Is hardly to be denied by anybody in this land of fast bursts andgallant M. F. H.'s, whether they "ride to hunt," or "hunt to ride," inthe immortal distinction of Assheton Smith's old whip; the latter class,by the bye, becoming far and away the larger, in these days of rattlinggallops and desperate breathers. Who cares to patter after a sly old dogfox, that, fat and wary, leads the pack a tedious, interminable wind,in and out through gorse and spinney, bricks himself up in a drain, andtakes an hour to be dug out, dodges about till twilight, and makesthe hounds pick the scent slowly and wretchedly over marsh and throughwater? Who would not give fifty guineas a second for the glorious thirtyminutes of racing that show steam and steel over fence and fallow in aclipping rush, without a check from find to finish? So be it ever! Theriding that graces the Shires, that makes Tedworth and Pytchley, theDuke's and the Fitzwilliam's, household words and "names beloved"--thatfills Melton and Market Harborough, and makes the best flirts of theballroom gallop fifteen miles to covert, careless of hail or rain, mireor slush, mist or cold, so long as it is a fine scenting wind--isthe same riding that sent the Six Hundred down in to the blaze of theMuscovite guns; that in our fathers' days gave to Grant's Hussars theirswoop, like eagles, on to the rearguard at Morales, and that, in thegrand old East and the rich trackless West, makes exiled campaignerswith high English names seek and win an aristeia of their own at thehead of their wild Irregular Horse, who would charge hell itself attheir bidding.
Now in all the service there was not a man who loved hunting better thanBertie. Though he was incorrigibly lazy, and inconceivably effeminate inevery one of his habits; though he suggested a portable lounging-chairas an improvement at battues, so that you might shoot sitting; drove toevery breakfast and garden party in the season in his brougham with theblinds down lest a grain of dust should touch him; thought a waltz tooexhaustive, and a saunter down Pall Mall too tiring, and asked tohave the end of a novel told him in the clubs, because it was too muchtrouble to read on a warm day; though he was more indolent than anyspoiled Creole--"Beauty" never failed to head the first flight, andadored a hard day cross country, with an east wind in his eyes and thesleet in his teeth. The only trouble was to make him get up in time forit.
"Mr. Cecil, sir; if you please, the drag will be round in ten minutes,"said Rake, with a dash of desperation for the seventh time into hischamber, one fine scenting morning.
"I don't please," answered Cecil sleepily, finishing his cup of coffee,and reading a novel of La Demirep's.
"The other gentlemen are all down, sir, and you will be too late."
"Not a bit. They must wait for me," yawned Bertie.
Crash came the Seraph's thunder on the panels of the door, and a strongvolume of Turkish through the keyhole: "Beauty, Beauty, are you dead?"
"Now, what an inconsequent question!" expostulated Cecil, with appealingrebuke. "If a fellow were dead, how the devil could he say he was? Do belogical, Seraph."
"Get up!" cried the Seraph with a deafening rataplan, and a final dashof his colossal stature into the chamber. "We've all done breakfast; thetraps are coming round; you'll be an hour behind time at the meet."
Bertie lifted his eyes with plaintive resignation from the Demirep'syellow-papered romance.
"I'm really in an interesting chapter: Aglae has just had a marquis killhis son, and two brothers kill each other in the Bois, about her, andis on the point of discovering a man she's in love with to be her owngrandfather; the complication is absolutely thrilling," murmured Beauty,whom nothing could ever "thrill"--not even plunging down the Matterhorn,losing "long odds in thou'" over the Oaks, or being sunned in the eyesof the fairest woman of Europe.
The Seraph laughed, and tossed the volume straight to the other end ofthe chamber.
"Confound you, Beauty; get up!"
"Never swear, Seraph; not ever so mildly," yawned Cecil, "it's gone out,you know; only the cads and the clergy can damn one nowadays; it'ssuch bad style to be so impulsive. Look! You have broken the back of myDemirep!"
"You deserve to break the King's back over the first cropper," laughedthe Seraph. "Do get up!"
"Bother!" sighed the victim, raising himself with reluctance, while theSeraph disappeared in a cloud of Turkish.
Neither Bertie's indolence nor his insouciance was assumed; uttercarelessness was his nature, utter impassability was his habit, and hewas truly for the moment loath to leave his bed, his coffee, and hisnovel; he must have his leg over the saddle, and feel the strain on hisarms of that "pulling" pace with which the King always went when once hesettled into his stride, before he would really think about winning.
The hunting breakfasts of our forefathers and of our present squiresfound no favor with Bertie; a slice of game and a glass of Curacoa wereall he kept the drag waiting to swallow; and the four bays going ata pelting pace, he and the rest of the Household who were gathered atRoyallieu were by good luck in time for the throw-off of the Quorn,where the hero o' the Blue Ribbon was dancing impatiently under Willon'shand, scenting the fresh, keen, sunny air, and knowing as well what allthose bits of scarlet straying in through field and lane, gate andgap, meant, as well as though the merry notes of the master's horn werewinding over the gorse. The meet was brilliant and very large; showingsuch a gathering as only the Melton country can; and foremost among thecrowd of carriages, hacks, and hunters, were the beautiful roan mareVivandiere of the Lady Guenevere, mounted by that exquisite peeress inher violet habit and her tiny velvet hat; and the pony equipage of theZu-Zu, all glittering with azure and silver, leopard rugs, and snowyreins: the breadth of half an acre of grassland was between them, butthe groups of men about them were tolerably equal for number and forrank.
