“Gentlemen!” cries Sir Moses, rising and diving his hands into his trouser’s pockets—“Gentlemen!” repeated he, with an ominous cough, that sounded very like cash.
“Hark to the Bar owl!—hark” cheered Cuddy Flintoff from the other end of the room, thus cutting short a discussion about wool, a bargain for beans, and an inquiry for snuff in his own immediate neighbourhood, and causing a tapping of the table further up.
“Gentlemen!” repeated Sir Moses, for the third time, amid cries of “hear, hear,” and “order, order,”—“I now have the pleasure of introducing to your notice the toast of the evening—a toast endeared by a thousand associations, and rendered classical by the recollection of the great and good men who have given it in times gone by from this very chair—(applause). I need hardly say, gentlemen, that that toast is the renowned Hit-im and Hold-im shire hunt—(renewed applause)—a hunt second to none in the kingdom; a hunt whose name is famous throughout the land, and whose members are the very flower and élite of society—(renewed applause). Never, he was happy to say, since it was established, were its prospects so bright and cheering as they were at the present time—(great applause, the announcement being considered indicative of a healthy exchequer)—its country was great, its covers perfect, and thanks to their truly invaluable allies—the farmers—their foxes most abundant—(renewed applause). Of those excellent men it was impossible to speak in terms of too great admiration and respect—(applause)—whether he looked at those he was blessed with upon his own estate—(laughter)—or at the great body generally, he was lost for words to express his opinion of their patriotism, and the obligations he felt under to them. So far from ever hinting at such a thing as damage, he really believed a farmer would be hooted from the market-table who broached such a subject—(applause, with murmurs of dissent)—or who even admitted it was possible that any could be done—(laughter and applause). As for a few cocks and hens, he was sure they felt a pleasure in presenting them to the foxes. At all events, he could safely say he had never paid for any—(renewed laughter). Looking, therefore, at the hunt in all its aspects—its sport past, present, and to come—he felt that he never addressed them under circumstances of greater promise, or with feelings of livelier satisfaction. It only remained for them to keep matters up to the present mark, to insure great and permanent prosperity. He begged, therefore, to propose, with all the honours, Success to the Hit-im and Hold-im shire hunt!”—(drunk with three times three and one cheer more). Sir Moses and Cuddy Flintoff mounting their chairs to mark time. Flintoff finishing off with a round of view halloas and other hunting noises.
When the applause and Sir Moses had both subsided, parties who had felt uneasy about their pockets, began to breathe more freely, and as the bottles again circulated, Mr. Mossman and others, for whom wine was too cold, slipped out to get their pipes, and something warm in the bar; Mossman calling for whiskey, Buckwheat for brandy, Broadfurrow for gin, and so on. Then as they sugared and flavoured their tumblers, they chewed the cud of Sir Moses’s eloquence, and at length commenced discussing it, as each man got seated with his pipe in his mouth and his glass on his knee, in a little glass-fronted bar.
“What a man he is to talk, that Sir Moses,” observed Buckwheat after a long respiration.
“He’s a greet economist of the truth, I reckon,” replied Mr. Mossman, withdrawing his pipe from his mouth, “for I’ve written to him till I’m tired, about last year’s damage to Mrs. Anthill’s sown grass.”
“He’s right, though, in saying he never paid for poultry,” observed Mr. Broadfurrow, with a humorous shake of his big head, “but, my word, his hook-nosed agent has as many letters as would paper a room;” and so they sipped, and smoked, and talked the Baronet over, each man feeling considerably relieved at there being no fresh attempt on the pocket.
Meanwhile Sir Moses, with the aid of Cuddy Flintoff, trimmed the table, and kept the bottles circulating briskly, presently calling on Mr. Paul Straddler for a song, who gave them the old heroic one, descriptive of a gallant run with the Hit-im and Hold-im shire hounds, in the days of Mr. Customer, at which they all laughed and applauded as heartily as if they had never heard it before. They then drank Mr. Straddler’s health, and thanks to him for his excellent song.
As it proceeded, Sir Moses intimated quietly to our friend Billy Pringle that he should propose his health next, which would enable Mr. Pringle to return the compliment by proposing Sir Moses, an announcement that threw our hero into a very considerable state of trepidation, but from which he saw no mode of escape. Sir Moses then having allowed a due time to elapse after the applause that followed the drinking of Mr. Straddler’s health, again arose, and tapping the table with his hammer, called upon them to fill bumpers to the health of his young friend on his right (applause). “He could not express the pleasure it afforded him,” he said, “to see a nephew of his old friend and brother Baronet, Sir Jonathan Pringle, become a member of their excellent hunt, and he hoped Billy would long live to enjoy the glorious diversion of fox-hunting,” which Sir Moses said it was the bounden duty of every true-born Briton to support to the utmost of his ability, for that it was peculiarly the sport of gentlemen, and about the only one that defied the insidious arts of the blackleg, adding that Lord Derby was quite right in saying that racing had got into the hands of parties who kept horses not for sport, but as mere instruments of gambling, and if his (Sir Moses’s) young friend, Mr. Pringle, would allow him to counsel him, he would say, Never have anything to do with the turf (applause). Stick to hunting, and if it didn’t bring him in money, it would bring him in health, which was better than money, with which declaration Sir Moses most cordially proposed Mr. Pringle’s health (drunk with three times three and one cheer more).
Now our friend had never made a speech in his life, but being, as we said at the outset, blessed with a great determination of words to the mouth, he rose at a hint from Sir Moses, and assured the company “how grateful he was for the honour they had done him as well in electing him a member of their delightful sociable hunt, as in responding to the toast of his health in the flattering manner they had, and he could assure them that nothing should be wanting on his part to promote the interests of the establishment, and to prove himself worthy of their continued good opinion,” at which intimation Sir Moses winked knowingly at Mr. Smoothley, who hemmed a recognition of his meaning.