Complete Works of R S Surtees

by R S Surtees

  Mrs. Muleygrubs said, “That being a county family, they wished to make themselves popular, and would give a public breakfast to the Hunt.”

  Mr. Jorrocks said, “Nothin’ could be more proper.”

  Five minutes elapsed, and he looked again at his watch, observing, “that the ‘ounds would be there in a quarter of an hour.”

  “Hadn’t we better be doin’, think ye?” asked Mr. Jorrocks, impatiently, as Mr. Muleygrubs entered the room after his deal for the ancestor; “‘ounds ‘ll be here in no time.”

  “I suppose there’s no great hurry,” observed Mr. Muleygrubs, carelessly.

  “‘Deed but there is,” replied Mr. Jorrocks; “punctuality is the purliteness o’ princes, and I doesn’t like keepin’ people waitin’.”

  “Well, then,” said Mr. Muleygrubs, “we’ll ring for the urn.”

  In it came, hissing, for the footmen wanted to be off to the Hunt.

  Dry-toast, buttered-toast, muffins, twists, rolls, &c., were scattered down the table, and two stands of eggs flanked the cold game-pie in the centre.

  There is no greater nuisance than making a feast and no one coming to eat it, — even Gog and old Magog complained when William the Fourth disappointed the guzzlers in Guildhall:— “Said Gog to old Magog, ‘Why, fury and thunder! There surely is some unaccountable blunder,’” &c.

  In vain Mr. Marmaduke played with his breakfast, and pretended to enjoy everything. His eye kept wandering to the window in hopes of seeing some one, even the most unwelcome of his friends, cast up. Still no one arrived, and the stiff-necked boy sat in the baronial hall without being summoned to open the doors. A group of children first ventured to enter the forbidden field in front of the Justice’s, emboldened by a mole-catcher, who was combining business with pleasure. A boy on a pony next arrived, and was the object of attention until two grooms appeared, and began to fuss about the stirrups, and rub their horses down with handkerchiefs. Presently more arrived; then came more ponies, then a few farmers, and at last a red-coat, to the delight of the youngsters, who eyed the wearer with the greatest reverence. Meanwhile Mr. Jorrocks worked away at his breakfast, first at the solids, then at the sweets, diversified with a draught at the fluids.

  Four red-coated gentry came cantering into the field, smoking and chattering like magpies. Out rushed the figure footman to enlist them for the breakfast, but the hard-hearted mortals ask for cherry-brandy outside. Mr. Jorrocks looked at his watch, and the children raise a cry of “Here they come!” as James Pigg and Benjamin were seen rounding a belt of trees, with the hounds clustered at Pigg’s horse’s heels, while a Handley Cross helper on Mr. Jorrocks’s horse assisted to whip in. As they come towards the front, up goes the window, and Mrs. Muleygrubs and the children rush to the view.

  Pleased with the sight, Mr. Muleygrubs desired the footboy to give the men a glass of claret a-piece.

  “Thank ye, no!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks; “I’ll give them a Seidlitz pooder a-piece when they gets ‘ome.”

  “Do you love your huntsman, Mr. Jonnocks?” asked Magdalene Margery, who was now a candidate for the great man’s favour.

  “I loves everybody, more or less, my little dear,” replied our Master, patting her plaistered head.

  “Well, but would you kith him?” demanded Victoria Jemima.

  “Would you pay for his shoes?” asked Albert Erasmus, who sported a new pair himself.

  “He wears bouts, my dear,” replied our ready friend.

  “Do you hunt well, Mr. Jonnocks? — Are you a good hunter?” asked Master Memnon.

  “Capital, my dear! — Best in England!” replied our Master.

  “Why don’t you shoot the fox, Mr. Jonnocks?” now demanded Darius, astonished at the size and number of the pack. “P-a-a-r shoots the fox,” added he, in a loud tone of confident superiority.

  “Nonsense, Darius! nothin’ of the sort!” exclaimed the guilty Muleygrubs.

  “You d-o-o-o,” drawled Darius, eyeing his parent with a reproving scowl.

  “Hush! you foolish boy!” stamped Marmaduke, looking as if he would eat him.

  “Be bund to say he does,” grunted Mr. Jorrocks, aloud to himself, with a knowing jerk of his head.

  “Bless us! what a many dogs you have!” exclaimed Mr. Muleygrubs, anxious to turn the conversation.

