Mr Facey Romford's Hounds

by R S Surtees

  The horse, we need scarcely say, was soon back into Beldon Hall, undergoing the treatment and discipline necessary for keeping him in something like subjection; and when Mr Hazey heard that Mrs Somerville was riding him as usual, he gained confidence in his cause, and asserted boldly that the horse was as quiet as a lamb, and had doubtless been ridden injudiciously, or spoiled by mismanagement.

  The Countess felt piqued at this announcement, conceiving that it conveyed an imputation on her horsemanship; for though she was not in reality a good rider. yet she thought she was, and perhaps was more sensitive on the point than if she had really been one. The Earl, too, backed her opinion, seeing that she sat well on her horse and looked the equestrian; and the party generally favoured the view that the horse was vicious. Hazey, however, held out the other way; and for once believing his own story, stated that the fact was capable of proof, for the horse might be seen with the Larkspur Hounds almost every day in the week; Mr Hazey, perhaps, not thinking that anyone would be at the trouble of making the long journey for the purpose of seeing. Here, however, he was mistaken, for railways have annihilated distance; and having got a locality to work upon, the Countess talked and fretted, and fretted and talked till she worked herself up into a resolution to go and see. If anybody would go with her, she would really go and see. She would like uncommonly to go and see. She thought it would be very good fun to go and see. And a lady in that mood not being likely to remain unescorted, especially when she paid the expenses first, Major Elite, and then Mrs Mountravers—both staying guests—volunteered their services to accompany her into Doubleimupshire. And as none of them had ever been there before, or had the slightest idea how to get to it, the expedition furnished abundant food for conversation; first to find out what part of Doubleimupshire Mr Romford hunted; secondly, how it was to be got at, and, thirdly, where the meets of the hounds were.

  To this end maps, and books, and “Bell’s Lifes,” and “Bradshaws” were consulted, and calculations made for train meeting, and crossing, and catching. Then came the sorting and packing and arranging for the journey, the Countess taking as much luggage as in former times would have served a traveller to India, all, of course, directed—so that they who run might read—“To the Right Honourable the Countess of Caperington.” Then there was such a to-do about her Ladyship’s man, and her Ladyship’s maid, and her Ladyship’s this, and her Ladyship’s that.

  At length they got started as well from the castle as from the neighbouring station of Lilleyfield, and, after numerous halts, and stops, and changes, with the usual variations of speed peculiar to different trains and systems of railway, they found themselves, towards sunset, contemplating the tall spire of Dirlingford Church from a dumpy little station about a mile from the town. Railways which make some places ruin others, and Dirlingford had suffered the latter fate. The railway seemed to have sucked all the life out of it—taken it all up to Pickering Nook. So few passengers stopped there that the solitary omnibus did not meet every train, and now that the driver had got a haul in the graceful person of the Countess and her attendants, he seemed appalled at the quantity of luggage. Didn’t know how he should ever get it up. Independent Jimmy would have had it on during the time this one was looking at it. At last, with the aid of the porter, he got it accomplished, and the party being now seated—“Where to?” was the question. “Head Inn!” was the answer.

  “That’ll be the ‘Lord ’ill,’ then,” said he, and, hurrying round to his horses he mounted his box and drove down to the town.

  The “Lord Hill” hotel and posting house, at Dirlingford, was a good sample of the old-fashioned way-side inn, now fast disappearing before the march of modern civilisation. It was a great gaunt four-storeyed small-windowed red brick house, standing right in the middle of the High Street, its front-door reached by an iron-railed flight of steep stone steps. On the right of the door was a caged bell that had announced the coming of many a carriage; on the left the name of the landlord, John Scorer, with the words “neat wines, neat post-chaises” below. Above the door was the sign of the house, the “Lord Hill,” a faded warrior in fall uniform, powdered and pig-tailed according to the prevail in fashion of the day.

