by R S Surtees
Shortly after his lordship’s departure the plot thickened considerably. Among other indications of winter, besides oleaginous holly-stuck beef, seed-cake, citron, plums, and mince-pies in profusion, was the sudden irruption of no end of rough ponies, and little folks to ride them.
All the roads and lanes became alive with little scuttling scrambling things, worked by energetic, terrier-coated, worsted-comforted boys, exciting the terror of their mammas and the laughter of their papas. Oh, Charles! oh, James! oh, Thomas! Do, John (to the footman), for heaven’s sake, run and stop them! I’m sure there’ll be mischief! I’m sure they’ll be killed!
And the cry was still “They come, they come,” until every hall, every house, every place in the country seemed to have its complement of “Master Troublesomes” home for the holidays. And the work of the ponies increased: morning, noon, and night they were at work, their powers of endurance seeming to increase with each fresh demand, until they put the performance of the pampered hunter quite in the background. No sooner was one set of youngsters done than another set were ready to start, and races of every length and course were run at all hours of the day, with every species of start in order to bring them to an equality. A sudden change presently took place for hunting. The Fleecyborough Independent and True Blue Champion appeared with what in reality were four very so-so meets, but which caused great commotion among the holiday world, and great borrowing of saddles, bridles, and girths. Screws of all sorts rose in price, and plausible stablemen spoke in the handsomest terms of animals that had no more taste for hunting than the flys that were generally tackled to their tails. The little ponies were bottled up, and wondered what had happened to procure them so much care and corn. Great was the bragging and boasting among the youngsters how they would take the shine out of each other, and how five-barred gates and brooks — nay, rivers — should be nothing in their way.
Our friends at the barracks partook of the prevailing epidemic, and long and serious were the discussions as to the relative merits of Pippin’s brown horse Blazer, Mattyfat’s Hero, and Captain Spill’s Harkaway, which it was thought his lordship’s absence would favour the opportunity of testing.
In these discussions Jug, who always became an ardent sportsman after dinner, bore a conspicuous part, his known intimacy with Lord Heartycheer and recent visit to the Castle giving weight to what he said. Moreover, Jug had heretofore managed to evade the exposure of his incompetence across country, having stoutly maintained throughout the summer that he was a regular “cut-’em-down and hang-’em-up-to-dry man,” only wanting opportunity to exhibit his prowess. He got over his Heartycheer-Castle day by saying that they had had a capital run, but as he didn’t know the country he couldn’t give any account of it. Lies, however, require a good deal of management, and Angelena, we are sorry to say, did not assist her quondam suitor in his endeavours. Indeed, she rather went the other way, and hinted that Tom Hall and Jug would make a very good match of it. The thing soon came to the ears of the respective heroes, Downeylipe, her new suitor, enlightening Jug, and Major Fibs taking up the cudgels on behalf of Tom Hall. Of course, they both went a good deal further than the exact truth, adding expressions of defiance and contempt, and intimating that each only wanted opportunity to show the other the way. The consequence was that a very deadly feud was engendered between gentlemen who as yet had scarcely had any communication with each other. Major Fibs was quite sure that Mr Hall was a very respectable performer, while the Heavysteeders generally patronised Jug, and urged him, whatever he did, to take plenty of jumping powder, and sarve Tom out handsomely. This Jug, in his cups, promised faithfully to do, though the morning’s reflections sometimes didn’t make the thing look quite so easy. Indeed, the more they patted him on the back, the greater man he thought Hall, until he became quite afraid of him, and he wouldn’t have been at all sorry if the colonel had forbid his going out hunting altogether; in fact, he would have been very grateful.
