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“I think the ‘atter’s oss has about ‘ad enough,” now observes Dicky to his lordship, as he holds open the bridle-gate at the end of the plantation into the Benington Lane for his lordship and Miss de Glancey to pass.
“Glad of it,” replied the Earl, thinking the Hatter would not be able to go home and boast how he had cut down the Tantivy men and hung them up to dry.
“Old ‘ard, one moment!” now cries Dicky, raising his right hand as the Hatter comes blundering through the quickset fence into the hard lane, his horse nearly alighting on his nose.
“Old ‘ard, please!” adds he, as the Hatter spurs among the road-stooping pack.
“Hooick to Challenger! Hooick to Challenger!” now holloas Dicky, as Challenger, after sniffing up the grassy mound of the opposite hedge, proclaims that the fox is over; and Dicky getting his horse short by the head, slips behind the Hatter’s horse’s tail for his old familiar friend the gap in the corner, while the Hatter gathers his horse together to fulfil the honourable obligation of going with the hounds.
“C—u—r—m up!” cries he, with an obligato accompaniment of the spur rowels, which the honest beast acknowledges by a clambering flounder up the bank, making the descent on his head on the field side that he nearly executed before. The Hatter’s legs perform a sort of wands of a mill evolution.
“Not hurt, I hope!” holloas the Earl, who with Miss de Glancey now lands a little above, and seeing the Hatter rise and shake himself he canters on, giving Miss de Glancey a touch on the elbow, and saying with a knowing look, “That’s capital! get rid of him, leggings and all!”
His lordship having now seen the last of his tormentors, has time to look about him a little.
“Been a monstrous fine run,” observes he to the lady, as they canter together behind the pace-slackening pack.
“Monstrous,” replies the lady, who sees no fun in it at all.
“How long has it been?” asks his lordship of Swan, who now shows to the front as a whip-aspiring huntsman is wont to do.
“An hour all but five minutes, my lord,” replies the magnifier, looking at his watch. “No—no—an hour ‘zactly, my lord,” adds he, trotting on—restoring his watch to his fob as he goes.
“An hour best pace with but one slight check—can’t have come less than twelve miles,” observes his lordship, thinking it over.
“Indeed,” replied Miss de Glancey, wishing it was done.
“Grand sport fox-hunting, isn’t it?” asked his lordship, edging close up to her.
“Charming!” replied Miss de Glancey, feeling her failing frizette.
The effervescence of the thing is now about over, and the hounds are reduced to a very plodding pains-taking pace. The day has changed for the worse, and heavy clouds are gathering overhead. Still there is a good holding scent, and as the old saying is, a fox so pressed must stop at last, the few remaining sportsmen begin speculating on his probable destination, one backing him for Cauldwell rocks, another for Fulford woods, a third for the Hawkhurst Hills.
“‘Awk’urst ‘ills for a sovereign!” now cries Dicky, hustling his horse, as, having steered the nearly mute pack along Sandy-well banks, Challenger and Sparkler strike a scent on the track leading up to Sorryfold Moor, and go away at an improving pace.
“‘Awk’urst ‘ills for a fi’-pun note!” adds he, as the rest of the pack score to cry.
“Going to have rine!” now observes he, as a heavy drop beats upon his up-turned nose. At the same instant a duplicate drop falls upon Miss de Glancey’s fair cheek, causing her to wish herself anywhere but where she was.
Another, and another, and another, follow in quick succession, while the dark, dreary moor offers nothing but the inhospitable freedom of space. The cold wind cuts through her, making her shudder for the result. “He’s for the hills!” exclaims Gameboy Green, still struggling on with a somewhat worse-for-wear looking steed.
“He’s for the hills!” repeats he, pointing to a frowning line in the misty distance.
At the same instant his horse puts his foot in a stone-hole, and Gameboy and he measure their lengths on the moor.
“That comes of star-gazing,” observed his lordship, turning his coat-collar up about his ears. “That comes of star-gazing,” repeats he, eyeing the loose horse scampering the wrong way.
