Chapter IX: The Cub-Hunting

The gong for breakfast sounded betimes at Hurdell Hall on the morning of the first day's cub-hunting, as an early hour is always most favourable for scent, and, as several guests were invited, an ample meal was spread in the great dining-room, the several bay windows of which overlooked the terrace and stately chase that spread far away beyond it.

Sir Harry and his sister were the first who appeared, and the latter looked round for the morning papers, but could see none.

Now, though the 'fair Lucretia,' as her friends frequently called her, cared nothing about the war in Egypt, she liked to read about the movements of 'the upper ten thousand'--their births, marriages, deaths, and so forth--to all of which she addressed herself first, as a City man does to the money article.

'Where are the papers, Harry?' she asked.

'I have ordered the butler to take them all away,' said he.

'Even the _Morning Post_?'

'Yes; even the _Post_.'

'Why?'

'Look here. I do not wish Lady Puddicombe to see _this_,' he replied, taking a newspaper from his pocket, and indicating a paragraph--another brief telegram from Egypt--which ran thus:

'The detachment of the Black Watch which was sent to Matarieh to make a demonstration against the Bedouins of Zeid-el-Ourdeh has been ordered back to head-quarters, and seems to have lost its other officer--a very distinguished one--Captain Allan Graham, the Hon. the Master of Aberfeldie, who is supposed to have fallen into some of the same butcherly hands amid which Professor Palmer and his companions perished.'

'Good heavens! _her_ brother!' exclaimed Miss Hurdell, actually changing colour.

'Yes; and it must be kept from her--to-day, at least,' said Sir Harry, concealing the fatal newspaper.

'Taken by the Bedouins--but she must learn it some time.'

'Well, I don't want her to learn it just now, poor girl, at all events. I can't make a mull of the arrangements for the day, and I don't want her to learn it here, if possible.'

'Why not here?'

'Certainly not from me.'

'Why not from _you_?'

'I hate to be imparter of evil news.'

'Oho,' said Miss Hurdell, elevating her eyebrows; 'sets the wind in that quarter?'

'What do you mean, Lucretia?'

'Well, that she is not the first married lady you have taken a tender interest in.'

'Lucretia!' exclaimed the baronet, in a tone of angry expostulation, as some of their gentlemen guests came noisily in, in Russell cords, top boots, and spurs, some in pink and some in black coats.

At that moment elsewhere were others who were more deeply and terribly interested in the startling tidings from Matarieh, flashed by the same electric wire.

Lord Aberfeldie was leisurely opening the _Times_, which Mr. Tappleton had duly cut and aired for him, with the other morning papers. His eyes ran rapidly over the columns for the last, news from Egypt, which seemed very tame now, as all the fighting and excitement were over; so Lady Aberfeldie was not watching him, as she used to do, with anxiety, and neither was Olive, who was already deep in the pages of the _Queen_, when an exclamation that escaped him made them both start.

'What is the matter?' cried Lady Aberfeldie. 'You look ill, dear.'

'Uncle, what do you see?' added Olive. 'Is anything wrong with--with----'

'Allan--yes.'

He was pale with a strange grey pallor, totally unlike his usually sunburned and healthy tint, and he looked dazed as his face sank forward on his breast.

'Our poor boy--our poor boy!'

'God help us, Aberfeldie! What is it?'

Olive snatched up the paper, and, after reading the paragraph we have copied, reeled into a chair. And now a great horror fell upon all the three, the mother's memory flashing back to the baby-boy that had crowed and smiled upon her knee, and whose first tottering efforts to cross the nursery floor she remembered yet.

Lord Aberfeldie, after recovering a little from the shock, telegraphed to the War-Office for further information, but could obtain none. They read the fatal paragraph again and again, till every word of it seemed to be burned into their brains, and could but indulge in endless surmises, and hope against hope; for had not the public prints been teeming with the harrowing details of the capture of Professor Palmer, Captain Gill, and Lieutenant Charrington, and of them being pitilessly slaughtered by the Bedouins of the Aligal tribe?

As Olive recalled all this, her blood grew cold with apprehension. The paragraph, though a terrible one, was frightfully vague. He was 'supposed to have fallen' into the hands of the Bedouins. At all events, his party had come into Grand Cairo _without him!_

She, like Lady Aberfeldie, could not realise it for a time. Alternately she sat like one stunned, and then walked up and down the room with her slender fingers interlaced tightly and clasped upon her head, as if she would thereby still the trouble that throbbed in her brain and repress her heavy sorrow.

