The Brake Country
"What does your father mean to do about Trumpington Wood?" That was
the first word from Lord Chiltern after he had shaken hands with his
guest.
"Isn't it all right yet?"
"All right? No! How can a wood like that be all right without a man
about the place who knows anything of the nature of a fox? In your
grandfather's time--"
"My great-uncle you mean."
"Well;--your great-uncle!--they used to trap the foxes there. There
was a fellow named Fothergill who used to come there for shooting.
Now it is worse than ever. Nobody shoots there because there is
nothing to shoot. There isn't a keeper. Every scamp is allowed to go
where he pleases, and of course there isn't a fox in the whole place.
My huntsman laughs at me when I ask him to draw it." As the indignant
Master of the Brake Hounds said this the very fire flashed from his
eyes.
"My dear," said Lady Chiltern expostulating, "Lord Silverbridge
hasn't been in the house above half an hour."
"What does that matter? When a thing has to be said it had better be
said at once."
Phineas Finn was staying at Harrington with his intimate friends
the Chilterns, as were also a certain Mr. and Mrs. Maule, both of
whom were addicted to hunting,--the lady, whose maiden name had
been Palliser, being a cousin to Lord Silverbridge. On that day
also a certain Mr. and Mrs. Spooner dined at Harrington. Mr. and
Mrs. Spooner were both very much given to hunting, as seemed to
be necessarily the case with everybody admitted to that house. Mr.
Spooner was a gentleman who might be on the wrong side of fifty, with
a red nose, very vigorous, and submissive in regard to all things
but port-wine. His wife was perhaps something more than half his age,
a stout, hard-riding, handsome woman. She had been the penniless
daughter of a retired officer,--but yet had managed to ride on
whatever animal any one would lend her. Then Mr. Spooner, who had for
many years been part and parcel of the Brake hunt, and who was much
in want of a wife, had, luckily for her, cast his eyes upon Miss
Leatherside. It was thought that upon the whole she made him a good
wife. She hunted four days a week, and he could afford to keep horses
for her. She never flirted, and wanted no one to open gates. Tom
Spooner himself was not always so forward as he used to be; but his
wife was always there and would tell him all that he did not see
himself. And she was a good housewife, taking care that nothing
should be spent lavishly, except upon the stable. Of him, too, and of
his health, she was careful, never scrupling to say a word in season
when he was likely to hurt himself, either among the fences or among
the decanters. "You ain't so young as you were, Tom. Don't think of
doing it." This she would say to him with a loud voice when she would
find him pausing at a fence. Then she would hop over herself and he
would go round. She was "quite a providence to him," as her mother,
old Mrs. Leatherside, would say.
She was hardly the woman that one would have expected to meet as
a friend in the drawing-room of Lady Chiltern. Lord Chiltern was
perhaps a little rough, but Lady Chiltern was all that a mother, a
wife, and a lady ought to be. She probably felt that some little
apology ought to be made for Mrs. Spooner. "I hope you like hunting,"
she said to Silverbridge.
"Best of all things," said he, enthusiastically.
"Because you know this is Castle Nimrod, in which nothing is allowed
to interfere with the one great business of life."
"It's like that; is it?"
"Quite like that. Lord Chiltern has taken up hunting as his duty in
life, and he does it with his might and main. Not to have a good day
is a misery to him;--not for himself but because he feels that he is
responsible. We had one blank day last year, and I thought that he
never would recover it. It was that unfortunate Trumpington Wood."
"How he will hate me."
"Not if you will praise the hounds judiciously. And then there is
a Mr. Spooner coming here to-night. He is the first-lieutenant. He
understands all about the foxes, and all about the farmers. He has
got a wife."
"Does she understand anything?"
"She understands him. She is coming too. They have not been married
long, and he never goes anywhere without her."
"Does she ride?"
"Well; yes. I never go out myself now because I have so much of it
all at home. But I fancy she does ride a good deal. She will talk
hunting too. If Chiltern were to leave the country I think they ought
to make her master. Perhaps you'll think her rather odd; but really
she is a very good woman."
"I am sure I shall like her."
"I hope you will. You know Mr. Finn. He is here. He and my husband
are very old friends. And Adelaide Maule is your cousin. She hunts
too. And so does Mr. Maule,--only not quite so energetically. I think
that is all we shall have."
Immediately after that all the guests came in at once, and a
discussion was heard as they were passing through the hall.
