THE CUB-HUNTING.
The gong for breakfast sounded betimes at Hurdell Hall on the morning
of the first day's cub-hunting, as an early hour is always most
favourable for scent, and, as several guests were invited, an ample
meal was spread in the great dining-room, the several bay windows of
which overlooked the terrace and stately chase that spread far away
beyond it.
Sir Harry and his sister were the first who appeared, and the latter
looked round for the morning papers, but could see none.
Now, though the 'fair Lucretia,' as her friends frequently called
her, cared nothing about the war in Egypt, she liked to read about
the movements of 'the upper ten thousand'--their births, marriages,
deaths, and so forth--to all of which she addressed herself first, as
a City man does to the money article.
'Where are the papers, Harry?' she asked.
'I have ordered the butler to take them all away,' said he.
'Even the _Morning Post_?'
'Yes; even the _Post_.'
'Why?'
'Look here. I do not wish Lady Puddicombe to see _this_,' he
replied, taking a newspaper from his pocket, and indicating a
paragraph--another brief telegram from Egypt--which ran thus:
'The detachment of the Black Watch which was sent to Matarieh to make
a demonstration against the Bedouins of Zeid-el-Ourdeh has been
ordered back to head-quarters, and seems to have lost its other
officer--a very distinguished one--Captain Allan Graham, the Hon. the
Master of Aberfeldie, who is supposed to have fallen into some of the
same butcherly hands amid which Professor Palmer and his companions
perished.'
'Good heavens! _her_ brother!' exclaimed Miss Hurdell, actually
changing colour.
'Yes; and it must be kept from her--to-day, at least,' said Sir
Harry, concealing the fatal newspaper.
'Taken by the Bedouins--but she must learn it some time.'
'Well, I don't want her to learn it just now, poor girl, at all
events. I can't make a mull of the arrangements for the day, and I
don't want her to learn it here, if possible.'
'Why not here?'
'Certainly not from me.'
'Why not from _you_?'
'I hate to be imparter of evil news.'
'Oho,' said Miss Hurdell, elevating her eyebrows; 'sets the wind in
that quarter?'
'What do you mean, Lucretia?'
'Well, that she is not the first married lady you have taken a tender
interest in.'
'Lucretia!' exclaimed the baronet, in a tone of angry expostulation,
as some of their gentlemen guests came noisily in, in Russell cords,
top boots, and spurs, some in pink and some in black coats.
At that moment elsewhere were others who were more deeply and
terribly interested in the startling tidings from Matarieh, flashed
by the same electric wire.
Lord Aberfeldie was leisurely opening the _Times_, which Mr.
Tappleton had duly cut and aired for him, with the other morning
papers. His eyes ran rapidly over the columns for the last, news
from Egypt, which seemed very tame now, as all the fighting and
excitement were over; so Lady Aberfeldie was not watching him, as she
used to do, with anxiety, and neither was Olive, who was already deep
in the pages of the _Queen_, when an exclamation that escaped him
made them both start.
'What is the matter?' cried Lady Aberfeldie. 'You look ill, dear.'
'Uncle, what do you see?' added Olive. 'Is anything wrong
with--with----'
'Allan--yes.'
He was pale with a strange grey pallor, totally unlike his usually
sunburned and healthy tint, and he looked dazed as his face sank
forward on his breast.
'Our poor boy--our poor boy!'
'God help us, Aberfeldie! What is it?'
Olive snatched up the paper, and, after reading the paragraph we have
copied, reeled into a chair. And now a great horror fell upon all
the three, the mother's memory flashing back to the baby-boy that had
crowed and smiled upon her knee, and whose first tottering efforts to
cross the nursery floor she remembered yet.
Lord Aberfeldie, after recovering a little from the shock,
telegraphed to the War-Office for further information, but could
obtain none. They read the fatal paragraph again and again, till
every word of it seemed to be burned into their brains, and could but
indulge in endless surmises, and hope against hope; for had not the
public prints been teeming with the harrowing details of the capture
of Professor Palmer, Captain Gill, and Lieutenant Charrington, and of
them being pitilessly slaughtered by the Bedouins of the Aligal tribe?
As Olive recalled all this, her blood grew cold with apprehension.
The paragraph, though a terrible one, was frightfully vague. He was
'supposed to have fallen' into the hands of the Bedouins. At all
events, his party had come into Grand Cairo _without him!_
She, like Lady Aberfeldie, could not realise it for a time.
Alternately she sat like one stunned, and then walked up and down the
room with her slender fingers interlaced tightly and clasped upon her
head, as if she would thereby still the trouble that throbbed in her
brain and repress her heavy sorrow.
In memory and imagination how often did she rehearse her angry
parting scene with poor Allan and the last time she saw him--the
forcible embrace of Hawke Holcroft; the latter's mocking love-making;
the horror and loathing with which his touch inspired her; and
Allan's terrible glance as he flung away and left her--left her for
ever, as it seemed now.
Allan taken captive; he was sure to be slain like those of whom she
had read so much lately. He was gone from her, and never more--never
again could she show her repentant love for him, or make up for the
omissions and follies of the past by days of tenderness in the time
to come.
