Bounds, mounds, lounds, founds, kounds, downds, rounds, pounds,
zounds!--hounds--ha! hounds--I have it--
"Fly, fly to earth's extremest bounds,
With huntsmen, horses, horns, and hounds
And die!--dejected Queeker.
"I wonder," thought Queeker, as he sat biting the end of his quill--his
usual method of courting inspiration, "I wonder if there is anything
prophetic in these lines! Durant said that his friend has splendid
horses. They may, perhaps, be hunters! Ha! my early ambition,
perchance, youth's fond dream, may yet be realised! But let me not
hope. Hope always tells a false as well as flattering tale _to me_.
She has ever been, in my experience" (he was bitter at this point) "an
incorrigible li--ahem! story-teller."
Striking his clenched fist heavily on the table, Queeker rose, put on
his hat, and went round to Mr Durant's merely to inquire whether he
could be of any service--not that he could venture to offer assistance
in the way of packing, but there _might_ be something such as roping
trunks, or writing and affixing addresses, in regard to which he might
perhaps render himself useful.
"Why, Miss Durant," he said, on entering, "you are _always_ busy."
"Am I?" said Katie, with a smile, as she rose and shook hands.
"Yes, I--I--assure you, Miss Durant," said Queeker, bowing to Fanny, on
whose fat pretty face there was a scarlet flush, the result either of
the suddenness of Queeker's entry, or of the suppression of her
inveterate desire to laugh, "I assure you that it quite rouses my
admiration to observe the ease with which you can turn your hand to
anything. You can write out accounts better than any fellow in our
office. Then you play and sing with so much ease, and I often find you
making clothes for poor people, with pounds of tea and sugar in your
pockets, besides many other things, and now, here you are painting
like--like--one of the old masters!"
This was quite an unusual burst on the part of Queeker, who felt as
though he were making some amends for his unfaithfulness in thus
recalling and emphatically asserting the unquestionably good qualities
of his lady-love. He felt as if he were honestly attempting to win
himself back to his allegiance.
"You are very complimentary," said Katie, with a glance at her cousin,
which threw that young lady into silent convulsions.
"Not at all," cried Queeker, forcing his enthusiasm up to white heat,
and seizing a drawing, which he held up before him, in the vain attempt
to shut Fanny out of his sight.
"Now, I call this most beautiful," he said, in tones of genuine
admiration. "I _never_ saw anything so sweet before."
"Indeed!" said Katie, who observed that the youth was gazing over the
top of the drawing at her cousin. "I am _so_ glad you like it, for, to
say truth, I have felt disappointed with it myself, and papa says it is
only so-so. Do point out to me its faults, Mr Queeker, and the parts
you like best."
She rose and looked over Queeker's shoulder with much interest, and took
hold of the drawing to keep it firmly in its position.
There was an excessively merry twinkle in Katie's eyes as she watched
the expression of Queeker's face when he exclaimed--
"Faults, Miss Durant, there are no--eh! why, what--"
"Oh you wicked, deceptive man, you've got it upside down!" said Katie,
shaking her finger at the unhappy youth, who stammered, tried to
explain--to apologise--failed, broke down, and talked unutterable
nonsense, to the infinite delight of his fair tormentor.
As for Fanny, that Hebe bent her head suddenly over her work-basket, and
thrust her face into it as if searching with microscopic intensity for
something that positively refused to be found. All that we can safely
affirm in regard to her is, that if her face bore any resemblance to the
scarlet of her neck, the fact that her workbox did not take fire is
little short of a miracle!
Fortunately for all parties Queeker inadvertently trod on the cat's
tail, which resulted in a spurt so violent as to justify a total change
of subject. Before the storm thus raised had calmed down, Mr Durant
entered the room.
