FROM Yammerton Grange to Pangburn Park is twelve miles as the
crow flies, or sixteen by the road. The Major, who knows every
nick and gap in the country, could ride it in ten or eleven; but
this species of knowledge is not to be imparted to even the most
intelligent head. Not but what the Major tried to put it into
Billy’s, and what with directions to keep the Helmington road
till he came to the blacksmith’s shop, then to turn up the
crooked lane on the left, leaving Wanley windmill on the right,
and Altringham spire on the left, avoiding the village of
Rothley, then to turn short at Samerside Hill, keeping Missleton
Plantations full before him, with repeated assurances that he
couldn’t miss his way, he so completely bewildered our friend,
that he was lost before he had gone a couple of miles. Then came
the provoking ignorance of country life,—the counter-questions
instead of answers,—the stupid stare and tedious drawl, ending,
perhaps, with “ars a stranger,” or may be the utter negation of a
place within, perhaps, a few miles of where the parties live.
Billy blundered and blundered; took the wrong turning up the
crooked lane, kept Wanley windmill on the left instead of the
right, and finally rode right into the village of Rothley, and
then began asking his way. It being Sunday, he soon attracted
plenty of starers, such an uncommon swell being rare in the
country; and one told him one way; another, another; and then the
two began squabbling as to which was the right one, enlisting of
course the sympathies of the bystanders, so that Billy’s progress
was considerably impeded. Indeed, he sometimes seemed to recede
instead of advance, so contradictory were the statements as to
distance, and the further be went the further he seemed to have
to go.
If Sir Moses hadn’t been pretty notorious as well from hunting
the country as from his other performances, we doubt whether
Billy would have reached Pangburn Park that night. As it was, Sir
Moses’s unpopularity helped Billy along in a growling uncivil
sort of way, so different to the usual friendly forwarding that
marks the approach to a gentleman’s house in the country.
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“Ay, ay, that’s the way,” said one with a sneer. “What, you’re
gannin to him—are ye?” asked another, in a tone that as good as
said, I wouldn’t visit such a chap. “Aye, that’s the way—straight
on, through Addingham town”—for every countryman likes to have
his village called a town—“straight on through Addingham town,
keep the lane on the left, and then when ye come to the beer-shop
at three road ends, ax for the Kingswood road, and that’ll lead
ye to the lodges.”
All roads are long when one has to ask the way—the distance seems
nearly double in going to a place to what it does in returning,
and Billy thought he never would get to Pangburn Park. The shades
of night, too, drew on—Napoleon the Great had long lost his
freedom and gaiety of action, and hung on the bit in a heavy
listless sort of way. Billy wished for a policeman to protect and
direct him. Lights began to be scattered about the country, and
day quickly declined in favour of night. The darkening mist
gathered perceptibly. Billy longed for those lodges of which he
had heard so much, but which seemed ever to elude him. He even
appeared inclined to compound for the magnificence of two by
turning in at Mr. Pinkerton’s single one. By the direction of the
woman at this one, he at length reached the glad haven, and
passing through the open portals was at length in Pangburn Park.
The drab-coloured road directed him onward, and Billy being
relieved from the anxieties of asking his way, pulled up into a
walk, as well to cool his horse as to try and make out what sort
of a place he had got to. With the exception, however, of the
road, it was a confused mass of darkness, that might contain
trees, hills, houses, hay-stacks, anything. Presently the
melodious cry of hounds came wafted on the southerly breeze,
causing our friend to shudder at the temerity of his undertaking.
“Drat these hounds,” muttered he, wishing he was well out of the
infliction, and as he proceeded onward the road suddenly divided,
and both ways inclining towards certain lights, Billy gave his
horse his choice, and was presently clattering on the pavement of
the court-yard of Pangburn Park.
Sir Moses’s hospitality was rather of a spurious order; he would
float his friends with claret and champagne, and yet grudge their
horses a feed of corn. Not but that he was always extremely
liberal and pressing in his offers, begging people would bring
whatever they liked, and stay as long as they could, but as soon
as his offers were closed with, he began to back out. Oh, he
forgot! he feared he could only take in one horse; or if he could
take in a horse he feared he couldn’t take in the groom. Just as
he offered to lend Billy his gig and horse and then reduced the
offer into the loan of the gig only. So it was with the promised
two-stalled stable. When Monsieur drove, or rather was driven,
with folded arms into the court-yard, and asked for his “me lors
stable,” the half-muzzy groom observed with a lurch and a hitch
of his shorts, that “they didn’t take in (hiccup) osses
there—leastways to stop all night.”
“Vell, but you’ll put up me lor Pringle’s,” observed Jack with an
air of authority, for he considered that he and his master were
the exceptions to all general rules.
“Fear we can’t (hiccup) it,” replied the blear-eyed caitiff; “got
as many (hiccup) osses comin to-night as ever we have room for.
