****
“What does onybody say ‘boot it Frenchman?” at length asked he in his elliptical Yorkshire dialect, looking round on the company.
“What do you say ‘boot it Frenchman, Sir Moses?” asked he, not getting an answer from any one.
“Faith, I know nothing,” replied the Baronet, with a slight curl of the lip.
“Nay, yeer tied to know summut, hooever,” replied Gallon, rubbing his nose across the back of his hand; “yeer tied to know summut, hooever. Why, he’s a stoppin’ at yeer house, isn’t he?”
“That may all be,” rejoined Sir Moses, “without my knowing anything of his riding. What do you say yourself? you’ve seen him.”
“Seen him!” retorted Gallon, “why he’s a queer lookin’ chap, ony hoo—that’s all ar can say: haw, haw, haw.”
“You won’t back him, then?” said Sir Moses, inquiringly.
“Hardly that,” replied Gallon, shaking his head and laughing heartily, “hardly that, Sir Moses. Ar’ll tell you whatar’ll do, though,” said he, “just to mak sport luike, ar’ll tak yeer two to one—two croons to one,” producing a greasy-looking metallic-pencilled betting-book as he spoke.
Just then a move outside the ring announced an arrival, and presently Mr. Heslop came steering Cuddy Flintoff along in his wife’s Croydon basket-carriage, Cuddy’s head docked in an orange-coloured silk cap, and his whole person enveloped in a blue pilot coat with large mother-of-pearl buttons. The ominous green-pointed jockey whip was held between his knees, as with folded arms he lolled carelessly in the carriage, trying to look comfortable and unconcerned.
“Mornin’, Flintoff’, how are ye?” cried Sir Moses, waving his hand from his loftier vehicle, as they drew up.
“Mornin’, Heslop, how goes it? Has anybody seen anything of Monsieur?” asked he, without waiting for an answer to either of these important inquiries.
“He’s coming, Sir Moses,” cried several voices, and presently the Marseillaise hymn of liberty was borne along on the southerly breeze, and Jack’s faded black hunting-cap was seen bobbing up and down in the crowd that encircled him, as he rode along on Paul Straddler’s shooting pony.
Jack had been at the brandy bottle, and had imbibed just enough to make him excessively noisy.
“Three cheers for Monsieur Jean Rougier, de next Emperor of de French!” cried he, rising in his stirrups, as he approached the crowd, taking off his old brown hunting-cap, and waving it triumphantly, “Three cheers for de best foxer, de best fencer, de best fighter in all Europe!” and at a second flourish of the cap the crowd came into the humour of the thing, and cheered him lustily. And then of course it was one cheer more for Monsieur; and one cheer more he got.
“Three cheers for ould England!” then demanded Mr. Gallon on behalf of Mr. Flintoff, which being duly responded to, he again asked “What onybody would do ‘boot it Frenchman?”
“Now, gentlemen,” cried Sir Moses, standing erect in his dogcart, and waving his hand for silence: “Now, gentlemen, listen to me!” Instead of which somebody roared out, “Three cheers for Sir Moses!” and at it they went again, Hooray, hooray, hooray, for when an English mob once begins cheering, it never knows when to stop. “Now, gentlemen, listen to me,” again cried he, as soon as the noise had subsided. “It’s one o’clock, and it’s time to proceed to business. I called you here that there might be no unnecessary trespass or tampering with the ground, and I think I’ve chosen a line that will enable you all to see without risk to yourselves or injury to anyone” (applause, mingled with a tinkling of the little bells). “Well now,” added he, “follow me, and I’ll show you the way;” so saying, he resumed his seat, and passing through the gate turned short to the right, taking the diagonal road leading down the hill, in the direction of Featherbedfordshire.
“Where can it be?” was then the cry.
“I know,” replied one of the know-everything ones.
“Rainford, for a guinea!” exclaimed Mr. Gallon, fighting with Tippy Tom, who wanted to be back.
“I say Rushworth!” rejoined Mr. Heslop, cutting in before him.
“Nothin’ o’ the sort!” asserted Mr. Buckwheat; “he’s for Harlingson green to a certainty.”
The heterogeneous cavalcade then fell into line, the vehicles and pedestrians keeping the road, while the horsemen spread out on either side of the open common, with the spirit of speculation divided between where the race was to be and who was to win.
Thus they descended the hill and joined the broad, once well-kept turnpike, whose neglected milestones still denoted the distance between London and Hinton—London so many miles on one side, Hinton so many miles on the other—things fast passing into the regions of antiquity. Sir Moses now put on a little quicker, and passing through the village of Nettleton and clearing the plantation beyond, a long strip of country lay open to the eye, hemmed in between the parallel lines of the old road and the new Crumpletin Railway.
He then pulled up on the rising ground, and placing his whip in the socket, stood up to wait the coming of the combatants, to point them out the line he had fixed for the race. The spring tide of population flowed in apace, and he was presently surrounded with horsemen, gigmen, footmen, and bellmen as before.
“Now, gentlemen!” cried Sir Moses, addressing Mr. Flintoff and Monsieur, who were again ranged on either side of his dogcart: “Now, gentlemen, you see the line before you. The stacks, on the right here,” pointing to a row of wheat stacks in the adjoining field, “are the starting post, and you have to make your ways as straight as ever you can to Lawristone Clump yonder,” pointing to a clump of dark Scotch firs standing against the clear blue sky, on a little round hill, about the middle of a rich old pasture on Thrivewell Farm, the clump being now rendered more conspicuous by sundry vehicles clustered about its base, the fair inmates of which had received a private hint from Sir Moses where to go to. The Baronet always played up to the fair, with whom he flattered himself he was a great favourite.
“Now then, you see,” continued he, “you can’t get wrong, for you’ve nothing to do but to keep between the lines of the rail and the road, on to neither of which must you come: and now you gentlemen,” continued he, addressing the spectators generally, “there’s not the slightest occasion for any of you to go off the road, for you’ll see a great deal better on it, and save both your own necks and the farmers’ crops; so just let me advise you to keep where you are, and follow the jockeys field by field as they go. And now, gentlemen,” continued he, again addressing the competitors, ‘“having said all I have to say on the subject, I advise you to get your horses and make a start of it, for though the day is fine its still winter, you’ll remember, and there are several ladies waiting for your coming.” So saying, Sir Moses soused down in his seat, and prepared to watch the proceedings.
Mr. Flintoff was the first to peel; and his rich orange and white silk jacket, natty doeskins, and paper-like boots, showed that he had got himself up as well with a due regard to elegance as to lightness. He even emptied some halfpence out of his pockets, in order that he might not carry extra weight. He would, however, have been a great deal happier at home. There was no “yoieks, wind him,” or “yoicks, push ‘im up,” in him now.
Monsieur did not show to so much advantage as Cuddy; but still he was a good deal better attired than he was out hunting on the Crooked-Billet day. He still retained the old brown cap, but in lieu of the shabby scarlet, pegtop trousers and opera-boots, he sported a red silk jacket, a pair of old-fashioned broad-seamed leathers, and mahogany boots—the cap being the property of Sir Moses’s huntsman, Tom Findlater, the other articles belonging to Mr. George Gallon of the Rose and Crown. And the sight of them, as Monsieur stripped, seemed to inspirit the lender, for he immediately broke out with the old inquiry, “What does onybody say ‘boot it Frenchman?”
“What do you say ‘boot it Frenchman, Sir Moses?” asked he.
Sir Moses was silent, for he couldn’t see his way to a satisfactory investment; so, rising in his seat, he holloaed out to the grooms, who were waiting their orders outside the crowd, to “bring in the horses.”
“Make way, there! make way, there!” cried he, as the hooded and sheeted animals approached and made up to their respective riders.
“Takeoff his nightcap! take off his nightcap!” cried Jack, pulling pettedly at the strings of the hood; “take off his nightcap!” repeated he, stamping furiously, amid the laughter of the bystanders, many of whom had never seen a Frenchman, let alone a mounted one, before.
The obnoxious nightcap being removed, and the striped sheet swept over his tail, Mr. Rowley Abingdon’s grey horse Mayfly Blood showing himself as if he was in a dealer’s yard, for as yet he had not ascertained what he was out for. A horse knows when he is going to hunt, or going to exercise, or going to be shod, or going to the public house, but these unaccustomed jaunts puzzle him. Monsieur now proceeded to inform him by clutching at the reins, as he stood preparing for a leg-up on the wrong side.
“The other side, mun, the other side,” whispered Paul Straddler in his ear; whereupon Monsieur passed under the horse’s head, and appeared as he ought. The movement, however, was not lost on Sir Moses, who forthwith determined to back Cuddy. Cuddy might be bad, but Monsieur must be worse, he thought.
“I’ll lay an even five on Mr. Flintoff!” cried he in a loud and audible voice. “I’ll lay an even five on Mr. Flintoff,” repeated he, looking boldly round. “Gallon, what say you?” asked he, appealing to the hero of the white horse.
“Can’t be done, Sir Moses, can’t be done,” replied Gallon, grinning from ear to ear, with a shake of his great bull head. “Tak yeer three to two if you loike,” added he, anxious to be on.
Sir Moses now shook his head in return.
“Back myself, two pound ten—forty shillin’, to beat dis serene and elegant Englishman!” exclaimed Jack, now bumping up and down in his saddle as if to establish a seat.
“Do you owe him any wages?” asked Sir Moses of Billy in an under-tone, wishing to ascertain what chance there was of being paid if he won.
“Yarse, I owe him some,” replied Billy; but how much he couldn’t say, not having had Jack’s book lately.
Sir Moses caught at the answer, and the next time Jack offered to back himself, he was down upon him with a “Done!” adding, “I’ll lay you an even pund if you like.”
“With all my heart, Sare Moses Baronet,” replied Jack gaily; adding, “you are de most engagin’, agreeable mans I knows; a perfect beauty vidout de paint.”
Gallon now saw his time was come, and he went at Sir Moses with a “Weell, coom, ar’le lay ye an even foive.”
“Done!” cried the Baronet.
“A tenner, if you loike!” continued Gallon, waxing valiant.
Sir Moses shook his head.
“Get me von vet sponge, get me von vet sponge,” now exclaimed Jack, looking about for the groom.
“Wet sponge! What the deuce do you want with a wet sponge?” demanded Sir Moses with surprise.
“Yet sponge, just damp my knees leetle—make me stick on better,” replied Jack, turning first one knee and then the other out of the saddle to get sponged.
“O dom it, if it’s come to that, I may as well have the ten,” muttered Sir Moses to himself. So, nodding to Gallon, he said “I’ll make it ten.”
“Done!” said Gallon, with a nod, and the bet was made—Done, and Done, being enough between gentlemen.
“Now, then,” cried Sir Moses, stepping down from his dogcart, “come into the field, and I’ll start you.”
Away then the combatants went, and the betting became brisk in the ring. Mr. Flintoff the favourite at evens.
CHAPTER XLIV.
THE RACE ITSELF.
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FROM the Nettleton cornstacks to Lawristone Clump was under two miles, and, barring Bendibus Brook, there was nothing formidable in the line—nothing at least to a peaceably disposed man pursuing the even tenor of his way, either on horseback or in his carriage along the deserted London road.
Very different, however, did the landscape now appear to our friend Cuddy Flintoff as he saw it stretching away in diminishing perspective, presenting an alternating course of husbandry stubble after grass, wheat after stubble, seeds after wheat, with perhaps pasture again after fallow. Bendibus, too, as its name indicates, seemed to be here, there, and everywhere; here, as shown by the stone bridge on the road,—there, as marked by the pollard willows lower down—and generally wherever there was an inconvenient breadth and irregularity of fence. The more Mr. Flintoff looked at the landscape, the less he liked it. Still he had a noble horse under him in General Havelock—a horse that could go through deep as fast as he could over grass, and that only required holding together and sitting on to carry him safe over his fences. It was just that, however, that Cuddy couldn’t master. He couldn’t help fancying that the horse would let him down, and he didn’t like the idea.
Mayfly, on the other hand, was rather skittish, and began prancing and capering as soon as he got off the road into the field.
“Get ‘im by de nob! get ‘im by de nob!” cried Jack, setting up his shoulders. “Swing ‘im round by de tail! swing ‘im round by de tail!” continued he, as the horse still turned away from his work.
