Chapter VIII: Cub-Hunting

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THOUGH his lordship, as we said before, would stoutly deny being
old, he had nevertheless got sufficiently through the morning of
life not to let cub-hunting get him out of bed a moment sooner
than usual, and it was twelve o’clock on the next day but one to
that on which the foregoing conversation took place, that Mr.
Boggledike was again to be seen standing erect in his stirrups,
yoiking and coaxing his hounds into Crashington Gorse. There was
Dicky, cap-in-hand, in the Micentre ride, exhorting the young
hounds to dive into the strong sea of gorse. “_Y-o-o-icks! wind
him! y-o-o-icks! pash him up!_” cheered the veteran, now turning
his horse across to enforce the request. There was his lordship
at the high corner as usual, ensconced among the clump of
weather-beaten blackthorns—thorns that had neither advanced nor
receded a single inch since he first knew them,—his eagle eye
fixed on the narrow fern and coarse grass-covered dell down which
Reynard generally stole. There was Harry Swan at one corner to
head the fox back from the beans, and Tom Speed at the other to
welcome him away over the corn-garnered open. And now the whimper
of old sure-finding Harbinger, backed by the sharp “yap” of the
terrier, proclaims that our friend is at home, and presently a
perfect hurricane of melody bursts from the agitated gorse,—every
hound is in the paroxysm of excitement, and there are
five-and-twenty couple of them, fifty musicians in the whole!

“_Tally-ho!_ there he goes across the ride!”

“_Cub!_” cries his lordship.

“_Cub!_” responded Dicky.

“_Crack!_” sounds the whip.

Now the whole infuriated phalanx dashed across the ride and dived
into the close prickly gorse on the other side as if it were the
softest, pleasantest quarters in the world. There is no occasion
to coax, and exhort, and ride cap-in-hand to them now. It’s all
fury and commotion. Each hound seems to consider himself
personally aggrieved,—though we will be bound to say the fox and
he never met in their lives,—and to be bent upon having immediate
satisfaction. And immediate, any tyro would think it must
necessarily be, seeing such preponderating influence brought to
bear upon so small an animal. Not so, however: pug holds his own;
and, by dint of creeping, and crawling, and stopping, and
listening, and lying down, and running his foil, he brings the
lately rushing, clamorous pack to a more plodding, pains-taking,
unravelling sort of performance.

Meanwhile three foxes in succession slip away, one at Speed’s
corner, two at Swan’s; and though Speed screeched, and screamed,
and yelled, as if he were getting killed, not a hound came to see
what had happened. They all stuck to the original scent.

“Here he comes again!” now cries his lordship from his
thorn-formed bower, as the cool-mannered fox again steals across
the ride, and Dicky again uncovers, and goes through the capping
ceremony. Over come the pack, bristling and lashing for
blood—each hound looking as if he would eat the fox
single-handed. Now he’s up to the high corner as though he were
going to charge his lordship himself, and passing over fresh
ground the hounds get the benefit of a scent, and work with
redoubled energy, making the opener gorse bushes crack and bend
with their pressure. Pug has now gained the rabbit-burrowed bank
of the north fence, and has about made up his mind to follow the
example of his comrades, and try his luck in the open, when a
cannonading crack of Swan’s whip strikes terror into his heart,
and causes him to turn tail, and run the moss-grown mound of the
hedge. Here he unexpectedly meets young Prodigal face to face,
who, thinking that rabbit may be as good eating as fox, has got
up a little hunt of his own, and who is considerably put out of
countenance by the _rencontre_; but pug, not anticipating any
such delicacy on the part of a pursuer, turns tail, and is very
soon in the rear of the hounds, hunting them instead of their
hunting him. The thing then becomes more difficult, businesslike,
and sedate—the sages of the pack taking upon them to guide the
energy of the young. So what with the slow music of the hounds,
the yap, yap, yapping of the terriers, and the shaking of the
gorse, an invisible underground sort of hunt is maintained—his
lordship sitting among his blackthorn bushes like a gentleman in
his opera-stall, thinking now of the hunt, now of his dinner, now
of what a good thing it was to be a lord, with a good digestion
and plenty of cash, and nobody to comb his head.

