by R S Surtees
Lucy was quite agreeable to that also, Mr Romford then sunk into the roomy recesses of his well-stuffed easy chair, and luxuriated in his pipe as he passed his fine gratis pack of hounds in review before him. He was a man of decision, and quickly made up his mind what to take and what to leave at home. Ten couple was just what he would take, and ten couple he had to the fore in no time. So, having finished his pipe, he arose from his chair, and, chucking a log of wood on to the fire to last till he came back, he got a candle and went and had another stare at the fox. Here he was presently joined by old Dirty, Mrs Mustard herself, who, in reply to his inquiries where he could get a mouse or a few beetles, replied that she had a couple of mice in the trap just then, and, as to beetles, why her back kitchen fairly swarmed with them; so sending her away for the mice and a handful of beetles, as also for a saucer of clean water, Mr Romford presently made his poor prisoner as comfortable as a fox could be made under the circumstances, and left him to enjoy himself as best he could.
He then proceeded to the stables, where he found Swig and Chowey in the saddle-room deeply engaged in a game of dominoes, Chowey having rather the best of it up to the time of Mr Romford’s coming. Here, too, was Short, the stud-groom as he was now called, having some coatless, characterless helpers under him. Mr Romford, having first ordered Leotard for Mrs Somerville, and the Baker for his own riding out of the brilliant galaxy of stubbornness and vice with which his stable was supplied, and Chowey, having put the finishing stroke to the game, Mr Swig was at liberty to talk to our master, who forthwith ran him through a list of ten couple of hounds that he wanted in the morning so rapidly that if Swig had not had his two intelligent friends in the saddle-room to assist him, he would infallibly have made some mistake.
“Eight to a minute!” then cried Mr Romford, giving a general order for all—“eight to a minute!” repeated he, rolling out of the room, leaving his audience very much surprised at his proceedings. But Lucy and he were always dropping in upon them at unqualified hours.
“What’s up now!” ejaculated Short, who had calculated upon having to act figure footman on the morrow.
“Must be going to have a hunt by themselves,” suggested Swig.
“The same as they had with the Heavysides,” observed Chowey, pursing up his peculiar mouth as he recollected Swig’s and his own misfortune in the gig—or, rather, out of the gig.
“Shouldn’t wonder,” assented the strong persevering man.
“Gallant little ’oman to ride,” observed Swig; adding, “I do like to see her go.”
“He’s a rum’un,” muttered Chowey. “Of all the rum’uns I ever lived with, he’s the rummiest.”
So they proceeded to discuss the merits and peculiarities of our worthy master, without disparagement, however, to his sporting prowess, which indeed nobody could deny.
Meanwhile Mr Romford, little caring what they either thought or said, hurried off by the light of the moon to the great Mr Proudlook’s, to whom, having presented a bottle of Lord Lovetin’s best Jamaica rum that he had wrapped up in an old “Bell’s Life” newspaper in his baggy coat pocket, he propounded his intentions for the morrow. Mr Proudlock, thus properly propitiated, would be most happy to do anything in his power to serve Mr Romford, and, after discussing various localities, the Holly Meadows, Eddys Row, Limecoats Green, Shortleet Moor, High Thorn Wood, and other places, it was at length decided that Mr Proudlock should start away betimes and enlarge the fox in High Thorn Wood, on the east or Hard and Sharp side of the country, where they would be less likely to disturb any of the tenacious game preservers’ covers on any of the country that Mr Romford would be likely soon to draw himself.
And Mr Romford, having thus made all preparations for the coming day, left Mr Proudlock to discuss his rum, while he returned to his comfortable quarters at the Hall, thinking how much snugger it was to roll about in Tweeds and be waited upon by a Dirty than to have to undergo the penance and persecution of a party—the persecution of wine, the persecution of fish, the persecution of food in general, the persecution of footmen, the persecution of finery. Oh, those horrid hoops! What wouldn’t he give to destroy them—smash them irrevocably!
