CHAPTER XXII A WET NIGHT

“Sit tight,” exclaimed the Honourable, as the phaeton bumped forcibly against the stone post of the Rectory entrance, and proceeded into the road with what sailors call “a considerable slue to port,” consequent on that brute Marathon hugging the pole and setting his mouth with pig-headed obstinacy. “I must pitch into you!” added the driver, suiting the action to the word, and administering heavy punishment to the transgressing animal—a discipline which Marathon resented by kicking hard against the splash-board; whilst the chestnut, a sensitive, high-couraged five-year-old, was driven almost mad by the sounds of repeated flagellation. “Are you nervous on wheels?” added the charioteer quietly, as he felt his companion’s leg stiffen against his own with the instinctive rigidity of apprehension. “Nervous!” forsooth! Ask Launcelot fresh from the presence of Guenevere, or Charles Brandon tilting before the young Dauphiness of France, or Bothwell with his armour buckled on by Mary Stuart, if those doughty champions were afraid; but forbear to put so ridiculous a question at a moment like the present to John Standish Sawyer. “Nervous, indeed!” Our friend pressed his hat firmly on his head, folded his arms across his chest, and laughed grimly in his questioner’s face. “All right, old fellow!” said he; “drive on, if you like, to the devil!”

“He’s a rare plucked one,” thought the Honourable to himself, as he started the horses in a gallop, apparently with no other view than that of arriving at the destination proposed. The night was dark, and threatening rain as it clouded over rapidly; the way intricate, full of turns and difficulties; and The Boy, is it needless to observe, helplessly drunk in the rumble. He would have been a venturous speculator who had taken five to one that they arrived safe at Market Harborough.

The wheels flew round with frightful velocity, scattering the mud profusely over the occupants of the carriage. The horses with lowered heads laid themselves down to their work, pulling wildly. The Honourable’s arms were extended, and his feet thrust forward. He would not have admitted it, but it looked very much as if they were running away with him.

“An’t they getting a little out of your hand?” asked Mr. Sawyer, hazarding the question in its mildest form, as he recognised Marathon’s well-known manner of putting down his head when he meant mischief; and calculated if anything should give way, whereabouts his own body would shoot to, at that pace.

“Only going free,” answered Crasher with the utmost composure, though his cigar was burnt all the way down one side to his lips by the current of air created in the rapidity of their transit. “Remarkably free—but I like phaeton horses to run up to their bits.”

“Do you?” thought Mr. Sawyer; but, despite the enthusiasm and the claret, and the romance of the whole evening, he wished himself anywhere else. Independent of the ignominious ending of being dashed to pieces out of a phaeton, it would be hard lines never to see Cissy Dove again. However, there was nothing for it but to sit still and trust to Crasher’s coachmanship. Anything like expostulation with that gentleman he felt would be worse than useless.

I recollect to have seen or heard somewhere an anecdote of the celebrated “Hell-fire Dick,” which exhibits such sang-froid in a dangerous predicament as to be worth repeating. Dick, then, who had attained his flaming sobriquet by the dashing pace and general recklessness with which he drove, was not only one of the most skilful of the old-fashioned Long coachmen, but was equally noted for the cool imperturbability of his demeanour and the suavity of his replies. One very dark night, whilst proceeding at his usual pace, he was so unfortunate as to get off the road on a common where several gravel-pits yawning on each side for his reception, made the mistake as dangerous as it was disagreeable. With a tremendous lurch the coach swung over one of these ready-made graves, and there was just light enough to perceive the fifteen feet or so of sheer descent yawning for its victims. “Where have you got to now, Dick?” exclaimed the box-passenger, in accents of pardonable irritation and alarm. “Can’t say, sir,” replied Dick, with the utmost politeness, while they were all turning over together—“Can’t say, I’m sure—never was here before!”

Now, if the Honourable Crasher had been going to be shot the next minute, it is my firm conviction that impending destruction would not have ruffled his plumes, nor agitated the languor of his accustomed manner in the slightest degree. Whether such a temperament is entirely natural, or is not rather to a certain extent the result of education, enhanced by what we must call the affectation peculiar to a class, it is not our business to inquire: but we may fairly acknowledge to a respectful commiseration for a quiet respectable country gentleman who finds his neck committed to the keeping of one of these imperturbable, placid, yet utterly reckless adventurers.

The wind was getting up, and a heavy shower of mingled sleet and rain dashing in their faces, added considerably to the discomfort of the whole process.