At Jenkinsjoy Queeker certainly did meet with a reception even more
hearty than he had been led to expect. Mr Durant's friend, Stoutheart,
his amiable wife and daughters and strapping sons, received the youthful
limb of the law with that frank hospitality which we are taught to
attribute "to Merrie England in the olden time." The mansion was
old-fashioned and low-roofed, trellis-worked and creeper-loved; addicted
to oak panelling, balustrades, and tapestried walls, and highly suitable
to ghosts of a humorous and agreeable tendency. Indeed it was said that
one of the rooms actually _was_ haunted at that very time; but Queeker
did not see any ghosts, although he afterwards freely confessed to
having seen all the rooms in the house more or less haunted by fairy
spirits of the fair sex, and masculine ghosts in buckskins and
top-boots! The whole air and aspect of the neighbourhood was such that
Queeker half expected to find a May-pole in the neighbouring village,
sweet shepherdesses in straw hats, pink ribbons, and short kirtles in
the fields, and gentle shepherds with long crooks, playing antique
flageolets on green banks, with innocent-looking dogs beside them, and
humble-minded sheep reposing in Arcadian felicity at their feet.
"Where does the meet take place to-day, Tom?" asked Mr Stoutheart
senior of Mr Stoutheart junior, while seated at breakfast the first
morning after their arrival at Jenkinsjoy.
"At Curmersfield," replied young Stoutheart.
"Ah, not a bad piece of country to cross. You remember when you and I
went over it together, Amy?"
"We have gone over it so often together, papa," replied Amy, "that I
really don't know to which occasion you refer."
"Why, that time when we met the hounds unexpectedly; when you were
mounted on your favourite Wildfire, and appeared to have imbibed some of
his spirit, for you went off at a tangent, crying out, `Come along,
papa!' and cleared the hedge at the roadside, crossed Slapperton's farm,
galloped up the lane leading to Curmersfield, took the ditch, with the
low fence beyond at Cumitstrong's turnip-field, in a flying leap--
obliging me to go quarter of a mile round by the gate--and overtook the
hounds just as they broke away on a false scent in the direction of the
Neckornothing ditch."
"Oh yes, I remember," replied Amy with a gentle smile; "it was a
charming gallop. I wished to continue it, but you thought the ground
would be too much for me, though I have gone over it twice since then in
perfect safety. You are far too timid, papa."
Queeker gazed and listened in open-mouthed amazement, for the young girl
who acknowledged in an offhand way that she had performed such
tremendous feats of horsemanship was modest, pretty, unaffected, and
feminine.
"I wonder," thought Queeker, "if Fan--ah, I mean Katie--could do that
sort of thing?"
He looked loyally at Katie, but thought, disloyally, of her cousin,
accused himself of base unfaithfulness, and, seizing a hot roll, began
to eat violently.
"Would you like to see the meet, Mr Queeker?" said Mr Stoutheart
senior; "I can give you a good mount. My own horse, Slapover, is
neither so elegant nor so high-spirited as Wildfire, but he can go over
anything, and is quite safe."
A sensitive spring had been touched in the bosom of Queeker, which
opened a floodgate that set loose an astonishing and unprecedented flow
of enthusiastic eloquence.
"I shall like it of all things," he cried, with sparkling eyes and
heightened colour. "It has been my ambition ever since I was a little
boy to mount a thoroughbred and follow the hounds. I assure you the
idea of `crossing country,' as it is called, I believe, and taking
hedges, ditches, five-barred gates and everything as we go, has a charm
for me which is absolutely inexpressible--"
Queeker stopped abruptly, because he observed a slight flush on Fanny's
cheeks and a pursed expression on Fanny's lips, and felt uncertain as to
whether or not she was laughing at him internally.
"Well said, Queeker," cried Mr Stoutheart enthusiastically; "it's a
pity you are a town-bred man. Such spirit as yours can find vent only
in the free air of the country!"
"Amy, dear," said Katie, with an extremely innocent look at her friend,
"do huntsmen in this part of England usually take `everything as they
go?' I think Mr Queeker used that expression."
"N-not exactly," replied Amy, with a smile and glance of uncertainty, as
if she did not quite see the drift of the question.