XXXVI
THE BAG FOX ENLARGED
MR ROMFORD AWOKE QUITE COOL and comfortable the next morning. All traces of wineing squeamishness were gone, and he was the real original Dog and Partridge Romford, ready for hunting, ready for shooting, ready for riding, ready for anything. “Humph! what’s to-day?” exclaimed he, starting up in bed, as he awoke—“what’s to-day?” fearing lest he might have overslept himself and be late to cover. “Ah,” continued he, recollecting himself, “it’s not a hunting-day—it’s a bye with the bagman. Well, needs must when a certain old gentleman drives,” continued he. So saying he bounded out of bed with a thump that would have shook a modern-built house to the centre. He then proceeded to take his accustomed stare out of the window. It was a fine morning, still and quiet, with a slight white rind on the ground that the now rising sun would quickly dispel. “Pity but it was a reg’lar huntin’-day,” muttered he, surveying the scene; “think oi could give a good wild beggar a dustin’.” He then proceeded to dress himself. As he descended the grand staircase, and cut off the corner of the hall on his way to the breakfast-room, he got a whiff of his overnight friend, though Dirtiest of the Dirty, whom he met dribbling along with the kettle, assured him that Mr Proudlock had taken him away a full hour before. The fact was, the old Jamaica rum had been too potent for friend Proudlook, who, having gone to bed tipsy, had only just come for the fox, and, fearing he was late, told Dirtiest of the Dirty to say what she did; which of course she had no hesitation in doing, lying coming quite as naturally as stealing to that elegant young lady.
Mrs Somerville was downstairs already, but not in her sporting costume, it being one of her rules, when alone, always to put on her smart things after breakfast, considering that they ran more risk of damage at that meal than during all the rest of the day put together. And though she was not now finding her own clothes, or at least could have what she liked from London for sending for, and Betsy Shannon would only have been too glad of a cast-off; still, an early-acquired habit of neatness prevented her wasting the advantages afforded even by being on the free-list. So she was prudent even in her extravagance. Lucy was only a light breakfast eater, Facey a heavy one—a little dry toast, a cup of tea, and an egg sufficing for her, while our master indulged in oatmeal-porridge, pork-chops, rabbit-pies, cold game—the general produce of his gun, in fact.
So Lucy, having soon satisfied her appetite, withdrew with mamma, leaving our master of hounds to satisfy his appetite while she was adorning herself. At length he, too, was done, and pocketing a hunch of brown bread, he rang the bell, and told Dirtiest of the Dirty, who answered it, to send old Dirty to see about dinner.
“Now then, old gal,” said he, as Mrs Mustard appeared, smoothing her dirty apron as usual, “we shall be at home in good time I s’pect—say two, at latest; so do us those woodcocks, and make us a good apple-pie, or an apple-puddin’, if you like it better.”
“How many woodcocks would you please to have, sir?” asked Mrs Mustard.
“Oh, do them all,” replied Mr Romford, “do them all—only three—no use makin’ two bites of a cherry. Here!” continued he, “mind, make a good big pie—as big as a foot-bath—not one of your little tartlet-like things that only aggravate the appetite and do it no good. Besides, I like cold apple-apple,” added he, now turning round to light his old briar-root pipe, which he had been arranging as he spoke at the fire. Ere he had resumed his erect position and emitted the inaugural puff, Mrs Somerville re-entered attired for the chase. She was beautifully-dressed, for, though she knew there was no meet, yet it was impossible to say who she might see; added to which it was so much pleasanter and more comfortable being smart and fit to meet anybody, instead of having to shirk and avoid people in consequence of being shabby. So she had on a smart new hat, with an exquisitely cut eight g
uinea habit braided in front, and beautifully made chamois-leather trousers with black-cloth feet. Altogether as neat as neat could be.
Nor did she mar the general effect, as some ladies do, by wearing soiled or shabby gloves. On the contrary, she had on a pair of smart new primrose-coloured kids that fitted with the utmost exactitude. She had got a beautiful gold mounted whip down from London, with a light-blue silk tasselled cord through its ruby-eyed fox-head handle.
