“Not at all, sir; not at all;” exclaimed Caddy Cuddle; “draught horses are not esteemed as valuable in proportion to their speed: in the waggon-horse-race no man is allowed to jockey his own animal; the riders are armed with tremendous long whips; their object is to drive all their companions before them; he that gets in last, wins: and so, sir, they slash away at each other's horses;—then, sir, there's such shouting and bellowing; such kicking, rearing, whinnying, galloping, and scrambling, that it would do a man's heart good to look at it. Poor Caddy Caddy used to turn to me, and say, as well as his laughter would let him,—'What are your Olympic games,—your feats, and fine doings at the tombs of your old Greek heroes, that you prate about, compared with these, cousin Cuddle?'”
The Honourable Charles Caddy smiled, and bit the inner part of his lip with vexation: he now tried to give the conversation another turn, and introduced the chase; thinking that it was a very safe subject, as Caddy Caddy had never kept a pack of hounds. “I feel very much inclined,” said he, “anxious as I am to forward the amusement of my neighbours, to run up a kennel, beyond the rookery, at the north end of the park,—where there is very good air, and a fine stream of water,—and invite my friend, Sir Harry Parton, to hunt this country, for a couple of months during the season. One of my fellows says, that there are not only numbers of foxes in the neighbourhood, but what is still better, a few,—a very few,—of those stags, about which we have heard so much. I think I have influence enough with Sir Harry to persuade him; at all events, I'll invite him; and if he should have other existing engagements, I pledge myself,—that is, if such a step would be agreeable,—to hunt the country myself.”
“Our respected and unfortunate friend, cousin Caddy,” said Cuddle, “had a little pack of dogs—”
“A pack of dogs, indeed, they were, Mr. Cuddle,” interrupted young Horner; “five or six couple of curs, that lurked about the Castle, gentlemen, which we used sometimes to coax down to the river, and spear or worry an otter; and, now and then, wheedle away to the woods, at midnight, for a badger-hunt, after drinking more ale than we well knew how to carry. I was a boy then, but I could drink ale by the quart.”
“Ay, ay!” exclaimed Caddy Cuddle, “those were famous times! 'Tis true, I never went out with you, but 1 recollect very well how I enjoyed poor Caddy Caddy's animated descriptions of the badger-hunt, when he came back.”
“Oh! then you hunted badgers, did you?” said the gentleman of Kent to Tom Horner, in a sneering tone, that produced a titter all round the table. “Yes, sir,—we hunted badgers,” replied Tom; “and capital sport it is, too, in default of better.”
“I dare say it is,” said the gentleman of Kent.
“Allow me to tell you then, sir, that there is really good sport in badger-hunting; it is a fine, irregular sort of pastime, unfettered by the systematic rules of the more aristocratic sports. The stag-hunt and the fox-chase, are so shackled with old ordinances and covert-side statutes, that they remind me of one of the classical dramas of the French: a badger-hunt is of the romantic school;—free as air, wild as mountain breezes;—joyous, exhilarating, uncurbed, and natural as one of our Shakspeare's plays. Barring an otter-hunt, (and what's better still, according to Caddy Cuddle's account, who has been in the North Seas, the spearing of a whale,) there are few sports that suit my capacity of enjoyment, so well as badger-bagging.—Just picture to yourself, that you have sent in a keen terrier, no bigger than a stout fitchet, or thereabouts, to ascertain that the badger is not within; that you have cleverly bagged the hole, and stuck the end of the mouth-line in the fist of a patient, but wary and dexterous clod-hopper; (an old, lame, broken-down, one-eyed gamekeeper, is the best creature on earth for such an office;)—and then, what do you do?—Why, zounds! every body takes his own course, with or without dogs, as it may happen; hunting, yelping, hallooing, and beating every brake for half a mile, or more, round, to get scent of the badger. Imagine the moon, 'sweet huntress of yon azure plain,' is up, and beaming with all her brilliancy; the trees beautifully basking in her splendour; her glance streaming through an aperture in an old oak, caused by the fall of a branch, by lightning, or bluff Boreas, and fringing the mallow-leaf with silver; the nightingale, in the brake, fascinating your ear; the glow-worm delighting your eye:—you stand, for a moment, motionless;—the bat whirrs above your head and the owl, unaccustomed to the sight of man, in such deep solitudes, flaps, fearless, so near as to fan your glowing forehead with his wings:—when suddenly you hear a shout,—a yell,—two or three such exclamations as—'There a' ees!'—'Thic's he!'—'At'un, Juno!'—'Yonder a goath!'—'Hurrah!'—'Vollow un up!'—'Yaw awicks!' and 'Oh! my leg!'—You know by this, that 'the game's a foot;'—you fly to the right or left, as the case may be, skimming over furzy brake, like a bird, and wading through tangled briar, as a pike would, through the deeps of a brook, after a trout that is lame of a fin. You reach the scene of action; the badger is before, half a score of tykes around, and the yokels behind you.—'Hark forward! have at him!' you enthusiastically cry; your spirits are up;—you are buoyant—agile as a roe-buck;—your legs devour space—you—”
“My dear fellow, allow me to conclude,” interrupted Caddy Cuddle, “for your prose Pegasus never can carry you through the hunt at this rate. To be brief, then,—according to what I have heard from my never-to-be-sufficiently-lamented friend, Caddy Caddy,—the badger, when found, immediately makes for his earth: if he reach it without being picked up and taken, he bolts in at the entrance; the bag receives him; its mouth is drawn close by the string; and thus the animal is taken.—But, odds! while I talk of those delights, which were the theme of our discourse in the much-regretted days of Caddy Caddy, I forget that time is on the wing.—I suppose no one is going my way.”
“I am,” replied Tom Homer, “in about three hours' time.”