"Ah! I thought not," returned Katie with much gravity. "I had always
been under the impression that huntsmen were in the habit of going
_round_ stackyards, and houses, and such things--not _over_ them."
Queeker was stabbed--stabbed to the heart! It availed not that the
company laughed lightly at the joke, and that Mr Stoutheart said that
he (Queeker) should realise his young dream, and reiterated the
assurance that his horse would carry him over _anything_ if he only held
tightly on and let him go. He had been stabbed by Katie--the gentle
Katie--the girl whom he had adored so long--ha! there was comfort in the
word _had_; it belonged to the past; it referred to things gone by; it
rhymed with sad, bad, mad; it suggested a period of remote antiquity,
and pointed to a hazy future. As the latter thought rushed through his
heated brain, he turned his eyes on Fanny, with that bold look of
dreadful determination that marks the traitor when, having fully made up
his mind, he turns his back on his queen and flag for ever! But poor
Queeker found little comfort in the new prospect, for Fanny had been
gently touched on the elbow by Katie when she committed her savage
attack; and when Queeker looked at the fair, fat cousin, she was
involved in the agonies of a suppressed but tremendous giggle.
After breakfast two horses were brought to the door. Wildfire, a sleek,
powerful roan of large size, was a fit steed for the stalwart Tom, who,
in neatly-fitting costume and Hessian boots, got into the saddle like a
man accustomed to it. The other horse, Slapover, was a large,
strong-boned, somewhat heavy steed, suitable for a man who weighed
sixteen stone, and stood six feet in his socks.
"Now then, jump up, Queeker," said Mr Stoutheart, holding the stirrup.
If Queeker had been advised to vault upon the ridge-pole of the house,
he could not have looked more perplexed than he did as he stood looking
up at the towering mass of horse-flesh, to the summit of which he was
expected to climb. However, being extremely light, and Mr Stoutheart
senior very strong, he was got into the saddle somehow.
"Where _are_ the stirrups?" said Queeker, with a perplexed air, trying
to look over the side of his steed.
"Why, they've forgot to shorten 'em," said Mr Stoutheart with a laugh,
observing that the irons were dangling six inches below the rider's
toes.
This was soon rectified. Queeker's glazed leather leggings--which were
too large for him, and had a tendency to turn round--were put straight;
the reins were gathered up, and the huntsman rode away.
"All you've to do is to hold on," shouted Mr Stoutheart, as they rode
through the gate. "He is usually a little skittish at the start, but
quiet as a lamb afterwards."
Queeker made no reply. His mind was brooding on his wrongs and sorrows;
for Katie had quietly whispered him to take care and not fall off, and
Fanny had giggled again.
"I _must_ cure him of his foolish fancy," thought Katie as she
re-entered the house, "for Fanny's sake, if for nothing else; though I
cannot conceive what she can see to like in him. There is no accounting
for taste!"
"I can at all events _die_;"--thought Queeker, as he rode along, shaking
the reins and pressing his little legs against the horse as if with the
savage intention of squeezing the animal's ribs together.
"There _was_ prophetic inspiration in the lines!--yes," he continued,
repeating them--
"Fly, fly, to earth's extremest bounds,
With huntsmen, horses, horn, and hounds,
And die--dejected Queeker!
"I'll change that--it shall be rejected Queeker _now_."
For some time Tom Stoutheart and Queeker rode over "hill and dale"--that
is to say, they traversed four miles of beautiful undulating and
diversified country at a leisurely pace, having started in good time.
"Your father," observed Queeker, as they rode side by side down a green
lane, "said, I think, when we started, that this horse was apt to be
skittish at the start. Is he difficult to hold in?"
"Oh no," replied Tom, with a reassuring smile. "He is as quiet and
manageable as any man could wish. He does indeed bounce about a little
when we burst away at first, and is apt then to get the bit in his
teeth; but you've only to keep a tight rein and he'll go all right. His
only fault is a habit of tossing his head, which is a little awkward
until you get used to it."