“Ord dom it, that’s that nasty crazy brute of old Rowley Abingdon’s, I do declare!” exclaimed Sir Moses, getting out of the now plunging horse’s way. “Didn’t know the beggar since he was clipped. That’s the brute that killed poor Cherisher,—best hound in my pack. Take care, Monsieur! that horse will eat you if he gets you off.”
“Eat me!” cried Jack, pretending alarm; “dat vod be vare unkind.”
Sir Moses. “Unkind or not, he’ll do it, I assure you.”
“Oh, dear! oh! dear!” cried Jack, as the horse laid back his ears, and gave a sort of wincing kick.
“I’ll tell you what,” cried Sir Moses, emboldened by Jack’s fear, “I’ll lay you a crown you don’t get over the brook.”
“Crown, sare! I have no crowns,” replied Jack, pulling the horse round. “I’ll lay ve sovereign—von pon ten, if vou like.”
“Come, I’ll make it ten shillings. I’ll make it ten shillings,” replied Sir Moses: adding, “Mr. Flintoff is my witness.”
“Done!” cried Monsieur. “Done! I takes the vager. Von pon I beats old Cuddy to de clomp, ten shillin’ I gets over de brook.”
“All right!” rejoined Sir Moses, “all right! Now,” continued he, clapping his hands, “get your horses together—one, two, three, and away!”
Up bounced Mayfly in the air; away went Cuddy amidst the cheers and shouts of the roadsters—“Flintoff! Flintoff! Flinfoff!! The yaller! the yaller! the yaller!” followed by a general rush along the grass-grown Macadamised road, between London and Hinton.
“Oh, dat is your game, is it?” asked Jack as Mayfly, after a series of minor evolutions, subsided on all fours in a sort of attitude of attention. “Dat is your game, is it!” saying which he just took him short by the head, and, pressing his knees closely into the saddle, gave him such a couple of persuasive digs with his spurs as sent him bounding away after the General. “Go it, Frenchman!” was now the cry.
“Go it! aye he can go it,” muttered Jack, as the horse now dropped on the bit, and laid himself out for work. He was soon in the wake of his opponent.
The first field was a well-drained wheat stubble, with a newly plashed fence on the ground between it and the adjoining pasture; which, presenting no obstacle, they both went at it as if bent on contending for the lead, Monsieur sacréing, grinning, and grimacing, after the manner of his adopted country; while Mr. Flintoff sailed away in the true jockey style, thinking he was doing the thing uncommonly well.
Small as the fence was, however, it afforded Jack an opportunity of shooting into his horse’s shoulders, which Cuddy perceiving, he gave a piercing view holloa, and spurred away as if bent on bidding him goodbye. This set Jack on his mettle; and getting back into his seat he gathered his horse together and set too, elbows and legs, elbows and legs, in a way that looked very like frenzy.
The feint of a fall, however, was a five-pound note in Mr. Gallon’s way, for Jack did it so naturally that there was an immediate backing of Cuddv. “Flintoff! Flintoff! Flintoff! The yaller! the yaller! the yaller!” was again the cry.
The pasture was sound, and they sped up it best pace, Mr. Flintoff well in advance.
The fence out was nothing either—a young quick fence set on the ground, which Cuddy flew in Leicestershire style, throwing up his right arm as he went. Monsieur was soon after him with a high bucking jump.
They were now upon plough,—undrained plough, too, which the recent rains bad rendered sticky and holding. General Havelock could have crossed it at score, but the ragged boundary fence of Thrivewell farm now appearing in view, Mr. Flintoff held him well together, while he scanned its rugged irregularities for a place.
“These are the nastiest fences in the world,” muttered Cuddy to himself, “and I’ll be bound to say there’s a great yawning ditch either on this side or that. Dash it! I wish I was over,” continued he, looking up and down for an exit. There was very little choice. Where there weren’t great mountain ash or alder growers laid into the fence, there were bristling hazel uprights, which presented little more attraction. Altogether it was not a desirable obstacle. Even from the road it looked like something. “Go it, Cuddy! Go it!” cried Sir Moses, now again in his dogcart, from the midst of the crowd, adding, “It’s nothing of a place!”
“Isn’t it,” muttered Cuddy, still looking up and down, adding, “I wish you had it instead of me.”
“Ord dom it, go at it like a man!” now roared the Baronet, fearing for his investments. “Go at it for the honour of the hunt! for the honour of Hit-im and Hold-im shire!” continued he, nearly stamping the bottom of his dog-cart out. The mare started forward at the sound, and catching Tippy Tom with the shafts in the side, nearly upset Geordey Gallon, who, like Sir Moses, was holloaing on the Frenchman. There was then a mutual interchange of compliments. Meanwhile Cuddy, having espied a weak bush-stopped gap in a bend of the hedge, now walks his horse quietly up to it, who takes it in a matter-of-course sort of way that as good as says, “What have you been making such a bother about.” He then gathers himself together, and shoots easily over the wide ditch on the far side, Cuddy hugging himself at its depth as he lands. Monsieur then exclaiming, “Dem it, I vill not make two bites of von cherry,” goes at the same place at the rate of twenty miles an hour, and beat beside Cuddy ere the latter had well recovered from his surprise at the feat. “Ord rot it!” exclaimed he, starting round, “what d’ye mean by following a man that way? If I’d fallen, you’d ha’ been a-top of me to a certainty.”
“Oh, never fear,” replied Monsieur, grinning and flourishing his whip. “Oh, never fear, I vod have ‘elped you to pick up de pieces.”
“Pick up the pieces, sir!” retorted Cuddy angrily. “I don’t want to pick up the pieces. I want to ride the race as it should be.”
“Come then, old cock,” cried Monsieur, spurring past, “you shall jomp ‘pon me if you can.” So saying, Jack hustled away over a somewhat swampy enclosure, and popping through an open bridle-gate, led the way into a large rich alluvial pasture beyond.
Jack’s feat at the boundary fence, coupled with the manner in which he now sat and handled his horse, caused a revulsion of feeling on the road, and Gallon’s stentorian roar of “The Frenchman! the Frenchman!” now drowned the vociferations on behalf of Mr. Flintoff and the “yaller.” Sir Moses bit his lips and ground his teeth with undisguised dismay. If Flintoff let the beggar beat him, he—-he didn’t know what he would do. “Flintoff! Flintoff!” shrieked he as Cuddy again took the lead.
And now dread Rendibus appears in view! There was no mistaking its tortuous sinuosities, even if the crowd on the bridge had not kept vociferating, “The bruk! the bruk!”
“The bruk be hanged!” growled Cuddy, hardening his heart for the conflict. “The bruk be hanged!” repeated he, eyeing its varying curvature, adding, “if ever I joke with any man under the rank of a duke again, may I be capitally D’d. Ass that I was,” continued he, “to take a liberty with this confounded Frenchman, who cares no more for his neck than a frog. Dashed, if ever I joke with any man under the rank of a prince of the blood royal,” added he, weaving his eyes up and down the brook for a place.
“Go at it full tilt!” now roars Sir Moses from the bridge; “go at it full tilt for the honour of Hit-im and Hold-im shire!”
“Honour of Hit-im and Hold-im shire be hanged!” growled Cuddy; “who’ll pay for my neck if I break it, I wonder!”
“Cut along, old cock of vax!” now cries Monsieur, grinning up on the grey. “Cut along, old cock of vax, or I’ll be into your pocket.”
“Shove him along!” roars stentorian-lunged Gallon, standing erect in his stirrups, and waving Monsieur on with his hat. “Shove him along!” repeats he, adding, “he’ll take it in his stride.”
Mayfly defers to the now-checked General, who, accustomed to be ridden freely, lays back his vexed ears for a kick, as Monsieur hurries up. Cuddy still contemplates the scene, anxious to be over, but dreading to go. “Nothing so nasty as a brook,” says he; “never gets less, but may get larger.” He then scans it attentively. There is a choice of ground, but it is choice of evils, of which it is difficult to choose the least when in a hurry.
About the centre are sedgy rushes, indicative of a bad taking off, while the weak place next the ash involves the chance of a crack of the crown against the hanging branch, and the cattle gap higher up may be mended with wire rope, or stopped with some awkward invisible stuff. Altogether it is a trying position, especially with the eyes of England upon him from the bridge and road.
“Oh, go at it, mun!” roars Sir Moses, agonised at his hesitation; “Oh, go at it, mun! It’s nothin’ of a place!”
“Isn’t it,” muttered Cuddy; “wish you were at it instead of me.” So saying, he gathers his horse together in an undecided sort of way, and Monsieur charging at the moment, lands Cuddie on his back in the field and himself in the brook.
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Then a mutual roar arose, as either party saw its champion in distress.
“Stick to him, Cuddy! stick to him!” roars Sir Moses.
“Stick to him, Mouncheer! stick to him!” vociferates Mr. Gallon on the other side.
They do as they are bid; Mr. Flintoff remounting just as Monsieur scrambles out of the brook, aud Cuddy’s blood now being roused, he runs the General gallantly at it, and lands, hind legs and all, on the opposite bank. Loud cheers followed the feat.
It is now anybody’s race, and the vehemence of speculation is intense.
“The red!”—“The yaller! the yaller!”—“The red!” Mr. Gallon is frantic, and Tippy Tom leads the way along the turnpike as if he, too, was in the race. Sir Moses’s mare breaks into a canter, and makes the action of the gig resemble that of a boat going to sea. The crowd rush pell-mell without looking where they are going; it is a wonder that nobody is killed.
Lawristone Clump is now close at hand, enlivened with the gay parasols and colours of the ladies.
There are but three more fences between the competitors and it, and seeing what he thinks a weak place in the next, Mr. Flintoff races for it over the sound furrows of the deeply-drained pasture. As he gets near it begins to look larger, and Cuddy’s irresolute handling makes the horse swerve.
“Now, then, old stoopid!” cries Jack, in a good London cabman’s accent; “Now, then, old stoopid! vot are ye stargazing that way for? Vy don’t ye go over or get out o’ de vay?”
“Go yourself,’” growled Cuddy, pulling his horse round.
“Go myself!” repeated Jack; “‘ow the doose can I go vid your great carcase stuck i’ the vay!”
“My great carcase stuck i’ the way!” retorted Cuddy, spurring and hauling at his horse. “My great carcase stuck in the way! Look at your own, and be hanged to ye!”
“Vell, look at it!” replied Jack, backing his horse for a run, and measuring his distance, he clapped spurs freely in his sides, and going at it full tilt, flew over the fence, exclaiming as he lit, “Dere, it is for you to ’zamine.”
“That feller can ride a deuced deal better than he pretends,” muttered Cuddy, wishing his tailorism mightn’t be all a trick; saying which he followed Jack’s example, and taking a run he presently landed in the next field, amidst the cheers of the roadsters. This was a fallow, deep, wet, and undrained, and his well ribbed-up horse was more than a match for Jack’s across it. Feeling he could go, Cuddy set himself home in his saddle, and flourishing his whip, cantered past, exclaiming, “Come along old stick in the mud!”
“I’ll stick i’ the mod ye!” replied Jack, hugging and holding his sobbing horse. “I’ll stick i’ the mod ye! Stop till I gets off dis birdliming field, and I’ll give you de go-bye, Cuddy, old cock.”
Jack was as good as his word, for the ground getting sounder on the slope, he spurted up a wet furrow, racing with Cuddy for the now obvious gap, that afforded some wretched half-starved calves a choice between the rushes of one field and the whicken grass of the other. Pop, Jack went over it, looking back and exclaiming to Cuddy, “Bon jour! top of de mornin’ to you, sare!” as he hugged his horse and scuttled up a high-backed ridge of the sour blue and yellow-looking pasture.
The money was now in great jeopardy, and the people on the road shouted and gesticulated the names of their respective favourites with redoubled energy, as if their eagerness could add impetus to the animals. “Flintoff! Flintoff! Flintoff!” “The Frenchman! the Frenchman!” as Monsieur at length dropped his hands and settled into something like a seat. On, on, they went, Monsieur every now and then looking back to see that he had a proper space between himself and his pursuer, and, giving his horse a good dig with his spurs, he lifted him over a stiff stake-and-rice fence that separated him from the field with the Clump.