Mr Romford, however, did not reciprocate his pseudo-sister’s smartness, but turned out in a very rough poacher-like garb, viz., a slouching brown wideawake, a dirty ditto suit of heather-coloured Tweed, with the trod out trousers thrust into the original old rusty-looking lack-lustre Napoleons. But Mr Romford could ride in anything, and, moreover, thought if the fox wouldn’t run, he would come home with the hounds and go out with his gun after the wild ducks or snipes on Mabbleford Mere. He liked to be doing. So now let us assist him in his laudable design of activity.
Punctual to a minute—for those who want to have punctual servants must be punctual themselves—Mr Romford and Mrs Somerville appeared at the front-door of Beldon Hall, and there were the hounds and horses occupying the gravelled ring before the house. The array was not very imposing, but a deal of execution lurked under that quiet exterior. Mr Romford did not subscribe to the doctrine that a “hound was a hound,” on the contrary, he knew there was as much difference among dogs as there was among men, and he made it a rule to have value received for his oatmeal. And though he had not taken his best, yet he had drawn his ten couple with such ability that, thanks to the excellence of their blood, they were as formidable as many peoples’ twenty couple.
“Now then!” cried Facey, as he opened the hall-door, “bring up your missis’s horse first,” calling to Short, now in charge of the prank-playing Leotard.
“Better not call me missus,” whispered Lucy, adding, “it might make them talk.”
“Mrs Somerville’s horse!” then exclaimed Facey, in a louder tone, as if to obliterate the first order, and in an instant Leotard was alongside the door-step. Lucy then placing her right hand on the crutch presented her pretty little foot to our friend, who lifted her up with airy buoyancy into her saddle. A shake of the smart habit, and she had herself adjusted in a moment. Romford then vaulted gaily into his own on the back of the all-powerful Baker. Having got him short by the gag, he gave him a kick in the ribs with his spurless heel, that as good as said, “now then, old boy, let’s see whether you or oi will be master.” “Cop, come away!—Cop, come away!”—he added, to the hounds, without noticing the Baker’s semi-kick in return. Away they swept from the door and trotted along with the pride of the morning.
Proudlock, the keeper, had trotted off on Tom Hooper, the blacksmith’s pony, some half-hour before, to enlarge the fox in the retired recesses of High Thorn Wood, but it so happened that there were two parallel ravines, viz., High Thorn Wood and North Spring Wood, so exactly alike that Mr Romford mistook them, and ran his hounds up the first one he came to, where fox there was none, instead of following the Kingsfield-road, half-a-mile further on, and turning up the clear pebbly brook on the left. The consequence was, that, though he gave his hounds plenty of time, he never got a touch of a fox; a fact that puzzled our friend considerably, seeing, as Beckford says, that a bag-fox must needs smell extravagantly—especially a bag-fox that had been up to Leadenhall Market, and down again, all round about the country.
Nevertheless, it was so, and Facey got to the rising ground at the top of the ravine without a challenge—nay, without even a whisper, save from Prosperous making a dash at a rabbit. He then reconnoitered the country.
“Wrong shop!” at last said he, as, casting his eye to the south, he saw the duplicate wood bounding the horizon—“wrong shop!” repeated he, turning his horse short round, giving a slight twang of his horn, and telling Lucy to put the hounds on after him. So friend Facey trotted briskly along the wood-side he had just come up, followed by such of the hounds as saw him turn, while Lucy essayed to bring the rest on after him. He then retraced his steps as quickly as he could, and regaining the Kingsfield-road went pounding along in search of his servant. There, on a white roadside gate, holding his pony, sat the all-important Proudlock, wondering what had happened to Mr Romford.
“Wish you mayn’t ha’ given him o’er much law,” now observed he, as Romford came trotting up.
“What, he’s fresh, is he?” asked our master.
“Fresh as a four-year-old—went off like a shot,” replied Proudlock.
“So much the better,” rejoined Romford. “Don’t care if he beats us;” adding to himself, “no credit in killin’ a bag-fox—rather a disgrace, oi should say.”
Mrs Somerville then came cantering up, with the remaining hounds frolicking about her horse, and Mr Romford having now got his short pack reunited, Proudlock opened the gate into the wood, and in they all went together.
“Half way up the ride I struck him,” said Proudlock, “and he went briskly away as far as ever I could see.”
“All right,” said Romford, trotting on briskly.
