AMONG Mrs. Pringle’s many visitors was that gallant old
philanthropist, the well-known Earl of Ladythorne, of Tantivy
Castle, Featherbedfordshire and Belvedere House, London.
His lordship had known her at Lady Delacey’s, and Mrs. Pringle
still wore and prized a ruby ring he slipped upon her finger as
he met her (accidentally of course) in the passage early one
morning as he was going to hunt. His saddle-horses might often be
seen of a summer afternoon, tossing their heads up and down
Curtain Crescent, to the amusement of the inhabitants of that
locality. His lordship indeed was a well-known general patron of
all that was fair and fine and handsome in creation, fine women,
fine houses, fine horses, fine hounds, fine pictures, fine
statues, fine every thing. No pretty woman either in town or
country ever wanted a friend if he was aware of it.
He had long hunted Featherbedfordshire in a style of great
magnificence, and though latterly his energies had perhaps been
as much devoted to the pursuit of the fair as the fox, yet, as he
found the two worked well together, he kept up the hunting
establishment with all the splendour of his youth. Not that he
was old: as he would say, “_far from it!_” Indeed, to walk behind
him down St. James’s Street (he does not go quite so well up),
his easy jaunty air, tall graceful figure, and elasticity of
step, might make him pass for a man in that most uncertain period
of existence the “prime of life,” and if uncivil, unfriendly,
inexorable time has whitened his pow, his lordship carries it off
with the aid of gay costume and colour. He had a great reputation
among the ladies, and though they all laughed and shook their
heads when his name was mentioned, from the pretty simpering Mrs.
Ringdove, of Lime-Tree Grove, who said he was a “naughty man,”
down to the buxom chambermaid of the Rose and Crown, who giggled
and called him a “gay old gentleman,” they all felt pleased and
flattered by his attentions.
Hunting a country undoubtedly gives gay old gentlemen great
opportunities, for, under pretence of finding a fox, they may
rummage any where from the garret[1] to the cellar.
[1] Ex. gra., As we say in the classics. “A Fox Run into a Lady’s
Dressing-Room.—The Heythrop hounds met at Ranger’s Lodge, within about
a mile of Charlbury, found in Hazell Wood, and went away through Great
Cranwell, crossing the park of Cornbury, on by the old kennel to Live
Oak, taking the side hill, leaving Leafield (so celebrated for
clay-pipes) to his left, crossed the bottom by Five Ashes; then turned
to the right, through King’s Wood. Smallstones, Knighton Copse, over
the plain to Ranger’s Lodge, with the hounds close at his brush, where
they left him in a mysterious manner. After the lapse of a little time
he was discovered by a maid- servant in the ladies’ dressing-room,
from which he immediately bolted on the appearance of the petticoats,
without doing the slightest damage to person or property."—Bell’s
Life. What a gentlemanly fox!
In this interesting pursuit, his lordship was ably assisted by
his huntsman, Dicky Boggledike. Better huntsman there might be
than Dicky, but none so eminently qualified for the double
pursuit of the fox and the fine. He had a great deal of tact and
manner, and looked and was essentially a nobleman’s servant. He
didn’t come blurting open-mouthed with “I’ve seen a davilish,”
for such was his dialect, “I’ve seen a davilish fine oss, my
lord,” or “They say Mrs. Candle’s cow has gained another prize,”
but he would take an opportunity of introducing the subject
neatly and delicately, through the medium of some allusion to the
country in which they were to be found, some cover wanting
cutting, some poacher wanting trouncing, or some puppy out at
walk, so that if his lordship didn’t seem to come into the humour
of the thing, Dicky could whip off to the other scent as if he
had nothing else in his mind. It was seldom, however, that his
lordship was not inclined to profit by Dicky’s experience, for he
had great sources of information, and was very careful in his
statements. His lordship and Dicky had now hunted
Featherbedfordshire together for nearly forty years, and though
they might not be so punctual in the mornings, or so late in
leaving off in the evenings, as they were; and though his
lordship might come to the meet in his carriage and four with the
reigning favourite by his side, instead of on his neat cover
hack, and though Dicky did dance longer at his fences than he
used, still there was no diminution in the scale of the
establishment, or in Dicky’s influence throughout the country.
Indeed, it would rather seem as if the now well-matured hunt ran
to show instead of sport, for each succeeding year brought out
either another second horseman (though neither his lordship nor
Dicky ever tired one), or another man in a scarlet and cap, or
established another Rose and Crown, whereat his lordship kept dry
things to change in case he got wet. He was uncommonly kind to
himself, and hated his heir with an intensity of hatred which was
at once the best chance for longevity and for sustaining the
oft-disappointed ambitious hopes of the fair.
