Their performance, I admit, does them both credit. I will endeavour to give a rough sketch of the somewhat hazardous amusement that puts him out of conceit with the sport shown by his father’s hounds.
Let us picture to ourselves then, Rapid junior, resplendent in the whitest of breeches and brightest of boots, with a single-breasted, square-cut scarlet coat, a sleek hat curly of brim, four feet of cane hunting-whip in his hand, a flower at his breast, and a toothpick in his mouth, replaced by an enormous cigar as somebody he doesn’t know suggests they are not likely to find. Though he looks so helpless, and more than half-asleep, he is wide-awake enough in fact, and dashes the weed unlighted from his lips, when he spies the huntsman stand up in his stirrups as though on the watch. There lurks a fund of latent energy under the placidity of our friend’s demeanour, and, as four couple of hounds come streaming out of cover, he shoots up the bank rather too near them, to pick his place without hesitation in an ugly bullfinch at the top. Two of his own kind are making for the same spot at the same moment, and our young friend shows at such a crisis, that he knows how to ride. Taking “The King of the Golden Mines,” hard by the head, he changes his aim on the instant, and rams the good horse at four feet of strong timber, leaning towards him, with an energy not to be denied. Over they go triumphantly, “The King,” half affronted, “catching hold” with some resentment, as he settles vigorously to his stride. What matter? most of the pack are already half-way across the next field, for Leicestershire hounds have an extraordinary knack of flying forward to overtake their comrades. His father would be delighted with the performance, and would call it “scoring to cry,” but young Rapid does not trouble himself about such matters. He is only glad to find they are out of his way, and thinks no more about it, except to rejoice that he can “put the steam on,” without the usual remonstrance from huntsman and master.
The King can gallop like a race-horse, and is soon at the next leap—a wide ditch, a high staked-and-bound hedge, coarse, rough and strong, with a drop and what you please, on the other side. This last treat proves to be a bowed-out oak-rail, standing four feet from the fence. “The King,” full of courage, and going fast, bounds over the whole with his hind legs tucked under him like a deer, ready, but not requiring, to strike back, while two of Rapid’s young friends with whom he dined yesterday, and one he will meet at dinner to-day, fly it in similar form, nearly alongside. An ugly, overgrown bullfinch, with a miniature ravine, or, as it is here called, “a bottom,” appears at the foot of the hill they are now descending, and, as there seems only one practicable place, these four reckless individuals at once begin to race for the desirable spot. The King’s turn of speed serves him again; covering five- or six-and-twenty feet, he leaps it a length in front of the nearest horse, and a couple of strides before the other two, while loud reproachful outcries resound in the rear because of Harmony’s narrow escape—the King’s forefoot, missing that priceless bitch by a yard!
Our young gentleman, having got a lead now, begins to ride with more judgment. He trots up to a stile and pops over in truly artistic form; better still, he gives the hounds plenty of room on the fallow beyond, where they have hovered for a moment and put down their noses, holding his hand up to warn those behind, a “bit of cheek,” as they call this precautionary measure, which he will be made to remember for some days to come!
He is not such a fool but that he knows, from experience in the old country, how a little patience at these critical moments makes the whole difference between a good day’s sport and a bad. It would be provoking to lose the chance of a gallop now, when he has got such a start, and is riding the best horse in his stable, so he looks anxiously over his shoulder for the huntsman, who is “coming,” and stands fifty yards aloof, which he considers a liberal allowance, that the hounds may have space to swing.
To-day there is a good scent and a good fox, a combination that happens oftener than might be supposed. Harmony, who, notwithstanding her recent peril, has never been off the line, though the others over-shot it, scours away at a tangent, with the slightest possible whimper, and her stern down, the leading hounds wheeling to her like pigeons, and the whole pack driving forward again, harder than before.
It is a beautiful turn; young Rapid would admire it, no doubt, were his attention not distracted by the gate out of the field, which is chained up, and a hurried calculation as to whether it is too high for the King to attempt.
The solution is obvious. I need hardly say he jumps it gallantly in his stride. It would never do, you see, to let those other fellows catch him, and he sails away once more with a stronger lead than at first. What a hunting panorama opens on his view!—a downward stretch of a couple of miles, and a gentle rise beyond of more than twice that distance, consisting wholly of enormous grass fields, dotted here and there with single trees, and separated by long lines of fences, showing black and level on that faded expanse of green. The smoke from a farm-house rises white and thin against the dull sky in the middle distance, and a taper church-spire points to heaven from behind the hill, otherwise there is not an object for miles to recall everyday life; and young Rapid’s world consists at this moment of two reeking pointed ears, with a vision of certain dim shapes, fleeting like shadows across the open—swift, dusky, and noiseless as a dream.
His blood thrills with excitement, from the crown of his close-cropped head to his silken-covered heel, but education is stronger than nature, and he tightens his lips, perhaps to repress a cheer, while he murmurs—“Over the brook for a hundred! and the King never turned from water in his life.”
Two more fences bring him to the level meadow with its willows. Harmony is shaking herself on the farther bank, and he has marked with his eye the spot where he means to take off. A strong pull, a steady hand, the energy of a mile gallop condensed into a dozen strides, and the stream passes beneath him like a flash. “It’s a rum one!” he murmurs, standing up in his stirrups to ease the good horse, while one follower exclaims “Bravo! Rapid. Go along, old man!” as the speaker plunges overhead; and another, who lands with a scramble, mutters, “D——n him, I shall never catch him! my horse is done to a turn now.”