  At one time it kept twelve pair of post-horses, besides a few that worked on the farm, and seven long coaches changed horses at it twice a day. Great were the gains from the unfortunate victims whom necessity compelled to take the road in those days. They were treated much like cattle at a market, pushed and squeezed and fed anyhow. It was for the great magnates of the road that the landlord’s attention and civility were reserved. Then, when the bow-legged “next boy out” descried the coming carriage, he gave the caged door-bell such a ringing as caused a similar commotion in the house to that which attended the coming of the Countess of Caperington to Mrs Slyboots’ the milliner’s, at Worryworth. The “Lord Hill” was convulsed.

  And the mention of her Ladyship reminds us that we have got her and her party in the Dirlingford omnibus, from which we had better extract them as soon as we can. One disadvantage of the now universal use of public conveyances undoubtedly is, that consequence does not get properly attended to. When that the maid dresses so much finer than the mistress, it is difficult at first sight to distinguish between them—to say which is which. The Countess, however, was not one of that sort, and always dressed as became her exalted station, and the ’bus had scarcely stopped at the “Lord Hill” hotel and posting-house door ere it was bruited throughout that a great lady had come. Then down went Scorer’s pipe on the inner bar table. Mrs Scorer adjusted her antiquated frilled cap in the looking-glass, the old bed-gowned chambermaid, Rebecca, slid downstairs, holding on by the banisters, and Timothy, the bald-headed, short-breeched antediluvian waiter, with something between a napkin and a duster in his hand, waddled out of the commercial room to join the commotion in the passage. Great was the bobbing and bowing and curtseying and your Ladyshipping, great the gesticulation to induce them to get forward out of the way of the now-coming boxes, and ascend the narrow staircase to the gloomy regions above. Of course there wasn’t a fire in any of the rooms, “but they would light one directly,” Scorer said. And to this end Rebecca began to strike a light with a flint and steel in the “Trafalgar,” declaring she could get one sooner that way than with a lucifer-match.

  The “Lord Hill,” was a close, frowsy old house, from which every breath of air seemed to be excluded by heavily-dressed curtains before the never-opened windows. The sitting-rooms were large and low, their lowness being further aggravated by most oppressively heavy mouldings on the ceilings. It was enough to give one the nightmare to think of such ceilings. As to those grand old temples of suffocation, the large four-post beds in the small rooms, the large boot-jack, the diminutive towel, and insoluble soap, they are yet to be found in most countries, and need not be described. We also pass by as well the order for, as the incidents of, the mutton-chop dinner—the offer of everything, with the reduction to nothing; the battered copper-betraying side-dishes, the green hook, and dull needle-case-shaped champagne-glasses, with the strong loathsome cheese that followed the dry unpalatable tart. Let us suppose the evening spent; the long wax lights replaced by short ones, and our tired travellers off to bed, to sleep, to dream, or perchance be bit by bugs.

  Those who have watched the progress of public conveyances, seen how the fastidiousness of former times has gradually disappeared before the lights of common-sense and utility, can have little doubt that another great change is coming over the nation in the matter of domestic economy. The universality of travel; the extreme difficulty of getting servants at home—the hopelessness of managing them when got; all tend to show that clubs, which answered so well for gentlemen, are about to be extended to families, in the shape of the magnificent hotels now rising up all around, where, if people do pay for accommodation, they at all events get an equivalent for their money.

