Our ball had failed so completely, that Jemmy, who was bent still upon
fashion, caught eagerly at Tagrag's suggestion, and went down to
Tuggeridgeville. If we had a difficulty to find friends in town, here
there was none; for the whole county came about us, ate our dinners and
suppers, danced at our balls—ay, and spoke to us too. We were great
people, in fact; I a regular country gentleman; and, as such, Jemmy
insisted that I should be a sportsman, and join the county hunt. "But,"
says I, "my love, I can't ride." "Pooh! Mr. C.," she said, "you're
always making difficulties; you thought you couldn't dance a quadrille;
you thought you couldn't dine at seven o'clock; you thought you couldn't
lie in bed after six; and haven't you done every one of these things?
You must and you shall ride!" And when my Jemmy said "must and shall," I
knew very well there was nothing for it: so I sent down fifty guineas to
the hunt, and, out of compliment to me, the very next week I received
notice that the meet of the hounds would take place at Squashtail
Common, just outside of my lodge-gates.
I didn't know what a meet was; and me and Mrs. C. agreed that it was
most probable the dogs were to be fed there: however, Tagrag explained
this matter to us, and very kindly promised to sell me a horse, a
delightful animal of his own; which, being desperately pressed for
money, he would let me have for a hundred guineas, he himself having
given a hundred and fifty for it.
Well, the Thursday came; the hounds met on Squashtail Common; Mrs. C.
turned out in her barouche to see us throw off; and being helped up on
my chestnut horse, Trumpeter, by Tagrag and my head groom, I came
presently round to join them.
Tag mounted his own horse; and as we walked down the avenue, "I
thought," he said, "you told me you knew how to ride; and that you had
ridden once fifty miles on a stretch!"
"And so I did," says I: "to Cambridge, and on the box too."
"_On the box?_" says he; "but did you ever mount a horse before?"
"Never," says I, "but I find it mighty easy."
"Well," says he, "you're mighty bold for a barber; and I like you, Coxe,
for your spirit;" and so we came out of the gate.
As for describing the hunt, I own, fairly, I can't. I've been at a hunt,
but what a hunt is—why the horses _will_ go among the dogs and ride them
down—why the men cry out "yooooic"—why the dogs go snuffling about in
threes and fours, and the huntsman says, "Good Towler—good Betsy;" and
we all of us after him, say, "Good Towler—good Betsy" in course: then,
after hearing a yelp here, and a howl there, tow, row, yow, yow, yow!
bursts out, all of a sudden, from three or four of them, and the chap in
the velvet cap screeches out (with a number of oaths I shan't repeat
here), "Hark, to Ringwood!" and then, "There he goes!" says some one;
and all of a sudden, helter skelter, skurry hurry, slap bang, hooping,
screeching, and hurraing, blue coats and red coats, bays and greys,
horses, dogs, donkeys, butchers, baronets, dustmen, and blackguard boys,
go tearing, all together, over the common after two or three of the pack
that yowl the loudest. Why all this is, I can't say, but it all took
place the second Thursday of last March, in my presence.
Up to this I'd kept my seat as well as the best, for we'd only been
trotting gently about the field until the dogs found: and I managed to
stick on very well; but directly the tow-rowing began, off went
Trumpeter like a thunderbolt, and I found myself playing among the dogs
like the donkey among the chickens. "Back, Mr. Coxe," holloas the
huntsman; and so I pulled very hard, and cried out, Wo! but he wouldn't;
and on I went galloping for the dear life. How I kept on is a wonder;
but I squeezed my knees in very tight, and shoved my feet very hard into
the stirrups, and kept stiff hold of the scruff of Trumpeter's neck, and
looked betwixt his ears as well as ever I could, and trusted to luck,
for I was in a mortal fright, sure enough, as many a better man would be
in such a case, let alone a poor hairdresser.
