HORSE AND HOUND
In spite of the fact that Fitz had accepted Alexander O'Mulligan's
invitation to witness "Burns's do with the 'Gunner'" at the National
Sporting Club that evening, he retrieved his motor from the garage in
Regent Street, wherein Illyrian diplomacy had placed it, and
immediately after luncheon set out for the country with that other item
of his recovered property. He was accompanied by Coverdale. The Chief
Constable seemed to feel that the peace of our county could not endure
if he spent another night in the metropolis. He was certainly able to
return in the simple consciousness of having done his duty. Like a man
and a brother he had stood by a fellow Englishman in the hour of his
need.
To one of primitive rural instincts, such as myself, London under even
the most favourable conditions is apt to pall. During the reaction
which followed the excitements of the previous night it filled me with
loathing. But I owed it to an ingrained love of veracity that I should
drive to Bolton Street to offer consolation to my grandmother in the
hour of her affliction. She is a charming old lady, and she knows the
world. She was unaffectedly glad to see me and immediately ordered a
fire to be lit in the guest-chamber, although "she really didn't know
that I was in need of money." My explanation that it was spontaneous
natural affection which had led me to seek first-hand information on
the perennial subject of her bronchitis, merely provoked a display of
the engaging scepticism that seems to flourish in the hearts of old
ladies of considerable private means.
At the first moment consistent with honour--to be precise, on the
following Monday at noon--I found myself on No. 2 platform at the Grand
Central. The guilt of my conscience was agreeably countered by the
thrill of relief in my heart. I was going back to the Madam and Miss
Lucinda. Less than three days ago long odds had been laid by an
overwrought fancy that I should never see them again. Howbeit, the
fates, in their boundless leniency, had ordained that I should return
to tell the tale.
Yet, if I must confess the truth, such havoc had been worked with the
delicately hung nervous system of "a married man, a father of a family,
and a county member" that it would not have surprised me in the least,
even now I had taken my ticket for Middleham, to find the hand of a
well-dressed detective laid on my shoulder, or to find a revolver next
my temple at the instance of some sombre alien. Still, these fears
were hardly worthy of the broad light of day or of the distinction of
my escort. Not only was my relation by marriage returning with me, but
he had prevailed upon the amateur middle-weight champion of Great
Britain to accept Brasset's cordial invitation that he should satisfy
himself that the gentle art of chasing the fox was quite as well
understood by the Crackanthorpe Hounds as by the Galway Blazers.
In the presence of Alexander O'Mulligan's epic breadth of manner it was
impossible for a man to take pessimistic views of his destiny. If I
had a suspicion of the skill of a Dickens or a Thackeray I should try
to give that "touch of the brogue" which flavoured the conversation of
this paladin like a subtle condiment. Attached to our express in a
loose box, in the care of a native of Kerry, was "an accomplished
lepper" up to fifteen stone, not merely the envy of the Blazers, but of
every man, woman, and child in the kingdom of Ireland. If his price
was not three hundred of the yellow boys, his owner cordially invited
anybody--_anybody_ to contradict him violently.
Next to Alexander O'Mulligan's horse and his breadth of manner, his
clothes call for mention. Their cut and style must be pronounced as
"sporting." In particular his waistcoat was a thing of beauty. It was
a canary of the purest dye, forming a really piquant, indeed æsthetic,
contrast to the delicate tint of green in his eye. The presence in
that organ of that genial hue is thought by some to invite the
presumption of the worldly; but according to Joseph Jocelyn De Vere
Vane-Anstruther, whose humble devotion to his hero was almost pathetic,
it called for a very stout fellow indeed "to try it on" with the
amateur middle-weight champion of Great Britain.
Nevertheless, like every paladin of the great breed, Alexander
O'Mulligan was as gentle as he was brave. He had hardly set foot in
Dympsfield House, which he did somewhere about tea-time on the day of
his arrival in our parish, before he captured the heart of Miss
Lucinda. He straightway assumed the _rôle_ of a bear with the most
realistic and thrilling completeness. Not only was his growl like
distant thunder in the mountains, but also he had the faculty of
rolling his eyes in a savage frenzy, and over and above everything
else, a tendency to bite your legs upon little or no provocation. It
was not until he had promised to marry her that she could be induced to
part with him.
