"Yes, it be, to be sure, to be sure," was the reply. "I can't make 'em out nohow; they're funny folk in Gloucestershire."
He gave me the following account of the "chopping" of one of our foxes: "I knew there was a fox in the grove; and there, sure enough, he was. But when he went toward the 'bruk,' the hounds come along and give him the meeting; and then they bowled him over. It were a very comical job; I never see such a job in all my life. I knew it would be a case," he added, with a chuckle.
The fact is, with that deadly aversion to all the vulpine race common to all keepers, he dearly loved to see a fox killed, no matter how or where; but to see one "chopped," without any of that "muddling round and messing about," as he delighted to call a hunting run, seemed to him the very acme of satisfaction and despatch.
And here it may be said that Tom Peregrine's name did not bely him. Not only were the keen brown eye and the handsome aquiline beak marked characteristics of his classic features, but in temperament and habit he bore a singular resemblance to the king of all the falcons. Who more delighted in striking down the partridge or the wild duck? What more assiduous destroyer of ground game and vermin ever existed than Tom Peregrine? There never was a man so happily named and so eminently fitted to fulfil the destinies of a gamekeeper.
Who loves to trap the wily stoat?
Who loves the plover's piping note?
Who loves to wring the weasel's throat?
Tom Peregrine.
What time the wintry woods we walk,
No need have we of lure or hawk;
Have we not Tom to tower and talk?
Tom Peregrine?
When to the withybed we spy,
A hungry hern or mallard fly,
"Bedad! we'll bag un by and by,"
Tom Peregrine.
"Creep up wind, sir, without a sound,
And bide thy time neath yonder 'mound,'
Then knock un over on the ground,"
Tom Peregrine.
And so one might go on ad infinitum.
A more amusing companion or keener fisherman never stepped. He had all sorts of quaint Gloucestershire expressions, which rolled out one after the other during a day's fishing or shooting. Then he was very fond of reading amusing pieces at village entertainments, often copying the broad Gloucestershire dialect; apparently he was not aware that his own brogue smacked somewhat of Gloucestershire too. At home in his own house he was most friendly and hospitable. If he could get you to "step in," he would offer you gooseberry, ginger, cowslip, and currant wine, sloe gin, as well as the juice of the elder, the blackberry, the grape, and countless other home-brewed vintages, which the good dames of Gloucestershire pride themselves on preparing with such skill. Very excellent some of these home-made drinks are.
The British farmer is remarkably fond of a lord. If you wanted to put him into a good temper for a month, the best plan would be to ask a lord to shoot over his land, and tell him privately to make a great point of shaking the honest yeoman by the hand, and all that kind of thing. By the bye, I was once told by a coachman that he was sure the Bicester hounds were a first-rate pack, for he had seen in the papers that no less than four lords hunted with them. There is little harm in this extraordinarily widespread admiration for titles; it is common to all nations. We can all love a lord, provided that he be a gentleman. The gentlemen of England, whether titled or untitled, are in thought and feeling a very high type of the human race. But the man I like best to meet is he who either by natural insight or by the trained habit of his mind is able to look upon all mortals with eyes unprejudiced by outward show and circumstance, judging them by character alone. Such a man may not be understood or be awarded the credit due to him as "lord of the lion heart" and despiser of sycophants and cringers. The habit of mind, nevertheless, is worth cultivating; it will be so very useful some day, when mortal garments have been put off and the vast inequalities of destiny adjusted, and we all stand unclothed before the Judge.
Tom Peregrine was not a "great frequenter of the church"; indeed, both father and son often remarked to me that "'Twas a pity there was not a chapel of ease put up in the hamlet, the village church being a full mile away." However, when Tom was ailing from any cause or other he immediately sent for the parson, and told him that he intended in future to go to church regularly every Sunday. Shakespeare would have enquired if he was troubled "about some act that had no relish of salvation in't." "Thomas, he's a terrible coward [I here quote Mrs. Peregrine]. He can't a-bear to have anything a-wrong with him; yet he don't mind killing any animal." He made a tremendous fuss about a sore finger he had at one time; and when the doctor exclaimed, like Romeo, "Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much," Tom Peregrine replied, with much the same humour as poor Mercutio: "No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis enough." I do not mean to infer that he quoted Shakespeare, but he used words to the same effect. If asked whether he had read Shakespeare, he might possibly have given the same reply as the young woman in High Life Below Stairs:
"KITTY: Shikspur? Shikspur? Who wrote it? No, I never read Shikspur.