CHAPTER XI
THE SOAKINGTON FIELD-DAY
A fortnight’s frost tempted me to leave my comfortable quarters at the Haycock, and the delights of Miss Lushington’s society, for the metropolis. Somehow hunting men never do keep away from London in the frost, and I had an excellent excuse in wanting the best advice about my arm. “The fracture had united very satisfactorily.” said the great authority before whom I stripped, paying me at the same time an agreeable compliment on my vigorous state of health, and the development of my muscular system. By the time I had visited the different theatres, and read all the back numbers of my favourite magazines, at “The Hat and Umbrella,” I was as sound again as ever I had been in my life. Nor did I forget, when once more frequenting my comfortable club, to cross-examine Quizby at great length on the subject which was still uppermost in my thoughts. His answers only made me the more anxious to see Miss Merlin: and I never greeted a thaw with greater delight than that which set in, just as I was beginning to get tired of London, and summoned me back to Soakington once more. At the railway station it was obvious that the hunting community, like those migratory birds which periodically leave the frozen regions of the north for warmer climes, was on the wing. Umbrellas and sticks, strapped together in bundles, discovered the white crook of the hunting-whip between their handles; there was a great demand at the bookstall for the Sporting Magazine and the Field newspaper; whilst half the hats hung up in the first-class carriage betrayed, by a little ring of wire just under the brim, that it was their natural destiny to be crushed in bullfinches, knocked off by branches, possibly flattened and crumpled up by the projection of their enthusiastic wearers head-foremost to the earth.
Arrived at Soakington, the first person I met was Miss Merlin’s dapper groom. These domestics come out in a thaw, as we see flies begin to swarm the first sunny day in spring. “The country,” he said, in answer to my inquiries, “would ride perfectly well by to-morrow. Indeed, the frost was pretty nigh out of the ground now. His lady? Oh she was quite well, he believed; leastways he might say as he knowed she was, for he’d been over for orders to-day—hadn’t been back an hour. Where? Oh! at the Castle, to be sure, where she’d a-been stopping now a goodish spell. Would she be out to-morrow? Why, in course she would, if she were alive. Did I know that the hounds were to meet at the Haycock? A-purpose to draw Soakington Gorse—that’s the new gorse as my lord made down by Willow Waterless. Sure of a run to-morrow, if you could be sure of anything on this mortal earth!”
Vindicating his character as a philosopher, by this profound reflection, my friend withdrew into the privacy of his own stable, and I betook myself to mine; there, having expressed a qualified approval of my stud’s general appearance, I decided to ride “Tipple Cider,” as being the best of them, and then retired to my apartments, to order dinner and prepare for the morrow.
I was a little disappointed, I confess, to discover that the bird was flown. I fully expected Miss Merlin would ere this have returned to her quarters at the Haycock. Also, I was a little tired with my journey and the late racketing in London. I am a quiet man, and I call supper after the play the height of dissipation. So I went early to bed, looking forward with keen excitement to the morrow.
The morning broke delightfully, promising one of those soft, fragrant days of which I have never seen the counterpart in any climate but our own, and which, alas! are rare even here. A calm, grey winter’s day in England, with a faint southern breeze, and occasional gleams of sunshine descending on the distance, in perpendicular floods of gold, has always seemed to me the very perfection of weather.
The hounds were to meet at half-past ten. I was dressed and at breakfast a full hour before. To me, as to all bachelors, this is a very important meal. I like to enjoy it comfortably, in my dressing-gown and slippers, before placing myself in the confinement of boots and breeches. I like to prop up the Morning Post, or the last Quarterly, or one of the magazines, against my coffee-pot, and feed my mind alternately with my body. Now a mouthful of ham, then a prophecy of Argus (pretty sure to be right) on the next great race; or a bite of toast, and a sentence on the Cotton question; or chip my egg and break the ice of a new story in Fraser, at one and the same time, washing the whole thing down with a draught of such coffee as no servant but my own, I verily believe, is capable of concocting.
I have seen some men breakfast, and that in apparent resignation, with a button-hook in one hand and a fork in the other, a wife calling to them in the passage, children running in and out of the room, the gardener waiting for orders at the door, and their hack snorting and pawing on the gravel in front. I suppose “the back,” as the adage says, “is made for the burden.” I am not ungrateful, when I reflect on sundry burdens that have not been made for my back.
At length, dressed, booted, and spurred, I made my way downstairs into the bar, where I found Miss Lushington, in a costume of surprising magnificence far surpassing any of her previous dresses, in a high flow of spirits, and up to her very ear-rings in the business of her office. Notwithstanding all she had on hand, however, she did not fail to greet me with cordial politeness; and here I must do Miss Lushington the justice to observe, that whatever might be the calls on her attention, and however numerous the circle of her admirers, offering the accustomed incense of flattery not unmixed with chaff, she had always a word and a smile to spare for the humblest and most bashful individual who entered the magic ring. “Dear heart! Mr. Softly,” said she, “it does me good to see you in your red coat again. But you’ll surely remember what an escape you’ve had. You’ll take warning, and not be so venturesome for the future.”
I was not above feeling a sense of gratification at this allusion to my supposed recklessness, though I detected something like a smile on Mr. Naggett’s rosy face, whilst it was uttered.