All was over now!
Profound was the speechless grief of his parents, and she was past
attempting to console them.
'Oh, Olive darling, don't look so strange!' said Ruby Logan, who had
come on a visit to them at Puddicombe Villa.
The tears were running down Ruby's cheeks, while those of Olive were
strangely dry, as if her fount of tears was frozen as yet.
Of Evan Cameron, if they thought at all amid this home calamity, they
knew the worst--that he was dead and buried like so many of his
brother-soldiers who fell at Tel-el-Kebir; but of Allan they had yet
the worst to know, if aught was ever known at all, which was
extremely improbable.
So the long day passed on and night came, and Olive stood at the open
window looking out at the waters of Spithead, the cold air from the
sea blowing upon her face. She was in a kind of waking trance rather
than deliberate thought, and strange figures like a phantasmagoria
seemed to evolve themselves out of the darkness.
But to return to the hunting breakfast at Hurdell Hall.
All unconscious that a fresh sorrow would fill her tender heart ere
long, Eveline came down in a charming morning-dress, looking pure and
pale as a young arum lily, and was at once the cynosure of many
admiring eyes; for, in addition to Sir Harry, Sir Paget, and Mr.
Poole, there were seven or eight others present, all in high spirits
and eager for the sport. Not that Sir Paget affected field sports
much, but he thought that it became his position to do so, and more
especially as he was the husband of so young a wife, to display a
certain amount of juvenility.
All present were ruddy-featured country gentlemen of various ages,
and while discussing an ample and genuine hunting-breakfast, though
some who were connected with the farming interest spoke of the
weather and the turnip-fly, of the Devonshire breed and short-horns,
of mangold-wurzel and the rotation of crops, matters about which,
sooth to say, Sir Paget and Mr. Poole knew no more than they did
about the philosophy of the Infinite, the conversation chiefly ran on
the matter in hand that day--the disadvantage of having the dogs'
collars too tightly buckled, of coupling a young hound with an old
one, and so forth.
'A very bad plan,' said Sir Harry, 'as the older dogs always vent
their spite on the younger by biting and rolling over them.'
'Because the pulling on both sides is not even,' said the Squire of
Furzydowns, a noted old sportsman, 'and, if a pair of dogs so coupled
come across a donkey, there is sure to be a row, for, when a bullock
will look round in stupid wonder, a donkey is apt to fly at hounds
with tooth and hoof.'
'A glorious morning this for the scent,' said Sir Harry; 'a dry
autumn one. And now let us be off. The advantage of hunting early
is that cubs or foxes, after a late supper or early breakfast, are
seldom in a condition to run long, and get blown, as we all know.'
To Sir Paget, who had neither heart nor interest in sport, and was
rapidly discussing the weather in all its probabilities, as to
whether there would be a change or continuance of its present aspect
and condition, Sir Harry said,
'Puddicombe, are you still determined to ride that bay horse with the
white star?'
'Yes,' replied Sir Paget, with just the slightest _soupçon_ of
bravado.
'Remember, I have warned you that he is rather a vicious brute, and
apt to shy his fences.'
'Please, do not ride him, Sir Paget,' urged Eveline, in a whisper;
'do not, for my sake.'
'I should rather think of my own, if I do it for anyone's sake at
all,' he snarled. He could not forgive her the general pallor and
sadness of her face. Death, it is said, hallows the dead anew to the
living. So it would be with the memory of Evan Cameron in the mind
of Eveline, thought Sir Paget bitterly, nor was he far wrong. And,
no doubt, it was rather hard upon him to know that his wife's
thoughts were all of another; but how innocently!
'As regards the bay horse,' he added, 'I will take my chance.'
He was loth to appear unable to do anything, and always deemed such
advice as the present an imputation on his age or capability; thus,
he did many a thing he would not have done had Eveline been twenty
years older.
After a few words aside with Sir Harry, Eveline turned again to her
husband, who had now left the table, and was finally adjusting his
tan-coloured boot-tops.
'Do not ride the horse,' said she, entreatingly. 'From what I hear,
he is beyond you.'
'Is he?' snarled Sir Paget, who was in one of his worst humours this
morning. 'But let me tell you, Lady Puddicombe, that I know
something about the choice of a horse, if I don't about the choice of
a wife!'
Eveline shrank back at this rude speech, and thought that, sooth to
say, he knew little how to choose either.
'Well--ride the horse, if you will,' said she, resignedly.
'I shall!' he replied, sharply.
Lucretia detected that something was wrong, and, raising her voice in
reply to something the Squire of Furzydown had said, she exclaimed,
laughingly,
'Ah, yes, the country is indeed glorious; for here you can have eggs
to breakfast that are laid while your hair is being dressed, and
flowers on the table fresh with the morning dew on them--yet, I love
London most, after all, especially in the season. And now,' she
added, 'shall my Charlie have its nicey, nicey breakfast of cream?'
And she emptied a silver jug of the latter into a china bowl for her
wheezy spaniel.
'What's up with old Sir Peter Teazle?' whispered her brother.
'That is more than I can tell you, Harry.'
The two ladies came forth to the door to see the gentlemen mount and
depart.
