Complete Works of R S Surtees

by R S Surtees

  What with the H.H. and his own, Facey had nearly a hundred couple of hounds in kennel, and meal being costly, it was his interest to reduce their numbers as quickly as possible. So he would be at it by daybreak, making the welkin ring with their melody, long before Hodge and his ploughmen awoke from their slumbers. Often, as our sportsmen have been returning home, all dust and perspiration, after handling a cub or two, they have been asked when they were “gannin to cast off?” And Swig and Chowey, seeing they had a master mind in our friend, readily seconded his efforts, and played into his hands with skill and enthusiasm. The presentation hounds were indeed capital, and Facey, having satisfied himself that he couldn’t do wrong whichever he kept, again had recourse to the good bread-seal, offering most superior drafts to outlying distant masters, at what he called the very moderate price of five guineas a couple; and some of them knowing the Turbot on its tail personally, others by character, they readily accepted the offer, and Facey got a great number of five-pound notes in a very easy, agreeable manner. “Nothin’ like bein’ a master of hounds,” said he, as they came rolling in post after post. And he revolved in his mind what other packs he could draw further supplies from. It was clear that either his own credit or that of the other Mr Romford was extremely good, and he saw no reason why he should not profit by it. It was lucky that he had dropped the name of Gilroy, thought he.

  At length, the Romford orchestra being properly tuned, and all things ready for an opening, Swig and Chowey clad in good second-hand clothes, bought off the pegs, the fox-hunting curtain arose early in November, to the old familiar H.H. audience.

  Facey had matched his hounds admirably; they could both hunt and run, and the foxes having been well disturbed, flew as they had never done before. The new horses, too, were admired; and, altogether, the Romford star seemed in the ascendant. Still, there was nothing flash or showy in the establishment — indeed, our master had not even treated himself to a new coat, the Romford theory being that a hunting-coat, like a shooting-jacket, should be worn as long as it would hang together. But the plumcoloured coats brought many a fox to hand, one a day being the rule, instead of one a week, as it was in old Lotherington’s time.

  We now come to what broke up all this apparent prosperity and, as there is a lady, or rather two ladies, involved in the case, we will begin a fresh chapter.

  XV. MRS ROWLEY ROUNDING

  WE DO NOT KNOW THAT we have ever mentioned it before, but if we have, we venture the observation again, — that among other great advantages afforded by railways, has been that of opening out the great matrimonial market, whereby people can pick and choose wives all the world over, instead of having to pursue the old Pelion on Ossa or Pig upon Bacon system of always marrying a neighbour’s child. So we now have an amalgamation of countries and counties, and a consequent improvement in society — improvement in wit, improvement in wine, improvement in “wittles,” improvement in everything. Among the members of the Heavyside Hunt; who profited by this state of things during the summer of Mr Romford’s noviciate, was the rich Mr Rowley Rounding, of Grandacres Hall, a good turnip-headed, turnip-growing Squire, whose faculties generally served him about twenty or five-andtwenty minutes after they were wanted. Being on a gaping excursion all along the Southern coast, he was perfectly galvanised with the beauty of the fair-haired, blue-eyed, brisk young widow, Madame de Normanville (née Brown), of Boulogne-sur-Mer, who came upon him at Ramsgate, in such a succession of bonnets, as almost to deprive him of reason and at first prevented his laying that and that together, and deciding that if he couldn’t be Monsieur de Normanville, she, at all events, might be Mrs Rowley Rounding.

  For first of all, being a Madame, he had to ascertain and digest the fact that she might be and indeed was single; then it opportunely occurred to him that he was single too, after which he came to the conclusion that there was no reason why — though he wasn’t in search of a wife — he shouldn’t try to catch the widow and carry her down into the H.H. country. To be sure, Bob Ricketts, Billy Meadows, and Charley Westrope might laugh and deride him, but they had not his means, and, moreover, had never been tempted by — such extraordinary beauty and bonnets, as hers. If she wasn’t an angel, she was as near hand one as could be — but he thought she was one entire. He only wished he could make up to her. But what the “juice,” as Chowey would say, is a country gentleman with no acquaintance but the landlord of his hotel to introduce, to do under such circumstances?