The ruler of Dympsfield House returned from Doughty Bridge, Yorks,
equally felicitous in her health and in her temper. We dined agreeably
_tête-à-tête_ with the aid of Heidsieck cuvée 1889. I reported that
the venerable inhabitant of Bolton Street, Mayfair, was supporting her
affliction with her accustomed grace and resignation; and duly received
the benediction of my parents-in-law, who in the opinion of their
youngest daughter had never been in more vigorous health--which is no
more than one expects to hear of those who dedicate their lives to
virtue.
I was in the act of paring an apple when Mrs. Arbuthnot said, with an
air of detachment that was Vane-Anstruther of very good quality, "By
the way, has anything been heard of that creature?"
"Creature, my angel?" said I. If my tone conveyed anything it was that
the world contained only one creature, and she at that moment was
balancing a piece of preserved ginger on her fruit knife.
"The circus woman."
"Circus woman?" said I, blandly. Our glasses were half empty and I
filled them up. "Somehow," said I, "this stuff does not seem equal to
the Bellinger that your father sends us at Christmas." Strictly
speaking this was not altogether the case, but then truth has many
aspects, as the pagan philosophers have found occasion to observe.
"Mrs. Fitz, you goose!"
"She has come home, I believe," said I, with a casual air, which all
the same belonged to the region of finished diplomacy.
"Come home!" The fount of my felicity indulged in a glower that can
only be described as truculent, but her flutelike tones had a little
piping thrill that softened its effect considerably. "Come home! Do
you mean to say that Fitz has taken her back again?"
"There is reason to believe he has done so."
"What amazing creatures men are!"
"Yes, _mon enfant_, we have the authority of Haeckel, that matter
assumed a very remarkable guise when man evolved himself out of the mud
and water."
"Don't be trivial, Odo. To think she has dared to come home. If I
were a man and my wife bolted with the chauffeur, I wonder if she would
dare to come home again?"
"The hypothesis is unthinkable. Freedom and poetry and romance,
translated into that overtaxed, down-trodden bondslave, the registered
and betrousered parliamentary voter!"
The next morning the Crackanthorpe met at the Marl Pits. All the world
and his wife were there. The lawless mobs which are the curse of
latter-day fox-hunting are not quite so rampant in our country as they
are in that of more than one of our neighbours. Why this merciful
dispensation has been granted to us no man can explain. It may be that
we have not a sufficient care for the "bubble reputation." But as our
reverend Vicar says, our immunity is one further proof, if such were
needed, that the Providence which watches over the lowliest of God's
creatures is essentially beneficent: certainly a very becoming frame of
mind for a humble-minded vicar in Christ who keeps ten horses in his
stables and hunts six days a week.
Brasset in a velvet cap winding the horn of his fathers is a figure for
respect. Even the Nimrods of the old school, who feel that his
courtesy and his care for the feelings of others are beneath the
dignity of the chase, accord to his office a recognition which they
would be the last to grant to his merely human qualities. This morning
the noble Master was esquired by his distinguished guest. The
O'Mulligan of Castle Mulligan, pride of the Blazers, possessor of the
straightest left in the western hemisphere, was immediately presented
to the mistress of Dympsfield House.
That lady, mounted so expensively, that her weakling of a husband was
deservedly condemned to bestride a quadruped that Joseph Jocelyn De
Vere Vane-Anstruther publicly stigmatised as "an insult to the 'unt,'"
was instantly prepossessed, as her daughter had been, in favour of the
amateur middle-weight champion. Certainly his blandishments were many.
Grinning from ear to ear, revealing two regular and gleaming rows of
white teeth, his bearing had both grace and cordiality. His smile in
itself was enough to take the bone out of the ground, and he had all
the charming volubility of his nation. As for his aide-de-camp, he too
deserves mention. Having done very well at "snooker" the previous day,
my relation by marriage was looking very pleasant and happy in the most
perfectly fitting coat that ever embellished the human form. He was
mounted on Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, the _pièce de résistance_ of his
stable.
We were accepting the hospitality of the Reverend, an agreeable
function that was rendered necessary by the fact that his parsonage is
within a mile of the tryst, when portentous toot-toots accompanied by
prodigious gruntings assailed our ears.
"I say, Jo," said Alexander O'Mulligan in an aside to his admiring
camp-follower, "here comes ould Fizzamagig."
