“HAIL! SMILING MORN!”
WHEN we read in _Bell’s Life_, the _Morning Post_, or the Northampton
paper, that the Pytchley hounds will meet on Wednesday at Crick, we
confess to the same sensation which the old coachman is said to
experience at the crack of the whip. We call up a picture tinged with
the colours of a memory that Time has no power to fade. It seems again
to be a soft-eyed morning in the mild winter or the early spring, and
the sky is dappled with serene and motionless clouds; whilst here below,
a faint breeze from the south whispers of promised fragrance, only
biding its time to exude from Earth’s teeming bosom—she sleeps, the
mighty mother; but even in repose she is clad in majestic beauty, and
instinct with vitality and hope. On such a morning the blood dances
through their veins, and her children would fain leap and shout aloud
for joy. What freshness in the smell of the saturated pastures! What
beauty in the softened tints and shadows of the landscape—leafless
though it be! How those bare hedges seem ready to burst forth in the
bloom of spring, and the distant woods on the horizon melt into the sky
as softly as in the hot haze of a July noon. The _thud_ of our horses’
hoofs strikes pleasantly on the ear, as we canter over the undulating
pastures, swinging back the hand-gates with a dexterity only to be
acquired by constant practice, and on which we plume ourselves not a
little. He is the sweetest hack in England, and shakes his head and
rolls his shoulders gaily, as we restrain the canter from becoming a
gallop. Were he _not_ the _sweetest_, &c., he would begin to plunge from
sheer exuberance of spirits; we could almost find it in our heart to
indulge him. The scared sheep scour off for a few paces, shaking their
woolly coats, and then turn round to gaze at us as we fleet from field
to field. A couple of magpies, after a succession of jerks and bows,
while they make up their minds, dive rapidly away over the hedge to our
_right_; a direction (for we confess the superstition) ominous of sport.
A scarlet coat glances along the lane in front; and, as this is our last
bit of grass, and moreover the furrows lie the right way, we catch hold
of _the sweetest’s_ head, and treat ourselves to a gallop. Soon we
emerge on the high-road, and relapse into a ten-mile-an-hour trot; the
_sweetest_, who thinks nothing of twelve, going well on his haunches,
and quite within himself. All the best fellows in England seem to have
congregated in this highway. Some in dog-carts, some in phaetons,
half-a-dozen on a four-horse drag, and others on horseback, like
ourselves. With the latter we speedily join company. Yesterday’s
gallop—the Ministerial Crisis—the Rifle Volunteers—all the topics that
interest us for the time, are touched on, and we learn the latest news
of each. By a quarter before eleven we have had pleasure enough for the
whole twenty-four hours, and yet our day is only just beginning. Now the
plot thickens rapidly. Grooms with led horses are overtaken by their
masters, and we recognise many a well-known flyer and honest servant’s
face.
“How fresh the old horse looks, John: none the worse for the Lilbourne
day, when he carried your master so well!”
“Never was better, sir,” answers gratified John, with a touch of his
hat; partly out of compliment to ourselves, partly out of respect for
the good horse. Now we observe a scarlet group collected in a knot,
where the hounds meet in the centre of the village, and the church clock
points to five minutes before eleven, as we bid the cheery huntsman
“Good-morning,” and exchange our hack for our hunter.
Mr. Sawyer probably felt very much the sort of sensations I have
endeavoured to describe, as he dashed along on the free-going Dandy, in
company with some of his new companions. If so, he kept them to himself.
Our friend was a man of few words at the best of times; and when, as in
the present instance, “big with high resolve,” taciturnity personified.
Also, notwithstanding the want of the new boots, he had “got himself up”
to-day with peculiar care. The result, I am bound to admit, was not
entirely satisfactory; and, when that is the case, a man’s loquacity is
apt to decrease in proportion. However, the roan, or “Hotspur,” as we
must now call him, made a pretty good figure, as far as appearance went,
even amongst a bevy of celebrated hunters, and his master felt a
considerable accession of confidence when he found himself fairly
mounted and ready for the fray. Miss Dove, too, had arrived in company
with her papa. There was no doubt about it: she _did_ look remarkably
well in her riding-habit.
Mr. Sawyer, a little nervous and rather ashamed of it, doffed the velvet
hunting-cap, and rode up to accost her. I need scarcely observe that the
young lady’s greeting was of the coldest and most reserved. The last
time she had been all smiles and sunshine: so, on the principle of
rotation, to-day must be one of frigidity and decorum. It’s a way they
have, you see; and one that seldom fails to put the inexperienced to
utter confusion. A man cannot be said to know what the ague really is
till he has suffered from the fits—both hot and cold. Take warning, John
Standish Sawyer! you who have once before burnt your fingers, and had
cause to dread the fire. Miss Mexico, with her quadroon stain and her
thirty thousand pounds, was a queerish one to manage; but she was a fool
to Miss Dove.