  The lady, however, soon solved that mystery. Madame de Normanville seeing she had Basilisk’d the booby, presently afforded him an opportunity of making her acquaintance by dropping her finely-laced and ciphered kerchief as she floated before him on the pier, when she gave him such a pearly-teeth-showing smile of gratitude on restoring it as immediately finished the business.

  Next day she had him as handy as a French poodle, and looking about as sensible as one. And widows being generally pretty good men of business, short, sharp, and decisive, she brought him up to the “what have you got, and what will you do?” gate, without giving him a chance of leading her over it. Indeed, her beauty ought to have exempted her from any such operation as that, for though inclining to embonpoint, she had a beautiful figure and complexion, set off by the best of modistes and milliners, as Rowley found when the rather long-standing bills came pouring in — some dating even as far back as the time when she was Miss Brown — or Brown Stout, as the impertinent young fellows of that day called her.

  To make a long story short, however, which was more than Rowley could do by the bills, he married her off hand, and then, of course, according to the old needles and pins song —

  “his sorrows began.”

  Of course he took her down into the country, and here we may observe that we cannot imagine a greater change than from the light elastic gaiety of southern watering-places to the sober realities of dull out-of-the-way country quarters, where the ladies were all prolific, and their talk was of children or nurses, and cooks, and how many candles each used in the kitchen.

  Mr Rowley Rounding, though a very good man, and a capital judge of a cow, had very little in common with his sprightly wife, who having no family, required the excitement that children supply. And as it is not often given to the same man to be a good judge of a horse as well as of a cow, our Squire cared little about the former, and could not enter into the spirit of the equestrian performances of his wife, who was known for her capering qualities to all the small riding-masters along the Southern coast. Indeed, at Brighton they used to charge her rather more than other people in consequence of her weight and galloping propensities.

  Having exhausted her country circle, got all their histories and grievances by heart, domestic economy included, she now took it into her head she would like to resume her riding, alleging that it was no use wasting a good habit; and although Mr Rowley Rounding pointed out that a habit ate nothing, and did not cost anything keeping, she stood to her point firmly, and insisted that she ought to ride, that she would be much better if she rode, that horse exercise would do her a great deal of good, that Doctor Senna had strongly recommended her to ride, the Doctor having said, in reply to her inquiry if he didn’t think she would be better if she rode, that “perhaps she might.”

  And she talked and teased so much about a horse, declaring she couldn’t do without a horse — that she must have a horse — that she would be perfectly happy if she had a horse, that Mr Rowley Rounding, greatly appreciating peace and quietness, agreed to buy her a horse, and forthwith she besieged all her friends and acquaintance with inquiries if they knew of a horse, a lady’s horse, a horse with a flowing mane and tail — a whole coloured horse with racing-like points — that she wouldn’t be ashamed to ride in Hyde Park, for she had some notion of getting up to town in the spring if she could. And a person wanting to buy a horse being a novelty in the H.H. country, where they almost all bred their own, and wore them from end to end, it was talked of a good deal, and it seemed to be the general opinion that
the wonderful Leotard was the likeliest horse to suit our fair friend. Not that Romford had said anything about selling him, but people thought he didn’t seem to be of much use to him, and he might perhaps be tempted to part with him. So our old friend Colonel Chatterbox, who dearly loved a commission of that sort, and also, with some ten or a dozen others, fancied himself a great favourite of the lady’s, deputed himself to sound our master on the subject, and pretending the horse was for himself, Mr Romford accommodated Chatterbox with him for a hundred — a cool hundred — Facey observing that it was absolutely giving him away. And though Colonel Chatterbox thought it was plenty of money, yet as he seemed the very thing Mrs Rowley Rounding wanted, and he knew she wouldn’t like to ride a cheap horse, he closed with the offer by giving Mr Romford a draft on Checksby and Shorter’s bank at Ridwell, which of course Facey immediately cashed, and felt very comfortable in consequence. So the wondrous Leotard again changed hands, and of course furnished abundant food for comment and criticism in his new quarters, no two connoisseurs agreeing in their opinion of him.

