CHAPTER XI “A MERRY GO-ROUNDER”

A mile-and-a-half of grass, some six or eight fences, and the sustained brilliancy of the pace, have had their usual effect on the moving panorama. A turn in his favour, of which his old experience has prompted him to take every advantage, enables Mr. Sawyer to pull Hotspur back to a trot, and look about him. He is in a capital place, and has every reason to believe the new horse is “a flyer.” Hitherto, he has only asked him to gallop, best pace, over sound turf, and take a succession of fair hunting fences in his stride. Hotspur seems to know his business thoroughly, and though a little eager, he allows his rider to draw him together for his leaps, and the way in which he cocks his ears when within distance denotes a hunter. Mr. Sawyer is full of confidence. He has been riding fence for fence with the Honourable Crasher, whose pale face wears a smile of quiet satisfaction. The latter has indulged Topsy-Turvy with two awkward bits of timber, and an unnecessary gate; the mare is consequently tolerably amiable, and, though she throws her head wildly about if any other horse comes near her, may be considered in an unusually composed frame of mind. The huntsman has been riding close to his hounds, in that state of eager anxiety which the philosopher would hardly consider enjoyment, and yet which is nevertheless not without its charms; all his feelings are reflected, in a modified form, in the breast of the master. The latter, riding his own line, as near the pack as his conscience will permit him, is divided between intense enjoyment of the gallop and a host of vague apprehensions lest anything should turn up to mar the continuance of the run. He has already imbibed a qualified aversion for Mr. Sawyer, whom the instinct peculiar to his office prompts him to suspect as “a likely fellow to press them at a check;” while he knows his friend Crasher so well, as to feel there is but one chance with that mild enthusiast, viz. that Topsy-Turvy should come to a difficulty before the hounds do. Besides these four, Captain Struggles and Major Brush are very handy, whilst Mr. Savage heads another detachment in the next field, of which Miss Dove, riding with considerable grace, is at once the ornament and the admiration. Her father has lost his place from a fall, but is coming up with steady skill and energy, going as straight as if he were close to the hounds, and ready to take every advantage. At the first turn in his favour he will be with them as if nothing had happened. In addition to these, many score of sportsmen are scattered over the neighbouring district, and a serried mass of scarlet, which may be termed not inaptly, “the heavy brigade,” is moving in close column down a distant lane.

All this our friend observes at a glance, but his attention is soon arrested by the business in his front.

The hounds, having over-run the scent a trifle, swing to the line again with dashing confidence, and take it up once more with an energy that seems but increased by their momentary hesitation.

They might have been covered by a sheet hitherto: now they lengthen out into a string, and the leaders scour along, with their noses in the air and their sterns lowered. Every yard increases their distance from the pursuing horsemen.

They are pointing to a dead flat surface of old yellow grass, with patches of rushes and ant-hills interspersed. There would appear to be a mile or more of plain without a fence; but Mr. Sawyer spies a tell-tale willow here and there, and he wishes in his heart that he was quite sure Hotspur could jump water!

Presently the hounds disappear, and emerge again, throwing their tongues as they take to running, and looking darker and less distinct than before.

“Is there a ford, Charles?” halloos Major Brush, who has shaken to the front, and would fain continue there without a wetting.

“Never a one for miles,” answers Charles with inconceivable rapidity, catching his horse by the head, and performing a running accompaniment with his spurs.

In a few seconds, he is over with a considerable effort, a certain scramble and flourish when they land, showing there are very few inches to spare.

The ill-fated Major has no idea of refusing. His horse however, thinks differently; so they compromise the matter by sliding in together, and climbing out separately, draggled, disgusted, and bemired.

“There is no mistake about it,” thinks Mr. Sawyer; “I must jump or else go home!” He may take a liberty, he hopes, with a friend; so he puts the roan’s head close behind the Honourable Crasher, and devoutly trusting that gentleman will get over, drives Hotspur resolutely at the brook.

Topsy-Turvy, wild with excitement, throws her head in the air, and takes off a stride too soon. Consequently she drops her hind legs, and rolls into the opposite field. The roan, who jumps as far as ever he can, lands on Crasher’s reins, of which the latter never lets go, and drives them into the turf.

“Line, sir! line!” expostulates the Honourable, not knowing who it is. “Oh! it’s you, is it?” he adds, picking himself up, and re-mounting. “All right! Go along, old fellow! The hounds are running like smoke!”

Mr. Sawyer apologises freely as they gallop on. In his heart he thinks Crasher the best fellow he ever met, and contrasts his behaviour with that of Sir Samuel Stuffy in the Old Country, on whom he once played the same trick, and whose language in return was more Pagan than Parliamentary.

The master and Struggles get over also, the latter not without a scramble. Those who are not in the first flight wisely diverge towards a bridge. For five minutes and more there are but half-a-dozen men with the hounds. These run harder than ever for another mile, then throw their heads up, and come to an untoward check.

“What a pity!” exclaims Mr. Sawyer. Not that he thinks so exactly, for Hotspur wants a puff of wind sadly.

“Turned by them sheep!” says Charles, and casts his hounds rapidly forward and down wind. No; he has not been turned by the sheep: he has been coursed by a dog. Charles wishes every dog in the country was with Cerberus, except the nineteen couple now at fault.

“Pliant has it,” observes the master, as Pliant, feathering down the side of a hedge, makes sure she is right, and then flings a note or two off her silvery tongue, to apprise her gossips of the fact. They corroborate her forthwith, and the chorus of female voices could scarce be outdone at a christening. Nevertheless, they are brought to hunting now, and must feel for it every yard they go.

