"Ah, luckless speech and bootless boast,"
For which I paid full dear."
Another ten minutes' best pace and the fox is evidently sinking before us; but, alas! it was not to be my lot to see the gallant animal run into and pulled down in the open, after as fine a run as was ever seen. Trim-kept hedges, well-hung, stout, and newly-painted white gates, had shown me that for the last few moments, he had entered the domain of some proprietor, whose estate certainly presented the very pink of neatness. Little indeed did I dream that there would exist in the very heart of Easyallshire one so benighted as to object to the inroads made upon him by that renowned pack, the Muggers. But I reckoned without my host, or rather, as the sequel will show, with my host; for as, in my endeavours to save my now somewhat exhausted horse, I rode at what appeared an easy place in a very high fence, bounded on the off-side with a stiff post and rail, an irate elderly gentleman, gesticulating, shouting, and waving an umbrella in his hand, suddenly rose up as it were from the very bowels of the earth, just as my steed was preparing to make his spring, thus causing the spirited animal to rear up, and, overbalancing himself, to fall heavily to the ground with me under him. When I next recovered consciousness and opened my eyes, I was being borne along on a hurdle, by the author of my misfortunes—a gray-haired, piebald-whiskered, stout, little, red-faced old gentleman—and two of his satellites, whom I rightly conjectured to be the coachman and gardener; but the pain of my broken leg made me relapse into unconsciousness, nor did the few wits I by nature possess return to me again until I was laid on a bed, and a medical practitioner of the neighbourhood was busy at work setting my fractured limb. To make a long story short, I remained under the roof of Major Pipeclay—for that was the name of the irascible little gentleman whose hatred of hunting, hounds, and horses had caused my suffering—until my wounded limb was well again, the worthy old major doing all in his power to make amends for the catastrophe his absurd violence had brought about.
At the expiration of six weeks I was able to move about on crutches; at the termination of twice that period, I was well again, and had, moreover, fallen irretrievably in love with the bright eyes and pretty face of Belinda Pipeclay, one of the major's handsome daughters. Thinking, in my ignorance of the fair sex, that the child of so irascible a papa—having been in her juvenile days well tutored under the Solomonian code of "sparing the rod, and spoiling the child"—must therefore, of necessity, make a submissive and obedient wife, I proposed, was accepted, obtained the major's consent, and became a Benedict.
Dear reader, I am really ashamed to confess the truth: I have been severely henpecked ever since. Whether Belinda possesses the same antipathy to hounds, horses, and hunting men as her progenitor, I cannot possibly tell; for returning to India soon after my marriage, I had no opportunity of there testing her feelings in that respect. Now the increasing number of mouths in our nursery compels a decreasing ratio of animals in my stable, and I am reduced to one old broken-winded cripple, which I call "the Machiner." He takes Mrs Sabretache and myself to the market town on a Saturday, and mamma, papa, and the little Sabretaches to church on the following day.
A DAY WITH THE DRAG
BY THE EDITOR
To my mind there are few more pleasant ways of spending an afternoon, than in having a good rousing gallop with the Drag. Of course there be Drag-hunts and Drag-hunts, and unless the sport is conducted smartly and well, 'twere better far that it should not be done at all. The hounds need not be bred from the Beaufort Justice, but on the other hand, they need not be a set of skulking, skirting brutes, that one "wouldn't be seen dead with." Of course the members of such hunts ride in mufti—more familiarly called, in these degenerate days, "ratcatcher"—but I always think that Huntsman and Whips should be excepted from this rule, and anyone who is privileged to share the fun of the Royal Artillery Draghounds will find that the high officials of the hunt are arrayed, not certes, as was Solomon in all his glory, but in the very neatest and smartest of "livery," and nothing could look more sportsmanlike than the dark-blue coat, red collar and cuffs, surmounted by the orthodox black velvet hunting-cap, which are de rigeur at Woolwich now. When I first joined in their cheery gallops, there was no hunt uniform, and the appearance of the "turn out" suffered accordingly. Now, nothing is left to be desired in this direction. Good fellowship in the field we have always had, and does not this go far indeed to make up the sum of one's enjoyment? When every man out, almost without exception, knows the rest of the field personally; when a kindly hand is always ready to be stretched forth to aid a brother in distress—when you know every man well enough to say "mind you don't jump on me, old chap, if this 'hairy' comes base over apex at the next fence!" or, "Let me have that place first; I can't hold this beggar!" things all seem so much pleasanter than they are in a country where you know few people, and don't know them very well: yes, sociability, depend upon it, goes very far indeed to make up the charm of any sport, and in none more so than in that of crossing a country.
Let us imagine ourselves arrived at Woolwich and "done well" at luncheon in the R.A. mess. And here I would observe, par parenthese, that it would require a big effort of imagination to picture to yourself any occasion upon which you were not "done well" within those hospitable portals. About 2.30 when we are half way through that cigar in the ante-room, which alone "saves one's life" after such a luncheon, a crack of the whip, and a "gently there, Waterloo!" brings us quickly to the window overlooking the parade ground, where hounds have just arrived in charge of the Master and two Whips. We hurry out, after a farewell to such of our kindly hosts as are not intending to accompany us, and find that that big-boned black horse with a hog mane, is intended to carry "Cæsar and his fortunes" this afternoon. A right good one he is, too, with a perfect snaffle mouth. He is "not so young as he was," but "sweet are the uses of adversity," and this fact has its advantages, as he will not fret and worry, and pull one's arms off before starting: he has "joined the band," which is also an excellent thing in its way, because the man just ahead of you can hear him coming, and will, you hope, get out of the way at the next fence! After a short period of moving up and down the parade ground, and exchanging greetings with a few whom you have not had a chance of speaking to before, the word is given, and at that indescribable and, to me, most direful pace, a "hound's jog," off we go along the road over the Common.