There was no such luck, however, and on a very dark December morning our shivering comet was shaking himself into his misfitting hunting clothes by the fight of a very meagre mould candle. They were all hereditary garments, and had as much pretension to fitting as such apologies ever have. The leather breeches were the greatest failure, as, indeed, second-hand ones generally are, having been made for a leg half as big again as the cornet’s, consequently there was a considerable fold at the knee, which our friend flattered himself would never be seen when he had his boots on. Indeed, he much questioned that any one ever looked at the knees — just as thick-legged ladies always flatter themselves that no one looks at their feet. The boots were loose, white-topped ones, with a sad propensity to turning round, which they did in a most independent careless manner, quite regardless of each other, so that the back seam of one would be in front, while the other stood as it ought to do. The coat, as coats go — when every man seems to exert his skill in producing something uglier and more outré than his neighbour — was not so far amiss, being a roomy, dressing-gowney, old frock of the last century, cut down into one of the queer half-coats, half-jackets, many-pocketed, few-buttoned things of the present.
We question if there ever was a time when so many hideous incongruous habiliments were to be seen in the hunting field as there are now. Nay, we may go further, and say that perhaps there never was a time when so little care or taste was exhibited in dress generally, or when such ugly misfitting garments were allowed to pass as coats. What would have been thought in the dandy, swallow-tailed days of George IV. — when coats were made to fit like wax, and the slightest wrinkle was cut out and fine drawn — of the baggy, sack-like things of the present day, with sleeves that look like trousers put in by mistake? How pleasant it must be to ride or drive in the face of a sleeting rain, with the wet drifting up to one’s elbows, without having the power of preventing it by buttoning the wrists. But there is no absurdity that fashion will not compass and even reconcile some people to.
Our Tom was better got up than Jug, his clothes having been made for him, but Tights, having given Captain Dazzler’s groom a guinea (of Tom’s money, of course) for a most invaluable recipe for brown tops (another of the hideous inventions or revivals of the day), had experienced a “failyar,” the tops having come out a bright red instead of the nut-brown colour Tights expected. Being, however, a man of resources, Tights persuaded Tom they would “come all right” as he proceeded to cover, and, trusting to Tights’ word, Tom put on his grey terrier coat, and installed himself in the vacant seat of Major Fibs’s jingling old dog-cart, as soon as that worthy drew up at the door to receive him. The major thought Tom looked rather warm about the legs, but not being much of a man for the chase, as his old white hat and mother-of-pearl buttoned, short-waisted, scarlet — or, rather, purple — coat testified, he kept his opinion to himself, and proceeded to expatiate on the ease of the vehicle and the merits of the steed as they drove out of town. When they got clear of the stones, the major began to divulge the real object of his mission, which was to try and smooth matters over between Tom and Angelena, so that the fair lady might not lose the second string to her bow.
Though Angelena still insisted on the unabated ardour of Lord Heartycheer, and maintained that he had over and over again promised to marry her, both the colonel and Mrs Blunt felt there were inconsistencies in the way, and that his lordship was not to be depended upon. Moreover, the colonel wanted to cash the Lily of the Valley cheque, Christmas operating upon his pocket much as it does upon the pockets of other people. So the major had plenty of scope for his diplomacy, a quality that he had no little difficulty in exercising, as well from the peculiar state of Tom’s mind with regard to Laura as from the interruptions caused by passing sportsmen on their way to the meet. Whenever the major thought he was drawing nicely on to his point, and would compass his object, up cantered some one with an original observation about the weather, or inquiring if they weren’t early or weren’t late? or if they’d breakfasted? or if they had their horse
s on? just as if anybody ever saw two men hunting one horse, and that, too, taken out of a gig! The farther our gigmen went, however, the more impossible steady, business-like conversation became, for each by-road and green lane contributed its quota to the swelling throng, while the open space before Wearyfield Wood was dotted with dark-clad horsemen, slightly sprinkled with pink. It was as yet but an early hour, and many of these sombre habiliments would be changed into livelier colours when the sporting masters cantered becomingly up.
The pinks that were there were most likely of the second and third-class order; men who perhaps had been base enough to ride their own horses on, or who wanted to have a look at the hounds before they went into cover, proceedings to be utterly deprecated by all stylish sportsmen. However, there was a goodly throng of one sort and another, including a glorious muster of restless ponies, whose owners kept startling the high-bred hunters by rushing in among them, as the dismounted grooms fistled at the girths, the stirrups, or the mud sparks. Then the clamour and clatter on the road drew all eyes that way, and a charge of cantering swells might be seen, leaving a clear streak of smoke behind them like the vapour of an engine, and again behind them a second detachment hove in sight, to be in turn succeeded by another.