  At first, Leotard, having been kept on low diet by Romford, and exercised with the hounds, of which he was very fond, behaved pretty well; but common grooms being so fond of stuffing themselves, that they think they can never sufficiently stuff horses, so crammed him with corn that he soon began to relapse into his former bad ways. After one or two minor ebullitions of temper, Mrs Rounding and Leotard came to a decided difference of opinion at the cross-roads between Crowfield and Linghurst Hill, Mrs Rowley Rounding wanting to go to the right, Leotard evincing a decided preference for the left, though there was no earthly reason why he should care for either. And Mrs Rowley Rounding being little accustomed to be thwarted, and never considering that a pampered, over-fed, under-worked pad differed from the obedient rocking-horse animals she had been accustomed to do what she liked with at the watering-places, struck him rather smartly on the shoulder with a gold-mounted, amethyst topped riding-whip, which Leotard instantly resented by rearing almost perpendicularly, and sliding her down over his tail into a soft newly-scraped mud-heap on the road-side. Then, having deposited her as in a pudding, he struck off home, where he arrived to the terror and consternation of the household, and rushing into his stable, proceeded to eat the remains of a feed of corn that he found in another horse’s manger. And Mrs Rowley Rounding, with her dirty habit, presently arrived in the postman’s gig, none the worse, but very angry at what had happened. Then there was a council of war held, as to what should be done with the horse, one recommending that he should be ridden back to the place and made to go the way he was then wanted to go; another, that he should be taken into the adjoining fallow and well lathered for his pains; a third, that he should be well licked in the stable; a fourth, that he should be beat at the door. And as they were all very angry, and imparted a portion of their ire to the horse by scolding and slapping him whilst he was eating, they did not at all improve the prospects of his obedience, and when the tea-tray-groom Postilion came to mount him to give him a good round in the paddock, the active Leotard very soon sent him, pink jean jacket and all, flying over his head. Then there was a fresh commotion, fresh anathemas at the horse, fresh recommendations as to what should be done with him.

  And as there is always some great, heavy-fisted horse-breaker in every neighbourhood who will undertake to ride anything, Tom Heslop, of the “Bee-hive” beer-shop, the hero of that district, was sent for, who undertook to Rarey-fy the rebellious spirit forthwith.

  Leotard let the dirty Heslop mount very quietly, and obeyed his dictation pretty readily, until an unlucky brewer’s dray happened to come along the road, when, catching suddenly at the bit, he sidled up to it and proceeded to rasp Tom’s leg against the wheel, rubbing it backwards and forwards till he made him bellow like a bull. Then the drayman got to the fractious horse’s head, and after a desperate conflict succeeded in rescuing the unfortunate man from his intolerable oppression. Heslop then jumped off, and led the refractory horse home.

  Another council of war was presently held, at which the butler, the gardener, and Matilda Mary the lady’s-maid severally contributed their quota of wisdom, when they all agreed that Leotard was vicious, and a most improper ‘oss for missus to ride. So Heslop and another man were despatched to Colonel Chatterbox’s with Leotard, and a request that he would be good enough to return the horse to Mr Romford, and get back the money.

  Now returning the horse was one thing, and getting back the money was another, for Mr Romford particularly refused to refund one single farthing; alleging first, that it was an out-and-out sale, without any warranty or condition whatever; secondly, that the horse was sold to Colonel Chatterbox, and was quite quiet with anybody who could ride, — a double reflection, seeing that it involved an imputation both on the Colonel and Mrs Rowley Rounding’s horsemanship. But Facey politely added, that the horse might stand in his stable at the usual remuneration of four-and-twenty shillings and sixpence a week, all of which was repeated and commented upon by the gentlemen of the H.H. hunt, to the disparagement of Facey, who was thought to have been rather too sharp in the matter. But the Colonel having stretched a point as well as Facey, they could not make much of the transaction, and Mr Rounding was at length glad to take twenty pounds for his bargain, in payment of which our master assigned him Mr Tom Slowcome’s subscription to the hounds, which there was always great difficulty in getting, — Facey alleging, as he gave the order on Slowcome for the money, that he never gave cheques for such “trifles as twenty pounds.” So the wondrous Leotard returned to Mr Romford’s stable, there on diminished fare to undergo fresh discipline.

