Mr. Treadcroft, thus reinforced by Sir Moses’s decision, returned to the charge with redoubled vigour. “If you don’t give me up my horse, sir,” says he, with firmness, “I’ll give you in charge of the police for stealing him.” Then
“Conscience, which makes cowards of us all,”
caused Jack to shrink at the recollection of his early indiscretion in the horse-stealing line, and instantly resolving not to give Jack Ketch a chance of taking any liberties with his neck, he thus addresses Mr. Treadcroft:—
“Sare, if Sare Moses Baronet, de grand maître de chien, do grandmodder of all de dogs and all de dogs’ vives, says it is not a case of catch ‘im and keep ‘im ‘cordin’ to de rules of de grand hont de Epping, I must surrender de quadruped, but I most say it is dem un’andsome treatment, after I ‘ave been at de trouble of catching ‘im.” So saying, Jack dropped off on the wrong side of the saddle, and giving the horse a slap on his side left his owner to take him.
“Tally-ho! there he goes!” now exclaimed a dozen voices, as out bounced the fox with a flourish of his well tagged brush that looked uncommonly defiant. What a commotion he caused! Every man lent a shout that seemed to be answered by a fresh effort from the flyer: but still, with twenty couple of overpowering animals after him, what chance did there seem for his life, especially when they could hunt him by his scent after they had lost sight. Every moment, however, improved his opportunity, and a friendly turn of the land shutting him out of view, the late darting, half-frantic pack were brought to their noses.
“Hold hard for one, minute!” is the order of the day.
“Now, catch ’em if you can!” is the cry.
Away they go in the settled determined way of a second start. The bolt taking place on the lower range of the gently swelling Culmington hills, that stretch across the north-east side of Hit-im and Hold-im shire, and the fox making for the vale below, Monsieur has a good bird’s eye view of the scramble, without the danger and trouble of partaking of the struggle. Getting astride a newly stubbed ash-tree near the vacated drain mouth, he thus sits and soliloquises—“He’s a pretty flyer, dat fox—if dey catch ‘im afore he gets to the hills,” eyeing a gray range uudulating in the distance, “they’ll do well. That Moff of a man,” alluding to Treadcroft, “‘ill never get there. At all events,” chuckled Jack, “his brandy vont. Dats ‘im! I do believe,” exclaimed Jack, “off again!” as a loose horse is now seen careering across a grass field. “No; dat is a black coat,” continued Jack, as the owner now appeared crossing the field in pursuit of his horse. “Bot dat vill be ‘im! dat vill be friend Moll’,” as a red rider now measures his length on the greensward of a field in the rear of the other one; and Jack, taking off his faded cap, waives it triumphantly as he distinctly recognises the wild, staring running of his late steed. “Dash my buttons!” exclaims he, working his arms as if he was riding, “bot if it hadn’t been for dat unwarrantable, unchristian-like cheek I’d ha’ shown those red coats de vay on dat oss, for I do think he has de go in him and only vants shovin’ along.—Ah Moff—my friend Moff!” laughed he, eyeing Treadcroft’s vain endeavour to catch his horse, “you may as vell leave ‘im where he is—you’ll only fatigue yourself to no purpose. If you ‘ad ‘im you’d be off him again de next minute.”
The telescope of the chace is now drawn out to the last joint, and Jack, as he sits, has a fine bird’s eye view of the scene. If the hounds go rather more like a flock of wild geese than like the horses in the chariot of the sun, so do the field, until the diminutive dots, dribbling through the vale, look like the line of a projected railway.
“If I mistake not,” continued Jack, “dat leetle shiny eel-like ting,” eyeing a tortuous silvery thread meandering through the vale, “is vater, and dere vill be some fon by de time dey get there.”