Shall have to (hiccup) two in a (hiccup) as it is” (hiccup).
“Oh, you can stow him away somewhere,” now observed Mr. Demetrius
Bankhead, emerging from his pantry dressed in a pea-green
wide-awake, a Meg Merrilies tartan shooting-jacket, a
straw-coloured vest, and drab pantaloons.
“You’ll be Mr. Pringle’s gentleman, I presume,” observed
Bankhead, now turning and bowing to Jack, who still retained his
seat in the gig.
“I be, sare,” replied Jack, accepting the proffered hand of his
friend.
“Oh, yes, you’ll put him up somewhere, Fred,” observed Bankhead,
appealing again to the groom, “he’ll take no harm anywhere,”
looking at the hairy, heated animal, “put ‘im in the empty
cow-house,” adding “it’s only for one night—only for one night.”
“O dis is not the quadruped,” observed Monsieur, nodding at the
cart mare before him, “dis is a job beggar vot ve can kick out at
our pleasure, but me lor is a cornin’ on his own proper cheval,
and he vill vant space and conciliation.”
“Oh, we’ll manage him somehow,” observed Bankhead confidently,
“only we’ve a large party to-night, and want all the spare stalls
we can raise, but they’ll put ‘im up somewhere,” added he,
“they’ll put ‘im up somewhere,” observing as before, “it’s only
for one night—only for one night. Now won’t you alight and walk
in,” continued he, motioning Monsieur to descend, and Jack having
intimated that his lor vould compliment their politeness if they
took vell care of his ‘orse, conceived he had done all that a
faithful domestic could under the circumstances, and leaving the
issue in the hands of fate, alighted from his vehicle, and
entering by the back way, proceeded to exchange family
“particulars” with Mr. Bankhead in the pantry.
Now the Pangburn Park stables were originally very good, forming
a crescent at the back of the house, with coach-houses and
servants’ rooms intervening, but owing to the trifling
circumstance of allowing the drains to get choked, they had
fallen into disrepute. At the back of the crescent were some
auxiliary stables, worse of course than the principal range, into
which they put night-visitors’ horses, and those whose owners
were rash enough to insist upon Sir Moses fulfilling his offers
of hospitality to them. At either end of these latter were loose
boxes, capable of being made into two-stalled stables, only these
partitions were always disappearing, and the roofs had long
declined turning the weather; but still they were better than
nothing, and often formed receptacles for sly cabby’s, or
postboys who preferred the chance of eleemosynary fare at Sir
Moses’s to the hand in the pocket hospitality of the Red Lion, at
Fillerton Hill, or the Mainchance Arms, at Duckworth Bridge. Into
the best of these bad boxes the gig mare was put, and as there
was nothing to get in the house, Tom Cowlick took his departure
as soon as she had eaten her surreptitious feed of oats. The
pampered Napoleon the Great, the horse that required all the
warmth and coddling in the world, was next introduced, fine Billy
alighting from his back in the yard with all the unconcern that
he would from one of Mr. Splint’s or Mr. Spavins’s week day or
hour jobs. Indeed, one of the distinguishing features between the
new generation of sportsmen and the old, is the marked
indifference of the former to the comforts of their horses
compared to that shown by the old school, who always looked to
their horses before themselves, and not unfrequently selected
their inns with reference to the stables. Now-a-days, if a youth
gives himself any concern about the matter, it will often only be
with reference to the bill, and he will frequently ride away
without ever having been into the stable. If, however, fine Billy
had seen his, he would most likely have been satisfied with the
comfortable assurance that it was “only for one night,” the old
saying, “enough to kill a horse,” leading the uninitiated to
suppose that they are very difficult to kill.
“Ah, my dear Pringle!” exclaimed Sir Moses, rising from the
depths of a rather inadequately stuffed chair (for Mrs. Margerum
had been at it). “Ah, my dear Pringle, I’m delighted to see you!”
continued the Baronet, getting Billy by both hands, as the
noiseless Mr. Bankhead, having opened the library door, piloted
him through the intricacies of the company. Our host really was
glad of a new arrival, for a long winter’s evening had exhausted
the gossip of parties who in a general way saw quite enough, if
not too much, of each other. And this is the worst of country
visiting in winter; people are so long together that they get
exhausted before they should begin.
They have let off the steam of their small talk, and have nothing
left to fall back upon but repetition. One man has told what
there is in the “Post,” another in “Punch,” a third in the “Mark
Lane Express,” and then they are about high-and-dry for the rest
of the evening. From criticising Billy, they had taken to
speculating upon whether he would come or not, the odds—without
which an Englishmen can do nothing—being rather in favour of Mrs.