But this interval has allowed some twenty equestrians, amongst whom a graceful form in a habit is not the least conspicuous, to form the chase once more. Great is the talking and self-gratulations. Watches are even pulled out, and perspiring arrivals announce the result of their observations, each man timing the burst to the moment at which he himself came up.

“How well your horse carried you!” said a soft voice at Mr. Sawyer’s elbow; “didn’t he, Papa?” added the siren, appealing to the Reverend Dove, who was eagerly watching the hounds. “We all agreed that the velvet cap had the best of it.”

She wanted to make amends to him for her rudeness in the morning, and this was the opportunity to choose. The hardest male heart is sufficiently malleable under the combined influence of heat, haste, and excitement, though how this girl should have made the discovery it is beyond my ingenuity to guess. How do they discover a thousand things, of which we believe them to be ignorant?

Mr. Sawyer smiled his gratitude, as he opened a gate for the lady, and very nearly let it swing back against her knees. He had not acquired sufficient practice yet at his gates, that’s the truth; and perhaps there were other portals wherein his inexperience had better have forbidden him to venture. Miss Dove was fast luring him into a country which, to use a hunting metaphor, was very cramped and blind, full of “doubles,” “squire-traps,” and other pit-falls for the unwary.

Hounds are apt to be a little unsettled after so rapid a burst as I have attempted to describe, and it takes a few fields of persevering attention to steady them again. After this, however, I think we may have remarked they made but few mistakes, and a fox well rattled, up to the first check, huntsmen tell us, is as good as half killed.

The description of a run is tedious to all but the narrator. What good wine a man should give his guests, who indulges in minute details of every event that happened!—how they entered this spinny, and skirted that wood, and crossed the common, and finally killed or lost, or ran to ground, or otherwise put an end to the proceedings of which the reality is so engrossing and the account so tedious. I have seen young men, longing to join the ladies, or pining for their cigars, forced to sit smothering their yawns as they pretended to take an interest in the hounds and the huntsman, and the country, and their host’s own doings, and that eternal black mare. I can stand it well enough myself, with a fair allowance of ’41 or ’44, by abstracting my attention completely from the narrative, and wandering in the realms of fancy, cheered by the blushing fluid. But every one may not enjoy this faculty, and you cannot, in common decency, go fast asleep in your Amphitryon’s face. Again, I say, nothing but good wine will wash the infliction down. Let him, then, whose port is new, or whose claret unsound, beware how he thus trespasses on the forbearance of his guests.

Of course they killed their fox. After the first check they gradually took to hunting, and so to running once more, Mr. Sawyer distinguishing himself by describing a very perfect semicircle with Hotspur, over some rails near Stanford Hall. The roan was tired, and his rider ambitious, so a downfall was the inevitable result. Nevertheless, he fell honourably enough, and hoped no one but himself knew how completely the accident was occasioned by utter exhaustion on the part of his steed.

There is no secret so close as that between a horse and his rider. Up to the first check, Hotspur had realised his owner’s fondest anticipations. “He’s fit for a king!” ejaculated the delighted Sawyer, when they flew so gallantly over the brook. Even after the hounds had run steadily on for the best part of an hour, the animal’s character had only sunk to “not thoroughly fit to go;” but when they arrived at the Hemplow Hills, and the pack, still holding a fair hunting pace, breasted that choking ascent, he could not disguise from himself that the roan was about “told out.” They are indeed no joke, those well-known Hemplow Hills, when they present themselves to astonished steeds and ardent riders after fifty minutes over the strongest part of Northamptonshire. A sufficiently picturesque object to the admirer of nature, they prove an unwelcome obstacle to the follower of the chase, and it was no disgrace to poor Hotspur that, although he struggled gamely to the top, he was reduced to a very feeble and abortive attempt at a trot when he reached the flat ground on the summit. Ere long this degenerated to a walk; and I leave it to my reader, if a sportsman, to imagine with what feelings of relief Mr. Sawyer observed the now distant pack turning short back. The fox was evidently hard pressed, and dodging for his life.

The Rev. Dove, with an exceedingly red face, a broken stirrup-leather, and a dirty coat, viewed him crawling slowly down the side of a hedgerow. In an instant his hat was in the air, and Charles, surrounded by his hounds, was galloping to the point indicated. Two sharp turns with the fox in sight—a great enthusiasm and hurry amongst those sportsmen who were fortunate enough to be present, and who rode, one and all, considerably faster than their horses could go—a confused mass of hounds rolling over each other in the corner of a field—Charles off his horse, and amongst them, with a loud “Who-whoop”—and the run is concluded, to the satisfaction of all lookers-on, and the irremediable disgust of the many equestrians who started “burning with high hope,” and are now struggling and stopping over the adjoining parish, in different stages of exhaustion. The Honourable Crasher congratulates Mr. Sawyer on his success; also takes this opportunity of introducing his friend to the M.F.H. A few courteous sentences are interchanged; Messrs. Savage, Struggles, and Brush propose a return to Harborough; cigars are offered and lit; everybody seems pleased and excited. John Standish Sawyer has attained the object for which he left home—he has seen a good run, made a number of pleasant acquaintances, launched once more into that gay world, which he now thinks he abandoned too soon. He ought to be delighted with his success: but, alas for human triumphs!
“Ay! even in the fount of joy,
Some bitter drops the draught alloy,”

and our friend, with many feigned excuses, and a dejected expression of countenance, lingers behind his companions, and plods his way homewards alone.