  LX

  SPITE OF ALL AND STAND AGAINST ALL

  MR FACEY ROMFORD, L
IKE MOST good sportsmen, eschewed show meets: he also avoided making them at inns or public-houses. He had no fancy for being waylaid by skirmishers on the look-out in the highways and byways, to bring in all they could catch to be stuffed with a second breakfast before he had half digested the first. Still less to have his hounds pressed upon or ridden over by pot-valiant horsemen fresh from the joys of the tap or the table. Hence some of his meets were rather ambiguous, especially to strangers, of which, however, there were few came into the country. A bridge, a milestone, or guide-post were all favourite places of his; but among the anonymous ones was a place called Spite of All, whose locality was difficult to fix. The name was not very promising, suggestive more of the tenacity of the squatter than the politeness of the country. And Spite of All was one of those troublesome encroachments against which the Lord Lonnergans of former times used to be content to issue their edicts without seeing them enforced. Spite of All had therefore become a freehold, and had to be respected, notwithstanding it stood on the domains of a Duke. But it so happened that Spite of All was not the only place of this description in Doubleimupshire. On the north-east side was its duplicate, called Stand against All, and people in the hurry of the moment were very apt to mistake one for the other. There was an obstinate resistance recorded against each, with a triumphal retention by both the parties in possession.

  Well, the meets of Mr Romford’s hounds for the week were, Monday, Raw Marsh; Wednesday, Thorncross Hill; Friday Spite of All; Saturday, the tenth milestone on the Larkspur Road. Friday is generally considered an unlucky day; at all events a day that people do not generally choose for their pleasure expeditions; and it was unlucky on this occasion; for if the meet had been transposed, Friday the tenth milestone, and Saturday Spite of All, Mrs Somerville would have been at Spite of All, and not at the road meet, while, in consequence of the confusion of manner and ideas, the Countess would have been at the road meet, and not at Spite of All, so they would never have met, for Mr Hazey picked up another customer for the Leotard horse before the Monday.

  But we anticipate.

  One might as well ask a hairdresser or a haberdasher about the meets of the hounds as the waiter at an inn, but attached to the “Lord Hill” hotel was an antediluvian postboy—one Benjamin Bucktrout, the last of the twelve who had driven from that door—whose geographical knowledge was said to be great. Bucktrout was an illustration of the truth of the old saying, that nobody ever saw a dead postboy, for if he had been anything else he would have been dead long since. As it was there was little left of him but his chin and his hands, save what people might conjecture was in his jacket and boots. And the Countess of Caperington, who was accustomed to have everything arranged for her, told her maid Priscilla, when she herself retired to her great tabernacle of a bed, to find out how long it would take to go to Spite of All, and to call her accordingly. Then Bucktrout being appealed to, declared he knew the place quite well, and that it would take him an hour and twenty minutes to go there, part of the road being, he said, in a very indictable state of repair. And so he was ordered to time himself to be there at 10.30 to a minute, the Countess never allowing anyone to be unpunctual but herself.

  Accordingly next morning, Bucktrout, having made himself as great a swell as he could,—scrumpy red jacket, with blue glas-buttons and tarnished silver lace at the black cotton-velvet collar and cuffs; questionable breeches, with seedy boots, turned round a very passable queen’s-coloured barouche with a gorgeous crown on the panel, drawn by a pair of high-boned, hard-featured white horses, the usual accompaniments of wedding festivities. Then the footman and Priscilla the maid, and the landlord and the landlady, having made as much fuss and preparation as they could, what with cloaks and cushions and furs and footwarmers, stood waiting the descent with a graduated sliding scale of spectators tapering away from the doorsteps down to the kennel. And, after a sufficient pause old Timothy announced that the “Countess was coming!” the “Countess was coming!” Then all was eyes right and attention: Bucktrout, subsiding in his saddle, contemplated his horses’ ears, while John Thomas stood bolt uprights holding the carriage door in his right hand. Priscilla occupied the other side of the steps to assist the crinolines in their ascent into the carriage, while the rest of the party ranged themselves in a semi-circular tableau, after the manner of actors when the curtain is going to fall. The great people get in, the voluminous clothes are arranged, and the door closed quickly to prevent an egression.

  “Right!” cries the gold-lace-hat footman, as he jumps into the rumble, and away they bowled up the grass-grown High Street of Dirlingford, drawing many fair faces to the windows, and eliciting many ejaculations of “Who can those be?” “Who can those be?” “Bless us, what swells!”