“Here they come!” is now the cry on the hill, and fair faces at length turn to contemplate the galloppers, who come sprawling up the valley in the unsightly way fore-shortened horses appear to do. The road gate on the right flies suddenly open, and Tippy Tom is seen running away with Geordey Gallon, who just manages to manouvre him round the Clump to the front as Monsieur comes swinging in an easy winner.
Glorious victory for Geordey! Glorious victory for Monsieur! They can’t have won less than thirty pounds between them, supposing they get paid, and that Geordey gives Jack his “reglars.” Well may Geordey throw up his shallow hat and hug the winner. But who shall depict the agony of Sir Moses at this dreadful blow to his finances? The way he dom’d Cuddy, the way he dom’d Jack, the way he swung frantically about Lawristone Clump, declaring he was ruined for ever and ever! After thinking of everybody at all equal to the task, we are obliged to get, our old friend Echo to answer “Who!”
CHAPTER XLV.
HENEREY BROWN & CO. AGAIN.
THE first paroxysm of rage being over, Sir Moses remounted his dog-cart, and drove rapidly off, seeming to take pleasure in making his boy-groom (who was at the mare’s head) run after it as long as he could.
“What’s it Baronet off?” exclaimed Mr. Gallon, staring with astonishment at the fast-receding vehicle; “what’s it, Baronet off?” repeated he, thinking he would have to go to Pangburn Park for his money.
“O dear Thir Mothes is gone!” lisped pretty Miss Mechlinton, who wanted to have a look at our hero, Mr. Pringle, who she heard was frightfully handsome, and alarmingly rich. And the ladies, who had been too much occupied with the sudden rush of excited people to notice Sir Moses’s movements, wondered what had happened that he didn’t come to give his tongue an airing among them as usual. One said he had got the tooth-ache; another, the ear-ache; a third, that he had got something in his eye; while a satirical gentleman said it looked more like a B. in his bonnet.
“Ony hoo,” however, as Mr. Gallon would say, Sir Moses was presently out of the field and on to the hard turnpike again.
We need scarcely say that Mr. Pringle’s ride home with him was not of a very agreeable character: indeed, the Baronet had seldom been seen to be so put out of his way, and the mare came in for frequent salutations with the whip—latitudinally, longitudinally, and horizontally, over the head and ears, accompanied by cutting commentaries on Flintoff’s utter uselessness and inability to do anything but drink.
He “never saw such a man—domd if ever he did,” and he whipped the mare again in confirmation of the opinion.
Nor did matters mend on arriving at home; for here Mr. Mordecai Nathan met him in the entrance hall, with a very doleful face, to announce that Henerey Brown & Co., who had long been coddling up their horses, had that morning succeeded in sloping with them and their stock to Halterley Fair, and selling them in open market, leaving a note hanging to the key in the house-door, saying that they had gone to Horseterhaylia where Sir Moses needn’t trouble to follow them.
“Ond dom it!” shrieked the Baronet, jumping up in the air like a stricken deer; “ond dom it! I’m robbed! I’m robbed! I’m ruined! I’m ruined!” and tottering to an arm-chair, he sank, overpowered with the blow. Henerey Brown & Co. had indeed been too many for him. After a long course of retrograding husbandry, they seemed all at once to have turned over a new leaf, if not in the tillage way, at all events in that still better way for the land, the cattle line,—store stock, with some symptoms of beef on their bones, and sheep with whole fleeces, going on all-fours depastured the fields, making Mordecai Nathan think it was all the fruits of his superior management. Alaek a-day! They belonged to a friend of Lawyer Hindmarch’s, who thought Henerey Brown & Co. might as well eat all off the land ere they left. And so they ate it as bare as a board.
“Ond dom it, how came you to let them escape?” now demanded the Baronet, wringing his hands in despair; “ond dom it, how came you to let them escape?” continued he, throwing himself back in the chair.
“Why really, Sir Moses, I was perfectly deceived; I thought they were beginning to do better, for though they were back with their ploughing, they seemed to be turning their attention to stock, and I was in hopes that in time they would pull round.”
“Pull round!” ejaculated the Baronet; “pull round! They’ll flatten me I know with their pulling;” and thereupon he kicked out both legs before him as if he was done with them altogether.
His seat being in the line of the door, a rude draught now caught his shoulder, which making him think it was no use sitting there to take cold and the rheumatism, he suddenly bounced up, and telling Nathan to stay where he was, he ran up stairs, and quickly changed his fine satiney, velvetey, holiday garments, for a suit of dingy old tweeds, that looked desperately in want of the washing-tub. Then surmounting the whole with a drab wide-awake, he clutched a knotty dog-whip, and set off on foot with his agent to the scene of disaster, rehearsing the licking he would give Henerey with the whip if he caught him, as he went.
Away he strode, as if he was walking a match, down Dolly’s Close, over the stile, into Farmer Hayford’s fields, and away by the back of the lodges, through Orwell Plantation and Lowestoff End, into the Rushworth and Mayland Road.
Doblington farm-house then stood on the rising ground before him. It was indeed a wretched, dilapidated, woe-begone-looking place; bad enough when enlivened with the presence of cattle and the other concomitants of a farm; but now, with only a poor white pigeon, that Henerey Brown & Co., as if in bitter irony, had left behind them, it looked the very picture of misery and poverty-stricken desolation.
It was red-tiled and had been rough-cast, but the casting was fast coming off, leaving fine map-like tracings of green damp on the walls,—a sort of map of Italy on one side of the door, a map of Africa on the other, one of Horseterhaylia about the centre, with a perfect battery of old hats bristling in the broken panes of the windows. Nor was this all; for, by way of saving coals, Henerey & Humphrey had consumed all the available wood about the place—stable-fittings, cow-house-fittings, pig-sty-fittings, even part of the staircase—and acting under the able advice of Lawyer Hindmarch, had carried away the pot and oven from the kitchen, and all the grates from the fire-places, under pretence of having bought them of the outgoing tenant when they entered,—a fact that the lawyer said “would be difficult to disprove.” If it had not been that Henerey Brown & Co. had been sitting rent-free, and that the dilapidated state of the premises formed an excellent subject of attack for parrying payment when rent came to be demanded, it would be difficult to imagine people living in a house where they had to wheel their beds about to get to the least drop-exposed quarter, and where the ceilings bagged down from the rafters like old-fashioned window-hangings. People, however, can put up with a great deal when it saves their own pockets. Master and man having surveyed the exterior then entered.
“Well,” said Sir Moses, looking round on the scene of desolation, “they’ve made a clean sweep at all events.”
“They have that,” assented Mr. Mordecai Nathan.
“I wonder it didn’t strike you, when you caught them selling their straw off at night, that they would be doing something of this sort,” observed Sir Moses.
“Why, I thought it rather strange,” replied Mr. Nathan; “only they assured me that for every load of straw they sold, they brought back double the value in guano, or I certainly should have been more on the alert.”
“Guano be hanged!” rejoined the Baronet, trying to open the kitchen window, to let some fresh air into the foul apartment; “guano be hanged! one ton of guano makes itself into twenty ton with the aid of Kentish gravel. No better trade than spurious manure-manufacturing; almost as good as cabbage-cigar making. Besides,” continued he, “the straw goes off to a certainty, whereas there’s no certainty about the guano coming back instead of it. Oh, dom it, man,” continued he, knocking some of the old hats out of the broken panes, after a fruitless effort to open the window, “I’d have walked the bailiffs into the beggars if I could have foreseen this.”
“So would I, Sir Moses,” replied Mr. Nathan; “only who could we get to come in their place?”
That observation of Mr. Mordecai Nathan comprises a great deal, and accounts for much apparent good landlordism, which lets a bad tenant go on from year to year with the occasional payment of a driblet of rent, instead of ejecting him; the real fact being that the landlord knows there is no one to get to come in his place—no better one at least—and that fact constitutes one of the principal difficulties of land-owning. If a landlord is not prepared to take an out-of-order farm into his own hands, he must either put up with an incompetent non-paying tenant, or run the risk of getting a worse one from the general body of outlying incompetence. A farm will always let for something.
There is a regular rolling stock of bad farmers in every country, who pass from district to district, exercising their ingenuity in extracting whatever little good their predecessors have left in the land. These men are the steady, determined enemies to grass. Their great delight is to get leave to plough out an old pasture-field under pretence of laying it down better. There won’t be a grass field on a farm but what they will take some exception to, and ask leave to have “out” as they call it. Then if they get leave, they take care never to have a good take of seeds, and so plough on and plough on, promising to lay it down better after each fresh attempt, just as a thimble-rigger urges his dupe to go on and go on, and try his luck once more, until land and dupe are both fairly exhausted. The tenant then marches, and the thimble-rigger decamps, each in search of fresh fields and flats new.
Considering that all writers on agriculture agree that grass land pays double, if not treble, what arable land does, and that one is so much more beautiful to the eye than the other, to say nothing of pleasanter to ride over, we often wonder that landlords have not turned their attention more to the increase and encouragement of grass land on their estates than they have done.
To be sure they have always had the difficulty to contend with we have named, viz., a constant hankering on the part of even some good tenants to plough it out. A poor grass-field, like Gay’s hare, seems to have no friends. Each man proposes to improve it by ploughing it out, forgetful of the fact, that it may also be improved by manuring the surface. The quantity of arable land on a farm is what puts landlords so much in the power of bad farmers. If farms consisted of three parts grass and one part plough, instead of three parts plough and one part grass, no landlord need ever put up with an indifferent, incompetent tenant; for the grass would carry him through, and he could either let the farm off, field by field, to butchers and graziers, or pasture it himself, or hay it if he liked. Nothing pays better than hay. A very small capital would then suffice for the arable land; and there being, as we said before, a rolling stock of scratching land-starvers always on the look-out for out-of-order farms, so every landowner should have a rolling stock of horses and farm-implements ready to turn upon any one that is not getting justice done it. There is no fear of gentlemen being overloaded with land; for the old saying, “It’s a good thing to follow the laird,” will always insure plenty of applicants for any farm a landlord is leaving—supposing, of course, that he has been doing it justice himself, which we must say landlords always do; the first result we see of a gentleman farming being the increase of the size of his stock-yard, and this oftentimes in the face of a diminished acreage under the plough.
Then see what a saving there is in grass-farming compared to tillage husbandry: no ploughs, no harrows, no horses, no lazy leg-dragging clowns, who require constant watching; the cattle will feed whether master is at home or polishing St. James’s Street in paper boots and a tight bearing-rein.
Again, the independence of the grass-farmer is so great. When the wind howls and the rain beats, and the torrents roar, and John Flail lies quaking in bed, fearing for his corn, then old Tom Nebuchadnezzar turns quietly over on his side like the Irish jontleman who, when told the house was on fire, replied, “Arrah, by Jasus, I’m only a lodger!” and says, “Ord rot it, let it rain; it’ll do me no harm! I’m only a grass-grower!”
But we are leaving Sir Moses in the midst of his desolation, with nothing but the chilly fog of a winter’s evening and his own bright thoughts to console him.
“And dom it, I’m off,” exclaimed he, fairly overcome with the impurity of the place; and hurrying out, he ran away towards home, leaving Mr. Mordecai Nathan to lock the empty house up, or not, just as he liked.
And to Pangburn Park let us now follow the Baronet, and see what our friend Billy is about.
CHAPTER XLVI.
THE PRINGLE CORRESPONDENCE.
MR. Pringle’s return was greeted with an immense shoal of letters, one from Mamma, one with “Yammerton Grange” on the seal, two from his tailors—one with the following simple heading, “To bill delivered,” so much; the other containing a vast catalogue of what a jury of tailors would consider youthful “necessaries,” amounting in the whole to a pretty round sum, accompanied by an intimation, that in consequence of the tightness of the money-market, an early settlement would be agreeable—and a very important-looking package, that had required a couple of heads to convey, and which, being the most mysterious of the whole, after a due feeling and inspection, he at length opened. It was from his obsequious friend Mr. Smoothley, and contained a printed copy of the rules of the Hit-im and Hold-im shire Hunt, done up in a little red-backed yellow-lined book, with a note from the sender, drawing Mr. Pringle’s attention to the tenth rule, which stipulated that the annual club subscription of fifteen guineas was to be paid into Greedy and Griper’s bank, in Hinton, by Christmas-day in each year at latest, or ten per cent, interest would be charged on the amount after that.
