The Eldest Son

by Archibald Marshall

Now they came to the foot of a long hill, bounded on one side by a deep wood, on the other by open grass-land, which fell away gradually, and some distance off swelled again into a long undulating rise, dotted with pieces of woodland, arable fields, and farms here and there, and ended in the far distance in a range of hills lying mistily under parallels of soft grey clouds. It was the best bit of country the South Meadshire could boast, and to the Squire surveying it largely, as he walked his horses up the hill, every square mile within reach of the eye spoke of some remembered episode in the long course of years during which he had enjoyed his best-loved sport.

There—a line of grey at the bottom of the green valley—was the brook into which he and his pony had soused head over ears when as a small boy he had thought to follow his grandfather over a place which that redoubtable sportsman himself had felt some qualms about taking. The old man, warned by the shouts, had looked round and trotted back to the brook, where he must have made up his mind that neither the small boy nor the small pony was in danger of drowning, for he had said, "Well, if you're such a fool as to get in, let's hope you're not too much of a fool to get out," and had turned his horse's head and galloped off without further ado. There was the covert from which a cunning old dog fox had been hunted three times in two seasons, and had given them three separate runs, which were talked of still when the old stagers of the South Meadshire got together at one end of the table over the port, although it was nearly thirty years ago. There was the fence over which, as a hard-riding subaltern, at the end of a season during which he had hunted for the most part in Leicestershire, he had broken the back of the best mare he had ever owned, through over-anxiety to show his neighbours what riding straight to hounds really meant, and nearly broken his own neck into the bargain. There was the grass field in which, many years before, although it seemed like yesterday, hounds had pulled their fox down, and Dick, riding his first pony, had been in at the death, had won his first brush, and had been duly blooded. He smiled within himself and remembered how his little boy had ridden home at his side with the smears on his face and shown himself proudly to his mother, and how, forgetting his new-found manhood, he had howled when it was proposed to wash them off.

There were other exploits of Dick's and of his other sons', who had all taken to the sport as he would have had sons of his take to it, which this wide stretch of country recalled. In fact, Dick and he, driving up this long hill to a meet at Apthorpe, or beyond it, had been wont to recall episodes which they both remembered, pointing out this and that spot, near or far. He liked best to recall the doings of his boys, although his own and those of his hard-bitten, redoubtable old grandfather had not been forgotten in the long tale. It was as if a sudden chill had struck him when the thought came to him, that if he and Dick were to be kept apart by what had come between them, they would perhaps never drive together again up the Apthorpe Hill. The hoarse note of a motor-horn behind him, and the necessity of drawing to the side of the road as the machine swirled by, enabled him to relieve his feelings by an expression of abhorrence stronger than he usually allowed himself, although his ordinary language on the use of motor-cars in connection with hunting did not lack vigour. And this particular motor-car contained the Master of the South Meadshire himself, who waved to him as he passed, and received no very warm greeting in return. The Squire had had a grudge against Mr. Warner during the greater part of his life. His grandfather had kept the hounds for forty years, hunted them himself, and spent money lavishly on the upkeep of kennels and general equipment. When he had died the Squire had been too young to follow him, and Mr. Warner, who had made his money in trade as the Squire averred, although he had actually inherited it, and was but recently come into the county, had taken them. He was now an old man getting on for eighty, and had kept them ever since, hunting with them as regularly and riding as straight as he had ever done—a wonderful old man, already beginning, in his lifetime, to pass into a proverb, as the Squire's grandfather, Colonel Thomas Clinton, had done. But the Squire had never had a good word for him. Of all the positions in life which he might have filled, he felt it hard that the Mastership of the South Meadshire should have been kept out of his hands. And that was his grudge against Mr. Warner, carefully nourished by that gentleman's late acceptance of mechanical traffic, and sundry other causes which need not be enquired into.

Other motor-cars passed them before they got to the top of the hill, and the Squire had a word or two of condemnation to spare for each, as they forced him to draw aside and control his horses, which shared his dislike of the new-fangled things.