"Yes, I have discovered that fault already," replied Queeker, as the
horse gave a practical illustration of it by tossing his enormous head
back until it reached to within an inch of the point of his rider's
nose. "Twice he has just touched my forehead. Had I been bending a
little forward I suppose he would have given me an unpleasant blow."
"Rather," said Stoutheart junior. "I knew one poor fellow who was
struck in that way by his horse and knocked off insensible. I think he
was killed, but don't feel quite sure as to that."
"He has no other faults, I hope?" asked Queeker.
"None. As for refusing his leaps--he refuses nothing. He carries my
father over anything he chooses to run him at, so it's not likely that
he'll stick with a light-weight."
This was so self-evident that Queeker felt a reply to be unnecessary; he
rode on, therefore, in silence for a few minutes, comforting himself
with the thought that, at all events, he could die!
"I don't intend," said Queeker, after a few minutes' consideration, "to
attempt to leap everything. I think that would be foolhardy. I must
tell you, Mr Stoutheart, before we get to the place of meeting, that I
can only ride a very little, and have never attempted to leap a fence of
any kind. Indeed I never bestrode a real hunter before. I shall
therefore content myself with following the hounds as far as it is safe
to do so, and will then give it up."
Young Stoutheart was a little surprised at the modest and prudent tone
of this speech, but he good-naturedly replied--
"Very well, I'll guide you through the gates and gaps. You just follow
me, and you shall be all right, and when you've had enough of it, let me
know."
Queeker and his friend were first in the field, but they had not been
there many minutes when one and another and another red-coat came
cantering over the country, and ere long a large cavalcade assembled in
front of a mansion, the lawn of which formed the rendezvous. There were
men of all sorts and sizes, on steeds of all kinds and shapes--little
men on big horses, and big men on little horses; men who looked like
"bloated aristocrats" before the bloating process had begun, and men in
whom the bloating process was pretty far advanced, but who had no touch
of aristocracy to soften it. Men who looked healthy and happy, others
who looked reckless and depraved. Some wore red-coats, cords, and
tops--others, to the surprise and no small comfort of Queeker, who
fancied that _all_ huntsmen wore red coats, were habited in modest
tweeds of brown and grey. Many of the horses were sleek, glossy, and
fine-limbed, like racers; others were strong-boned and rough. Some few
were of gigantic size and rugged aspect, to suit the massive men who
bestrode them. One of these in particular, a hearty, jovial farmer--and
a relative of Tom's--appeared to the admiring Queeker to be big and
powerful enough to have charged a whole troop of light dragoons
single-handed with some hope of a successful issue. Ladies were there
to witness the start, and two of the fair sex appeared ready to join the
hunt and follow the hounds, while here and there little boys might be
seen bent on trying their metal on the backs of Shetland ponies.
It was a stirring scene of meeting, and chatting, and laughing, and
rearing, and curvetting, and fresh air, and sunshine.
Presently the master of the hounds came up with the pack at his heels.
A footman of the mansion supplied all who desired it with a tumbler of
beer.
"Have some beer?" said young Stoutheart, pointing to the footman
referred to.
"No, thank you," said Queeker. "Will you?"
"No. I have quite enough of spirit within me. Don't require artificial
stimulant," said the youth with a laugh. "Come now--we're off."
Queeker's heart gave a bound as he observed the master of the hounds
ride off at a brisk pace followed by the whole field.
"I won't die yet. It's too soon," he thought, as he shook the reins and
chirped to his steed.
Slapover did not require chirping. He shook his head, executed a mild
pirouette on his left hind leg, and made a plunge which threatened first
to leave his rider behind, and then to shoot him over his head. Queeker
had been taken unawares, but he pressed his knees together, knitted his
brows, and resolved not to be so taken again.
Whew! what a rush there was as the two or three hundred excited steeds
and enthusiastic riders crossed the lawn, galloped through an open gate,
and made towards a piece of rough ground covered with low bushes and
bracken, through which the hounds were seen actively running as if in
search of something. The bodies of the hounds were almost hidden, and
Queeker, whose chief attention was devoted to his horse, had only time
to receive the vague impression, as he galloped up, that the place was
alive with white and pointed tails.