  “‘Ounds! if you please,” replied our Master.

  “Well, hounds!” aspirated Mr. Muleygrubs, as if correcting Mr. Jorrocks’s pronunciation: “Is it possible you know all their names?”

  “Quite possible,” replied Mr. Jorrocks, making for the window that had just been opened.

  Giving one of his well-known shrill gallery whistles, the pack caught sight of their master, and breaking away, dash through the windows, demolishing the glass, upsetting the children, and seizing all the dainties left on the breakfast-table of Cockolorum Castle.

  Mr. Muleygrubs was knocked under the table, Mrs. Mul eygrubs and all the little Muleygrubs’ hurried out, and the stiff-necked foot-boy had a chase after Priestess, who ran off with the cold rein-deer tongue. Three or four hounds worried the pie, and Ravager — steady old Ravager — charged through the coffee-cups to get at the rolls. Altogether, there was a terrible crash.

  Mr. Jorrocks bolted out of the window, and, by dint of whooping and holloaing, aided by the foot-boy’s endeavours, succeeded in drawing off the delinquents, and sending Ben in for his cap, desired him to apologise for not returning to bid his hostess adieu, on the plea that the hounds would be sure to follow him.

  The commotion was not confined to the house, and Ethelred the gardener’s nerves were so shook, that he forgot where to enlarge the bag fox, which he did so clumsily, that the animal, as if in revenge, made straight for his garden, followed by Jorrocks, and the whole train-band bold, who made desperate havoc among the broccoli and winter cabbages. The poor, confused, half-smothered brute took refuge up the flue, from whence being at length ejected, our “indifferent man about blood” celebrated his obsequies with “ten miles straight on end” honours. He then made a show of drawing again but as “P-a-a-r shoots the fox,” we need not state the result.

  CHAPTER XLII. THE GREAT MR. PRETTYFAT.

  MR. JORROCKS’S INTRODUCTION to the “old customer” originated in a very bumptious, wide-margined letter from the great Mr. Prettyfat, deputy surveyor of the wretched forest of Pinch-me-near. Luckily it was a royal forest, for it would have ruined any one else. It had long been “administered” by Mr. Prettyfat, formerly butler to the great Lord Foliage, when that nobleman was at the head of the Woods and Forests; and twenty years had not diminished the stock of ignorance with which Prettyfat entered upon the duties of his office. He had, however, forgotten all about “napkins,” and was now a most important stately stomached personage, with royal buttons on a bright blue coat. It was always “her Majesty and I,” or, “I will consult with her Majesty’s Ministers,” or “my Lords Commissioners of her Majesty’s Treasury, and I think there should be a new hinge to the low gate,” or, “the Secretary of the Treasury and I differ about cutting down the shaken oaks on the North-est Dean, as I think they will recover.” Indeed, he would sometimes darkly hint that her Majesty was likely to pay him a visit to inspect his Cochin China and Dorking fowls, for which he was justly famous.

  Now the foxes, with their usual want of manners, had presumed upon the Royal forest poultry, and though Prettyfat had succeeded in trapping a good many of them, there was one audacious old varmint that seemed proof, as well against steel, as against the more deadly contents of his blunderbuss barrels. Prettyfat could neither catch him nor hit him. The oftener he blazed at him, the more impudent the fox seemed to become, and the greater pleasure he seemed to take in destruction, generally killing half-a-dozen more fowls than he carried away. Prettyfat then tried poison, but only succeeded in killing his own cat. At length he was fairly at his wit’s end. In this dilemma, it occurred to him that Jorrocks was the proper person to apply to, and hearing that he was a grocer in th
e city, who took a subscription to his hounds in the country, he concluded Jorrocks was a better sort of rat-catcher, who they might employ by the day, month, or year, so with the usual contempt of low people for those who make money, he concocted the following foolscapped sheet of impertinence, which he directed “On her Majesty’s service,” and sealed, with royal butter-pat sized arms: —

  “Pinch-me-near Forest House.

  “Sir,

  “I am directed by the Right Honourable the Commissioner in charge of her Majesty’s Woods and Forests to desire that you will inform me, for the information of the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of her Majesty’s Treasury, what you will undertake to exterminate the foxes in the Royal Forest of Pinch-me-near for? Their ravages have been very detrimental to the growth of naval timber, for which purpose alone these royal properties are retained.

