wMi *fV 9^ m v.;p I A. DANIELS' 1 LENDING LIBRARY, I 4, LIME STREET, 5 BEDFORD. ■ 3 nKgiii i ininm i i i i i i ' i""""""" "'^^'"'^ L I B R.A R.Y OF THE U N I VERSITY Of ILLl NOIS CSSScr CEUMBS FKOM A SPOETSMAN'S TABLE BY CHARLES CLARKE, AITHOR OF "CHARLIE THORNHILL," "WHICH IS THE WINNER," KTC. , KTC. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. L LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY 1865. \_The Bight of Translation is i^eserved.^ LONDON : BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WniTKFRlAR-S. o 3 in 1^ IT ^ i 5 THIS WORK IS ©Etitcatcti, WITHOUT PERMISSION, CO TO THE FIRST-FLIGHT MEN OF THE SHIRES, ■>■■ g BY THEIR SINCERE ADMIRP:R, Hf THE AUTHOR. n CONTENTS. • PART I. COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. PAGS INTRODUCTION ........ vii CHAPTER I. MY UNCLE SCRIBBLE ...... 1 CHAPTER ir. OUR COUNTY MEMBER . . . . . . . 15 CHAPTER TTF. A POPULAR MAN ....... 28 CHAPTER IV. PARSON HKATHFIELD ....... 45 CHAPTER V. HOW CAPTAIN GUERNSEY AND MR. BAYARD, AND SOME FEW OTHERS, GO TO HOUNDS . . . C2 CHAPTER Vr. THE GENTLEMAN DEALER, OR DJCK CRUPPERTON's IDEA OF SEEING A GOOD THING . . ... 84 CHAPTER VIT. THE PROFESSIONAL DEALER . . . . .101 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. PAGE JOHN BARLEYCORN AND HIS FRIENDS . . . . 116 CHAPTER IX. OF FUNKERS AND THEIR HABITS . . . . 138 CHAPTER X. PIP LODGE, AND OUR FRIENDS FROM THE METROPOLIS 157 CHAPTER XI. THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER 175 CHAPTER XII. REMINISCENCES OF THE SPA . . . . . 196 CHAPTER XIII. OF LADIES AND THEIR HABITS . • • .217 PART II. ROAD-SIDE SCEAPINGS AT HOME AND ABROAD. CHAPTER I. LIFE OF A HUNTER; AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY . , 241 INTRODUCTION Of the Sketches and Scrapings, which are now offered to the public, much of the matter has appeared before under a different form. Papers have been especially selected from the " Sporting Magazine," which seem to have attained some popularity, but which, from the circumstances of the case, cannot have been so generally read as they may be in the form in which they are now presented. In the second part some original stories have been added ; and alterations (may I venture to hope, improvements) have been made, which will give the others fresh claims upon those who have already met with them some years ago. The vast increase of the reading classes, the demand // Vm INTRODUCTION. for light literature, more particularly at this season of the year, and the universal attachment to the Sports of the Field, which have sprung up since the first publication of these sketches, lead me to hope that they will serve to illustrate scenes and incidents generally interesting to all classes : even the softer sex may feel some interest in the pursuits which occupy so much of the attention of their husbands, brothers, and admirers. CEUMBS FEOM A SPORTSMAN'S TABLE. Part I. COYER-SIDE SKETCHES. CHAPTER I. MY UNCLE SCRIBBLE. " Shall I put these in, sir ?" said John, as he stood over my portmanteau, holding up a pair of two-year-old top-boots, marvellously blacked, and owing the creamy delicacy of their tops to some mixture little short of champagne and apricot jam. " Yes, John, you may put those in : be careful not to crush them. That's right — put the trees into the tops, and turn the foot up. Plenty of thick brown paper." " And the butcher boots too, sir ? " VOL. I. B Z COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. " Cei-tainly ; why not ? " said I, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. " They save a great deal of trouble in strange houses, and travel admirably." " Then perhaps you'd like to take your boot- box, sir, complete." " Oh, no ; the less luggage the better ; they'll both go into the large portmanteau. The old gentleman will be frightened if he sees half-a- dozen packages." The fact is, I always have expected a trifle from him, and it pleases me to humour his prejudices.; " How many pairs of breeches, sir ? " " Three pairs of leathers, and a pair of Bedford cords." "Yes, sir. Put the portfolio in at the bottom, sir?" " The what ? " said I, not quite understanding the question. " The portfolio, sir, with the drawings, and such like. I thought you was going photographing, sir ; you said something about it." ** Very true, very true, John. But I think I shall manage that without the portfolio ;" and John completed his task. MY UNCLE SCRIBBLE. 3 It occurs to most people that the month of December is not exactly the season for sketching. Popular prejudice is in favour of a more genial time of year. Light, shade, purple sunsets, golden tints, atmospheric effects, and autumnal browns, are hard to find in the depth of winter. Pho- tography under difficulties ! so it would seem. However, we must try what we can do : and if the pencil is really out of place at the cover-side, let me see what can be done with the pen. * ' A chiel's araang ye takin* notes, And faith ! lie'll prent it. " It was a delicious morning in December. There had been a bright, clear, hard look about the sky during the two previous days, with some disagree- able symptoms of starlight nights. As I stept into the North Western Station, there was a charming softness in the atmosphere, and a most pertinaciously steady rain. I saw an old man or two look despairingly up at the heavens and turn up their collars, and an anxious mother gave an additional fold to the red comforter of a young gentleman whom she was evidently despatching for a Christmas visit to the country. He held a pair of skates in his hand. He might as well 4 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. have been armed with a harpoon for all the use they could possibly be to him for the next three weeks. The glass was low ; the earth was warm, and poured forth humid exhalations : and I think I never saw anything promise so favourably for the " Sport of Kings." And whither was I bound ? I was going to grass : literally turned out to get my living : in other words, to recruit my strength. No man knows what a day's hunting is, until he has earned it. A stud at Melton is a glorious pri- vilege ; so is a good dinner and a bottle of '44 claret ; but you don't mean to persuade me that the enjoyment is the same to the man who has one eveiy day of his life, and to him whom Duke Humphrey welcomes as an ordinary guest. The digestion requires no training for this. Who cares about roast mutton ? The man who has been dieted on rice pudding and sago. Who cares about Marcobrunner and '58 Lafitte? The martyr to gout. Who would really appreciate a stud at Melton ? The curate of St. Christopher- in-the-Fields. ** Nemo, qiiam sibi sortera Seu ratio dederit seu fors objecerit, ilU Contentus vivit. " MY UNCLE SCRIBBLE. O It is difficult to do so, certainly. Imagine tlie intensity of hatred with which I looked at the boy with the skates. I am naturally of an inquisitive mind ; and as I alighted from the train at the Collarbone Station (so called from a popular sport in the neighbourhood), my attention was attracted by three good-looking horses, under the charge of two grooms. "Nice-looking horse," said I, before getting into the carriage which was in waiting for me. The groom said nothing before taking stock of me, and then, seeing but little of the tout or pick- pocket about me, touched his hat and replied, " Yes, sir ; good-looking 'oss enough, sir." " And where are they going ? " " They're just come over from Mr. Scribble ; exercising, sir." ''Really," said I: and the information proved so interesting that I began a very deliberate and perhaps impertinent survey of the lot ; which was only cut short by the head man turning round and saying to his attendant : " Now, Joe, are you nearly ready? because we may as well be off." And Joe being ready, they went off. " My Uncle Scribble," thought I. " Then we b COVER- SIDE SKETCHES. shall be better acquainted before long." I was in my uncle's brougham. It was my uncle's dinner I was about to eat, and my uncle's horses I was destined to ride. It was that hospitable roof whose shelter I was to enjoy for the next month ; and under his auspices that I was to renew my acquaintance with the beauties of Grassington. My uncle is a character. He is of the old school of sportsmen, with a supreme contempt for the modern ; which nothing but the most finished good breeding prevented him from exhibiting. Having amved at the conventional term of longevity, three score years aud ten, he seems to be going in vigorously for the extra allowance. He is hale and hearty. His cheek has lost none of its bloom, but shows out well in contrast mth his white hair, which is not sparsely scattered over his temples. He lives entirely in the open air : he despises the aid of a shooting pony : and though he is no longer a front-rank man over the grass, not from fear of falling but from the fear of not getting up again, he has scarcely been out of a good thing for the last forty years. What he has lost in activity he has gained in MY UNCLE SCRIBBLE. 7 experience : and not only does he know every gate and gap in the country, but he appears to have quite a pleasant understanding with the foxes, as to what line they will take, or in what lordship they would like to be killed. The Willows, the Major's residence, is famous for '20 port, and the Willow Bank always holds a litter of cubs. You are sure of a hearty wel- come, and of a find. When, therefore, I received the additional assurance of being '' put up " in its second intention, I wanted no long time to make up a large parcel, my mind. ''Me void!'' said I, entering the cottage, I must confess with too much the air of a petit maitre, and too little regard to my future interests. " Me void ! " "D the French, sir. This is my niece. Miss Miles ;" and my uncle presented me to a new cousin. I had a happy consciousness that I was undergoing the ordeal of severe criticism from a very good-looking woman. It took me at least five minutes to recover my confusion, and to for- swear French until I got out of Gorsehampton- shire. I then remembered that Uncle Scribble had been a cornet of Hussars in 1812, and a 8 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. major of Militia since 1830 : from which period he had been endeavouring to unlearn all that he had learnt before, with two exceptions. One was an unlimited aversion to everything foreign, the other an intense admiration of the late Duke of Wellington. These are the only two convictions, Mr. Scribble assures his friends, on which he never has seen cause to alter his opinion. My uncle never allowed himself to appear during the daytime in anything but leathers and tops, of the most substantial order. When I say that he shot in them, whenever he took that diversion (which was but seldom), I need hardly add that they were not jockey boots. On hunting mornings, however, he modified the ordinary toilette, and albeit his style was the strong and useful, it was in-eproachable. The late Lord Jersey in his best days, and I take him^ to have been as successful a dresser for the field as any man, was not more particular than the head of the Scribbles. He came down to dinner in black silk breeches and stockings, handsome ruffles, a laced frill to his shirt, and a pigtail. The last of the pigtails ! And you may have some idea of the real dignity MY UNCLE SCRIBBLE. 9 of the man, and his natural elegance, when I tell you I never so much as smiled. The old gentleman was proud of having served his country, and preferred to be addressed as the Major. All gi'eat men have their weaknesses, which I invariably respect. The auspicious morning came, and with it the Major. " I've an excellent mount for you to-day," said my uncle. " You may go where you like, first or last. You may talk to your friends or cut down your enemies." I thanked him most sincerely, and endeavoured to drink my tea as uncon- cernedly as possible. This is difficult to achieve in very well-got-up leathers and tops and a fault- less tie. Few men sit down to breakfast on a hunting morning totally unconscious of their late efforts ; the more so when the tea-maker is a handsome critic in a riding-habit. " To-morrow you'll not be quite so comfortable," added he. " The President, like other presidents, is a little unruly." I begged him not to apologise. " Certainly not," said he ; " only I thought it fair to tell you that he got the better of your old friend Plunger, and broke three of his ribs." 10 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. Plunger was the gentleman jock of the Light Dragoons, and a most accomplished horse- man. " I saw your stud, a part of it rather, at the station last night," I rejoined, with the least per- ceptible tremor in my hand, though my voice was as undaunted as ever, " and I should have thought them remarkably well-mannered by their appearance." I had besides an idea that the Major was too old to keep anything very bad to ride, and was reassured by that impression. ''Did you? Well, that's your business, not mine. I keep those three for my friends, and as I never get on them, perhaps I'm less particular than I ought to be. The grey I bought only the other day. My man tells me he can jump any- thing, but likes to go his own way. Now if you're ready we'll be off. We meet at the Smockington toll-bar." The road to cover passed pleasantly enough between the anecdotes of the old gentleman and the spirited comments of his handsome niece. She assured me she never rode, though my uncle had mounted her on a most accomplished hunter, which she appeared to ride with consummate MY UNCLE SCRIBBLE. 11 ease. Her groom, too, was in attendance. I was delighted to hear it, as horsey women are my abhorrence. I can, however, admire grace even in a riding-habit. As we approached the meet I began to recog- nise my old acquaintances ; and the matter-of- fact manner in which we greeted one another as if we had only parted yesterday, instead of a twelvemonth back, was beyond all others the characteristic of Gorsehamptonshire nonchalance. The uninitiated are apt to imagine an effervescence of bonhommie in the character of the sportsman : a sort of paternal bond of union which unites us against our common enemy, the fox. This is a mistake. V " How are you, Charlie ? " Charlie has just returned from a three years' sojourn on the Conti- nent, and is glowing with enthusiastic affection for the dear friends he left behind him, when a " complaint in the chest " obliged him to seek foreign shores. " We had a good thing last Monday from Bolter's barn ; you should have been out." On Monday last Charlie was very sick between Calais and Folkestone, but he doesn't say so. On the contrary, he falls into the inevi- 12 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. table humour of the thing, so peculiarly British and aristocratic, and says, " Had you ? I'm glad of it. Here comes your governor, Frank. I see the old gentleman's alive still, and looks as well as ever." " Yes : he's had a pretty good innings. By Jove, they've found," and both forget the existence of their dearest friend in a moment of time. The cover-side of almost every field presents the same features to the observant spectator, varied only by the accidents of locality. There's the county member, once himself a master of hounds, who has retired from the dependence of a situation of pleasure to that of one of business. The imiversal squire, the popular man of his county, is as necessary to the pursuit of the fox as a harlequin to the success of a Christmas pantomime. The ecclesiastical element is sure to be found in the front rank, from the wolds of Yorkshire and the ploughs of Holderness to the hundred acres of Leicestershire, or the more distant moorlands of the west. There is a pro- fessional and non-professional dealer in every hunt. The Stock Exchange and the West End banking-houses supply their quota of hard-riding and well-paying members. The first flight are MY UNCLE SCRIBBLE. 13 not marked with the name of " legion," but they are too characteristic to be omitted from our category ; whilst the Utopia which is without its regiment of Funkers has not yet been explored. Shuffler's Bottom has no limit to its accommoda- tion. The farmer is a portrait which requires a strong hand and a liberal distribution of colour : there are varieties of the species, from the steady- going owner of a stomach and a cob to the horse- taming speculator in Irish oats. And in these days callous and untrue is the photographist wdio Yv'ould ignore the claims of lovely woman to a place on the canvas of a hunt picture. Whether she appear in the grand simplicity of a close- fitting habit and short skirt, in the manly neglige of an outward-sewn pea-jacket, in the dovelike and dangerous seductions of a poik-pie, or the rustic juvenility of a feathered sombrero, woman has now identified herself with the sports of the field. My acquaintance with her is extensive ; and if I postpone the consideration of her claims to a later date, it is lest the contemplation of so much loveliness should unfit the mind for sterner impressions. " Oh ! who is this charming old gentleman ? " 14 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. said Miss Miles, as the most perfect specimen of the haute ecole of sportsmanship cantered along the cover-side, saluting first one person and then another, with a barely perceptible wave of the hand. " Who is your aristocratic friend ? " "That's Sir Nigel Templar, one of the mem- bers for the county, and " " What a dear ! Now do tell me all about him. You know everybody." "There's nothing to tell; besides, the Major knows better than I." " But one of your graphic sketches, you know ; now, do let us have it ; it would be so charming." And what will not flattery do ? Was ever a man proof against it when properly administered ? " Then I'll ivrite you one. Miss Miles." And such was the administrative talent of that young lady, that in obedience to her wishes I ventured upon further sketches, until the present series was the result of a winter's visit to many a covert's side. CHAPTER 11. OUR COUNTY MEMBER. To have appreciated Sir Nigel Templar, he should have been seen on horseback. He was a perfect specimen of the real old English gentle- man, ex-master of the hounds, justice of the peace, and M.P, for the county, and (though a baronet of no very old creation) of one of the first families by birth and connexion in England. There still exist plenty of ex-masters of hounds, justices of the peace, M.P.'s, and baronets ; but the old English gentleman, whose highest title is squire of the parish and hereditary member for the county, is fast disappearing; I Scarcely see how they can live in an age of peg-top trousers and short pipes. Knickerbockers are a poor substitute for leather breeches ; and an old English squire in a beard, — faugh ! an owl in an ivy bush without his solemnity ! 16 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. It is a great treat on a fine morning to see the old gentleman at a favourite meet. There he sits, a model horseman ; and amongst that crowd of aristocrats, of ever3rthing high-bred and remark- able in man or horse, who shall pass unnoticed Sir Nigel Templar ? He is tall and very thin ; his old black coat, with its square tails and out- side pockets, a world too wide for his now bent shoulders ; his well-folded ample white neckcloth of softest cambric, his long straight-collared waist- coat, and his beautifully-made and well-cleaned leathers, exhibit the best peculiarities of the best of modern toilets. Another great excellence is, that though there is nothing remarkable about his hat, except the head that is in it, his boots are the most marvellous for fit and polish to be seen by the cover-side — -just what an old gentle- man's boots should be — bright, not with patent leather, but with the elbow-grease of well-trained flunkeys, fearful of the eye of a most fastidious master, who does not think old age any excuse for w^ant of propriety. The feet of those boots, too, are charming ; often have I admired, amidst the tight and the shiny, the long and the thin, which every fashionable cover-side presents for inspec- OUR COUNTY MEMBER. 17 tion, those roomy, wrinkly, gout-assuaging boots ; roomy without size, a fit which was no fit, I look upon Sir Nigel Templar's boots to be the cleverest boots in the world. His limbs were eminently calculated to fill, or rather to half fill, the gar- ments I have described. There was a most becoming bagginess about the whole costume, with the exception alone of the aforesaid boots. In the face he is remarkably handsome ; the finely cut features of the Norman race, from which he boasts to be sprung, blend with the delicate tints of the Saxon, with which his family have intermixed. It is a face expressive of shrewdness rather than intellect, and of prejudice rather than judgment. There is considerable obstinacy about the thinness of the mouth, which has shown itself all his life. It made him the finest horseman and the most impracticable magis- trate in England. It enabled him to kill many a safe fox, and to lose many a pony, when a younger man; for he backed his opinion on Newmarket Heath just as firmly as he backed his horses across Gorsehamptonshire. The old gentleman is a true lover and a hard hater ; but he is a kind master, a good landlord, an excellent churchman, a rare VOL, T. G 18 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. judge of pace and short-horns, and the most violent politician in the world : and this is very near the Gorsehamptonshire idea of perfection. Sir Nigel Templar did not come into the world with a silver spoon in his mouth. He was a younger son of a younger brother of the then reigning baronet ; and though his father had been amply provided for, he had not much to spare for a younger son. However, a course of Eton and Cambridge fell to his lot, and, as far as fitting himself for a much higher position than he ever expected to reach goes, he acquitted himself most creditably. He never read ; he never reads now, excepting the leading articles of his paper and those of his opponents. Lady Templar does all the literature of the family. He was, however, a popular young man, indulged in the follies of his age, and lived far beyond the income which his father allowed him. One thing may be said to his credit : he never was known to frequent any society but that of gentlemen — men in his own rank of life, and (if there can be degi-ees of rank amongst gentlemen) most frequently above it. The rare qualifications of Mr. Nigel Templar, as a horseman to hounds, became a strong recom- OUR COUNTY MEMBER. 19 mendation to the noblemen and gentlemen by whom he was surrounded ; and his judgment hi the purchase of hunters was as remarkable as his judgment in riding them. Many a long-priced horse went out of his hands which had come into them at a very different figure ; and before he left Cambridge he had attained for himself a reputation considerably beyond the limits of the University, as the best judge of jDace and the finest rider of his day. Doubtless it was difficult to withstand the flattery of some and the honest admiration of others ; and the extravagant tastes and aristocratic associations which accompanied the worthy Mr. Templar's peculiar capabilities, were involving him in considerable pecuniary difficulties. About this time his elder brother died — a circumstance which at once relieved him not only from the difficulties of his future position, but from immediate pressure; and as, within a very few months, his cousin also paid the debt to nature, he became heir to a baronetcy and a rent-roll of about £15,000 per annum, situate in the middle of the finest hunting country in England. From that time forward he began to qualify c 2 20 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. for ttie position lie now holds — that of one of the first country gentlemen of England ; and be assured, my good and gentle reader, that though you may have more bright and shining parts to play, and more brilliant virtues with which to warm your own self-complacency, you will scarcely be more useful in your generation, or boast of a gi'eater freedom from active vice, than Sir Nigel Templar. The first thing in his eyes was the county hounds ; the first thing in the eyes of his neigh- bours, a wife. Whether it was that women ran shorter than foxes in Gorsehamptonshire I cannot say, but he took the hounds instead of the wife, and kept them for several years. Never was such sport as in those old times ; the county was not a prey to the stranger, and everybody joined hand in hand, instead of raising it against his brother. To listen to some of these old farmers, who heard their fathers talk of it, and who can recollect something of it themselves, you Avould imagine that all good horses, and foxes, and all knowledge of riding the one and hunting the other, had died out with Sir Nigel's mastership. Such horses as he had " to be sure." However, all prejudice OUR COUNTY MEMBER. 21 apart, he rode good cattle ; and, what's more, he knew how to handle them. Sir Nigel having had his turn with the county hounds for a few seasons, it well became the old women to assert their claims ; and as he w^ouldn't take a wife from among the daughters of common men, they married him out of hand to the eldest daughter of the Earl of Boroughbridge. And a stately dame is Lady Elizabeth Templar. Her ruff and her black satin, and her white kid gloves (which are as clever in their way as, and very like to, Sir Nigel's boots), scarcely belong to modem times. She was a beauty, and one of the highest bred w^omen in Eng^land, when Sir Nis^el married her ; but, more than that, she was a very clever woman, and a politician. Such a fatal conjunc- tion of qualities boded ill for the sporting propen- sities of the Squire. It was not long before a clearance of bachelor spirits took place, and Carlton Towers was filled with under secretaries of state, or aspiring diplomatists. The hounds were not given up at once, it is true : the Baronet was too good a sportsman to succumb suddenly ; but the lady's influence at length prevailed, and within a few years of his marriage, Sir Nigel was the Tory 22 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. member for the county, and a breeder of short- horns. A wonderful stud appeared at the hammer of old (then young) Dick Tattersall, and the hounds became the property of the county. From that time, by slow, almost imperceptible, degrees, Sir Nigel Templar became what he now is, the man of the county. Lady Elizabeth's political addresses to her husband's constituents were models of Tory sentiment. Hunting had almost ceased to be a pleasure, and became a business. There is no canvassing gi'ound like the hunting field or the cover-side ; the gentlemen gave in their adhesion to so exemplary a j^attern of public duty, and many a wavering farmer was caught by a compli- ment to his horsemanship, and by association with so kindred a spirit. Carlton Towers became mysteriously select in its hospitalities; London celebrities usurped the places of country sportsmen, and the Carlton por- tals were only open to a select few of the agricul- tural neighbours, including the parson of tlie parish and the influential proprietor of the " Gorsehampton shire Gazette." And yet Sir Nigel retained his popularity through it all. There might be a few sturdy grumblers ; but who could OUR COUNTY MEMBER. 23 deny that Sir Nigel Templar was the prince of the country gentlemen ? Those leather boots were never made to be unpopular. He might be shy : he was silent ; but there was an eloquence in his reputation that spoke volumes. Besides, he was known to be honest and true — a British gentleman, who had refused the revival of a dor- mant peerage offered at the expense of his poli- tical honesty. And what a preserver of foxes ! Few and far between w^ere the pheasants in Carlton woods ; plentiful the rabbits, bold Rey- nard's favourite morsels. His home is conducted nobly and liberally, but without ostentation. His servants are retainers ; like his hacks, when they suit him, they never leave him. If Sir Nigel's popularity was ever on the wane, the Corn Bill was a perfect godsend to him : he became the farmer's friend. He is still the perse- vering exponent of a defunct theory, the almost solitary guardian of an infant, dead and buried. He was never an orator ; but since that day the worthy Baronet has a call which he obeys. He never omits an opportunity of addressing the county on the wrongs inflicted by the late Sir Robert Peel. 24? COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. I confess that my admiration of tiiis fine old English gentleman is greatest when I see him in the saddle, conversing in short crisp language with the members of the hunt as to the chance of a run ; or with some stalwart farmer, in more mysterious tones, on the fall of wheat or the price of stock. There are those, however, who think him at his highest point at an agricultural dinner. Once on the subject of breeding, or fattening, or draining, and he says more in five minutes than most men in half an hour. Every remark is backed by shrewd good sense, a perfect know^- ledge of his subject, and a racy illustration, gene- rally from the annals of the hunting field. There he is at home : and I never heard him yet address- ing the most heterogeneous assembly of farmers, cobblers, labourers, or Methodist parsons, that he did not wind up witli a telling anecdote of his sporting experiences ; and those who failed to be convinced remained to cheer. The secret of his success is, that, though in circumstances different from his former self, he still lives in appearance and feeling among his former pursuits. Yes, Sir Nigel, you are one of the few remaining examples of the fine country gentleman ; but though your OUR COUNTY MEMBER. 25 neighbours respect you for what you are, they love you for what you were. The character of the old country gentleman is not without its flaws. It would have been easy for me to have drawn a portrait that should have better answered general expectation, but at the expense of truth. But like jewels on a velvet ground, the virtues are the brighter for the contrast. Sir Nigel Templar is not the Squire of Fielding or Richardson ; he is not the hearty, hail-fellow- w^ell-met, strong-beer-drinking beef-eater of the last century, whose vices and virtues were mighty and apparent ; who lived for his people, and for nothing and nobody else ; who kept hounds, as a part of his system, just as he preferred port to claret, and strong ale to either ; who went to church because it had some sort of connection with the King ; who never went to London, because it was all fashionable nonsense, only fit for courtiers ; and who never told a lie, because he loved to show his independence of other people. He was a good old-fashioned man ; loved his King and his country, his friend and his enemy and his bottle, and hated party politics : he lived beloved. Zb COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. and died respected by the limited circle to which he was known ; he was, as far as his intelligence carried him, a good man, but he was no gentleman in our sense of the word. Sir Nigel is of another class. It is the finished gentleman of a school stricter in many respects than our own, of a school rapidly passing away. Sir Nigel had a sense of honour which approved of duelling, and disapproved of low society ; which, in attacking others or defending himself, took no mean advantages, but which cherished animosities very far removed from the virtues of Christian chivalry. He can get in a passion with, or he can treat with haughty indifference, those who offend him. He is selfish in personal matters ; and he is liberal — not truly, but probably because he has a character for liberality to keep up. He can do an injustice : and he can regret, though not admit it, and recompense the sufferer at any cost, where it can be done without acknowledg- ment of an obligation to do so. His heart would have been warmer had he lived in a society less conventional : his virtues are his own, his defi- ciencies those of his class. He loves a poor man — it feels like patronage ; he hates a rich man — it OUR COUNTY MEMBER. 27 approaches rivalry. He is scrupulous in private life, but has no delicacy in public matters. He is difficult to manage, except by his political agent and the family lawyer. He has but one dress, leathers and black boots, and always rides thoroughbreds ; he despises v/heels to the pre- sent day, and sighs Avith regret for the time when he used four hacks to go to London, his ordinary mode of travelling. He knows too much of huntinsT for his neis^hbours, and cares too little about it now ; but he loves a horse or a hound, and there is no beauty in any animal that he cannot admire as long as that beauty depends upon blood. He is regular in his attendance at church, as an example, and in his nap when there. He is admired by his equals, and loved by his inferiors — a high eulogium ! His strongest cha- racteristics are high-breeding and his hatred to the memory or mention of Charles James Fox and the late Sir Robert Peel ; he has lived, on the whole, well and honourably ; not unprofitably, but somewhat selfishly ; and when he dies will leave no one to supply his place. CHAPTER III. A POPULAE MAX. "Who was that in tlie brook to-day?" enquired Miss Miles, at dinner, after a very good day's sport, in which those who were behind saw the most fun. " The most popular man in the countr}^," said I : " Harry Fanshawe. He was once our Master." " Popular ? but nobody stopped to help him." "Help him! certainly not. The popularity that wants that in the Grassington Vale is at a low ebb," rejoined I, wonderiug whence my fair friend had culled her notions of a popular man, " And what is it that gives him such a claim upon universal admiration ? Is he so very rich?" Woman of the world, thought I. " Well, he was once. In fact he was every- thing that a man can be : good-looking, wealthy. A POPULAR MAN. 29 clever, good-humoured, and such a sports- man." '' Ah ! that's all very well ; but that conveys such curiously indistinct notions to my mind. Do enter a little into detail, and let me see what a really popular man in your estimation should be, and how far he deserves his popula- rity." " You're too practical. Miss Miles," said I. '' However, there are certain virtues, which, once assumed, require the rest to be taken on trust. Let me just give you my notion of Harry Fan- shawe, the first time I ever saw him. Only be to his faults a little blind, and you will find yourself among the crowd of his admirers without a why or a wherefore." We had been drawing the Oakhampton covers, and at the furthest corner, in a warm and well- sheltered spot, we found our fox at home. A whimper proclaimed the happy tidings to our huntsman, and in a minute or two the prolonged chorus of half-a-dozen of the truest hounds an- nounced it to the select few who stood silently on the slope of the hill. Five minutes more, and he was away. The leading hounds were already 30 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. struggling tlirough the brusliwood, and had well- nigh cleared the ditch which separated the cover from the park, when, some thirty yards to their left, the blackthorn opened wide, and with a loose rein and a careless seat, Harry Fanshawe jumped into the park. I think he was then the very handsomest man I ever saw. From top to toe, he was the perfect model of an English gentle- man. His face was clear and open ; his eyes were grey, with dark lashes; expressive then only of excitement — at other times of the purest good- nature. He was about five -teet eleven, and weighed about twelve stone. His dress was per- fection ; utterly free from the smallest taint of dandyism, it was admirably adapted for the busi- ness in hand and the person it adorned. There was no modern invention of beard and moustache, which reduces even a decent-looking fellow to somewhat of the calibre of a rat-catcher's dog. His well-curled black whiskers matched his short curled hair. He was no man to clothe himself in your jackboots, or brown tops ; but there he sat, in as good a pair of buckskins as ever attached themselves to the pigskin, with a well-polished, thick-soled boot, and a clean white top to surmount A POPULAR MAN. 31 it. He did not give us, on that occasion, much time to admire him. Away he went with the leading hounds, at the very Lest pace, into the valley, where the fencing seemed made for him, and he for the fencing; just the country for thir- teen stone and a half, upon a stout two-hundred- and-fifty guineas worth of good active horseflesh, with plenty of strength. Those are the men to go through forty minutes in a stiff vale. None of your dapper, whipper-snapper little gentlemen, with jockey whips and a distaste for thick bull- finches, who are sure to be found in a tree, or fished out of a brook ; but a good strong heart and body, that balanced one another, and went crash into the thick of the thing, as an uncompro- mising British squire should do. Every man has his own ideas about what " a squire " should be. One imagines a tall, thin, gentlemanly -looking man, of the old school ; a sort of French marquis, who can swear a bit, with an Englishman's tastes and language. Another expects him to be almost as stout as Daniel Lam- bert, with a roystering air, and a voice as loud as thunder ; who calls his wife Molty, and whose favourite victuals are boiled beef and carrots. A 32 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. third wants a Sir Oracle on turnpike trusts, gaol committees, Sunday schools, and pauperism ; whose highest ambition is the prize for fat beasts at an aoricultural show. But if I had had to find one o cut and dried, I should have picked out Harry Fanshawe, when he came of age. First and foremost he had a rent-roll of £20,000 per annum, besides a very handsome slice of ready money, the fruit of a long minority ; and I do not think any man is justified in being con- sidered " the squire " par excellence, without a sufiicient quantity of money to do at least as much good as will counterbalance the evils atten- dant upon self-indulgence. A large landed jDro- prietor, struggling in the sloughs of his own acres for want of ready money, is a melancholy sight to behold. Then Harry Fanshaw^e had a very fine seat ; the " old place," as it was called in the neighbourhood, was almost Ulc place of the county. Without plenty of space in your dining- room, an ample mahogany table, a well-stocked cellar, and a red-nosed butler, a man may as well go hang himself, as pretend to head a province of English yeomen. He was generous, and fond of society ; and intending none, was suspicious of no A POPULAR MAN. S3 wronefi he was a dauntless horseman, and at that time of Ufe, fell easy ; an excellent shot, and could walk like a professional, from morn till dewy eve without feeling it. How the farmers loved to see, him walk into their homesteads about luncheon time, and how the farmers' wives laid their cleanest table-linen, and put on their brightest looks, for a cheerful word from the squire ! He was the kindest of landlords, and therefore he had the best of tenants ; he was the most liberal of masters, therefore he had the honestest of ser- vants ; he was the most cheerful of companions, therefore he had the warmest of friends ; he was a straightforward, honest, English gentleman, therefore we record his virtues here. I dare say you would like to know by what means such men are fashioned, and I will endea- vour to give you some idea. Of course Harry went to Eton : no man is fit to lead who has not first been led ; and nothing brings a man to his level, or teaches him to form a right estimation of himself, like a public school. At Eton, he did very much as other boys do : he liked Horace and Sapphics, which he did for others ; he hated Ovid, and longs and shorts, which he got done for him ; 34 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. lie took a wholesome share of cricket and boating, the Christopher, grilled bones, and burnt sherry ; he was an average boy, and rather a favourite with his masters, for though a pickle he Avas a gentleman, and never guilty of a lie. He was indulged by his schoolfellows, for he had plenty of money, and plenty of inclination to spend it ; and he could no more have enjoyed himself with- out their participation, than he could have stolen away on the other side of a cover, without giving a view halloa — ^the meanest advantage, without any question, that a human being can take. But let us be just : his knowledge of whist and the stud-book was a little precocious ; and the natural history he studied had some reference to badgers and rats. He left school mth a perfect acquaintance with football and cricket, an imperfect one of human nature ; he was an admirable dresser in the quiet style, and had the best bred bull-terrier in tlie county of Bucks. In due course of time, the young squire became a gentleman commoner of Christ Church. His appearance in Oxford was hailed with rapturous delight, for his reputation had preceded him. A POPULAR MAN. o) Some rejoiced in the thought of a choice spirit to share their pleasures; others thought how much they should like to share his ; various were the motives which accorded him a welcome ; but? every one looked forward with pleasure to hail the arrival of the most popular of their old schoolfellows. Then began the serious dissipa- tions of life ; no longer the Christopher and an illicit cigar ; the little book on the Leger assumed more aAvful proportions ; the rubber ceased to be the joke of a few shillings ; and the bones now used might well be said to be devilled. Then there was the bolt out of chapel, to be in time for Chapel-house with the Heythrop, or Addle- strop Gate, with a couple of galloping hacks on the road ; there was the ride to Bicester windmill, and the return home with a team, after the late dinner and claret ; there was the steeple-chase across the Islip country, and the hurdle race at Cottesford, the result of not too much water in the punch the night before. Summer had its little pleasures too, in the enjojrment of which Harry Fanshawe was not backward. The drag to Epsom or to Ascot Heath had no safer or more cheerful coachman, and was the pleasantest coach I) 2 36 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. in the University ; the ring and the roulette booths shared his company pretty equally. He certainly did not lead the life of an ascetic. The Bullingdon