“Fi-fi-fifteen guineas! te-te-ten per cent.!” ejaculated Billy, gasping for breath; “who’d ever have thought of such a thing!” and it was some seconds before he sufficiently recovered his composure to resume his reading. The rent of the cover he had taken, Mr. Smoothley proceeded to say, was eight guineas a-year. “Eight guineas a-year!” again ejaculated Billy; “eight guineas a-year! why I thought it was a mere matter of form. Oh dear, I can’t stand this!” continued he, looking vacantly about him. “Surely, risking one’s neck is quite bad enough, without paying for doing so. Lord Ladythorne never asked me for any money, why should Sir Moses? Oh dear, oh dear! I wish i’d never embarked in such a speculation. Nothing to be made by it, but a great deal to be lost. Bother the thing, I wish I was out of it,” with which declaration he again ventured to look at Mr. Smoothley’s letter. It went on to say, that the rent would not become payable until the next season, Mr. Treadcroft being liable for that year’s rent. “Ah well, come, that’s some consolation, at all events,” observed our friend, looking up again; “that’s some consolation, at all events,” adding, “I’ll take deuced good care to give it up before another year comes round.”
Smoothley then touched upon the more genial subject of the hunt-buttons. he had desired Garnet, the silversmith, to send a couple of sets off the last die, one for Billy’s hunting, the other for his dress coat; and he concluded by wishing our friend a long life of health and happiness to wear them with the renowned Hit-im and Hold-im shire hunt; and assuring him that he was always his, with great sincerity, John Smoothley. “Indeed,” said Billy, throwing the letter down; “more happiness if I don’t wear them,” continued he, conning over his many misfortunes, and the great difficulty he had in sitting at the jumps. “However,” thought he, “the dress ones will do for the balls,” with which not uncommon consolation he broke the red seal of the Yammerton Grange letter.
This was from our friend the Major, all about a wonderful hunt his “haryers” had had, which he couldn’t resist the temptation of writing to tell Billy of. The description then sprawled over four sides of letter paper, going an arrant burst from end to end, there not being a single stop in the whole, whatever there might have been in the hunt; and the Major concluded by saying, that it was by far the finest run he had ever seen during his long mastership, extending over a period of five-and-thirty years.
Glancing his eye over its contents, how they found at Conksbury Corner, and ran at a racing pace without a check to Foremark Hill, and down over the water-meadows at Dove-dale Green to Marbury Hall, turning short at Fullbrook Folly, and over the race-course at Ancaster Lawn, doubling at Dinton Dean, and back over the hill past Oakhanger Gorse to Tufton Holt, where they killed, the account being interwoven, parenthesis within parenthesis, with the brilliant hits and performances of Lovely, and Lilter, and Dainty, and Bustler, and others, with the names of the distinguished party who were out, our old friend Wotherspoon among the number, Billy came at last to a sly postscript, saying that “his bed and stall were quite ready for him whenever he liked to return, and they would all be delighted to see him.” The wording of the Postscript had taken a good deal of consideration, and had undergone two or three revisions at the hands of the ladies before they gave it to the Major to add—one wanting to make it rather stronger, another rather milder, the Major thinking they had better have a little notice before Mr. Pringle returned, while Mamma (who had now got all the linen up again) inclined, though she did not say so before the girls, to treat Billy as one of the family. Upon a division whether the word “quite” should stand part of the Postscript or not, the Major was left in a minority, and the pressing word passed. His bed and stall were “quite ready,” instead of only “ready” to receive him. Miss Yammerton observing, that “quite” looked as if they really wished to have him, while “ready” looked as if they did not care whether he came or not. And Billy, having pondered awhile on the Postscript, which he thought came very opportunely, proceeded to open his last letter, a man always taking those he doesn’t know first.
This letter was Mamma’s—poor Mamma’s—written in the usual strain of anxious earnestness, hoping her beloved was enjoying himself, but hinting that she would like to have him back. Butterfingers was gone, she had got her a place in Somersetshire, so anxiety on that score was over. Mrs. Pringle’s peculiar means of information, however, informed her that the Misses Yammerton were dangerous, and she had already expressed her opinion pretty freely with regard to Sir Moses. Indeed, she didn’t know which house she would soonest hear of her son being at—Sir Moses’s with his plausible pocket-guarding plundering, or Major Yammerton’s, with the three pair of enterprising eyes, and Mamma’s mature judgment directing the siege operations. Mrs. Pringle wished he was either back at Tantivy Castle, or in Curtain Crescent again.
Still she did not like to be too pressing, but observed, as Christmas was coming, when hunting would most likely be stopped by the weather, she hoped he would run up to town, where many of his friends, Jack Sheppard, Tom Brown, Harry Bean, and others, were asking for him, thinking he was lost. She also said, it would be a good time to go to Uncle Jerry’s, and try to get a settlement with him, for though she had often called, sometimes by appointment, she had never been able to meet with him, as he was always away, either seeing after some chapel he was building, or attending a meeting for the conversion of the Sepoys, or some other fanatics.
The letter concluded by saying, that she had looked about in vain for a groom likely to suit him; for, although plenty had presented themselves from gentlemen wishing for high wages with nothing to do, down to those who would garden and groom and look after cows, she had not seen anything at all to her mind. Mr. Luke Grueler, however, she added, who had called that morning, had told her of one that he could recommend, who was just leaving the Honourable Captain Swellington; and being on his way to town from Doubleimupshire, where the Captain had got to the end of his tether, he would very possibly call; and, if so, Billy would know him by his having Mr. Grueler’s card to present. And with renewed expressions of affection, and urging him to take care of himself, as well among the leaps as the ladies, she signed herself his most doting and loving “Mamma.”
“Groom!” (humph) “Swellington!” (humph) muttered Billy, folding up the letter, and returning it to its highly-musked envelope.
“Wonder what sort of a beggar he’ll be?” continued he, twirling his mustachios; “Wonder how he’ll get on with Rougier?” and a thought struck him, that he had about as much as he could manage with Monsieur. However, many people have to keep what they don’t want, and there is no reason why such an aspiring youth as our friend should be exempt from the penance of his station. Talking of grooms, we are not surprised at “Mamma’s” difficulty in choosing one, for we know of few more difficult selections to make; and, considering the innumerable books we have on the choice and management of horses, we wonder no one has written on the choice and management of grooms. The truth is, they are as various as the horse-tribe itself; and, considering that the best horse may soon be made a second-rate one by bad grooming, when a second-rate one may be elevated to the first class by good management, and that a man’s neck may be broken by riding a horse not fit to go, it is a matter of no small importance. Some men can dress themselves, some can dress their horses; but very few can dress both themselves and their horses. Some are only fit to strip a horse and starve him. It is not every baggy-corded fellow that rolls slangily along in top-boots, and hisses at everything he touches, that is a groom. In truth, there are very few grooms, very few men who really enter into the feelings and constitutions of horses, or look at them otherwise than as they would at chairs or mahogany tables. A horse that will be perfectly furious under the dressing of one man, will be as quiet as possible in the hands of another—-a rough subject thinking the more a horse prances and winces, the greater the reason to lay on. Some fellows have neither hands, nor eyes, nor sense, nor feeling, nor anything. We have seen one ride a horse to cover without ever feeling that he was lame, while a master’s eye detected it the moment he came in sight. Indeed, if horses could express their opinions, we fear many of them would have very indifferent ones of their attendants. The greater the reason, therefore, for masters giving honest characters of their servants.
Our friend Mr. Pringle, having read his letters, was swinging up and down the little library, digesting them, when the great Mr. Bankhead bowed in with a card on a silver salver, and announced, in his usual bland way, that the bearer wished to speak to him.
“Me!” exclaimed Billy, wondering who it could be; “Me!” repeated he, taking the highly-glazed thin pasteboard missive off the tray, and reading, “Mr. Luke Grueler, Half-Moon Street, Piccadilly.”
“Grueler, Grueler!” repeated Billy, frowning and biting his pretty lips; “Grueler—I’ve surely heard that name before.”
“The bearer, sir, comes from Mr. Grueler, sir,” observed Mr. Bankhead, in explanation: “the party’s own name, sir, is Gaiters; but he said by bringing in this card, you would probably know who he is.”
“Ah! to be sure, so I do,” replied Billy, thus suddenly enlightened, “I’ve just been reading about him. Send him in, will you?”
“If you please, sir,” whispered the bowing Bankhead as he withdrew.
Billy then braced himself up for the coming interview.
A true groom’s knock, a loud and a little one, presently sounded on the white-over-black painted door-panel, and at our friend’s “Come in,” the door opened, when in sidled a sleek-headed well put on groomish-looking man, of apparently forty or five-and-forty years of age. The man bowed respectfully, which Billy returned, glancing at his legs to see whether they were knock-kneed or bowed, his Mamma having cautioned him against the former. They were neither; on the contrary, straight good legs, well set off with tightish, drab-coloured kerseymere shorts, and continuations to match. His coat was an olive-coloured cutaway, his vest a canary-coloured striped toilanette, with a slightly turned-down collar, showing the whiteness of his well-tied cravat, secured with a gold flying-fox pin. Altogether he was a most respectable looking man, and did credit to the recommendation of Mr. Grueler.
Still he was a groom of pretension—that is to say, a groom who wanted to be master. He was hardly, indeed, satisfied with that, and would turn a gentleman off who ventured to have an opinion of his own on any matter connected with his department. Mr. Gaiters considered that his character was the first consideration, his master’s wishes and inclinations the second; so if master wanted to ride, say, Rob Roy, and Gaiters meant him to ride Moonshine, there would be a trial of skill which it should be.
Mr. Gaiters always considered himself corporally in the field, and speculated on what people would be saying of “his horses.”
Some men like to be bullied, some don’t, but Gaiters had dropped on a good many who did. Still these are not the lasting order of men, and Gaiters had attended the dispersion of a good many studs at the Corner. Again, some masters had turned him off, while he had turned others off; and the reason of his now being disengaged was that the Sheriff of Doubleimupshire had saved him the trouble of taking Captain Swellington’s horses to Tattersall’s, by selling them off on the spot. Under these circumstances, Gaiters had written to his once former master—or rather employer—Mr. Grueler, to announce his retirement, which had led to the present introduction. Many people will recommend servants who they wouldn’t take themselves. Few newly married couples but what have found themselves saddled with invaluable servants that others wanted to get rid of.
Mutual salutations over, Gaiters now stood in the first position, hat in front, like a heavy father on the stage.
Our friend not seeming inclined to lead the gallop, Mr. Gaiters, after a prefatory hem, thus commenced: “Mr. Grueler, sir, I presume, would tell you, sir, that I would call upon you, sir?”
Billy nodded assent.
“I’m just leaving the Honourable Captain Swellington, of the Royal Hyacinth Hussars, sir, whose regiment is ordered out to India; and fearing the climate might not agree with my constitution, I have been obliged to give him up.”
“Ah!” ejaculated Billy.
“I have his testimonials,” continued Gaiters, putting his hat between his legs, and diving into the inside pocket of his cutaway as he spoke. “I have his testimonials,” repeated he, producing a black, steel-clasped banker or bill-broker’s looking pocket-book, and tedding up a lot of characters, bills, recipes, and other documents in the pocket. He then selected Captain Swellington’s character from the medley, written on the best double-thick, cream-laid note-paper, sealed with the Captain’s crest—a goose—saying that the bearer John Gaiters was an excellent groom, and might safely be trusted with the management of hunters. “You’ll probably know who the Captain is, sir,” continued Mr. Gaiters, eyeing Billy as he read it. “He’s a son of the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Flareup’s, of Flareup Castle, one of the oldest and best families in the kingdom—few better families anywhere,” just as if the Peer’s pedigree had anything to do with Gaiters’s grooming. “I have plenty more similar to it,” continued Mr. Gaiters, who had now selected a few out of the number which he held before him, like a hand at cards. “Plenty more similar to it,” repeated he, looking them over. “Here is Sir Rufus Rasper’s, Sir Peter Puller’s, Lord Thruster’s, Mr. Cropper’s, and others. Few men have horsed more sportsmen than I have done; and if my principals do not go in the first flight, it is not for want of condition in my horses. Mr. Grueler was the only one I ever had to give up for overmarking my horses; and he was so hard upon them I couldn’t stand it; still he speaks of me, as you see, in the handsomest manner,” handing our friend Mr. Grueler’s certificate, couched in much the same terms as Captain Swellington’s.
