“He ought to be,” replied my host, filling himself another bumper of port. “He was regularly bred for it, and entered to it, if ever man was. When he was a little chap, not three feet high, he used to help his father, who was feeder at the kennels. And I remember well the dowager Countess telling me that he knew the name of every hound in the pack long before he could answer one of the questions at her Sunday school. He used to ride the horses, too, at exercise; and being a smart little fellow, soon picked up all that was to be learned in the stable and elsewhere. One day, when he was quite a lad, and the hounds met at the kennel, as they often did, the first-whip was suddenly taken ill, and unable to get upon his horse; the other man was forty miles away, getting back some young hounds from walk. Will petitioned sorely to be put on a steady nag, and allowed to take the invalid’s place; and, as he was the only person who knew the hounds by name, he was permitted to do so. We were all amused at the excitement and ambitious airs of the young neophyte, who bustled about the rides of the covert, and “sang out” to any transgressing hound in most approved form. Old Craner, who was huntsman then, was perfectly delighted with the quickness and sagacity of the young one. At last we crossed the Swimley with a cold scent, and the hounds took to running on the opposite side of the river. Craner, who was an old man, besides having an excellent situation, and not caring to risk it, voted this all wrong, and expressed a wish to stop them. Young Hawke had swum his horse halfway across before the words were out of his senior’s mouth; and although he did not stop them, the young rascal!—for the scent improved immensely, and they took to running forthwith,—he elected himself into the post of huntsman for the occasion, and killed his fox in masterly style after a good hunting run. He was made second whip at the first opportunity, and has been in the establishment ever since. It’s a good many years ago that I’m speaking of, Mr. Softly; and the present Earl thinks he’s getting slow; but I’ll back old Will to find his fox, and hunt his fox, and kill his fox, as handsomely as any of the young ones still.”
“They all say he overdoes the letting-alone system,” observed the Jovial, with a sly glance at me. “I’ve seen him lose more than one fox on a bad-scenting day, because he wouldn’t go to a holloa, not even if it was given by Tom Crow himself, whom he ought to be able to depend upon.”
“And how many have you known him kill by that same letting-alone system, Master Flash?” exclaimed old Plumtree with the usual impatience manifested by the senior when a son is so injudicious as to differ from his father. “That’s the way with you young chaps, that think you know all about it, and the whole time you haven’t even the wisdom to know that you don’t know! Will Hawke’s hounds will stoop to a colder scent than any hounds in England, simply because he lets ’em alone; and they take no more notice of a holloa than if it were a boy scaring crows. As for Tom, the first-whip, he’s a conceited, ignorant chap, to my thinking; always ‘clapping forward,’ as he calls it, and dodging about, instead of minding his business. If I had my way with Tom, I’d sew his mouth up, take his whip from him, and put him on a horse with three legs. He’d be a precious sight more useful than he is now. At any rate, he couldn’t do so much mischief. I never thought much of Tom; never liked his voice—never liked his riding—never liked his boots and breeches.”
“He’s a neat fellow enough, too,” I interfered, rather inclined to take up the cudgels for my friend Tom, who had opened sundry gates for me, and shown other signs of civility on my behalf, the first day I was out.
“Newmarket, sir; Newmarket!” said the old squire. “Bad school, bad scholars. You can see it in the way he sits upon his horse; though he’s got good hands, I’ll allow, and can gallop them fairly enough. The present Earl picked him out of a trainer’s stable, to ride second-horse, and he did it so badly, always larking over the fences in front, instead of trotting on soberly behind, that he got him out of that at any price; and, it’s my belief, only made him first-whip because he’d nowhere else to put him, and didn’t like to turn him adrift, being a sober respectable man enough.
“But he’s not my idea of a whipper-in, though I may be wrong. Everything is so changed since my day, and every man who wears a red coat now seems to think he knows as much as King Solomon (with a withering glance at Jem, who was buzzing the bottle of Madeira). This Tom Crow is always going on to get a view, and putting his ugly face everywhere it ought not to be, under the idea that he is helping to kill the fox. That is all he has a notion of—to kill the fox. Now old Hawke, though he’s as fond of blood as any huntsman alive, and far too much given to digging, in my opinion, is all for catching him fairly, or else not catching him at all.
“What’s the use of a view? If a man believes his hounds (and if he don’t, he’d better hang ’em and retire himself into private life as a market-gardener), he knows their game is before them, when he hears them throw their tongues, just as certainly as if he’d viewed it fifty times. And, ten to one, long before you see the fox, the fox sees you, and he’s headed back again. I wish I’d a pound for every good run I’ve seen spoilt in that way. No, no! I never want to clap eyes on him till I’ve got him in my hand. I know all about him, then; and so do the hounds. Will you have any more wine, Softly? or shall we join the ladies?”
Half a glass of rich brown sherry, than which nothing sobers a man more rapidly, or settles his stomach more comfortably after an over-dose of claret: a stretch of the legs, an arrangement of the neckcloth, and I felt myself ready to confront Jane and Rebecca once more, perhaps with a somewhat keener sense of their merits than I had entertained before dinner. On entering the drawing-room, a dead silence prevailed between the two; I concluded therefore that the topic which they seemed thus suddenly to have dropped must have been one that would not bear ventilation (to use the Parliamentary slang of the present day) before the gentlemen. Perhaps, indeed, it may have referred to the general character of their visitor. I would have given something to know whether they thought me most knave or fool.
A well-timed observation from their father put me at last au fait as to the identity of each lady; and when papa said, “Rebecca, won’t you give us some music?” and the one next whom I did not chance to have taken my seat replied, “Very well, papa. What will you have?” it became evident to me that, having devoted myself before, and at dinner, to the elder lady, it was now the younger sister’s turn to have her share of my attentions.
Rebecca played skilfully, and accompanied herself, in a small voice, with a tolerably correct attention to time; chiefly delighting, I observed, in simple ballads of a touching and pathetic tendency, such as “Annie,” “Willie, we have missed you,” and a very tearful song about a person of the name of “Margaret.”