “you spoil it.” That is just the case with the battue. There is little or no exercise, while there is great preparation, trouble, and expense. True, in ordinary shooting, a stranger does not range the estate with the same interest as the owner; but it is perfectly possible to have quite as much game as will satisfy every reasonable requirement, and bring a friend home with a very good appetite for dinner without any extravagant outlay. The exercise and the pleasure a man has in watching the working of his dogs, is quite as great as sending the poor birds neck and crop over. If, as is said of coursing, you are mad for a moment, and starved for an hour; so with the battue, you exterminate in a day what should serve you a year.
We never heard of but one utilitarian reason attempted to be given for the battue, which was, that to lessen the quantity of game and to kill it for the surrounding district, the battue is infinitely a better way than to potter after game thinly spread over a wide extent, whereby a man would not be able to kill half so much; but that is rather an argument for not having so much game than for reducing it in that way. The party, to be sure, added a very sensible observation, namely, “that elderly gentlemen, like himself, who had had the gout, could not get over hedges and ditches as well as they did five-and-twenty years before; and therefore, without the battue, they would be debarred from the amusement altogether.” Still they are not the things for able-bodied men; and the fact of their being of foreign extraction does not recommend them to our notice. Another thing is, that after all the barley — the beat, beat, beating, and the bang, bang, banging — the “tottle of the whole,” as poor Mr. Hume used to say, is tame and insignificant compared to the campaign of the foreigner. “I assisted,” writes Count Veltheim from Germany to a friend in England, “at a battue at Baron Assburg’s” (a very proper name for the giver of such an entertainment), “where a company of a dozen shots killed in three days 13 deer, 56 roes, 10 foxes, and 327 hares. We could at the same time have killed a dozen wild boars if the proprietor of the estate had not wished them to be spared.”
The Count then relates how two friends of his had been at a battue, where in four days 2400 hares were killed; “but,” says the Count, “I do not like such feats, which are more a massacre than a sport; partly, because I am of opinion, that there should be at all sports some chance and skill; and partly, because I like shooting the best where different kinds of game are expected, though not in such immense quantities.”
The sport that the then King of Naples, the greatest sportsman of Europe, is reported to have had in Germany, about the year 1791, would have been more to the Count’s taste, so far as variety is concerned; the result being — 5 bears, 1820 wild boars, 1968 stags, 13 wolves, 354 foxes; pheasants, rabbits, hares, she-goats, roebucks and partridges, innumerable. The results of a British battue, the pheasants, partridges, and hares, seem small by the ride of such doings as that.
But let us to the Ducal preserves, and see what we can do. First, however, for a word with the Keeper, and about the guests.
CHAPTER LIII.
MR. BAGWELL THE KEEPER.
THE DUKE OF Tergiversation’s were capital covers, and wanted nothing but the barley to make them perfect. They were warm and dry, with plenty of nice underwood, mingled with briars and brambles and other leaf-retaining shrubs, or weeds as they would be called elsewhere. Then there were thick grassy and sedgy spots for the accommodation of the hares and restless rabbits, with rare temptation for woodcocks. Altogether they were very good, and ranged conveniently round the castle. Bagwell’s pretty lodge stood on the gently rising ground of Sunnybrow Hill, nestling among cedars and evergreens, and cut off from the kennel by a huge, well-clipped yew hedge, that would have puzzled Mr. Haggish to get over. It was a thatched, lattice-windowed, woodbine - porticoed house, with the usual museum of natural history — rats, cats, weazels, hawks, owls, magpies, &c., in various stages of decomposition — nailed in rows against the end.
Mr. Bagwell had been in a good many places, and there were few of the tricks of his trade that he was not up to. He never staid very long anywhere, having been dismissed from one place for not having any foxes, from another for having too many, and from a third for having neither foxes nor pheasants. Still he was what the country people call a “alee chap;” knew well where to sprinkle the white peas, sow sunflower or plant Jerusalem artichokes, to tice over a neighbour’s pheasants; and being a big, burly, bullying sort of fellow, he kept the country quiet, and prevented stories getting to the Duke’s ears that might otherwise have reached them.
