Every kind of game, with due forethought, had been arranged for, and prizes made ready for [367] ]proficiency in those rustic sports, to excel in which, since earliest Saxon days, had been the pride of rural England. Running and leaping, wrestling, cricket, single-stick, and football were all duly provided for. Scores of athletic youths contested eagerly. The adjudging of the prizes gave general satisfaction, while their unusual quality and value elicited hearty praise.
For the village lasses, similar contests and excitements were not wanting. These were of a gentler kind, tending to improvement in the domestic arts: needlework in all its branches, as expressed in the making and repairing of garments for children and others of the household. For girls under fourteen, and those under sixteen, foot races were got up, which tested the pace and staying power of the younger damsels. These had always been popular contests, and could not have been omitted from the programme without causing dissatisfaction. Skipping, rounders, and hockey were not neglected, though at this last exercise occasional falls provoked the mirth of the bystanders, and a black eye or two, with other bruises, bore witness to the earnestness of the competing sides. The young men rode at the quintain, wrestled, boxed, pole-jumped, and tent-pegged, played at bowls, and revived the ancient game of quarter-staff. Last, not least, the prize for archery, a handsome and valuable one, aroused such feelings of emulation in the Dianas of the Hexham and West Essex Clubs as had not been known since the celebrated match which Lady Hexham recalled, in the days of her youth, when she was a noted [368] ]performer, and princes and nobles contended for the honour of collecting her arrows. To conclude the day’s entertainment there were hack and pony races, hurdles and steeplechases. These last, Australian innovations, were, however, modified by restriction of the men and horses to the families of tenants on the estate who took an interest in the nearest pack of hounds, and found it pay to school a promising four-year-old, likely to bring a good price at the beginning of the next season.
The invitation committee had extended the list over a fairly wide social range. Besides the squirearchy of the county and the neighbouring gentry, the farmers and tradespeople, the tenants with their families, and their visitors too, came as a matter of right. There was room, and a welcome for all. It was hoped that no one who had worked in the fields, or on the grounds of Hexham, would stay away. And judging from the continuous march of people on foot and horseback, in tax-carts, dog-carts, gigs, and waggons, very few did.
Soon after mid-day the immense tables, placed on tressels, were covered, as if by magic, with viands of every sort, kind, and description, arranged ready for the speedy consumption which it was correctly assumed would take place. Products of the home farm and many others were displayed, replaced, and continuously provided, in never-ending profusion. Beer flowed as if from a fountain. The roast beef of Old England in barons and sirloins, fish and fowl, mutton and lamb, pork [369] ]and veal, puddings and pies, fruit, cakes,—all these and more were assiduously furnished for the banquet of which all present were pressed and encouraged to partake.
While the rural contingent was judiciously dispersed and subdivided, so as to prevent the assemblage of an unwieldy crowd, it had been necessary, in the interest of settled order and good government, to invite a selection of the leading families of this and adjacent counties, to head the entertainment. The Duke of Dorlingham had graciously honoured his invitation, while earls and barons, with a proportion of baronets and long-descended country gentlemen, responded cordially, so that the great marquee, erected some days previously, under the personal supervision of a transatlantic firm of caterers, well known in London, Brighton, and Australia, was filled with an assemblage of aristocratic personages, from whose ranks but few individuals of distinction in the county were absent.
The accessories left little to be desired. The cuisine was undeniable; the waiting service at table was as nearly perfect as could be accomplished at an al fresco entertainment; the wines were admittedly beyond criticism. The turf around the temporary structure was in perfect condition; the branches of the great oaks waved banner-like above the festive concourse:
The self-same shadows flecked the sward
In the days of good Queen Anne;
while within the enormous canvas walls, genuine [370] ]enjoyment and tempered hilarity commenced with the popping of the first champagne cork, nor waned until the call for silence preceded that loyal toast never absent from any festal function of importance in Britain or her Colonies.
Then the Duke of Dorlingham rose in his place at the head of the principal table. On his right sat Arnold Banneret, on his left the Honourable Corisande Aylmer, flushed with the consciousness of youth and beauty, heightened by the possession of an exalted position and acknowledged distinction. The Duke had whispered his congratulations to Corisande on their return to England under circumstances, he trusted he might say, favourable to the future fortunes of his old friend’s family.