That first rush scattered Queeker's depression to the winds. What cared
he for love, either successful or unrequited, now? Katie was forgotten.
Fanny was to him little better than a mere abstraction. He was on a
hunter! He was following the hounds! He had heard, or imagined he had
heard, something like a horn. He was surprised a little that no one
cried out "Tally-ho!" and in the wild excitement of his feelings thought
of venturing on it himself, but the necessity of holding in Slapover
with all the power of his arms, fortunately induced him to restrain his
ardour.
Soon after he heard a shout of some sort, which he tried to believe was
"Tally-ho!" and the scattered huntsmen, who had been galloping about in
all directions, converged into a stream. Following, he knew not and
cared not what or whom, he swept round the margin of a little pond, and
dashed over a neighbouring field.
From that point Queeker's recollection of events became a train of
general confusion, with lucid points at intervals, where incidents of
unusual interest or force arrested his attention.
The first of these lucid points was when, at the end of a heavy burst
over a ploughed field, he came to what may be styled his first leap.
His hat by that time had threatened so frequently to come off, that he
had thrust it desperately down on his head, until the rim behind rested
on the back of his neck. Trotting through a gap in a hedge into a road,
young Stoutheart sought about for a place by which they might clamber up
into the next field without going round by the gate towards which most
of the field had headed.
"D'you think you could manage that?" said Tom, pointing with the handle
of his whip to a gap in the hedge, where there was a mound and a hollow
with a _chevaux-de-frise_ of cut stumps around, and a mass of thorn
branches sufficiently thin to be broken through.
Queeker never looked at it, but gazing steadily in the face of his
friend, said--
"I'll follow!"
Stoutheart at once pushed his horse at it. It could not be called a
leap. It was a mere scramble, done at the slowest possible pace.
Wildfire gave one or two little bounds, and appeared to walk up
perpendicularly on his hind legs, while Tom looked as if he were
plastered against him with some adhesive substance; then he appeared to
drop perpendicularly down on the other side, his tail alone being
visible.
"All right, come along," shouted Tom.
Queeker rode up to the gap, shut his eyes, gave a chirp, and committed
himself to fate and Slapover. He felt a succession of shocks, and then
a pause. Venturing to open his eyes, he saw young Stoutheart, still on
the other side of the fence, laughing at him.
"You shouldn't hold so tight by the reins," he cried; "you've pulled him
back into the road. Try it again."
Queeker once more shut his eyes, slacked the reins, and, seizing the
pommel of the saddle, gave another chirp. Again there was a shock,
which appeared to drive his body up against his head; another which
seemed to have all but snapped him off at the waist; then a sensation
about his hat, as if a few wild-cats were attempting to tear it off,
followed by a drop and a plunge, which threw him forward on his
charger's neck.
"Dear me!" he exclaimed, panting, as he opened his eyes, "I had no idea
the shock would have been so--so--shocking!"
Tom laughed; cried "Well done!" and galloped on. Queeker followed, his
cheeks on fire, and perspiration streaming from his brow.
"Now, then, here is an easy fence," cried Stoutheart, looking back and
pointing to a part of the field where most of the huntsmen were popping
over a low hedge, "will you try it?"
Queeker's spirit was fairly up.
"I'll try it!" he said, sternly.
"Come on then."
Stoutheart led the way gallantly, at full speed, and went over like an
india-rubber ball. Queeker brought the handle of his riding-whip whack
down on the flank of his astonished horse, and flew at the fence.
Slapover took it with a magnificent bound. Queeker was all but left
behind! He tottered, as it were, in the saddle; rose entirely out of
it; came down with a crash that almost sent him over the horse's head,
and gave him the probable sensations of a telescope on being forcibly
shut up; but he held on bravely, and galloped up alongside of his
companion, with a tendency to cheer despite his increased surprise at
the extreme violence of the shocks to which his unaccustomed frame was
being exposed.