Bagwell used often to turn out on his white pony to criticise his aversion, Mr. Haggish’s proceedings with the hounds, always declaring confidentially to his comrades, that that “Haggish John,” as he called him, was the greatest humbug he had ever set eyes on. It was now, however, Mr. Haggish’s turn, and Bagwell felt that he would he sure to retaliate. He would have given his ears for it to have been a wet day. No such luck, however, for Bag; on the contrary, it was a lovely one — a sort of summer day, that somehow or other had got slipped into winter, just as a sovereign sometimes gets slipped into one’s silver. The sky was blue, the air was clear and calm; the sun shone brightly, burnishing up the ruddy beech and the browning oaks, while the evergreens, the yews, the pines, the cedars, stretched themselves out comfortably against their late oppressive rivals, the now leafless elms and ash. This is the time that a man feels the value of his evergreens, and almost wishes his trees were all such, just as in spring, when the larch puts forth its early light-green leaves, he wishes his trees were all larch; and when the sycamore or something else succeeds, he wishes they were all sycamores, or whatever the others happen to be, and inwardly resolves to plant a great profusion of his favourites in the autumn.
The days of early winter are generally either very fine and bright, or very dull and hazy, scarcely any day at all, indeed — days that in towns the sun has to be supplemented by the gas, and the country looks like an immense vapour bath.
Having started betimes and cracked the country round, and placed sentinels at all the likely points to scare back invaders, Mr. Bagwell at length returned to his residence to array his stalwart figure in the green and gold livery of office, and proceed to the rendezvous at Banger the Under-keeper’s Lodge at Merevale Gate. Having accomplished the toilette, and crowned himself with the lace-bedizened hat, he invested himself with the insignia of office in the shape of a little knotty dog-whip, and, unkennelling a couple of spaniels, set off on his mission, inwardly hoping that things might turn out as well as ho could wish. He didn’t want to change his place if he could help it. As he crossed the spacious park, the straggling infantry of beaters — youths in smocks, youths in fustian, youths in tweeds — were seen converging on the same quarter; while the clatter-patter, clatter-patter, of the distant blockers was borne down wind upon the light western breeze.
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CHAPTER LIV.
THE RENDEZVOUS.
BESIDES OTHER ECCENTRIC freaks that the great “Goldengoose” railway played, it changed the Duke of Tergiversation’s grand carriage drive from the south side of the Castle to the north. We don’t mean to say, that the railway directors rolled it up and carried it away bodily, but by running the line up the valley of the Dart, instead of winding round the Scars of the Shire, they practically extinguished it. Wherever the station is there will have to be the road, regardless of groves, grottoes, temples, terraces, or what not. The exigencies of the ‘Bus knows nothing of scenery. The consequence of this was, that a very fine triumphal arch, surmounting Gothic lodges, holding massive iron gates of splendid structure, was nearly lost to society; for these are short cut days, and none but an owner cares to go round for the ride. The Duke, however, not being the man to put his candle under a bushel, always took care to air his guests in that direction, and had now fixed upon the “Arch” as the rendezvous for the battue. And, as Bagwell,
If not, “The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung” at all events, “The playful children just let loose from school,” for old Dame Dunkerley had hurried her brats, through their three R’s. (Reading, Riting, and ‘Rithmatic), in order that they might bear a hand at the battue. And now a curious medley of small boys, armed with score-crows and hedge-stakes, nearly as tall as themselves, crowd round Mr. Ranger, who, attired in all the pomp of green plush, stands towering in imposing altitude above them. He presently succumbs to the swaggering Mr. Bagwell, and no sooner has the change in command been effected, than a four-wheeled chaise, containing two little haystack-looking men, one topped with a pigeon-pie hat, the other with a drab wide-awake turned up with green, appear outside the imposing gates which, revolving on their easy hinges, the tramp, tramp, tramp, of a good old family horse, sounds on the pavement beneath the massive arch, and is again lost on the gravel of the drive.