And sure enough, just where a large wind-blown beech formed a comfortable resting-place for our friend after his exertions in carrying the fox, a sudden thrill of excitement shot through the pack as though they had been suddenly operated upon by a galvanic battery, and away they all went with an outburst of melody, that alarmed every denizen of the wood.
“That’s him!” exclaimed Proudlock, coming up at a very galloping, dreary, done, sort of pace—refreshing the old pony with a knotty dog whip as he rode.
“No doubt,” replied Romford, getting the now pulling Baker well by the head. Lucy did the same by Leotard, and away they scuttled up the green ride together, leaving friend Proudlock immeasurably in the lurch. It is a sorry performance to see a retired giant toiling after a pack of hounds on a broken-winded pony.
The fox, however, had not made his exit on arriving at the rough oak rails at the top of the ride that commanded the open for though there was nothing to impede his progress, still he was confused and uncomfortable, and had not got the cramp out of his legs from confinement in the box, so that the Romford digression into the wrong wood was very convenient, and the fox availed himself of it to take a quiet trial of speed by himself along a grassy slope to the left. The further he went, the fresher he got, till he felt himself regaining his pristine strength; and after two or three rolls and stretches on the grassy mead, was beginning to cast about for a permanent resting-place, when the light note of Romford’s horn, calling his hounds out of the first cover, came wafted on the breeze to where he was, now in the full enjoyment of his delectable liberty.
One twang was enough. It shot through his every nerve, and flourishing his brush with a triumphant whisk, he trotted away at a good, steady, holding pace, keeping as much out of sight by following the low grounds as he could. For he argued, very rationally, that even if the horn boded him no harm, still he was just as well in one strange place as another; while if it was any of those troublesome hunters in search of one of his class, the greater distance he placed between them and himself the better. So he went steadily on, not running to exhaust himself, but going as if he felt quite grateful for his freedom, and determined to do his utmost to retain it. Meanwhile friend Romford, with his short but efficient pack, had opened on his line, and the first outburst of melody coming down wind, confirmed the fox’s worst suspicions as at first excited by the twang of the horn.
He had now little doubt it was the hounds, if not after him, after one of his own species, for whom he did not care to stand proxy; so he employed a very vigilant eye in scanning the country, with ears well back to catch any extraneous sound that might come. He wasn’t going to be caught, if he could help it. And Romford being a fair-dealing man, and not at all inclined to take advantage of an over-matched animal, let his mettlesome hounds flash half over the fallow outside the wood without calling them back, though truthful Vanquisher refused
to go an inch be yond the oak rails. Then when their misleading notes gradually died out, Vanquisher’s deep-toned tongue was heard proclaiming the right line to the left, and back they all swung, dashing and hurrying as if to snatch the laurels of accuracy from his brow. And when they got to where the fox had rolled, there was such a proclamation of satiety as sounded like the outburst of forty months instead of twenty. Still it was not a great scenting day but Mr Romford did not care for that, and went as leisurely along as a master of harriers, instead of bustling and aggravating his great round shoulders into convulsions, as was his wont when he had a bad scent and a good fox before him. Indeed, he kept looking about in all the unlikely places for a wild fox to be, fearing lest the unfortunate fugitive should fall into the jaws of the pack without a chance for his life. But our worthy master was too careless, or too conscientious, for while he was thus dallying, letting the hounds hunt every yard of the scent, the fox was pursuing the even tenor of his way, over Linton Lordship, and so across Makenrace Common to Arkenfield.
It was a captious, fleeting, catching scent, the hounds sometimes running almost mute, and sometimes tearing along with such a chorus or melody as looked as if they would change from scent to view, and run into him in a minute.
“Look out, Lucy!” Facey kept exclaiming, “look out! he’s somewhere here;” but still the fox showed not, and first one hound and then another led the onward chorus, just as Romford expected to be handling him. And now the cry of the hounds attracted the roving population of the country. Mr Makepiece, the Union Doctor, Header, the horse-dealer, Herdman, the cattle-jobber, and Bartlett, the capless butcher’s boy, on an extremely fractious tail-foremost chestnut pony.
“Is it a fox or a har?” asked Header, not knowing what to make of the medley.