At length pug finds it too hot to hold him. The rays of an
autumnal sun have long been striking into the gorse, while a warm
westerly wind does little to ventilate it from the steam of the
rummaging inquisitive pack. Though but a cub, he is the son of an
old stager, who took Dicky and his lordship a deal of killing,
and with the talent of his sire, he thus ruminates on his
uncomfortable condition.

“If,” says he, “I stay here, I shall either be smothered or fall
a prey to these noisy unrelenting monsters, who seem to have the
knack of finding me wherever I go. I’d better cut my stick as I
did the time before, and have fresh air and exercise at all
events, in the open:” so saying he made a dash at the hedge near
where Swan was stationed, and regardless of his screams and the
cracks of his whip, cut through the beans and went away, with a
sort of defiant whisk of his brush.

What a commotion followed his departure! How the screeches of the
men mingled with the screams of the hounds and the twangs of the
horn! In an instant his lordship vacates his opera-stall and is
flying over the ragged boundary fence that separates him from the
beans; while Mr. Boggledike capers and prances at a much smaller
place, looking as if he would fain turn away were it not for the
observation of the men. Now Dicky is over! Swan and Speed take it
in their stride, just as the last hound leaves the gorse and
strains to regain his distant companions. A large grass field,
followed by a rough bare fallow, takes the remaining strength out
of poor pug; and, turning short to the left, he seeks the
friendless shelter of a patch of wretched oats. The hounds
overrun the scent, but, spreading like a rocket, they quickly
recover it; and in an instant, fox, hounds, horses, men, are
among the standing corn,—one ring in final destruction of the
beggarly crop, and poor pug is in the hands of his pursuers. Then
came the grand _finale_, the _who hoop!_ the baying, the blowing,
the beheading, &c. Now Harry Swan, whose province it is to
magnify sport and make imaginary runs to ground, exercises his
calling, by declaring it was five-and-thirty minutes (twenty
perhaps), and the finest young fox he ever had hold of. Now his
lordship and Dicky take out their _tootlers_ and blow a shrill
reverberating blast; while Swan stands straddling and yelling,
with the mangled remains high above his head, ready to throw it
into the sea of mouths that are baying around to receive it.
After a sufficiency of noise, up goes the carcase; the wave of
hounds breaks against it as it falls, while a half-ravenous,
half-indignant, growling worry succeeds the late clamourous
outcry.

“Tear ‘im and eat ‘im!” cries Dicky.

“Tear ‘im and eat ‘im!” shouts his lordship.

“Tear ‘im and eat ‘im!” shrieks Speed.

“_Hie worry! worry! worry!_” shouts Swan, trying to tantalize the
young hounds with a haunch, which, however, they do not seem much
to care about.

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The old hounds, too, seem as if they had lost their hunger with
their anger; and Marmion lets Warrior run off with his leg with
only a snap and an indignant rise of his bristles.

Altogether the froth and effervescence of the thing has
evaporated; so his lordship and Dicky turning their horses’
heads, the watchful hounds give a bay of obedient delight as they
frolic under their noses; and Swan having reclaimed his horse
from Speed, the onward procession is formed to give Brambleton
Wood a rattle by way of closing the performance of the day.

His lordship and Dicky ride side by side, extolling the merits of
the pack and the excellence of Crashington Gorse. Never was so
good a cover. Never was a better pack. Mainchance’s! _pooh!_ Not
to be mentioned in the same century. So they proceed, magnifying
and complimenting themselves in the handsomest terms possible,
down Daisyfield lane, across Hill House pastures, and on by
Duston Mills to Broomley, which is close to Brambleton Wood.