Now Mrs. Pringle had always had a very laudable admiration of
fox-hunters. She thought the best introduction for a young man of
fortune was at the cover side, and though Jerry Pringle (who
looked upon them as synonymous) had always denounced “gamblin’
and huntin’” as the two greatest vices of the day, she could
never come in to that opinion, as far as hunting was concerned.
She now thought if she could get Billy launched under the
auspices of that distinguished sportsman, the Earl of Ladythorne,
it might be the means of reclaiming him from Butter Fingers, and
getting him on in society, for she well knew how being seen at
one good place led to another, just as the umbrella-keepers at
the Royal Academy try to lead people into giving them something
in contravention of the rule above their heads, by jingling a few
half-pence before their faces. Moreover, Billy had shown an
inclination for equitation—by nearly galloping several of Mr.
Spavin, the neighbouring livery-stable-keeper’s horses’ tails
off; and Mrs. Pringle’s knowledge of hunting not being equal to
her appreciation of the sport, she thought that a master of
hounds found all the gentlemen who joined his hunt in horses,
just as a shooter finds them in dogs or guns, so that the thing
would be managed immediately.
Indeed, like many ladies, she had rather a confused idea of the
whole thing, not knowing but that one horse would hunt every day
in the week; or that there was any distinction of horses, further
than the purposes to which they were applied. Hunters and
racehorses she had no doubt were the same animals, working their
ways honestly from year’s end to year’s end, or at most with only
the sort of difference between them that there is between a
milliner and a dressmaker. Be that as it may, however, all things
considered, Mrs. Pringle determined to test the sincerity of her
friend the Earl of Ladythorne: and to that end wrote him a
gossiping sort of letter, asking, in the postscript, when his
dogs would be going out, as her son was at home and would “_so
like_” to see them.
Although we introduced Lord Ladythorne as a philanthropist, his
philanthropy, we should add, was rather lop-sided, being chiefly
confined to the fair. Indeed, he could better stand a dozen women
than one man. He had no taste or sympathy, for the hirsute tribe,
hence his fields were very select, being chiefly composed of his
dependents and people whom he could d—— and do what he liked
with. Though the Crumpletin Railway cut right through his
country, making it “varry contagious,” as Harry Swan, his first
whip, said, for sundry large towns, the sporting inhabitants
thereof preferred the money-griping propensities of a certain
Baronet—Sir Moses Mainchance—whose acquaintance the reader will
presently make, to the scot-free sport with the frigid civilities
of the noble Earl. Under ordinary circumstances, therefore, Mrs.
Pringle had made rather an unfortunate selection for her son’s
_début_, but it so happened that her letter found the Earl in
anything but his usual frame of mind.
He was suffering most acutely for the hundred and twentieth time
or so from one of Cupid’s shafts, and that too levelled by a hand
against whose attacks he had always hitherto been thought
impervious. This wound had been inflicted by the
well-known—perhaps to some of our readers too
well-known—equestrian coquette, Miss de Glancey of
Half-the-watering-places-in-England-and-some-on-the-Continent,
whose many conquests had caused her to be regarded as almost
irresistible, and induced, it was said—with what degree of truth
we know not—a party of England’s enterprising sons to fit her out
for an expedition against the gallant Earl of Ladythorne under
the Limited Liability Act.
Now, none but a most accomplished, self-sufficient coquette, such
as Miss de Glancey undoubtedly was, would have undertaken such an
enterprise, for it was in direct contravention of two of the
noble Earl’s leading principles, namely, that of liking large
ladies (fine, coarse women, as the slim ones call them,) and of
disliking foxhunting ones, the sofa and not the saddle being, as
he always said, the proper place for the ladies; but Miss de
Glancey prided herself upon her power of subjugating the tyrant
man, and gladly undertook to couch the lance of blandishment
against the hitherto impracticable nobleman. In order, however,
to understand the exact position of parties, perhaps the reader
will allow us to show how his lordship came to be seized with his
present attack, and also how he treated it.
Well, the ash was yellow, the beech was brown, and the oak ginger
coloured, and the indomitable youth was again in cub-hunting
costume—a white beaver hat, a green cut-away, a buff vest, with
white cords and caps, attended by Boggledike and his whips in
hats, and their last season’s pinks or purples, disturbing the
numerous litters of cubs with which the country abounded, when,
after a musical twenty minutes with a kill in Allonby Wood, his
lordship joined horses with Dicky, to discuss the merits of the
performance, as they rode home together.