"Take Zu-Zu off my hands for this morning, Seraph; there's a goodfellow," murmured Cecil, as he swung himself into saddle. The Seraphgave a leonine growl, sighed, and acquiesced. He detested women in thehunting-field, but that sweetest tempered giant of the Brigades neverrefused anything to anybody--much less to "Beauty."
To an uninitiated mind it would have seemed marvelous and beautiful inits combination of simplicity and intricacy, to have noted thedelicate tactics with which Bertie conducted himself between histwo claimants--bending to his Countess with a reverent devotion thatassuaged whatever of incensed perception of her unacknowledged rivalmight be silently lurking in her proud heart; wheeling up to thepony-trap under cover of speaking to the men from Egerton Lodge, andrestoring the Zu-Zu from sulkiness, by a propitiatory offer of a littlegold sherry-flash, studded with turquoises, just ordered for her fromRegent Street, which, however, she ungraciously contemned, because shethought it had only cost twenty guineas; anchoring the victimized Seraphbeside her by an adroit "Ah! by the way, Rock, give Zu-Zu one of yourrose-scented papelitos; she's been wild to smoke them"; and leaving theZu-Zu content at securing a future Duke, was free to canter back andflirt on the offside of Vivandiere, till the "signal," the "cast,"made with consummate craft, the waving of the white sterns among thebrushwood, the tightening of girths, the throwing away of cigars, thechallenge, the whimper, and the "stole away!" sent the field headlongdown the course after as fine a long-legged greyhound fox as evercarried a brush.
Away he went in a rattling spin, breaking straight at once for the open,the hounds on the scent like mad: with a tally-ho that thundered throughthe cloudless, crisp, cold, glittering noon, the field dashed offpell-mell; the violet habit of her ladyship, and the azure skirts of theZu-Zu foremost of all in the rush through the spinneys while Cecilon the King, and the Seraph on a magnificent white weight-carrier, asthoroughbred and colossal as himself, led the way with them. The scentwas hot as death in the spinneys, and the pack raced till nothing buta good one could live with them; few but good ones, however, were tobe found with the Quorn, and the field held together superbly over thefirst fence, and on across the grassland, the game old fox giving nosign of going to covert, but running straight as a crow flies, while thepace grew terrific.
"Beats cock-fighting!" cried the Zu-Zu, while he
r blue skirts flutteredin the wind, as she lifted Cecil's brown mare, very cleverly, overa bilberry hedge, and set her little white teeth with a will on theSeraph's attar-of-rose cigarette. Lady Guenevere heard the words asVivandiere rose in the air with the light bound of a roe, and a slightsuperb dash of scorn came into her haughty eyes for the moment; shenever seemed to know that "that person" in the azure habit even existed,but the contempt awoke in her, and shone in her glance, while she rodeon as that fair leader of the Belvoir and Pytchley alone could ride overthe fallows.
The steam was on at full pressure, the hounds held close to hisbrush,--heads up, sterns down,--running still straight as an arrow overthe open, past coppice and covert, through gorse and spinney, without asign of the fox making for shelter. Fence and double, hedge and brook,soon scattered the field; straying off far and wide, and coming to griefwith lots of "downers," it grew select, and few but the crack men couldkeep the hounds in view. "Catch 'em who can," was the one mot d'ordre,for they were literally racing; the line-hunters never losing the scenta second, as the fox, taking to dodging, made all the trouble he couldfor them through the rides of the woods. Their working was magnificent,and, heading him, they ran him round and round in a ring, viewed him fora second, and drove him out of covert once more into the pastures, whilethey laid on at a hotter scent and flew after him like staghounds.
Only half a dozen were up with them now; the pace was tremendous, thoughall over grass; here a flight of posts and rails tried the muscle ofthe boldest; there a bullfinch yawned behind the blackthorn; here a bigfence towered; there a brook rushed angrily among its rushes; while thekeen, easterly wind blew over the meadows, and the pack streamedalong like the white trail of a plume. Cecil "showed the way" with theself-same stride and the self-same fencing as had won him the Vase. LadyGuenevere and the Seraph were running almost even with him; three of theHousehold farther down; the Zu-Zu and some Melton men two meadows off;the rest of the field, nowhere. Fifty-two minutes had gone by in thatsplendid running, without a single check, while the fox raced as gamelyand as fast as at the find; the speed was like lightning past the brownwoods, the dark-green pine plantations, the hedges, bright with scarletberries; through the green low-lying grasslands, and the winding drivesof coverts, and the boles of ash-hued beech trunks, whose roots theviolets were just purpling with their blossom; while far away stretchedthe blue haze of the distance, and above-head a flight of rooks cawedmerrily in the bright air, soon left far off as the pack swept onward inthe most brilliant thing of the hunting year.