Yammerton’s detaining him. It was not known that Monsieur Rougier
had arrived. The mighty problem was at length solved by the
Richest Commoner in England appearing among them, and making the
usual gyrations peculiar to an introduction. He was then at
liberty for ever after to nod or speak or shake hands with or bow
to Mr. George and Mr. Henry Waggett, of Kitteridge Green, both
five-and-twenty pound subscribers to the Hit-im and Hold-im-shire
hounds, to Mr. Stephen Booty, of Verbena Lodge, who gave ten
pounds and a cover, to Mr. Silverthorn, of Dryfield, who didn’t
give anything, but who had two very good covers which he had been
hinting he should require to be paid for,—a hint that had
procured him the present invitation, to Mr. Strongstubble, of
Buckup Hill, and Mr. Tupman, of Cowslip Cottage, both very good
friends to the sport but not “hand in the pocket-ites,” to Mr.
Tom Dribbler, Jun., of Hardacres, and his friend Captain
Hurricane, of Her Majesty’s ship Thunderer, and to Mr. Cuthbert
Flintoff, commonly called Cuddy Flintoff, an “all about”
sportsman, who professed to be of all hunts but blindly went to
none. Cuddy’s sporting was in the past tense, indeed he seemed to
exist altogether upon the recollections of the chace, which must
have made a lively impression upon him, for he was continually
interlarding his conversation with view holloas, yoicks wind
‘ims! yoick’s push ‘im ups! Indeed, in walking about he seemed to
help himself along with the aid of for-rardson! for-rards on! so
that a person out of sight, but within hearing, would think he
was hunting a pack of hounds.
He dressed the sportsman, too, most assiduously, bird’s-eye
cravats, step-collared striped vests, green or Oxford-grey
cutaways, with the neatest fitting trousers on the best bow-legs
that ever were seen. To see him at Tattersall’s sucking his cane,
his cheesy hat well down on his nose, with his stout,
well-cleaned doe-skin gloves, standing criticising each horse, a
stranger would suppose that he lived entirely on the saddle,
instead of scarcely ever being in one. On the present occasion,
as soon as he got his “bob” made to our Billy, and our hero’s
back was restored to tranquillity, he at him about the
weather,—how the moon looked, whether there were any symptoms of
frost, and altogether seemed desperately anxious about the
atmosphere. This inquiry giving the conversation a start in the
out-of-doors line, was quickly followed by Sir Moses asking our
Billy how he left the Major, how he found his way there, with
hopes that everything was comfortable, and oh! agonising promise!
that he would do his best to show him sport.
The assembled guests then took up the subject of their
“magnificent country” generally, one man lauding its bottomless
brooks, another its enormous bullfinches, a third its terrific
stone walls, a fourth its stupendous on-and-offs, a fifth its
flying foxes, and they unanimously resolved that the man who
could ride over Hit-im and Hold-im-shire could ride over any
country in the world. “_Any country in the world!_” vociferated
Cuddy, slowly and deliberately, with a hearty crack of his fat
thigh. And Billy, as he sat listening to their dreadful recitals,
thought that he _had_ got into the lion’s den with a vengeance.
Most sincerely he wished himself back at the peaceful pursuits of
Yammerton Grange. Then, as they were in full cry with their
boasting eulogiums, the joyful dressing-bell rang, and Cuddy
Flintoff putting his finger in his ear, as if to avoid deafening
himself, shrieked, “_hoick halloa! hoick!_” in a tone that almost
drowned the sound of the clapper. Then when the “ticket of
leaver” and the _delirium tremens_ footman appeared at the door
with the blaze of bedroom candles, Cuddy suddenly turned
whipper-in, and working his right arm as if he were cracking a
whip, kept holloaing, “_get away hoick! get away hoick!_” until
he drove Billy and Baronet and all before him.
****
“Rum fellow that,” observed the Baronet, now showing Billy up to
his room, as soon as he had got sufficient space put between them
to prevent Cuddy hearing, “Rum fellow that,” repeated he, not
getting a reply from our friend, who didn’t know exactly how to
interpret the word “rum.”
“That fellow’s up to everything,—cleverest fellow under the sun,”
continued Sir Moses, now throwing open the door of an evident
bachelor’s bed-room. Not but that it was one of the best in the
house, only it was wretchedly furnished, and wanted all the
little neatnesses and knic-knaceries peculiar to a lady-kept
house. The towels were few and flimsy, the soap hard and dry,
there was a pincushion without pins, a portfolio without paper, a
grate with a smoky fire, while the feather-bed and mattress had
been ruthlessly despoiled of their contents. Even the imitation
maple-wood sofa on which Billy’s dress-clothes were now laid, had
not been overlooked, and was as lank and as bare as a third-rate
Margate lodging-house, one—all ribs and hollows.
“Ah, there you are!” exclaimed Sir Moses, pointing to the
garments, “There you are!” adding, “You’ll find the bell at the
back of your bed,” pointing to one of the old smothering order of
four-posters with its dyed moreen curtains closely drawn, “You’ll
find the bell at the back of the bed, and when you come down we
shall be in the same room as we were before.” So saying, the
Baronet retired, leaving our Billy to commence operations.