All green was vanished, save the pine and yew,
That still displayed their melancholy hue,
Save the green holly with its berries red,
And the green moss that o’er the gravel spread.”
It was the last day of November, and, consequently, the concluding one of the first month of regular hunting, that I was left at home in consequence of indisposition. The huntsman had given me the night before a dose of something which tasted horribly bitter, and I tried to reject taking it; but, from my position between his knees, and his ramming a bullock’s horn half down my throat, I was obliged to swallow the nauseous mixture against my will. Between the effects of this, and the mortification of being deprived of the pleasure of a day’s hunting, my spirits became sadly depressed, and I could do nothing but creep about the court whining, and feeling as miserable a dog as any on four feet.
The day was very windy, and the light clouds, looking like fleecy wool, scudded before the gale, charged with rain; but with the exception of a few drops which occasionally fell, there was nothing as yet but the threatening of the flooding storm.
Sighing, moaning, whistling, screaming—now in fitful gusts, then in one solid sweep, mighty nature’s breath snaps the tree top and rends up the gnarled roots of a century’s growth. On, on, he goes. Bough, branch, twig, and leaf—clinging like affection to the dead—he whirls and scatters in his stormy path, and with mad delight flings destruction in his wake. O-ho for the wind. Away, o’er heath and waste, and through dark and deep woods, and by lone churchyards, humming through ivy-twined belfries, and jarring rickety casements, shaking old hinges, and ripping up thatched eaves and roofs, he holds his course, like a fiery unchecked steed. O-ho for the wind. Breasting the wave, he drives the surge high, and higher yet. Rolling mountains, topped with white and hissing foam, duck from cresting clouds to the wide chasms below. O-ho for the wind—death to others is fun to him. A ship! Boldly she braves his mighty thrust. Again. With one fell swoop, and, quivering, down to the depths she sinks. O-ho for the wind.
It was late in the day, and darkness began to drop around before there were any symptoms of my companions’ return. At length I heard the welcome clink of the horses’ feet along the gravel road leading to the kennel, and shortly afterwards old Mark threw open the door, and in they trotted.
“Well,” said I, as Trimbush entered “what sport?”
“Oh!” replied he, “none at all. Such a wind as this,” continued he, “is as bad as a blind fog or a hard frost; for the result is just the same. We can do nothing with a fox while it lasts.”