by R S Surtees
At this intimation a move was made to the point; and all being duly provided with glasses, the luscious beverage flowed into each in succession, producing hearty smacks of the lips, and “very goods” from all.
“Well, I think so,” replied the self-satisfied old dandy; “I think so,” repeated he, replenishing his nose with a good pinch of snuff; “Comes from Steinberger and Leoville, of King Street, Saint Jeames’s — very old ‘quaintance of mine — great house in the days of George the Fourth of festive memory. And, by the way, that reminds me,” continued he, after a long-drawn respiration, “that I have forgotten a toast that I feel (pause) we ought to have drunk, and—”
“Let’s have it now then,” interrupted the Major, presenting his glass for a second helping.
“If you please,” replied “Wotherspoon, thus cut short in his oration, proceeding to replenish the glasses, but with more moderate quantities than before.
“Well, now what’s your toast?” demanded the Major, anxious to be off.
“The toast I was about to propose — or rather, the toast I forgot to propose,” proceeded the old twaddler, slowly and deliberately, with divers intermediate sniffs and snuffs, “was a toast that I feel ‘sured will come ‘ome to the ‘arts and symphonies of us all, being no less a — a — (pause) toast than the toast of the illustrious (pause), exalted — I may say, independent — I mean Prince — Royal Highness in fact — who (wheeze) is about to enter into the holy state of matrimony with our own beloved and exalted Princess (Hear, hear, hear). I therefore beg to (pause) propose that we drink the ‘ealth of His Royal (pause) ‘Ighness Prince (pause) Frederick (snuff) William (wheeze) Nicholas (sniff) Charles!” with which correct enunciation the old boy brightened up and drank off his glass with the air of a man who has made a clean breast of it.
“Drink both their ‘ealths!” exclaimed the Major, holding up his glass, and condensing the toast into “The ‘ealths of their Royal Highnesses!” it was accepted by the company with great applause.
Just as the last of the glasses was drained, and the lip-smacking guests were preparing to restore them to the sideboard, a slight rustle was heard at the door, which opening gently, a smart black velvet bonnet trimmed with cerise-coloured velvet and leaves, and broad cerise-coloured ribbons, piloted Mrs. Wotherspoon’s pretty face past the post, who announced that Mrs. Broadfurrow and she were ready to go whenever they were.
“Let’s be going, then,” exclaimed Major Yammerton, hurrying to the sideboard and setting down his glass. “How shall it be, then? How shall it be?” appealing to the company. “Give them a view or put her away quietly? — give them a view or put her away quietly?”
“Oh, put her away quietly,” responded Mr. Broadfurrow, who had seen many hares lost by noise and hurry at starting.
“With her ‘ead towards Martinfield?” asked the Major.
“If you can manage it,” replied Broadfurrow, well knowing that these sort of feats are much easier planned than performed.
“‘Spose we let Mrs. Wotherspoon put her away for us,” now suggested Mr. Rintonl.
“By all means!” rejoined the delighted Major; “by all means! She knows the spot, and will conduct us to it. Mrs. Wotherspoon,” continued he, stumping up to her as she now stood waiting in the little passage, “allow me to have the honour of offering you my arm;” so saying, the Major presented it to her, observing confidentially as they passed on to the now open front door, “I feel as if we were going to have a clipper!” lowering the ominous hat-string as he spoke.
“Solomon! Solomon!” cried he, to the patient huntsman, who had been waiting all this lime with the hounds. “We are going! we are going!”
“Yes, Major,” replied Solomon, with a respectful touch of his cap.
“Now for it!” cried the Major, wheeling sharp round with his fair charge, and treading on old Wotherspoon’s gouty foot, who was following too closely behind with Mrs. Broadfurrow on his arm, causing the old cock to catch up his leg and spin round on the other, thus splitting the treacherous cords across the knee.
“Oh-o-o-o!” shrieked he, wrinkling his face up like a Norfolk biffin, and hopping about as if he was dancing a hornpipe.
“Oh-o-o-o!” went he again, on setting it down to try if he could stand.
“I really beg you ten thousand pardons!” now exclaimed the disconcerted Major, endeavouring to pacify him. “1 really beg you ten thousand pardons; but I thought you were ever so far behind.”