gave him a little cricket, and a mon- strous quantity of champagne. The Magdalen Club reversed the order of things, but made up for its deficiencies in pigeon matches. Yet was Harry Fanshawe as great a favourite with the dons, as if his only exercise had been a consti- tutional up Heddington Hill, after a bustling gallop over a speech of Thucydides with his private tutor. In all things, at every time of life, he was essentially a gentleman ; and his imiversal good humour and sound sense gave him an ascendancy, even in his merry moods, which has accompanied him through life. My friend Harry did not take a degree; and a little circumstance, a curious and, in his case, singular instance of obstinacy, prevented his doing so ; for he was not an idler, nor without taste and capacity fully adequate to that not very formidable performance. He had a " mono- mania" for hunting the drag, and old Gaisford had a " monomania " for stopping it. The sense of the college on the subject seems to have been A POPULAR MAN. 37 clearly taken, by the painting of all the doors bright scarlet, and dressing the Mercury in a pink, a cap, and a hunting whip ; still the Doctor persevered in his determination, and as Oxford was insufferable without ''hunting the drag," Harry Fanshawe gracefully retired from the scene. He was just of age. The whole county re- joiced, and he stepped from the triumphs of popular boyhood, into those of a more advanced age. And he did so with singular felicity. Beasts were roasted ; balls were given ; ale was broached ; poor were fed (when are they ever forgotten by your true-hearted country squire ?) ; tenants were feted. For a fortnight the county had lost its senses ; and then it subsided into an unnatural quiet, which was only disturbed by ambitious mothers with marriageable daughters in want of an establishment. Every one knows the life of an English gentle- man of good position : we are obliged to be stewed in the hotbeds of London society during the three hottest months in the year, because our love of sport must make the other nine the country season. Time rolled on, and our popular 38. COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. yoimg squire took Ins turn of London dissipation. How was he to help it ? Irresistible Harry led rather a fast life Avith the first and fastest men of his day ; but he always came down again to the " old place/' He was no alien ; his heart was with his honest old tenants and servants, .and his hand was often in his pocket for their benefit. How fresh and invigorated the whole county seemed, as soon as he made his annual appear- ance among us. He loved his horses and his dogs, and his friends and his enemies, and invited them all to his house ; and they were obliged to come ; so that after snarling and bickering about some petty pohtical squabble, some malt-tax or poor-law commission, they were all set right by a hearty dinner at Fanshawe's. The old women looked young, and the plain looked pretty, as soon as they knew that irresistible Harry was coming down. Then the county was offered him : that he wouldn't accept ; who would that abhors ill blood ? Then the hounds were offered to him, and those he took. Who would not, that wished to spend four or five thousand a year in his own county, like a gentleman and a sportsman, and A POPULAR MAN. 39 wlio desired to promote the happiness of others, as well as his own ? We had had a change or two of masters, and it was a great thing to have at last a coimty man ; and such a man ! We had had one gentleman, from — really I haven't the slightest idea where — who made a modest livelihood out of a three- thousand-a-year subscription, promises and all. We had had a young swell who went abroad and forgot us, doing the thing by deputy. We had had a committee, who all quarrelled among them- selves, and of which the chairman had been wounded in the hip in a duel, before the expenses could be paid. And now we had the most popular man of the county, the young squire, who disdained a subscription or huntsman, and vowed he would Imnt them himself. Never was such a state of excitement ; the farmers fed the foxes with their own poultry, and laid down more wheat on pur- pose for us to ride over. I do not think he was wise perhaps to hunt his own hounds, as it took him a year or two to learn the business ; but I believe if he had proposed to hunt his own fox (and it has got to that now, pretty nearly), not a soul would have said him " nay." 40 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. The hunting field is the modern squire's ele- ment ; he looks better, he is better, and he does more good than in any other public position he can hold. Why do we hear of squabbling and quarrelling over covers, and extent of country, and paying for damage and other things ? Because you haven't the right man in the right place. Because you haven't your squire at the head of your field. Because you have taken some stranger, who loves hunting at your expense, but who cares no more about you than the man in the moon. Or perhaps because you have some supercili- ous young swell who says, " Aw, Jim, throw the hounds into covare," and, raising his hat slightly to the assembled squirarchy, is seen no more. Of course when there's a row, nobody supports him but his own private clique, and the pastime goes to the wall. There is as much art in ridino^ into a huntino- field, as in walking into a dramng-room, and as much difference in the way of doing it ; and manner, I take it, is the secret of Harry Fan- shawe's success in both. Your young aristocrat from college bowls up with a pair of posters to the meet; "Aw, Charlie, hoAv do?" says a few A POPULAR MAN. 41 words of friendly slang to his own particulars, but takes no more notice of old Barleycorn than if he were a post, forgetful of the fact that he is the friend of the foxes. Sir Hector Hurricane rushes through the crowd, with his broad, scorching- countenance, as if life and death depended upon his knowing nobody and nothing but his hounds. Not so " the squire : " up he canters rather late, with a cheerful nod and a good-natured word for everybody ; and he never forgets to address his farmers by name. " Ah, ah, Giles, glad to see you ; fine morning, fine morning." *' Hallo, Smith, got the young'un out again ? Rather sharp upon him, with the country in this state." "Well, Jackson, so the steeple-chase didn't come off all right, eh ? good mare though ; d — good mare ;" for" we regret to say the squire rejoices in an expletive now and then, especially if you ovenide the hounds too much. And this is what the farmers like, and why they would go through fire and water to serve him. This natural kindliness and manliness combined is what the women like> and why he is such a favourite in the saloons of London, and the ball-rooms of the country. If 42 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. you want a steward, the squire is tlie man. If you want a steeple-chase, the squire is the man. If you want a subscription for a worthy object, the squire is the man. And if a poor fellow, good, bad, or indifferent (for he always acts upon impulse in these cases), wants a friend to plead or pay for him, the squire is the man. Harry Fanshawe is not married. I hope he soon may be; for a squire without a wife is a strange anomaly. As yet the contest has been too warm for him. When the rival disputants have reduced themselves to three or four, he will be able to make some sort of choice. Until that fortunate day, you must take him as he is. I do not paint the picture for that of a "fine old English gentleman," nor yet for that of a " fine young English gentleman," but for as fine a specimen of the English squire, full of English faults, and English virtues, as you can meet with. He is to be seen nowhere but in England ; in other lands, if the species ever existed, it is long and utterly extinct. He is wealthy, and healthy, full of life and energy ; polished, but manly ; hard of frame, but gentle of disposition ; intelligent, but not learned ; a sportsman in every sense, but of most A POPULAR MAN. 43 finished manner ; generous, careless of money to a fault, ever ready to relieve ; an excellent man of business, but fond of pleasure ; a good landlord, master, and neighbour ; as much at home in St. James's-street as in Grassington ; and as much alive to the pleasures of London society, as to the more stirring recreations of his country seat. He has many a weak point for the censorious to tilt at, and many an excellence that your moralist might overlook. " But that's a hero for a novel," said Miss Miles as she finished the sketch ; " not a country gentle- man, surely ?" " He would be, were Fielding or Smollett alive now," said I ; " but what would our prize novelists do with a hero, who was neither a murderer, a returned convict, nor a bigamist ? You forget that, so far from promising you an exceptional case, you are to be satisfied with what may be met with at many a covert side." "And pray," inquired the major, "what are you going to do with the parsons ? There's my friend Heathfield, for instance : no better man in Eng- land, in his parish or out of it ; and as to hounds, he's as good a judge of hunting as the squire, and 44 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. a better horseman than any one here, always ex- cepting Sir Nigel." " Ah ! Sir Nigel gets slow ; and the Parson does not. There's a difference of tw^enty years in their age. Gilbert Heathfield is as straight as an arrow." " Yes ; he always did ride as if there was a steeple at the end of it, and a bishopric attached to it. However, I hope you've done him justice : the Church wants a helping hand at the present time." " You shall judge for yourself, sir ; for I've made rather an elaborate sketch of the Parson.'* " Here, my dear," said the old gentleman, hand- ing over the MS. to his niece ; " your eyes are better than mine. Let's have it." CHAPTER IV. PAKSON HEATHFIELD. The Heathfields of Heathfield are of a very great family : I mean one of our fine old county families, in a land where blue blood has its value — where the true Andalusian is appreciated. There is no place like Grassington for that. A county ball there, is a county ball, I can tell you. A very fine solemn assembly of lords, ladies, and commoners, who come together about half-past eleven, and separate about two ; the stewards having done their duty by paying for the music. In such a convocation the Heathfields are per- fectly at home ; they know everybody, can afford to be even familiar with the squirarchy, and posi- tively kind to the inferior clergy. In fact it was, is, and always has been, a very charming family ; and if that were all we had to say about it, we might dismiss the subject in a very few words. 46 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. But the Heathfields of Heathfield have higher claims on the historian ; they have peculiarities not appertaining to all men — distinguishing marks of hereditary pride deserving a niche in the temple of Fame. The family has always afforded a member for the county, a parson for the rectory of Heathfield, and a fox from the family gorse, since the time of the Rump. Now, a member of Parliament is common enough ; and we might not have stepped aside to exhibit the portrait of anything so vulgar. But a Reverend Gilbert Heathfield, Rector of Heath- field, a county magistrate, chairman of the union, a first-rate shot, and the quickest man for twenty minutes on his own side of the county, is not to be treated thus lightly ; and when exhibited in connection with the descendants of a greyhound fox, which was said to have been once hunted by the courtiers of James the First, the monarch himself in attendance, is something^ of which to be proud, and cannot be dismissed without a passing tribute to the feelings of the county in which he resides. I know how difficult it is to satisfy the preju- dices of certain persons, who would deny to the PARSON HEATHFIELD. 47 clergy every participation in the amusements of the world. No, excuse me, not of every one. A ofreat allowance is made in the case of muffins, hot buttered toast, and tea. Some excitement is permitted in the way of well-worked slij^pers, and a Sunday-school flirtation or two (unless in the case of a widow, who is always at a discount with her female friends) ; a comfortable, though repre- hensible, carelessness in the matter of soap for self or neckcloth ; and that pardonable vanity which hides its blushes beneath some half dozen hairs under the nose and the squalor of a tufted chin. These indulgences, however, do not suit every man v.dio wears the black cloth of necessity ; and Parson Heathfield is guilty of none of them. Surely, then, he may be permitted to take the air in his own way, without incurring episcopal condemnation, or stirrinsr the wrath of secular censoriousness. If you know a very respectable young man, who has been born of very honest parents in the middle walk of life, who has ground his way from St. Bees' to the threshold of ecclesiastical prefer- ment upon sixty-five pounds per annum, you probably may offer him a mount upon your best 48 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. horse without much risk of acceptance. If your parish contains a good fat substantial gentleman who weighs about eighteen stone, and has barely energy to lift his food to his mouth, and who has no more idea of locomotion than a fixed star, I think you may do the same by him. If your curate was a bible clerk of his college (and far be it from me to derogate from the importance of that valuable institution), and is now a smirking young bachelor on his preferment, with a pair of spectacles and a budding moustache, whose only horse exercise has been taken on a donkey, for his health's sake, on the sands at Margate, you need not be much surprised if he beholds in the Reve- rend Gilbert Heathfield a vile betrayer of his charge, and a most heterodox champion of Christian faith. He has no objection, like his betters the Bishop of Oldport and the Dean of St. Magnum's, to partake of the bounties of Lord Lushington or Squire Fatbuck; but as he cannot shoot, and is afraid to ride, it is damnable and heretical to go out hunting ; and fresh-air exercise and a health- giving sport is beneath the dignity of a rational being. Oh, you old Pharisees ! just wash your own platters ; the waters of Wissendine are not PARSON HEATHFIELD. 49 the only things that soil the chastity of "the cloth." The present Squire of Heathfield is a cheerful, gentlemanly, middle-aged man, a competent M.P. and J. P., subject to occasional fits of the gout ; he is a moderate Whig, a stanch supporter of the Church notwithstanding, and preserver of foxes, whom he assists in hunting to death whenever the opportunity offers. He has a perfectly un- encumbered estate, a handsome wife, and no children. Indeed, Lady Mary looks upon the rector as the probable successor to her husband, as he is several years his junior. If she feels any jealousy, she is too well bred to show it ; and has almost domiciled Gilbert Heathfield at the hall, although the rectory is more than suiSicientty furnished for all a bachelor's wants or require- ments. As the father of the present rector was the only brother to the late Squire, the close intimacy that exists between the cousins is the most rational thing in the world. Nor is it possible to separate the man from his circumstances. From Harrow, Gilbert Heathfield went to Oxford : thither he carried a fair share of learning, plenty 50 (JOVER-SIDE SKETCHES. of good sterling principle, and the feelings and manners of a gentleman. But he had not been bred up an ascetic. He was fully alive to his position — as the probable incumbent of the best living in the diocese, and as the possible repre- sentative of one of the highest families in the county. In the prospect of his future career, it was difficult to shut out the education he had received. He loved a horse and a hound. He had been in the Squire's family a sort of younger son, and if the elder born has the pull in the parlour, I wonder how often the tale is reversed in the stable. He was a capital shot, and a bold rider, as a boy ; as a man he became a fine horse- man, and is one of the best men across the Grass- ington country. Now, circumstances, you see, have done a great deal for the Rev. Gilbert Heathfield. I hardly see how he could have taken to any of the ordi- nary amusements of his clerical friends. He wanted recreation after his Avork, and it was obliged to be the recreation of a gentleman. I do not see how muffins and tea, slippers and flirting, would have been available. The fact is, the latter was rather a dangerous amusement for him. PARSON HEA.THFIELD. 51 YouDg curates, with three shirts a-week and a dickey or two, may play that game pretty safely ; but when a rector of fifteen hundred a-year con- descends, he is considered worth rather sharp looking after. Neither was he a man who could say mu.ch about eating and drinking ; having lived all his life in high society, he could afford to smile at the luxuries which were provocative of a very serious attack on the part of the Reve- rends Diggeswell, Sheepshead, and Knucklebone. The champagne that did such execution among those very pious and enlightened men, fell harm- less on the seasoned nerves of a less excitable vessel. There were really no appetites to satisfy, beyond a certain pleasure our rector felt in doing as much good as possible in his neighbourhood, and a strong turn for the sports of his earlier years. And now, as we are in mid-winter, and the frost has just left us, let us ride down with the Reverend Gilbert Heathfield to Heathfield Gorse. It is a very pleasant sort of morning, but with a trifle of east in the wind — not so bad a sign, many an old sportsman will say. The rector is a mode- rately tall man, witli a placid and rather intelli- E 2 LIBRARY uNivFRsmr OF «iuwws o:2 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. gent countenance, a good figure on horseback, and admirably put together from head to foot. His dress is just what a clergyman's should be, when- ever he takes the field — charmingly professional, a cleanly white neckcloth, every crease in its right place, as well wrinkled as his boots ; a black coat and waistcoat, broad, loose, and strong ; well- cleaned and well-made leathers, and a well- brushed hat. He takes very good care that none shall mistake his calling. The man who is ashamed of himself and his business, had better stop at home. . What a miserable object is a clergyman endeavouring to hide his sporting pro- pensities under a negligent exterior, as though dirt did the duty of charity! — and perhaps there is nothing so commonly to be met with at the cover-side. I remember a young man whose whole heart was set upon sport, and who talked and bored his friends about nothing but the me^ts and the runs. His hunting costume con- sisted of a broad folded yellow bandana, and his black and grey trousers were stuffed inside of a pair of old jack -boots, the whole surmounted by a very bad hat. On a raking-looking pony of about fourteen hands high, in such a costume, he PARSON HEATHFIELD. ijl} imagined, good, easy man ! that lie wavS only just looking at the liounds : and nothing could per- suade him that he was quite as vicious as the very best black coat that ever shone in the pig- skin. Heathfield Gorse is on the side of a hill, backed by the Heathfield Woods lying to the south, and is a sure find. The hounds look charming, and half the county is clustered at the top of the slope. There is a fair field for reward and no favour. Gilbert Heathfield is evidently a favour- ite ; everyone salutes him, and he has a kind word for everyone in return. The master has something to say about the earths, or the new sticking" of a cover; farmer Giles would like his Reverence's opinion of the new brown horse ; and a neighbouring squire and he are already plotting how they can assist in relieving the annual dis- tress of the nearest manufacturing town, certain that they will never reap much gratitude for it, but not the less determined to do what seems right. The parson is always the first to stir in it, and the last to give in. And just now, whilst he is offering his purse and his services, and suggesting a committee for carrying out his pur- 54 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. poses, a gentle stir is perceptible among the crowd at the lower part of the hill : a hound or two have spoken, and soon a sharp tally-ho ! proclaims the game on foot. In such a gorse as this they don't hang long ; one slashing ring, just to try for the big wood ; and finding himself foiled, away goes Pug at the lower end of the gorse, Avith his nose straight for Twemlow Hills. " Tally-ho ! " says Jim. " Did you see him, Mr. Heathfield ? " " No, Jim ; what was he like ? " " He's our old friend, sir, the Greyhound ; he's gone straight for the Crags : not a cover to hold him within reach, and nine miles as the crow flies : the earths are open, and we shall have a dusting for nothing again, if we don't kill him before he gets there." Jim's prognostications were pretty correct, and to judge by the skirting and the manifest anxiety to get into the Twemlow and Dumbleton Road, the majority of the field seemed to know the safest, if not the shortest wa}^ there. Not so the Parson, and about fifty good men and true. On a long and low brown horse, about two stone over PARSON HEATHFIELD. DO his weight, he steered straight down the hill, and opening a low hand-gate at the corner of the cover in a manner that showed him an adept, he passed into a forty-acre grass-field, and settled himself to his work. On his right and left are a dozen or so, and just in his wake as many more ; and though many a one of them is going straight and well for the big fence out of the pasture, not one does it in a more masterly style or with a keener sense of enjoyment than our Parson : no hurry, no rivalry, no want of courtesy for the sake of a j^lace, but a pattern in the field, as in his home. Not one of the blustering, hard-riding, neck-or-nothing school, who must be first, or would rather be alone ; but a fine horseman and ardent lover of the sport, whose execution and ardour are both made to bend to his position. Before that university pink was changed for his broad-skirted black, I do not think Gilbert Heatli- field Avould have pulled out of his stride to accom- modate the impetuous youth who crossed him at his last fence, or to have allowed the sporting linendraper of Dumbleton to have taken the lead out of his hands ; but propriety has its graces as well as steeple-chasing, and there is a line of 56 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. Avillows about half-way between this and the Crags which will probably make a diversion, and, as racing men say, some of the front rank may come back. We have said that the Parson jpar excellence ^ii' than most of the parsons of my acquaintance. And whatever you ladies may think of it, hunting in moderation is cheaper than matrimony." I spoke very decidedly on this point, for fear Miss Miles might, you know, &c., &c., &c. THE FIRST-FLIGHT MEN OF THE SHIRES. 65 " What sized 8tiid do yon set down as equiva- lent to the happiness of married life, may I ask?" said the young lady, somewhat tartly. " The largest in Leicestershire, my dear Miss Miles, is not equivalent to its happiness : but I never saw a clergyman's stable that was not in considerable defect of the expense." " I quite agree with you, sir," said my Uncle Scribble, who had listened longer than usual, as not much interested about such matters. "Par- sons, under forty, are always in some mischief or other : very dangerous people, very dangerous people, my dear, among the ladies : and much better engaged in assisting to catch foxes than in leading captive silly women. But here we are, and there are the beauties," added he, point- ing enthusiastically to the graceful animals that clustered round the huntsman at the cover-side. " Well, now I suppose we shall see the ' lirst- Hight men' that you promised to sketch for us. There, who is that — that good-looking, well- dressed man, on the bay horse, talking to the tall, thin man, underneath the large oak, and pointing to one of the hounds ? " VOL. r 66 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. " Those are two of the very gentlemen I came here to sketch, and you shall have the portraits when completed." I promised her a good likeness of the " first-flight men," and I think I have been as good as my word. Captain Guernsey is the youngest son of Lord Alderney, a nobleman remarkable for elegance of mannei', high breeding, knowledge of horseflesh, and a great capability for spending money. The consequence was, that the younger sons were brought up in every luxury, without the slightest chance of fulfilling their youthful aspirations. They had all a taste for racing ; one or two of them for building; and a general notion that a pack of fox hounds, in a crack country, was almost neces'sar}' to existence. We are of a different opinion ; and it is a fortunate circumstance that tastes, in this respect, are at variance. Fox- hounds should be the peculiar province of the richest man in the county, as a matter of duty. He owes it to his neighbours, as one of the respon- sibilities of his wealth. But to suppose there can be any real pleasure in seeing j^our sport spoilt, and your property ridden over by a dozen men, whose very names you do not know, and THE FIRST-FLIGHT MEN OF THE SHIRES. 67 who care nothing more for you than as the pro- moter of their amusement, is a miserable joke, to which fishing in a punt, in drizzling rain, is a cheerful pastime. However, Frank Guernsey was brought into the world with no such cramped ideas ; and, being very good-looking, a subaltern in the Guards, a detrimental of the first water, and the especial hete noir of the Grosvenor Square mammas, he was not long before Lady Mar}^ de la Haye Sainte fell in love with him, and he with her, and insisted upon transferring her £8000 per annum from the hands of her guardians to the care of the original of this charming little portrait. There was, therefore, no necessity for longer abstinence from his cherished dreams. He became Member for Buttermouth, aad Master of the Bread-and-Butter Hounds. It was a frightful country to ride across ; but good horses and good nerve, with the responsibilities of mastership, made Frank Guernsey the horseman he is. The sticky fallows of his own country, with the strag- gling fences of a badly drained and cheaply farmed province, was a capital school for the grand pastures and flying fences of Gorsehamptonshire ; and having given up the Bread-and-Butter c ountry F 2 68 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. because all the lanes were black mud, and all the men wore brown tops and caps, he transferred his official duties to Gorsehamptonshire, and took upon him the office of managing the most unruly field in England. He doubtless w^ould have done so remarkably well, but for the bad example which he himself set ; for, having ascertained that in such a country the start was the thing, he has generally got one, and kept it too steadily to interfere with others. A few seasons convinced the Captain that, but for the name of the thing, he might just as well ride at somebody else's expense : he does so now, and it does not seem to have slaked his thirst for the enjoyment. Captain Guernsey's may be called the quiet style, combined with considerable perseverance. He owes part of his success to attention to business ; for although he is far from morose, he can scarcely be said to be a very communicative companion. With strangers he never volunteers a remark ; with his intimates he has always one ear ready for the note of a hound, however much he may appear interested in cover-side scandal. The moment the business of the day begins, he is off ; he rides with singular decision, and, strange THE FIRST-FLIGHT MEN OF THE SHIRES. G9 to say, always in a good place, or thereabouts, not unfrequently in front of the hounds. He has a gliding, serpent-like manner of crossing a country peculiar to himself At timber and water he is not so good : though he shirks nothing, he would rather not meet with the first ; and at the second, if practicable, he goes in and out. He rides exceedingly good horses, and should he by accident get hold of a bad one, he does not persevere. He is quite right. As a Guardsman, or the younger son, he was as well out of the way as not ; as a landed proprietor with £8000 per annum, life is very valuable, and horseflesh is not a considera- tion. I have seen the Captain with a chestnut horse of good character, who refused rather resolutely ; after three or four attempts he gave it up, and fortunately met with his groom and second horse ; otherwise I think he would not have seen the run. Still, I know no better man to hounds, and few so good. His seat is a little ungainly, as he rides short, and sits too far back in his saddle ; at cramped places his hands are excellent, and he is good at pace, a thing which is little understood by our best riders ; there are few men who dare gallop when the pace is made good 70 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. in a stiffly enclosed country. He is sliy, but not unaffable, a mixture of reserve and hauteur, but Avith a duty to perform, as a leading man of his county, which he does not fail to appreciate. He is not altogether a popular man save with his intimates, but he has been of much service to Gorsehamptonshire. His externals are perfection, and from head to foot he is a sportsman, and a gentleman. I do not think I ever saw him in a cap, or heard him utter an oath at the most critical moment. This is saying much for a zealous member of the craft. His friend, Mr. Peregrine Bayard, is widely different in many respects, but in no less degree entitled to rank as a " first-flight man." He is very tall, very thin, and remarkably good-looking ; and his great characteristic is an absence of any- thing approaching enthusiasm. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, to be used in a better world than the present. All his goods — and they are many, extending to large fortune, good position, and considerable talents — he takes as the neces- sary adjuncts of life. This utter insouciance makes him a charming companion ; and his amiable theory, that there is nothing poor, or ugly, or THE FIRST-FLIGHT MEN OF THE SHIRES. 71 uncomfortable, with which he need be acquainted, keeps him in constant good humour with himself and the world. He is delightfully ignorant that there is any undercrust to society beyond the parish workhouse and the prosecution of poachers, and firmly believes that paupers are an institution to be legislated on for the good of mankind. He carries this indifference to ordinary or extraor- dinary circumstances into the hunting-field. I cannot believe that he ever shoots, unless by taking a very warm corner in a well-stocked preserve ; and I know he never fishes, by a sort of instinct I have of its impossibility. But he rides ; and his portrait, as exhibiting a peculiar phase of English aristocratic life, is worth a page in the scrap-book. By some unaccountable means he is alwa}^? rather late at cover, having to come on from the meet to the draw, where, however, he is usually in time ; or by one of those fortunate nicks (which he looks upon as pertaining to every-day life, but which every one else marks with chalk as a most merciful dispensation), he hits upon the line. He is always remarkably well-mounted — another curious coincidence, as he never professes 72 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. to judge of his own horses except by their per- formance, and is very properly indifferent to the stud of any other person. I should like to see him going to look at a horse ; the fatigue of inspection itself would be much beyond him. Upon more occasions than one he has exchanged incontinently, and would have done so perma- nently on one occasion, but that the fortunate amval of his groom at a public, on the road homewards, set him and his equally indifferent friend each upon his own beast again. The great point of resemblance was the colour, and that the saddles were by the same maker. Every hunting man knows that there are certain mornings emphatically termed hunting mornings, when an instinct tells us that our best horse will be required, and our best exertions for getting away ; just as there are covers from which we may expect a flyer, as there are others where we might just as well expect an elephant. Pere- grine Bayard is quite up to this sort of knowledge, as he obtained it without apparent trouble, and it has served him well upon occasion. Other men have looked for it, but he seems to have inherited it with his taste for green figs, olives, and dry THE FIRST-FLIGHT MEN OF THE SHIRES. 73 champagne, and two or three other characteristics of the gentleman, inclusive of French novels and political economy. On such a day, without any further apparent exertion than is requisite for losing a run, he is to be seen, as soon as the fox breaks, in the front rank, sailing along as if a saddle were an arm-chair, and an especial Provi- dence watched over blue blood and county mem- bers. His long back, angular figure, thin legs, and negotiation of thick bullfinches look as if he was meant to cut out the work. His great pecu- liarity is quickness and decision, and a capacity for never stopping whilst hounds run. Mr. Bayard is an excellent judge of the work- ings of hounds ; he knows when they are turning, and distinguishes a leader from the body of the pack. He has an excellent eye to country, and is seldom in difficulties. Tumbling, in fact, is not among the agr^mens of life, and gives a decidedly unfinished appearance to the business. He is entirely free from jealousy, and has not the slightest objection to your breaking your neck if you please. He will follow you over a fence if it is the easiest way to hounds, and will open any number of gates for you, if you happen to be in 74? COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. the run and behind him ; but he would prefer that you did not ride before or against him, and I do not think he would pull on one side if you were crossing him at his fence. He is very good at water and bullfinches, which close behind him and make no sign. Altogether, he is a very hard man to beat when he considers it worth while to ride ; but his theories dispose him to ignore about two days out of three as almost worthless, when he may be found cantering along in the crowd with a placid countenance of dignified resignation to his lot. Both he and Captain Guernsey are excellent specimens of " first-flight men." The Captain goes every day, and looks upon a run as the serious business of winter life. Mr. Bayard has no idea of even pleasure becoming a business, and drops into a run much as he would into a legacy, almost without a will of his own ; but when in it he gets through it like a gentleman. There are plenty of men who can follow and few that can lead. Both of these can go first, and require neither a pilot to show them the way nor a nurse- maid to pick them up when they fall. Kichard Blazer, Esq., of St. Dunstan's Lodge, THE FIRST-FLIGHT MEN OF THE SHIRES. ir> Gorsehampton, and J.P. for that county, is one of the hardest men in England. His whole life has been passed in tumbling about since he was at Harrow ; and he has had, independently of all his broken limbs, numberless hairbreadth escapes. He is a younger son of old Blazer, of Blazer, Banknote, and Co. ; and has a very handsome portion and a tolerable per-centage to keep out of the active business of the firm. The offer was made him when young, so that he has profited by it for many years. He was once anxious to become as useful as he was ornamental, and made over- tures to ail eminent brewer for a working partner- ship in the concern ; but as he only stipulated for holidays during five winter months of the year, he was considered too modest for such an establish- ment, where no one attended to business at all, and has since enjoyed himself much more with the Gorsehamptonshire Foxhounds and his four- year-olds. Blazer is a heavy man, sixteen stone in the saddle ; he has nerves of iron, and most beautiful hands. The consequence is, complete success as a horseman. As a mere rider, he is almost unsurpassable ; but he sacrifices everything to his desire to shine in that capacity. He is con- 76 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. stantly in mischief — first from the nature of the horses he' rides, and then from the manner and place in which he rides them. We think a violent four-year-old ought to be nearly last ; our friend Blazer thinks he ought to be first. We think he might be schooled on bye-days, and over an ac- commodating tenant's land ; Blazer thinks there's nothing like the quarter of an hour before the find, or on the way from the meet to the draw. I fear that when we have said that he can ride horses which very few men in England would like to ride, and that he does so with singular success, we have nearly said all. Whilst hounds run straight and horses can go, there is no one much better placed than Bichard Blazer. But when it requires a knowledge of hunting and country, or a question arises where decision and action are re- quired, the four-year-olds give place, and he falls behind. Nor can it be wondered at. I have seen Bichard Blazer on a made hunter, apparently enjoying himself until a tempting piece of timber has led him astray ; and as to hounds, he admits that he rides after them, but without the slightest apprehension of their manoeuvres ; and whether they are hunting a fox or a terrier dog, so long as THE FIRST-FLIGHT MEN OF THE SHIRES. 77 they cross a tolerably stiff country, and make the pace only commodious for jumping, he is quite satisfied. He is very fond of a line of his own, when riding jealous (which, with all his virtues, he is apt to be), and then he almost invariably goes wrong, forgetting the hounds in his anxiety to w^atch his opponent. He is very bad to follow, as you may come to grief with no desirable result ; and should you both be irretrievably thrown out, he will certainly suggest a short cut home. He might have been excellent in any country ; but the absence of certain qualities will prevent his being so good to hounds as many who are, in every respect but these, his inferiors. If you will turn your horse round and jump him out of a field directly away from the hounds, if the fence be only big enough. Blazer will follow ; if not, he will find an opportunity for leading you astray. The special correspondent of the Blasherly Revieiu is a capital fellow, a good horseman and a good sportsman, who does not mind riding a good horse in any country or under any circum- stances. He loves hunting and everything connected with it ; and manages to hold his own alongside of the Bayards and Guernseys. The mounting is 78 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. not always so good, but the real thing is equally valuable. I love to see a second-class horse in price, by dint of riding and condition, overhauling the three hundred guineas' worth, as the country becomes a little deeper and the fences thicker, and liberties taken begin to tell. Douglas Black has done this before now ; and a raw young one in his hands has cut a respectable figure in a good thing, considering the mixture of the nursery and schoolroom required. Moreover, he handles his horse as he does his pen, always delicately and with grace ; until occasion demands an accession of vigour, and he comes out not to be denied. I need hardly add, to those who recognise the picture, that he is as pleasant a companion at the cover-side as he is a distinguished professor over the country ; his stud is not a large one, but little and good goes a great way ; and I do not suspect our literary friend of throwing a chance away by keeping a bad one to look at. Nor is my old acquaintance of St. Boniface un- worthy of being ranked among the "first-flight men" of the best country in England. Tommy Downey is the strongest man on a horse in Gorse- hamptonshire. As a horseman he has not many THE FIRST-FLIGHT MEN OF THE SHIRES. 79 superiors — indeed, not one in crossing a country ; thougli whetlier his speciality is not for doing it without hounds better than with, is more than I can say. Wherever he goes he will not be very much out; and if a trifling obstacle of fifteen feet of water, or a strong post and rails that takes some breaking, stand in the way, I know no one so capable of^ getting the lead as the foremost man of the old St. Boniface drag. There are few things that come amiss to him, but he dearly loves hunting ; and whenever he shows in the pigskin there will be a performance worth looking at. He has the advan- tage, too, of great quiet ; and no man of his years has taken so few liberties with hounds, and, con- sequently, made fewer enemies. I never saw him in mischief yet; and I have never seen a forward man besides of whom I could say as much. But he has the happiness to unite the sportsman with the horseman in a singular degree ; and he is too fond of the former character to let his indiscrimi- nate zeal in the latter profession mar the pleasures of himself and his companions. He is not com- municative at the best of times. You will not get much out of him before the run, nor is there usually time for any continued conversation during 80 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. a good thing over the grass ; but if he ever brightens up, it is after about five-and-forty- minutes of rough, smooth, and indifferent, over his native pastures of Gorsehamptonshire. Before closing our present account of *' first- flight men," and which the claims of others, not our inclination, warn us to draw to a close, we must not forget Billy Westly, a gentleman of the turf, who does us the honour of an occasional visit in the winter months. Blessed with light limbs, and unlimited confidence in his horse's powers to carry him, he always appears on a thorough-bred one — one of a singularly likely look to win a good thing, but which has probably done Billy a better turn by losing a certainty. He is perhaps even the hardest of the present group ; and it is not an unpleasant thing to see him galloping from field to field without the slightest pull upon his horse or the apparent possibility of a mistake. It is needless to say that when Billy does come to grief, it is a bad one ; and that divers collar-bones and arms have proved the wisdom of going a little slowly at the fences when the fields are about the length of a T. Y. C. Be this as it may, Mr. William Westly — heretofore postboy, leg, and at present THE FIRST-FLIGHT MEN OF THE SHIRES. 