  “You will, therefore, please to inform me, —

  “Ist. What you will undertake to keep the foxes down for by the year;

  “2ndly. What you will undertake to catch them at per head. So that the Right Honourable the Commissioner in charge of her Majesty’s Woods and Forests may be enabled to give the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of her Majesty’s Treasury their choice as to the mode of proceeding.

  “I am, Sir,

  “Your most obedient Servant,

  “John Prettyfat,

  “Deputy Surveyor.

  “To Mr. Jorrocks,

  “Handley Cross Spa.”

  To which Mr. Jorrocks, after a little inquiry, replied as follows: —

  “Diana Lodge, Handley Cross”

  “Dear Prettyfat,

  “Yours to hand, and note the contents. I shall be most ‘appy to do my possible in the way of punishin’ the foxes without any bother with your peerage swells, who would only waste the season, and a great deal of good letter paper in needless correspondence. Life’s too short to enter into a correspondence with a great official; but as they tells me it is a most frightful beggarly sort o’ country, to which none of the water-drinkers here would go, I must just dust the foxes’ jackets with a short pack on bye days, which will enable me to begin as soon as ever you like in a mornin’, which arter all is said and done, is the real time for makin’ them cry ‘Capevi!’ I does it all for the love o’ the thing, but if there are any earths, I shall be obliged by your stoppin’ them. Don’t stop ’em in mind, or I’ll have to inform the Right Honourable the Commissioner in charge of her Majesty’s Woods and Forests, for the information of the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of her Majesty’s Treasury. So no more at present from

  “Yours to serve,

  “John Jorrocks.

  “To John Prettyfat, Esq.,

  “Deputy Surveyor,

  “Pinch-me-near Forest House.”

  And there we will leave Mr. Prettyfat for the present, in order to introduce another gentleman.

  CHAPTER XLIII. M.F.H. BUGGINSON.

  NOW, MR. JORROCKS’S bagman, Bugginson, or “representative,” as he calls himself, had, since his master’s elevation to the fox-hunting throne, affected the sportsman a good deal, dressing in cut-away coats, corduroy trousers, and sometimes even going so far as gosling-green cords and very dark tops, and talking about our ‘ounds, our country, and so on, and this great swell strayed incautiously, at half-cock (for it was after luncheon), into Mr. Chaffey’s repository at Muddlesworth, in company with a couple of local swells, when, as bad luck would have it, the worthy auctioneer was dispersing the “splendid hunting establishment” of Sir Guy Spanker, under a writ of execution from the Sheriff of Fleetshire. He had got through the valuable collection of screws, and was just putting up the first lot of hounds, ten couple of dogs, in the usual flourishing style of the brotherhood beginning at an outrageous price, and gradually getting down-stairs to a moderate one, when booted Bugginson and Co. entered.

  “What will any gen’leman give for this superb lot of hounds?” demanded Chaffey, throwing his voice towards Bugginson, “what will any gen’leman give for this superb lot of hounds, unmatched and unmatchable?”

  “Doubt that,” winked Bugginson to Jim Breeze, one of his chums, intimating that he thought “theirs” were better.

  “What will any gen’leman give!” repeated the auctioneer, flourishing his little hammer, “five ‘underd guineas — will any gen’leman give five ‘underd guineas for them?” asked he hastily, as if expecting them to be snapped up in a moment.

  “Four ‘underd guineas!

  “Three ‘underd guineas!

  “Two ‘underd guineas!

  “One ‘underd guineas!

  “Will any gen’leman give a ‘underd guineas for this splendid lot of dog-hounds — the fleetest, the stoutest, the gamest hounds in England! No gen’leman give one ‘underd guineas for them!” exclaimed he, in a tone of reproach. Then apparently recovering his mortification, he proceeded,

  “Fifty guineas!

  “Forty guineas!

  “Thirty!

  “Ten! Will any gen’leman give ten guineas?” inquired he.

  “Shillings!” exclaimed Bugginson, knowingly, knocking off the end of his cigar.

  “Thank’e, sir!” exclaimed the auctioneer, glad of an offer.

  Bugginson felt foolish. He wished he “hadn’t” — still he thought there was no chance of their going for that. Chaffey hurried on.

  “Ten shillings is only bid! — any advance on ten shillin’s? — going for ten shillin’s — any body give more than ten shillin’s! can’t dwell! must be sold — only ten shillin’s bid — third and last time for ten shillin’s, goin’ (tap), gone.”

