by R S Surtees
And before the ladies recovered from the astonishment into which his unwonted generosity had thrown them, he had commenced a melodious strain on that musical nightingale, his nose.
CHAPTER XV.
LORD HEARTYCHEER’S OPENING DAY.
THE AMIABLY DISPOSED reader will now have the kindness, by the hop, step and jump process, to arrive at the opening day with Lord Heartycheer’s hounds.
Who shall describe the hunting costume of a non-hunting cavalry corps — the modern coats, medieval breeches, and ancient boots, or the modern boots, medieval breeches, and ancient coats?
The officers of the Heavysteeds were not even uniform in their uniforms; consequently, little could be expected from them out of it. They were not a hunting corps. We will just take a glance at a few of them.
The colonel, being the first to get into his “togs,” as he called them, we will begin with him. His coat was above a quarter of a century old, and was made by a tailor at Dorchester when, as a stripling, he joined the Heavysteed Dragoons there. Through its subsequent patchings, enlargings, and alterings by the various regimental tailors, it still retained the character of its original cut. The collar, at first a soapy, but now a black-with-grease scarlet one, was right down upon the nape of the neck, while the closely-set-together waist buttons were halfway up his back. Two sword-like swallow-tails divided down a back that required no little stretch of the imagination to conceive they could ever have covered. Below the arms, “where it would never be seen,” as the respective snips said when they put them in, palpable varieties of cloth appeared, chiefly the pick of cast-off uniforms; the colonel’s creed being that the older and more battered a hunting-coat looked, the varminter and more appropriate it was. The coat had also been lengthened in front, with a view of bringing it in closer proximity with the drab smalls — if smalls, indeed, the capacious garments that girded up his loins could be called. These were met in turn by a pair of lack-lustre, rhinoceros-hide-looking Napoleons, his intractable calves having long declined tops. His waistcoat was of the scrimpy order, coeval with the coat — a washed-out buff step-collared stripe, with a much-frayed broad black binding, and forlorn pewtery-looking buttons. All the buttons were of the dull order in the middle, lighting up a little towards the sides, like so many moons in a haze.
Pippin dressed the old English gentleman. He had no taste for hunting, but a great one for dressing the character, and now appeared in the orthodox cut and costume of the order. From the subdued, not to say sombre character of the garments, it was not until after the first glance of recognition that one was sensible of the extreme care that had been bestowed upon the getting up. His cap came well down upon his close-cropped head; he wore no gills, but a puddingy cream-coloured cravat, fastened with a gold fox’s-head pin in the old diamond tie, which had the effect of showing off his swelling huntsman-like chops to advantage. He had a groomish-looking step-collared drab waistcoat, with dead gold buttons with a bright rim, which he also sported, in a larger size, on a roomy, round, slightly cut-away single-breasted scarlet, that looked as if it had undergone frequent wettings to get it sobered down to purple. A smart blue watch-riband, with a bunch of family-looking seals, dangled over his gosling-green cords, which were met by a pair of stout-soled mahogany tops; dogskin gloves, painted wristbands, heavy spurs, and a hammer-headed whip, completed the equipment.
Mattyfat, on the other hand, was of the bright-coloured, highly-polished, satin-tie order of sportsmen, and looked as if he was got up for a ball. He sported a new dress-cut scarlet, a voluminous blue-flowered satin tie, secured by beadle-staff-looking pins; bloodstone buttons adorned a canary-coloured vest, that was crossed diagonally by glittering chains, from the heavier one of which were gibbeted sundry miniature articles of utility — a pencil-case, a make-believe pistol, watchkeys in great abundance, and some mysterious-looking lockets. Matty was chief lady-killer of the regiment. His delicate doeskins now vied with the lustrous polish of his Napoleons. Old Fibs set all field propriety at defiance, for he absolutely sported a woolly white hat, a dressing-gown-looking old frock-coat with a blue collar, an old black satin waistcoat, while his iron-mouldy smalls were any colour but white. His tops, which had been intended for pink, had come out a bright orange colour. His wide-extending red moustache gave him the appearance of having caught the fox himself, and stuck its brush below his nose.
The rest of the Heavysteedites were of the mixed order — some having good coats and shocking bad breeches, others having shocking bad coats and good breeches. We must, however, waive further description of them in favour of our Tom.