  Bucktrout did his best to keep the old nags up to their collars as they pottered over the uneven cobble-stones of the street, not knowing how a judicious display might tend to take the wind out of the sails of the opposition spicey greys at the “Golden Fleece” inn; but as they got upon the level surface of the Silverdale Road the old gentleman gradually relaxed in his exertions until a very gentle rise in his saddle alone denoted that the horses were not walking—indeed, at one time, they looked as if they were all going to sleep together.

  Bucktrout was a ruminating old boy, and between cogitations as to whether he should drag down High Higson Hill, or risk it, where he was likely to get his dinner, and what the Countess would be likely to give him over his mileage for driving, he directed his attention to the question of getting to his destination. “Stand agin All,” muttered he—“Stand agin All; that’ll be by Fitzwarren, and round the old tower to Happyfield Green and Ringland.”

  “Stand agin All—Stand agin All. Sure it was Stand agin All that they said,” continued he, rubbing his nose on the back of his old parchmentlike glove as a sudden thought came across his mind, whether it was Stand agin All, or Spite of All that they said. “Sure it was Stand agin All, they said,” repeated he, giving the led horse a refresher with his knotty whip, as if to get him to coincide in that view. Still Buckey had his doubts about it, and as he jipped and jogged he began, like a prudent general, to think how he should manage matters in case he was wrong. “Spite of All and Stand agin All were very much alike,” he said; “one as bad as the other a’most; couldn’t make much difference which they went to. Most likely it was one of those things they call pic-nicks, where folks make themselves as uncomfortable as they can, and call it pleasure. Sure, for his part, he would like to sit at a table with a clean cloth before him, and a knife and fork to eat with, instead of his fingers.” Then he gave his own horse a dig with his spur, by way of preserving the balance of pace.

  Meanwhile the Countess and party, having timed themselves as well as they could by their watches, began looking about for the usual indications of the chase—foot-people in a hurry, grooms with their masters’ horses, sedate gentlemen jogging on with their own. The Countess expected to see the naughty Leotard pop up at every point. But no; neither pedestrian, nor equestrian, not even the man with the colt in the breaking-reins appears. Major Elite suggested that perhaps Mr Romford’s half-past ten meant eleven. Many masters of hounds, he said, were very unpunctual.

  The road, which for some time had been twisty and turny, to say nothing of what the Countess called “cogglecy,” presently became worse, being formed of nothing but soft field stones ground down to excellent housemaid’s sand, and after a slow tug through its laborious depths, the old screws came to a standstill just opposite where another road branched off at right angles, and the veteran Bucktrout, turning half round in his saddle and pointing to a wretched mud cottage with a thatched roof built into a bank, announced with a grin and a touch of his greasy old hat, “Please ’urn this be Stand agin All.”

  “Stand against All!” exclaimed the Countess. “That’s not the name of the place we want to be at! Spite of All, not Stand against All!”

  “Well, mum, it’s all the same, mum,” replied Bucktrout, now satisfied o
f his error, but determined to brazen it out. “Some rolls call it Spite of All, you see, my leddy, and others call it Stand agin All, you see, my leddy. It’s the place you mean, the place they had the great ’size trial on aboot, before Lord Chief Justice Best and a special jury, which doubtless you’ve heard tell on.” Bucktrout thinking it immaterial whether the Countess saw the cause of one assize trial or another. Both places had been in Court.

  But here we may observe that Spite of All would have felt rather humiliated by the comparison, for while Stand against All let it smoke out of the four-square-paned window or the ricketty door. Spite of All had a fine fire-brick chimney rising boldly out of a substantial grey roof; two fairish windows, and a door that a moderate-sized man could get under without stooping. Moreover, Spite of All was in a good country with fine wild foxes, and Facey Romford knew where to find them.

  Be that as it may, however, here were our friends at Stand against All, and though Bucktrout’s assertion had an air of plausibility about it, yet there were no hounds to back the decision.