  “Going (tap), gone!” Ominous words! What a thrill they send through one’s frame. “Going (tap), gone.” Oh, dear, who shall describe the feelings of poor swaggering Bugginson thus let in for ten couple of hungry-looking hounds — four or five and twenty inch dogs! — Bugginson, who had never had to do with a dog of any sort in his life, suddenly becoming the owner of a pack of hounds — an M.F.H. like his master. “M.F.H. Bugginson presents his compliments to M.F.H. Jorrocks,” &c.

  “Deuced cheap,” “dog cheap!” exclaimed his now exalted companions.

  “Very,” simpered Bugginson, wishing he was well out of them.

  “Where to, yer’oner?” now demanded a ragged Irishman, who had seized the great bunch of dogs from the man of the yard as they came from the rostrum.

  “Stop,” muttered the man of the yard, “the gen’leman ‘ill be buyin’ some more.”

  “Will he,” thought Bugginson, eyeing the unruly lot pulling away in all directions, adding to himself, “catch me at that game again.”

  “Take them to the ‘Salutation,’” said Bugginson pompously, “and tell the ostler to put them into a stable.”

  “Half a croon, yer’oner!” demanded the man.

  “Half a crown!” retorted Bugginson, “why I only gave ten shillin’s for the lot.”

  “So much the better! Sure, then, yer’oner can afford to pay me liberal and bountiful.”

  “But half a crown’s out of all reason,” retorted Bugginson, angrily; “why it’s not fifty yards,” shortening the distance one half.

  “Raison or no raison,” replied Pat, “I’ll not take them for less;” and, Bugginson seeing, by the desperate rush some of the hounds made to get at a bunch of comrades now coming to the hammer, that he could do nothing with them himself, was obliged to submit to the extortionate demand.

  Though Bugginson was too knowing a hand to exhibit symptoms of mortification at the mess his swagger had got him into, he was not to be persuaded into bidding for any more; and in vain Mr. Chaffey expatiated on the merits of the next lots, intimating his opinion that Bugginson ought at least to make up his twenty couple.

  Bugginson simpered, chucked up his chin, haw-haw’d, and thanked him, but was “only making up his number;” and having remained sufficiently long to look as if he was quite unconcerned, he repaired to his hotel, to take another look at the animals, wh
ich he thought of turning loose upon the town during the night, when an unfinished letter to his master — we beg pardon, his “principal” — stating who he had seen, who he had “drawn,” who he had been told was “respectable,” and who the reverse, caused him to alter his plans, and to add a P.S., saying he hoped Mr. Jorrocks would allow him to offer him a Christmas box, in the shape of ten couple of very fine fox-hounds, late the property of Sir Guy Spanker, Baronet, which he had had the good fortune to meet with, and which he would forward by the 9.30 A.M. luggage train, with directions to be passed on to the Lily-white Sand Line, by the 11.20.

  “Con-found all presents wot eat!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, on reading the announcement. “Con-found all presents wot eat!” repeated he, with a hearty slap of his thigh. At first he was half inclined to work the wires, and bid Bugginson keep them himself. On second thoughts, however, he recollected that rope was cheap enough, and as he was drawing some of his hounds rather fine (being desperately addicted to bye-days), with the Pinch-me-near proposal in hand, he thought they might be worth looking at, perhaps. Accordingly, he despatched Pigg to the station, who in due time arrived with what James called “a cannyish lot o’ hunds, only they hadn’t getten ne neames,” names being a thing Bugginson never thought of asking for, or the Sheriff of Fleetshire of supplying. In truth, they looked better than they were; for, like most first lots at a sale, they were anything but the pick of the pack. There were skirters, mute runners, and noisy ones, besides a few worn-out old devils, that could evidently do nothing but eat. These Jorrocks condemned without a hearing, and so reduced the lot to eight couple. Mr. Jorrocks told Pigg they were a draft from the Quorn, with a good deal of the Trueman blood in them; and though James did say he was “warned they’d be good for nout, or they wadn’t ha’ parted with them at that time of year,” still the announcement had a very favourable effect in ingratiating them in Pigg’s favour. Thus reinforced, Mr. Jorrocks ventured to broach the subject of another bye-day, against which Pigg had lately been protesting, vowing that Jorrocks would have both “husses and hunds worked off their legs afore he knew where he was.” To our master’s surprise, Pigg didn’t make any objection to the forest.