“We’ll see no more of him,” observed Miss de Glancey, wishing she was as well out of it as Green.
“Not likely, I think,” replied his lordship, seeing the evasive rush the horse gave, as Speed, who was coming up with some tail hounds, tried to catch him.
The heath-brushing fox leaves a scent that fills the painfully still atmosphere with the melody of the hounds, mingled with the co-beck—co-beck—co-beck of the startled grouse. There is a solemn calm that portends a coming storm. To Miss de Clancey, for whom the music of the hounds has no charms, and the fast-gathering clouds have great danger, the situation is peculiarly distressing. She would stop if she durst, but on the middle of a dreary moor how dare she.
An ominous gusty wind, followed by a vivid flash of lightning and a piercing scream from Miss de Glancey, now startled the Earl’s meditations.
“Lightning!” exclaimed his lordship, turning short round to her assistance. “Lightning in the month of November—never heard of such a thing!”
But ere his lordship gets to Miss de Glancey’s horse, a most terrific clap of thunder burst right over head, shaking the earth to the very centre, silencing the startled hounds, and satisfying his lordship that it was lightning.
Another flash, more vivid if possible than the first, followed by another pealing crash of thunder, more terrific than before, calls all hands to a hurried council of war on the subject of shelter.
“We must make for the Punch-bowl at Rockbeer,” exclaims General Boggledike, flourishing his horn in an ambiguous sort of way, for he wasn’t quite sure he could find it.
“You know the Punch-bowl at Rockbeer!” shouts he to Harry Swan, anxious to have some one on whom to lay the blame if he went wrong.
“I know it when I’m there,” replied Swan, who didn’t consider it part of his duty to make imaginary runs to ground for his lordship.
“Know it when you’re there, man,” retorted Dicky in disgust; “why any————” the remainder of his sentence being lost in a tremendously illuminating flash of lightning, followed by a long cannonading, reverberating roll of thunder.
Poor Miss de Glancey was ready to sink into the earth.
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“Elope, hounds! elope!” cried Dicky, getting his horse short by the head, and spurring him into a brisk trot. “Elope, hounds! elope!” repeated he, setting off on a speculative cast, for he saw it was no time for dallying.
And now,
“From cloud to cloud the rending lightnings rage;
Till in the furious elemental war
Dissolved, the whole precipitated mass,
Unbroken floods and solid torrents pour.”
Luckily for Dicky, an unusually vivid flash of lightning so lit up the landscape as to show the clump of large elms at the entrance to Rockbeer; and taking his bearings, he went swish swash, squirt spurt, swish swash, squirt spurt, through the spongy, half land, half water moor, at as good a trot as he could raise. The lately ardent, pressing hounds follow on in long-drawn file, looking anything but large or formidable. The frightened horses tucked in their tails, and looked fifty per cent. worse for the suppression. The hard, driving rain beats downways, and sideways, and frontways, and backways—all ways at once. The horses know not which way to duck, to evade the storm. In less than a minute Miss de Glancey is as drenched as if she had taken a shower-bath. The smart hat and feathers are annihilated; the dubious frizette falls out, down comes the hair; the bella-donna-inspired radiance of her eyes is quenched; the Crinoline and wadding dissolve like ice before the fire; and ere the love-cured Earl lifts her off her horse at the Punch-bowl at Rockbeer, she has no more shape or figure than an icicle. Indeed she very much resembles one, for the cold sleet, freezing as it fell, has encrusted her in a rich coat of ice lace, causing her saturated garments to cling to her with the utmost pertinacity. A more complete wreck of a belle was, perhaps, never seen.
“What an object!” inwardly ejaculated she, as Mrs. Hetherington, the landlady, brought a snivelling mould candle into the cheerless, fireless little inn-parlour, and she caught a glimpse of herself in the—at best—most unbecoming mirror. What would she have given to have turned back!
And as his lordship hurried up stairs in his water-logged boots, he said to himself, with a nervous swing of his arm, “I was right!—women have no business out hunting.” And the Binks chance improved amazingly.
The further denouement of this perishing day will be gleaned from the following letters.