"Water! Take care!" cried Cecil, with a warning wave of his hand asthe hounds, with a splash like a torrent, dashed up to their necks ina broad, brawling brook that Reynard had swam in first-rate style, andstruggled as best they could after him. It was an awkward bit, withbad taking-off and a villainous mud-bank for landing; and the water,thickened and swollen with recent rains, had made all the land thatsloped to it miry and soft as sponge. It was the risk of life and limbto try it; but all who still viewed the hounds, catching Bertie's shoutof warning, worked their horses up for it, and charged toward it ashotly as troops charge a square. Forest King was over like a bird;the winner of the Grand Military was not to be daunted by all thepuny streams of the Shires; the artistic riding of the Countess landedVivandiere, with a beautiful clear spring, after him by a couple oflengths: the Seraph's handsome white hunter, brought up at a headlonggallop with characteristic careless dash and fine science mingled,cleared it; but, falling with a mighty crash, gave him a purler on theopposite side, and was within an inch of striking him dead with his hoofin frantic struggles to recover. The Seraph, however, was on his legswith a rapidity marvelous in a six-foot-three son of Anak, picked upthe horse, threw himself into saddle, and dashed off again quickas lightning, with his scarlet stained all over, and his long fairmustaches floating in the wind. The Zu-Zu turned Mother of Pearl backwith a fiery French oath; she hated to be "cut down," but she likedstill less to risk her neck; and two of the Household were alreadytreated to "crackers" that disabled them for the day, while one Meltonman was pitched head foremost into the brook, and another was sittingdolorously on the bank with his horse's head in his lap, and the poorbrute's spine broken. There were only three of the first riders inEngland now alone with the hounds, who, with a cold scent as the fox ledthem through the angular corner of a thick pheasant covert, stuck likewax to the line, and working him out, viewed him once more, for onewild, breathless, tantalizing second; and through the straggling streetof a little hamlet, and got him out again on the level pasture andacross a fine line of hunting country, with the leafless woods and thelow gates of a park far away to their westward.
"A guinea to a shilling that we kill him," cried the flute-voice of herbrilliant ladyship, as she ran a moment side by side with Forest King,and flashed her rich eyes on his rider; she had scorned the Zu-Zu,but on occasion she would use betting slang and racing slang with thedaintiest grace in the world herself, without their polluting her lips.As though the old fox heard the wager, he swept in a bend round towardthe woods on the right; making, with all the craft and speed there werein him, for the deep shelter of the boxwood and laurel. "After him, mybeauties, my beauties--if he run there he'll go to ground and save hisbrush!" thundered the Seraph, as though he were hunting his own houndsat Lyonnesse, who knew every tone of his rich clarion notes as well asthey knew every wind of his horn. But the young ones of the pack sawReynard's move and his meaning as quickly as he did; having run fastbefore, they flew now; the pace was terrific. Two fences were crossed asthough they were paper; the meadows raced with lightning speed, a ha-haleaped, a gate cleared with a crashing jump, and in all the furiousexcitement of "view," they tore down the mile-long length of an avenue,dashed into a flower garden, and smashing through a gay trellis-work ofscarlet creeper, plunged into the home-paddock and killed with as louda shout ringing over the country in the bright, sunny day as ever wasechoed by the ringing cheers of the Shire; Cecil, the Seraph, and hervictorious ladyship alone coming in for the glories of the "finish."
"Never had a faster seventy minutes up-wind," said Lady Guenevere,looking at the tiny jeweled watch, the size of a sixpence, that wasset in the handle of her whip, as the brush, with all the complimentscustomary, was handed to her. She had won twenty before.
The park so unceremoniously entered belonged to a baronet, who, thoughhe hunted little himself, honored the sport and scorned a vulpecide, hecame out naturally and begged them to lunch. Lady Guenevere refused todismount, but consented to take a biscuit and a little Lafitte, whileclarets, liqueurs, and ales, with anything else they wanted, werebrought to her companions. The stragglers strayed in; the M. F. H. cameup just too late; the men, getting down, gathered about the Countess orlounged on the gray stone steps of the Elizabethan house. The sunshone brightly on the oriole casements, the antique gables, the twistedchimneys, all covered with crimson parasites and trailing ivy; thehorses, the scarlet, the pack in the paddock adjacent, the shrubberiesof laurel and araucaria, the sun-tinted terraces, made a bright andpicturesque grouping. Bertie, with his hand on Vivandiere's pommel,after taking a deep draught of sparkling Rhenish, looked on at it allwith a pleasant sigh of amusement.
"By Jove!" he murmured softly, with a contented smile about his lips,"that was a ringing run!"
At that very moment, as the words were spoken, a groom approached himhastily; his young brother, whom he had scarcely seen since the find,had been thrown and taken home on a hurdle; the injuries were rumored tobe serious.
Bertie's smile faded, he looked very grave; world-spoiled as hewas, reckless in everything, and egotist though he had long been byprofession, he loved the lad.