Chapter XVI: The Major’s Menage

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AND first about the “haryers!”

“Five-and-thirty years master of haryers without a subscription!”

This, we think, is rather an exaggeration, both as regards time
and money, unless the Major reckons an undivided moiety he had in
an old lady-hound called “Lavender” along with the village
blacksmith of Billinghurst when he was at school. If he so
calculates, then he would be right as to time, but wrong as to
money, for the blacksmith paid his share of the tax, and found
the greater part of the food. For thirty years, we need hardly
tell the reader of sporting literature, that the Major had been a
master of harriers—for well has he blown the horn of their
celebrity during the whole of that long period—never were such
harriers for finding jack hares, and pushing them through
parishes innumerable, making them take rivers, and run as
straight as railways, putting the costly performances of the
foxhounds altogether to the blush. Ten miles from point to point,
and generally without a turn, is the usual style of thing, the
last run with this distinguished pack being always unsurpassed by
any previous performance. Season after season has the sporting
world been startled with these surprising announcements, until
red-coated men, tired of blanks and ringing foxes, have almost
said, “Dash my buttons, if I won’t shut up shop here and go and
hunt with these tremendous harriers,” while other currant-jelly
gentlemen, whose hares dance the fandango before their plodding
pack, have sighed for some of these wonderful “Jacks” that never
make a curve, or some of the astonishing hounds that have such a
knack at making them fly.

Well, but the reader will, perhaps, say it’s the blood that does
it—the Major has an unrivalled, unequalled strain of harrier
blood that nobody else can procure. Nothing of the sort! Nothing
of the sort! The Major’s blood is just anything he can get. He
never misses a chance of selling either a single hound or a pack,
and has emptied his kennel over and over again. But then he
always knows where to lay hands on more; and as soon as ever the
new hounds cross his threshold they become the very “best in the
world”—better than any he ever had before. They then figure upon
paper, just as if it was a continuous pack; and the field being
under pretty good command, and, moreover, implicated in the
honour of their performances, the thing goes on smoothly and
well, and few are any the wiser. There is nothing so popular as a
little fuss and excitement, in which every man may take his
share, and this it is that makes scratch packs so celebrated.
Their followers see nothing but their perfections. They are

“To their faults a little blind, And to their virtues ever kind.”

At the period of which we are writing, the Major’s pack was
rather better than usual, being composed of the pick of three
packs,—“cries of dogs” rather—viz., the Corkycove harriers, kept
by the shoemakers of Waxley; the Bog-trotter harriers (four
couple), kept by some moor-edge miners; the Dribbleford dogs,
upon whom nobody would pay the tax; and of some two or three
couple of incurables, that had been consigned from different
kennels on condition of the Major returning the hampers in which
they came.

The Major was open to general consignments in the canine
line—Hounds, Pointers, Setters, Terriers, &c.—not being of George
the Third’s way of thinking, who used to denounce all “presents
that eat.” He would take anything; anything, at least, except a
Greyhound, an animal that he held in mortal abhorrence. What he
liked best was to get a Lurcher, for which he soon found a place
under a pear-tree.

The Major’s huntsman, old Solomon, was coachman, shepherd, groom,
and gamekeeper, as well as huntsman, and was the cockaded
gentleman who drove the ark on the occasion of our introduction.
In addition to all this, he waited at table on grand occasions,
and did a little fishing, hay-making, and gardening in the
summer. He was one of the old-fashioned breed of servants, now
nearly extinct, who passed their lives in one family and turned
their hands to whatever was wanted. The Major, whose maxim was
not to keep any cats that didn’t catch mice, knowing full well
that all gentlemen’s servants can do double the work of their
places, provided they only get paid for it, resolved, that it was
cheaper to pay one man the wages of one-and-a-half to do the work
of two men, than to keep two men to do the same quantity;
consequently, there was very little hissing at bits and
curb-chains in the Major’s establishment, the hard work of other
places being the light work, or no work at all, of his. Solomon
was the _beau idéal_ of a harrier huntsman, being, as the French
say, _d’un certain age_, quiet, patient, and a pusillanimous
rider.

Now about the subscription.