“Yarse,” replied Billy, glancing over and then returning it, thinking, as he again eyed Mr. Gaiters, that a smart lad like Lord Ladythorne’s Cupid without wings would be more in his way than such a full-sized magnificent man. Still his Mamma and Mr. Grueler had sent Gaiters, and he supposed they knew what was right. In truth, Gaiters was one of those overpowering people that make a master feel as if he was getting hired, instead of suiting himself with a servant.
This preliminary investigation over, Gaiters returned the characters to his ample book, and clasping it together, dropped it into his capacious pocket, observing, as it fell, that he should be glad to endeavour to arrange matters with Mr. Pringle, if he was so inclined.
Our friend nodded, wishing he was well rid of him.
“It’s not every place I would accept,” continued Mr. Gaiters, growing grand; “for the fact is, as Mr. Grueler will tell you, my character is as good as a Bank of England note; and unless I was sure I could do myself justice, I should not like to venture on an experiment, for it’s no use a man undertaking anything that he’s not allowed to carry out his own way; and nothing would be so painful to my feelings as to see a gentleman not turned out as he should be.”
Mr. Pringle drawled a “yarse,” for he wanted to be turned out properly.
“Well, then,” continued Mr. Gaiters, changing his hat from his right hand to his left, subsiding into the second position, and speaking slowly and deliberately, “I suppose you want a groom to take the entire charge and management of your stable—a stud groom, in short?”
“Yarse, I s’pose so,” replied Billy, not knowing exactly what he wanted, and wishing his Mamma hadn’t sent him such a swell.
“Well, then, sir,” continued Mr. Gaiters, casting his eyes up to the dirty ceiling, and giving his chin a dry shave with his disengaged hand; “Well, then, sir, I flatter myself I can fulfil that office with credit to myself and satisfaction to my employer.”
“Yarse,” assented Billy, thinking there would be very little satisfaction in the matter.
“Buy the forage, hire the helpers, do everything appertaining to the department,—in fact, just as I did with the Honourable Captain Swellington.”
“Humph,” said Billy, recollecting that his Mamma always told him never to let servants buy anything for him that he could help.
“Might I ask if you buy your own horses?” inquired Mr. Gaiters, after a pause.
“Why, yarse, I do,” replied Billy; “at least I have so far.”
“Hum! That would be a consideration,” muttered Gaiters, compressing his mouth, as if he had now come to an obstacle; “that would be a consideration. Not that there’s any benefit or advantage to be derived from buying horses,” continued he, resuming his former tone; “but when a man’s character’s at stake, it’s agreeable, desirable, in fact, that he should be intrusted with the means of supporting it. I should like to buy the horses,” continued he, looking earnestly at Billy, as if to ascertain the amount of his gullibility.
“Well,” drawled Billy, “I don’t care if you do,” thinking there wouldn’t be many to buy.
“Oh!” gasped Gaiters, relieved by the announcement; he always thought he had lost young Mr. Easyman’s place by a similar demand, but still he couldn’t help making it. It wouldn’t have been doing justice to the Bank of England note character, indeed, if he hadn’t.
“Oh!” repeated he, emboldened by success, and thinking he had met with the right sort of man. He then proceeded to sum up his case in his mind,—forage, helpers, horses, horses, helpers, forage;—he thought that was all he required; yes, he thought it was all he required, and the Bank of England note character would be properly supported. He then came to the culminating point of the cash. Just as he was clearing his throat with a prefatory “Hre” for this grand consideration, a sudden rush and banging of doors foreboding mischief resounded through the house, and something occurred——that we will tell in another chapter.
CHAPTER XLVII.
A CATASTROPHE.—A TÊTE-À-TÊTE DINNER
ON, Sir, Sir, please step this way! please step this way!” exclaimed the delirium tremems footman, rushing coatless into the room where our hero and Mr. Gaiters were,—his shirt-sleeves tucked up, and a knife in hand, as if he had been killing a pig, though in reality he was fresh from the knife-board.
“Oh, Sir, Sir, please step this way!” repeated he, at once demolishing the delicate discussion at which our friend and Mr. Gaiters had arrived.
“What’s ha-ha-happened?” demanded Billy, turning deadly pale; for his cares were so few, that he couldn’t direct his fears to any one point in particular.
“Please, sir, your ‘oss has dropped down in a f-f-fit!” replied the man, all in a tremble.
“Fit!” ejaculated Billy, brushing past Gaiters, and hurrying out of the room.
“Fit!” repeated Gaiters, turning round with comfortable composure, looking at the man as much as to say, what do you know about it?
“Yes, f-f-fit!” repeated the footman, brandishing his knife, and running after Billy as though he were going to slay him.
Dashing along the dark passages, breaking his shins over one of those unlucky coal-scuttles that are always in the way, Billy fell into an outward-bound stream of humanity,—Mrs. Margerum, Barbara the housemaid, Mary the Lanndrymaid, Jones the gardener’s boy, and others, all hurrying to the scene of action.
Already there was a ring formed round the door, of bare-armed helpers, and miscellaneous hangers-on, looking over each other’s shoulders, who opened a way for Billy as he advanced.
The horse was indeed down, but not in a fit; for he was dying, and expired just as Billy entered. There lay the glazy-eyed hundred-guinea Napoleon the Great, showing his teeth, reduced to the mere value of his skin; so great is the difference between a dead horse and a live one.
“Bad job!” said Wetun, who was on his knees at its head, looking up; “bad job!” repeated he, trying to look dismal.
“What! is he dead?” demanded Billy, who could hardly realise the fact.
“Dead, ay—he’ll never move more,” replied Wetun, showing his fast-stiffening neck.
“By Jove! why didn’t you send for the doctor?” demanded Billy.
“Doctor! we had the doctor,” replied Wetun, “but he could do nothin’ for him.”
“Nothin’ for him!” retorted Billy; “why not?”
“Because he’s rotten,” replied Wetun.
“Rotten! how can that be?” asked our friend, adding, “I only bought him the other day!”
“If you open ‘im you’ll find he’s as black as ink in his inside, rejoined the groom, now getting up in the stall and rubbing his knees.
“Well, but what’s that with?” demanded Billy. “It surely must be owing to something. Horses don’t die that way for nothing.”
“Owing to a bad constitution—harn’t got no stamina,” replied Wetun, looking down upon the dead animal.
Billy was posed with the answer, and stood mute for a while.
“That ‘oss ‘as never been rightly well sin he com’d,” now observed Joe Bates, the helper who looked after him, over the heads of the door-circle.
“I didn’t like his looks when he com’d in from ‘unting that day,” continued Tom Wisp, another helper.
“No, nor the day arter nonther,” assented Jack Strong, who was a capital hand at finding fault, and could slur over his work with anybody.
Just then Mr. Gaiters arrived; and a deferential entrance was opened for his broadcloth by the group before the door.
The great Mr. Gaiters entered.
Treating the dirty blear-eyed Wetun more as a helper than an equal, he advanced deliberately up the stall and proceeded to examine the dead horse.
He looked first up his nostrils, next at his eye, then at his neck to see if he had been bled.
“I could have cured that horse if I’d had him in time,” observed he to Billy with a shake of the head.
“Neither you nor no man under the sun could ha’ done it,” asserted Mr. Wetun, indignant at the imputation.
“I could though—at least he never should have been in that state,” replied Gaiters coolly.
“I say you couldn’t!” retorted Wetun, putting his arms a-kimbo, and sideling up to the daring intruder, a man who hadn’t even asked leave to come into his stable.
A storm being imminent, our friend slipped off, and Sir Moses arrived from Henerey Brown &, Co.‘s just at the nick of time to prevent a fight.
So much for a single night in a bad stable, a result that our readers will do well to remember when they ask their friends to visit them—“Love me, love my horse,” being an adage more attended to in former times than it is now.
“Ah, my dear Pringle! I’m so sorry to hear about your horse! go sorry to hear about your horse!” exclaimed Sir Moses, rushing forward to greet our friend with a consolatory shake of the hand, as he came sauntering into the library, flat candlestick in hand, before dinner. “It’s just the most unfortunate thing I ever knew in my life; and I wouldn’t have had it happen at my house for all the money in the world—dom’d if I would,” added he, with a downward blow of his fist.
Billy could only reply with one of his usual monotonous “y-a-r-ses.”
“However,” said the Baronet, “it shall not prevent your hunting to-morrow, for I’ll mount you with all the pleasure in the world—all the pleasure in the world,” repeated he, with a flourish of his hand.
“Thank ye,” replied Billy, alarmed at the prospect; “but the fact is, the Major expects me back at Yammerton Grange, and——”
“That’s nothin!” interrupted Sir Moses; “that’s nothin; hunt, and go there after—all in the day’s work. Meet at the kennel, find a fox in five minutes, have your spin, and go to the Grange afterwards.”
“O, indeed, yes, you shall,” continued he, settling it so, “shall have the best horse in my stable—Pegasus, or Atalanta, or Old Jack, or any of them—dom’d if you shalln’t—so that matter’s settled.”
“But, but, but,” hesitated our alarmed friend, “I—I—I shall have no way of getting there after hunting.”
“O, I’ll manage that too,” replied Sir Moses, now in the generous mood. “I’ll manage that too—shall have the dog-cart—the thing we were in to-day; my lad shall go with you and bring it back, and that’ll convey you and your traps and all altogether. Only sorry I can’t ask you to stay another week, but the fact is I’ve got to go to my friend Lord Lundyfoote’s for Monday’s hunting at Harker Crag,”—the fact being that Sir Moses had had enough of Billy’s company and had invited himself there to get rid of him.
The noiseless Mr. Bankhead then opened the door with a bow, and they proceeded to a tête-à-tête dinner, Cuddy Flintoff having wisely sent for his things from Heslop’s house, and taken his departure to town under pretence, as he told Sir Moses in a note, of seeing Tommy White’s horses sold.
Cuddy was one of that numerous breed of whom every sportsman knows at least one—namely, a man who is always wanting a horse, a “do you know of a horse that will suit me?” sort of a man. Charley Flight, who always walks the streets like a lamplighter and doesn’t like to be checked in his stride, whenever he sees Cuddy crawling along Piccadilly towards the Corner, puts on extra steam, exclaiming as he nears him, “How are you, Cuddy, how are you? I don’t know of a horse that will suit you!” So he gets past without a pull-up.
But we are keeping the soup waiting—also the fish—cod sounds rather—for Mrs. Margerum not calculating on more than the usual three days of country hospitality,—the rest day, the drest day, and the pressed day,—had run out of fresh fish. Indeed the whole repast bespoke the exhausted larder peculiar to the end of the week, and an adept in dishes might have detected some old friends with new faces. Some rechauffers however are quite as good if not better than the original dishes—hashed venison for instance—though in this case, when Sir Moses inquired for the remains of the Sunday’s haunch, he was told that Monsieur had had it for his lunch—Jack being a safe bird to lay it upon, seeing that he had not returned from the race. If Jack had been in the way then, the cat would most likely have been the culprit, or old Libertine, who had the run of the house.
Neither the Baronet nor Billy however was in any great humour for eating, each having cares of magnitude to oppress his thoughts, and it was not until Sir Moses had imbibed the best part of a pint of champagne besides sherry at intervals, that he seemed at all like himself. So he picked and nibbled and dom’d and dirted as many plates as he could. Dinner being at length over, he ordered a bottle of the green-sealed claret (his best), and drawing his chair to the fire proceeded to crack walnuts and pelt the shells at particular coals in the fire with a vehemence that showed the occupation of his mind. An observing eye could almost tell which were levelled at Henerey Brown, which at Cuddy Flintoff, and which again at the impudent owner of Tippy Tom.
At length, having exhausted his spleen, he made a desperate dash at the claret-jug, and pouring himself out a bumper, pushed it across to our friend, with a “help yourself,” as he sent it. The ticket-of-leave butler, who understood wine, had not lost his skill during his long residence at Portsmouth, and brought this in with the bouquet in great perfection. The wine was just as it should be, neither too warm nor too cold; and as Sir Moses quaffed a second glass, his equanimity began to revive.
When not thinking about money, his thoughts generally took a sporting turn,
Horses and hounds, and the system of kennel,
Leicestershire saga, and the hounds of old Moynell,
as the song says; and the loss of Billy’s horse now obtruded on his mind.