81 gentleman — is a very extraordinary man over a country, and makes the best of that 9st. Vlbs. with which he seems to have been specially blessed for this purpose. The remarkable part about his riding is not so much quickness to hounds, as fear- lessness of pace, and a determination not to allow any other gentleman of any standing whatever to look at a fence that he does not intend to jump over. I saw one or two of our best men craning over a dark looking impediment, with about ten yards between them, and Mr. Westly saw it, too. And no sooner did he see it, than sending his horse along as if life depended on the chance of his breaking his neck before anybody else, he pitched horse and all into a deep ravine, whence he was extricated by a team of Suffolk punches and some ropes about the time that his more prudent mates were breaking up their fox. "Admirable !" said our uncle, at the conclusion of these sketches. "They are quite life-like. Guernsey is always too forward, and Bayard is sometimes all behind ; but they are both sports- men and quite in the front rank." " I'm glad you like them. And you. Miss Miles, have you found a favourite among them V* 82 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. " Oh 1" said the young lady, laughing, " I'm all for Tommy Downey of St. Boniface ; I'm sure he and I should get on remarkably well to- gether." " But he never talks." " I can do that for him ; I suppose he listens," rejoined Miss Miles. " Well, sometimes ; when hounds are running in cover, perhaps. Besides, he's a misogynist." " There will be the greater credit in bringing him round." " He's not bright ; at least, after woman's notions of brightness." " So much the better ; he'll have less vanity." " That's true ; and bright colours fade. I think Tommy Downey will wear well." " Fast colours generally do." " By the way," said the Major, " have you seen my friend Dick Crupperton since you've been down this season ? " " No, sir. Dick, as I predicted for him, has begun to pull off. I'm told he has had a good fortune left him." " I'm glad of it," said he. " I like Dick Crup- perton. He's a good fellow, though a bit of a THE FIRST-FLIGHT MEN OF THE SHIRES. 83 toper. How I should like to have a sketch of him." " Here's one that I took a few seasons ago ; and I think you may add it to those of the front rank ; thousfh he's not so hard as he was." (I 2 CHAPTER VI. THE GENTLEMAN DEALER, OR DICK CRUPPERTON's IDEA OF SEEING A GOOD THING. There's not a county in England that rejoices in a pack of hounds and a few hundred acres of grass, that has not its "Gentleman Dealer." In some counties there is room for two or three ; and cor- dially they hate one another. They crabb one an- other's horses, abuse one another's riding, and combine only to " stick" the general public ! Their wives love one .another, and may usually be seen together — always a bad sign. " Thank heaven, Crupperton's in the brook ! " said the master of the hounds, on a late occasion ; *' that will keep him quiet for half an hour." And yet the master is the sort of person that would see half the county drowned without a remark, under ordinary circumstances. Such is his thorough dis- THE GENTLEMAN DEALER. 85 like to Crupperton, that it lias positively woke him up from his indifference. " How in the world does Crupperton manage to live ? " says the Honourable Billy Sloper, whose own fashionable existence, and its sources, were a gTeat mystery to all but his victims. " How in the world does he manage to live?" "Don't know," says the master ; " I wish he'd manage to die." In the meantime the individual in question was employed in scrambling up the banks of a rotten brook, within twenty paces of a ford ; and, having helped out the young'un by Melbourne — for he never loses his bridle — and scraped himself free of the mud, he trots quietly into the road, and returns to Stubbington, all chance of a sale to-day being over. What a melancholy picture of a sportsman is here presented to us ! No soul, no heart left, for the " sport of kings I " All honourable ambition to shine in the pigskio, for which our friend Crup- perton is so well calculated by weight, make, and capacity, absorbed in his breeches pocket. You and I, my boys, have stood on the leeward side of a cover scores of times, speculating on the fall of the wind, whilst the gallant major, within thirty 86 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. yards of lis, has only been speculating on how '• to raise it." " Dii immortales ! aurum obsecro quid valet ?" Major Crupperton, or " Dick Crupperton," as he is commonly called, is one of the best-looking of her Majesty's ex-Light Dragoons — a neat figure, not too big, not too little, with plenty of strength up- wards, and no unnecessary lumber. Out of the gallant corps which called him major he sold some few years back, when, there being no fighting to do, he thought indiscriminate steeple-chasing or hunting might supply the place of more profitable excitement. The riddle to be solved was, how to make about a thousand a-year answer the purposes of three times that sum, and perhaps we may see how far and in what manner he succeeded. His early life had been somewhat peculiar ; not altogether un- fitting him for his future career — indeed, rather itself inducing it. He was the youngest son of a rich and most respectable country banker, whose ambition led him to " make " an eldest son — in- deed, it might be said, a very eldest son, for he left him somewhere about two hundred thousand, THE GENTLEMAN DEALER. 87 and his youngest son, Dick, just twenty thousand pounds. The two boys were brought up together. The elder did just what a very excellent elder son, born to a very large property, should do, — fitted himself to spend it by a most respectable career through Eton, Oxford, and into Parliament, where he now sits, hatching legislative eggs of other birds' laying. Not so the Major. His earliest training was at the hands of the helpers in the stable, until he was promoted to the coachman and a kicking pony. Early in life he made a little money by various matches wdth his brother, by which means sundry half-crowns found their way from the pockets of the elder to those of our friend Dick. I fear he was rather fond of pitch-and-toss in the stable-yard ; and the maid-servants described Master Richard's language as " horfuU." This was after his first half at Eton. From what I know^ of him, his education was not much ad- vanced under that excellent scholar and pedagogue Dr. Keate. He still spells " nothing " as he pro- nounces it — with a "k" at the end of it, and " terrier " with an " a ;" and w^hen in the company 88 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. of some one who talks to him, as old Eton men will talk sometimes, of Horace and Homer, and their own shortcomings in the classical line, he always complains grievously of the difficulties of that " infernal quae genus," which seems to be the extent of his literary reminiscences. He was not a bad fellow, however, at school, altogether ; and Avas rather a favourite with the boys, from his con- stant floggings, his capabilities as a horseman, and his poaching and cat-hunting propensities, which have never deserted him. It was quite clear to the old gentleman (no offence ! I mean Mr. Crupperton the banker,) that such talents as these could only be made available in the army. The poor people of England, not as yet alive to the importance of a knowledge of the ingenuous arts and sciences in her military bul- warks, had not insisted upon a cornet's capacity to wTite or read. It was generally understood that he could do so, but it was by no means certain ; and a general knowledge of things, in which might be included the odds at hazard or on the Derby favourite, and a tolerably correct taste for Sneyd s claret, was all that was demanded at the hands of a soldier in those days. And here, nurse ! THE GENTLEMAN DEALER. 89 let me not plunge into the intricacies of the new system, lest I forget the very existence of the " now professional dealer." Let me not lift the mysterious veil which shrouds a ten-fold ignorance under flimsy coats of cramming : that sends into the service, day after day, the most unlicked, ill-educated, badly dressed, undisciplined staff of subalterns, whose delight is in a black pipe, and whose glory and hands are in their Zouave breeches pockets. There was something honest and dignified in the undisguised ignorance of Dick Crupperton, and a few such as he ; but the passing of an examination in the elements of everything, with a real knowledge of nothing, is a miserable subterfuge for the profoundest in- capacity. Well, our Dick got his cornetcy long enough before these piping times, and a very cheerful cornet was he. He helped to keep the regiment alive, drove the reoimental team, hunted the reo^i- mental drag, drank the regimental claret, and led a far from miserable life of it. He always had a few good horses, and rode them forward and well : and tliough he was then rather too fond of selling, and always knew where to find 90 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. one, he had no objection to buying a good one, whenever he saw it ; and his forte was " making a four-year-old." Amongst the many disadvantages of advancing years, one great one is this — that whilst it lessens our sense of the enjoyment which money can buy, it increases our regard for the money itself. In a word, a man who has not quite outrun the constable, or squared his accounts with the British public, is not unapt to become a screw. Now this was precisely the Majors case. He had had a hand in all the escapades of his corps, as a young- ster, but he had always kept an eye upon the main-chance ; and one source of a certain degree of unpopularity which has accompanied him ever3rvvhere, is that he never backed a bill, or was known to be " hard up" in his life. It is astonish- ing what sympathy a poor devil gets, who is always in "Queer Street." No one lends him money ; bat the whole world opens its arms to him, mounts him, feeds him, shelters him, and gives him advice, the cheapest and only uncom- fortable present of the lot. Crupperton was not one of these ; and though sufficiently well off in his regiment, he had never been famous for libe- THE GENTLEMAN DEALER. 91 rality. He played a safe game at billiards, and handicapped his horses to a turn ; but he never gave away a point or a pound in either. At last he was supposed to have got rather the worst of it. Not far from the cavalry barracks, in which the Light Dragoons were quartered, lived a parson. The Rev. Howard Robinson Howard was a very extraordinary specimen of " the cloth." He began life as " a Howard," of which noble family he boasted, and looked, to be a branch ; he took the name of Robinson for a moderate estate, the former of which he despised, and the latter he spent, and how he got back the name of Howard nobody inquired. He was in appearance pre- eminently a gentleman, somewhat of the old French marquis j)attern ; in language and j^ursuits a sportsman of the last half of the last century, and a more popular man with the officers of the neighbouring barracks, than with his brother clergymen and magistrates. His parish consisted of his own tenants, and a neighbouring duke, and produced, besides his before-mentioned property, about seven hundred a year. He was always hunting, or shooting, or buying, or selling, or 92 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. passing his time pleasantly. He had all sorts of clothes of every kind, much personal vanity, and three handsome daughters, who also hunted and shot, and disported themselves cheerfully at every meet, whether of hounds, turfmen, or count}^ families, within twenty miles of Poppingfield Rector}^ By dint of the old gentleman's claret? and frequent invitations (and after selling him a couple of horses, by which he would have cleared about seventy pounds, had he only been paid), backed by the bright eyes of Miss Emily Howard Robinson Howard, the Major was caught, and once caught and his wings clipped, it is only doing him justice to say that he succumbed with a good grace* His father-in-law always assured him that he had no money to give ; was j^oor as a rat ; lived quite up to his income ; but there was the girl, who knew how to make both ends meet on a thousand a-3^ear (the Major's income) as well as most people. So many people talk in this manner, with a sort of mock humility, that Dick was fairly taken aback ; and as he loved the girl, and her taste for horse- flesh suited him, he married her out of hand. He woke six months after, to find out that the pecu- niary account was perfectly con-ect, and, as an THE GENTLEMAN DEALER. 93 Irishman would say, that his wife had only a hundred a-year, and that was never paid. How- ever, it made no difference in the affection of the bridegi'oom elect, who treats Mrs. Crupperton to this day, opinions and all, with the greatest defe- rence. Within a twelvemonth he had sold out, and was carrying on under the most respectable canvas when I met him in the shires. Major and Mrs. Crupperton, of Stubbington Grange, are very different people to Miss Emily Howard and the racketty Dick Crupperton of the Light Dragoons. It is absolutely necessary that the Grange should be kept up, and that he should have his hunting, Mrs, Crupperton her bonnets and dinners, and the little Cruppertons their nurse and pap-boat. How to do it on a thousand a-year is the question, " The hunters must pay for themselves," says the Major, "and the income will go to domestic uses." Admirable arrangement ! Nothing can be better. And as every horse is to pay his own expenses, the more the merrier. Stubbington is the very place for them. It is within reach of several packs of hounds. The house is small, but the stabling large ; and a handsome outlay from the proceeds of the commission, places about ten horses, in- 94 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. eluding two for Mrs. Crupperton, and one for the brougham, in the stables. It makes a great show. How in the world Crupperton does it, no one can telL Ten horses on a thousand a-year, and he pays everybody! The dinners are not good, nor frequent : that must have sorely tried the feelings of both of them. There is a man, called a butler (that is, a well-drilled boy from the village, in a suit of black, and a white neckcloth), who is assisted on red breeches' days by Mrs. Crupper- ton's groom, a really clever fellow. The invitation to young men usually extends to their hack, a very unusual accommodation ; but there is always an empty stall, and it involves a visit to the stables. The company is select. "My wife's sister," and " a neighbouring captain of the heavies," with "our rector," and a stray "man or two " from the last cover-side. The respecta- bility of the whole proceeding is strictly impres- sive. However, the most attractive part of the programme remains for the morrow. The start for Butterton Gorse is truly great. Dick always has an extraordinary fencer for a hack, and knows a short way to the cover ; in fact, such a hack as would make a wonderful THE GENTLEMAN DEALER. 95 light-weight hunter. Young men are not difficult to please, and a great jumper always goes a great way with them. Mrs. Crupperton's horse '' would carry anybody ;" he is thrown away as a lady's horse ; she does not ride now, but as a charger and hunter he is invaluable. Does Mrs. Crupperton talk much on these occasions? Oh, dear no ; but she throws in an observation side- ways occasionally, and then very much to the purpose. '' You know, Dick, he would hardly carry Mr. Jones ; he is nothing very extraordinary with more than thirteen stone on his back ; that's why Lord Hardanfast would not have him, and Heathfield would have given two hundred for him, but for the weight." "Oh ! " but says Jones, " I'm only twelve stone in the saddle." " Then he is the very thing for you. You shall get on him to- . morrow ;" and Jones almost wishes he had not arranged to go back to sleep. There can be no doubt, that the idea of buying him is new to Jones, and Jones is new to the world ; so probably in the course of a week the gallant cornet is in possession of a very decent horse (which he is sure to want some day), and Mr. Crupperton is a clear eighty pounds in hand. One thing we should remark ; 96 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. the Major seldom sees a run ; he is no sooner on his horse than he begins to think who there may be that is likely to buy him. Perhaps the real way to sell him would be to ride him from begin- ning to end ? Crupperton knows the world too well for that. If the run is good, there will be very few that have time to admire him during the performance, still fewer that will see him at the end of the day. In a bad or moderate thing, the means are simple — he alvxiys jumping. Such is the creed, and the Major acts up to it ; he is a beautiful horseman ; indeed, this line of life can only be entered upon by such as are. He is a picture on a horse, and neglects no details which may help to effect his object. There is not a hair out of place, no buckles, no lumber, but a perfect knowledge of bitting gives Crupperton all the ad- vantage he desires. His forte is timber — it is so effective ; and water — it is so selling. He is not so good at pace, for his horses are always to look well in and out of the stable, and a little flesh helps a lame dog over the stile. If Crupperton gets a start (and he always tries for it), and hounds run straight, he is a difficult man to beat for twenty minutes. After that time, he takes an THE GENTLEMAN DEALER. 97 early opportunity of getting a fall, unless he is on an undeniably good one, and then the price will be a very long one ; but every horse in his stable has his price. The meet was Myrtletoft, a favourite cover, a sure find, and grass on every side. The Nottingworth Hunt and Gorsehampton- shire county drew the cover alternately, and the best men and the best horses of either hunt were always there. Lord Thistledown, the heir to the Featherbed property and title, slept at Stubbington the previous night, and very much admired a weight-carrier and brilliant fencer of Crupperton's, which was not worth fifty pounds. Ten minutes was his mark, at which period he invariably '' cut it." The morning was everything a sportsman could desire ; a burning scent and a good fox gladdened the hearts of about two hundred of the best men of the country. Crupperton kept his eye on Lord Thistledown, and singing out, ''This way. Thistledown, quick, down to the right, got his lordship as good a start as it was possible to get under the circumstances." Away he went, and his lordship's admiration increased every minute. It was quite clear that he could fence, TOL. I. H 98 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. and if this pace went on, it was equally clear that he could stay. Could there be a doubt of it? Seven minutes were gone, and Dick was still leading ; Thistledown not within half a field of him, his horse having refused a regular yawner. Saucebox had had eight minutes, and already the Major felt sjrmptoms of giving it up altogether. This would never do, as two hundred and fifty was a certainty, if he could but go on- Dick never squeezed so hard before, but the lemon was nearly dry, as to pace ; though, strange to say, the jumping powder continued as strong as ever. " We must have a fall, and I must hurt myself," said Dick to himself; and a very convenient opportunity presented itself At the next fence he let himself down easily. " No bones broken ?" said Thistledo\^Ta, as he rode up and went on. "No, no," said Dick, with his hand on the pit of his stomach, which was not hurt at all ; " all right, all right ; it was my fault ; I'm only pumped." Then followed sundry groans and gasps ; whilst Saucebox took the opportunity of getting a little more wind in his pipes, which enabled them to catch the hounds at their first check, still in advance of the outsiders. " Not THE GENTLEMAN DEALER. 99 hurt, Crupperton, I hope," said the man who hated him most. " How did he manage to fall ? " asked Heathfield. " Larking, I suppose," said the admiring cornet ; " why that's the horse that never falls." " He's never been down before," said the Major, "and this was not his fault." The second fox was not in such a hurry, or the scent had failed a little. At all events, it suited Saucebox better, and the fencing so astonished the heir to the Featherbed property, that he just threw his leg across him on the spot. Nothing could be more auspicious, by the time the hounds were in Blus- terfield Grove, Saucebox was gone back, the pro- perty of Lord Thistledown, and he and the Major were both on their second horses. He did not find out his weak point until about a month later ; and it took him two more to ascertain that it was not stable mismanagement. When he really dis- covered that he had a rank bad one, at double his value, he did not like it, but it was too late to expostulate ; so the Saucebox colt went to Tatter- sail's with the rest of his lordship's stud, and was sold for pretty nearly as much as his lordship had given for him. Dick Crupperton did not buy him back. H 2 100 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. In this way the stud nearly pays for itself; at least, I think five hundred is added to the income. Every now and then a bit of ill-luck comes ; but things are pretty well balanced, one season with another. As Dick gets older, and the family in- creases, of course the stud must decrease ; for amateur dealing requires a great deal of personal activity to make it pay. You must look up cus- tomers, and you must feed them ; and though you may continue to buy a good sort, you must buy them in the proper market, and ride them well. When once Crupperton becomes a sportsman, and ceases to be a mere rider — when once he prefers to go through a gate to going over it, he must give up all idea of the stud paying its expenses. It is quite true that then masters will not take their hounds home for him — an honour several times threatened and once conferred upon him ; but he will have more friends, if his acquaintances are fewer. I expect to see him at fifty with two good horses, and a four-wheeler. CHAPTER VII. THE PROFESSIONAL DEALER. " Come, come, you're hard upon Dick/' said my uncle, as he finished the sketch. "He's a good fellow : and Mrs. Crupperton is the prettiest woman in the county." " There's no denying it ; but I did not know that you were likely to sell yourself for a straight nose and a pretty mouth." " Nonsense, Boy. What hands he has ! " " And what use he has made of them !•" " Of course he has. You would have done the same, if you could. There are plenty of dealers in the world besides Dick." " Fortunately there are : or what would become of the poor man ? There's old Thoroughpin, for instance," said I, remembering a fashionable dealer who had come into the country some years before. 102 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. " I hope you don't call him a poor man's friend, at all events." " Well, perhaps not : though he's a good friend to me. He's as fine a study as can well be put before an artiste, and I believe I have him at last. He's the nearest approach to a middle-aged peer of the realm that can possibly be found in a man not even on the confines of society. He's broad, and new-looking, as if he never did anything — bad on the pins, condescendingly d^saf, and has an assumption of ignorance as to men and things in general which is of the highest flight, reached most frequently by small j)riiices and dukes of the blood-royal in petty principalities, very differ- ent from the business-like habits of energy which adorn and strengthen the characters of powerful and influential sovereigns." "You've had a sitting, I see," said the Major, " so let us have my friend John Thoroughpin, the Professional." We had just drawn Daisymead Field-side, on a fine sunny-looking morning towards the end of the season, and drawn it blank, to the terrible dismay of the master, and about two hundred and fifty as good men as ever soiled pigskin ; and the THE PROFESSIONAL DEALER. 103 horrible suspicion that a reverend divine, the proprietor of the cover, and who ought to have had some feelings of Christianity, had destroyed the foxes, did not tend, to allay the tumult. How- ever, nothing was to be done by cursing and swearing (there never is, if one would but recol- lect that at the time) ; and something might be done by a brisk trot to a neighbouring gorse, where a truly pious and good man took care of poor Reynard, and fed him, not unfrequently, on the stray cocks and hens of his neighbours. As we trotted along at that leisurely pace for which our huntsman is so remarkable, as giving plenty of time for observation, and with a view to the convenience of those single-horse men who occa- sionally honour us with their company, I saw a stout and most flourishing-looking party, on one of the neatest horses I had seen for some time. There was a general glossiness and substantiahty about him that certainly bespoke wealth ; there was a fine old-fashioned aristocratic roll in the well-brushed hat, that seemed to bespeak high birth ; there was a freshness about his almost spotless pink, his thick, well-cleaned baggy buck- skins, and ample white-topped boots, that set the 104 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. owner down as somebody. Yet, whilst others were laughing and talking to one another, this most respectable character seemed almost de- serted ; occasionally, with a placid countenance, he raised his hat, as some bold and free-and-easy young scion of nobility, or a hard-nding cavalry man cantered past. It might have been the bow of a topping tradesman, it is true ; but it was more like the dignified condescension of the Duke of D or the late Earl of S , rebuking, by his extreme politeness, the haphazard style of recognition so- peculiar to the youth of our beloved island. One or two things struck me as a little odd in this illustrious person ; his apparent isola- tion was remarkable in a field where all were inclined to associate with some one or other ; and he w^as attended, like Jupiter, by a couple of satellites (I believe he had four) dres.sed like grooms, not of the best style, to whom be seemed to me to be imparting some secret information ; or bidding them moderate their efforts. I thought the face was familiar to me ; yet, where had I seen such brilliancy ? When could I have been in company so exalted I Not at Crock's ; no, certainly not. I was not a member of that THE PROFESSIONAL DEALER. 105 august association. Was it in Oxford, years ago ; or in Piccadilly last season, in Thoroughpin's Yard ? Why, I'll be hanged if it is not John Thoroughpin himself ! Yes ! No ! Yes, but it is, though ! And there goes Mr. Templer to talk to him. What does he say ? " Thoroughpin, he won't do." " Won't do, Mr. Templer ? " muttered Mr. Thoroughpin, between his teeth ; " then, pray send him back, sir, and we will see what can be done better in a day or two. I've some good 'osses just come in. I 'ope you liked the young 'un." " Pretty well ; I think he'll make a good horse." As if to make assurance doubly sure, there was a quiet look exchanged between satellite No. 1 and his master ; and away went the boy close in attendance upon Mr. Templer, handling his horse like a centaur, and looking as innocent as. a sucking dove, as if he were just taking the air for pleasure, and had never sold a horse in his life. And this was John Thoroughpin, of Oxford and Cambridge, of Bath, Cheltenham, Leamington, and of London ; the most respectable man in the trade ; never did any one in his hfe — may have sold a bad horse once or twice at a 106 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. rather long figure, but not intentionally. What a magnificent swell he is 1 How condescending to the young, who occasionally address him ; but not on business : Mr. Templer can do anything ; but not little boys without much money in their pockets ; still on all he smiles benignly, and looks down from his high horse, for this is not Picca- dilly. In the meantime one boy has received orders to wait on Mr. Templer, and to let him see " The Freshman " perform over a fence or two ; whilst the other lad has been specially retained to show young Felix Moneybags, and his friend Sir Hopeful Hopeful, Bart., of Hopeful Castle, a " remarkably nice young horse ; a very excellent horse at water, sir, and wants nothing but such hands as Mr. Moneybags' upon him to make him a most valuable animal" So that for these gentlemen, you see, Piccadilly does come down into the country. The career of Mr. John Thoroughpin is a singu- lar one ; creditable to himself and the clergyman of the parish school in which he had his educa- tion ; and almost as good as that of Whittington and his Cat, as a sign-post on the road on which the young should travel. He was little, and of no THE PROFESSIONAL DEALER, 107 account : he is a man of much self-importance, and not altogether useless in his generation. He began life as the possessor of two cows and a pony ; he is the possessor of the finest stable of sale horses in England ; and four sons — a cornet of dragoons, an under-graduate of Trin. Coll. Cambridge, a revenue and salt collector in the north-west provinces of India, and a clerk in the Ordnance Office, with a taste for mechanical science. That's what I call a lucky man ; but how, in the name of all that is fortunate, he could be ass enough to come down into Gorsehampton- shire, with a pack of beagles, a rubicund nose, and a scarlet coat, aping the country gentleman or the bloated aristocrat, is more than I know. His father was an eminent dairyman, who died just at the climax, of his misfortunes, leaving behind him two cows and a pony, with about 20L in an old stocking, the saving of a life of unpre- cedented dishonesty in the chalk-and-water busi- ness. Young John inherited all his wealth, but only a part of his character ; and finding a friend in the clergyman of his parish, his property was realised and invested, until such time as he should be capable of .self-management. Having pre- 308 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. cocious intellect for figures, lie was not long before he demanded his goods, and, despite of remonstrance from his benefactors, put himself into the hands of a livery stable-keeper in Lon- don. Here he distinguished himself by an intui- tive eye for shape and make, and a sort of good manner uncommon among boys of his age. He was never known to deceive, when his own interest appeared to be better served by speaking the truth — a rule he had rigidly adhered to up to the present time. He soon became a favourite with the best men who frequented his master's yard ; and an opening offering when he was about twenty-three years of age, to conduct a business of the same sort at Oxford, he was not long in availing himself of it. He was soon a favourite with the undergraduates. A scrupulous dresser, always well-behaved beyond his years, with a graceful deference to undergraduate igno- rance, and an excellent tap, how could he fail to become popular ? Years brought whiskers ; more experience ; considerable knowledge not only of horse-flesh, but of the trade; whilst Oxford remained, as it ever will remain, unspeakably green, and susceptible of being done. And, THE PROFESSIONAL DEALER. 109 indeed, such is my sense of the temptations placed in his way, that I feel inclined to say with the great Lord Clive, when he returned from India with about 40,000^. per annum — " By heavens, gentlemen, when I think of the oppor- tunities John Thoroughpin had, I am perfectly astonished that he was so moderate." Be that as it may, he increased in size, and wisdom, and importance ; he became a universal authority in Oxford on the subject of horse-flesh ; he was always open to a change, if the original purchase did not turn out well, and the more frequent the change the better he was pleased ; he was supple and convenient ; took a bill with a good name upon it, and was not particular about the time ; held up his head amongst the dealers, who hated him ; and managed his own affairs so comfortably, that, what with doing as little wrong as could well be expected, and seldom or never being found out when he did, he positively was near being know as " honest " John Thoroughpin, which would have ruined him outright. As it is, he has attained and retained as much honesty as is supposed to belong to the trade. By way of increasing his importance, which was 110 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. his first consideration, and his money, which was only second to it, Mr. Thoroughpin had esta- bUshed livery stables in Cambridge, Cheltenham, and Leamington ; at which places respectable men (by which I mean, after the pattern of John him- self) were installed, whose system was simple and highly practical. The orders were, to pay great attention to the manners and coats of themselves and their horses ; to buy good-looking ones rather than performers, excepting on particular occasions, and to change as often as need be ; to be quiet and obsequious to real customers ; to discourage the needy and adventurous ; to keep their eyes open and their mouths shut until the proper time, and then to reverse the order of things by know- ing nothing and opening wide enough. Respec- tability of appearance was to be the motto of the stable ; and everything, from the stud-groom to the lowest helper, was to have a look of substan- tiality about it. By these means John Thoroughpin throve above all men : and his very faults favoured his advancement. For when the purchase did not quite come up to the purchaser's preconceived notions of his bargain, which indeed was generally THE PROFESSIONAL DEALER. Ill the case, he could always be taken back — a process so singularly remunerative to the dealer, that we wonder at any dealer being such a fool as to proceed upon any other principle; indeed, we doubt whether the system has not become almost universal by this time. John Thoroughpin put it into practice everyivhere, and upon every occa- sion ; and it is but justice to admit, that at the third deal, or fourth at the utmost, you got what you wanted at not more than four times its value. By these means, at forty years of age, he was the great man he has been ever since. Oxford and Cambridge, where he had taken root, were pots too small for his growth, and he decided upon London as the future base of his operations. Cir- cumstances favoured his intention. A general crusade was entered upon by the dons against the innocent amusements of the young gentlemen entrusted to their charge. They were lenient enough towards drinking, swearing, and general immorality ; but hunting and driving (even a donkey-cart without per- mission) were condemned under all sorts of penalties ; and even the respectability of Mr. Thoroughpin would not have saved him from 112 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. being discommonsed. Oxford was therefore no longer the place for such a tip-top swell as he ; and within a very short time the whole concern was disposed of^ and he was safely settled in Piccadilly. From that day Thoroughpin became ^Ir. Thoroughpin to all men ; and his head man, Tom Pace, became Mr. Pace to his master. Never was such a pair ! and whilst Mr. Pace was exhibitinoc the neatest of boots and the lio^htest of hands in the Vale, or with H. M.'s stag, Mr. Conyers or Parry in Essex or Hertfordshire, his master undertook the heavy business in the weight-caiTying provinces amongst the upper- crust of sporting society. I had known Tho- roughpin for years ; I had ridden his horses, been dunned by his foreman, paid his bills, and drank his beer fifty times over. I knew his littleness and his gi-eatness ; but I never expected such a wonderful brilliancy, such a startling effect, as this horse-dealing apparition produced upon me now. Nor must it be imagined that this was a flying visit. Since the days of the rail, such things were well enough for Jem This or Tom That. But Mr. Thoroughpin must have a little place in THE PROFESSIONAL DEALER. 113 the country. So lie soon found a neat, well white-washed, verandahed box, within easy dis- tance of four packs of hounds and a first-class station. Hence he reaches London in a couple of hours, twice a-week ; for the Piccadilly concern requires the eye of a master, and is too lucrative to be given up. Happily for the Comet, the Indian civilian, the Cambridge undergraduate, and the Government clerk, John Thoroughpin thinks there is no man equal to a Piccadilly horse-dealer, if he does business on the gentle- manly terms he has been accustomed to, and educates his children. To do the boys justice, there is no great fault to be found with them ; but they devoutly hope that their respectable father wdll, some day or other, turn gentleman in real earnest, and take those white letters off the Piccadilly-yard doors. The father's is a pardonable vanity ; the sons' a natural but almost universal vulgarity ; the " esse quam videri " of domestic life is a virtue difficult of accomplishment for us all. I have no doubt that our friend Thoroughpin has still his trials ; he has reached, what he imagines to be, the top of the ladder ; but he has 114 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. begim already to see that his ladder is a low one, out of Piccadilly. He is already beginning to sink the horse-dealer, excepting to the favoured few. I hear too, that his beagles are not so acceptable to the farmers in his neighbourhood as if they belonged to Tom Smith, the Pecklebury dealer — a hard- riding, unpretending sort of fellow, and capital judge of a sixty-pound four-year-old ; or to Captain Smasher of the Royals, who, if he was nothing else, was a gentleman by birth and position in the county, and seemed to have a prescriptive right to break the fences and ride over the grass on non-hunting mornings. But with these little drawbacks to happiness, Thoroughpin is a very good fellow, and leads a comfortable life. He owes no man anything except his customers, and " "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." He is a dignified member of a very undignified class ; and, as he once observed, has thought it his duty to raise the profession to which he had the honour to belong ; which he certainly has done by a career of unqualified success ; by toadying the great and wealthy ; by catering to the ignorance THE PEOFESSIONAL DEALER. 115 and absurdities of the weak, who could pay for it; and by scrupulously avoiding all who were not likely to further the interests of John Thoroughpin. " Due when ? " "To-morrow, sir." "Who is it?" " Mr. Moneybags, sir." " Oh ! Yes, let him renew if he likes. Who's the other ? " "Major Hardservice, of the 31st: balance of account for that charger that was killed in the Crimea." " Ah ! that's a bad business. Put it into the hands of Docket and Turnkey : we can't afford to lose it." In fact, as you see, Mr. Thoroughpin is thoroughly resjpectahle, and very likely to re- main so. I 2 CHAPTER VIII. JOHN BAKLEYCORN AND HIS FRIENDS. " It seems to me that nobody but the gentlemen ride here," said Miss Miles, one evening after a rather slow day among the turnips, when our feet had been much more heavily laden with mud than our bag with birds. " Now where I come from" (she was a fine sample from Essex) "the farmers are quite the top of the tree. Perhaps in the shires there are none ; or they're of so little importance that you quite overlook them." " On the contrary," said I, at all times willing to give honour to whom honour is due, " without them we could have no hunting at all. We are indebted to them for country, for foxes, for hay, oats, and for horses ; for although we pay for them, they breed by far the greatest number; and when they ride them too, are a real blessing to a country." JOHN BARLEYCORN AND HIS FRIENDS. 117 " I'm glad to hear that," said my uncle Scribble, suddenly waking up from his nap at the mention of foxes ; " I was afraid some injudicious sugges- tions about wire fencing might have made a divi- sion between us; but nothing could exceed the temperance of the gentlemen who undertook it, excepting the good nature with which they were met by the majority." "As witness my new hat yesterday," said I, " and your grey horse's leg this morning." I had the liveliest sensation of somebody's kindness in that line by narrowly escaping total annihilation. "There's not one in twenty that cannot be managed, if you go the right way about it ; and as to the twentieth, you must make up your mind to grin and bear it," said the major again, who never grinned, or bore anything without relieving himself by some fine old-fashioned imprecations, not worth recording, as they were probably not listened to in the only place they could take effect. " An English yeoman, sir, is a grand institution, with just one or two of those infirmities which make him human, and give him a greater claim upon our sympathies." " I suppose, Major, you and your niece are both 118 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. prepared to admit that the genus differs widely in species ; and that there may be some not quite so interesting to the philosophical inquirer as others. To be sure we're pretty well off here ; that is, as far as the covert's side is concerned." " I can't help thinking that you would find some quite as worthy of a place in your sketch- book as the rest of your fiiends who have figured there ; if at least you have sufficient discrimination to do them justice in their different types." "You shall judge for yourself, sir. I think you'U allow that your friend Dick Howell is a most wholesome specimen of the fine old-fashioned sort, who knows the value of good land and high farming as well as most men, and who won't ruin himself by speculation ; and I can't help saying a word in favour of Tom Duckett, who might have been flourishing now if he had only showed his taste for the stable with some appreciation of the value of manure/* " Dick was too slow, and too fond of his money ; Tom was too fast, and too fond of his bottle." " Perfectly right, sir. Your remarks are so sin- gidarly just that I have a third man up (as they call it at Lord's) to save the reputation of the JOHN BARLEYCORN AND HIS FRIENDS. 