“Confound the girl! what does she mean by it?” said the humiliated swain
to himself, as the hounds moved off towards the gorse. He felt a little
disgusted, and _not_ a little irritated: just in the humour that makes a
man ready for a bit of excitement rather keener than ordinary. He
thought he had never felt _so like riding_ in his life before! With the
natural instinct of one who knew himself capable of going in the first
flight, the observant Sawyer proceeded to scan narrowly such of the
surrounding sportsmen as looked to him like “meaning mischief.” Out of a
hundred riders it was not so difficult as might be supposed to pick a
proportion of flyers, and the proportion, as my hunting readers will not
dispute, was little over ten per cent. Shall I name them? Shall I add
ninety enterprising and energetic gentlemen to the list of my mortal
enemies? Heaven forbid that I should do anything so invidious and
ill-advised! Mr. Sawyer did not know them, and why should I? Each of the
hundred, doubtless, believed himself one of the chosen ten. I fancy that
every man who goes out hunting thinks he only wants an opportunity to
show his back to the rest of the field. I fancy that when the
opportunity _does_ come, he lets it slip in hopes of a better, and that
no one attributes to want of nerve, horsemanship, or common sense, that
failure, on which it would be no bad investment to offer each equestrian
nine to one! Well, everybody has an equal chance on a fine scenting day,
when the fox has slipped quietly away, by good fortune only seen by a
countryman, with a quinsy, who couldn’t halloo to save his life. When
the two or three couple of leading hounds have flashed a hundred yards
or so over his line, thus enabling the body of the pack to join them,
and stoop all together to the scent, when after a cheery twang, the
huntsman returns his horn to its case, and the master, relieved, for an
instant, from the weight of care, which none but an M.F.H. knows, takes
his place alongside of his favourites, and observes mentally, though he
wouldn’t say it aloud for a thousand, “Now, my fine fellows, ride on
their backs if you _can_!” In short, at that delicious moment when the
wise bethink them of a fox’s point, and a convenient lane, and the
enthusiasts glance exultingly at each other, and say, “All right, old
fellow! I _think_ we’re landed!” then hath each a fair field and no
favour; and if a man’s hardihood, or his vanity, or his ambition, prompt
him to assume a place in the front rank, he has nothing to do but go and
try.
As Mr. Sawyer rode down to the gorse, he was pleased to feel Hotspur
step so lightly and vigorously under him. The horse shook his bit, and
cocked his ears, and reached at his bridle to get near the hounds. He
_felt_ like a good one, and we all know what confidence that sensation
imparts to the rider. Mr. Sawyer forgot all about Miss Dove, and the
unprovoked manner in which she had snubbed him. It was cheerful to hear
one or two complimentary remarks exchanged between the passing
sportsmen.
“That’s a clever horse,” said a tall heavy man, himself admirably
mounted, indicating the roan with a nod, and addressing a
supercilious-looking person in a black coat, whose attention was much
taken up with the appearance of his own legs and feet, which he was
looking at alternately _en profile_.
“Rather,” answered the supercilious person, glancing up for an instant
from his occupation—“Who’s the man? Never saw such a man; never saw such
boots; never saw a fellow so badly got-up altogether.”
At this juncture the Honourable Crasher, cantering by on Topsy-Turvy,
accosted our friend with good-humoured familiarity, and the supercilious
man, changing his mind all in a moment, about Mr. Sawyer and his boots,
resolved to take the first opportunity of making the stranger’s
acquaintance. In effect he followed the last comer to prosecute this
intention. The Honourable C. disappearing through a bullfinch, on
Topsy-Turvy, whom he thus hoped to put in good-humour, was ere this in a
field alongside of the hounds, which he was likely to have all to
himself.
Soon a hand-gate stems the increasing cavalcade, and the stoppage
becoming more obstinate, owing to Mr. Sawyer’s abortive attempts to open
the same, a good deal of conversation, rhetorical rather than
complimentary, is the result.
“Put your whip _under_ the latch,” says one.
“Got the wrong hand to it,” sneers another.
“What a tarnation muff!” vociferates a third.
“Ware heels!” exclaims a fourth, as a wicked little bay mare, in the
thick of them, lets out with unerring precision; and one man says, “What
a shame it is to bring such a devil as that into a crowd!” and another
opines that “The kick will be out of her before two o’clock!” and the
owner, profuse in apologies, is only thinking of slipping through the
gate, and going on to get a start.
