“A MERRY GO-ROUNDER”
A MILE-AND-A-HALF of grass, some six or eight fences, and the sustained
brilliancy of the pace, have had their usual effect on the moving
panorama. A turn in his favour, of which his old experience has prompted
him to take every advantage, enables Mr. Sawyer to pull Hotspur back to
a trot, and look about him. He is in a capital place, and has every
reason to believe the new horse is “a flyer.” Hitherto, he has only
asked him to gallop, best pace, over sound turf, and take a succession
of fair hunting fences in his stride. Hotspur seems to know his business
thoroughly, and though a little eager, he allows his rider to draw him
together for his leaps, and the way in which he cocks his ears when
within distance denotes a hunter. Mr. Sawyer is full of confidence. He
has been riding fence for fence with the Honourable Crasher, whose pale
face wears a smile of quiet satisfaction. The latter has indulged
Topsy-Turvy with two awkward bits of timber, and an unnecessary gate;
the mare is consequently tolerably amiable, and, though she throws her
head wildly about if any other horse comes near her, may be considered
in an unusually composed frame of mind. The huntsman has been riding
close to his hounds, in that state of eager anxiety which the
philosopher would hardly consider enjoyment, and yet which is
nevertheless not without its charms; all his feelings are reflected, in
a modified form, in the breast of the master. The latter, riding his own
line, as near the pack as his conscience will permit him, is divided
between intense enjoyment of the gallop and a host of vague
apprehensions lest anything should turn up to mar the continuance of the
run. He has already imbibed a qualified aversion for Mr. Sawyer, whom
the instinct peculiar to his office prompts him to suspect as “a likely
fellow to press them at a check;” while he knows his friend Crasher so
well, as to feel there is but one chance with that mild enthusiast, viz.
that Topsy-Turvy should come to a difficulty before the hounds do.
Besides these four, Captain Struggles and Major Brush are very handy,
whilst Mr. Savage heads another detachment in the next field, of which
Miss Dove, riding with considerable grace, is at once the ornament and
the admiration. Her father has lost his place from a fall, but is coming
up with steady skill and energy, going as straight as if he were close
to the hounds, and ready to take every advantage. At the first turn in
his favour he will be with them as if nothing had happened. In addition
to these, many score of sportsmen are scattered over the neighbouring
district, and a serried mass of scarlet, which may be termed not
inaptly, “the heavy brigade,” is moving in close column down a distant
lane.
All this our friend observes at a glance, but his attention is soon
arrested by the business in his front.
The hounds, having over-run the scent a trifle, swing to the line again
with dashing confidence, and take it up once more with an energy that
seems but increased by their momentary hesitation.
They might have been covered by a sheet hitherto: now they lengthen out
into a string, and the leaders scour along, with their noses in the air
and their sterns lowered. Every yard increases their distance from the
pursuing horsemen.
They are pointing to a dead flat surface of old yellow grass, with
patches of rushes and ant-hills interspersed. There would appear to be a
mile or more of plain without a fence; but Mr. Sawyer spies a tell-tale
willow here and there, and he wishes in his heart that he was quite sure
Hotspur could jump water!
Presently the hounds disappear, and emerge again, throwing their tongues
as they take to running, and looking darker and less distinct than
before.
“Is there a ford, Charles?” halloos Major Brush, who has shaken to the
front, and would fain continue there without a wetting.
“Never a one for miles,” answers Charles with inconceivable rapidity,
catching his horse by the head, and performing a running accompaniment
with his spurs.
In a few seconds, he is over with a considerable effort, a certain
scramble and flourish when they land, showing there are very few inches
to spare.
The ill-fated Major has no idea of refusing. His horse however, thinks
differently; so they compromise the matter by sliding in together, and
climbing out separately, draggled, disgusted, and bemired.
“There is no mistake about it,” thinks Mr. Sawyer; “I must jump or else
go home!” He may take a liberty, he hopes, with a friend; so he puts the
roan’s head close behind the Honourable Crasher, and devoutly trusting
that gentleman will get over, drives Hotspur resolutely at the brook.
Topsy-Turvy, wild with excitement, throws her head in the air, and takes
off a stride too soon. Consequently she drops her hind legs, and rolls
into the opposite field. The roan, who jumps as far as ever he can,
lands on Crasher’s reins, of which the latter never lets go, and drives
them into the turf.
“Line, sir! line!” expostulates the Honourable, not knowing who it is.
“Oh! it’s you, is it?” he adds, picking himself up, and re-mounting.
“All right! Go along, old fellow! The hounds are running like smoke!”
Mr. Sawyer apologises freely as they gallop on. In his heart he thinks
Crasher the best fellow he ever met, and contrasts his behaviour with
that of Sir Samuel Stuffy in the Old Country, on whom he once played the
same trick, and whose language in return was more Pagan than
Parliamentary.
The master and Struggles get over also, the latter not without a
scramble. Those who are not in the first flight wisely diverge towards a
bridge. For five minutes and more there are but half-a-dozen men with
the hounds. These run harder than ever for another mile, then throw
their heads up, and come to an untoward check.
“What a pity!” exclaims Mr. Sawyer. Not that he thinks so exactly, for
Hotspur wants a puff of wind sadly.
“Turned by them sheep!” says Charles, and casts his hounds rapidly
forward and down wind. No; he has not been turned by the sheep: he has
been coursed by a dog. Charles wishes every dog in the country was with
Cerberus, except the nineteen couple now at fault.
“Pliant has it,” observes the master, as Pliant, feathering down the
side of a hedge, makes sure she is right, and then flings a note or two
off her silvery tongue, to apprise her gossips of the fact. They
corroborate her forthwith, and the chorus of female voices could scarce
be outdone at a christening. Nevertheless, they are brought to hunting
now, and must feel for it every yard they go.