“So did I, I’m sure,” assented Mrs. Wotherspoon.
“You’re such a gay young chap, and step so smartly, you’d tread on any body’s heels,” observed the Major jocularly.
“Well, but it was a pincher, I assure you,” observed Wotherspoon, still screwing up his mouth.
At length he got his foot down again, and the assault party was reformed, the Major and Mrs. Wotherspoon again leading, old Spoon limping along at a more respectful distance with Mrs. Broadfurrow, while the gentlemen brought up the rear with the general body of pedestrians, who now deserted Solomon and the hounds in order to see poor puss started from her form. Solomon was to keep out of sight until she was put away.
Passing through the little American blighted orchard, and what Spoon magnificently called his kitchen garden, consisting of a dozen grass-grown gooseberry bushes, and about as many winter cabbages, they came upon a partially-ploughed fallow, with a most promising crop of conch grass upon the unturned part, the hungry soil looking as if it would hardly return the seed.
“Fine country! fine country!” muttered the Major, looking around on the sun-bright landscape, and thinking he could master it whichever way the hare went. Up Sandywell Lane for Martinfield Moor, past Woodrow Grange for Linacres, and through Farmer Fulton’s fold-yard for Witherton.
Oh, yes, he could do it; and make a very good show out of sight of the ladies.
“Now, where have you her? where have you her?” whispered he, squeezing Mrs. Wotherspoon’s plump arm to attract her attention, at the same time not to startle the hare.
“O, in the next field,” whispered she, “in the next field,” nodding towards a drab-coloured pasture in which a couple of lean and dirty cows were travelling about in search of a bite. They then proceeded towards it.
The gallant Major having opened the ricketty gate that intervened between the fallow and it, again adopted his fair charge, and proceeded stealthily along the high ground by the ragged hedge on the right, looking back and holding up his hand for silence among the followers.
At length Mrs. Wotherspoon stopped. “There, you see,” said she, nodding towards a piece of rough, briary ground, on a sunny slope, in the far corner of the field.
“I see!” gasped the delighted Major; “I see!” repeated he, “just the very place for a hare to be in — wonder there’s not one there always. Now,” continued he, drawing his fair charge a little back, “we’ll see if we can’t circumvent her, and get her to go to the west. Rintoul!” continued he, putting his hand before his mouth to prevent the sound of what he said being wafted to the hare. “Rintoul! you’ve got a whip — you go below and crack her away over the hill, that’s a good feller, and we’ll see if we can’t have something worthy of com-mem-mo-ration” — the Major thinking how he would stretch out the run for the newspapers — eight miles in forty minutes, an hour and twenty with only one check — or something of that sort.
The pause thrilled through the field, and caused our friend Billy to feel rather uncomfortable, he didn’t appreciate the beauties of the thing.
Rintoul having now got to his point, and prepared his heavy whip-thong, the gallant band advanced, in semicircular order, until they came within a few paces of where the briars began. At a signal from the Major they all hailed. The excitement was then intense.
“I see her!” now whispered the Major into Mrs. Wotherspoon’s oar. “I sec her!” repeated he, squeezing her arm, and pointing inwardly with his thong-gathered whip.
Mrs. Wotherspoon’s wandering eyes
showed that she did not participate in the view.
“Don’t you see the tuft of fern just below the thick red-berried rose bush a little to the left here?” asked the Major; “where the rushes die out?”
Mrs. Wotherspoon nodded assent.
“Well, then, she’s just under the broken piece of fern that lies bending this way. You can see her ears moving at this moment.”
Mrs. Wotherspoon’s eyes brightened as she saw a twinkling something.
“Now then, put her away!” said the Major gaily.
“She won’t bite, will she?” whispered Mrs. Wotherspoon, pretending alarm.
“Oh, bite, no!” laughed the Major; “hares don’t bite — not pretty women at least,” whispered he. “Here take my whip and give her a touch behind,” handing it to her as he spoke.