Wearyfield Wood was a fine central situation, approached by good roads, as well from Fleecyborough and Rattlinghope as from the smaller towns of Torrington and Moffat.
Dicky Dyke, of course, was late with the hounds, and at length came up pursing his mouth and simpering in the usual great-man style. Looking over the heterogeneous, blue-nosed, mud-stuck field, he only deigned to notice those whom his lordship would have recognised, or who toadied Dicky on his private account: Johnny Piper, who had lately sent him a basket of Kent filberts; Tommy Kingsmill, who had marked the season with a turkey; Andrew Dawson, whose apples were unexceptionable; and Arthur Flintoff, who had promised him a sucking pig. He capped Jug, an example that was followed by the whips, greatly to Jug’s enhancement. He looked at Hall, Head-and-shoulders Brown, Beale, Brassey, Kyleycalfe, and a whole host of others as if he had seen them before; while he glanced at the variously grown, variously mounted, short-necked young Browns with a shudder, as he thought what a string of persecution there was coming on for some unfortunate master of hounds.
Having looked the people saucily over, and given himself as many airs as he could, Dicky looked at his gold watch, and, seeing it only wanted five-and-twenty minutes to twelve, he shut it against his cheek, and, drawing on his red-lined dogskin gloves, took his grey horse short by the head, and, rising in his stirrups, proceeded to address the throng, for field we can hardly call it.
“Now, gentlemen,” said he, looking around him, “as my lord’s away, the conduct of affairs nattarally devolves upon me, and I’ll take it as a ‘tickler favour if you’ll all come into cover, and keep there, and refrain from halloaing. It’s been well observed,” continued he, “that every man sees the hunted fox; but as we only undertake to pursue one at a time with our hounds — which I may observe are bred with the greatest care and attention, containing strains of almost every fashionable blood — the Belvoir, the Burton, the Beaufort, the Quom, to say nothin’ of a dash of the old Pytchley Furrier — I say, as we only undertake to pursue one fox at a time, you’ll p’r’aps have the goodness to let the hounds select their own! Stick to him, and if they divide, my men here,” looking at Billy Brick (who now had his tongue in his cheek) and Sam, “will stop ’em, and maintain to my halloa.”
So saying, Dick sunk in his saddle, and turning his horse the other way, at a slight cheer and wave of his hand the glad pack dashed into the thick, moss-grown, briary underwood, and the field proceeded to make their first series of impressions up the clay of the deep-holding ride. Blob, blob, blob, squirt, squirt, squirt, flounder, flounder, flounder, flounder, went the weary horses, while the minor cavalry scuttled and scrambled over the surface and through the boggy places in a way that must have excited their bigger brothers’ envy. Dicky, of course, was a little in advance, with Sam in the rear of the ill-assorted field, while wide of Dicky, outside the cover on the right, Billy’s cheerful halloa was heard, accompanied by an occasional crack of his whip. Billy had strict orders to head back the foxes, or at all events to stop the hounds the instant they appeared outside.
The cover was some three hundred acres in extent — perhaps more, for it was of that unprofitable nature that no one we should think would be at the trouble of measuring it. It was a wretched water-logged place, the trees not having grown an inch in the memory of the “oldest inhabitant.” Trees, indeed, they could hardly be called, being little better than poles; while the brushwood had ceased to be profitable since the introduction of coal into the country by the Gobblegold Railway. The wood was therefore left to itself a good deal, save where a silvery birch or clean-grown hazel tempted a passing tramp to add it to the miscellaneous contents of his cart.
The rough and tangled nature of the brake, coupled with the intention of making a day of it in cover, induced Dicky to draw very carefully, and any one unacquainted with him would have said what a nice, patient, painstaking, old huntsman this is! how anxious he is not to miss a chance! while Head-and-shoulders Brown, Strutt, Beal, Black, Brassey, and others indulged in coarse invectives at his slow pottering dawdlings, wondering at his not pushing on briskly for the dry thick lying at the top, and talking as if they would dismiss Dicky, and take the country away from his lordship.