If the old stager takes more time to get into his old clothes the first day of the season, how much more must a youngster require who has never been in hunting-clothes before? Above all, how much must he require if said clothes have been made in the country? Our Tom, with a laudable regard for the interests of the bank, ordered his of tradesmen who kept their accounts there; the consequence of which was that they were neither punctually delivered nor yet so easy as they might be. The boots, indeed, did not come till the morning, just as he sunk exhausted in a chair, after hauling on leathers that were sadly too tight for him. Then, as Tom eyed the knees, and thought how he should ever get them buttoned, the solemn tramp of a strange foot was heard ascending the stairs, and, in obedience to a “come in” that followed a slowly-delivered tip-tap, the door opened, and the phlegmatic Mr Corns appeared, with a green bag under his arm.
“Your servant, Mr Hall — Mr Thomas Hall, that’s to say,” said the aggravator, ducking his head, little dreaming of the blessings Tom had been invoking on his head, equalled only by those that were to follow his misfit.
Wonderful is the audacity of a country bootmaker, and irrepressibly touching is the way a youngster perseveres with his first pair of tops.
“There, sir — now, sir — another try, sir, and I think we’ll get it on, sir,” exclaimed Corns, working away at the foot, in aid of Tom’s hauling with a pair of handcutting steel hooks. “Now, sir, the foot’s getting in, sir,” continued Corns, giving the sole a hearty slap as the foot came to a dead lock at the instep. “S’pose you stand up, sir, and work your legs about a bit, sir,” continued Corns, showing Tom how to do it.
“Work my leg about a bit!” exclaimed the now profusely perspiring Tom—” work my leg about a bit! Why, I can hardly move it.”
“Oh, sir, stamp your foot, sir — stamp your foot; you’ll soon get it on. It don’t do to have them too easy at first, sir — must have them smart, sir — genteel, that’s to say, sir.”
And Tom takes a determined hold of the hooks.
“H-o-o-ray!” A desperate effort lands his foot in the boot, and gives him courage to attempt the other.
“I wish you health to wear your boots, sir — that’s to say Mr Hall, sir — Mr Thomas Hall I mean to say,” observed Corns, scratching his head, and eyeing the tight oppressive leather, looking as if it would burst from the oversized feet.
“I wish I may be able to wear them,” replied Tom, waddling across the room, adding, “I can hardly walk in them.”
“Oh, but they’re not meant to walk in, Mr Hall, sir — that’s to say, Mr Thomas Hall, sir; they’re only meant for ridin’ in, sir. Just knock your toe again the chimley-piece, sir, and you’ll make them a deal easier, sir.”
Tom did as he was told, and, after sundry lusty assaults, felt some little relaxation of the tightness. Having taken breath after his great exertion, mopped his perspiring brow, and washed the chalk powder from his hands, he now eagerly proceeded with his dressing.
Corns put on his spurs for him, buckling them outside instead of in, as Tom would have done, and giving the strap the orthodox Heartycheer lap over the buckle.
“You’d better copy my Lord Heartycheer in everything, sir — that’s to say, Mr Hall — Mr Thomas Hall,” observed Corns, scratching his head, as he eyed Tom’s rebellious calves beginning to bag over the tight tops. Corns made for Lord Heartycheer’s men.
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sp; Tom now adjusted a wide-extending sky-blue Joinville, whose once round tie afforded ample exposure of his fat throat. One would think that colds and sore throats were banished from the category of illnesses, so reckless and improvident are men in exposing their necks. A shaggy, many-pocketed, brown waistcoat quickly followed the Joinville, and then — oh! crowning triumph of the whole! the joyous scarlet, a short, square, loose-fitting jacket sort of coat, double stitched, back stitched, cross stitched, with all the appliances of power and strength peculiar to an old stage coachman’s upper one.
And Tom, having taken a good front view, side view, and back view of himself in the glass, receiving the assurance of Corns that he was quite “the ticket,” with renewed wishes for health to wear his boots, proceeded to waddle downstairs, to the imminent peril of his neck, from his spurs catching against the steps. How he astonished his beloved parents, now waiting for him at the well-supplied breakfast-table.