“This can’t last long,” murmured Mr. Sawyer below his breath, and holding on vigorously to the side of the carriage the while, as they whirled fiercely through the obscurity, the rush of their career varied only by frequent jumps and bumps that threatened to jerk him clean out over the splash-board. He was not very far wrong in his calculations.

Their course lay along one of those field-roads so common in Leicestershire, where the track on a dark night is not easily distinguished from the adjacent ridge-and-furrow, and which, delightful to the equestrian for that very reason, as no jealous fence prevents him diverging for a canter on to the springy pasture, are less convenient for carriages owing to the number of gates that delay the passage of the vehicle. They were now approaching the first of these obstacles to their course, and Crasher had not yet got a pull at his horses.

“It’s open, I think,” remarked the Honourable, peering into the darkness ahead, and endeavouring to moderate the pace without effect.

“I think not!” replied Mr. Sawyer, setting his teeth for a catastrophe.

Right again! Three more strides and they were into it!

A crackling smashing noise of broken wood-work—one or two violent bangs against the splash-board—a faint expostulation of “Gently, my lads!” from the Honourable—a tremendous jolt against the post, which was torn up by the roots—and Mr. Sawyer found himself on his face and hands in an exceedingly wet furrow; a little stunned, a good deal confused, and feeling very much as if somebody had knocked him down, and he did not know whom to be angry with.

As he rose and shook himself to ascertain that no bones were broken, much struggling and groaning as of an animal in distress, mingled with weeping and lamentation from a human voice, smote on his ear. The former arose from Marathon, who couldn’t get up, with the other horse and the pole and part of the carriage atop of him: the latter from The Boy, who, frightened for the moment into a spurious sobriety, thus gave vent to his feelings of utter despondency and desolation.

“I thought the brute could jump timber,” said a calm voice in the surrounding darkness. “Let us see: here’s the carriage—there are the horses—and that must be The Boy. Where are you, Sawyer?”

“Here!” answered our friend, coming forward, rubbing his elbows and knees, to discover if he was hurt; the Honourable, who had never abandoned his cigar, endeavouring to extricate the horses—a measure only to be accomplished by dint of cutting the harness—and to estimate the amount of damage, and the impossibility of putting in to refit.

Our friend set to work with a will. By their joint endeavours they succeeded at last in getting the hapless Marathon and his companion clear of the wreck. Both were obviously lamed and injured; the carriage, as far as could be made out in the darkness, broken all to pieces.

The Boy, after flickering up for a few minutes, had become again unconscious. As the old watchman used to sing out, it was “Past one o’clock and a stormy morning!”

“Whereabouts are we?” asked Mr. Sawyer in dolorous accents, as he tried to persuade himself he ought to be thankful it was no worse. “Whereabouts are we, and what had we better do?”

“Over a hundred miles from London,” answered the Honourable, “that’s all I know about it. Holloaing, I suppose, would be no use—there can’t be a house within hearing, and the fly has gone the other road. Have a cigar, old fellow! and, just to keep the fun going, perhaps you wouldn’t mind singing us a song?”

It was only under a calamity like the present that the Honourable condescended to be facetious.

Mr. Sawyer was on the verge of making an angry reply, when the sound of a horse’s hoofs advancing with considerable rapidity changed it into a vigorous call for assistance.

“Hilli-ho! ho!” shouted Mr. Sawyer. “Hilli-ho! ho!” answered a jolly voice, as the hoofs ceased, and came clattering on again, denoting that the rider had pulled up to listen and was coming speedily to help. “What’s up now?” asked the jolly voice, in somewhat convivial accents, as an equestrian mass of drab and leggings, which was all that could be made out through the darkness, loomed indistinctly into the foreground. “What’s up now, mates? got the wrong end uppermost this turn, sure-lie.”

“Come to grief at the gate,” explained the Honourable. “Didn’t go quite fast enough at it, Sawyer,” he added, half reflectively, half apologetically, to his friend.

“Why, it’s Muster Crasher!” exclaimed the jolly voice, in delighted tones. “Well, to be sure! Not the first gate, neither, by a many—only to think of it, well, well! But come, let’s see what’s the damage done—dear! dear! you’ll never get home to-night. You must come up to my place, ’tain’t above a mile through the fields—we’ll get you put up, nags and all, and send down for the trap first thing i’ the morning. How lucky I was passing this way! Coming back from market, ye see, I’d just stopped to smoke a pipe with neighbour Mark down at The Holt, and was maken’ for home in a hurry, ’cause it’s rather past my time, you know, when I hear this gentleman a hollerin’ murder! Up I comes and finds the ship overboard with a vengeance. What a start it is, sure-lie!”

