by R S Surtees
Meanwhile the Countess and party, having timed themselves as well as they could by their watches, began looking about for the usual indications of the chase — foot-people in a hurry, grooms with their masters’ horses, sedate gentlemen jogging on with their own. The Countess expected to see the naughty Leotard pop up at every point. But no; neither pedestrian, nor equestrian, not even the man with the colt in the breaking-reins appears. Major Elite suggested that perhaps Mr Romford’s half-past ten meant eleven. Many masters of hounds, he said, were very unpunctual.
The road, which for some time had been twisty and turny, to say nothing of what the Countess called “cogglecy,” presently became worse, being formed of nothing but soft field stones ground down to excellent housemaid’s sand, and after a slow tug through its laborious depths, the old screws came to a standstill just opposite where another road branched off at right angles, and the veteran Bucktrout, turning half round in his saddle and pointing to a wretched mud cottage with a thatched roof built into a bank, announced with a grin and a touch of his greasy old hat, “Please ‘urn this be Stand agin All.”
“Stand against All!” exclaimed the Countess. “That’s not the name of the place we want to be at! Spite of All, not Stand against All!”
“Well, mum, it’s all the same, mum,” replied Bucktrout, now satisfied of his error, but determined to brazen it out. “Some rolls call it Spite of All, you see, my leddy, and others call it Stand agin All, you see, my leddy. It’s the place you mean, the place they had the great ‘size trial on aboot, before Lord Chief Justice Best and a special jury, which doubtless you’ve heard tell on.” Bucktrout thinking it immaterial whether the Countess saw the cause of one assize trial or another. Both places had been in Court.
But here we may observe that Spite of All would have felt rather humiliated by the comparison, for while Stand against All let it smoke out of the four-square-paned window or the ricketty door. Spite of All had a fine fire-brick chimney rising boldly out of a substantial grey roof; two fairish windows, and a door that a moderate-sized man could get under without stooping. Moreover, Spite of All was in a good country with fine wild foxes, and Facey Romford knew where to find them.
Be that as it may, however, here were our friends at Stand against All, and though Bucktrout’s assertion had an air of plausibility about it, yet there were no hounds to back the decision.
“Well, it’s very odd,” said the Countess, looking about with concern.
“Must have mistaken the day,” observed Major Elite.
“No,” rejoined her ladyship firmly; “I’m certain I’m right. Friday, Spite of All; Saturday, the tenth milestone on the Larkspur Road.”
“Or the hour,” suggested Mrs Mountravers, looking at her watch, which however afforded little assistance, for it was standing at half-past two.
Bucktrout now stood up in his stirrups, contemplating the country like a whipper-in waiting to view a fox away. Nothing to be seen. Stand against All seemed to have it all to itself.
“Knock and ask,” now said the Countess, addressing herself to the footman as though she were at the door of a Belgravian mansion.
“Please, my lady, who shall I inquire for?” demanded he, touching his fine cockaded hat, as, having descended from his perch, he now stood at the carriage door.
“Ask if the hounds are coming here to-day,” replied her ladyship.
“Yes, my lady,” said the footman, trotting off, taking care of his shoes as he made for the ricketty, weather-beaten door of the miserable hut.
Rat, tat, tat, tat, tat, he went at the frail wooden fabric, as though he were going to demolish it.
“Who’s there?” roared a stentorian voice, that a westerly wind wafted in full force to the carriage.
“Please, do the hounds meet here to-day?” asked the footman in his mild company accents.
“No, you ass!” roared the poacher, for it was none other than Giles Snarem, the notorious leader of the night gang, whose second sleep he had thus disturbed.
“Come away!” cried the Countess— “come away!” satisfied there was a mistake somewhere.