  Still, Mrs Rounding being pretty and popular, and her husband giving good dinners, the spleen of the country was not satisfied, though it had not to wait long for an opportunity to break out in another quarter. Though Mr Romford rode Leotard to cover himself, to show he was quite tractable, they insisted that Mrs Rounding had been cheated.

  It was quite a different thing, they said, being quiet with a great Herculean monster like our master, and with a timid delicate woman like Mrs Rounding.

  “It was a monstrous shame to sell a lady a horse that was vicious,” said one in Facey’s hearing.

  “And at such a price too!” exclaimed another, a hundred guineas not being an every-day price in the country.

  Lotherington went so far as to say that a man ought to be hung who sold a lady such a horse.

  All these sayings in due time came to our master’s ears, with, of course, a due allowance of exaggeration; and though our friend was not particularly thin-skinned, he yet feared that the Leotard transaction might operate prejudicially, as well on future sales of horses, as on his present position and popularity as a master of hounds. He hadn’t got on far amiss as it was, his undoubted keenness and great money-reputation helping him along.

  Facey, of course, didn’t mean to contend, even to himself, that Leotard was a perfect lady’s pad; but he well knew that, by judicious management, he could be made sufficiently tractable to last long enough to throw on the new owner the blame of spoiling him by bad riding. And in the course of his cogitations, Lucy’s beautiful horsemanship, as seen with the late Sir Henry Scattercash’s hounds, occurred to recollection, and he said to himself, “Ah! that is the woman that could do it, if she liked.” Twist him any way, and do whatever she liked with him. Never saw such a hand on a horse as she had. “She was a rider,” said Romford to himself, twitching his beard as he said it. “Dash it, but he would like to see her on him,” added he, throwing the sample away.

  At length, galled by the reproaches and rebuffs which increased rather than diminished, he thought seriously of having her down to contradict their ungenerous assertions, by showing that Leotard was perfectly tractable with a lady. It was, only the dread of expense, and the fear of exciting scandal, that prevented him; but the expense he, at length, thought might be previously settled, and the consequences averted by judicious arrangement. He really thought it feasible
. He had still eighty of the hundred guineas to the good, and wouldn’t mind standing a trifle to vindicate his character.

  He should like to see her cutting down some of the spurters who thought they could ride, and leading the lumberers over the heavy into grief and humility. “Cutting them down and hanging them up to dry,” as they say in the Shires.

  At length he took courage, and wrote to Lucy, directing to the care of her mother in Hart Street, saying that, if she had a mind for a mount with his hounds, he would “stand Sam” for the Parliamentary train, directing her, if she came, to stop at the sign of the “West-end Swell,” at Minshull Vernon, whither the horse should be sent on the morning of the meet; but by no manner of means to think of coming on to the Dog and Partridge Inn.

  Lucy jumped at the offer, for she was well-nigh suffocated with fog and bad air, and felt that a run into the country would do her an infinity of good. Moreover, she had been keeping her hands in by taking part in the monster steeple-chase at the Royal Agricultural Hall at Islington, under the title of Madame Valentine de Mornington, to the great admiration of crowded audiences. So her hat and her habit were in very good order. She was presently packed and away.

  And the arrangement was most opportune, for Swig and Chowey, we are sorry to say, had rather relapsed into their former habits, and the Dog and Partridge Inn being closed against them by reason of Mr Romford’s residence, they had been compelled to go farther a-field for their liquid fire; and a hunt servant, a man who rides where he likes in a red coat and cap, being always an object of admiration in the country, they had no difficulty in borrowing farmer Roughstubble’s dog-cart to drive to the sign of the “Bald-faced Stag,” on the Ashcombe Road, where the Old Tom rum was capital, the gin pure, and the drink generally both strong and heady. Here, being Saturday night, they fell in with several gentlemen of their acquaintance — Jack Arrowsmith the farrier, Peter Marston the mole-catcher, Jack Miller, Squire Thompson’s keeper, with Jacob the coachman, Geordy Banks the standing sot of the house, and others, all of whom were most desirous of trying the alcoholic test of friendship upon them, which they did so effectually that our sportsmen required a good deal of helping, and hoisting, and holding in their vehicle ere they ventured to drive off, being then fully impressed with the conviction that they were the two finest fellows under the sun.