Thus moralising, and never leaving off talking for an instant, the jolly yeoman jumped off his horse, and lent his powerful assistance to clear away the wreck; shaking The Boy into life again with considerable energy. In a few minutes the four men, leading the two damaged carriage-horses, were stumbling and groping their way across the fields towards the new arrival’s farm.

Ere they reached their destination, the owner, with considerable politeness, introduced himself to our friend. “No offence, sir,” said he, “my name’s Trotter—Trotter of Trotter’s Lodge, and that’s my place where you see the lights a shinin’—Mr. Crasher, he knows me well—think I’ve met you out a huntin’ more than once this season—allow me, sir, we’ll have the missus up in no time, and a hearty welcome to you both.”

As Mr. Trotter thus hospitably concluded, he ushered his guests into a comfortable kitchen, where a tallow candle was still glimmering in its accustomed place. The master was obviously in the habit of coming home late; but that the practice was contrary to the rules of domestic discipline Mr. Sawyer gathered from the accents of a shrill voice raised in tones of reproach from an upstairs dormitory.

“Trotter! Trotter!” exclaimed the voice, unconscious of visitors, and proceeding apparently from beneath a considerable weight of bed-clothes, “is that you at last? It’s too bad! It’s nigh upon two o’clock. Mind you rake out the fire, and don’t go spilling the candle-grease all about as you come upstairs!”

Mr. Trotter, still perceptibly elevated, winked facetiously at his guests. “Get up, Margery!” he called out; “get up, I tell ye! make haste and come down. Never mind your night-cap. Here’s two gentlemen come to see ye!” And with many apologies and repeated allusions to the substantive “keys,” Mr. Trotter stirred up the fire, lit another candle, and proceeded upstairs to rouse his better-half.

In less time than you or I as a bachelor could believe it possible, a smiling dame made her appearance from above-stairs, with a neat morning cap over her comely head, and a bright rosy face, very different from the sallow hues of many a fine lady when first she wakes, blushing beneath it. That her petticoat was put on in a hurry, and her gown unfastened behind, was only what might be expected in such a rapid turn-out. These trifling drawbacks detracted not the least from the bustling hospitality with which she received her guests. It was only by the most pathetic entreaties that the Honourable dissuaded her from having a fire lighted in the best parlour, and extorted her permission for them to sit in the kitchen.

Dry slippers were soon provided for the guests. The horses, inspected by the stable lantern, were discovered not to be irremediably injured, though Marathon’s chance was out for the steeple-chase, “if indeed,” as his former and present owners remarked in a breath, though with different emphasis, “he ever had one.” The Boy was put to bed, where he might be heard snoring all over the house. What Mr. Trotter called a “snack” was set on the table, consisting of a round of beef, a ham, some cold pork-pie, an Eddish cheese, and a few other trifles of a like nature, adapted for a late meal as being light and easy of digestion. Port and sherry were produced and declined in favour of huge steaming beakers of hot brandy-and-water. Arrangements were entered into for forwarding the two gentlemen to Harborough in the farmer’s gig “first thing to-morrow morning.” Mr. Trotter produced a box of cigars and announced his intention of “making a night of it!”

A faint scream from his wife promised to a certain extent to modify the conviviality of the meeting. “She couldn’t abear the sight of blood,” she said, with many excuses for her feminine susceptibility, and drew the company’s attention to the personal appearance of Mr. Sawyer, which everybody had hitherto been too busy to observe, and which indeed presented a sufficiently ghastly aspect to excuse the good dame’s reiterated assurances that it “had give her quite a turn.”

A severe contusion on the eyebrow, accompanied by a cut extending to the cheek-bone, and which had covered one side of his face with dried blood, made him look much more damaged than he really was, and though kindly Mrs. Trotter quickly recovered her equanimity and brought him warm water and vinegar and balsam, and eventually plastered him up with about half a sheet of diachylon, she could not help shuddering during the operation, and seemed glad when it was over. Our farmers’ wives of the present day are not quite so much accustomed to broken heads as bonny “Ailie,” the helpmate of immortal Dandie Dinmont.