The order was satisfactory to old Bucktrout, who feared if the inquiry was prosecuted any further it would transpire that the hounds were at Spite of All, whereas he had driven the party to Stand against All, though he was certain about the action being tried before Lord Chief Justice Best, because one of the high sheriff’s javelin men lodged at his house, and told him all about it — indeed, he believed the javelin man had been of great assistance to the judge in trying the case. At the word “home,” from the footman, he therefore caught his old screws short by the head, and turning the carriage round, what with flagellating one horse and spurring the other, he managed to make them plough through the heavy sand at a much better pace than they came. A respectful distance being thus established between Stand against All and our travellers, he presently relaxed into his old jog-trot pace, and having stopped to refresh himself and horses at the “Barleymow” wayside inn, he trotted into town with as much dash and vigour as he could raise. Those terrible greys at the “Fleece,” were always haunting his vision, urging him and his horses beyond the decaying powers of either.
Arrived at the “Lord Hill” hotel and posting-house, the first thing he did after setting down was to run and look at “Bell’s Life” in the bar, and finding Mr Romford’s hounds advertised for Spite of All, he told the landlord he had better book the journey to Spite of All, and then there would be no mistake in the matter.
“All right,” said he; “all right,” scrambling out crab fashion. “Spite of All, and Stand agin All ‘ill be all the same thing — same thing — place they had the ‘size trial on about afore Lord Chief Justice Best and a special jury.”
So that day’s journey went for nothing.
LXI. THE TENTH MILESTONE ON THE LARKSPUR ROAD
FOILED IN HER FIRST EFFORT to get a sight of the redoubtable Leotard, the Countess of Caperington returned with vigour to the charge, sending, immediately on her return from Stand against All, into the commercial room of the “Lord Hill” hotel and posting-house for the old well-thumbed map of the county, and searching with avidity for the next meet of the hounds. Fortunately for Bucktrout, neither Spite of All nor Stand against All had obtained their present notoriety when the map was published, consequently they were not on it to contradict his assertion that they were one and the same place; and her ladyship having placed her pretty forefinger on the extensive stain denoting her then locality at Dirlingford, she proceeded to make a very scientific cast to the east in search of the diminutive town of Larkspur, formerly the residence of the Doubleimupshire hounds.
“Here it is!” at length cried she, looking up, “here it is right to the northeast of this place,” and getting a cedar-wood match out of the lighter stand, she proceeded to measure the scale in the corner of the map, and then the distance from the before-mentioned greasy mark on the side.
“Oh, quite within distance,” said she, “quite within distance; not about twelve miles from here at most, by Burbury and Cracknel.”
So saying, her ladyship dismissed the map, and ordered the dinner for that day, and the carriage for the next, with one and the same breath. And now leaving the reader to imagine a repetition of the former evening’s performance, we will pass on to the following morning, and suppose the Countess and party again taking the field in the “Lord Hill” carriage in all the glories of consequence and dress.
Bucktrout had increased his magnificence by adding a pair of tarnished red and white rosettes to his antediluvian horses’ heads, and sat cockily in his brass cantreled saddle, thinking how he was taking the shine out of Peter of the “Golden Fleece,” and his greys. Then after the fuss and preparation, gaping and staring and starring of the former occasion, the Countess and her friends came downstairs, and with due importance got themselves seated and adjusted in the carriage.
“Right!” again was the cry, and the low part of the High Street was this time en
livened with the sound of carriage wheels. If people in London ran to the window to look at every vehicle that passed, what a time they would have of it.
Bucktrout rode with much more confidence than he did in going to Spite of All, for he knew his way, and moreover was certain that he was going right. So he rose cockily in his saddle, now admiring his left-leg boot, now looking into the flowing rosettes at his horses’ heads, now whipping and spurring the old nags into activity. If he wasn’t cutting a dash he didn’t know who was. Jip, jip, jip, he went as if they were a pair of five-year-old’s instead of being nearer five-and-twenty. The road was good — turnpike all the way: none of the sandstone quagmires, with great boulder stones turning up like flitches of bacon every few yards, that impeded their progress the day before.
They had not gone many miles ere the first indication of the chase appeared. This was a tight-buttoned blue-coated groom riding a well-conditioned brown horse, between whose sleek coat and the rider’s tops there seemed to be a species of honourable rivalry as to which should be the darkest. The horse had it perhaps, but only by a shade or two. Formerly grooms couldn’t get their boots white enough: now they can’t get them dark enough. Such is the mutation of fashion.