“How the deuce it had happened he couldn’t imagine; his man, Wetun,—and there was no better judge—said he seemed perfectly well, and a better stable couldn’t be than the one he was in; indeed he was standing alongside of his own favourite mare, Whimpering Kate,—‘faith, he wished he had told them to take her out, in case it was anything infectious,—only it looked more like internal disease than anything else.—Wished he mightn’t be rotten. The Major was an excellent man,—cute,——” and here he checked himself, recollecting that Billy was going back there on the morrow. “A young man,” continued he, “should be careful who he dealt with, for many what were called highly honourable men were very unscrupulous about horses;” and a sudden thought struck Sir Moses, which, with the aid of another bottle, he thought he might try to carry out. So apportioning the remains of the jug equitably between Billy and himself, he drew the bell, and desired the ticket-of-leave butler to bring in another bottle and a devilled biscuit.
“That wine won’t hurt you,” continued he, addressing our friend, “that wine won’t hurt you, it’s not the nasty loaded stuff they manufacture for the English market, but pure, unadulterated juice of the grape, without a headache in a gallon of it so saying, Sir Moses quaffed off his glass and set it down with evident satisfaction, feeling almost a match for the owner of Tippy Tom. He then moved his chair a little on one side, and resumed his contemplation of the fire,—the blue lights rising among the red,—the gas escaping from the coal,—the clear flame flickering with the draught. He thought he saw his way,—yes, he thought he saw his way, and forthwith prevented any one pirating his ideas, by stirring the fire. Mr. Bankhead then entered with the bottle and the biscuit, and, placing them on the table, withdrew.
“Come, Pringle!” cried Sir Moses cheerfully, seizing the massive cut-glass decanter, “let’s drink the healths of the young ladies at——, you know where,” looking knowingly at our friend, who blushed. “We’ll have a bumper to that,” continued he, pouring himself out one, and passing the bottle to Billy.
“The young ladies at Yammerton Grange!” continued Sir Moses, holding the glass to the now sparkling fire before he transferred its bright ruby-coloured contents to his thick lips. He then quaffed it off with a smack.
“The young ladies at Yammerton Grange!” faltered Billy, after filling himself a bumper.
“Nice girls those, dom’d if they’re not,” observed the Baronet, now breaking the devilled biscuit. “You must take care what you’re about there, though, for the old lady doesn’t stand any nonsense; the Major neither.”
Billy said he wasn’t going to try any on——.
“No—but they’ll try it on with you,” retorted Sir Moses; “mark my words if they don’t.”
“O, but I’m only there for hunting,” observed Billy, timidly.
“I dare say,” replied Sir Moses, with a jerk of his head, “I dare say,—but it’s very agreeable to talk to a pretty girl when you come in, and those are devilish pretty girls, let me tell you,—dom’d if they’re not,—only one talk leads to another talk, and ultimately Mamma talks about a small gold ring.”
Billy was frightened, for he felt the truth of what Sir Moses said. They then sat for some minutes in silence, ruminating on their own affairs,—Billy thinking he would be careful of the girls, and wondering how he could escape Sir Moses’s offer of a bump on the morrow,—Sir Moses thinking he would advance that performance a step. He now led the way.
“You’ll be wanting a horse to go with the Major’s harriers,” observed he; “and I’ve got the very animal for that sort of work; that grey horse of mine, the Lord Mayor, in the five-stalled stable on the right; the safest, steadiest animal ever man got on to; and I’ll make you a present of him, dom’d if I won’t; for I’m more hurt at the loss of yours than words can express; wouldn’t have had such a thing happen at my house on any account; so that’s a bargain, and will make all square; for the grey’s an undeniable good ‘un—worth half-a-dozen of the Major’s—and will do you some credit, for a young man on his preferment should always study appearances, and ride handsome horses; and the grey is one of the handsomest I ever saw. Lord Tootleton, up in Neck-and-crop-shire, who I got him of, gave three ‘under’d for him at the hammer, solely, I believe, on account of his looks, for he had never seen him out except in the ring, which is all my eye, for telling you whether a horse is a hunter or not; but, however, he is a hunter, and no mistake, and you are most heartily welcome to him, dom’d if you’re not; and I’m deuced glad that it occurred to me to give him you, for I shall now sleep quite comfortable; so help yourself, and we’ll drink Foxhunting,” saying which, Sir Moses, who had had about enough wine, filled on a liberal heel-tap, and again passed the bottle to his guest.
Now Billy, who had conned over the matter in his bedroom before dinner, had come to the conclusion that he had had about hunting enough, and that the loss of Napoleon the Great afforded a favourable opportunity for retiring from the chase; indeed, he had got rid of the overpowering Mr. Gaiters on that plan, and he was not disposed to be cajoled into a continuance of the penance by the gift of a horse; so as soon as he could get a word in sideways, he began hammering away at an excuse, thanking Sir Moses most energetically for his liberality, but expressing his inability to accept such a magnificent offer.
Sir Moses, however, who did not believe in any one refusing a gift, adhered pertinaciously to his promise,—“Oh, indeed, he should have him, he wouldn’t be easy if he didn’t take him,” and ringing the bell he desired the footman to tell Wetun to see if Mr. Pringle’s saddle would fit the Lord Mayor, and if it didn’t, to let our friend have one of his in the morning, and “here!” added he, as the man was retiring, “bring in tea.”—And Sir Moses being peremptory in his presents, Billy was compelled to remain under pressure of the horse.—So after a copious libation of tea the couple hugged and separated for the night, Sir Moses exclaiming “Breakfast at nine, mind!” as Billy sauntered up stairs, while the Baronet ran off to his study to calculate what Henerey Brown & Co. had done him out of.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
ROUGIER’S MYSTERIOUS LODGINGS—THE GIFT HORSE.
MR. Gallon’s liberality after the race with Mr. Flintoff was so great that Monsieur Rougier was quite overcome with his kindness and had to be put to bed at the last public-house they stopped at, viz.—the sign of the Nightingale on the Ashworth road. Independently of the brandy not being particularly good, Jack took so much of it that he slept the clock round, and it was past nine the next morning ere he awoke. It then took him good twenty minutes to make out where he was; he first of all thought he was at Boulogne, then in Paris, next at the Lord Warden Hotel at Dover, and lastly at the Coal-hole in the Strand.
Presently the recollection of the race began to dawn upon him—the red jacket—the grey horse, Cuddy in distress, and gradually he recalled the general outline of the performance, but he could not fill it up so as to make a connected whole, or to say where he was.
He then looked at his watch, and finding it was half-past four, he concluded it had stopped,—an opinion that was confirmed on holding it to his ear; so without more ado, he bounded out of bed in a way that nearly sent him through the gaping boards of the dry-rotting floor of the little attic in which they had laid him. He then made his way to the roof-raised window to see what was outside. A fine wet muddy road shone below him, along which a straw-cart was rolling; beyond the road was a pasture, then a turnip field; after which came a succession of green, brown, and drab fields, alternating and undulating away to the horizon, varied with here and there a belt or tuft of wood. Jack was no wiser than he was, but hearing sounds below, he made for the door, and opening the little flimsy barrier stood listening like a terrier with its ear at a rat-hole. These were female voices, and he thus addressed them—“I say, who’s there? Theodosia, my dear,” continued he, speaking down stairs, “vot’s de time o’ day, my sweet?”
The lady thus addressed as Theodosia was Mrs. Windybank, a very forbidding tiger-faced looking woman, desperately pitted with the small-pox, who was not in the best of humours in consequence of the cat having got to the cream-bowl; so all the answer she made to Jack’s polite enquiry was, “Most ten.”
“Most ten!” repeated Jack, “most ten! how the doose can that be?”
“It is hooiver,” replied she, adding, “you may look if you like.”
“No, my dear, I’ll take your word for it,” replied Jack; “but tell me, Susannah,” continued he, “whose house is this I’m at?”
“Whose house is’t?” replied the voice; “whose house is’t? why, Jonathan Windybank’s—you knar that as well as I do.”
“De lady’s not pleasant,” muttered Jack to himself; so returning into the room, he began to array himself in his yesterday’s garments, Mr. Gallon’s boots and leathers, his own coat with Finlater’s cap, in which he presently came creaking down stairs and confronted the beauty with whom he had had the flying colloquy. The interview not being at all to her advantage, and as she totally denied all knowledge of Pangburn Park, and “de great Baronet vot kept the spotted dogs,” Monsieur set off on foot to seek it; and after divers askings, mistakings, and deviations, he at length arrived on Rossington hill just as the servants’ hall dinner-bell was ringing, the walk being much to the detriment of Mr. Gallon’s boots.
In consequence of Monsieur’s laches, as the lawyers would say, Mr. Pringle was thrown on the resources of the house the next morning; but Sir Moses being determined to carry out his intention with regard to the horse, sent the footman to remind Billy that he was going to hunt, and to get him his things if required. So our friend was obliged to adorn for the chase instead of retiring from further exertion in that line as he intended; and with the aid of the footman he made a very satisfactory toilette,—his smart scarlet, a buff vest, a green cravat, correct shirt-collar, with unimpeachable leathers and boots.
Though this was the make-believe day of the week, Sir Moses was all hurry and bustle as usual, and greeted our hero as he came down stairs with the greatest enthusiasm, promising, of all things in the world! to show him a run.
“Now bring breakfast! bring breakfast!” continued he, as if they had got twenty miles to go to cover; and in came urn and eggs, and ham, and cakes, and tongue, and toast, and buns, all the concomitants of the meal.—At it Sir Moses went as if he had only ten minutes to eat it in, inviting his guest to fall-to also.
Just as they were in the midst of the meal a horse was heard to snort outside, and on looking up the great Lord Mayor was seen passing up the Park.
“Ah, there’s your horse!” exclaimed Sir Moses, “there’s your horse! been down to the shop to get his shoes looked to,” though in reality Sir Moses had told the groom to do just what he was doing, viz.—to pass him before the house at breakfast-time without his clothing.
The Lord Mayor was indeed a sort of horse that a youngster might well be taken in with, grey, with a beautiful head and neck, and an elegantly set-on tail. He stepped out freely and gaily, and looked as lively as a lark.
He was, however, as great an impostor as Napoleon the Great; for, independently of being troubled with the Megrims, he was a shocking bad hack, and a very few fields shut him up as a hunter.
“Well now,” said Sir Moses, pausing in his meal, with the uplifted knife and fork of admiration, “that, to my mind, is the handsomest horse in the country,—I don’t care where the next handsomest is.—Just look at his figure, just look at his action.—Did you ever see anything so elegant? To my mind he’s as near perfection as possible, and what’s more, he’s as good as he looks, and all I’ve got to say is, that you are most heartily welcome to him.”
“O, thank’e,” replied Billy, “thank’e, but I couldn’t think of accepting him,—I couldn’t think of accepting him indeed.”
“O, but you shall,” said Sir Moses, resuming his eating, “O but you shall, so there’s an end of the matter.—And now have some more tea,” whereupon he proceeded to charge Billy’s cup in the awkward sort of way men generally do when they meddle with the tea-pot.
Sir Moses, having now devoured his own meal, ran off to his study, telling Billy he would call him when it was time to go, and our friend proceeded to dandle and saunter, and think what he would do with his gift horse. He was certainly a handsome one—handsomer than Napoleon, and grey was a smarter colour than bay—might not be quite so convenient for riding across country on, seeing the color was conspicuous, but for a hot day in the Park nothing could be more cool or delightful. And he thought it was extremely handsome of Sir Moses giving it to him, more, he felt, than nine-tenths of the people in the world would have done.
Our friend’s reverie was presently interrupted by Sir Moses darting back, pen and paper in hand, exclaiming, “I’ll tell ye what, my dear Pringle! I’ll tell ye what! there shall be no obligation, and you shall give me fifty puns for the grey and pay for him when you please. But mark me!” added he, holding up his forefinger and looking most scrutinisingly at our friend, “Only on one condition, mind! only on one condition, mind! that you give me the refusal of him if ever you want to part with him;” and without waiting for an answer, he placed the paper before our friend, and handing him the pen, said, “There, then, sign that I. O. U.” And Billy having signed it, Sir Moses snatched it up and disappeared, leaving our friend to a renewal of his cogitations.