“Yas, my lord, yas,” replied Dicky, sawing away at his hat, in
reply to his lordship’s observation that they ran uncommonly
well; “yas, my lord, they did. I don’t know that I can ever
remamber bein’ better pleased with an entry than I am with this
year’s. I really think in a few more seasons we shall get ’em as
near parfection as possible. Did your lordship notish that
Barbara betch, how she took to runnin’ to-day? The first time she
has left my oss’s eels. Her mother, old Blossom, was jest the
same. Never left my oss’s eels the first season, and everybody
said she was fit for nothin’ but the halter; but my!” continued
he, shaking his head, “what a rare betch she did become.”
“She did that,” replied his lordship, smiling at Dicky’s
pronunciation.
“And that reminds me,” continued Dicky, emboldened by what he
thought the encouragement, “I was down at Freestone Banks
yasterday, where Barbara was walked, a seein’ a pup I have there
now, and I think I seed the very neatest lady’s pad I ever set
eyes on!”—Dicky’s light-blue eyes settling on his lordship’s
eagle ones as he spoke. “Aye! who’s was that?” asked the gay old
gentleman, catching at the word “lady.”
“Why, they say she belongs to a young lady from the south—a Miss
Dedancey, I think they call her,” with the aptitude people have
for mistaking proper names.
“Dedancey,” repeated his lordship, “Dedancey; never heard of the
name before—what’s set her here?”
“She’s styin’ at Mrs. Roseworth’s, at Lanecroft House, but her
osses stand at the Spread Heagle, at Bush Dill—Old Sam
‘Utchison’s, you know.”
_Indomitable Youth_. Horses! what, has she more than one?
_Dicky_. Two, a bay and a gray,—it’s the bay that takes my fancy
most:—the neatest stepper, with the lightest month, and fairest,
freeest, truest action I ever seed.
_Indomitable Youth_. What’s she going to do with them?
_Dicky._ Ride them, ride them! They say she’s the finest
oss-woman that ever was seen.
“In-deed,” mused his lordship, thinking over the _pros_ and
_cons_ of female equestrianism,—the disagreeableness of being
beat by them,—the disagreeableness of having to leave them in the
lurch,—the disagreeableness of seeing them floored,—the
disagreeableness of seeing them all running down with
perspiration;—the result being that his lordship adhered to his
established opinion that women have no business out hunting.
Dicky knew his lordship’s sentiments, and did not press the
matter, but drew his horse a little to the rear, thinking it
fortunate that all men are not of the same way of thinking. Thus
they rode on for some distance in silence, broken only by the
occasional flopping and chiding of Harry Swan or his brother whip
of some loitering or refractory hound. His lordship had a great
opinion of Dicky’s judgment, and though they might not always
agree in their views, he never damped Dicky’s ardour by openly
differing with him. He thought by Dicky’s way of mentioning the
lady that he had a good opinion of her, and, barring the riding,
his lordship saw no reason why he should not have a good opinion
of her too. Taking advantage of the Linton side-bar now bringing
them upon the Somerton-Longville road, he reined in his horse a
little so as to let Dicky come alongside of him again.
“What is this young lady like?” asked the indomitable youth, as
soon as they got their horses to step pleasantly together again.
“Well now,” replied Dicky, screwing up his mouth, with an
apologetic touch of his hat, knowing that that was his weak
point, “well now, I don’t mean to say that she’s zactly—no, not
zactly, your lordship’s model,—not a large full-bodied woman like
Mrs. Blissland or Miss Poach, but an elegant, _very_ elegant,
well-set-up young lady, with a high-bred hair about her that one
seldom sees in the country, for though we breeds our women very
beautiful—uncommon ‘andsome, I may say—we don’t polish them hup
to that fine degree of parfection that they do in the towns, and
even if we did they would most likely spoil the ‘ole thing by
some untoward unsightly dress, jest as a country servant spoils a
London livery by a coloured tie, or goin’ about with a great
shock head of ‘air, or some such disfigurement; but this young
lady, to my mind, is a perfect pictor, self, oss, and seat,—all
as neat and perfect as can be, and nothing that one could either
halter or amend. She is what, savin’ your lordship’s presence, I
might call the ‘pink of fashion and the mould of form!’—Dicky
sawing away at his hat as he spoke.
“Tall, slim, and genteel, I suppose,” observed his lordship
drily.
“Jest so,” assented Dicky, with a chuck of the chin, making a
clean breast of it, “jest so,” adding, “at least as far as one
can judge of her in her ‘abit, you know.”
“Thought so,” muttered his lordship.
And having now gained one of the doors in the wall, they cut
across the deer-studded park, and were presently back at the
Castle. And his lordship ate his dinner, and quaffed his sweet
and dry and twenty-five Lafitte without ever thinking about
either the horse, or the lady, or the habit, or anything
connected with the foregoing conversation, while the reigning
favourite, Mrs. Moffatt, appeared just as handsome as could be in
his eyes.