Mrs. Wotherspoon having then gathered up her violet-coloured velvet dress a little, in order as well to escape the frays of the sharp-toothed brambles as to show her gay red and black striped petticoat below, now advanced cautiously into the rough sea, stepping carefully over this tussuck and t’other, avoiding this briar and that, until she came within whip reach of the fern. She then paused, and looked back with the eyes of England upon her.
“Up with her!” cried the excitcd Major, as anxious for a view as if he had never seen a hare in his life.
Mrs. Wotherspoon then advanced half a step farther, and protruding the Major’s whip among the rustling fern, out sprang — what does the reader think? — A GREAT TOM CAT!
“Tallyho!” cried Billy Pringle, deceived by the colour.
“Hoop, hoop, hoop!” went old Spoon, taking for granted it was a hare.
Crack! resounded Rintoul’s whip from afar.
“Haw, haw, haw! never saw anything like that!” roared the Major, holding his sides.
“Why, it’s a cat!” exclaimed the now enlightened Mrs. Wotherspoon, opening wide her pretty eyes as she retraced her steps towards where he stood.
“Cat, ay, to be sure, my dear! why, it’s your own, isn’t it?” demanded our gallant Master.
“No; ours is a grey — that’s a tabby,” replied she, returning him his whip.
“Grey or tab, it’s a cat,” replied the Major, eyeing puss climbing up a much-lopped ash-tree in the next hedge.
“Why, Spoon, old boy, don’t you know a cat when you see her?” demanded he, as his chagrined host now came pottering towards them.
“I thought it was a hare, ‘pon honour, as we say in the Lords,” replied the old buck, bowing and consoling himself with a copious pinch of snuff.
“Well, it’s a sell,” said the Major, thinking what a day he had lost.
“D-a-a-vilish likely place for a hare,” continued old Wotherspoon, reconnoitring it through his double eye-glasses; “D-a-a-vilish likely place, indeed.”
“Oh, likely enough,” muttered the Major, with a chuck of his chin, “likely enough, — only it isn’t one, that’s all!”
“Well, I wish it had been,” replied the old boy.
“So do I,” simpered his handsome wife, drawing her fine lace-fringed kerchief across her lips.
The expectations of the day being thus disappointed, another council of war was now held, as to the best way of retrieving the misfortune. Wotherspoon, who was another instance of the truth of the observation, that a man who is never exactly sober is never quite drunk, was inclined to get back to the bottle. “Better get back to the house,” said he, “and talk matters quietly over before the fire;” adding, with a full replenishment of snuff up his nose, “I’ve got a batch of uncommonly fine Geisenheimer that I would like your ‘pinion of, Major,” but the Major, who had had wine enough, and wanted to work it off with a run, refused to listen to the tempter, intimating, in a whisper to Mrs. Spoon, who again hung on his arm, that her husband would be much better of a gallop.
And Mrs. Wotherspoon, thinking from the haziness of the old gentleman’s voice, and the sapient twinkling of his gooseberry eyes, that he had had quite enough wine, seconded this view of the matter; whereupon, after much backing and bowing, and shaking of hands, and showing of teeth, the ladies and gentlemen parted, the former to the fire, the latter to the field, where the performance of the pack must stand adjourned for another chapter.
CHAPTER LVI. A FINE RUN! — THE MAINCHANCE CORRESPONDENCE.
HE worst of these dejeuners à la fourchette, and also of luncheons, is, that they waste the day, and then send men out half-wild to ride over the hounds or whatever else comes in their way. The greatest funkers, too, are oftentimes the boldest under the influence of false courage; so that the chances of mischief are considerably increased. The mounted Champagne bottle smoking a cigar, at page 71, is a good illustration of what we mean. We doubt not Mr. Longneck was very forward in that run.
All our Ivy Tower party were more or less primed, and even old Wotherspoon felt as if he could ride. Billy, too, mounted the gallant grey without his usual nervous misgivings, and trotted along between the Major and Rintoul with an easy Hyde Park-ish sort of air. Rintonl had intimated that he thought they would find a hare on Mr. Merryweather’s farm at Swayland, and now led them there by the fields, involving two or three little obstacles — a wattled hurdle among the rest — which they all charged like men of resolution. The hurdle wasn’t knocked over till the dogs’-meatmen came to it.