It is true that the Major did not take a subscription in the
common acceptation of the term, but he took assistance in various
ways, such as a few days ploughing from one man, a few “bowels”
of seed-wheat from another, a few “bowels” of seed-oats from a
third, a lamb from a fourth, a pig from a fifth, added to which,
he had all the hounds walked during the summer, so that his
actual expenses were very little more than the tax. This he
jockeyed by only returning about two-thirds the number of hounds
he kept; and as twelve couple were his hunting maximum, his
taxing minimum would be about eight—eight couple—or sixteen
hounds, at twelve shillings a-piece, is nine pound twelve, for
which sum he made more noise in the papers than the Quorn, the
Belvoir, and the Cottesmore all put together. Indeed the old
adage of “great cry and little wool,” applies to packs as well as
flocks, for we never see hounds making a great “to-do” in the
papers without suspecting that they are either good for nothing,
or that the fortunate owner wants to sell them.

With regard to horses, the Major, like many people, had but one
sort—the best in England—though they were divided into two
classes, viz., hunters and draught horses. Hacks or carriage
horses he utterly eschewed. Horses must either hunt or plough
with him; nor was he above putting his hunters into the harrows
occasionally. Hence he always had a pair of efficient horses for
his carriage when he wanted them, instead of animals that were
fit to jump out of their skins at starting, and ready to slip
through them on coming home.

Clothing he utterly repudiated for carriage horses, alleging,
that people never get any work out of them after they are once
clothed.

The hunters were mostly sedate, elderly animals, horses that had
got through the “morning of life” with the foxhounds, and came to
the harriers in preference to harness. The Major was always a
buyer or an exchanger, or a mixer of both, and would generally
“advance a little” on the neighbouring job-master’s prices. Then
having got them, he recruited the veterans by care and crushed
corn, which, with cutting their tails, so altered them, that
sometimes their late groom scarcely knew them again.

Certainly, if the animals could have spoken, they would have
expressed their surprise at the different language the Major held
as a buyer and as a seller; as a buyer, when like Gil Blas’ mule,
he made them out to be all faults, as a seller when they suddenly
seemed to become paragons of perfection. He was always ready for
a deal, and would accommodate matters to people’s
convenience—take part cash, part corn, part hay, part anything,
for he was a most miscellaneous barterer, and his stable loft was
like a Marine Store-dealer’s shop. Though always boasting that
his little white hands were not “soiled with trade,” he would
traffic in anything (on the sly) by which he thought he could
turn a penny. His last effort in the buying way had nearly got
him into the County Court, as the following correspondence will
show, as also how differently two people can view the same thing.

Being in town, with wheat at 80s. and barley and oats in
proportion, and consequently more plethoric in the pocket than
usual, he happened to stray into a certain great furniture mart
where two chairs struck him as being cheap. They were standing
together, and one of them was thus ticketed:

No. 8205.

2 Elizabethan chairs.

India Japanned.

43 s.

The Major took a good stare at them, never having seen any
before. Well, he thought they could not be dear at that; little
more than a guinea each. Get them home for fifty shillings, say.
There was a deal of gold, and lacker, and varnish about them.
Coloured bunches of flowers, inlaid with mother of pearl, Chinese
temples, with “insolent pig-tailed barbarians,” in pink silk
jackets, with baggy blue trowsers, and gig whips in their hands,
looking after the purple ducks on the pea-grcen lake—all very
elegant.

He’d have them, dashed if he wouldn’t! Would try and swap them
for Mrs. Rocket Larkspur’s Croydon basket-carriage that the girls
wanted. Just the things to tickle her fancy. So he went into the
office and gave his card most consequentially, with a reference
to Pannell, the sadler in Spur Street, Leicestor-square, desiring
that the chairs might be most carefully packed and forwarded to
him by the goods train with an invoice by post.

When the invoice came, behold! the 43s. had changed into 86s.

“Hilloa!” exclaimed the astonished Major. This won’t do! 86s. is
twice 43s.; and he wrote off to say they had made a mistake. This
brought the secretary of the concern, Mr. Badbill, on to the
scene. He replied beneath a copious shower of arms, orders,
flourish, and flannel, that the mistake was the Major’s—that
they, “never marked their goods in pairs,” to which the Major
rejoined, that they had in this instance, as the ticket which he
forwarded to Pannell for Badbill’s inspection showed, and that he
must decline the chairs at double the price they were ticketed
for.

