The time-honoured meet had duly taken place at the old village of Salthill, the scene of that tomfoolery called the Eton Montem, till its suppression in 1848; and we need scarcely inform the reader that a certain sum is devoted annually to maintain the stables, kennels, and establishment of the Royal Buckhounds, and that with each change of Ministry the post of their master is an object of keen competition among sport-loving nobles; but the opening meet is said to be seldom a favourite one with lovers of hard riding.
There is always a vast 'field,' and every one who 'by hook or crook' can procure a mount is there. Salthill thus becomes an animated and pleasant spectacle to the mere spectator, while it is a source of unmixed excitement to all who go to hunt—perhaps some five hundred horsemen or so, all anxious to be first in the chase, and jostling, spurring, and struggling to be so.
All know what a scene Paddington Station presents a short time previous to the meet, when the Metropolitan corps of huntsmen begin to muster in strong force, and well-known faces are seen on every hand—staunch followers of 'the Queen's'—going down by special train, the present holder of the horn being the observed of all; and the train, with a long line of dark horse-boxes starting with sixty or seventy noble horses for Slough, whence, after an eighteen miles' run, the long cavalcade of horsemen and people on foot pours on to Salthill, huntsmen and whips bright in brilliant new costumes of scarlet laced with gold, their horses with skins like satin, and the hounds the perfection of their breed.
There may be seen young guardsmen from Windsor, cavalry men from Aldershot, which is about twenty miles distant, in spotless black and white, side by side with old fellows in tarnished pink with the old jockey-cap, horse-dealers in corduroys and perhaps blucher boots; city men, and apparently all manner of men, and here and there a lady such as only may be seen in the Row, perfect in her mount, equipment, and costume.
On the adjacent road a lady's pretty little victoria may be jammed between a crowded four in hand and a still more crowded costermonger's cart; and so the confusion goes on till some well-known deer is quietly taken away to the front; and punctually to time the master gives the order to advance, when the huntsmen and hounds scurry into an open field, where the yeomen prickers in their Lincoln green costumes have uncarted the quarry.
Anon the line is formed, and away over the open country stream the hounds like a living tide, with red tongues out, and steam, issuing from their quivering nostrils, and all follow at headlong speed.
Here it was that Alison Cheyne, Bevil Goring, and others of their party lost some of their companions in the first wild rush across a hedge with a wet ditch on the other side. Jerry Wilmot's saddle-girth gave way, and he fell in a helpless but unhurt heap on the furrows; Lord Cadbury—a peer of whom more anon—failed utterly to clear the hedge; and Tony Dalton, of Goring's regiment, though a keen sportsman, came to grief somehow in the ditch, and thus ere long Alison Cheyne had as her sole squire the companion we have described, and together, after charging with many more a gate beyond the hedge, they had a splendid run over an open country.
Together they kept, Goring doing much in the way of guiding his fair friend, who though somewhat timid, and not much practised as an equestrienne, had now given her whole soul to the hunt, and became almost fearless for the time.
In a pretty dense clump 'the field' went powdering along the path through the village of Farnham, after which the deer headed off for Burnham Beeches, the beautiful scenery of which has been so often portrayed by artists and extolled by tourists; and then, like bright 'bits of colour' that would delight the former, the scarlet coats could be seen glancing between the gnarled stems of the giant trees, as the horsemen went pouring down the woody steeps.
'Take care here, for heaven's sake, Hiss Cheyne, and keep your horse well in hand, with its head up,' cried Bevil Goring. 'The tree stumps concealed here among the long grass are most treacherous traps.'