The carriage contains Captain Cambo, R.N., and Mr. Humphrey Cheadle, of Lambswool Hill, who though plumpers in person, had split their votes at the last election, a proceeding that the Duke wishes to rectify in future. This he thinks to accomplish by giving them a dinner and a day’s shooting; and though the Captain was at first disposed to accept the latter only, yet Mrs. Cambo, or Mrs. Captain Cambo as she calls herself, being, as the Duke says, an “ambitious woman,” has persuaded him to go in for both. They are both good shooters, but bad hitters, and Bagwell is not sorry to see them.
And now the fatties having descended from their vehicle and given themselves probationary shakes on reaching the ground, as if to ascertain that they have not left any of their limbs behind them, proceed to unhook and unclasp the integuments that conceal their sporting habiliments, to uncoil their shawl cravats, and discard their Inverness and Hippopotamus Inverness cloaks.
In this metamorphose the shooter is greatly in arrear of the fox-hunter; for as the latter proceeds to dismiss his exterior he reveals improved and becoming apparel, while the shooter too often strips to a mere figure of fun.
Captain Cambo, the gentleman in the pigeon-pie hat, with his scrimpy bright-buttoned green coat, flattening on his puffy peg-top trousers, thrust into old round-toed Hessian boots, is the exact image of our much-respected friend, Paul Pry; and Mr. Humphrey Cheadle has a sort of half-butcher, half-poacher like appearance.
But whom have we in the Whitechapel, drawn by the good-looking roan pony, with a gun popping out, like an ear at either side of the vehicle? Ah, these are Mr. Brown White and Colonel Nettlestead both out-and-out Tergiversation men, who do what they are told and ask no questions. They are shooters, and will most likely get a brace of pheasants, and perhaps a hare, to take home with them at the end of the day; but no dinner. They are safe without. Cambo and Cheadle nod to them in a sort of patronising way, as much as to say, we are not one of you yet. Mr. Black White, Mr. Brown White’s brother, is not asked; because having ratted from the other side, the Duke thinks there is no fear of his going back again, so he is on the neck of venison list — the lowest of the political feeders.
But the consequence increases. Up trots a pair of horse-registered dog-cart, with smart lamps, shining aprons, coloured sheep-skins, and all complete. In it we have Mr. Tommy, alias Mr. Tonguey Thomson of Airyholme, Mr. George Wheeler of Biverdale, and Mr. Bain try of Swellacres Hall. Tonguey Thomson’s tongue never rests, it goes morning, noon, and night, and being of the light falsetto order, is not to be mistaken. It is generally heard before the owner heaves in sight. Tonguey is a good shot, Wheeler a middling one, and Daintry a bad one. Daintry is here, because the Duke understands he has lately been dining at Lavender Tower, and he thinks a day and a dinner may keep him steady. He voted right last time. This new arrival makes seven guns in all which, with the three expected from the Castle, give a tottle of ten, as many as Bagwell would like to find pheasants for.
And now, when the great sportsmen have all got out of their vehicles, and out of their husks, they present a most miscellaneous incongruous assortment, no two of them being in any way alike. If our gallant, and, we believe, unjustly suspected neighbours, the French, were to attempt an invasion and meet such a force on landing, they would never get further for laughing. The scene is like that of a Bal Masqué, where each man laughs at his neighbour, without recollecting what an object he is himself. Paul Pry Cambo struts about, staring first at Tonguey Thomson’s Glengarry cap and Knickerbockers, then at Wheeler’s duck trowsers and rusty Napoleons, and wondering where Mr. Daintry got his very fine pea-green jacket and white moleskins from. Thinks he must have been expecting to breakfast at the Castle, and intended to captivate the Lady Honoria.