Sir Paget got into his saddle with some difficulty, as the bay hunter
swayed round and round, laid its ears back, and looked askance at
him, with red and bloodshot eyes.
Eveline knew not of her brother's calamity, and neither did Sir
Paget, for none had spoken of Egypt or Egyptian news, and no one at
Hurdell Hall was particularly interested in the Black Watch, herself
excepted; but she felt a mysterious and unaccountable prevision of
coming evil, and once more drew near to offer her pretty hand to Sir
Paget, doing so with affected playfulness, as the eyes of others were
admiringly upon her; but he, giving full rein to his thoughts about
that dead Cameron, whom she had loved and he hated, stooped from his
saddle, and said to her, with a bland smile meant also for other eyes,
'I have read, Lady Puddicombe, that "nothing exalts a man so much in
a woman's mind as his dying. Look at the affection of widows as
compared with that of wives." Ah, you are sorrowful, no doubt; but
sorrow takes a long while to kill anyone.'
She knew well what he meant. Her pale cheek crimsoned, and she
turned without a word, deeming it both absurd and cruel that he
should thus be retrospectively jealous.
The hunters rode merrily off, all in high spirits, save Sir Paget,
who jerked away with his head and was disposed to sulk, for the visit
to Hurdell Hall had wrought no change on Eveline; thus he did not,
like his companions, enjoy the delightful sense of rest and peace in
the cool morning ride to covert.
The country was silent; ploughmen and shepherds were, as yet,
scarcely abroad; and the full-fed cattle lay couched on the damp
grass that glistened with dew, and from amid which their breaths rose
like silvery steam, and ere long the pack was in sight--Grasper,
Pilot, Holdfast, Catch, and all the rest of them--
'With tails high mounted, ears hung low, and throats
With a whole gamut filled, of heavenly notes'
--at least in the estimation of the huntsmen.
Ere long the pack was put into the covert, and stirrup leathers were
tightened and readjusted in hot haste, but with the hunting, the
whipping of unbroken hounds that took to running after sheep, the
gallops over a few fields to get up an appetite for an early luncheon
at the Squire of Furzydown's, the 'chopping' of cubs, our story has
nothing to do, save in so far as one episode of the day is concerned.
Sir Paget in his heart wished 'the whole affair at Jericho,' or in a
warmer latitude. To him it was no amusement to set out without time
for shaving, to breakfast at an untimeous hour and before he could
get up an appetite, and to ride through the morning mist, with icy
feet and grasping reins sodden with dew, with the certainty of an
attack of rheumatism, when he should have been cosily nestling in
bed; and in addition to all these, having a terrible conflict ever
and anon with the bay hunter. Sir Harry thought him 'a silly old
fogie, who _would_ go cub-hunting to show the world how juvenile he
was,' and he was now beginning to console himself with the prospect
of a luxurious luncheon at Furzydown and the long, lazy afternoon he
would enjoy there before riding leisurely back in the evening to
dinner at Hurdell Hall, when Sir Harry would be sure to sing them the
old Coplow hunt song--
'Talk of horses and hounds
And the system of kennel,
Give me Leicestershire nags
And the hounds of old Menyell!'
To Eveline the long day after the early breakfast passed very slowly
at the Hall. She was in no anxiety for Sir Paget's speedy return,
especially after the cloudy manner of his departure, but there were
no other lady visitors there just then, and she and Lucretia Hurdell
had not a thought, sympathy, or topic in common, and she sighed in
utter weariness of spirit as the October day drew to a close, and the
brown and purple shadows of evening began to fall.
She thought how many such empty days as this were before her, as
autumn passed into winter, winter into spring, and the joyless
summer--joyless at least to her--would come again. Every morning
with its hopelessness, every noon with its listlessness, every
evening seeming more blank than the one that preceded it. Would she
ever more feel bright and merry as at Dundargue, and regain her sweet
and playful habits of caressing affection?
And for whom?
She stood in one of the many beautiful Tudor bay windows overlooking
the terrace and chase, idly and full of her own thoughts, and
curiously enough, to her, the rustle of the ivy on the painted panes,
of leaves as they fell from the trees, the stillness of the evening
hour, and the cawing of the rooks in the old belfry of the house
seemed ominous of coming evil.
Dusk had come on, the trees were taking strange shapes against the
sunset sky, a bat circled noiselessly before her, and the silver
crescent of the moon came out above a coppice.
A few of these trivial things were, by after events, fixed in her
memory, and associated with that calm and almost sultry October
evening--the lurid brightness of the sun as he set beyond the black
stems of the trees of the chase, the perfume of roses from a majolica
jardinière in the bay window, and the angry hum of a great bee
entangled among the lace of the curtains.
Suddenly she became aware that a group of men, some on horseback and
some on foot, was slowly approaching the house by the avenue. Amid
this group were four carrying a burden--a man apparently--on a door,
or some such improvised litter.
Then appeared a groom leading a horse by the bridle--the bay hunter
with a white star on his forehead!
A gasping cry escaped her; her poor, torn heart leaped, and then
seemed to cease beating, with the dreadful certainty that
something--a new calamity--had happened.