After this our enthusiastic Nimrod went at everything, and feared
nothing! Well was it for him that he had arranged to follow Tom
Stoutheart, else assuredly he would have run Slapover at fences which
would have taxed the temerity even of that quadruped, and insured his
destruction. Tom, seeing his condition, considerately kept him out of
danger, and yet, being thoroughly acquainted with the country, managed
to keep him well up with the hounds.
Towards the afternoon Queeker's fire began to abate. His aspect had
become dishevelled. His hat had got so severely thrust down on his
head, that the brim in front reposed on the bridge of his nose, as did
the brim behind on the nape of his neck. His trousers were collected in
folds chiefly about his knees, and the glazed leggings had turned
completely round, presenting the calves to the front. But these were
matters of small moment compared with the desperate desire he had to
bring his legs together, if even for a moment of time! Sensations in
various parts of his frame, which in the earlier part of the day had
merely served to remind him that he was mortal, had now culminated into
unquestionable aches and pains, and his desire to get off the back of
Slapover became so intense, that he would certainly have given way to it
had he not felt that in the event of his doing so there would be no
possibility of his getting on again!
"Where are they all away to?" he asked in surprise, as the whole field
went suddenly off helter-skelter in a new direction.
"I think they've seen the fox," replied Stoutheart.
"Seen the fox! why, I forgot all about the fox! But--but haven't we
seen it before? haven't we been after it _all day_?"
"No, we've only got scent of if once or twice."
"Well, well," exclaimed Queeker, turning up his eyes, "I declare we have
had as good fun as if we had been after the fox in full sight all the
time!"
"Here is a somewhat peculiar leap," said Stoutheart, reining up as they
approached a fence, on the other side of which was a high-road, "I'll go
first, to show you the way."
The peculiarity of the leap lay in the fact that it was a drop of about
four feet into the road, which was lower, to that extent, than the
field, and that the side of the road into which the riders had to drop
was covered with scrubby bushes. To men accustomed to it this was a
trifle. Most of the field had already taken it, though a few cautious
riders had gone round by a gate.
When Queeker came to try it he felt uneasy--sitting as he did so high,
and looking down such a precipice as it seemed to him. However, he shut
his eyes, and courageously gave the accustomed chirp, and Slapover
plunged down. Queeker held tight to the saddle, and although much
shaken, would have come out of the ordeal all right, had not Slapover
taken it into his head to make a second spring over a low bush which
stood in front of him. On the other side of this bush there was an old
pump. Queeker lost his balance, threw out his arms, fell off, was
hurled violently against the old pump, and his right leg was broken!
A cart was quickly procured, and on trusses of straw the poor huntsman
was driven sadly and slowly, back to Jenkinsjoy, where he was tenderly
put to bed and carefully nursed for several weeks by his hospitable and
sympathising friends.
Queeker bore his misfortune like a Stoic, chiefly because it developed
the great fact that Fanny Hennings wept a whole night and a day after
its occurrence, insomuch that her fair face became so swollen as to have
lost much of its identity and all its beauty--a fact which filled
Queeker with hopes so high that his recovery was greatly hastened by the
contented, almost joyous, manner in which he submitted to his fate.
Of course Queeker's secret mission was, for the _time_ being, at an
end;--and thus it came to pass that an old pump, as we said at the
beginning of this chapter, was the cause of the failure of several
deep-laid plans, and of much bodily anguish and mental felicity to the
youthful Nimrod.
Queeker's last observation before falling into a feverish slumber on the
first night after his accident, was to the effect that fox-hunting was
splendid sport--magnificent sport,--but that it appeared to him there
was no occasion whatever for a fox. And ever after that he was wont to
boast that his first and last day of fox-hunting, which was an unusually
exciting one, had been got though charmingly without any fox at all. It
is even said that Queeker, descending from poetry,--his proper sphere,--
to prose, wrote an elaborate and interesting paper on that subject,
which was refused by all the sporting papers and journals to which he
sent it;--but, this not being certified, we do not record it as a fact.