119 other two. I don't think George East now is to be beat in Essex itself, Miss Miles ; for I knew the county well twenty-five years ago, when there were some good men, with the late Lord Petre, Charles Newman, and Conyers ; and if Mr. Scrat- ton's fields are anything like his sport, they have lost none of their reputation. The materials which I found left nothing to be desired, save on the part of the limner. The following sketches, however, proved much to the taste of the old gentleman, who is at all events entitled to some respect as a connoisseur : — MR. BARLEYCORN AND HIS FRIENDS. We used to imagine that we knew an Englisl:^ gentleman. There were certain distinguishing marks which stamped him at once — something as undefinable as it was unmistak cable. On the " trottoir" of Bond-street or St. James's, on board a Rhenish steamer, in the coup^ of a Swiss dili* gence, or at the table d'hote of a German watering-* place, it was all the same ; he was an English gentleman just as plainly as in his dining-room in Grosvenor-square, or in his dark-green chariot with Newman's greys. It was not his gloves, nor 120 COVER- SIDE SKETCHES. his boots, nor even his hat, much less his clothes. So was it with the fine old EngKsh farmer. That broad, open, honest countenance, whether in Smith- field market, si, Tattersall's or Aldridge's, on a bench in Hyde Park, on the top of a Greenwich omnibus or the Exeter Ta^lyho, or on his favourite broken-winded cob in his own fields, denoted what may be well recognised as one of the most time- honoured personifications of British independence. Is it so now ? I beg to state my individual con- viction that it is not. Is an English gentleman to be recognised by his hirsute appendages, worthy of a French hair-dresser advertising his own pre- paration of graisse d'ours or by his stifling turned-down collar and scarlet neck-band, his pork -pie hat and peg-top pantaloons ? Or do we see that characteristic sang-froid in the short black pipe and jaunty air, which we cannot help remarking as a distinguishing feature of the British embryo ? And what sort of antitype does young Mr. Barleycorn present, at all coincident with the progenitorial stock from which he boasts to be descended ? Lying in bed till ten in the morning, and retiring to rest under the combined influences of gin-and-water, and a country dance in a booth. JOHN BAELEYCOEN AND HIS FRIENDS. 121 at about three A.M. ; a meagre breakfast on tea and shag tobacco, an hour s idling over a gate to look at the stock, a little more tobacco, and a day- passed in general lounging, to be followed by an evening of general flirtation in and around the village, which adds to the respectability of neither party concerned, will not make Barleycorn Junior the fine stalwart British yeoman w^hich Barleycorn Senior boasts to be. A little more hunting and shooting, and athletic exercise in general (by which we mean neither dog-fighting nor badger- baiting), would be an admirable panacea for that eternal dulness which appears to oppress the j unior members of the agricultural family, and for which old Barleycorn must partly thank his own desire that young John should be " quite the gentleman." A gentleman-farmer I take to be a horrible chi- mera, a fabulous monster, whom " Spectatum admissi, risuvn teneatis, amici" The sketches I wish to submit to the notice of my readers, but which are intended to represent those time- honoured tenants of the nobility and gentry which do so much credit to the beef and pudding of this country ; and which, in spite of differences of station, education, and manner, exhibit such 122 COTER-SIDE SKETCHES. marked connection between the owners and culti- vators of the soil, whose tastes and pursuits, as regards country life, have proved the strongest tie between them ever since the days wdien the feudal system came to grief Dick Howell has been since he was born (as his father before him) a tenant of the Squire. He is, at the time of this photographing, about fifty years of age, a hale, stout man, some five feet ten in height, and about fourteen stone in weight. He has a cheerful light grey eye, very bright clear complexion, w^ith plenty of colour, straight fea- tures, strongly-set mouth, and excellent teeth. Time has thinned his closely-curled flaxen hair towards the top of the head, and turned his closely-cut whiskers a little whiter than nature made them. His chin is as cleanly shaven as a south country stubble — a similitude which any gentleman who beats that locality in quest of partridges will appreciate. He is clothed in suit- able attire. A good strong beaver, closely napped, and neatly brushed, somewhat broad in the brim, covers his well-formed head, and indoors, not un- frequently, as well as out, supplies the place of his lost hair. Dick is proud of his hat, and imagines JOHN BARLEYCORN AND HIS FRIENDS. 123 it becoming to the master of a household, like the lamented Dr. Busby, of pious memory. He wears a soft, well-washed white neckerchief, with a good fall, and a plain gold pin ; a buff single-breasted waistcoat, buttoned nearly to the top, and of con- siderable dimensions below. His coat is always of excellent cloth, large and strong, and full- skirted, with pockets convenient enough for any- thing, from a banker's book to half-a-dozen samples of oats or wheat, with which they are generally stored. His breeches — and, thank heavens, there is still some one to patronize that old-fashioned but commodious style of nether garment, — are of strong drab cloth, and his white-topped boots irreproachable in thickness, brightness, and ease. When you or I, my good friend, go out hunting, bless my heart ! what a business the dressing is ; how anxious are we about the leathers and the tops, that they should meet each other at the right spot, like lovers on a Sunday afternoon — " both in full fig, and anxious to embrace," but somewhat coy and observant of decorum. Not so Dick Howell ; any man alive may see in a moment that it is his daily costume ; and whether he is at the cover-side, or marching 124 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. slowly but industriously on his pony by tbe side of a plough, it is the same to him. Always at home, and always neat, excepting when he is just being dragged from a muddy ditch, or has made accidental acquaintance with a wet fellow, in the course of a run. Of education, so called in the present day, I should think Dick had very little. An inferior grammar school of some kind had given him a smattering of Latin, which was utterly useless ; the multiplication table and general knowledge of arithmetic, in its least com- plicated form ; land surveying in its elements ; book-keeping, the catechism, some scripture his- tory, a little geography, and a capability of reading "The Farmer's Journal," "The Times," "Bell's Life," and "The Sporting Magazine." Beyond these, he seldom ventured, unless into the " County Sj)itfire," where he read the deadly feuds of tliat paper and " The Nobbier" ; and firmly imagined that every word of those fire- eaters made some sort of impression upon the politics of the world. As regards those very useful accomplishments, the watersheds of Hin- dostan, conic sections, hydrodynamics, the decli- nation of the needle, the jiarticle ar, and JOHN BARLEYCORN AND HIS FRIENDS. 125 " Middleton on the Greek article/' French, Ger- man, and the use of the globes (excepting as ornamental to his drawing-room windows), he was profoundly ignorant. He had, however, acquired by observation a natural shrewdness on the subject of weather ; he was a capital judge of stock, including the three-parts-bred horse, which he always preferred, poor fellow ! to a thorough- bred one ; he was an excellent shot, having begun early in life to handle the trigger ; and he had a perfect knowledge of country and the method of crossing it, derived from long practice, and a natural eye to hounds. His nerve, as a horseman, was never first-rate ; and as he got older he did just as well without it. Indeed, as Dick often observed, he had been over and into the Floodan- ferry Brook ; but he would take pretty good care he never did again. "I've got something more to do now than scrape the mud off my breeches and pour the water out of my boots, because the fox chooses the longest way by three-quai-ters of a mile from the Snake Cover to Spencer's Gorse." The fact is, we are obliged to admit that Dick was a shirker ; but no more useful man ever rode over his own wheat. To follow him was a certainty : 126 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. and the consequence was that he was always to be seen with a tail as long as a comet. It made slight difference which way the hounds turned, Dick Howell regarded them not ; but he kept galloping on with unbounded confidence in the determination of the fox, or his own luck. Half- a-dozen hand gates, through the ford, up a short gTass lane, two or three easy gaps, and there was our fiiend at the head of the skirters, just ready for a fresh start, as the hounds emerged from a different corner, having come to a slight check in the field beyond. " This way, Charles," says the cheery old gentleman; "this way, he's gone on to the Scrubs ; you may roly on it." And the words are scarcely out of his mouth before the low note of old Warrior brings the scattering pack about him, and away they go again, heads up and sterns down, for another quarter of an hour's burst. Dick Howell is not a man that ever travels out of his way to make money. The legitimate sources of gain are all very well ; and I know no man fonder of them than he. He is a strictly just and honest man ; but, I fear, he can scarcely be called a liberal one. He is, in fact, a little JOHN BARLEYCORN AND HIS FRIENDS. 127 fond of a hard bargain. He knows the exact vakie of his hay, his corn, his oats, his sheep, and his oxen ; and he takes care to have it. But he is no speculator. Under these circumstances it is needless to add that he never rides or buys a horse for sale. To my mind one of the most legitimate objects of a farmer's business is the breeding of horses ; and when combined with good horsemanship it ought to be profitable. I know few things so cheerful as the welcome one meets from your true specimen of the British farmer, when, with a ride of fifteen miles before you, after a dragging day, you require gruel for your horse, and a glass of sherry and a biscuit, or some wholesome bread and cheese and home- brewed for yourself Dick's is a great house of call on those occasions ; he would be much offended if any gentleman of the county were to pass his gate under such circumstances ; and he is not a man to offend with impunity. He has fought too many election battles for that; and they all know that it is not his vote that would be risked, but his interest. Half the farmers in the county would follow him ; and, though not strictly speaking a rhetorician, he has 128 COVEE-SIDE SKETCHES. an eloquence, when he launches his bark amongst the breakers of the shipwrecked corn-laws, which is worthy of a better cause. His habits of life are simple enough, as concerns himself. Early- rising, more beer than tea after a visit to one side of his farm ; business on non-hunting days — which never exceed three a week, seldom more than two — an early dinner, wholesome beer, and a glass of sherry ; forty winks, as he is pleased to call about an hour's sound sleep ; more farming busi- ness on the favourite cob, or a visit to his land- lord ; a moderate supper ; a glass of tolerably strong gin-and-water, and a pipe or two from the good old English bowl of white clay, made up an ordinary day of domestic life. He has certain rules of life, as simple and as easily com- prehensible as his rules of living. He firmly believes that no man can go to Heaven who kills or circumvents the death of a fox by any other means than that of eating him alive. He never kills a pheasant in September, nor shoots a hare within ten miles of a brace of greyhounds, though he detests coursing and everything belonging to it. He never leaves a gate open, which he finds shut ; nor climbs over one he can walk through. JOHN BARLEYCORN AND HIS FRIENDS. 129 He conceives the devil to have been the first Whig ; and the Pope to be a very bad old lady of easy virtue ; but is puzzled, by his knowledge of geography, between Babylon and Rome. He is most scrupulous in his religious duties, public and private, just rather than charitable, though he can perform charitable actions ; a church- warden and a poor-law guardian ; and is fully persuaded that there is no such family in the world as the Squire's, and no county in England equal to his own. A very different person, in no less degree one of our topping farmers, is Tom Duckebt. He, too, started in life with a moderate capital and a good farm. From his earliest boyhood, however, he had been led to consider the value and pur- chase of short-horns and long-wools as secondary to the rearing and riding of young horses. He imagined that farming consisted not in business- like habits, and early rising, but in the employ- ment of a bailiff to look after the material interests of the farm, whilst he himself devoted his personal energies to three well-bred brood mares, whose produce was to make up for every deficiency. Certainly between a hundred and VOL. I. K 180 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. fifty for the promising four-year-old and the value of a very good short-horn there is some differ- ence, and when the pleasure of schooling the former and a season's hunting is thrown into the scale, the diversity becomes greater. It is, how- ever, not difficult in moderation to combine the two. Tom Duckett could not see it in this light : and, from one or two good sales early in his career, he soon began to attach an undue value to the pursuit of the one object, to the serious deterioration of his more legitimate occupation. He was a most excellent horseman : the right size, weight, and figure ; about twelve stone in the saddle, muscular in the arms and shoulders, with an elegance of seat seldom accorded to farmers, who, however good, are usually more remarkable for hardness than grace. He was a capital judge of pace, and as quick as lightning in turning to hounds. Round his own country, which was of the best and stiffest, he was hard to beat, for he knew what was impracticable in a field before he came to it — an advantage not always appreciated till you find yourself riding up and down an enormous double, or fifteen feet of rotten-banked water, with a post and rail on the JOHN BARLEYCORN AND HIS FRIENDS. 131 landing side. With these advantages, good judg- ment in selection, and undeniable pluck when occasion required, it is not to be wondered at that Tom Duckett not unfrequently received a long price for a likely hunter. I am inclined to believe that two hundred and fifty guineas for a slashing grey gelding by Irish Birdcatcher was the ruin of Tom. From that day he imbibed a notion that, come what would, the field — I mean the hunting field — was the place for a farmer. He had not yet discovered that the best bred ones sometimes come to grief, and that the loss of a valuable young'un, or even a temporary loss of his services, makes a hole in the largest profits. Then his stock went wrong ; then there came a bad harvest, and a hard season or two for the farmer; and from indolent and careless habits, and want of supervision, the quasi-bailiff made off with the proceeds of a sale of some Leicester ewes. All these things went a little hard with Tom ; and hard riding, in his case, as in some others, led to hard living. A drunkard he was not ; few men can ride over the country as he could in the morning after an evening's debauch. But a sober man he certainly was not ; and gentle- K 2 132 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. men are not so fond of a rollicking dare-devil, which Tom was fast becoming, as they are of a steady, quiet, respectable young fellow, who sells his horses more by accident than design. Still his genuine love of sport, and really good horse- manship, procured him many admirers and many a liberal offer. I have seen him of late years, still going in the same undaunted manner, on a weedy pony, not above fourteen hands and a half high, when it seemed a perfect mystery how he managed to get from one field to another, like lightning ; never with the hounds, but always on their right, and somewhat in advance of every living thing, excepting the fox. I remember some years ago, one charming morning, we met at a favourite cover, in the best part of our country : Tom Duckett was then on a splendid dark-brown horse, which he had pur- chased some short time back, out of some racing stables. He was too slow to become a plater. The horse had been seen before in one or two remarkably good things ; and he looked so well on this particular day, that he attracted the attention of a gentleman, who understood to the full the vaUie of blood. A fox was soon halloed JOHN BARLEYCORN AND HIS FRIENDS. 133 away, and the first ten minutes gave no cause of complaint to the lovers of pace; there was scarcely time to think, much less to talk, and the only things that were clearly manifest were the black skirts of Tom Duckett's coat and the dark- brown horse's quarters, in front all the way. Under the circumstances of the case, it is not extraordinary that the hounds should have over- run the scent, and the natural consequence, a slight check, ensued. " Three hundred, Mr. Duckett, for the brown horse," said an eager customer, afraid of being too late in the market. "Three hundred, and you may ride my second horse, if you can get him, and send the brown horse home by my groom at once." "Thank you, my lord, for your offer; but we shall be down to the Styx in five minutes, and if he jumps it I shall want more than that for him." The Styx is a brook that is not so easily crossed as its namesake. Charon himself, on a thorough-bred one, would have looked twice at it, and turned away. Indeed, I never saw any- one jump it that did look at it ; and I have seen 134 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. it full of performers of the highest character that did not. Tom, however, had a not undeserved opinion of his horse's merits, and in a few minutes more he had a chance of putting them to the test. Down they came ; and as the leading hounds dragged their sterns after them up the bank, one man, and one alone, about a hundred yards to the right of them, was seen to be in the right field ; four were in the water, a little to the left, in their wake, one on the top of Old Melody, and the rest nowhere. Of course somebody knew of a ford, or a bridge, or something accommo- dating; and at the end of another twenty minutes they had caught the hounds ; when the first thing that was seen worth notice, was poor Tom Duckett leading the brown horse by his bridle, badly staked, at the very last fence before the hill. The brown horse died that night, and poor Tom was a bankrupt within twelve months from that day. The most graceful position a young farmer can occupy, is on a good young horse in the front rank ; but it must be done with discretion, and not too frequently. Let him beware of sinking the agriculturist in the dealer. Amongst gentle- JOHN BARLEYCORN AND HIS FRIENDS. 135 men fox-hunting has long ceased to hold out any temptation to hard living ; amongst farmers it has not, and often leads to company and habits, which it requires some strength to resist. It is a great pity that gentlemen do not more encou- rage the breeding and riding of a good horse or two amongst their own tenants ; but the fact is that dealers have so improved, of late years, in character and position, as to have nearly monopo- lised the market; and a remunerative purchase in the field from a man in Tom Duckett's posi- tion, is rather the exception than the rule. The dealer himself would, probably, become a ready purchaser of a good performer ; but appearance and fashion go quite as far mth him as capacity ; and he is as willing to buy untried horses as those which have seen service, and probably bear the mark of a severe day or two in a fast country. Good tenant farmers, however, should never be overlooked in a country where fox-hunting is expected to thrive. Who looks after the cubs on an estate? Who has the opportunity of encou- raging or depreciating a love of sport amongst his dependants like a good substantial farmer? With a certain class of underlings his word is law, and 136 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES, under-keepers, poachers, vermin trappers, earth- stoppers, and vagabonds in general, know no law but that of the man who can employ them con- stantly, and keep them from the workhouse. A sporting tenantry is a great comfort to a noble- man or gentleman who wishes for a sure find on his estate, and a general facility for sport. Such men as Tom Duckett and Dick Howell do not send in bills for fowls or turkeys surreptitiously taken, for fences broken and damaged crops, and what is more to the purpose, they prevent others, in a less healthy position, from doing the same. George East combines the qualities of the other two. He is a farmer in every sense of the word, as much as Dick Howell ; he has the same pur- suits, feelings, and capacity, tempered with some- thing of modern education. I do not mean that he speaks French, or knows anything of the piano ; but he has a little more acquaintance with the ways of the world, and softens his pre- judices by a reading something more extensive than " Bell's Life " or the " Mark Lane Express." He has a fine bold style of crossing a country ; but as the sale of his horse is only a secondary consideration, he can afford to throw away a JOHN BARLEYCORN AND HIS FRIENDS. 137 chance by doing a civil thing in a gateway. There is scarcely a more popular man in the county with his own class ; and though his hospi- tality is tempered by a little reserve, my lord seldom passes the door without a crust of bread and cheese, and five minutes conversation with Mrs. East, on the success of the poultry-yard, or the flaxen curls of the last but one. His horse stands within a few minutes walk of the best gorse in the country ; and if there w-ere not a litter of cubs there as certainly as there are stars in the Heaven, I think George would be found on the first of November with his head in the water- butt, and quite dead. Depend upon it, there is no class of men so deserving of encouragement, respect, and support, as the tenant farmers of the county. CHAPTER IX. OF FUNKERS AND THEIR HABITS. " Of every hundred men that go out hunting, there are not more than ten that pretend to ride : because to include in that category the gentlemen who, like sheep, are willing to follow any one who will lead them, provided the fencing be not too desperate, is to pay a very bad compliment to the accomplished horsemen, who are in the habit of leading upon all occasions, and who are indeed but few and far between in every country." I had got thus far in an explanation of what was the subject of another sketch of character, of a cha- racter indeed common enough at every cover-side, when my Uncle Scribble, who had fallen asleep as usual, gave a short grunt and roused himself. " My dear girl, that's not what used to be the case. I remember when almost every body who put on a scarlet coat thought it his duty to be as THE FUNKERS. 139 near the front as his horse could carry him. Now to be sure, the case is altered, and the crowd in the gateways and gaps is so great, that the straight road is almost the easier of the two. All the world has taken to hunting, and conceives itself privileged to ride over our hounds and horsemen without regard to age, rank, or respectability." " Well, Major, I for one shall not say anything against the cultivation of such a taste, although somewhat to our inconvenience. Every man is the better for a little sport ; and if money is more plentiful than formerly, and locomotion more attainable, why, then, ' Better in fields to seek for health unboiight Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.' '* "That's very hard upon Sawbones," replied he, "who regards the cockneys as his natural victims. However, as health, according to you, is the object, and the dissemination of money the great virtue, why don't they take their fill of air on the Surrey Hills, and swell the Subscription Lists nearer home ? There's plenty for them to learn which old Jorrocks might have taught them." " No one can be surprised at men preferring Leicestershire to Surrey, and as long as they 140 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. indulge only in the gates and the cross-roads they won't do much mischief." *' I beg your pardon — they are always cutting off hounds, and turning up in the wrong place, and on bad scenting days they press hounds, and — ard — in fact, it's all very different from what it used to be. Nobody knows who's who." " It must be a great satisfaction to you to know what a miserable nervous set you have here ; and that if they spoil your sport they can enjoy none of their own." My uncle allows nobody to abuse the shires but himself, and turned rabidly upon me at once. " I don't suppose they're worse here than else- where." " Excuse me : they always appear so. First they are in greater numbers, according to your account. Then they ai-e worse by comparison, for there is no denying that you have a majority of the very best and hardest men in England. I should look for them in Tailby's, the Quorn, and the Pytchley county if anywhere. Then, too, there's a great temptation, for the straight road is a very thorny one, and the crooked one is pleasant and broad. I never saw such an accommodation THE FUNKERS. 141 in the way of gates ia my life, as your great grazing countries present. There are always two, and usually four, in every field ; and as to the fences, a patient follower may have them laid perfectly level, by exercising a little of his favourite virtue." " But you don't call that hunting, do you ? " Certainly not, sir. Nor following the hounds, fo'r they seldom go into the same field with them ; but it is following other people, and enjoying the air, and dressing in boots and searlet, and having something to talk about in the summer:'* " Well, I presume it's the same everywhere ? " " Not exactly. Every country is not blest with so many gates ; and it's no credit to talk about the Muggers ; and you cannot make the Essex ditches in the roothings smaller by waiting ; indeed they seem to get larger ; and besides this, where the fields are so much smaller, there is not the same encouragement for the Funkers. They are easily detected, and seem to live, by a sort of tacit agreement, peaceable lives, affronting nobody, and unaffronted. The shires, however, offer a noble refuge to bashfulness ; numbers make men bold ; they have a front of brass, and their J 42 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. language is of hair-breadth 'scapes and daring flights ; while your real performer is either too great a swell, or too modest, to interest himself in, or to magnify, his ordinary achievements. I never saw such a place now as the Reigate Vale ; the districts below the hills in part of the South- down country ; there are very nice fields too to detect an impostor in parts of Lord Petre's old country. I have seen a gentleman get into one of them by accident, and, as he strenuously de- clined having the fence out of it, I imagine that he must be there still." " And how did you get out 1 " said my Uncle, nettled I suppose by my remarks on his favourite countries. " I never went in," rejoined I. "For a gentleman possessing only a passing acquaintance with the party, you appear to have a tolerably intimate knowledge of the motives, manners, and customs of the Shufflers." " Of course I have. I have studied their charac- teristics, my dear sir, and they are at your service." Let us see, therefore, imitating the miglity Aristotle, of how many kinds, and of what .sorts, and under what pleas, exist the Funkers of THE FUNKERS. 143 the hunting field. Old age is a natural Funker; we take no account of him — * Ees omnes timide gelideqiie ministrat.' ' Everything he does, he does with a timid and cold heart; and why should he alter his tactics, when he condescends to put on the appearance of bravery and of youth ? Every dog has his ' day ;' and if he has properly made use of his day, he will have laid up a stock of experience, which will now serve him in the stead of his departed nerve. He knows every gap and every gate, or, at least, he ought to know them ; but what is more valu- able still, he knows, or ought to know, the probable runs of the foxes. There you may see him (many a time and oft have I), when bold youth is floundering about among the fences below, and seeing nothing of the sport, seated composedly on a rising ground, watching the hounds as they bend towards him at every yard, and enjoying that view which ambitious youth has no time to think of. It is true, enjoyment differs as men differ ; and I do not care about that hill-side, and that uninteresting security, the result of his manoeuvres. Hunting the fox would be dearly 144 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. purchased at such a compromise. Neither is he alone in his glory. Whether it be that he is so agreeable a companion, or that his grey hairs demand respect, I know not; but this I know, that round that venerable form no less than twenty or thirty bold and stalwart looking men are sitting as still as he. I rather think my old acquaintance, Mr. C — d — k, of Leicester, who must have seen Kirby Gate at least sixty suc- cessive years, must have blushed for his youthful followers more than once, when they have pre- ferred the tortuous and safe course prescribed by age to the more ambitious route through the blackthorns from John Ball to Gumley. I honour old age that will not give up its manly recreation only because it is old. I make way for it at gates, and I look for it at checks ; but I never see it, if possible, in the middle of the run. It is generally a heavy subscriber, and an orderly, well behaved, and experienced sportsman — a man of influence in the county, not to be lightly attacked ; but the truth of the public recorder compels me to number it among the Funkers, and to declare it an item in so extensive a register. We always regret that a graceful actor should THE FUNKERS. 145 have to retire from tlie stage he has adorned ; but we can even honour the enthusiasm which carries with it its propriety to the finish. " Next to old age, the most prominent excuse for shuffling has always been found in weight. If a heavy man is a poor man, I can understand his plea. If he is a rich man, it becomes much more questionable. If a heavy man be mounted, and has his heart in the right place, there is no reason why he should join the photographic group, whose name, I before said, is legion. He will not cross a country like a lighter man ; he will learn what to seek and what to avoid. A fall to him is perhaps a little less agreeable than when less ponderous matter meets the earth. Stiff gates he may be allowed to open, if he can. But at mode- rate timber he appears to me to have a consider- able pull. His very vice becomes a virtue ; and I have seen good rails succumb to the judicious exertions of such men, when your ten or eleven stone would have felt a mistake to be a consider- able drawback to the pleasures of the chase. I recommend strongly a good choice of ground from which to take off, without regard to the thickness of the fence, especially when I have to follow. If VOL. I. L 146 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. any gentleman will be at the trouble to watch Mr. Anstruther Thompson, who is just gone to the Pytchley, Mr. Gilmour, or three or four I could name, he need be at no loss to ascertain the manner in which a heavy weight may cross a stiffly enclosed country. In fact, light countries are no use to them ; they then put themselves on a par with racing weights and light-timbered horses, clearly throwing away a chance. But in a good holding grass, with big fences out of the enclosures, wdiile some light dragoon is peering hopelessly through a blackthorn, or is positively hung up in its branches, an ominous crash is heard a few yards to his right or left : without much exertion from horse or man, the leafless wood yields to the weight, and our heavy sportsman goes sailing on at his own steady pace, with an eye ever to the fore. How ignominious, on the other hand, is the position of our old friend Scoreham ! Instead of about three hundred guineas, which is the least tliat can be said for seventeen stone, he selects a heavy, badly-bred animal from a farmer's team, because he is big without strength. He is con- fined to the gatewavs and the lanes ; and, when THE FUNKERP. 147 by accident in a field with the hounds, is so utterly- incapable of seeing his way out, that he passes a miserable day in the vain hope of deceiving himself and others that he enjoys hunting. He is a great hand amongst the roadsters, and receives the sympathy of those who know nothing about it ; which he does not deserve. If he would only harden his heart, and open his purse, he would find that nine runs out of every ten are by no means beyond the capacity of a really good horse, though weighted with six-feet-three, and a pro- portionate amount of very solid flesh. But the better the horse the more wretched would Score- ham feel, and an excuse for going would be the most pitiable present you could make him. If you want to see a really fine picture of Funkers, you may imagine that we have just found our fox, who has set his head straight for Hardman's Wood, a distance of five miles from point to point, with about five acres of gorse between it and you. As there is not yet any time for tailing, and no horses are short of wind in the first field except such as are " born so," it will be easy to detect the shufflers from the true men. About twenty rush down the green sward, L 2 14-8 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. at least half of them in front of the hounds, and charge the black-looking obstacle in front at full tilt ; about one dozen more, with less haste, but no less determinate intention, do the same ; and the two-and-thirty land, with various success, in adjoining pasture. Not so the remaining hundred and sixty eight. Of all sizes, ages, and descrip- tions, they seek safety, some in a reduction of pace, and an ignominious inspection of the black ditch beyond, when they are so fortunate as to be able to see into it ; others, bolder by long practice, at once turn tail, and seek the roads, or the line of gates which leads somewhere out of the field ; whilst others, more funky still, endeavour, with palsied hands and beating hearts, to walk over that which requires firmness, pace, and nerve, with the hounds by this time at least half-a-mile a-head, and all for the sake of satisfying the demands of society upon a scarlet coat. Amongst these, I say, are some of every sort. The majority, of course, not like Scoreham, but of middle size and happy hunting weight, say from twelve to fourteen stone men, which I take to be the suvinium honuvi of flesh. Look at our friend Dustanville — the Honour- THE FUNKERS. 149 able Billy Dustanville. That man has nerve, nerv^e enough to turn his back upon anything without flinching. Yet Billy has served his country well, and is rather a fire-eater than otherwise. Show him a post and rails, or a little water, or a fence of any sort or kind, he evinces a moral courage quite in keeping with his previous character for gallantry. He tells you that " he is not going even to look at it, there's a gate ; there are two ends to a crowd, and one is as good as the other." As he justly observes, " the men who are out of it are quite as good company as those who are in it ; and as to jumping, he hates it." Call him a muff ; he is impervious to abuse, and thinks you a fool. He is a middle-aged party, it is true — that is, the heyday of youth, is over, his whiskers have just a soupgoyi of grey in them, and he no longer revels in the keenness of plea- sure as formerly. I give you my honour, at twenty years of age he was the same. He always hated everything connected with the dangers of the chase, excepting the dress, which he imagines becoming, and the conversation at the cover-side, which is improving. He has hunted all his life, because " ourg " hunted, and it was something to 150 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. do. But as to running the risk of a collar bone, or a broken leg, because " ours " did so, such a thing never entered his head. The Honourable Billy has, too, an immense advantage over other Funkers, inasmuch as he is never for a moment made uncomfortable by previous misgivings. He may, by the veriest accident, get into a field, and be obliged to jump something ; but then, as he has sedulously determined beforehand not to put himself in danger's way, of course it comes upon him unawares. There is perhaps no man so enviable as Billy Dustanville on this account. A hard man may have misgivings about his horse, or about a certain brook, and the probability of being drowned ; but Dustanville can have none about anything but the weather and his digestion. He is always well turned out, has undeniably aristocratic legs for a top-boot, smokes the best and biggest of tobacco, and is altogether a most imposing figure in more senses than one. The shires cannot boast many such shining lights as this. Fcav are blessed with his moral courage, and few consequently lead so happy and prosperous an existence. Moreover, he claims of us a sort of respect ; for, strange to say, his care THE FUNKERS. 151 of number one is rewarded by his propitious appearance at the right moment ; whilst his friend, Jerry Diddleton, usually loses himself, from want of decision to shirk or to ride, and in a good thing seldom turns up at all. He is too late to turn back, and too funky to go forward ; and so between the two may not unfrequently be discovered taking an independent line down a road which leads to nowhere, and has no relation whatever to the fox-hounds or huntsmen. Jerry's is a truly pitiable case. I have seen him sometimes making a fight of it, in a state of mind almost enviable by a gentleman in the dock at the Old Bailey, when the judge is looking for the fatal cap. A gap or two lets him into the first taste of the run ; but gaps don't last for ever, and horses jump so high now-a-days, that it is not long before discretion seems to be the better part of valour. Then Jerry takes a pull at his horse, hoping that, as the crowd rushes by, some one will make a big hole. But, alas ! on nearing the fence, they all become as sensible of danger as Jerry Diddleton himself One begins to crane, another to poke about the hedge-row ; a third pretends to think the hounds are turning to the 152 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. right ; a fourth acts at once upon the suggestion, and is followed by a crowd of nincompoops, who have no stomach for the fight. One or tw^o make ineffectual attempts to urge their willing steeds, with unwilling hands, and come to grief. This is quite enough for Diddleton ; for, having eaten his fill at a distance, vacillating between hope and fear, this last mouthful satisfies him, and away he goes for Shuffler's Bottom, like the rest of them. A chosen few alone the sport enjoy. Then, and not till then, do the pleasures of the chase begin. He has shot his bolt, and now he is in the com- pany of those who have done the same, or who have had no bolt to shoot. He rides unmolested now, presuming that that old fellow on the brown cob knows where he is leading them, and tolerably careless of seeing the hounds again before they kill. There is, however, something to be said in pal- liation of this pusillanimous performance. Both Diddletons and Dustanvilles have reached a time of life when they may be considered valuable members of society. They have a sort of stake in the country. They have wives, families, and dependants, and a great many other reasons, which THE FUNKERS. 