“All right today,” said the Countess, eyeing the unmistakeable symptom. Bucktrout then passed him at a half cantering trot.
The plot presently thickened. At the Burbury side bar two grooms were paying their own and their hack-riding masters’ tolls, and a little further on a knot of miscellaneous horsemen were regaling themselves at the door of the “Good Intent” inn with early purl and other delicacies. Some people can drink at any time. Bucktrout spurts past them as if he despised such performances. The country was evidently getting alive.
Ah! there’s a red coat! Only a seedy one, to be sure, as the first red coat on the road generally is, but still a red coat, thus openly proclaiming the nature of the coming entertainment. It is little Tommy Squirt, the Union Doctor, who is deceiving himself, as Independent Jimmy would say, that he is passing for a great man, though in reality he is only offering himself for a figure of fun. A badly turned-out man in red is always a deplorable object; doubly so when the horse and the coat are equally bad, and all the appointments show that the colour is expected to do everything. On he jogs his badly-clipped mouse-colour very gingerly, having both corns and a curb to take care of. And now the brute trips in a grip just as the carriage is passing, causing an outburst of laughter from the party.
Then the turn of the road reveals another red coat — a red coat on a grey — a rat-tailed grey this time. It is our Old friend the Chairman of the Half-Guinea Hat Company, who has become very assiduous in his attendance on the Larkspur hounds of late. He has got himself up with extra care, with his all-round-the-chin beard combed carefully over his blue tie, like samples of yellow and white worsted on a stall.
“What an ugly man!” exclaimed the Countess in passing, quite loud enough for Bonus to hear.
“Isn’t he!” assented Mrs Mountravers in the same tone.
“Wonder he doesn’t dye his beard all the same colour,” observed Major Elite, whose turn it now was to stare.
But we are now ascending the slightly rising ground of Cracknel Green — a rise so gentle that it was not until the establishment of railways that it was found out not to be level. Bucktrout’s horses, however, who have wonderfully fine shoulders for detecting the collar, feel it at once, and gradually relax into a walk. Half way up stands the ninth milestone, calm and serene as milestones always are, but causing the ladies to start and adjust their bonnets, and Major Elite to button his gloves and feel his collar. They are presently overtaken by a large party of horsemen, some in black, some in red, some in green, who stare and wonder who old Bucktrout has aboard today. Though they all admire the Countess, they think the Major might be very happy with either.
And now the indubitable level being obtained, Bucktrout has no excuse for further nursing, and at the word “trot!” from the Countess he gathers the old horses together, and with the aid of the spur, the whip, and the voice, is presently at the
Delightful scene!
Where all around is gay, men, horses, dogs;
And in each smiling countenance appears
Fresh blooming health and universal joy.
Our foxy-faced Master has just turned into a large pasture on the right of the road, the hounds looking blooming and well. Daniel — the Right Honourable the Hurl of Scamperdale’s Daniel — sober and solemn; and little Chowey, the man with the philanthropic mouth, contracting and dilating his proboscis as though he were considering whom he should kiss. Romford rides the redoubtable Placid Joe, Swig the water-objecting Brick, and Chowey the wriggling Oliver Twist. They now take up a position well into the field, and give the hounds ample space to roll and be criticised.
Then there is the field, large, parti-coloured and gay, as fields generally are when the meets of the hounds are by a turnpike side, and carriages and horsemen can commingle. There are two or three gigs, and two or three phaetons, some containing gentlemen, who on peeling will prove horsemen, while others will follow in their vehicles as far as they can, and then go away.
“Turn in here!” cried the Countess; “turn in here!” as the hesitating Bucktrout pulled up at the field-gate, and looked round with a grin.
“Yes, my lady,” said he, now gathering all his energies to steer through the gate without a collision against either post. He just managed to do it.
“Who have we here?” said Romford to Mr Joseph Large, who still patronised the pack at great personal inconvenience.
“Don’t know,” replied Large; adding, “it’s the ‘Lord Hill’ chaise.”