"No;--that wasn't it," said Mrs. Spooner loudly. "I don't care what
Dick said." Dick Rabbit was the first whip, and seemed to have been
much exercised with the matter now under dispute. "The fox never went
into Grobby Gorse at all. I was there and saw Sappho give him a line
down the bank."
"I think he must have gone into the gorse, my dear," said her
husband. "The earth was open, you know."
"I tell you she didn't. You weren't there, and you can't know. I'm
sure it was a vixen by her running. We ought to have killed that
fox, my Lord." Then Mrs. Spooner made her obeisance to her hostess.
Perhaps she was rather slow in doing this, but the greatness of the
subject had been the cause. These are matters so important, that the
ordinary civilities of the world should not stand in their way.
"What do you say, Chiltern?" asked the husband.
"I say that Mrs. Spooner isn't very often wrong, and that Dick Rabbit
isn't very often right about a fox."
"It was a pretty run," said Phineas.
"Just thirty-four minutes," said Mr. Spooner.
"Thirty-two up to Grobby Gorse," asserted Mrs. Spooner. "The hounds
never hunted a yard after that. Dick hurried them into the gorse, and
the old hound wouldn't stick to his line when she found that no one
believed her."
This was on a Monday evening, and the Brake hounds went out generally
five days a week. "You'll hunt to-morrow, I suppose?" Lady Chiltern
said to Silverbridge.
"I hope so."
"You must hunt to-morrow. Indeed there is nothing else to do.
Chiltern has taken such a dislike to shooting-men, that he won't
shoot pheasants himself. We don't hunt on Wednesdays or Sundays, and
then everybody lies in bed. Here is Mr. Maule, he lies in bed on
other mornings as well, and spends the rest of his day riding about
the country looking for the hounds."
"Does he ever find them?"
"What did become of you all to-day?" said Mr. Maule, as he took his
place at the dinner-table. "You can't have drawn any of the coverts
regularly."
"Then we found our foxes without drawing them," said the Master.
"We chopped one at Bromleys," said Mr. Spooner.
"I went there."
"Then you ought to have known better," said Mrs. Spooner. "When a man
loses the hounds in that country, he ought to go direct to Brackett's
Wood. If you had come on to Brackett's, you'd have seen as good a
thirty-two minutes as ever you wished to ride." When the ladies went
out of the room Mrs. Spooner gave a parting word of advice to her
husband, and to the host. "Now, Tom, don't you drink port-wine. Lord
Chiltern, look after him, and don't let him have port-wine."
Then there began an altogether different phase of hunting
conversation. As long as the ladies were there it was all very well
to talk of hunting as an amusement; good sport, a thirty minutes
or so, the delight of having a friend in a ditch, or the glory of
a stiff-built rail were fitting subjects for a lighter hour. But
now the business of the night was to begin. The difficulties, the
enmities, the precautions, the resolutions, the resources of the
Brake hunt were to be discussed. And from thence the conversation of
these devotees strayed away to the perils at large to which hunting
in these modern days is subjected;--not the perils of broken necks
and crushed ribs, which can be reduced to an average, and so an end
made of that small matter; but the perils from outsiders, the perils
from new-fangled prejudices, the perils from more modern sports, the
perils from over-cultivation, the perils from extended population,
the perils from increasing railroads, the perils from literary
ignorances, the perils from intruding cads, the perils from
indifferent magnates,--the Duke of Omnium, for instance;--and that
peril of perils, the peril of decrease of funds and increase of
expenditure! The jaunty gentleman who puts on his dainty breeches,
and his pair of boots, and on his single horse rides out on a
pleasant morning to some neighbouring meet, thinking himself a
sportsman, has but a faint idea of the troubles which a few staunch
workmen endure in order that he may not be made to think that his
boots, and his breeches, and his horse, have been in vain.
A word or two further was at first said about that unfortunate wood
for which Silverbridge at the present felt himself responsible. Finn
said that he was sure the Duke would look to it, if Silverbridge
would mention it. Chiltern simply groaned. Silverbridge said nothing,
remembering how many troubles he had on hand at this moment. Then
by degrees their solicitude worked itself round to the cares of a
neighbouring hunt. The A. R. U. had lost their Master. One Captain
Glomax was going, and the county had been driven to the necessity
of advertising for a successor. "When hunting comes to that," said
Lord Chiltern, "one begins to think that it is in a bad way." It may
always be observed that when hunting-men speak seriously of their
sport, they speak despondingly. Everything is going wrong. Perhaps
the same thing may be remarked in other pursuits. Farmers are
generally on the verge of ruin. Trade is always bad. The Church is in
danger. The House of Lords isn't worth a dozen years' purchase. The
throne totters.
