Old Country Life

by S. Baring-Gould

The Hunt Passing.

This season there has appeared at our meets an old man of seventy-five, who was for many years a butler to a rector, a quiet, studious man, who died a few years ago. After the death of his master the butler retired on his savings, and built himself a house. Then—this winter he appeared on a cob at the meet of the foxhounds. "Sir," said he to the Master, "now the ambition of my life is satisfied. Since I was a boy I have wished, and all my days have worked, that I might have a cob on which I could hunt."

Alas! the old fellow found himself so stiff after the first hunt, that at the next meet of the harriers he appeared on foot. He had walked four miles to it; and he ran with the hounds, and was in at the death. After the hunt he walked home hot and happy, and elastic in step.

The farmers naturally like a hunt, as it affords them, apart from the sport, an occasion of showing off and selling their horses. The workmen like a hunt, especially after the hare, for it forms a break in their work. They have their half day's sport, and their masters pay wage just the same as if they had been at work.

The hare hunt naturally lends itself to footers, as the hare runs in a circle, and not straight with the wind in his tail like reynard. Here and there is to be found a cantankerous farmer who objects to having his hedges broken down and his land trampled by the hunters, but he is looked on with distrust and dislike by all in every class, and spoken of as a curmudgeon. Of course, also, there are to be found men who trap and kill foxes, but I verily believe those men's consciences sting them far more on this account than if they had committed a fraud or become drunk. And—by the way, that reminds me of a story.

There came a Hungarian nobleman, whom we will call the Baron Hounymhum, to England. His Christian name was Arpad. He came to England, having a title, but having nothing else; he came, in fact, to seek there his fortune. Belonging to a good family, he was well supplied with letters of introduction, and he was received into society. On more than one occasion he donned his uniform, and had reason to believe that the uniform as well as his handsome face was much admired by the ladies, and envied by the men. Among the acquaintances he made was the Hon. Cecil Blank, through whom he was introduced to one of the first clubs in Piccadilly. He also got acquainted with Lord Ashwater. This nobleman was fond of collecting around him notabilities of all kinds, literary, scientific, and political. He himself was in his politics an advanced Liberal.

The Baron Arpad found, to his astonishment, soon after his arrival in town, that a rumour had got about that he had been implicated in an attempt to assassinate his most gracious sovereign Franz Joseph, King of Hungary and Bohemia, and Emperor of Austria. The idea was absolutely baseless. The fact that he was received at the embassy ought to have shut men's mouths, but no—he was credited with having contrived an infernal machine for the destruction of his beloved sovereign.

He found, to his amazement, that this rumour did him good. He became an interesting foreigner; hitherto he had been only a foreigner. Quite an eager feeling manifested itself among persons of rank and position for having him at their parties; not only so, but he was solicited by magazine editors to write for them articles on the Anarchist party in Hungary and Austria.

Scarce had this odious rumour died away, before he became the victim of another, equally false and equally detestable. A distant cousin, the Baron Adorian Hounymhum, ran away with the Princess Nornenstein, the mother of three sweet little children. The elopement caused a great sensation at Vienna, as the princess was much esteemed by her Majesty the Empress. Prince Nornenstein pursued the fugitives, overtook them in Belgium, fought a duel with the baron, and was shot through the heart.