CHAPTER VI HAZY WEATHER

When Mr. Sawyer awoke in the morning, his first impression was, that he had never left The Grange, but that the pattern of his bedroom paper was strangely altered, and the situation of his couch had been mysteriously changed in the night.

It was not till he had turned over, and yawned twice or thrice, that he comprehended the actual position in which he was placed. Then, for the first time, the magnitude of the undertaking on which he had embarked presented itself to his mind; and then did he realise the deficiencies of his stud, the difficulties he was about to encounter, the rashness and perplexity of the whole proceeding. A feeling of loneliness stole over him; and he even experienced a want of confidence in himself. For an instant, he almost wished he was back at home, and the dastardly possibility of returning there flashed across his mind. All these unworthy thoughts, however, were dissipated by the entrance of Isaac, with a pair of boots in one hand, and a glimmering bedroom candle in the other, as the mists of morning are dispelled by the rising sun; and, even as the shrinking combatant gathers confidence from the flash of his drawn sword, so, at the first glimpse of those long-rowelled spurs of which Marathon knew too well the persuasive powers, John Standish Sawyer was himself again.

“Half after eight, sir,” said Isaac, setting down the candle, and proceeding to pour cold water into the tub—a process that by no means tempted his master to rise on the instant. “Half after eight, sir; and the grey’s got a bit of a cough. It’s that strange stable as done it. And you was to let me know in the morning which of them I was to take on.”

“What sort of a day is it?” asked our friend, in a sleepy voice, turning, like Dr. Watts’s sluggard, into a more comfortable position. At that moment, it would not have broken his heart to be told that it was too hard to hunt.

“Can’t see your hand,” was the encouraging reply: “it’s one of these regular Leicester-sheer fogs, as the grooms tells me, as is wery prevalent hereabouts. The lamps is lit now in the streets; but it’ll be wusser up on the high ground. They’ll hunt, though, just the same, says they. Weather never stops them here, unless it be the sewerest of frost and snow, as I understand. Shall I open the shutters, sir?”

Isaac threw them back as he spoke, and drew up the blind, disclosing to Mr. Sawyer’s view about eighteen feet of tiles, a weathercock pointing east-south-east, and a chimney adorned with what is called an “old woman”—an ingenious contrivance to prevent it from smoking, but in this instance, to judge by the smell of soot which pervaded the apartment, by no means a successful piece of mechanism—the whole wrapped in a mantle of the densest and wettest fog he ever remembered to have seen.

“Sure to be late such a morning as this,” thought Mr. Sawyer, preparing for another comfortable half-hour in bed; but then he reflected that he must send Isaac forward with a horse, also that he should have to find his own way to Tilton Wood, on his hack—a sufficiently intricate proceeding as studied overnight by a map, but which might become excessively puzzling when reduced to practice, through large pastures and unknown bridle-gates, on such a morning as the present.

“Take on the grey!” said he, peremptorily, ignoring the cough; “and order breakfast for me in three-quarters of an hour.”

The fact is, Mr. Sawyer had but the grey to ride. He did not quite fancy giving the roan his earliest trial in what he understood to be a hilly country; and as for making his first appearance in High Leicestershire on Marathon—really, though both were pretty strong, neither his nerves nor his self-conceit would have stood such a test.

Somehow, everything went wrong, as is apt to be the case in a strange place, and when we are particularly anxious for the reverse. He cut himself shaving. His leathers were damp, and badly cleaned; looser, too, at the knees, and tighter in the thighs, than he liked. Also, he couldn’t find his button-hook; and any one who has put on boots and breeches without the aid of that implement, will sympathise with his distress. Isaac knew where it was, doubtless; but, ere his master arrived at the stage of toilet at which it was required, Isaac and the grey had made their first wrong turn in the fog, about a mile from the town, on their way to Tilton Wood.

Altogether, by the time The Boy, with rather heavy eyes and an unwashed face, had brought round Jack-a-Dandy, our friend was in that mood which is best described as having “got out of bed with the wrong foot foremost.”