“So I see,” said Romford, who had long booked the old horses for the boiler.
Then, as the carriage approached and drew up before the pack, Facey, seeing the ladies were pretty, raised his hat, an example that was immediately followed by Chowey and Swig with their caps. Chowey half thought the Countess was an old acquaintance, but for once he couldn’t hit it off.
Then, as the hats and caps subsided, there was fresh inquiry as to who the strangers were, and a sending of Todd on the sly to ask Tomkins, and a similar expedition by Large to Ten-and-a half-per-Cent., who now came up on the rat-tailed grey. None of them, of course, could tell. But here comes someone who can, viz., our fair friend, Mrs Somerville, who, entering the field by a gap at the opposite corner, confronts the carriage as she advances mounted on the wondrous Leotard.
Lucy wondered who the strangers were — then she thought she had seen that face before — very like Lady Scattercash’s — couldn’t be Lady Scattercash — yes it was Lady Scattercash.
“How do you do, Lady Scattercash?” said she, riding up to the carriage-door and tendering her hand as she spoke. But the Countess, who had had the advantage of a quiet carriage-seat for the survey, had realised Lucy before Lucy did her, and her displeasure at seeing the horse going so quietly was not at all diminished by the familiarity of that person calling her Lady Scattercash, when she was in fact the Countess of Caperington. So she neglected the proffered hand and preserved a stolid scornful stare.
“I think you don’t know me,” said Lucy, timidly, withdrawing her hand as she spoke.
“Yes, I do,” replied the Countess, haughtily. “You are Mrs Sponge — Lucy Glitters that was — most pernicious woman!” added she, with an upward curl of her lip.
If the Countess had stabbed her to the heart she could not have inflicted a more deadly wound, for there were horsemen all around, every one of whom, Lucy felt sure, would hear what was said. The words perfetly rang in her ears— “You are Mrs Sponge — Lucy Glitters that was — most pernicious woman!” She was indeed Mrs Sponge — Lucy Glitters that was; but she felt that it was not for an old comrade like Lady Scattercash to upbraid her. She would not have done so by the Countess. And, turning her horse short round, poor Lucy burst into a flood of tears.
Notwithstanding the unwonted sight of a lady
in tears in the hunting-field, we believe if it had not been for that long-eared Chairman of the Half-Guinea-Hat Company, Lucy’s misfortune might have escaped observation. He, however, being down-wind, with his ears well cocked as usual for a catch, heard the ominous “You are Mrs Sponge!” coupled with the denunciation “most pernicious woman!” and immediately put that and that together for a story. Not that he went bellowing about the country exclaiming, “I say, this is not Mrs Somerville, but Mrs Sponge, the wife of our friend Soapey Sponge,” but he inuendoed it, which was just the same thing. The story flew like lightning, and in a very few days was all over Dubleimupshire. But a great deal may be done in a few days, and ere the bubble finally burst a great deal was done in this case. But the dénouement of all this spirited conduct deserves a separate chapter.
LXII. THE FINISH
IT WAS AN EVENTFUL MORNING to other parties besides our friend Mrs Somerville. When she got back to Beldon Hall she found the fair auburn-haired lady had played young Joseph Large off so successfully against Mr Lovetin Lonnergan as to make the latter consent to a clandestine marriage, of course to be kept profoundly secret until it pleased father to die. And Mrs Somerville, feeling the pressure of circumstances and the precarious nature of her own position, at once set about furthering the arrangement, not by ordering those voluminous mountains of clothes and dresses that generally mark the coming change, but by quietly procuring a marriage licence and an obliging clergyman to use it.
Then, to make surety doubly sure, and completely baffle old Lonnergan should any reports get into circulation, Mrs Somerville suggested that Miss Howard should be married in a feigned name, and hit upon that of Shannon. “Elizabeth Shannon, say,” as if quite accidentally; and Lovetin thought the idea rather a pull in his favour if anything, being greatly goaded by the persecuting importunities of that disgusting Joseph Large, who, he felt sure, would marry her at any price.