At the top of the rise the wood curved away to the right, and there was nothing before them but the wide gorse-speckled common, with the broad highroad running through it. They drove on for a mile and came to a high-lying inn by the roadside, appropriately named the "Fox and Hounds," with a sign-post and a water-trough in front of it, and a broad piece of grass, which was now the centre of the best of all English country sights in the winter. The hounds were grouped about their huntsman, George Winch, a grey-whiskered, weather-tanned man sitting upright on his tall bay horse, the two of them quiet and unmoved, ready for what was to come, but not unduly excited over it, and his three young Whips, two of them his sons and the other his nephew. The Master had already hoisted himself on to his horse and sat as straight as his huntsman, although he was twenty years his senior. And all round were the faithful followers of the South Meadshire, some of whom had ridden with those hounds for as long as, or longer than, the Squire himself, some of whom had only begun that season. The men were mostly in pink, with the yellow collar, and dressed for work and not for show, their breeches spotless, their boots well polished and their tops of the right mellow shade, but their coats not of the newest, and their hats lacking the mirror-like shine which was imparted to those of the young bloods such as Humphrey. There was a sprinkling of ladies, amongst whom was Mrs. Graham, in a workmanlike habit that had seen better days, but many more of them had come on wheels than on horseback. There were boys on ponies, their round hats jammed on to their heads, their round legs in wrinkled cloth gaiters, and the Master's two little granddaughters riding astride. On the outskirts of the loosely knit crowd was a good sprinkling of farmers, solid elderly men in hard felt hats, drab coats, corduroys and brown gaiters, and slim, active young men in smarter editions of the same attire, but not always so well mounted.

The Squire drove up to the front of the inn, where his horse and Humphrey's were being walked up and down by their grooms, and climbed down from his seat with a side-look that was half a frown at the crowd. Amongst the women on horseback he saw none that he did not know, and hoped that the dreaded lady had not come; but immediately he had satisfied himself that she was not riding he caught sight of Dick, already mounted, standing by a smart little pony-cart which contained two women, and his frown deepened. When he was on his horse and had seen that his flask and sandwich-case were in place, he had another moment of indecision. Through all his discomfort and annoyance, his heart yearned towards his son, and he was alternately and from minute to minute swayed by opposite impulses, to hold out firmly for Dick's sake or to give way for his own. As he walked his horse on to the green it was in his mind to cross over to where Dick was standing by the pony-cart and, with what graciousness he could, end it all.

But he was stopped by one of his old friends, who had something quite unnecessary to say about the weather and the prospect of the day's sport, and before he could disengage himself he saw Dick leave the pony-carriage and the two ladies, and come towards him. He did not pay much attention to his friend, but sat on his horse facing his son. He saw Dick also stopped, and waited impatiently, hoping that he was coming to speak to him. Then he saw a very smartly attired young man trot up to the pony-carriage, arms and legs akimbo, to be greeted, as it seemed to him, with complete cordiality by the lady who held the reins, but not so effusively by the lady by her side. This young man was his pet abomination, the vacuous, actress-hunting, spendthrift son of a rich father, already notorious for his "goings-on," and likely to be more so if he continued as he had begun. He heard his loud foolish laugh over something he had said to the lady, or something she had said to him, and saw, although he could not hear, her laugh in reply. Then he saw him take out his cigarette-case and offer it to her, and at that he wrenched round his horse's head and exclaimed, apparently in answer to a question which he had not heard addressed to him, much to his friend's surprise, "No, I'm damned if I do."

He had seen enough. If that vicious young fool was the sort of person the woman was on terms of intimacy with, then she was just what he had pictured, and there was no saving grace in her. A cigarette-smoking, loose-tongued, kind-to-everybody creature of the stage! He would rather be at enmity with his son all his days, he would rather see him dead, than married to such a woman.

He walked his horse, not knowing where he was going to, except that he wanted to get as far as possible away from Lady George Dubec, to the outskirts of the crowd and beyond them, his mind in a ferment of disgust. He heard the creak of saddlery and the thud of a horse's hoofs on the hard turf behind him. Dick trotted up to him, and said, as he reined up his horse, "I wish you'd let me introduce you to Lady George." He spoke as if there had been no controversy between them on the subject. He knew his father, and he was giving him his chance. Two minutes earlier and the Squire would have taken it. Now he turned round sharply, his face red. "I have no wish to be introduced to Lady George, now or at any time," he said.

"Oh, all right!" said Dick coldly, and turning his back on him, trotted off again.