Bless the squire and his relations
And keep us in our proper stations;
but are all too intent upon ‘getting on,’ to defer to rank, or take a spell at the delightful occupations of tuft-hunting and boot-licking! Even in those days this horrid decadence had begun to manifest itself, as you will see by the story of this same Marquis and Mr. Assheton Smith of Tedworth Park. Mr. Smith could (as the saying goes) have ‘bought up’ the impoverished Marquis of Winchester several times over, and not have felt any strain upon his resources. Moreover, he was a Squire of great consideration in these parts, and as Master of the Tedworth Hunt, something of a rival in importance. For which things, and more, the Marquis hated him, and on one occasion took an opportunity of reproving him publicly before the whole field, in the fine florid language of which he had so ready a command. Possibly Mr. Smith had committed the unpardonable indignity of showing my lord the way over a particularly stiff fence he was hesitating at. At any rate the language of the Premier Marquis was violent, and contained some reference to the disparity between their respective ranks. But the Squire was ready with his retort. He said, ‘Anyhow, I’d sooner be a rich Squire than a poor Marquis!’ The field smiled, because the reduced circumstances of the Marquis of Winchester had been notorious ever since his father had been secretly buried at midnight in the family vault at Amport, for fear the bailiffs should seize the body for debt.
There are, for good or ill, no such sportsmen nowadays as there were in the times before railways came and brought more competition into existence, making life a business and a struggle, instead of the light-hearted and irresponsible game that the sporting squires at least found it. Noble sportsmen do not nowadays, when detained by stress of weather in a country inn, while away the tedium of the afternoon by backing the raindrops racing down the window-panes and betting fortunes on the result. No, that very real bogey, ‘agricultural depression,’ has stopped that kind of full-blooded prank, and the titled in these progressive times find their account on the ‘front page’ of company-promoters’ swindles instead. They barter good names for gold, and lick the boots of wealthy rogues, instead of kicking their bodies. Where their fathers scorned to go the sons delight to be. Would the fathers have done the like had ‘agricultural depression’ come earlier?
The noblemen and the sporting squires of old lived in one mad whirl of excitement. They gambled on every incident in their lives, and sometimes even on their death-beds; like the old gamester who, when the doctor told him he would be dead the next morning, offered to bet him that he would not! We are not told whether or not the medical man backed his professional opinion.
OLD SPORTSMEN
One of the most illuminating side-lights on these truly Corinthian folk is the story which tells how Lord Albert Conyngham and that classic sportsman, Mr. George Payne, were travelling from London to Poole by post-chaise in the last decade of the coaching days—that is to say, between 1830 and 1840. They found the journey tedious, and so played écarté, in which they grew so interested that they continued playing all day and into the night, the chaise being lit with the aid of a patent lamp which Mr. Payne always took with him on a long journey. The play was high; £100 a game, with bets on knaves and sequences, and had been continued with varying success, until when they were passing in the darkness of night through the New Forest, Mr. Payne, who had been a heavy loser for some time, had a run of luck. In midst of this exciting play the post-boy, who, in the secluded glades of the Forest, had managed to lose the road, stopped the chaise and, dismounting, tapped at the window. But so engrossed were the two travellers in the cards that they had not noticed that the conveyance was standing still, and the post-boy stood tapping there for a long while before he was heard.
‘What on earth do you want?’ angrily asked the winning gambler, indignant at this interruption.
‘Please, sir,’ replied the post-boy, ‘I’ve lost my way.’
‘Then,’ rejoined Mr. Payne, pulling up the window with a bang, ‘come and tell us when you’ve found it, and be damned to you!’