Dicky, who sat with a quick ear cocked back to hear their remarks and treasure them up for his lordship, with such additions and variations as circumstances might require, did not suffer himself to be at all put out of his way, but went blobbing, and hold-up-ing, and gentle-ing, and yoicking, and cheering, and cracking his whip in a sort of way that as good as said, I don’t care twopence whether I find a fox or not.
Meanwhile Tom Hall and Jug were taking a mental measure of each other, conjuring up a good deal more equestrian prowess than either had ever invested the other with before. Tom thought if he was on Jug’s horse he would cut Jug down; and Jug thought if he was on Tom’s horse he would cut Tom down. So it is that we generally fancy our neighbour’s horse in preference to our own, just as we often fancy our neighbour’s wine-glass is larger than our own.
Major Fibs, who was only backing Tom for an ulterior object, not caring how soon he drew him off and resumed the conversation he had made so little progress with in coming, now advised Tom, seeing how he went floundering and blundering about, to “get his orth a little tighter by the ‘ead,” observing that he would be having an “over-reach” if he didn’t take care; besides which, he would want all the steam he could raise against he got out of cover.
Jug’s backers — Pippin, Spill, Dazzler, Mattyfat, and others of the Heavysteeds, stuck to our now half-drunken Jug, laughing at Hall’s lumbering unsportsmanlike figure, and wishing that his still bright red boots mightn’t take fire. Sundry disparaging observations they said Hall had made on the comet and his horsemanship were reported, the speakers declaring they “wouldn’t put up with it if they were him.” And little pig-eyes waxed indignant at Tom, wishing that his horse might fall so that he might ride over him at once.
Long-continued yoickings, and crackings, and stir-him-up-ings, and rout-him-out-ings, will tire even the slackest funkster, and both Tom Hall and Jug had begun to wish for something more enlivening than Dicky’s repeated exhortations, and the blobbing and floundering of their respective steeds, when a sudden Jullien-concert-like outburst of melody from the whole pack proclaimed that the varmint had started in view with every hound at his brush.
“Hoop — hoop — hoop! — Tatti-ho! talli-ho! talli-ho!” screeched Dicky, getting his horse by the head, and rising in his stirrups as though he were going to ride for the Derby. He then went hustling and bustling up the deepholding ride, an object of unbounded admiration to the variously aged, variously clad, variously mounted youngsters behind. What a scrimmage ensued! How the mud flew, and how the half-blinded
urchins wiped their faces with their jacket sleeves — up went a fresh volley on the instant. On they hurried, to the irresistible impetus of the hounds, Hall and Jug elbowing and racing with the best of them, each looking as though he would eat the other.
“Hold hard!” now cried Dicky, pulling up short across the ride—” hold hard!” repeated he, holding up his hand. “Don’t you hear they’re comin’?” asked he, casting an angry glance at the gallopers, muttering, “Wonder what half you fellers come out hunting for?”
“Talli-ho! Talli-ho! Talli-ho!” shrieked and screeched a multitude of voices in every variety of intonation, as a fine grey-backed old fellow, with his neat ears well laid back and a well-tagged brush, crossed the ride about fifty yards higher up at an easy listening pace, as if calculating the amount of scent he was leaving behind, and whether it was expedient to continue in cover or try his luck in the open, either for Witherley Forest or the main earths at Clumbercliffe Rocks. The concert behind was great, but the ground was yet unfoiled, and while he had no difficulty in meusing through the tangled thorns and copsewood of the cover, he knew they would present severe obstacles to his obstreperous pursuers, whose size and capabilities he had had peculiar opportunities of estimating; so he determined to make a wide swing of the cover, and consider matters further after he had done that. The sight of the glorious varmint infused fresh joy into the field, and even Dicky, though every hound was throwing his tongue on the line, couldn’t resist the temptation of a “blow,” so he out with his horn and joined its shrill melody to the sweet music of the hounds. All hands now grasped convulsively at the bridles, hats were stuck firmer on the head, caps readjusted, and each rider screwed himself up to the sticking point, as though the success of the day depended on his individual exertions.