153 should iDduce them to take care of themselves. But what shall we say to young Darlington, who took his degree only last October ? and Bung, the brewer's eldest son, who is to stand for Beermouth at the next opening ? Here are fellows with lots of money, light weights, right age ; in fact, every- thing right but their hearts. It is a melancholy fact that these young men are the type of a class which represents the characteristic nerve and horse- manship of young England in the field. They are made up of glorious circumstance. Nothing can exceed their capability of putting on leathers (that is something to say), their judgment in colours, the neatness of their tops, and their generally sportsman-like appearance. For this, great credit is due to their tailor, bootmaker, and to their valets, especially Bung's, who, having been in early life a very fashionable but unsuccessful steeple- chaser, knows something of putting his master on horseback. There is something extremely unna- tural in an old head upon young shoulders, and we are inclined to doubt such a variety of excuses as the Darlingtons and Bungs have ever at com- mand. Some have lost a start, others a shoe, others are fat (their horses I mear*). and the next 154 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. lot are " not quite the thing." If funking means " not quite the thing," they never are anything else. I contend, Mr. Reader, that it is pitiable to see so many good things as youth, health, money, and an eye for the becoming, so utterly thrown away as upon a juvenile Funker. Such a man is positively unnatural. It is a horrible state of things, only consistent with beards, pipes, and peg-top trousers, and subversive of the national characteristics of Englishmen. But bad as are these fellows in the field, painful as are my reminiscences of them from some of our crack covers, where circumstances (as the poets say) would have made a man, they are a thousand times worse at home. They are such unblushingly swaggering dogs, and so intrusively forgetful of other men's claims to be heard. You should listen to Bung at the governor's table ! Never was such a bruiser. And the worst of it is, that in the midst of a little chat with Miss Bung, who is not plain and will have forty thousand pounds, you are interrupted in your tete-a-tete to join in some doggy or horsey conversation, which 3^our soul abhors. It is young Bung, with a score of Darlingtons, and two or three Diddletons round THE FUNKERS. loO him, describing the brook with the aid of some accidentally spilt claret and a lump of hard biscuit, where he took it, and how he did it ; and then every blackguard of them remembers the place. By Jove, sir, I feel morally certain that not one man at the .table ever went near it, but that they availed themselves each and all of a most accom- modating ford not less than half a mile higher up than the place where the hounds crossed it, and where it is certainly not under fourteen feet of water, and not a very good taking off either. But it is impossible to insult a man in his own house, whatever he may do to you ; and as I went over, or am supposed to have got over in the wake of the hounds, I cannot know much about the present performance of the Bungs. Now, what is the cause of this ? Fellows cannot all have indigestion every hunting morning. They cannot all ride unfit horses, nor all lose shoes. And as to getting a start, why ! that is the pluck. Still it is hard to believe that two-thirds out of every field are short of their national attributes. I never saw a chimney-sweep on a jackass pull up for anything, nor a boy on a Shetland pony. They are the greatest nuisances in the world, always 156 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. attempting some impracticable feat, and only saved from ignominious disgrace, or the grasp of grim death, by the practical good sense of their quadrupeds, who refuse to be pushed into the bottomless ditch. I wish, with all my heart, some of those neck-or-nothing youngsters could change places with the Bungs, Diddletons, Darlingtons, and Dustanvilles ; we should have some riding then, unless the excellence of the externals is in inverse proportion to the condition of the internals, and then I suppose young Chummy would end by taking his place among bis betters. And thus much of Funkers, CHAPTER X. PIP LODGE, AND OUR FRIENDS FROM THE METROPOLIS. There is a vast accession of strength in the race of sporting men, and nine-tenths of these hail from London, It was a sight to see, on a fine sunny morning (for such days are friendly to patent varnish if not to scent), at the cover-side, my friend Peter Scripp^ of Capel Court and of Pip Lodge, Grassington. How admirably turned out was the little man ! What a resplendent pink ; what highly organised boots ; what taste in the contrast between waistcoat and neckerchief; and what attention he received from his friends Giles, and Harrison, and Billy Easall, all city men like himself, who had come down to enjoy the pleasures of the chase I We are well accustomed to him now, and my worthy uncle and all the gi'eat men. liave called upon him, for they like his 158 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. dinners, and appreciate his liberal and punctually paid subscription. There are a great many very like Peter, who have the beginnings of country life about them, and only want encouragement to complete that phase of their existence. Good honest fellows, and mighty pleasant. And there are others who are just as ridiculous ; always endeavouring to play at great men, and fully succeeding in making themselves smaller than ever. Why should a man forget the ladder by which he got up ? He need not carry it about with him ; and having taken to another, he can scarcely be mounting two at a time. But every one should have a tender regard for a dead friend, though he need not intrude the urn containing his ashes at a new festival. Your young blood, whose early life on a three- legged stool fitted him to shine east of Temple Bar, has suddenly emerged from his chrysalis state to the butterfly existence of buckskins and brown-topped boots. The man who so lately chartered Shanks's pony has become suddenly cognisant of Joe Anderson and Tattersall's. The ledger — ominous sound ! how do you spell it ? — has been exchanged for a raciug calendar and THE LONDON DIVISION. 159 turf guide, Billiter Square for Market Harborougti, and the prospect of the mayoralty for the master- ship of fox-hounds. And shall I he the man to blame them, that the eruption has taken this form ? Certainly not ; only I think the disease might have shown itself with more favourable symptoms. It is not a question of a horse or two and healthful recreation — a little country box and some quiet hunting ; but it is half-a-dozen sleek- coated hunters, a splendid establishment at Bache- lor's Hall, a constant running up and down by rail, and money-lending or borrowing, and bill dis- counting, and Jew- bilking (though that is a diffi- cult process), and a slangy, snobbish appearance from beginning to end, which is fast over-riding your quiet legitimate country gentleman, but which has no more chance of playing the same part in the world, than I have of playing the Polka Mazurka on the horns of tlie moon. Chaste Diana ! What a profanation 1 I love the old country gentleman and his pursuits ; and I do not think Mark Lane will produce the commodity to send him and his out of the market. Now, ours was not a county to stand this sort of invasion at all. It was fond of its privileges, and 160 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. of its reputation as a hunting county ; but it could very well do with fewer marks of attention than it has received for the last fifteen years at the hands of the great capitalists and successful speculators of the Metropolis. Judge how we shuddered when the pure air of our native hills was blackened by a remorseless flight of these ephemerae. — these locusts in broadcloth and pig- skin, who assayed (and not always without success) the bullfinches and post and rail of the best county in England — who washed their hands of all mo- flesty — who talked of railway scrip and the Great Canada on the w^ay to the: jiioet, and discounted bills, and bought or sold for the account at the cover-side, I am a cheerful person myself, and, though sliding quietly down into the vale of years, I can amuse myself with most things. When nothing better occurs to me, I can be entertained with the peculiarities, even the infirmities, of my neigh- bours. Some years ago, I took my seat, about November, in a carriage at the Euston-square Station, bound for the shires. My companions, four in number, were booked for the same country ; and it took me no long time to discover that I THE LONDON DIVISION. 161 liad very little left for my discernment to employ itself upon. We had scarcely cleared the tunnels and obscurity which surround that favoured region before the conversation took a very decidedly sporting turn ; and though, during a few rubbers (with which the journey was enlivened) the range of subjects was a pretty extensive one, the most fastidious critic could not have complained that the main object was ever lost sight of. Harrow furnished anecdotes of James Mason which would have made his hair stand on-end, but which were as nothing to the performances of a certain mys- terious bay horse by own brother to Muley Moloch, now in possession of the sporting man of the four. I need hardly say how I heard that the Baron (by the time we neared Tring) was a "brick" or a " brute," according to the taste of the speaker, or that I was enlightened as to the rasping fences, the awful doubles, and the terrific pace of the Mentmore pack ; or that I was now made cogni- sant that a man or horse that could cross that vale could go anywhere in the world ; with a pretty strong implication that three out of the four were first-rate, and one (the sporting man) not to be beat in any country. VOL. I. M 162 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. One of my companions proved an excellent fellow, a good-hearted, liberal, well-informed man, who might have been anything. He was a stock- broker, as he took care to let me know, lest I should form, I presume, too favourable or exalted an opinion of him, and should be disappointed. He was just about embarking on a new and perilous career. He had an excellent business of a leofitimate character, a thorouo'h taste for Green- wich dinners and London life, with no more idea of hunting and shooting than of the flavour of a periwinkle and a Gravesend tea. But he had a diseased liver, or thought he had, and was per- suaded that country air was the only remedy. A fine excitable temperament like that of my friend Peter Scrij^p never does anything by halves. A cottage at Wimbledon was no more his idea of country air than it would be the late Marquis of Anglesea's idea of a house. A ride on a road or across a common was no more his notion of horse exercise than if he had hung himself across a clothes-line in a back garden at Pimhco, and paid a little boy sixpence to swing him. He knoAV no more about hunting than about astronomy ; but he had now gone into it con amore, and, if enthu- THE LONDON DIVISION. 16o siasm is a sign of enjoyment, Peter ScrijDp has bee brimful of happiness for the last fifteen years. About the time of which I am writing, Pip Lodge was to be let for a term of years. The name is not euphonious, as it suggests something between a diseased chicken and a stiff bullfinch (not a dead bird) ; but it is a most comfortable house in the middle of the best part of Gorse- hamptonshire. It has excellent stabling for six horses and a hack or two ; and it was described by the local George Robins as " a perfect hijou, fitted in all respects for a gent of aristocratic tastes, replete with elegance, but without preten- sion." Whether the gent was to be '' replete with elegance and without pretension" we do not know ; but in the hands of our stockbroking friend, who took it, it soon became " replete with life," and as full of champagne as it was free from pretension. A gentleman of an enthusiastic turn, with a good tap and a bad digestion, always has a crowd of hangers-on. Peter was not without his ; and when it was known that his mind bent towards the pleasures of the chase, it is wonderful how they of the tight trousers and flat hats^ with the var- mint terriers and stable phraseology, began to 164 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. cling to him. The hunting Telemachus must have a hunting Mentor. But it was not hunting alone that enlivened Pip Lodge. Shooting was to be hired, fowls were to be bought, a cricket- ground was to be made for the summer, cows were to be pTit in the paddock, and, save the mark ! a cart stallion was to be hired for the season, to be kept at the Lodge gratis for the benefit of the neighbouring farmers, who flocked around at the cry of carrion, and sold the generous tenant their hay, their corn, their beans, their straw, for a third more than the market price ; their pigs, living and dead ; their pointers, broken and unbroken ; and their yard dogs, of which he had no less than five in one fortnight ; and ended by letting him the shooting all round at sixpence per acre, which averaged about twenty-five shillings for every head of game on their estates. Never was such a har- vest ! for when joined to a most careless indif- ference to money present, and an easy capability of getting more, we find an utter ignorance of everything connected with a new occupation, I need hardly say that the pickings are considerable. But tliis is not all ; there was not a saddler, whip- maker, horse-dealer, or seller of anything in the THE LONDON DIVISION. 165 most distant manner connected with a country life, who did not visit Pip Lodge, and have an interview with Peter's confidential man, who, having nothing to pay and everything to get, promised enough to everybody to have made a borough member twenty times over. In fact, with the assistance of this functionary, the house was furnished with all conceivable appurtenances that the sportsman mind could desire ; and Peter Scripp arrived to find four good horses, a kennel of very useless mongrels, three very lazy and indescribable helpers or strappers, who were em- ployed to milk the cows, as well as their master, and run of errands ; a rough pony and a small waggon, which it was supposed might be useful some time or other ; a tame fox in the stable - yard, and a new gilt one at the top of the weather- vane, that there might be no mistake about the southerly wind and the cloudy sky, which was now the first object in the life of our stockbroker. " Save me from my friends," is a fine old- fashioned proverb, worthy of all commendation. And certainly if Bill This, Tom That, and Charhe Tother had been less frequent visitors at the Lodge, it might have been less lively, but would 166 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. liave been more respectable. The discussions Ifliat went on there as to hunting were truly great. Every one fought his battle over again at the mahogany; and who jumped this, and who shirked that? were very household words after dinner. By slow degrees the horsey man was found out, though it took some time to shake Peter s faith in Tom Giles, who inoculated him with his passion for the chase, and who ahvays affirmed that he bought his best horse for him. This, however, was not true ; for he got him as he got the rest, by a very simple and wholly improbable method. He walked into the yard of a high-class dealer, and asked to be allowed to see the horses. " Certainly, sir," said Mr. Yard- maine ; and he saw them, his horsey friend Giles producing anything but a favourable impression upon the dealers His pinch ings and pokings, and remarks on curbs, which were capped hocks, and on spavin, which proved to be a wart, were all wrongly placed, totally undeserving of anything but pity. Indeed, they were nearly being civilly bowed out, which Mr. Yardmaine understands as well as most people, but for the honest face and simple annoimcement of Peter Scripp himself THE LONDON DIVISION. 167 " Mr. Yardmaine," said he, gi'lnning and showing his teeth, " I am a stockbroker, and know nothing at all about horses ; and," he added with equal truth and openness, "no more does my friend here — do you Tom ? — though he pretends to be very clever about them. I am obliged to go into the country for health, — liver, you know, Mr. Yardmaine, — and I want four good horses to carry my weight ; they must be pretty good hacks, and not jump too high, or I shall go tumbling off, you know. I shall leave it all to you ; I can afford about one hundred and fifty pounds a-piece for them, and I dare say you'll do the best you can for me." The consequence was, that he began life with four good horses, and never had to repent his con- fidence. There was scarcely a friend who did not wish to sell him one, and scarcely one who would not have sold their friend too. Yardmaine might have had an object in view in behaving honestly — he gained a customer ; and he taught him to ride. Now, Peter Scripp is not altogether a bad fellow ; he has his faults, like other men ; he is not always particular in his language, for example and I think sometimes he exceeds the alloAvance of an abstemious man after dinner ; but these are on 168 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. ' rare occasions. He is a very generous fellow to his equals, and a very liberal one to the poor, which they have long ago found out in the neighbour- hood of Pip Lodge. He is a very warm-hearted person ; somewhat extravagant in his notion of money and people ; a little hot-tempered, but easily reconciled ; singularly enthusiastic, and apt as quickly to relinquish his object ; something of the young man, too much perhaps, considering that he is noAV in his eighth lustrum, or there- abouts. He is hospitable to profusion — rather a vulgarism in the present day — and putting to blush the meagre welcome of the present race of squires, who affect too much the fine manners and cheap civilities of those who live in cities. Their fathers were not so. He is scarcely a good master, but he is a lenient one, and indulgent to such a degree that he makes bad servants, who, once quitting his service, are seldom comfortable afterwards. He has hunted himself into an acquaintance with the county, who only fight shy of him on account of his very eccentric compa- nions. He would no more give tliem up than they would give liim up, though the motives in either case are singularly different. He is a very THE LONDON DIVISION. 169 cheerful person, and looks it. His information is • good on all points, not from force of learning, but because bis business has made it so. When he first began hunting, his performances were marked by the most daring pluck, the offspring of the most intolerable ignorance. He was always laughing, and talking, or retailing little city or suburban anecdotes ; he never knew what was going on ; but when he caught sight of the hounds, he generally tried to make up for lost time by riding straight to them — a pursuit which, in his case, often ended in grief. Catching hounds by riding straight to them is a very difficult pro- cess. But after a time Peter learnt a better way, by employing his o^vn brains instead of Tom Giles' advice, and he is now fully capable of taking care of himself in any ordinary run. By slow degrees he has modified the dairy, the kennel, and the hen-house and pigsty e, and has entirely got rid of the stallion. He still dines in his pink on certain occasions, as the arrival of some " lions " from London, supposed to be unac- quainted with the maimers of the shires, and whom he has undertaken to cicerone; and his first toast then is invariably "Fox-hunting," drunk 170 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. out of a glass liandsomely cut with tlie figure of a fox, and the word " Tally-ho " beneath it. In a word, he has ceased to be a stockbroker ; he sub- scribes to the covers and the hunt races, and, though small and dapper as ever, is becoming a country gentleman of rather a loud pattern. Tom Giles, who keeps half a wardrobe at Pip Lodge, and half in a back attic in Duke Street, Piccadilly, is a totally different sort of being ; as is also Bill Easall, commonly knov/n as the Great Trunk of Canada, from his size ; and old Dicky Hanington, the West-end lawyer, and grandest romancer of his day. Giles is the sporting party ; and is an authority among the ignorant, on all hunting, steeple-chasing, pigeon-shooting, and prize-fighting questions. He knows very little more than anyone else, and not half so much as hundreds of his city acquaintances ; but by dint of peculiarly-cut trousers, and a general similitude to a Gray's Inn Lane horse-dealer, he imposes on liimself and the unAvary. He is great at Pip Lodge ; and when Peter Scripp took to a country life, Tom Giles went by the name of the " Master of the Horse." He might have been called " the Dictator" with greater propriety, for he superin- THE LONDON DIVISION. 171 tended the cond«ationiiig of the four horses from Yardmaioe's, and assisted Ephraim, Peter's stud groom, beforementioned, in his choice of hay, corn, and clothing. I always think that some very judicious compliments have passed from one to the other, and that he and Ephraim shared some of the perquisites between them. When he first arrived with Peter he was supposed to pilot him, but he was easily detected as an impostor ; and after a brilliant attempt or two, was com- pelled to resign his lead. " Now then, Tom," said Peter, on the very first morning, as a fox broke at the lower end of Ashby, and ran straight for the Buffers' country,—" Now then, which way f " Oh, stick to the hounds," replied he, galloping up a lane, to avoid the first fence, at right angles to the hounds' line ; but over which Peter man- fully took his first header ; and it was not long before Peter found out that his Mentor's advice was so different from his practice, that he had better follow some other guide if he wished to see the run. Giles had been an impostor all his life ; he was so then, and he is so now. He had acquired a sort of character by depreciating everything attainable, for something that had 172 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. been, or was to be, and in which Tom himself had participated. He was selfish and pretentious, badly mannered, and slangily dressed, and was a singularly bad specimen of a bad school. For the rest, he affected to despise the ladies, and their society, for which he was totally unfit ; but im- plied, at all times, a most indomitable success with those whom he honoured with his smiles. But we have a little background to fill in, before we can be said to have presented the reader with a finished picture ; and we must endeavour to do it with a few bold strokes of the pen. The first of our two remaining members of the Metropolitan brigade can scarcely be said to be a sportsman. Beyond a certain fondness for the prize-ring, and a most extensive knowledge of the antecedents of that very respectable amuse- ment, he did not even dabble in sport. He knew all about Jackson, Gully, Cribb, Spring, Jem Ward, White-headed Bob, Perkins, Caunt, to say nothing of Sayers, Heenan, and Mace. He knew the battles they had fought, and almost the rounds and their results. Beyond that, he had nothing to boast of as a sportsman. His fat and importance, with a certain amount of good humour, THE LONDON DIVISION. 173 is the cause of his popularity, and excepting to superintend the table, and to see that all things pertaining to creature comforts are in order, at the return of the " sportsmen," he might as well be in London. Not so, however, is it with the West-end lawyer, Dicky Harrington ; he has six horses in the neighbouring village, and is par- taking of his friend's hospitality for a week or two, or as long as he can manage to do so. Dicky has been a scamp all his life ; now rich, now poor ; now lending money to young swells at forty per cent., and now borrowing it to pay his gambling transactions in Capel Court. His ostensible means of living is the law ; his actual means of doing so, out of the law. He has always been a sportsman in his own estimation of the word ; that is, he has always had fast-trotting ponies, and once or twice a steeplechase screw, which he has ridden himself; and being twenty years older than his companions, he is a privileged liar on all subjects. Even Tom Giles is afraid to pooh-pooh what happened before he was bom. In the field he is great. His coat is always of the broad and correct, with double seams, and outside pockets, Poole's last improvements ; a cap, brown 174 COYER-SIDE SKETCHES. boots, and woollen cords, complete and workman- like, but not very gentlemanly. He is not very bad, for a provincial, over a country ; better fitted for a slow one than for the shires ; and not dis- inclined to find out a line for himself, when the pace permits. He had ridden comfortably on a very questionable reputation for some years ; and was much too wise to risk either that or his neck. He was quite capable too of acting on the advice of the man who said, " Only want to go to Paris, for the sake of saying so ! Oh ! then you can easily say it, and save yourself the expense !" So it is with his hunting ; there is nothing he has not done, according to his owti account, and nothing that he does not know in that line, accordinof to the account of his friends. He has a very fluctuating income ; but the stud gives a certain respectability to the London House. He differs from Peter in most respects ; and it is difficult to see the ground of that gentleman's friendships, unless they emanate from pure good- nature. There's a Pip Lodge in every county, and no lack of tenants to fill them ; but it takes a long time, and much cutting and carving, to make a silk jnu'se out of a sow's ear. CHAPTER XI. THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER. The nearest approach to a sensation that I have ever seen amongst the swells was on a fine hunting morning, at Bluebottle, in the year 18 — . The hounds were about to be thrown into cover, when the arrival of a most distinguished stranger put a stop, for the moment, to the move. The red-and-blue phaeton, which came spinning along the road, with a pair of active, high-stepping roans, proclaimed an arrival of no common interest. Was it the Commander-in-Chief, late for break- fast, or the Prince of Wales and his tutor ? Was it Lord Stamford come into a strange country, Sir George Wombwell, Lord Coventry, or Mr. Rice, of Piccadilly, by far the greatest swell of our acquaintance ? On nearer approach, it proved to be none of these. The master, though he ought to have known the owner of the roans, did not. 176 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. Some of the arrant pretenders declared they knew the face quite well. Anything so correct as that was worth a bowing acquaintance at least, and some scraping to get it. Besides, the gi'ooms alone were very cheap at about £10,000 a-year. Our literary sportsman was soon taking stock, and scented game on foot : well worth a ten-pound note for the next article ; and not being very full in the horse line, began to speculate how far some judiciously applied butter would go towards a mount. The London Division next came to have a look at the occupant of the well-appointed phaeton, thinking, as the aristocracy had turned its back upon him, that nothing but Capel Court could have produced anything so gorgeous. They were disappointed ; and the young Marquis of Lackland, as he cantered past on his cover-hack, mentally anathematized the whole concern as far too good for the " bill-discounting " business. In fact, though nobody knew him or his companion, they were too conspicuous to escape total obser- vation, and divided pretty equally the morning's attention with a fresh arrival from Leamington, in a pork-pie hat with a scarlet feather. In the meantime, or whilst this passing scru- THE MYSTERIOUS STEANGEE. 177 tiny was going on, the proprietor of the roans was unfolding himself for the more serious opera- tions of the chase. A yellow bandana, of most approved texture, was first laid aside ; and then there emerged from beneath a drab cloth cape, of ample dimensions and cheese-plate buttons, a truly sporting-looking individual. On his head was a cap ; round his neck was a pure white, clean, and stiffly-starched neckcloth, unsurmounted by collars, but traversed by a gold fox of formid- able proportions. His waistcoat was buff, and his coat — single-breasted and broad-skirted — fitted as a clothes-bag fits unwashed linen. His leathers were by Hammond ; and his well-polished boots, with their cream-coloured tops, a surpassing effort of the skill of Bartley. Though admirably got up, he was no beauty ; and, I think, if we had divested him of his collateral advantages, he might have been pronounced decidedly ugly. He had a loud swaggering tone, which would have been con- sidered vulgar in one less liberally provided with the favours of fortune. But what will not a red-and-blue phaeton and high-stei3ping roans effect ? What female heart is proof against the omnipotent charms of such lavish expenditure ? VOL. I. N 178 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. A Jupiter descending upon Danae is not more certain of his reception than a monster in a scarlet coat and a shower of gold. And now there approached the offside of the phaeton the very neatest of grooms — not one of your cool, flighty, pepper-and-salt sort of gentle- men, who know nothing and do less ; but a thorough servant, who might have gone bail for tlie respectability of his master in any court in Christendom. He was most admirably and un- ostentatiously dressed, beautifully neat without dandyism, and of a certain weight, say about four- teen stone in the saddle (a light groom never can add much respectability, at least the odds are against him). He was riding a good high-class w^eight-carrier ; but he led by the bridle a mag- nificent bay horse, evidently thorough-bred, and with a coat that spoke volumes in favour of the stable-management and elbow-grease of the estab- lishment. There could be no doubt about the exchequer of the new-comer ; and those who were inclined to pooh-pooh the turn-out, were com- pelled to admit that no light-weight horse in Gorsehamptonshire looked like so much money or credit, whichever it might be. In shape, and THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER. 179 make, and condition, there was nothing to touch him that day ; and if the long-legged owner — who unfolded himself to the length of six-feet-two, as he prepared to mount from the phaeton-step — could only do him justice, he would be very far from the last in a quick thirty minutes from Blue- bottle Wood. Once in the saddle, and the steady second horseman falling to the rear, the unknown went up in the market ; and he might have had a pretty good price for himself, if he would only have thrown in the bay horse. Indeed, he pirou- etted through the crowd with a comfortable, well-satisfied air, which seemed to say, "I may be no beauty myself, but I know I'm on one." Before long, the narrow lane in which we were jogging, and which was scarcely adequate to the requirements of those who came to be looked at as well as to see, emerged into an open field, a bullock -pasture of some three hundred acres ; and here the stranger, getting elbow-room, took a wide bertli of the crowd, and set his horse going in a truly workmanlike style, followed at a moderate distance by the heavy groom. " He must be a dealer," said one. " Or a prosperous digger," said another >' 2 180 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. " Or a ' leg'," said a third. " Well, 1 never saw a fellow better turned out, at any rate," said a charitable sub from the neigh- bouring barracks, " if it was not for his nose." '' Ask Tilbury who he is," said Lord Lackland ; " he knows everybody. What a beggar it is to gallop ! " But as Tilbury wasn't to be found at the mo- ment, curiosity couldn't be satisfied ; and in a few minutes they found and went away. For the first burst, nobody looks at anybody. We were all happy to find ourselves somewhere within hail of the hounds when they threw up, over-ridden by the crowd ; and the stranger was there in the thick of us. One peculiarity, how- ever, did not escape observation — he ivas a hegc/ar to gallop ! Wherever the ground was deepest over the great holding pastures, or down the stickiest or muddiest of lanes, the red-nosed, long- legged gentleman took the lead. However he did no mischief He killed no hounds, and headed no fox ; so that, except covering his followers with occasional black mud, there was very little to say against the performance. He was not in such a hurry to knock the tops of tlie THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER. 181 fences off for us, or to show us whether the land- ing on the other side of the pleached fence with the yawning ditch was what it should be ; nor do I recollect that he formed one of the de- voted band who got over, or into the Stickle- back Brook which occurred in the run. There is at least this to be said, that he turned up at the end of a remarkably quick thing a minute or two after pulling down Charlie, which was more than might be expected of a costermonger on a mourning-coach-horse, but not quite in ac- cordance with the promise of his early appearance. He entered into conversation affably enough, and he smoked, and lavishly offered, the very largest and best cis^ar that had been seen at the cover- side since the reduction on dry goods. We saw nothing more of him after the turning where the cross-roads meet ; and in two days he, his phaeton, his horses, his groom, and his gallop- ing were as much forgotten as if they had never existed. The village of Muddilands is a charming place ; it consists of one straggling, irregvdar street, all ruts and stones in summer, and puddles and dirt in winter. The houses are most of them detached, 182 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. and comprise about six-and-thirty cottages, three or four second-class farm-houses, four publics, and a fine, old-fashioned church, large enough for a cathedral town, and as handsome as the Old English style can make it. The population is not migratory ; in the daytime it consists of several women, and about one hundred and fifty children, mostly in the puddles ; the male population usually absent ; but at night it is gregarious in the afore- said publics, and increased by the company of sundry helpers, and a few slovenly grooms or stablemen, quartered with their horses, jpor the next day's meet. This is the winter census. In the summer, no inhabitants at all are visible ; and Farmer Bull, a most excellent man, surveys the village from end to end, lord of all he does survey, with a long spade in his hand, and a straw hat, and shirt sleeves, persuading himself that he is busy, and that Muddilands is the most cheerful place in existence. It is, however, situated in the very cream of the county, and within reach of four packs of hounds, each vieing with the other for the palm of excellence. My Lord Blunderbore draws to within five miles of the village ; Captain Bla- therwyk is always within reach twice a week ; and THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER 183 young Green, of Greenborough, who has just taken Old Sowerby's country, and means to do the thing really well, is safe for Saturday, if there is nothing- else worth sending on for. With these attractions, there is not a hunting man in England who is ignorant of the locality of Muddilands. I said there Avere two or three old-fashioned second-class farm-houses, white -washed, low- pitched sort of places, with stairs to the bed-rooms leading out of the middle of the drawing-rooms, and in the ascent of w^hich it was necessary to go on all fours ; the dining-room was blessed with a wide chimney-corner, and all the windows were casements of the most primitive description. One of these, the best of them, about three weeks after the meeting of the roan-horsed phaeton, was being- put in order under the superintendence of Farmer Bull, to whom, indeed, the property belonged. There was white-wash galore, and the village carpenter was converting the half-glazed door into a well-panelled protection from piling curiosity ; the garden-gate was being painted bright green, and the palings white ; and the w^hole affair was undergoing a rapid but unmis- takeable conversion. But the most remarkable 184 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. part of the business was, the transmogrification of the farm -buildings opposite into stabling containing twenty stalls, five loose boxes, and a coach-house and saddle-room of gigantic pro- portions. The village was wholly alive to the movement, and the idlers were quite busy look- ing on. Farmer Bull had let his empty house, and to whom ? To no other than the Stranger — the illustrious stranger of the Bluebottle Wood day. " Mr. Peachum was a very nice gentleman." So the name was Peachum ! That was something to know ; and by the end of the week it was pretty well-known that the gentleman was coming im- mediately. And Mr. Peachum was bringing sixteen horses with him to finish the season. Now we consider six a very fair stud, four indeed is enough for a moderate man, ten we give to the top sawyers ; so that when sixteen was announced as the strength of the regiment, the most in- different opened his eyes. And 3''et nobody could make out who he was. " The Peachums of Yorkshire, connections of the Plumtrees, perhaps ? " " Not a bit of it ; he comes from London way. THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER. 185 but he don't live there/' said Mr. Bull, and that was as far as his information went. Then came the stud, the precursor of the owner, and they were out three or even four at a time, each with his boy, under the superintendence of the steady groom. They were all thorough-bred, and looked like a racing string. And at last, about the third week in December, came the great man himself The arrival was the signal for Fortnum and Mason, and the little cottage at Muddilands opened its portals to hampers of every sort of viand. Choice samples of port came from the wine merchants of Pall Mai], at six and seven guineas a dozen, and '44 claret and still champagne almost made the fortune of the goods department on the line. Nor was Sam Peachum long without reinforcements of various kinds. The bachelor neighbours, and such married men as had marriageable daughters were amongst the earliest visitors ; the officers from the barracks made a point of selecting a non-hunting day, if perchance they might find liim at home, and that was Sunday. They spoke in raptures of their reception. The claret cup was admirable ; the tobacco not to be equalled ; the host the most 186 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. cheery, good natured fellow — a little short of his H's, it is true, but what of that? The cottage was capital, not large ; indeed the red-nosed man himself could scarcely stand upright in it. But then it was so handy, and just the sort of thing for a bachelor. The stud was wonderful, and each had selected his own particular fancy. Jumj^ing Jenny, The Ploughman, The King of Otaheite, and the quicksilver mare that won the Bedford Steeple-chase, were among the least remarkable. And the prices were terrific. Twelve were in condition, including the hacks, and the phaeton-horses ; the rest were young ones coming on, and afforded an excellent opportunity for collar-boning the young hands in the process of making. In the eyes of the loose fish of the country there never was such a place as " The Cottage," or such a mysterious millionnaire as the owner, and they christened it ''Mount Scoundrel.'