Meanwhile Hotspur makes himself profoundly ridiculous, pushing the gate
when the latch is down, and wincing from it when he ought to shove; also
finding himself totally unassisted by the crook of his master’s whip,
which keeps slipping on the wet green wood, waxes irritable, rears up,
and threatens to vary the entertainment, by performing a somersault into
the next field.
“Let me do it for you, sir,” says a good-natured young farmer; and Mr.
Sawyer wisely abandons his office of doorkeeper, and after about forty
people have hustled by him, manages at last to edge his way through.
By this time the hounds have been put into the gorse. Nineteen couple
are they of _ladies_, with the cleanest of heads and necks, straight and
fair on their legs and feet as so many ballet-dancers, and owning that
keen wistful look, which is so peculiar to the countenance of the
fox-hound. They dash into the covert as if sure of finding, and Parson
Dove, standing erect in his stirrups, watches them with a glow of
pleasure lighting up his clean-shaved face. “There’s a fox, Charles,
I’ll lay a bishopric!” says he, and a whimper from Truelove confirms the
parson’s opinion on the spot.
“Not a doubt on it! sir, not a doubt on it! one if not a brace!” replies
that functionary, with immense rapidity. He loses very little time
indeed, at his phrases, or his fences, or anything else. In another
moment he is up to his girths in the gorse, cheering on the beauties,
who are working up the scent with a vast deal of musical energy. The
master casts an uneasy glance at the crowd; countless anxieties and
apprehensions cross his mind. One way the fox will be headed, another
the hounds will be cut off, a third leads up to the village, and we all
know how fatal are houses and pigsties at the commencement of a run. But
the fourth side is clear; happily the hounds are even now bustling
eagerly towards it.
Diverse occupations engross the attention of the field; few of them seem
to be much taken up with the business in hand. Here a gentleman is
giving a farmer’s horse a gallop, preparatory, as it would appear, to a
purchase. There another is detailing the last news from Warwickshire, to
an applauding audience. Struggles, on his feet, is adjusting a
snaffle-bridle more comfortably on the head of a game little
thorough-bred. Savage is discussing the merits of a new novel with a
literary friend. Major Brush is taking up a link in Miss Dove’s
curb-chain; that damsel, very killing indeed, in a little hat and
feathers, is surrounded by admirers, and yet, _lassata, nondum satiata_,
is inwardly regretting that she had snubbed poor Mr. Sawyer so
gratuitously at the meet. You see, however low one may rate the value of
his vassalage, still a victim always counts _for one_; and it is a pity
needlessly to throw away the veriest weed that helps to make up one’s
chaplet. Truth to tell, Mr. Sawyer was not thinking about her. He had
crept on, as he thought, unobserved, to a place from which he could
command the proceedings, and try to get a good start. Nevertheless, a
watchful eye was on his movements. The master was even then deliberating
whether he should holloa to him to “Come back, sir,” and was hoping in
his own mind, “that chap in a cap wouldn’t go on, and head the fox!”
The Honourable Crasher and Topsy-Turvy had already fallen out, as to a
cigar, which the former wanted to light. No! the mare would _not_ stand
still, and an impatient jerk at the curb-rein had not tended to adjust
this difference. So she was backing and sidling and shaking her head,
and making herself intensely disagreeable, whilst the Honourable, who
soon recovered his equanimity, scanned a certain stile just in front of
her with a critical eye and employed himself by vaguely calculating how
many yards before she came to it she was likely, in her present humour,
to “take off;” also whereabouts he should land if they _did_ make a mess
of it, and whether _more_ than two or three fellows would be on his back
at once.
He has by no means solved the problem, when a violent rush is made
towards the lane. Somebody has seen somebody else gallop, who has seen a
sheep-dog run; this is a sufficient reason for some eighty or ninety
horsemen to charge furiously in the same direction; their leaders
finding no hounds, then pull up, and the crowd proceed leisurely back
again. But this false alarm has been in favour of the fox, who
perceiving a clear space before him, and having obtained, by a dexterous
turn round the covert, a little law of his pursuers, takes advantage of
the lull, to slip away unobserved by any one but the first whip, and
that officer is far too discreet to make a noise. He telegraphs mutely
to the huntsman, who has _the ladies_ out of covert, and dashing to the
front, with three blasts of his horn. Ere the Honourable Crasher has had
time to indulge Topsy-Turvy with a fling at the stile, which she jumps
as if there was a ten-foot drain on each side, the pack are settled to
the scent, and racing away a clear field ahead of every one but the
huntsman and whip. The Honourable Crasher, however, is coming up
hand-over-hand, Topsy-Turvy laying herself out in rattling form. The
master, with a backward glance at the crowd, is alongside of him, and
Mr. Sawyer, sailing over the first fence, in such good company, with a
tight hold of his horse’s head, and an undeniable start, thinks he is
“really in for it at last!”
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