“Do you not think,” said he, “the stomach pump would answer as well?”
But enough of Scottish sportsmen for the present; let me turn to England and her foxhunters. The name of John Warde is, of course, familiar as a household word to every one who takes the slightest interest in hunting-lore, for was he not one of the greatest among the “Fathers of Foxhunting”?
Well, there are some stories of John Warde which will, I dare say, be new to many readers of Baily. Richard Tattersall, the then head of the famous house, always gave a “Derby Dinner” late in the week preceding Epsom, to which some of the most distinguished men of the day were invited. John Warde never missed this function; indeed, the festive occasion would have been nothing without him to represent foxhunting. Sure as the dial to the sun, a few minutes before six his portly form would issue from his yellow chariot, in his silver knee and shoe buckles. The pipe of port which the host and his brother Edmund laid down annually had to pay a heavy tax laid on it, for each man had to drink “John Warde and the noble Science” in a silver fox’s head, which held nearly a pint, and admitted of no heel taps. None stood the ordeal better than “glorious John” himself; he would rise from the table steady as a rock, and before he left always made a point of going up to the drawing-room in the small hours to bid Mrs. Tattersall good-bye, for that good lady never went to bed till she had seen her husband precede her.
His mother lived to a great age, and became very deaf, but she always had her page-boy in every Sunday to say his Collect and Catechism, and although she could not hear a word he said, yet from the earnest expression of his face, and his never hesitating, she took it for granted that he repeated them properly, and invariably gave him a shilling. John, however, getting a hint that the young rascal imposed upon the good-natured lady, one Sunday morning hid himself in the room. As usual, young Buttons was called up, and requested to commence his religious exercise; then, with a perfectly solemn face, he began, “Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon,” and so on to the end of the old nursery rhyme.
“There’s a good boy,” said the old lady, putting into his hand a shilling. But just as Master Hopeful was departing, jubilant, whack came a whip, with which John had provided himself on spec, down upon his shoulders. The welting he got made him remember Collect and Catechism for many a day.
Warde attained the patriarchal age of eighty-five. Like all sportsmen of the “golden time,” he was a bon vivant, but in his last days he had to give up wine.
By a strange irony of fate, he died of water on the chest.
“This is a pretty business,” he said. “Here is a man dying of water, who never drank but one glassful of that nauseous liquid in his life.”
Hunting has its enthusiasts—its almost fanatical enthusiasts, I may say—and probably most readers of Baily have met with one or more of them. For my part I have come across many, but neither in my experience nor my reading have I encountered a more thorough hunting enthusiast than the hero of the following anecdote.
Many years ago a Mr. Osbaldiston, younger son of a gentleman in the North of England, was foolish enough to fall in love with one of his father’s maid-servants, and quixotic enough to marry her. As soon as the news came to the parental ears the imprudent Benedict was turned out of doors, his only worldly possessions being a Southern hound in pup. He and his partner in disgrace started for London, and after a while the young man succeeded in obtaining a clerk’s situation in an attorney’s office at £60 a year. As time went on olive branches gathered about him to the tune of half-a-dozen, from which it may be supposed he had enough to do with his small pittance to keep eight pairs of grinders in work. Yet he not only discharged these onerous domestic duties as beseemed a good husband and father, but he also enjoyed his favourite sport, and kept a couple of horses and two couples of hounds!