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Sir Moses having accomplished the grand “do,” next thought he would back out of the loan of the dog-cart. For this purpose he again came hurrying back, pen in hand, exclaiming, “Oh dear, he was so sorry, but it had just occurred to him that he wanted the mare to go to Lord Lundyfoote’s; however, I’ll make it all square, I’ll make it all square,” continued he; “I’ll tell Jenkins, the postman, to send a fly as soon as he gets to Hinton, which, I make no doubt, will be here by the time we come in from hunting, and it will take you and your traps all snug and comfortable; for a dog-cart, after all, is but a chilly concern at this time of year, and I shouldn’t like you to catch cold going from my house;” and without waiting for an answer, he pulled-to the door and hurried back to his den. Billy shook his head, for he didn’t like being put off that way, and muttered to himself, “I wonder who’ll pay for it though.” However, on reflection, he thought perhaps he would be as comfortable in a fly as finding his way across country on horseback; and as he had now ascertained that Monsieur could ride, whether or not he could drive, he settled that he might just as well take the grey to Yammerton Grange as not. This then threw him back on his position with regard to the horse, which was not so favourable as it at first appeared; indeed, he questioned whether he had done wisely in signing the paper, his Mamma having always cautioned him to be careful how he put his name to anything. Still, he felt he couldn’t have got off without offending Sir Moses; and after all, it was more like a loan than a sale, seeing that he had not paid for him, and Sir Moses would take him back if he liked. Altogether he thought he might be worse off, and, considering that Lord Tootleton had given three hundred for the horse, he certainly must be worth fifty. There is nothing so deceiving as price. Only tell a youngster that a horse has cost a large sum, and he immediately looks at him, while he would pass him by if he stood at a low figure. Having belonged to a lord, too, made him so much more acceptable to Billy.
A loud crack of a whip, accompanied by a “Now, Pringle!” presently resounded through the house, and our friend again found himself called upon to engage in an act of horsemanship.
“Coming!” cried he, starting from the little mirror above the scanty grey marble mantel-piece, in which he was contemplating his moustachios; “Coming!” and away he strode, with the desperate energy of a man bent on braving the worst. His cap, whip, gloves, and mits, were all laid ready for him on the entrance hall-table; and seizing them in a cluster, he proceeded to decorate himself as he followed Sir Moses along the intricate passages leading to the stable-yard.
CHAPTER XLIX.
THE SHAM DAY.
SATURDAY is a very different day in the country to what it is in London. In London it is the lazy day of the week, whereas it is the busy one in the country. It is marked in London by the coming of the clean-linen carts, and the hurrying about of Hansoms with gentlemen with umbrellas and small carpet-bags, going to the steamers and stations for pleasure; whereas in the country everybody is off to the parliament of his local capital on business. All the markets in Hit-im and Hold-im shire were held on a Saturday, and several in Featherbedfordshire; and as everybody who has nothing to do is always extremely busy, great gatherings were the result. This circumstance made Sir Moses hit upon Saturday for his fourth, or make-believe day with the hounds, inasmuch as few people would be likely to come, and if they did, he knew how to get rid of them. The consequence was, that the court-yard at Pangburn Park exhibited a very different appearance, on this occasion, to what it would have done had the hounds met there on any other day of the week. Two red coats only, and those very shabby ones, with very shady horses under them—viz., young Mr. Billikins of Red Hill Lodge, and his cousin Captain Luff of the navy (the latter out for the first time in his life), were all that greeted our sportsmen; the rest of the field being attired in shooting-jackets, tweeds, antigropolos and other anti-fox-hunting looking things.
“Good morning, gentlemen! good morning!” cried Sir Moses, waving his hand from the steps at the promiscuous throng; and without condescending to particularise any one, he hurried across for his horse, followed by our friend. Sir Moses was going to ride Old Jack, one of the horses he had spoken of for Billy, a venerable brown, of whose age no one’s memory about the place supplied any information—though when he first came all the then wiseacres prophesied a speedy decline. Still Old Jack had gone on from season to season, never apparently getting older, and now looking as likely to go on as ever. The old fellow having come pottering out of the stable and couched to his load, the great Lord Mayor came darting forward as if anxious for the fray. “It’s your saddle, sir,” said Wetun, touching his forehead with his finger, as he held on by the stirrup for Billy to mount. Up then went our friend into the old seat of suffering. “There!” exclaimed Sir Moses, as he got his feet settled in the stirrups; “there, you do look well! If Miss ‘um’ sees you,” continued he, with a knowing wink, “it’ll be all over with you;” so saying, Sir Moses touched Old Jack gently with the spur, and proceeded to the slope of the park, where Findlater and the whips now had the hounds.
Tom Findlater, as we said before, was an excellent huntsman, but he had his peculiarities, and in addition to that of getting drunk, he sometimes required to be managed by the rule of contrary, and made to believe that Sir Moses wanted him to do the very reverse of what he really did. Having been refused leave to go to Cleaver the butcher’s christening-supper at the sign of the Shoulder of Mutton, at Kimberley, Sir Moses anticipated that this would be one of his perverse days, and so he began taking measures accordingly.
“Good morning, Tom,” said he, as huntsman and whips now sky-scraped to his advance—“morning all of you,” added he, waving a general salute to the hound-encircling group.
“Now, Tom,” said he, pulling up and fumbling at his horn, “I’ve been telling Mr. Pringle that we’ll get him a gallop so as to enable him to arrive at Yammerton Grange before dark.”
“Yes, Sir Moses,” replied Tom, with a rap of his cap-peak, thinking he would take very good care that he didn’t.
“Now whether will Briarey Banks or the Reddish Warren be the likeliest place for a find?”
“Neither, Sir Moses, neither,” replied Tom confidently, “Tipthorne’s the place for us.”
This was just what Sir Moses wanted.
“Tipthorne, you think, do you?” replied he, musingly. “Tipthorne, you think—well, and where next?”
“Shillington, Sir Moses, and Halstead Hill, and so on to Hatchington Wood.”
“Good!” replied the Baronet, “Good!” adding, “then let’s be going.”
At a whistle and a waive of his hand the watchful hounds darted up, and Tom taking the lead, the mixed cavalcade swept after them over the now yellow-grassed park in a north-easterly direction, Captain Luff working his screw as if he were bent on treading on the hounds’ stems.
There being no one out to whom Sir Moses felt there would be any profitable investment of attention, he devoted himself to our hero, complimenting him on his appearance, and on the gallant bearing of his steed, declaring that of all the neat horses he had ever set eyes on the Lord Mayor was out-and-out the neatest. So with compliments to Billy, and muttered “cusses” at Luff, they trotted down Oxclose Lane, through the little village of Homerton, past Dewfield Lawn, over Waybridge Common, shirking Upwood toll-bar, and down Cornforth Bank to Burford, when Tipthorne stood before them. It was a round Billesdon Coplow-like hill, covered with stunted oaks, and a nice warm lying gorse sloping away to the south; but Mr. Tadpole’s keeper having the rabbits, he was seldom out of it, and it was of little use looking there for a fox.
That being the case, of course it was more necessary to make a great pretension, so halting noiselessly behind the high red-berried hedge, dividing the pasture from the gorse, Tom despatched his whips to their points, and then touching his cap to Sir Moses, said, “P’raps Mr. Pringle would like to ride in and see him find.”
“Ah, to be sure,” replied Sir Moses, “let’s both go in,” whereupon Tom opened the bridle-gate, and away went the hounds with a dash that as good as said if we don’t get a fox we’ll get a rabbit at all events.
“A fox for a guinea!” cried Findlater, cheering them, and looking at his watch as if he had him up already. “A fox for a guinea!” repeated he, thinking how nicely he was selling his master.
“Keep your eye on this side,” cried Sir Moses to Billy. “he’ll cross directly!” Terrible announcement. How our friend did quake.
“Yap, yap, yap,” now went the shrill note of Tartar, the tarrier, “Yough, yough, yough” followed the deep tone of young Venturesome, close in pursuit of a bunny.
“Crack!” went a heavy whip, echoing through the air and resounding at the back of the hill.
All again was still, and Tom advanced up the cover, standing erect in his stirrups, looking as if half-inclined to believe it was a fox after all.
“Eloo in! Eloo in!” cried he, capping Talisman and Wonderful across. “Yoicks wind ‘im! yoicks push him up!” continued he, thinking what a wonderful performance it would be if they did find.
“Squeak, yap, yell, squeak,” now went the well-known sound of a hound in a trap. It is Labourer, and a whip goes diving into the sea of gorse to the rescue.
“Oh, dom those traps,” cries Sir Moses, as the clamour ceases, adding, “no fox here, I told you so,” adding, “should have gone to the Warren.”
He then took out his box-wood horn and stopped the performance by a most discordant blast. The hounds came slinking out to the summons, some of them licking their lips as if they had not been there altogether for nothing.
“Where to, now, please Sir Moses?” asked Tom, with a touch of his cap, as soon as he had got them all out.
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“Tally-ho!” cries Captain Luff, in a most stentorian strain—adding immediately, “Oh no! I’m mistaken, It’s a hare!” as half the hounds break away to his cry.
“Oh, dom you and your noise,” cries Sir Moses, in well-feigned disgust, adding—“Why don’t you put your spectacles on?”
Luff looks foolish, for he doesn’t know what to say, and the excitement dies out in a laugh at the Captain’s expense.
“Where to, now, please, Sir Moses?” again asks Tom, chuckling at his master’s displeasure, and thinking how much better it would have been if he had let him go to the supper.
“Where you please,” growled the Baronet, scowling at Luff’s nasty rusty Napoleons—“where you please, you said Shillington, didn’t you—anywhere, only let us find a fox,” added he, as if he really wanted one.
Tom then got his horse short by the head, and shouldering his whip, trotted off briskly, as if bent on retrieving the day. So he went through the little hamlet of Hawkesworth over Dippingham water meadows, bringing Blobbington mill-race into the line, much to Billy’s discomfiture, and then along the Hinton and London turnpike to the sign of the Plough at the blacksmith’s shop at Shillington.
The gorse was within a stone’s throw of the “Public,” so Luff and some of the thirsty ones pulled up to wet their whistles and light the clay pipes of gentility.
The gorse was very open, and the hounds ran through it almost before the sots had settled what they would have, and there being a bye-road at the far end, leading by a slight détour to Halstead Hill, Sir Moses hurried them out, thinking to shake off some of them by a trot. They therefore slipped away with scarcely a crack of the whip, let alone the twang of a horn.
“Bad work this,” said Sir Moses, spurring and reining up alongside of Billy, “bad work this; that huntsman of mine,” added he, in an under tone, “is the most obstinate fool under the sun, and let me give you a bit of advice,” continued he, laying hold of our friend’s arm, as if to enforce it. “If ever you keep hounds, always give orders and never ask opinions. Now, Mister Findlater!” hallooed he, to the bobbing cap in advance, “Now, Mister Findlater! you’re well called Findlater, by Jove, for I think you’ll never find at all. Halstead Hill, I suppose, next?”
“Yes, Sir Moses,” replied Tom, with a half-touch of his cap, putting on a little faster, to get away, as he thought, from the spray of his master’s wrath. And so with this comfortable game at cross purposes, master and servant passed over what is still called Lingfield common (though it now grows turnips instead of gorse), and leaving Cherry-trees Windmill to the left, sunk the hill at Drovers’ Heath, and crossing the bridge at the Wellingburn, the undulating form of Halstead Hill stood full before them. Tom then pulled up into a walk, and contemplated the rugged intricacies of its craggy bush-dotted face.
“If there’s a fox in the country one would think he’d be here,” observed he, in a general sort of way, well knowing that Mr. Testyfield’s keeper took better care of them than that. “Gently hurrying!” hallooed he, now cracking his whip as the hounds pricked their ears, and seemed inclined to break away to an outburst of children from the village school below.
Tom then took the hounds to the east end of the hill, where the lying began, and drew them along the face of it with the usual result, “Nil.” Not even a rabbit.
“Well, that’s queer,” said he, with well feigned chagrin, as Pillager, Petulant, and Ravager appeared on the bare ground to the west, leading out the rest of the pack on their lines. They were all presently clustering in view again. A slight twang of the horn brought them pouring down to the hill to our obstinate huntsman just as Captain Luff and Co. hove in sight on the Wellingburn Bridge, riding as boldly as refreshed gentlemen generally do.