As for the hounds, after my first riding in among them, I tell you,
honestly, I never saw so much as the tip of one of their tails; nothing
in this world did I see except Trumpeter's dun-coloured mane, and that I
gripped firm: riding, by the blessing of luck, safe through the walking,
the trotting, the galloping, and never so much as getting a tumble.
There was a chap at Croydon, very well known as the "Spicy Dustman,"
who, when he could get no horse to ride to the hounds, turned regularly
out on his donkey; and on this occasion made one of us. He generally
managed to keep up with the dogs, by trotting quietly through the cross
roads, and knowing the country well. Well, having a good guess where the
hounds would find, and the line that sly Reynolds (as they call the fox)
would take, the Spicy Dustman turned his animal down the lane, from
Squashtail to Cutshins Common, across which, sure enough, came the whole
hunt. There's a small hedge and a remarkably fine ditch here; some of
the leading chaps took both, in gallant style; others went round by a
gate, and so would I, only I couldn't; for Trumpeter would have the
hedge, and be-hanged to him, and went right for it.
Hoop! if ever you _did_ try a leap! Out go your legs, out fling your
arms, off goes your hat; and the next thing you feel, that is, _I_ did,
is a most tremendous thwack across the chest, and my feet jerked out of
the stirrups; me left in the branches of a tree; Trumpeter gone clean
from under me, and walloping and floundering in the ditch underneath.
One of the stirrup-leathers had caught in a stake, and the horse
couldn't get away; and neither of us, I thought, ever _would_ have got
away; but, all of sudden, who should come up the lane but the Spicy
Dustman!
"Holloa!" says I, "you gent, just let us down from this here tree!"
"Lor!" says he, "I'm blest if I didn't take you for a robin."
"Let's down," says I; but he was all this time employed in disengaging
Trumpeter, whom he got out of the ditch, trembling and as quiet as
possible. "Let's down," says I. "Presently," says he; and taking off his
coat, he begins whistling and swishing down Trumpeter's sides and
saddle; and, when he had finished, what do you think the rascal did?—he
just quietly mounted on Trumpeter's back, and shouts out, "Git down
yourself, old Bears-grease; you've only to drop! _I'll_ give your oss a
hairing arter them 'ounds; and you, vy you may ride back my pony to
Tuggeridgeweal!" And with this, I'm blest if he didn't ride away,
leaving me holding, as for the dear life, and expecting every minute the
branch would break.
It _did_ break too, and down I came into the slush; and when I got out
of it, I can tell you I didn't look much like the Venuses or the Apollor
Belvidearis what I used to dress and titivate up for my shop-window,
when I was in the hairdressing line, or smell quite so elegant as our
rose-oil. Faugh! what a figure I was!
I had nothing for it but to mount the dustman's donkey (which was very
quietly cropping grass in the hedge), and to make my way home; and after
a weary, weary journey, I arrived at my own gate.
A whole party was assembled there. Tagrag, who had come back; their
Excellencies Mace and Punter, who were on a visit; and a number of
horses walking up and down before the whole of the gentlemen of the
hunt, who had come in after losing their fox! "Here's Squire Coxe!"
shouted the grooms. Out rushed the servants, out poured the gents of the
hunt, and on trotted poor me, digging into the donkey, and everybody
dying with laughter at me.
Just as I got up to the door, a horse came galloping up, and passed me;
a man jumped down, and taking off a fantail-hat, came up, very gravely,
to help me down.
"Squire," says he, "how came you by that there hanimal? Jist git down,
will you, and give it to its howner."
"Rascal!" says I, "didn't you ride off on my horse?"
"Was there ever sich ingratitude?" says the Spicy. "I found this year
oss in a pond, I saves him from drowning, I brings him back to his
master, and he calls me a rascal!"
The grooms, the gents, the ladies in the balcony, my own servants, all
set up a roar at this; and so would I, only I was so deucedly ashamed as
not to be able to laugh just then.
And so my first day's hunting ended. Tagrag and the rest declared I
showed great pluck, and want me to try again; but "no," says I, "I
_have_ been."
[Illustration:
APRIL.—The finishing touch
]