Badbill, having duly inspected the ticket, retorted that he was
surprised at the Major’s stupidity, that two meant one, in fact,
all the world over.

The Major rejoined, that he didn’t know what the Reform Bill
might have done, but that two didn’t mean one when he was at
school; and added, that as he declined the chairs at 86s. they
were at Badhill’s service for sending for.

Badbill wrote in reply—

“_We really cannot understand how it is possible, for any one to
make out that a ticket on an article includes the other that may
stand next it. Certainly the ticket you allude to referred only
to the chair on which it was placed_.”

And in a subsequent letter he claimed to have the chairs repacked
at the Major’s expense, as it was very unfair saddling them with
the loss arising entirely from the Major’s mistake.

To which our gallant friend rejoined, “that as he would neither
admit that the mistake was his, nor submit to the imputation of
unfairness, he would stick to the chairs at the price they were
ticketed at.”

Badbill then wrote that this declaration surprised them much—that
they did not for a moment think he “intentionally misunderstood
the ticket as referring to a pair of chairs, whereas it only gave
the price of one chair,” and again begged to have them back; to
which the Major inwardly responded, he “wished they might get
them,” and sent them an order for the 43s.

This was returned with expressions of surprise, that after the
explanation given, the Major should persevere in the same “course
of error,” and hoped that he would, without further delay, favour
the Co. with the right amount, for which Badbill said they
“anxiously waited,” and for which the Major inwardly said, they
“might wait.”

In due time came a lithographed circular, more imposingly
flourished and flanneled than ever, stating the terms of the firm
were “cash on delivery;” and that unless the Major remitted
without further delay, he would be handed over to their
solicitor, &c.; with an intimation at the bottom, that that was
the “third application”—of which our gallant friend took no
notice.

Next came a written,

“Sir,

“_I am desired by this firm to inform you, that unless we hear
from you by return of post respecting the payment of our account,
we shall place the matter in the hands of our solicitors without
further notice, and regret you should have occasioned us so much
trouble through your own misunderstanding_.”

Then came the climax. The Major’s solicitor went, ticket in hand,
and tendered the 43s., when the late bullying Badbill was obliged
to write as follows:—

“_It appears you are quite correct rejecting the ticket, and we
are in error. Our ticketing clerk had placed the figure in the
wrong part of the card, the figure ‘two’ referring to the number
of chairs in stock, and not as understood to signifying chairs
for 43s.;_” and Badbill humorously concluded by expressing a hope
that the Major would return the chairs and continue his
custom—two very unlikely events, as we dare say the reader will
think, to happen.

Such, then, was the knowing gentleman who now sought the company
of Fine Billy; and considering that he is to be besieged on both
sides, we hope to be excused for having gone a little into his
host and hostess’ pedigree and performances.

The Major wrote Billy a well-considered note, saying, that when
he could spare a few days from his lordship and the foxhounds, it
would afford Mrs. Yammerton and himself great pleasure if he
would come and pay them a visit at Yammerton Grange, and the
Major would be happy to mount him, and keep his best country for
him, and show him all the sport in his power, adding, that they
had been having some most marvellous runs lately—better than any
he ever remembered.

Now, independently of our friend Billy having pondered a good
deal on the beauty of the young lady’s eyes, he could well spare
a few days from the foxhounds, for his lordship, being quite de
Glancey-cured, and wishing to get rid of him, had had him out
again, and put him on to a more fractious horse than before, who
after giving him a most indefinite shaking, had finally shot him
over his head.

The Earl was delighted, therefore, when he heard of the Major’s
invitation, and after expressing great regret at the idea of
losing our Billy, begged he would “come back whenever it suited
him:” well knowing that if he once got him out of the house, he
would be very sly if he got in again. And so Billy, who never
answered Mamma’s repeated inquiries if there were any “Miss H’s”
engaged himself to Yammerton Grange, whither the reader will now
perhaps have the kindness to accompany him.