"An itinerant Master with a carpet-bag never can carry on a country,"
said Mr. Spooner.
"You ought really to have a gentleman of property in the county,"
said Lord Chiltern, in a self-deprecating tone. His father's acres
lay elsewhere.
"It should be someone who has a real stake in the country," replied
Mr. Spooner,--"whom the farmers can respect. Glomax understood
hunting no doubt, but the farmers didn't care for him. If you don't
have the farmers with you you can't have hunting." Then he filled a
glass of port.
"If you don't approve of Glomax, what do you think of a man like
Major Tifto?" asked Mr. Maule.
"That was in the Runnymede," said Spooner contemptuously.
"Who is Major Tifto?" asked Lord Chiltern.
"He is the man," said Silverbridge, boldly, "who owned Prime Minister
with me, when he didn't win the Leger last September."
"There was a deuce of a row," said Maule. Then Mr. Spooner, who read
his "Bell's Life" and "Field" very religiously, and who never missed
an article in "Bayley's," proceeded to give them an account of
everything that had taken place in the Runnymede Hunt. It mattered
but little that he was wrong in all his details. Narrations always
are. The result to which he came was nearly right when he declared
that the Major had been turned off, that a committee had been
appointed, and that Messrs. Topps and Jawstock had been threatened
with a lawsuit.
"That comes," said Lord Chiltern solemnly, "of employing men like
Major Tifto in places for which they are radically unfit. I dare say
Major Tifto knew how to handle a pack of hounds,--perhaps almost as
well as my huntsman, Fowler. But I don't think a county would get on
very well which appointed Fowler Master of Hounds. He is an honest
man, and therefore would be better than Tifto. But--it would not do.
It is a position in which a man should at any rate be a gentleman. If
he be not, all those who should be concerned in maintaining the hunt
will turn their backs upon him. When I take my hounds over this man's
ground, and that man's ground, certainly without doing him any good,
I have to think of a great many things. I have to understand that
those whom I cannot compensate by money, I have to compensate by
courtesy. When I shake hands with a farmer and express my obligation
to him because he does not lock his gates, he is gratified. I don't
think any decent farmer would care much for shaking hands with Major
Tifto. If we fall into that kind of thing there must soon be an end
of hunting. Major Tiftos are cheap no doubt; but in hunting, as in
most other things, cheap and nasty go together. If men don't choose
to put their hands in their pockets they had better say so, and give
the thing up altogether. If you won't take any more wine, we'll go to
the ladies. Silverbridge, the trap will start from the door to-morrow
morning precisely at 9.30 A.M. Grantingham Cross is fourteen miles."
Then they all left their chairs,--but as they did so Mr. Spooner
finished the bottle of port-wine.
"I never heard Chiltern speak so much like a book before," said
Spooner to his wife, as she drove him home that night.
The next morning everybody was ready for a start at half-past nine,
except Mr. Maule,--as to whom his wife declared that she had left him
in bed when she came down to breakfast. "He can never get there if
we don't take him," said Lord Chiltern, who was in truth the most
good-natured man in the world. Five minutes were allowed him, and
then he came down with a large sandwich in one hand and a button-hook
in the other, with which he was prepared to complete his toilet.
"What the deuce makes you always in such a hurry?" were the first
words he spoke as Lord Chiltern got on the box. The Master knew him
too well to argue the point. "Well;--he always is in a hurry," said
the sinner, when his wife accused him of ingratitude.
"Where's Spooner?" asked the Master when he saw Mrs. Spooner without
her husband at the meet.
"I knew how it would be when I saw the port-wine," she said in a
whisper that could be heard all round. "He has got it this time
sharp,--in his great toe. We shan't find at Grantingham. They were
cutting wood there last week. If I were you, my Lord, I'd go away to
the Spinnies at once."
"I must draw the country regularly," muttered the Master.
The country was drawn regularly, but in vain till about two o'clock.
Not only was there no fox at Grantingham Wood, but none even at
the Spinnies. And at two, Fowler, with an anxious face, held a
consultation with his more anxious Master. Trumpington Wood lay on
their right, and that no doubt would have been the proper draw. "I
suppose we must try it," said Lord Chiltern.