The borderer, however, could not have been more hospitably inclined than was the jovial Leicestershire farmer. Setting aside the difference of time and locality, they had indeed many qualities in common. The same love of hunting, the same daring in the saddle, the same open-hearted hospitality and tendency to push good-fellowship a little over the bounds of sobriety. The only difference perhaps was this that Dandie Dinmont would have been getting up before Mr. Trotter was thinking of going to bed.

I am not going to recapitulate the sayings and doings of those jovial small hours after Mrs. Trotter had betaken herself once more hopelessly to her couch. The Honourable Crasher, always a gentleman, though rather a torpid one, was equally at home with a duke and a drayman, perhaps more in his element with a hunting friend like Trotter than either. The good runs they recapitulated, the horses they remembered, the grey that was bought by Mr. G——, and the chestnut that had carried Lord W—— so well for years, the fences they had negotiated—nay, the very toasts they proposed and did justice to, would fill a chapter. It is sufficient to say that when Mr. Sawyer awoke in the best bedroom about sunrise the following morning, he had a racking head-ache, his mouth felt like the back of a Latin grammar, and the only distinct recollection with which he could charge his memory of the previous night’s conversation was his host’s recipe for making a young horse a safe fencer, which he certainly did not then feel in a condition to adopt.

“If you’ve got a green horse as you’re not very confident on at strong timber,” said Mr. Trotter, about the fourth glass of brandy-and-water, “you tackle him my way. You take him out o’ Sundays or any afternoon as you’ve nothing particular to do, and pick him out some real stiff ones. Give him two or three good heavy falls, and I’ll warrant you’ll have very little trouble afterwards. That’s the way to make ’em rise!—ain’t it, Mr. Crasher?”

After such a night’s amusement as I have described, gentlemen are apt to be later in the morning than they originally proposed.

Our belated travellers had intended getting back to their quarters at Harborough by eight or nine o’clock, there to make their toilets, discuss their breakfasts, and so proceed to covert methodically as usual, in time to meet Mr. Tailby’s clipping pack at Carlton Clump. It was nine, however, before either of them was stirring, and then the hospitable Trotter, who was himself going to hunt, and who came in from shepherding as rosy and fresh as if he had never seen brandy-and-water in his life, would not hear of their going away without breakfast. Altogether they did not get clear of Trotter’s Lodge much before ten o’clock, and as they drove out of the farmyard they had the mortification of seeing their entertainer mounted on his four-year-old (“Fancy riding a four-year-old after such a night!” thought Mr. Sawyer) on his way to the meet. “And we’ve got to go home and dress, and then come all this way back again,” moralised the Honourable. “I say, Sawyer, I wish I could make this beggar go as fast as we did last night,” and Crasher smiled at the recollection, as a man smiles who recalls some peaceful scene of his youth, or some good action which he will never find cause to repent.

This beggar, however, though a good farmer’s nag enough, knew quite well that it wasn’t his day for Market Harborough, and displayed great unwillingness to improve upon seven miles an hour in that direction. The chance of being in time faded away momently. Already they had overtaken several grooms with hunters; worse still, one or two early men on their hacks had overtaken them, and they had not yet struck into the high-road. At last the sound of wheels behind them caused the old horse to quicken his pace—not sufficiently so, however, to prevent the pursuing carriage from gaining on them rapidly. Mr. Sawyer looked back. Oh for a gig umbrella! It was none other than Parson Dove driving his daughter to the meet, that young lady’s very becoming costume denoting that it was her intention to join in the pleasures of the chase. Here was a predicament! To be detected by the queen of his affections, with whom he had parted at midnight, in all the correct decorum of evening costume, still in the same dress, so inappropriate at 10.30 A.M., bearing obvious tokens of having been out all night, and worse than all, with an inflamed countenance, blood-shot eyes, and a face half-eclipsed in plaister! Perdition! It was not to be thought of!

With the energy of despair he snatched the whip from the Honourable’s astonished grasp, and applied it with such good will to the old horse’s ribs, that the animal broke incontinently into a gallop, and turned into the high-road some fifty yards ahead of its pursuers, who would cross that thoroughfare directly, whereas Mr. Sawyer and its driver would follow its broad track to Harborough. “Cover me up!” exclaimed our friend to his laughing companion, as he crouched in the bottom of the carriage, under the scanty gig-apron, and devoutly hoped he had escaped recognition—“cover me up! I wouldn’t be seen in this plight by any of that family for a hundred pounds!” Nevertheless, he resolved, so to speak, to substantiate his alibi by swearing the Honourable to secrecy, and abstaining altogether for that day from the chase.