But this interval has allowed some twenty equestrians, amongst whom a
graceful form in a habit is not the least conspicuous, to form the chase
once more. Great is the talking and self-gratulations. Watches are even
pulled out, and perspiring arrivals announce the result of their
observations, each man timing the burst to the moment at which he
himself came up.
“How well your horse carried you!” said a soft voice at Mr. Sawyer’s
elbow; “didn’t he, Papa?” added the siren, appealing to the Reverend
Dove, who was eagerly watching the hounds. “We all agreed that the
velvet cap had the best of it.”
She wanted to make amends to him for her rudeness in the morning, and
this was the opportunity to choose. The hardest male heart is
sufficiently malleable under the combined influence of heat, haste, and
excitement, though how this girl should have made the discovery it is
beyond my ingenuity to guess. How do they discover a thousand things, of
which we believe them to be ignorant?
Mr. Sawyer smiled his gratitude, as he opened a gate for the lady, and
very nearly let it swing back against her knees. He had not acquired
sufficient practice yet at his gates, that’s the truth; and perhaps
there were other portals wherein his inexperience had better have
forbidden him to venture. Miss Dove was fast luring him into a country
which, to use a hunting metaphor, was very cramped and blind, full of
“doubles,” “squire-traps,” and other pit-falls for the unwary.
Hounds are apt to be a little unsettled after so rapid a burst as I have
attempted to describe, and it takes a few fields of persevering
attention to steady them again. After this, however, I think we may have
remarked they made but few mistakes, and a fox well rattled, up to the
first check, huntsmen tell us, is as good as half killed.
The description of a run is tedious to all but the narrator. What good
wine a man should give his guests, who indulges in minute details of
every event that happened!—how they entered this spinny, and skirted
that wood, and crossed the common, and finally killed or lost, or ran to
ground, or otherwise put an end to the proceedings of which the reality
is so engrossing and the account so tedious. I have seen young men,
longing to join the ladies, or pining for their cigars, forced to sit
smothering their yawns as they pretended to take an interest in the
hounds and the huntsman, and the country, and their host’s own doings,
and that eternal black mare. I can stand it well enough myself, with a
fair allowance of ’41 or ’44, by abstracting my attention completely
from the narrative, and wandering in the realms of fancy, cheered by the
blushing fluid. But every one may not enjoy this faculty, and you
cannot, in common decency, go fast asleep in your Amphitryon’s face.
Again, I say, nothing but good wine will wash the infliction down. Let
him, then, whose port is new, or whose claret unsound, beware how he
thus trespasses on the forbearance of his guests.
Of course they killed their fox. After the first check they gradually
took to hunting, and so to running once more, Mr. Sawyer distinguishing
himself by describing a very perfect semicircle with Hotspur, over some
rails near Stanford Hall. The roan was tired, and his rider ambitious,
so a downfall was the inevitable result. Nevertheless, he fell
honourably enough, and hoped no one but himself knew how completely the
accident was occasioned by utter exhaustion on the part of his steed.
There is no secret so close as that between a horse and his rider. Up to
the first check, Hotspur had realised his owner’s fondest anticipations.
“He’s fit for a king!” ejaculated the delighted Sawyer, when they flew
so gallantly over the brook. Even after the hounds had run steadily on
for the best part of an hour, the animal’s character had only sunk to
“not thoroughly fit to go;” but when they arrived at the Hemplow Hills,
and the pack, still holding a fair hunting pace, breasted that choking
ascent, he could not disguise from himself that the roan was about “told
out.” They are indeed no joke, those well-known Hemplow Hills, when they
present themselves to astonished steeds and ardent riders after fifty
minutes over the strongest part of Northamptonshire. A sufficiently
picturesque object to the admirer of nature, they prove an unwelcome
obstacle to the follower of the chase, and it was no disgrace to poor
Hotspur that, although he struggled gamely to the top, he was reduced to
a very feeble and abortive attempt at a trot when he reached the flat
ground on the summit. Ere long this degenerated to a walk; and I leave
it to my reader, if a sportsman, to imagine with what feelings of relief
Mr. Sawyer observed the now distant pack turning short back. The fox was
evidently hard pressed, and dodging for his life.
The Rev. Dove, with an exceedingly red face, a broken stirrup-leather,
and a dirty coat, viewed him crawling slowly down the side of a
hedgerow. In an instant his hat was in the air, and Charles, surrounded
by his hounds, was galloping to the point indicated. Two sharp turns
with the fox in sight—a great enthusiasm and hurry amongst those
sportsmen who were fortunate enough to be present, and who _rode_, one
and all, considerably faster than their horses could go—a confused mass
of hounds rolling over each other in the corner of a field—Charles off
his horse, and amongst them, with a loud “Who-whoop”—and the run is
concluded, to the satisfaction of all lookers-on, and the irremediable
disgust of the many equestrians who started “burning with high hope,”
and are now struggling and stopping over the adjoining parish, in
different stages of exhaustion. The Honourable Crasher congratulates Mr.
Sawyer on his success; also takes this opportunity of introducing his
friend to the M.F.H. A few courteous sentences are interchanged; Messrs.
Savage, Struggles, and Brush propose a return to Harborough; cigars are
offered and lit; everybody seems pleased and excited. John Standish
Sawyer has attained the object for which he left home—he has seen a good
run, made a number of pleasant acquaintances, launched once more into
that gay world, which he now thinks he abandoned too soon. He _ought_ to
be delighted with his success: but, alas for human triumphs!
“Ay! even in the fount of joy,
Some bitter drops the draught alloy,”
and our friend, with many feigned excuses, and a dejected expression of
countenance, lingers behind his companions, and plods his way homewards
alone.
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