Old Fowler looked very sour. "You might as well look for a fox under
my wife's bed, my Lord."
"I dare say we should find one there," said one of the wags of the
hunt. Fowler shook his head, feeling that this was no time for
joking.
"It ought to be drawn," said Chiltern.
"Of course you know best, my Lord. I wouldn't touch it,--never no
more. Let 'em all know what the Duke's Wood is."
"This is Lord Silverbridge, the Duke's son," said Chiltern, laughing.
"I beg your Lordship's pardon," said Fowler, taking off his cap.
"We shall have a good time coming, some day. Let me trot 'em off to
Michaelmas Daisies, my Lord. I'll be there in thirty minutes." In the
neighbouring parish of St. Michael de Dezier there was a favourite
little gorse which among hunting-men had acquired this unreasonable
name. After a little consideration the Master yielded, and away they
trotted.
"You'll cross the ford, Fowler?" asked Mrs. Spooner.
"Oh yes, ma'am; we couldn't draw the Daisies this afternoon if we
didn't."
"It'll be up to the horses' bellies."
"Those who don't like it can go round."
"They'd never be there in time, Fowler."
"There's a many, ma'am, as don't mind that. You won't be one to stay
behind." The water was up to the horses' bellies, but, nevertheless,
Mrs. Spooner was at the gorse side when the Daisies were drawn.
They found and were away in a minute. It was all done so quickly that
Fowler, who had alone gone into the gorse, had hardly time to get out
with his hounds. The fox ran right back, as though he were making
for the Duke's pernicious wood. In the first field or two there was
a succession of gates, and there was not much to do in the way of
jumping. Then the fox, keeping straight ahead, deviated from the line
by which they had come, making for the brook by a more direct course.
The ruck of the horsemen, understanding the matter very well, left
the hounds, and went to the right, riding for the ford. The ford was
of such a nature that but one horse could pass it at a time, and that
one had to scramble through deep mud. "There'll be the devil to pay
there," said Lord Chiltern, going straight with his hounds. Phineas
Finn and Dick Rabbit were close after him. Old Fowler had craftily
gone to the ford; but Mrs. Spooner, who did not intend to be shaken
off, followed the Master, and close with her was Lord Silverbridge.
"Lord Chiltern hasn't got it right," she said. "He can't do it among
these bushes." As she spoke the Master put his horse at the bushes
and then--disappeared. The lady had been right. There was no ground
at that spot to take off from, and the bushes had impeded him. Lord
Chiltern got over, but his horse was in the water. Dick Rabbit and
poor Phineas Finn were stopped in their course by the necessity of
helping the Master in his trouble.
But Mrs. Spooner, the judicious Mrs. Spooner, rode at the stream
where it was, indeed, a little wider, but at a place in which the
horse could see what he was about, and where he could jump from and
to firm ground. Lord Silverbridge followed her gallantly. They both
jumped the brook well, and then were together. "You'll beat me in
pace," said the lady as he rode alongside of her. "Take the fence
ahead straight, and then turn sharp to your right." With all her
faults Mrs. Spooner was a thorough sportsman.
He did take the fence ahead,--or rather tried to do so. It was a
bank and a double ditch,--not very great in itself, but requiring a
horse to land on the top and go off with a second spring. Our young
friend's nag, not quite understanding the nature of the impediment,
endeavoured to "swallow it whole," as hard-riding men say, and came
down in the further ditch. Silverbridge came down on his head, but
the horse pursued his course,--across a heavily-ploughed field.
This was very disagreeable. He was not in the least hurt, but it
became his duty to run after his horse. A very few furrows of that
work suffice to make a man think that hunting altogether is a
"beastly sort of thing." Mrs. Spooner's horse, who had shown himself
to be a little less quick of foot than his own, had known all about
the bank and the double ditch, and had, apparently of his own accord,
turned down to the right, either seeing or hearing the hounds, and
knowing that the ploughed ground was to be avoided. But his rider
soon changed his course. She went straight after the riderless horse,
and when Silverbridge had reduced himself to utter speechlessness by
his exertions, brought him back his steed.
"I am,--I am, I am--so sorry," he struggled to say,--and then as she
held his horse for him he struggled up into the saddle.
"Keep down this furrow," said Mrs. Spooner, "and we shall be with
them in the second field. There's nobody near them yet."