This elegant pseudonym veiled the identity of the most august of her
sex. The famous fur coat and the bell-shaped topper converged upon the
Rectory gravel, at the instance of a worn-out dust distributor whose
manifold grunts and wheezes all too clearly proclaimed that it belonged
to an early phase of the industry.
It was the broad light of day, I was in the midst of friends and
brother sportsmen, but once again the chill of apprehension went down
my spine. For an instant I had a vision of pink satin. Mrs. Catesby
accepted the glass of brown sherry and the piece of cake respectfully
proffered by the Church. But while she discoursed of parochial
commonplaces in that penetrating voice of hers, it was plain that her
august head was occupied with affairs of state. Her grave grey eye
travelled to the middle of the lawn, where the noble Master was sharing
a ham sandwich with Halcyon and Harmony; thence to the inadequately
mounted Member for the Uppingdon Division of Middleshire; thence to the
Magnificent Youth and the heroic O'Mulligan. Finally in contemplative
austerity it rested upon the trim outline of the lady whose habit had
not a fault, although there is reason to believe that in the eyes of
one it erred a little on the side of fashion, who with the aid of the
Parsoness and Laura Glendinning was engaged in putting the scheme of
things in its appointed order.
Once again I was undergoing the process of feeling profoundly
uncomfortable, when we were regaled with an incident so pregnant with
drama that a mere private emotion was swept away. An imperious vision
in a scarlet coat, mounted on a noble and generous horse, came in at
the Parson's gate. She was accompanied by the son-in-law of Ferdinand
the Twelfth.
"What ho, the military!" murmured Alexander O'Mulligan.
To the sheer amazement of all, save three of his followers, the Master
of the Crackanthorpe was the first to greet Mrs. Fitz. A recent
incident was fresh in the minds of all. It was pretty well understood
that "the circus rider from Vienna" and her cavalier entered the
Rectory grounds without an invitation, for the Fitzwaren stock stood
lower than ever in the market. It was expected of our battered and
traduced chieftain that at least he should withhold official
recognition from these lawless invaders. He was expected to vindicate
his office and maintain what was left of his dignity by looking
assiduously in another direction. But he did nothing of the sort.
In the most heedless and tactless manner the noble Master proceeded to
forfeit the sympathy, the esteem, and the confidence of those who had
hitherto dispensed those commodities so lavishly. It would be hard to
conceive a more grievous affront to the feminine followers of the
Crackanthorpe than was furnished by the Master's personal reception of
the lady in the scarlet coat. The grave, yet cordial humility of his
bearing, admirably Christian in the light of too-recent history,
received no interpretation in the terms of the higher altruism.
"He will have to resign," breathed the august Mrs. Catesby in the ear
of the outraged Laura Glendinning.
It was a relief to everybody when a move was made to the top cover.
Without loss of time the question of questions was put. Was the famous
ticked fox at home? Was that almost mythical customer, whose legend
was revered in three countries, in his favourite earth?
In a half-circle, each thinking his thoughts, and with a furtive eye
for his neighbour, we waited.
A succession of silvery notes from the pack at last proclaimed the
answer to the question. As usual the father of cunning had set his
mask for Langley Dumbles. One of the stiffest bits of country in the
Shires lay stretched out ahead. Two distinct and well-defined courses
were immediately presented to the field. The one was pregnant with
grief yet fragrant with glory. The other, if not the path of honour,
was certainly more appropriate to the married man, the father of the
family, and the county member, particularly if the wife of the member
has a weakness for three-hundred-guinea hunters. There was also a
middle course for those who, while retaining some semblance of
ambition, have learned to temper it with prudence, observation, and
sagacity. It was to the middle course that nature had condemned old
Dobbin Grey and his rider.
Not for us the intemperate delights of the thruster. Crash through a
bullfinch went Alexander O'Mulligan, the pride of the Blazers. Almost
in his pocket followed the lady in the scarlet coat. Almost in hers
followed Mrs. Arbuthnot. Laura Glendinning and little Mrs. Josiah P.
Perkins were obviously hardening their hearts for prodigious deeds of
gallantry. It was already clear as the sun at noon that if our old and
sportsmanlike friend, whose jacket had the curious ticking, only kept
to the line it generally pleased him to follow, some very jealous
riding was about to be witnessed among the feminine followers of the
Crackanthorpe Hounds.