Then as the carriages wheeled off, and the chattering cigar-smoking group lounged about at their ease, Bagwell conned them quietly over, thinking how he should place them, with an eye to his own interest, and the advantage of the bag. And as the cigars of the smokers gradually approached the tips of their noses, watches began to be looked at, and eyes turned towards the distant Castle, where the crimson flag fluttered lazily on the breeze, and the bright sun illuminated the windows, and burnished up the gilt vanes and pinnacles of the towers.
Then Captain Cambo, feeling the chill, began to strut to and fro, as if he were walking the quarter deck, while Tonguey Thomson cocked his Glengarry cap, and chattered on the beauties of punctuality, while Mr. Brown White, who did not like giving his tongue much licence, asked if it was possible they had mistaken the day? “Oh no,”
“Oh no,” was the ready response, whereon some growled, and others looked out for fresh cigars. Bagwell too lighted his pipe, and the smoking became pretty general — for it is safer to smoke than to talk when you are not quite sure of your company.
CHAPTER LV.
THE PRESENTATIONS.
THOUGH THE DUKE of Tergiversation was extremely particular in making his appointments, he was most unpunctual in keeping them; and, notwithstanding he had requested the sturdy Squires to be at the Triumphal Arch at “ten minutes to eleven — ten minutes to eleven, punctually, if they pleased,” he was so taken up with his papers, and the Prince with the Lady Honoria, that it was a quarter to twelve ere the two, with Lord Marchhare for vis-à-vis, left the Castle in the carriage-and-four for the scene of action, and then proceeded at a slow pace through the glades and windings of the Park, in order to enable his Grace to point out the beauties and extent of the place. His Grace was on the high horse that day. Meanwhile the Squires had begun to be rather growly, looked at their watches, and looked at the sky, and talked about losing the best part of the day.
“Sail, ahooi!” at length cried Captain Cambo, who was still on the quarter deck, as the yellow livery of the out-rider rounded Holling Green wood, whereupon murmuring tongues were silenced, and all eyes turned to -where the scarlet-jacketed postillions were g — e — e — ntly rising in their stirrups to the piloting of the yellow guide.
“Here they come!” was then the cry, and animation was infused into the late muttering, murmu
ring group.
On the carriage came, at an easy airing-like pace, looking as though it were Midsummer-day, and that there was no one concerned in the drive but themselves. Presently the red vest of the out-rider was visible, next his red collar and cuffs, and then the bright, closely arranged buttons of the postillions’ jackets began to glitter in the sun. A jerk of the head, with a wave of the whip-hand of the out-rider, now showed where the carriage was going to set down at the Lodges, when up it presently came, amid a general hoist of pigeon-pie hats wide awakes, Glengarries, and other head-coverings. All was then condescension and politeness.
The carriage having drawn up in good form, two highly powdered footmen in the rumble were presently at the door, the noiseless steps unfolded, and the well muffled up trio descended and entered Mr. Ranger’s lodge to unwrap and prepare themselves. That ceremony over, with the aid of Mrs. Banger, the Duke presently appeared dressed in a full suit of heather-coloured Tweed, with a muffin-cap of a similar material on his head, now ushering the bearded Prince, who was attired in a very splendid Lancer-like gold-laced green foraging-cap with a square patent leather peak, a tightish fitting green tunic buttoning down the front and secured at the waist by a black patent leather gold or gilt lion-headed clasped belt. Greenish tinged doe-skin trousers, and leather-topped buttoned boots of a similar hue, encased his Highness’s extremities, altogether a very different costume to that of the banditti-looking party to whom he was now about’ to be presented, or rather who were now to be presented, to his Highness. A general stare and flutter ensued as the great men emerged from the Lodge on the left of the Arch, and the little boys jumped up, and stood on tip-toe, or pressed past taller people in order to get a sight of the hero.