Old Hall, as our readers may suppose, had not any very defined ideas of the chase, his experience in that line consisting solely in seeing certain indifferently-mounted Fleecyborough gents, whose “paper” he would not care to cash, parade the streets in their red or black coats. Indeed, his commercial experience rather prejudiced him against hunting, and when, first, Cropper, the horse-dealer, then Sticker, the surgeon, and, after them, Seesaw and Slack, the opposition woolstaplers (all of whom sported their scarlets either openly or on the sly), appeared “successfully,” as he called it, in the ‘Gazette,’ he chuckled and rubbed his hands, and jerked his head, and fumbled his silver, and winked his eye, and said to friends, “Well, thank goodness, I’ve never either hunted or gammled.”
“Hunting and gammling,” therefore, it is clear, he looked upon as synonymous, and though he did not join the saint party, who wanted to put down racing, he took good care never to put his name down to any of the stakes, and would stand with his nose on the dusty bank window-blinds, looking at those who were going, and thinking how much better they would be at home. Indeed so little did he know about hunting that, when Tom’s scarlet came home, he thought it was the yeomanry uniform, and it was not until he saw the fox, with an “H” below, on the button which Tom had mounted, in anticipation of Lord Heartycheer making him a member of his hunt, that he found out his mistake.
“Well,” mused he, with a shake of his head, as he eyed it gravely and demurely, “I hope there’ll no harm come of it — I hope there won’t; but you know as well as I do, Sally,” addressing his wife, “that I’ve never either hunted or gammled — never either hunted or gammled,” repeated he, letting fall the sleeve to brush a rising tear from his eye. And he almost repented having made our Tom a gent.
Not so Mrs Hall, who saw in Tom’s rise the germ of future eminence; and when our fat friend rolled down from his bedroom in the glowing equipments of the chase, her exultation knew no bounds.
“Well, now he was a buck! — he was a beauty! — he was a love!” and she hugged and kissed him like a child.
The first transports over, Sarah the maid, and Martha the cook, and Jane the housemaid were severally summoned to the presence, and while laudations were yet in full flow, Mr Trueboy, the cashier, arrived for the keys of the bank safe. And while they were still fingering Tom, and feeling him and admiring him and turning him about, the notes of a comet-a-piston, mingling with the noisy rattle of wheels, sounded in the market-place, and, turning into Newbold-street, a heavily-laden coach presently pulled up at their door with a dash.
“Who is it?” exclaimed Mrs Hall, rushing breathless to the window, which was nearly on a level with a cardinal-like-hatted monster, enveloped in the party-coloured shawls and upper coats of a coachman. The roof was crowded with men in caps and men in hats, muffled in every variety of overcoat and wrapper, some smoking cigars, some flourishing hunting-whips, some dangling their booted legs over the lack-lustre panels of the vehicle.
It was a shady affair, on which even putty and paint, those best friends of dilapidation, were almost wasted. The history of that old drag, from the day when it rolled with a sound drum-like hum under the gateway of the London builders to take its place with the Benson Driving Club, through all its vicissitudes of town and country life, its choppings and changings, its swappings and sellings, its takings for debts, and givings for bets, down to the time when the grasping Sheriff of Middlesex seized it for taxes, when it was bought by the officers of the Heavysteeds for sixteen pounds, would form an instructive example of the mutability of earthly grandeur and the evanescence of four-in-handism. It had been yellow, and it had been blue, and it had been green, and it had been queen’s colour, and it had been black with red wheels, and red with black wheels, and was now a rusty brown picked out with a dirty drab. It had had an earl’s coronet on the panels, a baron’s coronet, a red hand with three crests, next two crests, then a single one, after that a sporting device, two racehorses straining for a cup, followed by a ballet-girl, which the colonel had now had painted out, and a great wolf-like fox painted in. Coach, horses, and cargo were now quite of a piece. The horses were of the shabbiest, most unmatching order: Billy Roughun was only half-clipped, while old Major Pendennis stood knuckling as if he would lie down in the street. The harness was made up of three sets, one bridle having a unicorn on the blinder, another a greyhound, and a third a bull. Nevertheless, it was thought a very swell turn-out, and great was the excitement it caused as it rolled through the now coach-deserted streets of Fleecyborough to the music of the comet-a-piston. Seeing it pull up at old Hall’s was enough to turn the heads of half the young men in the town.
