THE MIDNIGHT CHASE
“One of the whipper-ins, a small white-haired little chap as they used to call ‘Soap,’ because he looked so clean and peart, and was a pet-like with the lasses, began to shiver and call out ‘Lord ’a mercy, let’s hunt the fox, but leave alone devils and Herne the Hunter, and such like.’ But the squire, he never turned a hair, and he called out, ‘No bed, or rest for me till we’ve found Tom,’ and he rode on on his chestnut; and then Jack Pendrell, what was a groom, he called out too, ‘Where the squire goes, I go,’ and he set spurs into his grey; and then they followed on, hounds and men, like a covey of partridges. And all of a sudden, I have heard ’em say (for it war the talk of the country-side for many days), Old Dancer gave a whimper and then Regent followed suit, and then Butterfly and Skylark threw in their bell notes, and away the whole hunt burst like steam. They barely seemed to touch the ground, but ran like mad, as hounds do in a killing scent. The squire fairly split the chestnut, Tom Trig and Bob Buckson followed close behind, and they rode as if the devil was at their heels. And all the while the voice kept calling, hullooing like a spirit in a tomb, only fainter and fainter—a kind of unearthly screech like a raven dooming a Christian across a churchyard. At last two hounds ran in, and the squire leapt from his horse, which steamed like a chimney, and there they found Tom sucked up in the ground fit to die, and the wind pretty nearly out of his body. He looked like a ghost when they got him out. He must have perished long before, he told ’em, if it hadn’t been that he had found a stout handful of grass by which he had hung on, and called for his life.
“Well, the long and the short of it was, when they hauled him out—which they did by ropes and knotting their handkerchiefs together—they put him on an old dun pony. But Tom war that silly and faint, that they had to tie him on to keep him from falling, and so they got him home.
“When they got back to Willey, the squire had him taken straight to his own bed, and clapt inside. ‘Tom,’ he said, ‘don’t yer die; yer drink and yer bain’t worth much, but fox-hunting in Shropshire can’t live without yer.’ And,” continued old Timothy, “Tom declared then he felt fit to die of glory at the thought as he, Tom, and fox-hunting war one and the same thin’ in Shropshire. Well, Tom got round, for all his chill and lying in the ground six mortal hours, but he never war the same man again. The squire spared no expense on him, and made him take the same medicines as he took himself, and gave him foreign wines, though they do say as Tom would have liked old ale better.”
“When did old Tom die at last?” I asked.
“I cannot precisely remember, but I’ve heard it war in 1796 or thereabouts. He war no great age, but he had lived fast and went to bed mellow, as fellows used to do then. Well, ma’am, when the doctor gave up hope, it wasn’t long as Tom was ill, for once out of the saddle he hadn’t much to live for, as I’ve heard ’em say. The days seemed mortal long to Tom, lyin’, as he said, mute as a log and nothing to interest ’im but the goin’ out and the comin’ home of the hounds. When Tom had made up his mind that he warn’t long for this world, he begged the squire to step down.
“‘Squire,’ he said, ‘I’ve been a sinner, and God forgive me; not of much good to nobody save on a horse, but I’ve hunted to please you and to please myself.’ And they say that the old squire, when he heard Tom talk like that, spoke very gentle and pitiful, and he said, taking Tom’s hand, ‘Tom, my man, yer don’t owe me nothin’. You’ve been a right good servant, gone like the devil, and loved the hounds like yer brothers.’
A HUNTING FUNERAL
“‘Right, squire, right,’ answered Tom. And then he told him what war in his mind about his berrial.