Once in the saddle, however, things mended rapidly. No horseman could get upon Jack-a-Dandy without feeling what a good little animal it was; and, indeed, Jack’s career had been a somewhat adventurous one. Thorough-bred, but too small to be put in training, he had fallen into the hands of a steeple-chasing horsedealer, who sank his pedigree, and put him in one or two good handicaps as “his daughter’s pony.” Master Jack could jump like a deer, and, with nine stone seven on his back, was quite able to make hunters of considerable pretensions look extremely foolish. This could not go on for ever, and the dealer broke, after which, Jack carried the drunken whip of a pack of Irish fox-hounds for two seasons, and, when that establishment “busted up,” found his way once more into his native country, as leader in a young gentleman’s tandem, who tried to graduate at Oxford. Pending the failure of that acolyte, he had a good deal of fun at Bullingdon, winning cleverly whenever he had a chance, and only left the University because his master did, and took him to London, and, despite certain eccentricities, rode him in the Park. When that youth was compelled to obtain his passports for the Continent, Jack, in company with several other valuables, was seized by the creditors; and I fancy he had a very bad time of it for two or three years, till he turned up at Smithfield, nothing but skin, bone, and blemishes, with a pair of raw shoulders that would have made you sick. Here Mr. Sawyer, struck with his “make-and-shape,” bought him, after a good deal of haggling, for thirteen pounds ten shillings, throwing in half-a-crown for luck, and standing two pots of beer and a glass of brandy-and-water, besides the man’s expenses who brought him to the West-end. Altogether, he cost him less than fourteen sovereigns; and he justly considered him very cheap at the money. Though his knees were broke, and he was fired all round, he never stumbled or was lame; and if you didn’t mind a succession of kicks for the first half-mile and a mouth which bad usage had rendered perfectly callous, he was as pleasant a hack as you could wish to get upon. Jack never wanted to pull, if the rein was laid on his neck; but the moment it was caught hold of, his old associations took it as a signal to go, and go he would, accordingly. With regard to his appellation—the last among many aliases—when his master called him “Jack,” old Isaac called him “The Dandy,” and vice versa.

There are a good many ways from Market Harborough to Tilton Wood. Of course, the morning being very thick, and Mr. Sawyer a perfect stranger to the country, he chose the most intricate, hoping to pass between the Langtons—of which, for the more complete bewilderment of strangers, there are five or six—and so to reach Stanton Wyville, whence he meant boldly to leave the lanes, and strike out into a line of bridle-gates, by the corner of Stanton Wood, which might or might not eventually land him somewhere about Skeffington.

Deluded man! Ere he reached the grass-track he meant to follow, the fog was denser than ever. He managed to get through one bridle-gate, after catching his horse’s rein on the post—an insult which The Dandy resented by putting his head down, and racing wilfully and aimlessly into the surrounding obscurity—and then found himself riding round and round the same field, with extraordinary perseverance, and not the remotest chance of escape.

He would have liked, now, to get back again into the lanes; but he could not even hit the gate at which he entered, and had embarked upon the tedious process of coasting the field methodically, for that purpose, and giving up all idea of hunting for the day, when, much to his relief, he spied a gigantic object looming through the fog, which, on a nearer approach, proved to be nothing larger than a horseman, cantering confidently towards him.

On inspection, this timely arrival turned out to be the Honourable Crasher, with an enormous cigar in his mouth, looking more tired than ever, and, apparently, quite unconscious of the fog and everything else. With an effort, however, he recognised his fellow-traveller of the day before, and courteously offered to guide him—a proposal which the latter accepted with great readiness.

“I had almost lost myself,” said he, “what with this thick fog, and not knowing the country.”

To which the Honourable Crasher replied, “Y-e-e-es—it makes one cough, but it’s all plain sailing now,” and broke into a gallop.

Poor Mr. Sawyer! If he had only known it! His guide was one of the many gentlemen who could hunt twenty years from the same place, and never know their shortest way from one point to another.