Arrived at Swayland, the field quickly dispersed, each on his own separate hare-seeking speculation, one man fancying a fallow, another a pasture: Rintonl reserving the high hedge near the Mill bridle-road, out of which he had seen more than one whipped in his time. So they scattered themselves over the country, flipping and flopping all the tufts ard likely places, aided by the foot-people with their sticks, and their pitchings and tossings of stones into bushes and hollows, and other tempting-looking retreats.
The hounds, too, ranged far and wide, examining critically each likely haunt, pondering on spots where they thought she had been, but which would not exactly justify a challenge.
While they were all thus busily employed, Rintoul’s shallow hat in the air intimated that the longed-for object was discerned, causing each man to get his horse by the head, and the foot-people to scramble towards him, looking anxiously forward and hurriedly back, lest any of the riders should be over them. Rintoul had put her away, and she was now travelling and stopping, and travelling and stopping, listening and wondering what was the matter. She had been coursed before but never hunted, and this seemed a different sort of proceeding.
The terror-striking notes of the hounds, as they pounced upon her empty form, with the twang of the horn and the cheers of the sportsmen urging them on, now caused her to start; and, laying back her long ears, she scuttled away over Bradfield Green and up Ridge Hill as hard as ever she could lay legs to the ground.
“Come along, Mr. Pringle! come along, Mr. Pringle!” cried the excited Major, spurring up, adjusting his whip as if he was going to charge into a solid square of infantry. He then popped through an open gate on the left.
The bustling beauties of hounds had now fallen into their established order of precedence, Lovely and Lilter contending for the lead, with Bustler and Bracelet, and Ruffler and Chaunter, and Ruin and Restless, and Dauntless and Driver, and Dancer and Flaunter and others striving after, some giving tongue because they felt the scent, others, because the foremost gave it. — So they went truthfully up the green and over the hill, a gap, a gate, and a lane serving the bustling horsemen.
The vale below was not quite so inviting to our “green linnets” as the country they had come from, the fields being small, with the fences as irregular as the counties appear on a map of England. There was none of that orderly squaring up and uniformity of size, that enables a roadster to trace the line of communication by gates through the country. — All was zigzag and rough, indicating plenty of blackthorns and briers to tear out their eyes. However, the Champagne was sufficiently alive in our sportsmen to prevent any unbecoming expression of fear, though there was a general look
ing about to see who was best acquainted with the country. Rintoul was now out of his district, and it required a man well up in the lin to work them satisfactorily, that is to say, to keep them in their saddles, neither shooting them over their horses’ heads nor swishing them over their tails. Our friend Billy worked away on the grey, thinking, if anything, he liked him better than the bay He even ventured to spur him.
The merry pack now swing musically down the steep hill, the chorus increasing as they reach the greener regions below. The fatties, and funkers, and ticklish forelegged ones, begin who-a-ing and g-e-e-ntly-ing to their screws, holding on by the pommels and cantrells, and keeping their nags’ heads as straight as they can. Old Wotherspoon alone gets off and leads down. He’s afraid of his horse slipping upon its haunches. The sight of him doing so emboldens our Billy, who goes resolutely on, and incautiously dropping his hand too soon, the grey shot away with an impetus that caused him to cannon off Broadfurrow and the Major and pocket himself in the ditch at the bottom of the hill. Great was the uproar! The Richest Commoner in England was in danger! Ten thousand a-year in jeopardy! “Throw yourself off!”
“Get clear of him!”
“Keep hold of him!”
“Mind he doesn’t strike ye!” resounded from all parts, as first the horse’s head went up, and then his tail, and then his head again, in his efforts to extricate himself.
At length Billy, seizing a favourable opportunity, threw himself off on the green sward, and, ere he could rise, the horse, making a desperate plunge, got out, and went staling away with his head in the air, looking first to the right and then to the left, as the dangling reins kept checking and catching him.
“Look sharp or you’ll loss him!” now cried old Duffield, as after an ineffectual snatch of the reins by a passing countryman, the horse ducked his head and went kicking and wriggling and frolicking away to the left, regardless of the tempting cry of the hounds.