^ During the whole of this time Mr. Peachum enjoyed himself thoroughly^ as indeed some men will do, when they have four packs of hounds within reach, and twelve horses to ride to them. He was to be seen at every meet, far and near, THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER. 187 which afforded a prospect of sport ; and the only chance of seeing tlie "man of the season was, by asking him to dinner. This method was put in practice pretty largely, and one pretty strong evangelical, in a pure spirit of anxiety for his daughters' happiness (one of them, that is, for he had nine), allowed him to draw a sweep for the stakes in his drawing-room, and escorted his second daughter, the beauty of the family, to see w^hat he was pleased to call the fox dogs, in the morning. In fact, he found friends on all sides, and ate dinners enough to have made him a Serjeant-at-law, or a Lord Mayor, notwithstanding his rather curious cus- toms, his propensity for magnums of port, which rendered his language, late in the evening, am- biguous, to say the least of it ; but the moment he was gone, two questions invariably suggested themselves to the impartial speculator — " Who is he?" and "Where the deuce does he get his money from ? " I am compelled to admit that his performances over the country were not quite up to the mark. When two or three seasons had passed over his head, he was still indifferent to a lead, and would 188 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. liave preferred the other end of the crowd. But his horses were the theme of universal praise, and wherever the money came from, it was always to be had. He proved also invincible by the smiles of beauty. His hospitality was of the rough-and- ready sort, and as long as you took enough to eat and drink (and that of the best) there was nothing to be desired of you beyond. He usually cut out his o\Mi conversation, and stuck to it pretty consistently. It was of the horse, horsey. We had every run of the season over the mahogany, and Mr. Peachum and the Grey usually played a conspicuous part. His taste for galloping did not decrease, and his horses were always fit to go. The great original of our present portrait was occasionally guilty of a few eccentricities, which do not now pass so current as half a century back. He was a lover of port wine to an extent almost unparalleled ; he was not averse to chicken hazard, or blind-hookey ; his love for the fine arts scarcely kept pace wdth his undisguised admiration for the fair sex. His visits on Sunday were more frequently to Tattersall's than to Saint Barnabas ; and on the subject of his own prowess THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER. 18.9 in the field Mr. Peachum was slightly given to lying. And the orgies of the Cottage in Muddi- lands kept up a degree of excitement among the rural population hitherto unknown in that primi- tive region. But he had some excellences equally subversive of modern ideas of propriety. His hospitality was unbounded, and he paid ready- money for everything. He was not known to have stuck his friends with a screw or two, and all his deals (and they were but few) were said to be on the square. He had a host of blood- sucking acquaintances, gentlemen copers, hard- riding sugar-bakers from Whitechapel, and a few Stock-Exchange men, and lawyers of questionable respectability, who always had a trotter or two in their stable, if they had nothing that would race. If I hate anything or distiTist anybody, it is a man with a trotter. How these fellows lived, to be sure ! Then he killed his own mutton : none of your two-year-old Leicester, but four and five- year-old Southdown : fine brown juicy meat, fit for the table of a prince of the blood royal. He imported his own claret and cigars ; and when- ever there was anything particularly choice in the 190 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. Oporto market, it was always reserved for Mr. Peachum, who would have the best, and was such capital pay ; none of your three or four dozen at a time, at a great price, to make a good show ; but whole pipes at a time grew into money or drink. In the matter of horse-flesh too, nothino;- could exceed his liberality ; he was always mounting his friends, and had always a spare horse out, in case of a little accident or bellows to mend, which was at the service of the unfortunate, whether a '' fidus Achates," or a " notus cognomine tantam." In a word, he was fast becoming the " first man in the country;" and if the present master should grow capricious, and a question of the hounds going begging could be entertained, who so likely as Squire Peachum (as the farmers and hangers-on of Muddilands began to style him) to take his place ? Generally speaking, amongst fox-hunters, all mystery ceases after a season or two. It is per- fectly compatible with a love of hunting, to dis- appear after a few weeks' brilliant performance, and to be no more heard of, unless at Boulogne, or in the Bench. Such things are ahvays happen- ing. Nobody knows who Smith with the very THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER, 191 sonorous Christian name is ; nobody cares to know ; and when he and his six weight-carriers are off the stage, there is an end of Smith and all connected with him. Anybody can go the pace, but the thing is to stay. Then Smith becomes somebody ; his family history is then looked into ; his sources of revenue are questioned ; and Mary Jane is warned, warned off, or encouraged, as the case may be. Peachum's was quite an exceptional case. At the end of half-a-dozen seasons, still with his irreproachable stud, and highly reproach- able morals, he was as great a mystery as ever. Some said he had mines which were now begin- ning to repay him, for previous insolvency, with incalculable wealth. Others reported him a suc- cessful gambler ; but as all his time was occupied with hunting, and buying and selling horses and cows (for he had a turn for Shorthorns too), that was clearly impossible. It was even asserted that he was a sleeping partner in a large banking con- cern ; and if so, the other partners must have been fast asleep, whilst he was wide awake enough. These were only conjectures; and in the meantime the world was as much in the dark as ever. Mammas had angled for him, without 192 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. success, as he rose at nothing but a good bottle of port, and a good four-year-old ; and he was now allowed to take his pastime in his own way, and handed over to Lucifer by his quondam admirers as an incorrigible " mauvais sujet." At last, towards the end of a rather brilliant season, there came a whisper; and when men begin to whisper, they often end by talking aloud. We had missed the rubicund nose of our friend at least three days out of the six ; the string of horses was out as usual, with the steady groom and the rough-riding stable-boys. But the master was not so often galloping through the rush- bottomed fields, or down the dirty lanes, or pulling up dead at the heavy-looking places. He really was missed ; he and his sherry flask, and sand- wiches, and cigars. He was reported to be run- ning up and down to London and back ; a species of amusement not demonstrative of open weather. Then a gentleman from the ban-acks, a very young gentleman, appeared with two of the Muddilands stud at the cover-side, at a prepos- terous figure. They did say five hundred ready, and a bill at three months for another four. Then the lot went up to the hammer ; and one-half of THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER. 193 the world said that the poor gentleman was gone, utterly smashed, and on his road to the Diggings with nothing but a scarlet shirt, and a pickaxe ; the other half affirmed that he had only taken to shorthorns, and was selling off his screws, to keep a select stud, and a pack of lovely harriers in his own county; but where that was nobody knew. The first solution of the mystery was clearly not true, for Squire Peachum had been seen by Mr. Bull at the railway station when he ought to have been on board ship, with the phaeton in such order, and with such a pair of steppers, that he ought to have been a bankrupt if he were not one. Perhaps he meant to have gone, but it was too late ; for at no great distance of time, the name appeared in the papers in a painful proximity to that of Mr. Commissioner Somebody; and soon after that the Court of Chancery interfered ; and not long after that something very like a felony, or an indictment for it, w^as hanging about, like the sword of Damocles, ready to fall. But it did not. Only he was got out of the way, and the horses were sold ; and the cottage and stabling, in excellent order, was thrown back upon Mr. Bull's hands, who has never had such a tenant VOL, I. 194 COVEE-SIDE SKETCHES. since, and who, it is to be hoped, will not have such another again. When I w^ent to look at the cottage for a newly-ordained curate, who was coming there, the matronly housekeeper, Mr. Bull's locum tenens, assured me "there never was such goings-on heard on ; they do say as he was a trustee, or a lawyer, or some such scoundrel as that, and that he got hold of all the money, and went and put it in the bank, Wd spent it, and gambled it : and the poor things ain't got bread to eat." And I rather think that proved eventu- ally to be the case. So that those who bought of him are riding somebody else's horses, not Mr. Peachum's; those who drank with him drained the claret out of the cups of his unfortunate victims; the case was a tmly hopeless one, for the proceeds did not realise enough to have paid one-twentieth part of the liabilities. It was a* swindle on a grand scale, it must be confessed ; and his trusting victims may take rank with any other too confiding unfortunates. Whether he picked oakum, or walked on the treadmill, or went abroad, nobody knows ; least of all, those who rode his horses and drank his '44. Wherever he is, he is spending money with a profusion and liberality THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER. 195 unknown to moderate talent; wherever he is, he will have the best hack, the best shorthorn, the highest bred pig, the largest Cochin-China, and the smallest bull-dog within thirty miles round. Where that may be I cannot say. We know him no more. 2 CHAPTER XII. EEMINISCENCES OF THE SPA. Not many miles from the borders of Northamp- tonshire lies the handsome town of Leamington. Its antecedents, like those of many other hand- some things, were by no means so promising as its present prosperity would lead the traveller to expect. That magnificent lounge the Pump-room — its billiards, its reading-room, its dinners, balls, and rubbers — all grew out of one little bubbling well of filthy water ; the very nastiest to taste you can well conceive. And it was not till it had acted as an emetic upon many an unwary, but too weary wayfarer, that it was ascertained to have medicinal qualities of a high value. That elabo- rate street, with its handsome shops, porticos, bazaars, its crescent and terraces, is the beautiful offspring of a far less beautiful mother. A few ruined cottages, three slate-covered houses, and REMINISCENCES OF THE SPA. 197 tlie modest abode of a rustic apothecary, were the humble originals of this modern Palmyra. These hotels, so redolent of havannahs, so suggestive of orgies, the admiration and the terror of a less excitable population — those windows, from which candidates for fame have jumped their hunters, are the successors of a roadside public, where sixty years ago the midnight waggons stopped to bait, and whose wildest revel was a country dance : it was scarcely even a baiting or changing place for the mail. And what in the world effected such a metamorphosis ? If it was no changing place then, it has become so since. Whose was the harlequin's rod that struck the world with asto- nishment, raised the price of bricks and mortar, and frightened the propriety of a sober county by erecting an emporium of fashion in the midst of its most rural beauties ? No other than a doctor. He was the Leamington Cimon who threw up terraces, laid out gardens, stocked museums, organised libraries, built a theatre, a rotunda, and pump-room ; and squandered the ten thousand pounds a-year he made by " a glass of sherry and mutton chop " upon his beloved Athenians. And who helped him ? The very best gentleman that 198 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. ever trod the stage. The gayest Mercutio, the most hilarious Cassio, and the most perfect Sir John Falstaff that ever appeared before a play- going generation. Ah, Robert William ! Charles Lamb has not forgotten you ; nor do I. He was the Mercury who set all things going, and made everybody's fortune but his own. Actor, wit, fine gentleman, litterateur, roue, and gamester; he gave all his talent and more than all his money to Leamington. And Leamington prospered ; street rose upon street, square upon square, and the stones cried out. The theatre flourished ; as how should it not? The waters were made palatable by the "glass of sherry" and the well- mannered assurance of a fashionable physician, into which the clever but homely apothecary speedily converted himself. Crowds flocked to his standard : a sojourn at hand was absolutely neces- sary for the parched-up liver, or the imaginary symptoms of incipient gout. What so cheerful as the lodging-houses of Leamington ! Invalids must have recreation ; and what so natural as music, or so suggestive of convalescence as dancing ? Robert William was at hand, and at home. Invalids* livers especially want shaking, and Dr. Bonassus REMINISCENCES OF THE SPA. 199 recommended horse-exercise. Soon, then, arose livery-stables, hacks, hunters, and ladies' horses — by the hour, day, month, or year ; and hunters, of course, make huntsmen. Then Dr. Bonassus becomes the rage ; he was a second Abernethy : bullied a marquis out of the gout ; crushed inci- pient paralysis out of a dowager duchess ; made a member of parliament walk into Leamington from the fourth mile-stone, having carried him out dead-lame with a bad spavin, in his own carriage, and laid him down in the turnpike-road ; and refused point-blank to look at the tongue of the ex-lord mayor, the great Alderman Pumpkin, telling him that he had better keep his mouth shut at all times, unless he had something better to put into it than ever came out of it. By these winning little ways, the town became the fashion, the Doctor became the virtual king of it, and it ended in having " a season." Whenever a place has " a season," I look upon it as in a highly prosperous condition. It concentrates money and people, organizes amusements, promotes matri- mony and speculation, and enables persons with little money and rude health to repay themselves for uine months of privation by three of most 200 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. irrational enjoyment. By some circumstance for- tunate for me the winter became the season, and the population took to hunting. It so happened that the county hounds were sufficiently good, but the country in the neigh- bourhood of Leamington is not by any means so pleasant as the bordering provinces. It had the great disadvantage of being sticky to ride in, and difficult, as is not unfrequently the case, to cross. It might be called a dirty country — one that required considerable ner\-e and stamina to carry a weak horse over or through, and not suited at all to the class of customers Likely to have selected the Spa as their headquarters for the winter. For, although it is true that, as the place became fashionable, and the invalids died off, a hardier race took their places,. stiU they were by no means the men whose experience or powers were calcu- lated to shine in a land where glory could only be acquired by the use of a head as well as a body. That hunting is a very fine thing for the Uver, and calculated under certain circumstances to pro- mote a healthy action, we are not in a position to deny; but how far, and to what extent an unhealthy liver is likely to agree with \-iolent EE3IIXISCENCES OF THE SPA. 201 exertion in sticky clays and large woodlands (two- thirds of the open being fallow) is quite another matter. To me this fact seems to be pretty clear, that whenever the Pytchley hounds were within reach of Leamington, either by rail or hacking, the motley groups arrived in such numbers as to decide any question of preference, if doubt could be entertained by the worthy master of the Leam- ington country. To these happy circumstances I am indebted for the cheerful little sketches which it gives me such pleasure to have made during many years of sojourn in the county ; and I shall be excused for bringing a happy blush to the cheeks of those who, like Byron, may chance to wake some momino- and find themselves " famous." Vandyke, Sir Peter, and Sir Joshua, were great men. Sir Thomas Lawrence, not always the best draughtsman in the world, had passed so much of his time amongst courtiers, that he scarcely failed to flatter where flattery could improve ; and Frank Grant can make a silk purse out of a sow's eai* — an accomplishment hitherto denied to men. I have no such capability, but shall use my limited powers in an endeavour after truthfulness : a meagre talent, forsooth ! but, in days so full of 202 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. l}ang, a talent not to be despised. " Ex quatuor locis ; . . . . primus ille, qui in veri cognitione consistit, maxime naturam attingit humanam." So that, though truth may be small amongst us, a recognition of it derives some lustre from the dictum of the great Roman philosopher at least. I ought to premise that, with regard to the bilious, the waterdrinker, the nervous, and some half- dozen good sportsmen who made Leamington their home, involuntarily, for the sake of their wives and children, the victims of Dr. Bonassus and his sherry and mutton chops, I could have had little or nothing to say of the former, and might have transfen*ed to my paper a brilliant, and not a flattering likeness of the latter. Such men, indeed, I have seen, and still occasionally see, who, wisely deserting a bad chance of mode- rate sport, have been the ornament of the Northamptonshire pastures. Who would grudge them the pleasures that spring from the exhila- rating contemplation of acres of gi-ass and well- defined bullfinches ? Not I for one. And there never has been a master in the countiy who would not have delighted in the prowess of a stranger only second to his own. To have the lead taken REMINISCENCES OF THE SPA. 203 out of your hands by a gentleman who may never give you another chance of cutting him down, is not a pleasant morning's amusement ; but, as long as he himself is first, I never knew a foxhunter who had not sufficient generosity to subscribe to the merits of number two. " Live and let live " is an admirable motto ; but, in " living " over a country for five-and-twenty minutes, it is desirable to live first as long as you can. But Leamington is a place where the colour is " motley," and where a love of sport is not the predominant feature in some of its inhabitants. A love of boots, breeches, scarlet coats, and " bubble reputation," is not always a love of hunting ; and when a desire to shine is too pro- minent, it is apt to obscure or ignore the claims of the hounds and the fox to their share of the glory. Well, indeed, has it been said, " Excelsa gloria sede ; " but I think the poet could scarcely have referred to the pigskin. A Leamington field numbers at least as many young heads as old ones ; and when this want of experience is joined to a total forgetfulness of other persons' claims to distinction, and the excitement natural to a five- pound wager as to who will jump the biggest 204 COVER- SIDE SKETCHES. fence, Smith or Jones, whilst the hounds are drawing for their fox, we cannot help reminding too enthusiastic youths that the promotion of hilarity is not always the truest promotion of sport. On that ragged-looking, meagre grey, with the bent fore-legs, thin withers, badly-buckled bridle, and the best part of a saddler's shop upon him, sits old Colonel Cuttleboddy; he is dressed in white cord breeches, brown-topped boots, "a world too wide " for him, and a swallow-tailed pink, immortal relic of days gone by. That man never did harm to living soul, excepting perhaps to the Afghan chief, whose head he nearly severed from his body, or the Sikh rebel, whom he hanged as high as Haman, according to the sentence of a drumhead court-martial. He has been ordered horse exercise, and he takes it, in the insane hope that Northamptonshire grass will annul the effects of thirty-seven years of curry, tiffin, brandy-pawnee, short whist and tiger shooting, with the remains of a severe jungle fever or two. He prides himself upon his heart being in the right place ; and I have no doubt about it. Old Bonassus wishes he could say as much for his EEMINISCENCES OF THE SPA. 205 liver. He started pretty early on his present trip, and arrived at the meet nearly ready to turn into bed again. However, he is out for the day — that is, for as much of it as he can see : he'll see the find, he'll crowd along through half-a-dozen gates, not seeing a hound, but imagining that he's hunt- ing the fox. Having chased old Funker til] he can see him no more, and old Napoleon having half tumbled over a low gap and shaken every bone in the old gentleman's body, he'll inquire the shortest way home again. Here he will delight the assembled Indians with a somewhat diffuse account of the proceedings of the day, in which they all affect to be immensely interested ; and having dropped thirteen and sixpence at his evening rubber, and eaten sauces and chilis enough to fry up a dozen such livers as his own, he will retire to bed, and dream cheerfully of his next expedition into the grass country. Leamington is the sort of place where one is sure to meet the "handsomest man of his day." I know quantities of them : the type is peculiar, and, as they are all more or less sportsmen, worthy of our consideration. They all look about forty — they are really about sixty-five. They are 206 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. of the stout and florid style, with dark eyes, and brown wigs well curled, and plenty of whiskers ; but seldom concealing the beauties of their white teeth under a moustache ; beards they abominate, and are altogether of an earlier school. They usually answer to the names of Jack, Charles, or Harry, and it is singular that their names mostly end in " son." Thus we have — Jack Higginson, Charlie Jenkinson, and Harry Phillipson — each of them the best-looking man of his day. As their day must have been about the same, it is difficult to reconcile the discrepancy. Those of them who do not come utterly to grief, and who have not been left by their patron, " The first gentleman of his day," to starve, seem to have secured to themselves about £800 a-year by some means or other — marriage, an annuity, or a government sinecure, which will die with them. The nation cannot afford to be saddled with any more of these court beauties. Those who have married have generally attached themselves to fair, delicate-looking little women ; and at the Spa, about four, P.M., may be seen during the season very excellently preserved specimens on the parade, escorting diminutive wives with the REMINISCENCES OF THE SPA. 207 petits soins of a better age. With the loss of their figures, they have regained their reputations — I should rather say, changed them. I am no great admirer myself of the stamp ; but six feet of height, with proportionate breadth of shoulder and length of limb, has its value among the ladies ; and when Jack Higginson was thirty, and living at the rate of about £5000 per annum, he must have been a man of some character — good or bad — with the sex. Then was his time to have married the daughter of my Lord Mayor, or the co-heiress of Alderman Block, of the firm of Block and Stampit, tin-platers and copper-wire makers, of Bucklersbury. But he wasted, like the butterfly, his summer's day upon less substan- tial joys ; and behold him, therefore, as a not uninfluential member of the Leamington Pump- room. Jack Higginson at the cover-side is a wel- come sight to most men : he has an extensive acquaintance, an admirable cigar, and a most unpretending appearance. He wears a well- brushed hat, of rather broad brim — very, very slightly on one side ; a black coat and waistcoat, of scrupulous neatness and make; and either 208 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. white cords or buckskin trousers. His boots are strong, good, and of the highest polish ; and he rides with a hunting crop, guiltless of lash. Jack looks as if his days for turning hounds was passed, if they ever had been. A man of this description can have but one kind of horse — a substantial short-legged weight-carrier, of no fashion or pace, and with more than his due share of the titile ; usually dark-brown in colour, and not unfre- quently with a white foot or two. He is very well groomed, and properly bridled, saddled, and l)itted ; he is manifestly no Leamington hack, but the private property of the owner, who could be associated no more with a thorough-bred one, than with a fat woman or a dozen children. Jack and all his set remain to their latest days, to all intents and purposes, married bachelors. Such a man as this is of course a pattern of sobriety in the hunting-field : even Charles Payne of the Pytchley, whose predilections are not for this school, would find it difficult to pick a hole in a coat so unexceptionable. He will interfere with nobody and nothing — certainly not with the fox, for Avhom he feels neither reverence nor aversion. He comes out to hunt as a cheerful REMINISCENCES OF THE SPA. 209 reminiscence of the days of Meynell, Foljambe, Osbaldeston, and Asslieton Smitli, or because he wants something to do, or because he wants to say he has done something when he gets home again. He will neither head the fox, nor hallo him away, nor ride after him ; but he and his brown horse will turn up, here and there, at the checks in the road, if it's not too fast for him, both of them smoking, and one of them looking just as cheerful, and just as fresh, as if he had never been out of a walk. If one of these men condescends to the trouble of leathers and pink, and a horse with any pretension to going, he usually proves a " customer ; " and if he can once get clear of the crowd, who stick to him most religiously, he may be safely trusted with the honours of the " middle ages." Those who do not ride have given up their minds to billiards, good living, and fancy vintages *, but there is no room here for them. Immediately behind the ci-devant handsomest man of his day, we are attracted by a group, the individuals of which form as great a contrast to his moderation of costume or demeanour as his performance in the field. Having made what is 210 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. called " a night " of it, but which means having considerably intrenched upon the day, they were necessarily a little late in starting — what with the coffee, the tea, the ham and eggs, bloaters, devilled kidneys, and the cherry-brandy, it takes some time to get through a breakfast ; and the country being happily soft, leaves nothing to be desired in the way of splashes and mud. But two of the Leamington flys, bringing seven young gentlemen, and a young lady, in their best attire, serve to show the real splendour of a Spa swell at a Pytchley Meet. Whether or not they honour their own country with the same magnificence of toilette, I can't say, never having seen these youths in their ordinaiy costume ; but anjrthing more heterogeneous than the colours which decorate their necks, the startling effect of their vests, chains, and buttons, or the diverse shapes of their breeches and boots, has never elsewhere met the eye of civilised life. Every style of garment is there — from the swallow-tailed delicacy of fomier years, to the broadest, rudest, and seamiest violence of modern manufacture. The breeches vary, according to circumstances, from the thickest and roomiest of buckskins, to the most delicate REIkllNISCENCES OF THE SPA. 211 shade and tightest fit of the less manly doeskin. Here are boots thick, brown, closely-fitting, work- manlike, and vulgar ; there are a pair of legs in cream-coloured tops, of considerable depth, with a neglige air about the strapping, the revival of a taste which perished with the revolu- tion of '93, and a certain emblem of weakness about the knees ; and here a really well-made pair of white-topped boots, not unworthy of a Hoby, but which look as if sponging was cheaper than port wine varnish. It is curious to remark that the necks of all the young Leamingtonians are of the same fashion, only differing in colour, and whether bright scarlet, dark purple, mauve, green, or sky-blue, the collars are of the smallest and stitfest, and ties of the very narrowest pattern. A crane-like simplicity and nudity about the larynx is a distinguishing feature of what may be called the " neck-or-nothing school." "Bedad, Blaney, me boy; there's NineiDins getting out of the fly, with the Punter, in a scarlet hat, and a Bird o' Paradise feathers," observed that amiable lieutenant of the Horse Marines, Mr. Mike O'Brien, to Captain Blaney, of the Royal Diggers and Delvers, who had come over 212 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. in a buggy to meet the hounds from the barracks at W , and whose horses from that worthy individual, Bullock, the dealer, were standing to cool at the front of the door, while the military regaled themselves with an early purl (emble- matical of a later hour of the day) in the travel- lers' room of the inn. " Ninepins be ! That's not Ninepins ; that's Miss Jones, Meejar-Giniral Jones's daughter : not a bad sort of girl, I tell ye, Mike ; ye might do worse yourself. Wasn't she dancing with our fellows, the other night, at the Hospital ball at the Pump-room ? But it's a head-dress anyhow ; and may-be she won't frighten the fox if she sees him." A.nd, true enough, with young Jones for her escort, the Major-General's daughter turns out of the fly, in a costume not to be seen anywhere but at Leamington. Permit me to state that nothing can exceed the respectability of this young woman's private character; and if her mamma would only regulate her taste in turbans, and her father confine her riding propensities to the turnpike road, instead of the finest grass country in England, she might escape the im- EEMINISCENCES OF THE SPA. 213 pertinent remarks of ignorant snobs, and become, eventually, the happy wife of some evangelical curate. In the meantime, the Leamington Division are in their saddles ; and their horses, I regret to say, have the same fly-by-night, up-to-an3rthing sort of look that we have noticed in their riders. That celebrated Bath never turns out a well-fed horse. They seem lively enough, but all on short commons. The work they are called upon to perform is peculiar, but not severe. Having lighted the very largest cigars, no sooner are the hounds in cover, or, indeed, no sooner are they moved from the place of meeting, than the sport begins. It is but justice to men and horse to say, that there are always three or four ready to dis- tinguish themselves — by breaking the fences, or their own necks, as the case may be : and the flys are usually kept in attendance, a certain length of time, to see whether the back carriage may not be available for a corpse or two ; or at least a collar-bone. It is a little unfortunate that the time which sportsmen usually devote to quiet observation of the working of the hounds, or in revolving the best and quickest way of getting to 214 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. them, should they break, should be given to the vagaries of extemporaneous steeple-chasing. But when the fox breaks, the real mischief begins : for before hounds can settle, fearful of losing a chance, and determined not to give one, away goes the lot ; and it is only by the happy device of disposing of the leaders, and hanging up the rest by the severity of the pace, that you will be allowed to hunt your fox in peace. They do not understand that a check is a circumstance where a huntsman does not want the assistance of his whole field ; they regard it as one of those happy opportunities for further display ; and you will be indeed fortu- nate, on a cold scent, if hounds, huntsmen, and Leamingtonians are not mixed up in inextricable confusion. Indeed, nothing but the most un- daunted nerve saves a valuable servant from being killed ; as his attempt to handle his hounds is only misconstrued into a folio w-me-leader soft of game, in which the quicker you can go after him the better. This is the effervescence of overfed youth. Expe- rience is the daughter of age, but modesty should be the companion of tenderer years. We regret that it is not so. There's young Scraptoft, with REMINISCENCES OF THE SPA. 215 a small income, and vast assurance, who lives chiefly upon trust and his friend Goldingham. He is quite prepared to ride at anything or any- body, for any sum of money ; and has really no idea of the mischievous effects of his pernicious example. He is a sad eyesore to the field. A less obnoxious individual is the Honourable Smith- son ; his property is out at nurse, but they have forgotten to include him : the consequence is, that whilst the fox is being drawn for, he is usually tossing with young Shinar, the Jew, for half-crowns : this keeps them both quiet, and enables them to miss the run, occasionally. Billy Hazard, Jones, and the Punter, are all sad dogs ; they would spoil anything in the world ; and their ignorance is only equalled by their presumption. " Five shillings you don't do that gate, Billy," says the Punter, a sobriquet he has obtained from an unhappy propensity of early life, but which has nothing to do with a river. " Make it a sovereign," says Billy, " and I'm your man." " Done," says the other ; and in a minute more the gate is broken, Billy is on his back, with a black eye, and his nose bleeding; and his un- 216 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. happy quadruped, who would have done it had he l)een decently put at it, has barked his knees, and cut himself in the stifle. In fact, it's a sorry day for the sport when we meet on the Leamington side of the county. However, I never like to be hard upon youth ; and though they do spoil sport, they sometimes make it. A few more years, and the Scraptofts, Smithsons, Shinars, and Goldinghams will have gone forward in the battle of life, and retired from the front ranks of the chase. They will have become staid, honest, married citizens, sober sportsmen, impartial justices of the peace, collec- tors of salt, hewers of wood, or drawers of water, in some way or another, or have gone utterly and iiTeclaimably to grief. There will be a new race of Leamingtonians ; and for the sake of those who love peace and quiet in the hunting field, and the breaking up of their fox at the finish of a good thing, let us hope that the next race of demons will not be so bad as their predecessors. CHAPTER XIIL OF LADIES AND THEIR HABITS.. "Place AUX Dajnies 1" Certainly — ^honour and place anywhere but in the hunting-field A woman is a charming and lovely object, the most perfect work of nature, a creation in which all that is divine upon earth is centered, a represen- tative of all that is graceful, beautiful, and modest in the world of spirits. She is so as long as she remains a woman. She is so, in a pink bonnet and a moderate crinoline ; in a breakfast-parlour, in point-lace and cherry-coloured ribbons ; in a drawing-room, in glac^ silk and the family dia- monds. She may be so in a pork-pie hat and a swansdown feather • or in a pair of pheasant's wings and a turban, on a truculent hack, in Rotten Row, somewhere between twelve and two in the month of June — all flowers and smiles, and bright eyes and cheerful warmth. But she is not 218 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. SO at tlie cover-side, on some foggy November morning, when her teeth chatter, instead of her tongue, and her eyes water, and her cheeks are white and her lips blue, and her nose is red, and the physiology and physiognomy of woman have been left behind, at the breakfast table. She is not so with her hat smashed, her habit torn and draggled, her hair half-way down her back, and wet through ; when some unhappy wretch, who is too much of a gentleman to take leave of her, but too selfish to feel any pleasure in a polite action, is obliged to fag drearily by her side, at her own pace (which is always an unmerciful one), wishing himself in any other company in the world ; or when, still more disastrous, she disappears, horse and all, in some impracticable brook, and is hauled out, as much to her own annoyance as to that of her attendant swains, quite irrecognizable, from the mud and clay which attach themselves to her once irreproachable person. Then, woman be- comes a centaur, an amazon, a representative only of the fortunes of war; then the divinity which hedges a king does not hedge in a woman, except with the purpose of shutting off admiration, in all but its primitive meaning. No, no ! — woman, OF LADIES AND THEIR HABITS. 219 as woman, is delightful ; but as soon as she puts on the toga virilis — the scarlet and leathers — she becomes a man, and, as such, amenable to criticism. " Some years ago — I can hardly venture to say how many — I was staying with my friend Scof- fington, of Mockbury Hall. Nothing could be more charming than the ride to cover. The wind was south-east, the sky generally cloudy, and there was a warm lassitude about the air, which made a ride a positive luxury. It was taken in company with a beautiful girl and her father. Without vanity, Miss Miles, I believe I had made a considerable impression. In those days there was no grey in my whiskers, and, though no beauty, my tout-ensemhle was irreproachable." " But women never fall in love with irre- proachable tout- ensembles, or whatever you call them," said Miss Miles. " Well, then, as you don't like it, I won't insist upon the young lady's love for me ; I can only answer for the incipient symptoms of a hopeless passion on my part." " Passion never is hopeless, so I think you must have miscalculated your feelings." "You're a severe critic, Miss Miles," rejoined I, 220 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. " but if ever I loved a woman — that is, for any length of time — it was Polly Raffington." " And why in the world didn't you marry Miss Polly Raffington, if your tout-ensemhie was so irreproachable, and the young lady was as im- pressiouable as you suppose ?" " It was that (shall I say fortunate) ride which settled the business. You, of all persons, know how I delight in the company of a lady in my excursions : you can conceive the pleasure I felt in her escort as far as the Meet ; but you cannot understand the very decided objections I entertain to an amazon." " And yet Alexander the Great ," replied the young lady, who seemed to be remarkably well up in her ' Lempriere,' " fell a victim to Thalestris." " Ah ! that was an exceptional case : depend upon it, she travelled on foot, having laid aside the sword, the spear, and the bow." " And he carried the arrow. But you've never told me how poor Miss Raffington fell from her high estate, and what it was which blunted your enthusiasm." "To be candid, I had lived through the absur- OF LADIES AND THEIR HABITS. 221 dities of my intended father-in-law : his swallow- tailed coat I had managed to bolt, and his white cords had failed to choke me off. But till that memorable day I had not seen Polly Raffington in her glory. Mrs. Clumberfield I could have stood ; and I have a real admiration for Mrs. Arthington, for she knows what she's about, and does it well ; but you will forgive me for saying that if Polly Rafifington had been an angel of light, I should have handed her over to young Topthorn of Galway, as the only man and county capable of fully appreciating her excellence. " Before you condemn me, listen to my object- tions, and believe me that Polly Raffington is but a type of those wonderful women who are much admired but seldom mated — in the long ran. " Polly Raffington was a charming young woman of about nineteen. Her father, old Raffington — or * Squire Raffington,' as he loved to be called, and to which a staring white house at the top of a hill, with an osier-bed at the bottom, with the proprietorship of six melancholy cottages, a farm- house, a pump, and an elm tree or two seemed to give him a title — was remarkably proud of Polly. He had three daughters^ and a son, who was a 222 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. hard-reading, well-behaved, inoffensive, and slow sort of person, not at all calculated to keep up the family honours, much less to add to their lustre, as a sportsman. The other girls were honest, good-looking girls enough, with souls essentially fitted for crinoline and the ordinary appurte- nances of this world, but not likely to set the Thames on fire by a breach of the proprieties. The eldest took care of the house, discharged the cooks, brushed up the ' Buttons,' and was alto- gether of a domestic turn of mind. The second had an eye for a Sunday-school, and had set her heart on the management of a parish and its rector. But Polly had lately returned from a boarding-school at Brighton, where she had im- bibed some alarmingly fashionable notions about ' pace,' and where the conversation must have been on the model of feminine slang, to judge by the specimens with which she horrified her sisters. Of course, old Raffington was delighted ; and, as he was wont to deplore the absence of a congenial spirit, when Polly requested to be allowed to go out hunting with pa, nothing could exceed his raptures, and the readiness of acquiescence in her wish. OF LADIES AND THEIR HABITS. 223 "The old gentleman was not altogether our notion of a first-flight man, nor ever had been. Indeed, he looked upon hunting only as one of the strongholds of the squirearchy of the land, and was fully persuaded that, when compelled to retire from the field, he would cease to command that respect from his tenants which his basket- buttoned old dress-pink, and his well-worn white cotton cords and antediluvian boots procured. Such, at least, was old Raffington's idea of the business. When, therefore, his favourite daughter — one of the prettiest girls in the county — re- quested permission to represent the hopes of the family and the proprietorship of the osier-bed before-mentioned, he seemed to see things in another light, and to enjoy in anticipation the glory which was to be reflected from his darling Polly. " The first thing was a horse ; for, although the extent of Miss Raffington's equestrianism reached no further than a bare-backed pony, when a girl, she had determined that if hunting was to be done at all, it was to be done properly. For a short time, she submitted to ride what she called ' the governor's beast ; ' but as the governor had 224 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. only two, and the honour of the family was not properly supported by this compromise, she was soon furnished with an animal, known in the family as ' Miss Mary's hack.' It was a quick, active brute enough, with a knack of jumping, as good luck would have it, but not quite a horse for a lady. "Amongst the excellent qualities of pretty Polly Raffington, we may enumerate pluck, most un- doubtedly — a happy combination of high spirits and total ignorance. She had but one doubt in her own mind as to her qualifications for crossing a country, which was, as to whether she could sit on over the fences. She had no idea of any horse falling of his own accord, nor of any possible impedi- ment in the open country being too much for the jumping powers of ' Deerfoot,' as she was pleased to call her horse. Having once ascertained that it was a very easy matter to sit upon his back when he performed, in his cooler moments, over felled trees and broken gaps, she was quite startled when she found Captain Hardiman going- thirty yards out of his way, to avoid a stiff gate, and her aged parent requesting a little boy to pull out a very inconvenient looking rail and a Part II. EOAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS AT HOME AND ABROAD. CHAPTER I. Chap. I, — My Bikth and First Lesson, Breeding, good breeding, is as essential in us as in the human species — nay, more so. A man may be learned, weU-mannered, well-lookins^, even a brute, — like some of their gi'eatest, as I have heard, — and yet esteemed by his fellows, without any reference to his pedigree. I candidly confess that, to my taste, the higher the human species ascends, the less sense they seem to have ; and stable-boys, grooms, roughriders, and jockeys, with some few exceptions, are the cleverest fellows I VOL. I. K 242 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. have ever had upon my back. Now, with us breeding is always the great requisite : the first question asked of each of my masters has been, How is he bred ? and heaven forgive them for the Jies they have told upon the occasion ! It is to little purpose that I, or my equine associates, have gone well, jumped well, looked well ; for if we have no blood (says each in his turn), we must cut up badly. This is not always quite true : though, amongst ourselves, we are sufficiently anxious to lay claim to gentle blood. The very reverse of what I state with regard to men, is the case with us. If we are ugly, never mind — " he shows lots of breeding ; " are we vicious ? — " blood must tell, and he'll go till he drops ;" are we stupid ? — " he has it in him, his grandsire was the same, but as good as gold ; " are we cross-grained, rough-coated, thick-legged, even big-headed ? — it signifies no- thing, " he must be a good 'un, see how he's bred." Reader, I am well-bred ; at least, all the hands I've passed through have said so : I won't tell you all the different fathers I've had given to me to suit a purchaser's taste, for you would tire of the catalogue ; nor the way in which my poor mother was ousted from the stable, and a hand- LIFE OF A HUNTER. 