“Oh, it’s the colonel! it’s the barrack drag!” exclaimed our Tom, pushing past his mother; and throwing up the sash, he elicited a round of view-halloas, “Tally-hos!”
“Who-whoops!” and “Yea-yups!” from the muffled passengers on the roof.
“I’ll be ready in five minutes, colonel!” exclaimed Tom, speaking out of the window, like a candidate at an election—” I’ll be ready in five minutes, colonel: — I just want a cup of coffee and an egg.”
“Time’s hup!” roared the colonel, flourishing a pig-jobber-looking whip over his cardinal-like hat, adding, “I’ll give you your breakfast at Heartycheer’s.”
“Oh, but take something before you go! — take something in your pocket, whatever you do! — you’ll be starved! you’ll be hungered! you’ll be famished!” exclaimed Mrs Hall, darting at biscuits and buns and cakes and dry toast and whatever came in her way, amidst renewed clamour from the comet-a-piston, and exclamations of “Now, Mr Slowman, look sharp!”
“Who-whoop!”
“Tally ho!”
“Can’t wait!”
“Harkaway!”
“Well, I must go!” exclaimed Tom, thrusting three buns into one pocket, and half-a-dozen biscuits into the other—” I must go!” repeated he, tearing himself away from his mother, who hugged him as if he was going to have a turn at the Caffres instead of the foxes. Seizing his hat he hurried downstairs, and out at the now crowded street door.
“Room inside!” roared the colonel, pointing downwards with his whip, as Tom appeared; and while Mrs Hall was congratulating herself that he would ride safe, the draught caused by the opening of the coach-door floated some lavender-coloured flounces past her eye, carrying consternation to her heart. She felt as if Tom was kidnapped. The coach door was quickly closed, the colonel gathered his weather-bleached reins for a start, and as Tom put his head out to nod his adieux, Padder, who was passing to the office, exclaimed, “He hoped they’d have a good run.” And Trueboy, who was watching the unwonted scene from the window, responded with a groan, “He wished it mightn’t make a run upon the bank.”
CHAPTER XVI.
THE HUNT BREAKFAST.
LORD HEARTYCHEER WAS a haughty man, proud as Lucifer, rich as Croesus, keen as mustard. He was the head of a long line of Heartycheers, whose original ancestor came over with the Conqueror, though whether the ancestor rowed, or steered, or was sea-sick and sat
still, is immaterial to our story. Suffice it to say that his lordship was so satisfied with his pedigree, that he would rather be a dead Heartycheer than a live anybody else. As a sportsman he was first-rate, and hounds had been kept at Heartycheer Castle time out of mind. The memory of man indeed scarcely ran to the time when his lordship didn’t keep them. He had seen through many gallant sportsmen; it is perhaps no exaggeration to say that he had seen through a dozen fields. So much for his sporting career; now for his private one. Though his lordship was proud and haughty with the men — with all but his intimates, at least — he was a great patron of the fair sex, among whom he enjoyed a great reputation for gallantry, though they all laughed and shook their heads when his name was mentioned, from the beautiful Mrs Ringdove, of Cupid Grove, who said he was a “naughty man,” down to the buxom chambermaid at the Crown, who called him “a gay old gentleman.” They all felt pleased and flattered by his attention: it stamped them as being handsomer than their neighbours. Indeed his name was a sort of byword throughout the country, and any unfortunate Caudle who was supposed to be sweet upon a Prettyman, was sure to be threatened with the Heartycheer retaliation.
There had been as great a succession of favourites at the castle as there had been of sportsmen with his hounds. His lordship, who was now well turned of seventy, used to talk in his confidential moments of having sown his “wild oats,” and as being only waiting for the fair one’s husband (whoever he was talking to) to be summoned to a better world to make her Lady Heartycheer. So he kept half a dozen variously handsome women in anxiety about him and their husbands; the husbands, we need hardly say, having the worse time of the two. He, however, by no means confined his attentions to the married ladies — he was too staunch a free-trader for that, — and there wasn’t a pretty girl in the country but he knew all about her.