"My God, they call this 'untin'!" said Joseph Jocelyn De Vere
Vane-Anstruther, who to his disgust had allowed himself, in the
preliminary scuffle for places, to be nonplussed by the unparalleled
ardour of these Amazons.
One thing was obvious. Old Dobbin Grey and his rider were a little too
near the centre of the picture. Let us blush to relate it, but at the
obsequious promptings of memory we moved down the hedgerow of that wide
and heavy pasture, yea, even unto its uttermost left-hand corner where
a gate was known to lurk. But alas! Nemesis lurked also in that
corner of the landscape. For we were doomed to discover that the
eternal standby of the lover of the middle course, nay the indubitable
emblem of it, the goodly handgate, had been removed of malice prepense,
and in lieu thereof was a stiff and upstanding post and rails, freshly
planted and painted newly!
It was a great shock to the old horse. It was also a crisis in the
life of his rider. The rails looked terribly high and stout; we had
lost so much time already that every second was priceless if we were to
see hounds again. It was hard on the old horse, yet it really seemed
that there was only one thing to be done. However, before resolve
could be translated into action, other lovers of the middle course bore
down upon us; no less a pair than Mrs. Catesby mounted upon Marian.
"It was my intention not to speak to you again, Odo Arbuthnot," said
the august rider of Marian, "but if you will give us a lead over that
post and rails we will follow."
"_Place aux dames_," said I, with ingrained gallantry. "Besides, you
are quite as competent to break that top rail as we are."
"Out hunting," said the high-minded votary of Diana, "you must behave
like a gentleman, even if at the Savoy----"
With due encouragement the old horse really did very well indeed,
hitting the top rail fore and aft it is true, describing in his descent
a geometrical figure not unlike a parabola, but landing on his legs and
gathering himself up quite respectably in the adjoining fifty acres of
ridge and furrow. With a little pardonable condescension, I turned
round to look how Marian would behave with her resolute-minded
mistress. It is no disparagement to the Dobbin to say that Mrs.
Catesby's chestnut is a cleverer beast than he ever was, also she has
youth on her side; and she is taller by a hand. She grazed the rail
with her hind legs, but her performance was quite good enough to be
going on with.
Mrs. Catesby can ride as straight as anybody, but now she is "A Mother
of Seven" who writes to the _Times_ upon the subject of educational
reform, and she has taken to sitting upon committees--in more senses
than one--she feels that she owes it to the mothers of the nation that
she should set them an example in the matter of paying due respect to
their vertebrae. The negotiation of the post and rails had put us on
excellent terms with ourselves, if not with each other, and side by
side we made short work of the fifty acres of ridge and furrow; popped
through a sequence of handgates and along a succession of lanes; and
made such a liberal use of the craft that we had painfully acquired in
the course of more seasons than we cared to remember, that in the end
it was only by the mercy of Allah that we did not head the fox!
The fortune of war had placed us in the first flight, but the
celebrated customer was still going so strong that we should have to
show cause if we were going to remain there.
The noble Master was looking very anxious. Well he might, for between
him and his hounds was the lady in the scarlet coat. Mounted upon the
most magnificent-looking bay horse I have ever seen she seemed fully
prepared to hunt the pack. And I grieve to relate that following hard
upon her line, and as close as equine flesh and blood could contrive
it, was Mrs. Arbuthnot on her three-hundred-guinea hunter.
"Look at Mops," quoth a disgusted voice. "Clean off her rocker. Hope
to God there won't be a check, that's all!"
Jodey soared by us, taking a fence in his stride.
On the contrary, old Dobbin Grey was beginning devoutly to hope that a
check there would be. But, as game as a pebble, the old warrior
struggled on. It would never do for him to be cut out by Marian, and
in that opinion his rider concurred. Luckily we found an easy place in
the fence, but all too soon a more formidable obstacle presented
itself. It was Langley Brook. Very bold jumping would be called for
to save a wet jacket; and it is an open secret that, even in his prime,
the Dobbin has always held that the only possible place for water is a
stable bucket.