Most of our Featherbedfordshire friends will remember that after
leaving Duston Mills the roads wind along the impetuous Lime,
whose thorn and broom-grown banks offer dry, if not very secure,
accommodation for master Reynard; and the draw being pretty, and
the echo fine, his lordship thought they might as well run the
hounds along the banks, not being aware that Peter Hitter, Squire
Porker’s keeper, had just emerged at the east end as they came up
at the west. However, that was neither here nor there, Dicky got
his _Y-o-o-icks_, his lordship got his view, Swan and Speed their
cracks and canters, and it was all in the day’s work. No fox, of
course, was the result. “_Tweet, tweet, tweet_,” went the horns,
his lordship taking a blow as well as Dicky, which sounded up the
valley and lost itself among the distant hills. The hounds came
straggling leisurely out of cover, as much as to say, “You know
there never _is_ a fox there, so why bother us?”

All hands being again united, the cavalcade rose the hill, and
were presently on the Longford and Aldenbury turnpike. Here the
Featherbedfordshire reader’s local knowledge will again remind
him that the Chaddleworth lane crosses the turnpike at right
angles, and just as old Ringwood, who, as usual, was trotting
consequentially in advance of the pack, with the fox’s head in
his mouth, got to the finger-post, a fair equestrian on a tall
blood bay rode leisurely past with downcast eyes in full view of
the advancing party. Though her horse whinnied and shied, and
seemed inclined to be sociable, she took no more notice of the
cause than if it had been a cart, merely coaxing and patting him
with her delicate primrose-coloured kid gloves. So she got him
past without even a sidelong look from herself.

But though she did not look my lord did, and was much struck with
the air and elegance of everything—her mild classic features—her
black-felt, Queen’s-patterned, wide-awake, trimmed with
lightish-green velvet, and green cock-feathered plume, tipped
with straw-colour to match the ribbon that now gently fluttered
at her fair neck,—her hair, her whip, her gloves, her _tout
ensemble_. Her lightish-green habit was the quintessence of a
fit, and altogether there was a high-bred finish about her that
looked more like Hyde Park than what one usually sees in the
country.

“Who the deuce is that, Dicky?” asked his lordship, as she now
got out of hearing.

“That be _her_, my lord,” whispered Dicky, sawing away at his
hat. “That be _her_,” repeated he with a knowing leer.

“_Her!_ who d’ye mean?” asked his lordship, who had forgotten all
Dicky’s preamble.

“Well,—Miss—Miss—What’s her name—Dedancev, Dedancey,—the lady I
told you about.”

And the Earl’s heart smote him, for he felt that he had done
injustice to Dicky, and moreover, had persevered too long in his
admiration of large ladies, and in his repudiation of
horsemanship. He thought he had never seen such a graceful seat,
or such a piece of symmetrical elegance before, and inwardly
resolved to make Dicky a most surprising present at Christmas,
for he went on the principle of giving low wages, and of
rewarding zeal and discretion, such as Dicky’s, profusely. And
though he went and drew Brambleton Wood, he was thinking far more
of the fair maid, her pensive, downcast look, her long eyelashes,
her light silken hair, her graceful figure, and exquisite seat,
than of finding a fox; and he was not at all sorry when he heard
Dicky’s horn at the bridle-gate at the Ashburne end blowing the
hounds out of cover. They then went home, and his lordship was
very grumpy all that evening with his fat fair-and-forty friend,
Mrs. Moffatt, who could not get his tea to his liking at all.

We dare say most of our readers will agree with us, that when a
couple want to be acquainted there is seldom much difficulty
about the matter, even though there be no friendly go-between to
mutter the cabalistic words that constitute an introduction; and
though Miss de Glancey did ride so unconcernedly past, it was a
sheer piece of acting, as she had long been waiting at Carlton
Clumps, which commands a view over the surrounding country,
timing herself for the exact spot where she met the too
susceptible Earl and his hounds.

No one knew better how to angle for admiration than this renowned
young lady,—when to do the bold—when the bashful—when the
timid—when the scornful and retiring, and she rightly calculated
that the way to attract and win the young old Earl was to look as
if she didn’t want to have anything to say to him. Her downcast
look, and utter indifference to that fertile source of
introduction, a pack of hounds, had sunk deeper into his tender
heart than if she had pulled up to admire them collectively, and
to kiss them individually. We all know how useful a dog can be
made in matters of this sort—how the fair creatures can express
their feelings by their fondness. And if one dog can be so
convenient, by how much more so can a whole pack of hounds be
made!