243 some mare put in her place, but I will tell the real truth as far as I'm able. " The child whom many fathers share, Hath seldom known a father's care." And a most fortunate thing it is for us that, as long as we have our mother in our neighbourhood, our papa's rambling propensities give us no anxiety. The name of my sire was "Friar Bacon." I never saw my father, and am what human beings would call "unnatural enough" to say that I never wish to see him. I often heard of him when young, and in my first OAvner's hands. He was said to be such as I should be proud of — handsome, temperate, and fast; own brother to another, which seems to be rather a spurious kind of praise ; by Young Gohanna, out of a thorough- bred mare Thalestris. This was repeated so often during my colthood that I never should forget it were I to live to be forty years old. My dam was of a different sort ; but she was the only creature that ever did me a service without some selfish and interested motive. She had been leader in a coach, had her good points, and was said to be " well-bred." I learnt this from the conversation R 2 244 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. of the boys in the stable ; for my master could not have been believed on such a subject on his oath. At the time I was born, however, all signs of beauty were gone from my mother ; she had been knocked about in every conceivable manner : and had I not known her to be my dam, I should certainly have mistaken her for my grandmother. To all the anxious inquiries after her (and they were not few) when I had been taken away from her, and to the implied wish to see her, there was but one answer — " Please step this way, sir ; as fine a mare as you'd wish to clap your eyes on : by Risk, out of Speculation's dam. Mind the step, sir : loose box on the left." And there she was, as fine a mare as need be seen, by Risk, out of Speculation's dam ; but not so near a relation to me as I am to Eclipse. My personal experiences commence about this time ; and if you are not tired of hearing about my parents, I am of talking of them. It is astonishing how (|uickly new impressions wipe out old ones, with us at least. AVherever I went, I always heard those foolish human beings talking about fathers and mothers, and really pretending LIFE OF A HUNTER. 245 some interest in them. I remember, at about two years old, being taken away from my dam ; and though it cost me some ineffectual struggles, and I did look back some half-dozen times, still, in three days I was as happy as usual, and eat with just as good an appetite as if I had never known her. Up to this period I had passed a comfortable and indolent existence. My owner, a Northamp- tonshire farmer, knew his own interest too well to starve or ill-use me. I had in winter a warm strawyard and shed, with a feed or two of corn, bran, and other good things ; the summer I en- joyed uncommonly, for the grass was most deli- cious ; and I galloped about the field in unrestrained liberty. The flies were the only drawback ; and, do all that I would, they sometimes nearly mad- dened me. I remember poor Hodge too : he used to come with his old smock-frock and leather gaiters, and pat me, and tickle me, and rub my nose, and throw a halter over me, and lead me about. Sometimes he came with some corn ; but he looked so insinuating, with his " whoay, Smiler," that I knew he was after no good. So I generally gave him a good dance up and down, 246 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. and then let him go to call some more of his friends to help him. I rather think this was the cause of my being subjected to some early con- trol ; for I let Hodge get up to me one fine morning, and then turning suddenly round, without any intention of hurting him, I kicked him on the thigh. Poor fellow ! he lay there some time, and hollaed : and at last they carried him in doors. The following morning I was put into the hands of a breaker. " Ugh ! you nasty kicking brute/' said Jim Trotter, one day, after walking and trotting me round in a circle for an hour, " break a man's thigh, will ye ? " The warning voice was accompanied by a tick- ling sensation over the hock, which I had no difficulty in perceiving to come from a long whip which he held in his hand : not knowing what to do, I kicked. " Ah," said Jim, "would ye ?" and nothing but my owner's appearance in the field saved me from another and smarter application of the said whip. " Well, Jim, does he get on better ? " " Oh ! he's a nice brute ; but I'll soon teach him to kick again." With this he gave me a LIFE OF A HUNTER. 247 gentle jerk with the rein; and, being a second time at fault, I reared. " Whoay, whoay," said my master. " Confound ye," said Jim, gradually shortening the leading rein, and coming close up to me. At that moment my master raised his hand suddenly before my face ; mindful of the results of Jim Trotter's manual exercises, I jumped sud- denly away, and pulled the breaker on to his face, but without getting loose. I saw that I had done mischief. Why in the world I did not fall down upon him and eat him I don't know, for I hated him quite enough to have done so ; but I did not. There was, and is still, some superior intelligence in man, which has had the most subduing influence over me ; less in some than in others, but in all more or less. Up to a certain point I could be unruly ; I felt a spirit of disobedience : but having once done a certain quantity of mischief, I ever felt unable to go beyond it. As a colt I never felt any inclination for cruelty ; but, after a few lessons in the hands of Jim Trotter, my inclination for vice was boundless. Still, some feeling held me back from pushing my obstinacy beyond a certain point. It was not altogether fear, but an 248 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. apprehension of something undefined, which has through life made me give way after a short con- test. We know, in a moment, moreover, with whom we dare take liberties ; a coward has no chance with us, and we detect in a moment any symptoms of timidity in man : we see it in his eye, we feel it in his hand and seat. Jim Trotter had not a sign of it : every lineament of his face, eveiy movement of his hand marked cruelty, but resolution. The first quality made me long to exhibit what the second kept in abeyance. I have always been a good horse in the hands of a bold rider, but a bad one under a timid man. Upon how small a chance does our character stand ! — upon the chance of going into good or bad hands. We leave one stable perfect in almost every respect ; we enter the next, and are pronounced to be " not worth our corn." Chap. II. — I am Saddled — a Change of Breakers. Jim Trotter was a one-eyed man, with good features, but hard, and a closely compressed mouth, flourishing black whiskers, and curly hair ; LIFE OF A HUNTER. 249 dark-brown top-boots, very much worn black velveteen breeches, a long waistcoat, and fustian shooting jacket, the whole surmounted by a nap- less, almost rimless hat, completed his equipment. He usually had the blackest of short clay-pipes in his mouth, and a half waggoner's, half jockey's whip in his hand. There was no mistaking his calling, for if he happened to be without one of us in hand, he flourished his whip in so profes- sional a manner that he must have had an imagi- nary pair of hocks before his eyes. To this hero's care I was daily entrusted : we had many short fights, in which he was invariably victorious, but never without some trouble, and once not without the loss of his pipe — I believe he never quite forgave it. " Give a dog a bad name, and hang him." I was daily reminded of poor Hodge's thigh ; and my unfortunate beginning in life gave me the character of a confirmed kicker. I shall not soon forget the first time I was sub- jected to an indignity, as I then thought, only fit for foolish, under-bred animals, that would bear it — I mean the being mounted. I had had a saddle put on me for some days previously, my mouth was supposed to be getting into form — I 250 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. know it was very sore ; I had been led that very morning from public-house to public-house, until I could not imagine the capacious Jim to hold any more, and I had been trotted round and round until I felt my fore legs cross, and my hind legs knocking against each other, when I was pro- nounced "rayther quieter" by Jim. He never made a greater mistake in his life ; an hour before, I should not have been half so much bent upon mischief ; even then a little patting and kindness, a feed of corn, and some gentleness, might have gone far to give me confidence in Mr. Trotter's intentions ; but now I was sullen, and so tired that I had made up my mind to contend against any more persecution. I had just come to this resolve, when I heard my half-drunken tormentor call to one of his acquaintance, from whom he had just parted at the Blue Pig, to come and help him a minute whilst he got on to the " beggar." " I'll take some of the steel out of him to-day, J know," said Jim. " Why you arn't a going to mount him, Jim ! " said a young jackanapes in leather leggings, with a broad grin on his face, at the same time pulling up to see the fun. LIFE OF A HUNTER. 251 "Arn't I tho' ! and why not ?" " Why not ? why cos he von't let you." " Oh ! won't he ? well, jest you cut that chaff, and bear a hand : there, take hold tight by that stirrup," putting the boy on the off side. "Now George, you stand before him, and take hold of his mouth gently, and don't let go till I'm on." All this time I was quite unconscious of what was to follow, so that it is not to be wondered at that I grew uneasy as soon as I felt a weight bear- ing upon the near side. Jim's drop of drink had not quickened his faculties, or my premonitory struggles might have taught him to put it off for another lesson or two. But when he was really on my back, when the weight had removed itself from the one stirrup to double itself on my loins, my indignation was indescribable. I recollect my head being loosened by George, at the command of Trotter to " let him go." I was for an instant so paralysed that I felt nothing but the sweat bursting through my skin, and stood perfectly still ; it was but for an instant. I gave three or four terrific bounds in the air, pulling at Jim with my head, and lashing out at the same time : still there he sat, not altogether at his ease, but yet 252 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. holding me firmly between his knees. I then stopped again, to take breath, and to consider in what way I might rid myself of my burden. In the road where we now were was a deep cut- ting, defended only by some low posts and rails ; in the course of my efforts I had already ap- proached close to this, and I was now so mad- dened by the spur, which I felt for the first time, that, forcrettiuCT my own dancrer, I again bounded towards the precipice. My rider tried his best to keep me from that side of the road ; but I was fast losing the fear which usually accompanies our maliciousness, and had already got my fore feet ready for a last plunge, when I felt Jim's hand relax, and his leg leaving my off side ; my loins were lightened of their weight, and with one kick I relieved myself entirely of the detested load — Jim Trotter fell into the road with a fearful crash, where he lay to all appearance a dead man. The extraordinary reaction which takes place in our nature now strongly developed itself in me. I started off, alarmed at Jim's fill, but stopped again about twelve yards from the spot where he had fallen. There I stood, snorting, and pawing the ground, terrified atwhat had happened LIFE OF A HUNTER. 253 more than any present, but not dreaming of an escape ; I allowed myself to be caught, and while the breaker was lifted up and carried off, I was led quietly home. Much was said here about my vice, but a great deal more about Trotter's drunkenness and stupidity. I was treated with the same care as usual, and put into another breaker's hands. He was a steady, temperate, little old man, with great nerve, and as quiet as possible. His first object seemed to be not to alarm me unnecessarily; need I add, that though I could not easily forget Jim, I was soon declared to be 01] e of the best-tempered colts in the country; a little queer or so at times, but easily managed by firmness and gentleness. The little old man made me his especial care, even to the feeding me himself ; and it was his boast that though I had kicked Hodge, and nearly killed Jem Trotter, he could ride me with a " piece of pack- thread." My education was now beginning to be con- sidered complete. I was occasionally ridden by my master about his farm at a foot's pace ; or by his son, with strict injunctions not to get larking the young horse. I became very happy and quiet; 254 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. had forgotten the cruelty formerly practised upon me; and so gentle was my usage, that when the spring came, and I was again turned into a large gi'ass field to amuse myself, I hardly know whether I was much pleased with my liberty. I was now three years old, a good bay, 15 hands 3 inches high, and am bold enough to say one of the most promising young horses in the neigh- bourhood. Years and hard usage have much altered my appearance. These fired hocks are not what they once were : these stiffened joints are the effects of many a well-contested field : this short dry cough has not been always my companion. In honourable service have I gained these wounds : and well for those whose reputa- tion and whose merits shall, after all vicissitudes, bring them a comfortable home at last. There are some too, who even now can see the remains of beauty in this shattered frame ; and it is no little consolation to hear the voice of praise and flattery when we know it to be disinterested. But to return to my young days. The spring passed, and the summer : there were plenty of offers for the four-year-old, but none that came up to my master's opinion of my merits : '' 120^. LIFE OF A HUNTER. 255 and not a shilling less," said he, " and he's never been over a fence." He seemed to think the last qualification added to my value — others were of a different opinion ; so he changed his note just before the winter, and added, " he can jump any- thing." November brought down the usual number of sporting men into the neighbourhood, and as many were looking for horses, it was im- possible that I could long escape notice. I was again in the stable, and declared to be much improved since last year. Now it occurred to my master that as he wanted to sell me, it would be as well to run no risk of hurting me by jumping, so he wisely left the risk of breaking his or my bones to the purchaser, whoever he might be. It was not long before one came. Chap. III. — A Purchase— my First Fence — a Word of Advice. I was, as usual, being dressed over very care- fully one morning, when my master came into my stable, accompanied by a gentleman and a groom. 256 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS, " There, sir ; that's the 'orse." "What, the bay? why, he's older than you said, and not so high ! " " No, sir, he ain't ; just put a bridle on him, and turn him round Tummas." Thomas did so. " Just bring his head to the light ; there, that will do." Upon this he opened my mouth, very much to my disgust, as I fully expected a ball to be forced down my throat, as upon former occasions. How- ever, it was not so ; for the gentleman released my head immediately, apparently satisfied with his examination. " You say he can jump." " Wliy, sir, he's only a four-year-old ; but — " " Oh, I see, pretty good notion of it ; only never say he can jump anything when he can't jump at all, it leads to mistakes sometimes ; you might lose your horse or your purchaser : perhaps you've got somebody who would just let me see him go." " Oh, yes, sir ; my son will ride him ; here, send Mr. John out." Mr. John came ; and he seemed to have a pretty clear idea of what he came for, for he had a small stick in his hand, and one OF LADIES AND THEIR HABITS. 225 stake from a fence, on his way to cover. It did nothing to cool her courage, but gave her a very mitigated opinion of the courage of her two companions. " The natural modesty of Polly Raffington had been considerably enamelled at the fashionable boarding-school to which she had been sent ; and a few days with the unembarrassed young gentle- men of the neighbouring barracks, who could not help expressing their admiration of her perfor- mances, soon put her out of leading strings, and sent her on a line of her own. She was well content, at first, to follow or ride v/ith the old gentleman : she soon discovered him to be an utter old muff, not even having the redeeming qualification of experience. As she became more recherche she was less frequently by his side ; and as soon as hounds found, such was her devotion to the chase, she was not long in losing him altogether. " There are plenty of good-natured people in this world ; and, while one declared that she went only to look up that unfortunate Jones, who had just come into his uncle's property, and could do nothing but ride, another vowed that she wa.s VOL. I. Q 226 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. already engaged (but, of course, nothing is said about it here) to a riding-master at Brighton : ' Bless my heart ! don't you know ? I quite forget his name ; but that good-looking, dark-whiskered man, who was always riding about with her on the downs. Of course the family are in a dreadful state about it.' In honest truth, Polly hunted and jumped and galloped from a variety of motives, with which neither Cornet Jones nor a riding-master had an5rthing to do, but chiefly from an abundance of animal spirits and from a rather unfeminine love of notoriety. " From being one of the most amusing girls in existence, with a love of innocent fun — something a little startling to say, or a little independent to do — she now became, if the truth must be told, rather a bore. Her whole conversation was about her horse — 'Did you see Deerfoot do that fence ? ' ' Oh, Captain Smith, you never followed me over that stile in the comer ! ' or, ' Well, Mr. Robinson, where were you when we had that splendid double ? Ah, you should have seen Deerfoot ! ' And so she bored men from morning to evening, when they were only too glad to resign her once more to the paternal arms, when she OF LADIES AND THEIR HABITS. 227 took leave of them at the cross-roads. Her con- versation was always of hunting, with nothing in the world to say about it ; and her horse, and herself, and her jumping at last took up so much of her attention, that she had eyes and ears for nothing else in the world. "I hke to be rather quiet whilst hounds are drawing, especially in a woodland or large covert. It is quite as well to listen for the note of a hound ; and at that identical time there is very little music to be put in competition with it. Now Miss Eaffington has no idea of this ; she chatters away as unconcernedly as if she were in Rotten Row. Talking so much herself, too, she learns nothing ; she is as ignorant of hunting to this day as the very first she went into a field. When she is not talking, she is jumping. She has ceased to ask her father whether that place will do, and is supposed to take care of herself. The fact is, that she simply quarters herself upon the nearest spare gentleman of her acquaintance, with the quaint notion that a man's business in the hunting-field is to look after the women. " I have seen a fox break cover, with the hounds Q 2 228 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. well at him, in a rather impracticable corner — a choice between a most questionable fence and a narrow hunting-gate. In front of all this crowd is Miss Polly Raffington. Imagining that gate- opening is a truly sportsmanlike accomplishment, and that such an opportunity is not to be lost figure to yourself the vain and futile efforts of a young girl, first, to get her whip under the latch, and then to put her horse and herself in such a position as to pull it open and hold it for at least thirty or forty impatient fox-hunters — i.e., for any one of them to catch hold of. ' Good heavens ! ' says young Rabid, of the Irregulars, ' what is that woman doing at the gate ? I must have the fence.' Which he does, and, naturally enough, falls neck and crop into an enormous ditch on the other side. ' Here ! let me come, Miss Raf- fington,' say half-a-dozen voices at once. ' Oh ! no. Major, I shall do it in a minute,' says the lady, with no more idea of the value of a minute than of a slice of the moon; and catching sight of a new acquaintance in the crowd behind her, she begins to waste a little more time in cheerful nods of recognition. In the meantime the hounds are gone, Heaven knows where ; and in a OF LADIES AND THEIR HABITS. 220 country like ours, you may imagine what a charm it must be to have Miss Raffington's company through a run. " One day at the beginning of the season she spoilt young Scoffington's day by getting into Rottenbank Brook with him. He couldn't clamber out and leave her there ; and by the time he had put her on her horse, and mounted his own, every vestige of a hound was gone. The week before last, having got rid of old Raffington at the second fence, she managed to hang herself up in a bullfinch, horse and all, out of which she was drawn by old Sir Mulberry Goldstick, with nothing left on her but a white under-garment, and a pair of brown cloth trousers and Wellington boots. They spent the morning together at a neighbouring farm-house, mending the habit, and plaistering her cheek. Whether the old courtier was most shocked, or most disgusted at losing the run, it is difficult to say. My own introduction to her was on this wise : I found her in a ploughed field, covered with dirt, and her hat smashed. Her horse was gone. I dismounted, and set her on my own beast, which she cheerfully accepted, riding sideways, at a foot's pace. I pursued my 230 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. way as her esquire towards her home ; but was relieved at the end of the third mile by the arrival of her own horse in the hands of a yokel, to whom I cheerfully gave half-a-crown. She is, however, apart from horses, a kind, lively, affec- tionate girl, with great courage and some good sense ; but it is a melancholy day for somebody, when Polly Raffington appears at the cover-side." " I've no doubt that that's very like her, for I have heard of Polly Raffingtons in other parts of England," said Miss Miles ; " but I am quite sure that you have been refused by her, or you never could have been so severe on almost an amiable weakness." " Amiable strength, I should call it," retorted I, rather hurt by the last attack upon my vanity. " Depend upon it, those ladies have no weakness at all. Miss Miles : ask Uncle Scribble, who himself has suffered from the Clumberfield fever some seasons ago. Admiration of that lady was as natural as the measles, and almost as fatal as small-pox. Some of us have been marked for life. She has fallen back again lately upon the Major, satisfied that he is impervious to any danger from an epidemic of that kind." OF LADIES AND THEIR HABITS. 231 " And what of this Mrs. Ckimberfield, who, by your account, seems to be a more formidable person than even Miss Raffington ? " " 111 give you a slight sketch of her, and of one or two more of our neighbours : and to-morrow, if you will follow me away from Harrowskirt Gorse, I shall be able to show them to you, and you may judge for yourself." " What ! and be added to the very flattering family picture which you seem to have dra^vn of the sex and their habits ! Thank you : I'm something like you : if I don't see them at the cover-side, I have no desire to see them after- wards." " Not to know Mrs. Clumberfield is to know nobody. Miss Miles ; permit me, therefore, to make you acquainted with her ; and I cannot but think that you may find many a head fitted to wear the cap which in these pages belongs to her. " The Hon. Mrs. Clumberfield was an only daughter — a beauty and an heiress. She was one of the very prettiest women in England, •v\dth a complexion that rivalled the lily in delicacy, and the rose in warmth. She had dovelike eyes, and 232 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. pouting lips, and a genial presence, or tout-en- semhle, that captivated old and young. Until she began to talk she was the picture of everything delicate and refined. But Mrs. Clumberfield had been brought up quite as much in a stable as in a drawing-room ; and if her evenings were passed in the restraints of society, the mornings were devoted to the freedom of the stable, the manege, and the kennel. She was unfortunate in her edu- cation, but not on that account the less disagree- able ; and she had married a man who flattered her peculiar prejudices in favour of horse-flesh. Mr. Clumberfield never bought ahorse in a dealer's yard, or of a friend, without the assistance of his wife ; and though himself a fine horseman, and quite careless of her real opinion, he not un- frequently pretended to be wholly governed by it. She claimed at least the half of his stud as her own peculiar property ; talked of hocks, stifles, spavins, curbs, and throughpin; was constantly assuring her friends of the terrible beasts she was compelled to ride, as a tacit recommendation to her own horsemanship ; had read the ' Billensden Coplow Day; and Delm^ Ratcliff's book, 'The Noble Science ; ' knew as much about scent as OF LADIES AND THEIR HABITS. 233 the rest of the world ; had a very refreshing acquaintaDce with the theory of sport, and the practice of riding in general ; and was not averse, as she grew older and somewhat embonpoint, to tender her advice on all such subjects to the young habitues, with whom she was a prime favourite. She was really a good horsewoman, and implied, by her conversation, that she was rather a forward one ; but I beg to state that in a very long acquaintance I never saw her ride over anything more formidable than a hurdle. She was very different from Miss Polty Raffington ; she had neither her courage nor her ignorance — indeed, she was very rusee in the ways of the field. I must do her the justice to say that she was seldom in the way, excepting at the gaps and the gate-posts, and there she might have been regarded as a better sort of man; for she was pleasant to look at, and about as adroite as most of them. She and her gToom managed to be tolerably independent in difficulties ; he was always pretty handy, and she was not likely to pound him — a fact that could not have been predicted of Miss Mary Raffington, had her finances allowed her such a luxury. 234 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES. "Du Teste, she drove a mail phaeton, kept a bull terrier, and called her husband Billy to her most casual acquaintance. " Mrs. Worthington is a totally different person from either of the other two. She was a clever, high-spirited woman, who, having married General Worthington, a man considerably older than her- self, and with considerably less energy, felt that her province in this life was henceforth to command, and that of the General to obey. She had much experience in the sports of the field, and a great opinion of her own capabilities as a manager. She at once transferred the stable management into her own hands ; apportioned off some of the quietest hunters for her husband's use, wdth a well-drilled, stupid, and obstinate groom, who could be of no use to her, and might be called his own. Two through bred chargers, which she declared to be good enough to run, she immedi- ately ordered into training for the Grand Mili- tary ; superintending the sweating process herself, and commanding the General to take the Turkish bath he had ordered for the horse, himself She planted her husband and herself in the best part of the county; she armed herself with a stout OF LADIES AND THEIR HABITS. 235 crop, a good galloping hack, a small sandwich-box, and a sherry flask, and set not only husband and grooms at defiance, but all the crowd of red- coated hangers-on, who would have been so confoundedly civil. If she gave but little en- couragement to her husband, whom she treated rather like a boy out for a holiday, she gave still less to anybody else. Mrs. Worthington was a hard, spare, sharp-featured woman, with very handsome eyes, and plenty to say for herself on every subject. She preferred talking about Isaac Day, or Bill Scott, Newmarket, The Quorn, or the colt, by Fandango, out of Miss Whip ; but she could talk about other things. No man aUve would have ever thought of making love to her, or indeed of offering her any ready-made. Her riding to hounds was very good ; and she was not afraid to gallop. To a certain extent she took a line of her own, when she could — she certainly followed no one — and was free from any weakness on the score of admiration. She was occasionally in difficulties; but when she came to grief she was not above helping herself She stood in need of no lady's maid for her morning's toilet, and has frequently adjusted herself in the middle of a 236 COVER-SIDE SKETCHES turnip field to her own satisfaction. Out of the hunting-field, and away from her stud, she is more than rational upon ordinary topics, and a very good-looking woman, with a rather weather- beaten cast of countenance. " Miss Hare is another celebrity. She has taken to it late in life, and is governed in her choice of characteristics only by personal vanity. She is charmingly turned out, and until seen in the run gives an impression of a mere spectator at the cover-side. She has adopted the very childish expedient of affected timidity. At every fence she is so afraid, so nervous ; she feels sure her new horse knows nothing about this country. However, she manages to get along, so long as Sir Montague Ducksegg, young Nuggett, and Captain Benedict, are in attendance to pick up the pieces; and as those unfortunate gentlemen are satisfied to be wjthin reach of some one else, who sees some one else, who sees the hounds, we have no doubt that Miss Hare and her many friends enjoy the sport beyond measure. She affects a more than necessary ignorance of horse language ; is delighted at being corrected by Messrs. Ducksegg, Nuggett, and Benedict ; and OF LADIES AND THEIR HABITS. 237 avows she never can recollect those horrid words. Mrs. Worthington regards her as a fool ; Mrs. Clumberfield as a rival ; and Polly Raffington as an impostor." " Now, I know all about it," said Miss Miles ; " you don't like being beat by the women." PART II. EOAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS, LIFE OF A HUNTER. 257 vspur on. "John, just get on to that young horse, and give him a canter, for Mr. Martingale to see him go." John got up. " Walk him first." He did. '* Take him gently round the field," said Mr. Martingale, " at a trot, and then canter him." John did as he was bid. " Faster ! " John used his one spur, which I resented by a bolt. "Steady," said Mr. Martingale; "pull him up." As I had just been spurred, I did not under- stand stopping immediately, and carried him half round the field. This didn't put Mr. John and me on the best terms with each other : he pulled at my head in an odd way, and I couldn't, for the life of me, find out what he wanted me to- do ! As we came round to the gentleman and his groom, in the middle of the field, my rider took occasion to give me a sly tap or two with hii stick : I concluded that I was to go on ; but no sooner had I made a start of it, than I felt tlie same sudden uncomfortable pull at my mouth. When we came to a stand-still, another examina- tion took place of legs and feet ; one having already been gone through in the stable. 258 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. "Oh, he's all right, sir; there's no mistake about him." " Well, he's far from a bad goer : can he jump ? " said Mr. Martingale, again turning to the son. " Anything in the world," said John, taking his cue from his father's customary description of him. " Now, my good man, never say that, unless you're pretty certain of your horse and your man : now don't go at the biggest place you can find, but take him over that fence at the bottom of the field, with the ditch on this side." This was said in a low distinct manner, that meant plainly "if you're afraid, I'm not." So ]^[r. John was obliged to go. As to me, I found myself turned suddenly round by John, and cantered down the field towards the fence. I had no intimation of what I was to do, for John's hand and seat had materially altered, and I perceived fear in the way he sat upon me : there was a nervous tremulous motion in his hand especially; and as we neared the fence, his indeci- sion increased. I need haixlly add, that I swerved considerably, and found Master John on my neck, instead of my back. LIFE OF A HUNTER. 259 " Try him again," said Mr. Martingale. So we went much in the same way as before; but my refusal was the more determined, as I found that my rider's nervousness increased with every fresh attempt. " George, get up on that horse, and see if you can get him over that fence !" " Yes, sir, I'm sure he'll go ! " "Well, go slowly at it, and don't pull his mouth ; he seems a likely horse to jump if that fellow would only let him." My rider was changed. I felt a different being : an indescribable wish to understand my rider took possession of me. He gave me a gentle canter, and as we came towards the fence, he pulled me into a moderate trot, at the same time squeezing me tightly with both legs ; his hands were down ; and though I had the perfect use of my head, I could feel a certain decision in the firm but light jerk which he gave my mouth, first on one side and then on the other. There could be no mis- take as to his wish that I should go straight. I could not go through the fence, so I went over, but with an exertion which I soon learned might well be saved for bigger places. I was then turned 260 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. back, and cleared the same place, as I imagined in the same manner as before ; but the jump was a little drojD this way, and the ditch from me. Upon alighting on the other side, I felt the most outrageous jerk at my mouth ; and it was so severe, that I almost made up my mind not to jump any more. To this day, I have a great dis- like to this unnecessary proceeding : many of my riders have always done it ; and I have since dis- covered that it is done to keep themselves in a proper position : it would be much pleasanter to us, if men would sit still in the saddle, and let our mouths alone as we jump ; for I am quite sure that for every time I have received assistance, I have, at least a hundred times, been hindered by the hand of my rider : and you would bless your stars if you could only hear the nonsense young gentlemen at Oxford used to talk to one another in my hearing, of the manner in which they had helped their horses through a run, by lifting theon at their fences. There never was but one man on my back that could do it, and he sometimes made a mistake. But to return from my digression. Mr. Mar- tingale was pleased with my performance, and got LIFE OF A HUNTER. 261 upon me himself. I felt, in a moment, that I had a rider on my back : a rider in the most compre- hensive sense of the term. He took me a short gallop, and then brought me slowly up to a new fence : the manner in which he rode me gave me confidence in my powers, and I jumped it. On he went across three or four fields in the same way, allowing me to go almost straight : there was no disagreeable jerk on landing ; no absurd attempt to "lift me'' when in the act of leaping : he seemed perfectly to understand my wishes, and I think I did his. We were, what I have since heard called, " on terms " with one another. We had already turned to come home ; a flight of rails was before us, and I felt a little distressed with my exertions ; but I determined not to hurt my- self, so I took a tremendous spring, and over we went. One more fence remained, and with in- creased speed we crossed the field : I did my best, and my rider cheered me with his hand and voice as I came to it. I jumped the fence, but catching my hind legs in the ditch, and not having suffi- cient strength to recover myself, down we came. Mr. Martingale was on his legs as soon as I ; and patting me kindly, while my owner looked on 262 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. with a very uncertain expression of face, he said, '' Well done, it was hardly fair upon him ; we came a little too fast away from the timber, over the ridge and furrow, and he's not in condition ; but he's a nice young horse." Some conversation ensued between Mr. Martin- gale and my owner ; and the same evening I found myself an inmate of a large and beautifully clean stall, with three others of my species. Before I proceed with a narrative of my adven- tures, I shall give a word of advice to our masters ; for it is no foolish vanity which induces me to send this history into the world, but an anxious wish to benefit the equine race, and to give to humanity an occasional hint for enhancing our value by improving their treatment of us. Header, my age, experience, and the high services I have rendered, make me somewhat competent for the task ; and if I have saved one of m^/ fellow-crea- tures from harm, or one of yours from the com- mission of cruelty, I shall have had my reward. In the selection of a breaker, regard temper and patience as of the first consequence ; without them the highest skill in horsemanship will be LIFE OF A HUNTER 263 almost useless. Remember that we have no iii- stinctive knowledge of the artificial state in which we are doomed to live, and that we must, there- fore, be taught what appears too simple to require a lesson. We have the highest natural regard for man : he exercises over us an indescribable in- fluence ; but we are enabled to detect the slightest symptom of timidity, and act accordingly. Never exaggerate our character to others, either through ignorance or design, especially on the score of jumping: a young horse of much promise, a friend and neighbour of mine, was entirely ruined by the injudicious praise of his master, as a timber- jumper : he fell over a gate with a groom of an intending purchaser, and lamed himself in the shoulder for life. Never ride us hard, before we are at least six or seven years old ; we are not fit for it. Never, when young, send us fast at fences of any description, for we like to see what we jump at ; besides being better for yovb, for we cannot so easily get away when ridden slowly. There is mach unnecessary cruelty practised in exercising, or lunging us in a circle, till we are quite tired. I know it made me sullen, and I dare say does a good many others ; enough is as good as a feast. 264 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. I mentioned, before, the jerk which is very often given to a horse's mouth at the fall of a drop, or big jump : I can only say that it has several times been the cause of my refusing altogether, and would deter many that I know from ever trying to jump again. Chap. TV. — My Admihers— I become vaik — am inju- diciously PHYSICKEO. In Mr. Martingale's stable I ought to have been comfortable ; and it certainly was a wonderful change for the better. Cleanliness was its ruling feature ; instead of the heated box and saturated straw I had been accustomed to, I Avas placed in a well-aired stall, with clean litter. Instead of irre- gularity of feeding and grooming, I was dressed twice daily with the gi-eatest care, and my food was brought to me exactly at the same time ; and it is quite astonishing how essential to our health this regularity is. Our stomachs are small, and our digestion is rapid ; we are most thankful for nutritious food in a small compass, and at definite periods. No wonder that I improved ; and my vanity was fed twenty times an hour by hearing LIFE OF A HUNTER. 265 it said. Still there were a few drawbacks to this apparently enviable state. I was loaded with clothes — in itself a great nuisance — and the stable Avas darkened for about five hours every day. This was to further my condition at the expense of my eyesight, and to give my fellow-labourers time for rest, as they were being regularly hunted. Besides this, we had our heads tied up to the manger, and were compelled to stand in a most painful position for hours together. Our stalls sloped for the purpose of draining, and our hind feet were, consequently, several inches lower than our fore feet. This is very disagreeable, and I always used to stand across the stall when I could ; I wonder they didn't see it, and alter it, for we all agreed in disliking it very much ; but men don't pay a great deal of attention to our wishes. Notwithstanding all this, I was much flattered by the praises I daily received ; and nobody spoke ill of me except Mr. Snaffles, the head groom ; and he did so because he had not been consulted before Mr. Martingale brought me home. There's nothing puts them so much out of temper with a horse as the not being asked their opinion about him. 266 EOAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. Mrs. Martingale was delighted with me, and I was made happy for a day by her caresses. She used to pat me on the neck, and praise my colour and temper ; but I fear that I must have frightened her, for, upon my turning round once to return her kindness by a show of endearment, she struck me on the nose and retired hastily. I suppose she imagined me a little too familiar, though we were very good friends afterwards, and she wanted to have me instead of her own horse, which stood in the same stable. Mr. Martingale thought me " too good for a lady ! " What a singular idea ! Since I've grown old, I have often been amused with the conversations I used to listen to upon my own merits, and how entirely every one looked at me through his own microscope. " Well, Martingale, how do you like the young one ?" " Oh ! I don't know — I've hardly ridden him ; he's a very nice horse, and much improved. How do you like him ?" " He's not fast enough, I'm sure." This was the opinion of Mr. K , a very good rider, as I know by experience, but much LIFE OF A HUNTER. 267 too rich and high-bred ever to be satisfied with anything. "Ah!" said George, as Mr. K left the stable, " so he'd a said of Plenipo, if he'd been a hunter instead of a race-horse." "Well, B , my boy, how do you like my Friar Bacon horse?" This was addressed to a tall, good-looking man, slightly lame, and who had the reputation of being the hardest rider in the county ; but I've seen him stop when he ought not, and could tell a secret or two of his riding if I chose. However, I won't be ill-natured. " Oh 1" said B ■, "he's a nice horse enough, but he's no power; besides, he's not thick enough through his heart." " Ah !" said George again, " that's Avhat he always says." It was great fun, too, to hear the other side of the question. When a jDarty of infantry subs, from the barracks at W , came over to drink bottled porter and smoke a cigar, they were never satisfied without going to look at the stud. I need hardly say that they were in general very ignorant of all connected with us — the animals 268 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. they themselves rode being really such as no gentleman's hunter would even exchange snorts with at the cover-side. They were very often lame, and always ill-conditioned, out-at-elbow- lookinor brutes, having to do at least the work of three of us. Nevertheless, though such bad judges for themselves, they made a point of passing an opinion upon the choice of others, and sometimes talked as though they really preferred their own property — a thing too absurd to credit. " That's an uncommonly nice horse of yours, Martingale — the young 'un — the nicest horse I've seen for a long time ; ivhat capital Jiocks and thighs ! " As they said this to every horse in the stable, and there were four of us, 1 didn't feel much flat- tered by the remark ; and here the long, straight- haired, blue-eyed, shooting-jacketed youth would condescendingly approach me, and turn up the comer of my clothing from off my quarters, rub- bing up the hair, and letting in something that resembled his own " coolness," for which I often felt inclined to give him an admonitory kick ; and having generally whisked my tail at the unpleasant titillation produced by his curiosity, LIFE OF A HUNTER. 