We decided to go round by the bridge. A perfectly legitimate
resolution, I am free to maintain, for ardent followers of the middle
course. Having arrived at this statesmanlike decision there was time
to look ahead. It was not without trepidation that we did so. In
front was a welter of ambitious first flighters. Yet, as always, the
one to catch the eye was the lady in the scarlet coat. Utterly
heedless, she went at the Brook at its widest, the noble bay rose like
a Centaur and landed in safety. Sticking ever to her, closer than a
sister, was Mrs. Arbuthnot. I shuddered and had a vision of a broken
back for the three-hundred-guinea hunter, and a ducking for its rider.
Happily, if you are a member of the clan Vane-Anstruther, the more
critical the moment the cooler you are apt to be; also you are born
with the priceless faculty of sitting still and keeping down your
hands. The three-hundred-guinea hunter floundered on to the opposite
bank, threatened to fall back into the stream, by a Herculean effort
recovered itself and emerged on _terra firma_.
It was with a heart devout with gratitude that I turned to the bridge.
To my surprise, for as all my attention had been for the Brook I had
had none to spare for the field as a whole, I found myself cheek by
jowl with Jodey. In the hunting field I know no young man whom nature
has endowed so happily. His air of world-weariness is a cloak for a
justness of perception, which apparently without the expenditure of the
least exertion generally lands him there or thereabouts at the finish.
"The silly blighters!--don't they see they have lost their fox?"
This piece of criticism was hurled not merely at the Amazons, who had
already negotiated the water, but also at the noble Master and his
attendant satellites who were in the act of following their example.
"Reggie is quite right for once," said a voice from the near side,
severe and magisterial in quality. "It is his duty to prevent, if he
can, his hounds being overridden by those unspeakable women. If Irene
belonged to me I should send her straight home to bed."
"Ought to be smacked," said the sportsman on the off side, cordially.
"Anybody'd think she'd had no upbringin'!"
Feeling in a sense responsible for the misbehaviour of my lawful
property, I "lay low and said nuffin." Indeed, there was precious
little to be said in defence of such conduct in the presence of the
whole field.
On the strength of Jodey's pronouncement we crossed the bridge at our
leisure. As usual his wisdom hastened to justify itself. Reynard was
tucked snugly under a haystack, doubtless with his pad to his nose. He
was upon sacred earth, where, after a tremendous turn-up with Peter,
the Crackanthorpe terrier, the Crackanthorpe hounds and the
Crackanthorpe huntsman reluctantly left him.
A halt was called; flasks and sandwiches were produced; and the
honourable company of the less enterprising, or the less fortunate,
began to assemble in force without the precincts of the Manor Farm
stackyard. Conversation grew rife; and at least one fragment that
penetrated to my ears was pungent.
"Look here, Mops," was its context, "when do you suppose you are goin'
to give over playing the goat?"
The rider of the three-hundred-guinea hunter was splashed with mud up
to her green collar, her hair was coming down, her hat was anyhow, her
cheeks were flame colour, and the sides of Malvolio were sobbing.
"_Mon enfant_," I ventured sadly to observe, "it may be magnificent,
but it is not the art of chasing the fox, even as it is practised in
the flying countries."
The light of battle flamed in the eyes of the star of my destiny.
"What nonsense you talk, Odo! Do you think that the circus woman----"
"Sssh! She will hear you."
"Hope she will!"
"Fact is, Mops," said her admonisher in chief, "as I've always said,
you are only fit for a _provincial_ pack."
Having thus delivered himself Mrs. Arbuthnot's brother washed his hands
of this "hard case" in the completest and most effectual manner. He
turned about and bestowed his best bow upon the circus rider from
Vienna. The act was certainly irrational. The behaviour of the lady
in the scarlet coat was quite as much exposed to censure. To be sure
her nationality was to be urged in her defence, but then, as the sorely
tried Master confided to me in a pathetic aside, "she had been out
quite often enough to learn the rules of the game."
"You can't expect Crown Princesses, my dear fellow, to trouble about
rules," said I. "They make their own."
"Then I wish they would hunt hounds of their own and leave mine to me,"
said the long-suffering one tragically. "It turns me dizzy every time
I see her among 'em. If Fitz had any sense of decency he would look
after her."
"Fitz is the slave of circumstance. Brasset, if you are a wise fellow
and you are not above taking the advice of a friend, you will never
marry the next in succession to an old-established and despotic
monarchy."
"My God--no!" The voice of the noble Master vibrated with profound
emotion.
In honour of this resolution we exchanged flasks.