"Stuff! I can borrow some dogs, though. And now, what day shall it be?"
The day was fixed, the dogs procured, the occupant of the property was to send a man to meet us and show us the ground, and it was settled that we were to come to breakfast at the farm at half-past seven precisely, and make a long day of it. Much to his disgust, we roused the deputy porter from his bed at seven on a raw foggy morning; and with a lad leading the dogs, and carrying guns and ammunition, we made our way to Farmer Nutt's. We were proceeding up-stairs, as usual, to Brown's apartment, when we heard our friend's voice hailing us from the "house," as the large hall was called which the farmer and his wife used as a kind of superior kitchen. There we found him snugly seated by a glorious fire, superintending his hostess in the slicing and broiling of a piece of ham such as Oxfordshire and Berkshire farm-houses may well pride themselves upon; while a large pile of crisp brown toast was basking in front of the hearth, supported on a round brass footman. It was a sight which might have given a man an appetite at any time, but, after a two-mile walk on a cold winter's morning, it was like a glimpse of paradise.
"Here," said Brown—"here's breakfast, old fellows. Come and make your bows to Mrs Nutt, who is the very pattern of breakfast makers, and fit to concoct tea for the Emperor of China. Ah! if ever I marry, Mrs Nutt, it shall be somebody who is just like you."
Mrs Nutt laughed merrily, and welcomed us with many curtsies, and hopes that we should find things comfortable; and when the worthy farmer, after a brief apology, sat down with us, and the strong black tea and rich cream were duly amalgamated, what a breakfast we did make! There was not much conversation; but such a hissing and frizzling of ham upon the gridiron, such a crumping of toast and rattling of knives, forks, cups and saucers, surely five people seldom made. We were hungry enough; and our hospitable entertainers were so pressing in their attentions, that we caught ourselves eating plum-cake with broiled ham, honey with fresh-laid eggs, and taking gulps of strong tea and sips of raspberry-brandy alternately. We bore up against it all, however, wonderfully; the prospect of a long day's walk put headache and indigestion out of the question, and we were beginning to think of moving when certain ominous preparations on the part of our hostess attracted our attention. A hot slice of toast having been saturated with brandy, she proceeded, to our undisguised amazement, to pour upon it the richest and thickest cream her dairy could produce, and to cover this again with sundry wavy lines of treacle. This was the bonne bouche with which, in her part of the world, Devonshire I think she said, a breakfast to be perfect must always conclude. Start not, delicate reader, until you have had an opportunity of trying this remarkable compound; but take my word for it, it only wants a French name to make it a first-rate sweetmeat. We too regarded it at first with fear and trembling; tasted it out of courtesy to the fair compoundress, and finally, like Oliver Twist, asked for more.
"Now these gentlemen know what a breakfast is, Mr Nutt," said John; "but I am afraid we can't introduce your good wife's receipt into college; our cows give nothing but skim-milk. Well, now we had better be off, if you mean to have any shooting."
Off we set accordingly, and had to trudge a mile or so before we got into our preserves. There were some not unpromising covers; the lad who was to be our guide professed some vague reminiscences of having seen pheasants there "a bit ago;" and there was no question as to a hare having been started so lately as yesterday morning. We began our day, therefore, with somewhat sanguine expectations, which, however, every subsequent half-hour's progress gradually dispelled. We tumbled out of one deep ditch into another, scrambled perseveringly through brambles and brushwood, saw places where pheasants ought to have been, and places where they had been, but never saw a bird except a jack-snipe in the distance. The only sport we had was in the untiring energy of the lad already mentioned, who, long after the dogs had given it up as a bad job, continued to beat every bush as diligently as at first starting, and kept up a form of hortatory interjections addressed to the invisible game, with a hopeful perseverance which was really enviable. One satisfaction we had; towards the close of the day we started the hare from a bush which had certainly been tried at least twice before; she fell victim to a platoon fire of four barrels; the second, I believe, brought her down, but we were anxious to have all the shots we could get. And, in truth, there was some credit in killing her, for Mr Nutt, to whom we presented her, declared that she was so tough, he wondered how the shots ever got through her skin.
It takes something more serious than a bad day's sport to damp youthful spirits; and upon our return we found the good farmer's wife much more annoyed at our failure than ourselves. "Why, the chap as has the deputation told my master he had killed ten brace of pheasants there this season!" He killed the last he could find before he sent us there, no doubt. Nothing dispirited, we sat down to a leg of mutton, which Brown had so far departed from his household economy as to order for us at six, and enjoyed our evening as thoroughly as if we had been a triple impersonation of Colonel Hawker in point of successful sportmanship. Nor was it until after the second bottle of port that we began to accuse each other of being sleepy.
"Well," said I at last, "it is about time for us to be off; it wants but three minutes of half-past eleven, and we shall have sharp work of it now to get into college by twelve. What sort of a night is it?"
The shutters of the sitting-room were closed, and I stepped into the bed-room adjoining in order to look out. The window opened into the court-yard; the moon was shining pretty brightly in spite of the fog, and I was just turning round to remark that we should have a dry walk home, when I saw two figures steal quietly across the yard, apparently from the gateway, and disappear in one of the outhouses. It was too late for any of the men about the farm to be out, in all probability; I was certain neither of the two figures was Farmer Nutt himself, so I quietly closed the door between the sitting and bed rooms, in order that no light might be seen, and watched the spot where I had lost sight of them. In a few seconds, I distinctly saw a third man come over the yard-gates, (which were secured inside at night,) and after apparently reconnoitring for a moment or two, move in the same direction as the others. I returned at once to the room where I had left Brown and Chesterton, closing the bed-room door hastily and noiselessly, and motioning them to be silent.
"I say, Hawthorne, what's up?" said Harry Chesterton, pausing, with a parting cigar half-lighted.