There was nothing for it then but Hatchington Wood, with its deep holding rides and interminable extent.
There is a Hatchington Wood in every hunt, wild inhospitable looking thickets, that seem as if they never knew an owner’s care, where men light their cigars and gather in groups, well knowing that whatever sport the hounds may have, theirs is over for the day. Places in which a man may gallop his horse’s tail off, and not hear or see half as much as those do who sit still.
Into it Tom now cheered his hounds, again thinking how much better it would have been if Sir Moses had let him go to the supper. “Cover hoick! Cover hoick!” cheered he to his hounds, as they came to the rickety old gate. “I wouldn’t ha’ got drunk,” added he to himself. “Yoi, wind him! Yoi, rouse him, my boys! what ‘arm could it do him, my going, I wonders?” continued he to himself. “Yoi, try for him, Desp’rate, good lass! Desp’rate bad job my not gettin’, I know,” added he, rubbing his nose on the back of his hand; and so with cheers to his hounds and commentaries on Sir Moses’s mean conduct, the huntsman proceeded from ride to road and from road to ride, varied with occasional dives into the fern and the rough, to exhort and encourage his hounds to rout out a fox; not that he cared much now whether he found one or not, for the cover had long existed on the reputation of a run that took place twelve years before, and it was not likely that a place so circumstanced would depart from its usual course on that day.
There is nothing certain, however, about a fox-hunt, but uncertainty; the worst-favoured days sometimes proving the best, and the best-favoured ones sometimes proving the worst. We dare say, if our sporting readers would ransack their memories, they will find that most of their best days have been on unpromising ones. So it was on the present occasion, only no one saw the run but Tom and the first whip. Coming suddenly upon a fine travelling fox, at the far corner of the cover, they slipped away with him down wind, and had a bona fide five and thirty minutes, with a kill, in Lord Ladythorne’s country, within two fields of his famous gorse cover, at Cockmere.
“Ord! rot ye, but ye should ha’ seen that, if you’d let me go to the supper,” cried Tom, as he threw himself off his lathered tail-quivering horse to pick up his fox, adding, “I knows when to blow the horn and when not.”
Meanwhile Sir Moses, having got into a wrangle with Jacky Phillips about the price of a pig, sate on his accustomed place on the rising ground by the old tumble-down farm-buildings, wrangling, and haggling, and declaring it was a “do.” In the midst of his vehemence, Robin Snowball’s camp of roystering, tinkering besom-makers came hattering past; and Robin, having a contract with Sir Moses for dog horses, gave his ass a forwarding bang, and ran up to inform his patron that “the hunds had gone away through Piercefield plantins iver see lang since:”—a fact that Robin was well aware of, having been stealing besom-shanks in them at the time.
“Oh, the devil!” shrieked Sir Moses, as if he was shot. “Oh, the devil!” continued he, wringing his hands, thinking how Tom would be bucketing Crusader now that he was out of sight; and catching up his horse, he stuck spurs in his sides, and went clattering up the stony cross-road to the west, as hard as ever the old Jack could lay legs to the ground, thinking what a wigging he would give Tom if he caught him.
“Hark!” continued he, pulling short up across the road, and nearly shooting Billy into his pocket with the jerk of his suddenly stopped horse, “Hark!” repeated he, holding up his hand, “Isn’t that the horn?”
“Oh, dom it! it’s Parker, the postman,” added he,—“what business has the beggar to make such a row!” for, like all noisy people, Sir Moses had no idea of anybody making a noise but himself. He then set his horse agoing again, and was presently standing in his stirrups, tearing up the wretched, starvation, weed-grown ground outside the cover.
Having gained a sufficient elevation, he again pulled up, and turning short round, began surveying the country. All was quiet and tranquil. The cattle had their heads to the ground, the sheep were scattered freely over the fields, and the teams were going lazily over the clover-lays, leaving shiny furrows behind them.
“Well, that’s a sell, at all events!” said he, dropping his reins. “Be b’und to say they are right into the heart of Featherbedfordshire by this time,—most likely at Upton Moss in Woodberry Yale,—as fine a country as ever man crossed,—and to think that that wretched deluded man has it all to himself!—I’d draw and quarter him if I had him, dom’d if I wouldn’t,” added Sir Moses, cutting frantically at the air with his thong-gathered whip.
Our friend Billy, on the other hand, was all ease and composure. He had escaped the greatest punishment that could befall him, and was so clean and comfortable, that he resolved to surprise his fair friends at Yammerton Grange in his pink, instead of changing as he intended.
Sir Moses, having strained his eye-balls about the country in vain, at length dropped down in his saddle, and addressing the few darkly-clad horsemen around him with, “Well, gentlemen, I’m afraid it’s all over for the day,” adding, “Come, Pringle, let us be going,” he poked his way past them, and was presently retracing his steps through the wood, picking up a lost hound or two as he went. And still he was so loth to give it up, that he took Forester Hill in his way, to try if he could see anything of them; but it was all calm and blank as before; and at length he reached Pangburn Park in a very discontented mood.
In the court-yard stood the green fly that had to convey our friend back to fairy-land, away from the red coats, silk jackets and other the persecutions of pleasure, to the peaceful repose of the Major and his “haryers.” Sir Moses looked at it with satisfaction, for he had had as much of our friend’s society as he required, and did not know that he could “do” him much more if he had him a month; so if he could now only get clear of Monsieur without paying him, that was all he required.
Jack, however, was on the alert, and appeared on the back-steps as Sir Moses dismounted; nor did his rapid dive into the stable avail him, for Jack headed him as he emerged at the other end, with a hoist of his hat, and a “Bon jour, Sare Moses, Baronet!”
“Ah, Monsieur, comment vous portez-vous?” replied the Baronet, shying off, with a keep-your-distance sort of waive of the hand.
Jack, however, was not to be put off that way, and following briskly up, he refreshed Sir Moses’s memory with, “Pund, I beat Cuddy, old cock, to de clomp; ten franc—ten shillin’—I get over de brook; thirty shillin’ in all, Sare Moses, Baronet,” holding out his hand for the money.
“Oh, ah, true,” replied Sir Moses, pretending to recollect the bets, adding, “If you can give me change of a fifty-pun note, I can pay ye,” producing a nice clean one from his pocket-book that he always kept ready for cases of emergency like the present.
“Fifty-pun note, Sare Moses!” replied Jack, eyeing it. “Fifty-pun note! I ‘ave not got such an astonishin’ som about me at present,” feeling his pockets as he spoke; “bot I vill seek change, if you please.”
“Why, no,” replied Sir Moses, thinking he had better not part with the decoy-duck. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, though,” continued he, restoring it to its case; “I’ll send you a post-office order for the amount, or pay it to your friend, Mr. Gallon, whichever you prefer.”
“Vell, Sir Moses, Baronet,” replied Jack, considering, “I think de leetle post-office order vill be de most digestible vay of squarin’ matters.”
“Va-a-ry good,” cried Sir Moses, “Va-a-ry good. I’ll send you one, then,” and darting at a door in the wall, he slipped through it, and shot the bolt between Jack and himself.
And our hero, having recruited nature with lunch, and arranged with Jack for riding his horse, presently took leave of his most hospitable host, and entered the fly that was to convey him back to Yammerton Grange. And having cast himself into its ill-stuffed hold he rumbled and jolted across country in the careless, independent sort of way that a man does who has only a temporary interest in the vehicle, easy whether he was upset or not. Let us now anticipate his arrival by transferring our imaginations to Yammerton Grange.
CHAPTER L.
THE SURPRISE.
IT is all very well for people to affect the magnificent, to give general invitations, and say “Come whenever it suits you; we shall always be happy to see you,” and so on; but somehow it is seldom safe to take them at their word. How many houses has the reader to which he can ride or drive up with the certainty of not putting people “out,” as the saying is. If there is a running account of company going on, it is all very well; another man more or less is neither here nor there; but if it should happen to be one of those solemn lulls that intervene between one set of guests going and another coming, denoted by the wide-apart napkins seen by a side glance as he passes the dining-room window, then it is not a safe speculation. At all events, a little notice is better, save, perhaps, among fox-hunters, who care less for appearances than other people.
It was Saturday, as we said before, and our friend the Major had finished his week’s work:—paid his labourers, handled the heifers that had left him so in the lurch, counted the sheep, given out the corn, ordered the carriage for church in case it kept dry, and as day closed had come into the house, and exchanged his thick shoes for old worsted worked slippers, and cast himself into a semicircular chair in the druggeted drawing-room to wile away one of those long winter evenings that seem so impossible in the enduring length of a summer day, with that best of all papers, the “Hit-im and Hold-im shire Herald.” The local paper is the paper for the country gentleman, just as the “Times” is the paper for the Londoner. The “Times” may span the globe, tell what is doing at Delhi and New York, France, Utah, Prussia, Spain, Ireland, and the Mauritius; but the paper that tells the squire of the flocks and herds, the hills and dales, the births and disasters of his native district, is the paper for his money. So it was with our friend the Major. He enjoyed tearing the half-printed halfwritten envelope off his “Herald,” and holding its damp sides to the cheerful fire until he got it as crisp as a Bank of England note, and then, sousing down in his easy chair to enjoy its contents, conscious that no one had anticipated them. How he revelled in the advertisements, and accompanied each announcement with a mental commentary of his own.
We like to see country gentlemen enjoying their local papers.
Ashover farm to let, conjured up recollections of young Mr.
Gosling spurting past in white cords, and his own confident prediction that the thing wouldn’t last.
Burlinson the auctioneer’s assignment for the benefit of his creditors, reminded him of his dogs, and his gun, and his manor, and his airified looks, and drew forth anathemas on Burlinson in particular, and on pretenders in general.
Then Mr. Napier’s announcement that Mr. Draggleton of Rushworth had applied for a loan of four thousand pounds from the Lands Improvement Company for draining, sounded almost like a triumph of the Major’s own principles, Draggleton having long derided the idea of water getting into a two-inch pipe at a depth of four feet, or of draining doing any good.
And the Major chuckled with delight at the thought of seeing the long pent-up water flow in pure continuous streams off the saturated soil, and of the clear, wholesome complexion the land would presently assume. Then the editorial leader on the state of the declining corn markets, and of field operations (cribbed of course from the London papers) drew forth an inward opinion that the best thing for the land-owners would be for corn to keep low and cattle to keep high for the next dozen years or more, and so get the farmers’ minds turned from the precarious culture of corn to the land-improving practice of grazing and cattle-feeding.
And thus the Major sat, deeply immersed in the contents of each page; but as he gradually mastered the cream of their contents, he began to turn to and fro more rapidly; and as the rustling increased, Mrs. Yammerton, who was dying for a sight of the paper, at length ventured to ask if there was anything about the Hunt ball in it.
“Hunt ball!” growled the Major, who was then in the hay and straw market, wondering whether, out of the twenty-seven carts of hay reported to have been at Hinton Market on the previous Saturday, there were any of his tenants there on the sly; “Hunt ball!” repeated he, running the candle up and down the page; “No, there’s nothin’ about it here,” replied he, resuming his reading.
“It’ll be on the front page, my dear,” observed Mrs. Yammerton, “if there is anything.”
“Well, I’ll give it you presently,” replied the Major, resuming his reading; and so he wens on into the wool markets, thence to the potato and hide departments, until at length he found himself floundering among the Holloway Pills, Revalenta Food, and “Sincere act of gratitude,” &c., advertisements; when, turning the paper over with a wisk, and an inward “What do they put such stuff as that in for?” he handed it to his wife: while, John Bull like, he now stood up, airing himself comfortably before the fire.
No sooner was the paper fairly in Mamma’s hands, than there was a general rush of the young ladies to the spot, and four pairs of eyes were eagerly glancing up and down the columns of the front page, all in search of the magical letter “B” for Ball. Education—Fall in Night Lights—Increased Rate of Interest—Money without Sureties—Iron and Brass Bedsteads—Glenfield Starch—Deafness Cured—German Yeast—Insolvent Debtor—Elkington’s Spoons—Boots and Shoes,—but, alas! no Ball.
“Yes, there it is! No it isn’t,” now cried Miss Laura, as her blue eye caught at the heading of Mrs. Bobbinette the milliner’s advertisement, in the low corner of the page, Mrs. Bobbinette, like some of her customers, perhaps, not being a capital payer, and so getting a bad place. Thus it ran—