296 brought down upon myself a score of " who-ays " and "come-ups" and "gently, you brute !" accom- panied by a sudden retreat from the stall, rounding the post very closely, at as gi'eat a distance from the " nicest horse in the world " as was possible. I fancy, if I recollect rightly, that about this time my head was getting a little turned by the general praises which w^ere injudiciously lavished upon me, and but for the before-mentioned Snaf- fles, I might have got quite beyond endurance. As it was, I saw that I was a great favourite, and, like all favourites, gave myself airs. I scarcely condescended to notice the two very respectable hacks which stood in an adjoining stable to mine. I was foolish enough to think no horse good enough to keep me company (a mistake which was corrected as soon as I began to be hunted), and was unable to see the value of my stable companions, simply because their destiny led them into a different walk of life from my own. They were excellent hacks, honest, high-couraged, as good-looking and better bred than myself, no sort of doubt resting upon the certainty of their pedi- gree, whilst I have been compelled to admit that the respectabihty of my dar)i was at least ques- 270 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. tionable. I feel pain when I call to mind this unworthy trait of character, and have often laughed at human beings for a like absurdity ; but I begin to think that we are partakers of the vices of men, as a punishment for our sins committed in some former state of being. I mentioned Snaffles. To me he was an object of great interest and unmitigated disgust. He was short, thin, with rather sharp features ; his hair was scrupulously combed on each side into a small curl ; he wore a linen jacket of considerable length, drab breeches and gaiters, and a hat brushed to a fault. Whether he meant to kill me or not I cannot tell, but he very nearly suc- ceeded. I had, by some means, caught a violent cold and cough, and, as a natural consequence, my system was much lowered. Mr. Snaffles adopted his own remedy, and physicked me most unmercifully ; a few days more would have done the job, and the world would have lost the benefit of my advice and experience. An accident saved me, and got Snaffles into bad odour. L , a veterinary surgeon, Came to Mr. Martingale's upon some other business, and saw the state I was in. After openly condemning the j)lan pursued by the LIFE OF A HUNTER. 271 head groom, and correcting it by some strong measures of his own, he sent for Mr. Martingale. Snaffles was absent. "Do you know the Friar Bacon colt is very bad, sir?" "Not I. I asked to see him yesterday, but Snaffles made some excuse — said he was in physic." " In physic ! So he was — so he was ; and Snaffles physicked him and very nearly killed him ; gave him physic when he 'd a strong cold and cough on him ; old system exploded — disease quite lowering enough without taking away the little strength they've got left. Just keep your eye on your own stable — see 'em when you like — ride 'em when you like ; don't give up the reins — might as well get off the box altogether — nice young horse, and I'll put him right for you. I remember Kench's Gipsy mare being much " " Oh, well, there's no harm done, is there ? " "No, no — he'll come round; but never you let them humbug you, or you 11 see the same will happen to you as^.did to Gipsy " "Well, good-bye, L (if he once begins 272 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. about Gipsy, I shall never be dressed for dinner) ;" and Mr. Martingale left the stable. I am happy to say that a few days wrought a wonderful change in me. I began to get better ; the cough had left me, and my strength was returning ; but I felt very wretched. However, my appetite came again, and with it the encou- raging remarks of admiring subs, and the flat- tering notice of Mr. and Mrs. Martingale. It was now about the middle of winter, and I was shortly to see r/iy first days hunting. Chap. V. — Half-stara'ed ox the Expectation of a Day's Hunting — I hecfavt. some Advice on the Subject. Before I proceed witli my adventures, it will be well to settle one point — my age. It was a question invariably asked, and one on which Mr. Snaffles exhibited the one soHtary joke of his life. " How old is he ? " said a very mild-looking young gentleman, one day, as he walked towards me with the intention of examining my mouth for himself. " Twenty-seven," said Snaffles. LIFE OF A HUNTER. 273 " Oh ! so he is — I see," said the youth, forcing my lips apart so as to exhibit the outside of the teeth. This was Mr. Snaffles' joke, and a very good one he thought it. It was certainly excusable, as he was asked the same question twenty times a day ; and though he answered, honestly enough, " Coming five," every one thought it necessary to look in my mouth, and then assent with " Oh ! so he is — I see." My real age was now between four and five years. My youth must be my excuse for many follies and blunders committed at that time. However, old heads, I have heard, never grow on young shoulders ; but I am not sure that that is strictly true. I think I've known some very young shoulders with very old heads upon them, as you'll be inclined to believe when you've heard the whole of my history. " Coming five," I was the youngest horse in the stable — in my own opinion neither the worst nor the ugliest. The horse that stood next to me was a most respectable-looking hunter, of a certain age — an age that was most uncertain to all but his master. He was handsome, and of great expe- TOL. I. 1 274 EOAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. rience, having carried Mr. Martingale seven or eight seasons ; he was kind enough occasionally to give me advice, and evidently felt much in- terested in me. We were standing one day, about four o'clock in the afternoon, after having had our third meal that day, when Mr. Martingale came into the stable. Now, though the master of his own house, he was by no means the master of his o^ti stud, and he came very condescendingly to inquire whether he could have a horse to go to Vander- plank's cover on the following morning. " Well, Snaffles, which can I ride to-morrow ?" " I'm sure I don't know, sir ; you can't go to- morrow at all. The brown horse ain't fit to go, and old Wood Pigeon has hardly got over the run last Monday, and then Mrs. Martingale's horse has got a sore back." " Can't I ride the young one ?" " Unpossible ! " said Snaffles, with an air of de- termination. " But I must ride him. He's got over his phy- sic, I suppose ? " " Oh ! that wouldn't have hurt him ; but he isn't fit to ride." LIFE OF A HUNTER 275 " Well, I'll just take him to cover, for I want to go to Vanderplank's ; " and out went Mr. Martin- gale. My heart beat high with expectation. I had" longed to share in the toils of my fellows, and to exhibit my prowess in the field, and now was the opportunity. Need I say that I had had all the advantages of education, for Mr. Martingale had well schooled me. Timber was my forte, for it's really much easier to jump than anything else ; and I cannot conceive why men make us go at an enormous fence with a ditch, which neither they nor we can see, in preference to a nice, clean-cut post and rail of about half the size. However, the day was come, and to-morrow was to me the real beginning of existence. Before I lay down to rest, my friend Wood Pigeon kindly addressed me. " Now," said he, blowing his nose, and giving a gentle flourish with his tail, " you are entering upon your professional duties. One word : be cool — let nothing disturb your equanimity; never mind the hounds, never mind the horn, never mind the rush of horses ; if you are half as good as you set yourself up for, you'll see very few of T 2 276 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. them after the third fence. But be cool; it's a trying moment is the start ; but be cool, and look before you leap." As I wished him o-ood-nio-ht with a snort, I thought to myself that he was very civil with his advice, but that I should manage very w^ell to fight my own battles. I did not sleep well, for I thought of the morrow. It came. The morning- was warm, with an inclination to rain, and I re- member thinking it was rather oppressive. I was about taking my usual drink, w^hen the helper permitted me a sip or two, and sprinkling the bottom of the bucket over my nose and mouth, left me to myself. I thought him drunk at the time. When I started I know I was both hungry and thirsty ; and though long habit has inured me to this sort of privation, still I cannot but fancy that we should do our work (generally a long day) quite as well w4th an average quantity of food and water. Sometimes I have been almost exhausted before w^e have found our fox ; and I wonder at the endurance of some of the sportsmen them- selves, who seem to feel no pain from hunger or thirst ; perhaps, if they carried us instead of we them, the case might be different. LIFE OF A HUNTER. 277 Be this as it may, I know that I was brought out of the stable, and my girths tightened to an inconvenient degree. The Kttle food I had in me was made less; I suppose there's a reason for that. Rational being must be a term or definition used relatively of man to man, for they employ very little reason in much of their treatment of us. And yet, from some cause or other, there is so much affinity in our natures, and so much sym- pathy between us and the human race, that I believe the greatest exercise of their reasoning faculties would not be entirely thrown away upon us. As we went slowly along the road, we were overtaken by different horses, none of whom I had known before. My spirits increased, and by the time we reached Yanderplank's cover, I am obliged to confess that I was not quite so cool and collected as Wood Pigeon would have wished, or as I intended to have been. 278 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. Chap. VI. — The Meet — an Old Acquaintance — the ErN. Vanderplank's cover is on the side of a hill, and what I there saw did not tend to allay my nervousness (remember this was my first day's hunting). A hundred and fifty or tw^o hundred horses, of alL sorts, collected on the sides of the hill ; their riders, many of them, in scarlet coats ; wdiilst in the cover was a constant succession of cracking of whips, and whimpering of hounds. We were evidently a little late, for as we cantered up the hill, as I now know to avoid heading the fox at the bottom, the movement in the crowed became very general. First of all, there was a scamper in one direction, then a sudden pull up, and off again for thirty or forty yards in another ; then back again, as a hound gave tongue in that direction. I was utterly puzzled, and I do not wonder at one young horse, astonished like myself, rearing straight upright, as a sort of middle course, and falling back upon his rider, who, to judge by the way he pulled at his head when up in the air, was really desirous of such a catastrophe. By the way, I would mention that, at this point of the sport, no riders seem to act independently of each LIFE OF A HUNTER. 279 Other ; " follow my leader " is the order of the day -^ and any leader, however bad, is better than none. This is very well for such things as shee]p, but to animals of our sense it is quite degrading ; and men are always forgetting that they involve us in the consequences of their folly. I fear I behaved ill. I could not make it out. I had heard enough in the stable and from my companions to know that the object of fox-hunting was " killing the fox." But they went in such an odd manner about it ! Instead of stopping him when he wanted to come out, they all got out of the way ; and one unfortunate gi'een-coated gen- tleman, or " gent," I think they called him, with his hat on one side, a tuft on his chin, and a pair of sham-leather breeches, who got in a very good place for catching the fox when he came out of the cover, was addressed with, "Now, then, stupid, if you think you can catch the fox, do it, and I'll whip him." I need hardly add to those who have experience in these matters, that the " gent " beat a hasty retreat. But I may as well say at once, for the benefit of the rising stock, that " killing the fox " is only an excuse for riding us over so many fences ; so much so that lately in 280 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. the fashionable countries, I hear, they've ahnost given it up altogether. I may here remark, too, what struck me then, and has ever since, as another proof of the pecu- liarities of the human race. All the young horses were impatient and eager — pawing the ground, attempting to rush through the crowd, or champ- ing the bit, and breaking out. The old ones were, on the contrary, quiet and sedate, standing still, with the heads out, listening or walking slowly, reserving their energies for another opportunity. Not so with their riders. All the old gentlemen were excited and anxions, standing up in their stirrups, watching every movement, and eager for a start ; the young ones appeared to have got old heads on their shoulders, and deserved the highest praise ; for they were as quiet and sedate as old horses, taking no more notice of what was going on than if they had come there expressly to talk about Schleswig and Holstein, and to smoke their cigars ; and I am deep enough to know that with many their apathy was no affectation. Humanity is very unnatural. The morning was cloudy, the atmosphere heavy. " What a splendid morning," said a friend to my LIFE OF A HUNTER. 281 master. "Magnificent," rejoined Mr. Martingale. I wish they only knew our ideas of a magnificent morning : I was almost choked with the weight of the air. Just then the fox broke, but not at the bottom of the cover ; on the contrary, he came away at the top. It would have been easy to have caught him (as I then foolishly imagined to be the object of the huntsman), had not some one kindly blockea up the gateway at the top of the hill, declaring nobody should go by until the fox and hounds had got a good start. It was not ne- cessary, for they went quite fast enough for most of us. My spirits were now getting so ungovern- able from the crowd, and the " tally-hoing," and the " gone away ! " and above all, from the smack- ing of whips and music of the hounds, which just then burst forth in a volume of sound, that I w^as making up my mind to go over or through the gate, and had made one or two anticipatory plunges, when Mr. Martingale perceived my in- tention. He caught me by the head, and striking me at the same time with his spurs, cleared the crowd by a few vigorous pushes ; once out of it, he was not long in reaching the hounds, for he took me at the fence with so much confidence and de- 282 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. termination that I was unable to refuse, and found myself alongside of the hounds now running for Buckby Folly, whither, indeed, they always used to go from there, and I dare say do now, if the truth were known. At the moment of being hur- ried away from the gate, I had recognised an old acquaintance, which made me more loth to quit the crowd. He was the son of an old friend of my dam's, and having been bred on the property of a neighbouring farmer, and turned out one summer with me, we had been very intimate, though there always existed between us a degree of rivalry not compatible with perfect friendship. What was my delight to meet him upon such an occasion as this ! Here was an opportunity for display ; and I doubted not that I could trust more to my rider's good sense than he could to his. " How different," thought I, " to racing round a field, unshackled by bridle or saddle, the world ignorant of our very existence, and no one but our mothers and our admiring owners to pass judgment upon the per- formance ! " Who ever bred a horse that didn't promise to be the " best goer in the county ? " Men, I am told, are ambitious ; but their feel- ings of rivalry are nothing compared to ours ; LIFE OF A HUNTER. 283 I've seen them turn away or give place to a rival, when the horse they rode would have dropped before he would have given in. With these feel- ings, fancy my joy at seeing my old companion coming after me as fast as possible, having just jumped the fence which I mentioned. We ex- changed a look and a snort of recognition, and animated by the same spirit, away we went. I think our riders were much of the same mind as ourselves, for they merely exchanged a silent nod, and settled themselves to their business. And now for the run. I'm not going to describe every run I've ever seen ! but this was my first and a good one, and it made an impression upon me. Besides, I've been over the same country so often, that I remember every fence. I said before, the hounds were running straight for Buckby Folly, and a good pace they went. All the noise had ceased ; there was no more hal- loing, no more music ; the men were as mute as the hounds. I was joined by four or five more horses ; but I still kept my eye on my quondam acquaintance ; and so eager had I become, that I was no sooner within sight of a fence, than away I went at the top of my speed. For five or six 284 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. fences I came to no grief; but seeing my rival pull up was quite sufficient for me to go on. The ditch on the offside was terrific ; and though I would now gladly have stopped, I found it impos- sible. Mr. Martingale understood the dilemma, and stuck both spurs into me, but to no purpose, for I left my Kind legs in what is there called a "muddy bottom," and rolled comfortably on to my side. We were scarcely do^vn before we were again " at work." A slight check before crossing the West Haddon Road, gave me my place again, with my wind (for a fall takes something out of us) ; and when we left Buckby Folly for Guilsboro', I was not much the worse, save in appearance. In fact, I have since found out that a horse cannot be too quiet or steady at his fences, if he wishes to get from Vandei-plank's cover to the Folly without a fall or two. At this part of the run I was extremely dis- tressed at missing my friend. The " ignoble many" had been going through gates and round by gaps, as I afterwards discovered ; and, notwith- standing the wonderful descriptions which men give of the runs they have seen, let me assure you that there are never above a dozen horses in every LIFE OF A HUNTER. 285 hunt that could go through a good one. I was, I believe, dreadfully nervous ; and though I was coaxed and humoured by my rider, a little bustle behind me and a fence before me were quite enough to ujDset me altogether. I had just caught sight of the horse I had been in search of, going well a little ahead of me, when we entered a large field with no apparent impediment. Catching tight hold of the bit, away I went, had just reached my friend, and was thinking of nothing but the plea- sure of beating him, which I found I could easily do, when he suddenly disappeared, with a loud splash ; I heard the same noise on the other side ; felt both spurs : my head suddenly loosed, saw something sparkle, and heard my master's encou- raging voice, as I recovered myself from a half stumble, " Well done, by Jove ; he's worth his weight in gold ! " At the same moment he turned himself round in his saddle, and I thought I heard a satisfactory chuckle as he said, " Well, I'm glad he isn't drowned, at any rate." I was now alone, or nearly so. The field began to get very select, from what was to me an un- known cause. It explained itself the next day, when I heard of my own exploit. My anxiety 286 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. had much abated ; I ceased to pull so vigorously ; and as I was now beginning to feel a little tired, I was not Sony when Mr. Martingale pulled me into a trot. We were now at a place called Teeton Mill, a little above Holdenby, and the slow hunt- ing had let in the rest of the field. I was surprised to find some horses and men wet through, though we had no rain whatever ; whilst, on the other hand, the generality of them were perfectly dry. Amongst the former was my old acquaintance, who expressed himself very much astonished at the whole performance. He complained bitterly of fatigue, and said that he had been ridden back- wards and forwards in Buckby Folly, without seeing the hounds, and had been then galloped unmercifully to make up for lost time. He had had two falls, and ended by being soused in some cold water. He admitted, however, that the last operation had a little freshened him. At this point of the conversation, a hound challenged : the scent got better; we went away again at a rattling pace, and after about a quarter of an hour, I succeeded in tumbling first over a bull- finch into the middle of the hounds, Avho were eating the fox in a wet ditch on the other side. LIFE OF A HUNTER. 287 I was completely done up ; but when a friend of my master bid him £200 for the " young un," so great is the influence of vanity upon the spirits, that I almost broke into a voluntary trot. Some gruel and a handful of beans, with a light groom on my back, who stopped three times on the road to bait himself, brought me home in moderate plight about six o'clock in the evening. Chap. VII. — Flatcatcher — "Wood Pigeon — a Conversation ON Curbs. "Well, young 'un," I was not yet named, "so you jumped the brook yesterday at Teeton ? " said Mrs. Martingale's horse to me the next morning, just as I got up and shook myself, after rather a bad night's rest ; " so you jumped the brook ? " " Did I ? " said I, in gi'eat amazement, for I really knew nothing about it. " Did you ! yes, to be sure you did ; at least old Snaffles said so ; and as he didn't have the buying of you, he won't say much in your favour. Why, you don't mean to say that you didn't know it ? " Now, Mrs. Martingale's horse, though only a 288 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPI^XS. year older than I was, was in my eyes an animal of much greater experience ; he was a very good- looking horse, too, and had shown every desire to take my part in the stable squabbles. I therefore answered him at once — " My dear Flafcatcher, I tell you the honest truth, I have no idea what you're talking about. I saw no brook all through the run." " May I break my mistress's neck over a hog- backed stile if that isn't a good joke ; why, I heard all about it yesterday before George came back with you. There were only three got over. P very nearly got drowned ; lots got well ducked, and the rest cut it entirely. It's eighteen feet of water, old Snaffles says ; and blow'd if he believes it." A light broke in upon me. I remembered the splash and the sparkle, and the wet coats, and the disappearance of my acquaintance, and the sudden thinning of the field. I remembered it all, and I gave an inward snort of satisfaction as I felt that I was a water-jumper. I had just arrived at the consolatory conclusion that it was the test of ex- cellence (as I had once heard my master say) in every hunter, when I heard an angry rustling in LIFE OF A HUNTER. 289 the stall on my left hand, and a decided kick against the boards which divided us, whilst the sonorous voice of old Woodpigeon exclaimed — " No ; and double-thong me if I believe it either. If he did jump eighteen feet of water yesterday, he won't do it again in a hurry." "That's a great shame of you, Woodpigeon," said Flatcatcher ; " and you only say so because you managed to get into that place at Everdon, which isn't half so big." " And whose fault was that ? Didn't I want to jump, and didn't that gi^eat lout Crowfoot pull me right into it ? I've only given Mr. Martingale two falls in three seasons, and never at water." " Well, never mind, old friend, I know you can get across a country better than any horse about here ; everybody says so. I was only joking ; and the young 'un didn't know what a wonderful thing he had done until I told him." Old Woodpigeon was all that Flatcatcher had said of him ; he was really an excellent horse — first-rate at water and timber, and had long been the "crack" of the stable. But years and work tell tales, and we all of us forget that. Even now I'm foolish enouo^h to think that I could ffet alonsr VOL. I. U 290 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. somehow or another, so I can't wonder that Wood- pigeon was a little jealous sometimes when he heard of an inexperienced youngster doing any- thing out of the common way. He was a good, honest old horse at bottom, and used to give us plenty of advice. Upon the present occasion he soon came round again. " Well, well, you'll see ; I've jumped many a brook ; but eighteen feet isn't bad ; and when you try it again, don't be surprised if it makes you a little nervous. I recollect when I was your age, the sight of water seemed to take away my power, and it was some time before I got quite reconciled to it. It isn't the size of the jump, but it's the glare and the sparkle, and the bad way in which those two-legged blockheads generally ride us at it. One goes so fast that neither of us can see where we are going ; another goes so slowly that we can't tell whether he means us to go or not ; and a third is evidently in such a horrible fright that he's certain to pull us into the middle of it, just as Mr. Crowfoot did me. I wish Mr. Mar- tingale wouldn't be so fond of giving mounts, as he calls them ; or, if ^he must, give them to sensible beings." LIFE OF A HUNTER. 291 Having eased his mind, he became sociable, and he told us various little anecdotes of his early days — how he inherited " curbs " from his dam, and a little " temper " from his sire ; but that he was also indebted to them for the good qualities which had made him valuable. He descanted upon the light-ploughed land and wide ditches of the "roothings" of Essex, declaring it to be as good as the banks and heavy plough of the other side of the same county were bad ; he showed us the manifest advantages of steadiness with hounds — of sterling goodness with a staid demeanour over the more showy restlessness of his London- bred acquaintance. He told us how we were con- demned for a certain time, and for certain crimes, to be the slaves of men ; and pointed out the most galling part of our punishment in the neces- sary submission to creatures so physically, as well as morally, inferior to ourselves ; and wound up by a pious hope that some day or other our servi- tude would end, and the growing wickedness of the human race place them in our power ; though he freely admitted that we should be unable to make any use of the services of a species so weak so foolish, and so vicious. u 2 292 EOAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. Having had a quarter of an hour's exercise, dressed, fed, and left to repose, with a comfortable bed, I was induced to mention to him a subject which gave me some uneasiness. When I rose that morning, I felt a pain for which I was unable to account. It was immediately below my hocks, in both legs, more or less ; the pain was accom- panied by a little stiffness, and a heat, as I ima- gined, round the bone. Having desciibed the symptoms to him as accurately as I well could, he was not long before he guessed the nature of my infirmity, and explained to me the cause and the remedy. Painfully in after-life did I learn the truth of his remarks, though at that time loth to believe them. " Do you recollect your dam or your sire ? " said Woodpigeon. " My dam well," said I ; " but my sire I never saw. He, alas ! " " Oh, come, none of that ; very few of us do ; but I wanted to know, because almost all our complaints and infirmities are hereditary. Now I never flatter, so I don't mind saying that your hocks are very far from bad ; but if your dam LIFE OF A HUNTER. 293 had any disease of that part, the probability is that exercise will develop it in you." " Well, I really think my poor mother, whom I have not seen since I was two years old, had two swellings, one on each hock, just at the back ; but she never was lame that I know of." " No, and perhaps you may not be lame, if you are rested as your mother was — taking no more exercise than she pleased. But mark my words, sooner or later the fatal day will come, probably next season, when you will begin to be ridden hard. I told you it was my case ; I felt it much at first, for I was vain of my appearance ; but such things are part of the punishment of us who live among men, and are handed down from sire to son. Let us be thankful there is a remedy, though at the expense of some ease and beauty." " You think, then, that the pain and stiffness which I felt when I first moved arise from what you called 'curbs' ?" " Yes, I've no doubt of it, particularly as you fancy your dam, wliom I }iave every inclination to believe perfect in other respects, was also affected in that way." 294 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. " You spoke of a remedy. Can we cure our- selves ? " " No ; because in our natural state we never suffer from them ; if we did, our cure would be reaC " And the remedy now is," said I, expectantly, — " Firing ! Everything else is humbug." I lay down without finishing my feed. Chap. VIIT. — The End of the Season — A Lark. The season was drawing to a close. Without vanity, I believe I got better day by day. Prac- tice makes perfect, and I had plenty of it. How- ever, though I was out often, and got a severe fall now and then, I was never so tired as on the occasion I have just related. I suppose my master saw the necessity of a little less severity. About this time, too, the stud was going to sepa- rate for the summer months. This was our lioliday. Some were going to Tattersall's — what that was I found out afterwards, as I shall relate in due time ; others were going to be turned out — I discovered later in life what that was (to be LIFE OF A HUNTER. 295 teased to death by flies, and to look like a bullock). I was to go into a large straw-j^ard ; and one or two to go to London as hacks — a fate I never endured. But before we separated, I must just recount a little anecdote, to the honour of Wood- pigeon's experience, and to the defeat of my own self-sufficiency. A brilliant run from Cottisbrook had concluded the Pytchley season, from which old Woodpigeon came back most undeniably dead beat. It oc- curred to Mr. Martingale that, though the old one was to be laid up, the young one might be made available with the Duke's hounds for one more day. After dragging on, with indifferent sport, until late in the day, we turned round to come home for the very last time, disappointed, as far as I was concerned, with the badness of the finish. We were three miles from Weedon, on the Tow- cester road ; and through the centre of a large grass meadow below the turnpike was a "purling stream," as the facetious Flatcatcher afterwards called it. We were six in number : a seedy gray, which we called Old Tilbury (why I don't know), carried a Captain Kennedy ; and a good-looking, big bay horse, whom we called Old Anderson, 296 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. carried a very tall, good-looking man, a Captain Flynne. The others were strangers, with one exception — a little bay mare, with whom I had previously made acquaintance in our stables, where she occasionally visited us in the morning. She earned a worthy parson, whose great fault was, as she told me, that he was about thirteen stone, and rode her generally two days a week besides going to his parish, at some distance, every other day. This, with two others, was our party going home. The parson's mare candidly confessed that she was glad the hunting season was over ; and I think he must have heard our conversation when he declined the proposal I am about to relate, on the score that his mare hated water in cool blood, and had had quite enough of jumping already. " Martingale, my boy," said Captain Kennedy, "they say that Friar Bacon of yours can jump water like a cat." We didn't know how a cat jumped water; but the seedy gray winked at me, and I pricked up my ears. " He jumped the brook at Teeton with me," said my rider. LIFE OF A HUNTER. 297 "I should like to see him. Let's have a lark." " No, I won't lark him ; but I'll tell you what we'll do ; we'll turn into this big field at the bottom, and we'll all go at the brook. Just put in a shilling a piece for fun, and the horse that gets backward and forward over the water first, wins." " All right," said one. " What size is it ? " said another. " Not above twelve feet," said a third. "Oh, a jackass could jump it," said Mr. Martin- gale. " It's nothing of a jump," said the parson: " but I shan't lark my mare ; I don't mind giving my shilling." Persuasion was thrown away upon the parson ; so he consented to stand at the top of the field and hold the money. I have no doubt that he and his mare were on more friendly terms than the rest of us with our riders, for she hated larking at water, and so did he. We were scarcely in order before the word was given. "Off!" said some one, and I felt both spurs in my side. Away I went, and all the rest after me. Where the brook was I had no idea, and was just looking about for it, when I felt a second dig with both spurs ; my head suddenly 298 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS, loosed, and a squeeze like a vice from both legs of my rider. I was then so close to the water's edge that refuse I could not, and I was over before I knew it. I was turned round immedia- tely; but this time I remembered the precise spot where the brook ran ; I caught sight of the cold, sparkling stream, and a fear of something indefinite seized me. I stopped, backed, and turned round. The other horses were gone, and with the exception of two, who didn't come over the first time, had nearly reached the parson's mare at the top of the field. Finding the race was lost, my rider ceased to whip and spur me. By gentle means he got me to the bank, and then commenced a struggle. His resolution con- quered me ; for after putting first one foot down the bank, then another, then trying to get away from it ineffectually, I made a standing jump of it, and we dropped with a plunge into the middle. My education in brook-jumping commenced from that day. LIFE OF A HUNTER. 299 Chap. IX. — Turning Up and Turning Out — Divers Masters and divers Countries. Our season was fairly over, and we separated. What became of my stable companions I scarcely know. Some came back after a summer in Lon- don, or at grass, or on clay, or in a straw-yard. I came back to begin again the life I love, after "a run." A run it may well be called ; for I did scarcely anything else. First a bullock, then a gad- fly, tormented me; then an admiring labourer came to pat me, and his cur flew at my heels: in fact I look upon a run at grass as a piece of barbarous though mistaken cruelty. Immediately after a hard season, it is doubtless pleasant to have one's shoes taken off ; shoes are a real bore — a necessary evil perhaps — but I wonder whether men sleep in their boots ! The grass is soft, cool, and sweet ; we walk as much as we please, and lie down when we like : but there end the pleasures of turning out. The days become hot, the bullocks plajrful, the villagers idle, the flies abundant, the ground hard and dry, and the grass innutritions. Our legs and feet get battered and broken, and the fever and irritation beyond endurance. Turned 300 KOAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. out to gi*ass under favourable circumstances, we become as fat as pigs ; under unfavourable cir- cumstances, we return little better than skeletons. A straw-3^ard ! a place to catch the glanders in from an ambitious pony, who insists upon making your acquaintance ! A London season ! slavery, slaver}^ splendid servitude ! to be the whole year through what we should be but half — the slave of man to be bullied by insolent hacks with sleek coats, spider-legs, long tails and longer pedi- grees — the cast-offs of Newmarket and Doncaster, the broken-down offspring of worn-out sires and dams ! to be compelled to associate with mash-fed Hanoverians, with the size of an elephant and the pace of a cart-horse, who climb down St. James's Street on a drawing-room day as if their fore legs were going up a ladder and their hind ones down it ! No ! if we must be slaves, let us have a " bold one " on our back, with a good seat and a light hand ; a hundred-acre grass field, with a brook in the middle, and a bullfinch at the end of it, for six months of the year ; and a large, loose box, with our shoes off, and a litter of tan, as a reward for our labours : instead of ambling up Rotten Row in a broiling sun, with a tight curb LIFE OF A HUNTER. 301 and a park seat, and our master so altered that his own mother would hardly know him. I hope I shall teach some of my young friends to despise their pampered London acquaintance ; and when they have a good place in the country, to endea- vour to keep it. Experience gives me authority in these matters. Of course the different masters I have had had different opinions : I had my own. It is for a large loose box, with plenty of air and plenty of tan : the greatest suffering we feel is from our feet, and the state of confinement in which they are kept makes us old almost before we are young. If I were going to trouble you with all the won- derful feats I have performed — if I were going to give you a summary of the runs in Northampton- shire, Leicestershire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, and all the other shires in which I have been ridden, I should have to recount the hands I have passed through, from Mr. Martingale's up to the present time ; but such is not my intention. I was soon bought from him at a large price ; for he was not rich, and soon tired of riding an expen- sive horse : he looked upon me as so many hun- dred pounds. Lord Longpurse bought me, and 802 EOAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. took me into Leicestershire. This was considered a "rise " in the world; why, I do not know. The fields are as large, the hounds as good, the fences as big, the brooks as deep, and the riders as bold, in the one country as the other. To be sure, at Melton the stables were fuller, and their pedigrees longer; but I do not think their legs were shorter, or their work harder, than in my ovm. maternal county. There a provincial (for Melton is full of provincials, only they do not acknowledge it) admired me and bought me. He took me into Gloucestershu'e. Stone walls ! a colt might jump them. No ditches, no water; pace and power were the things that did it, and I had both. Two years did I spend my winter between Glou- cestershire and Oxfordshire — Mr. Drake, Mr. Moreton, Lord Radnor, and Jem Hill. I speak with respect of the latter biped — he once rode me. A better hand, a better seat, I never knew ; but I firmly believe he tried as hard to break my neck as I did to break his. From cover to cover, from fence to fence, he rode as hard as he could ride, until, perfectly tired out with riding after nothing, I breasted a five-foot wall, and got rid of my oppressor. "We were neither of us hurt, but LIFE OF A HUNTER. 303 it quieted him for the day. I hate unnecessary trouble, though I have jumped as high and as broad as any horse after hounds. There is a county which I neglected to men- tion : I was taken into it after the best years of my life had been spent in higher service — I mean Essex. The young and fast of our race affect to despise it ; to me it brings the pleasantest reminiscences. But of all the countries through which I have been ridden, none is more difficult. The young and the fast came there from Tilbury Fort : did they succeed ? They galloped through one field, and fell into the next ; and a very good laugh we quiet ones had over them. Did Lord Petre, Tuffnell, Tower, Neave, Conyers, Newman, ask for the young and fast ones ? No : they wanted the staid and the steady, such as I had become. Oh ! how those cat-legged impostors, with nothing but their bang-tails to recommend them, used to stick in the plough, and tumble over the fences ! In my days we wanted stamina as well as pace — bone as well as blood ; and the finest hunter that ever crossed a Northampton- shire bullfinch or topped a Gloucestershire wall, would find it no easy matter to go on and off an 304 ROAD-SIDE SCRAPINGS. Essex bank. Age and action have their place : and though a bold young un is the thing for the midland counties, nothing but a bold old un can go in Essex. And now let me recount what might be consi- dered the positive step downwards which I was compelled at last to take. Six years passed over my head in the manner I have related — hunting in the winter, and recruiting in the summer always, more or less, the pet of the stable, mentioned earlier my failing — a tendency to curbs. Blistering of various degrees had been tried — to good purpose for a time, to no purpose eventually. I was in Oxfordshire when what I am about to relate took place. A long frost was followed by a hard day from Bicester Windmill. The ground was deep and sticky, and I was certainly not quite in such good condition for going as I might have been. I was left to the mercies of a drunken gi'oom, to be brought home at a foot's pace. We were scarcely out of Bicester before we were overtaken by an old acquaintance of mine, carrying a boy, young in years, but as old as my own rider in vice and im- pudence. Every public-house on the road was LIFE OF A HUNTER. 305 visited ; and an impertinent quarrel about the merits of their respective horses, as they called us, ended in a challenge to ride us across half-a-dozen fields for fiv