In memory and imagination how often did she rehearse her angry parting scene with poor Allan and the last time she saw him--the forcible embrace of Hawke Holcroft; the latter's mocking love-making; the horror and loathing with which his touch inspired her; and Allan's terrible glance as he flung away and left her--left her for ever, as it seemed now.

Allan taken captive; he was sure to be slain like those of whom she had read so much lately. He was gone from her, and never more--never again could she show her repentant love for him, or make up for the omissions and follies of the past by days of tenderness in the time to come.

All was over now!

Profound was the speechless grief of his parents, and she was past attempting to console them.

'Oh, Olive darling, don't look so strange!' said Ruby Logan, who had come on a visit to them at Puddicombe Villa.

The tears were running down Ruby's cheeks, while those of Olive were strangely dry, as if her fount of tears was frozen as yet.

Of Evan Cameron, if they thought at all amid this home calamity, they knew the worst--that he was dead and buried like so many of his brother-soldiers who fell at Tel-el-Kebir; but of Allan they had yet the worst to know, if aught was ever known at all, which was extremely improbable.

So the long day passed on and night came, and Olive stood at the open window looking out at the waters of Spithead, the cold air from the sea blowing upon her face. She was in a kind of waking trance rather than deliberate thought, and strange figures like a phantasmagoria seemed to evolve themselves out of the darkness.

But to return to the hunting breakfast at Hurdell Hall.

All unconscious that a fresh sorrow would fill her tender heart ere long, Eveline came down in a charming morning-dress, looking pure and pale as a young arum lily, and was at once the cynosure of many admiring eyes; for, in addition to Sir Harry, Sir Paget, and Mr. Poole, there were seven or eight others present, all in high spirits and eager for the sport. Not that Sir Paget affected field sports much, but he thought that it became his position to do so, and more especially as he was the husband of so young a wife, to display a certain amount of juvenility.

All present were ruddy-featured country gentlemen of various ages, and while discussing an ample and genuine hunting-breakfast, though some who were connected with the farming interest spoke of the weather and the turnip-fly, of the Devonshire breed and short-horns, of mangold-wurzel and the rotation of crops, matters about which, sooth to say, Sir Paget and Mr. Poole knew no more than they did about the philosophy of the Infinite, the conversation chiefly ran on the matter in hand that day--the disadvantage of having the dogs' collars too tightly buckled, of coupling a young hound with an old one, and so forth.

'A very bad plan,' said Sir Harry, 'as the older dogs always vent their spite on the younger by biting and rolling over them.'

'Because the pulling on both sides is not even,' said the Squire of Furzydowns, a noted old sportsman, 'and, if a pair of dogs so coupled come across a donkey, there is sure to be a row, for, when a bullock will look round in stupid wonder, a donkey is apt to fly at hounds with tooth and hoof.'

'A glorious morning this for the scent,' said Sir Harry; 'a dry autumn one. And now let us be off. The advantage of hunting early is that cubs or foxes, after a late supper or early breakfast, are seldom in a condition to run long, and get blown, as we all know.'

To Sir Paget, who had neither heart nor interest in sport, and was rapidly discussing the weather in all its probabilities, as to whether there would be a change or continuance of its present aspect and condition, Sir Harry said,

'Puddicombe, are you still determined to ride that bay horse with the white star?'

'Yes,' replied Sir Paget, with just the slightest _soupçon_ of bravado.

'Remember, I have warned you that he is rather a vicious brute, and apt to shy his fences.'

'Please, do not ride him, Sir Paget,' urged Eveline, in a whisper; 'do not, for my sake.'

'I should rather think of my own, if I do it for anyone's sake at all,' he snarled. He could not forgive her the general pallor and sadness of her face. Death, it is said, hallows the dead anew to the living. So it would be with the memory of Evan Cameron in the mind of Eveline, thought Sir Paget bitterly, nor was he far wrong. And, no doubt, it was rather hard upon him to know that his wife's thoughts were all of another; but how innocently!

'As regards the bay horse,' he added, 'I will take my chance.'

He was loth to appear unable to do anything, and always deemed such advice as the present an imputation on his age or capability; thus, he did many a thing he would not have done had Eveline been twenty years older.

After a few words aside with Sir Harry, Eveline turned again to her husband, who had now left the table, and was finally adjusting his tan-coloured boot-tops.

'Do not ride the horse,' said she, entreatingly. 'From what I hear, he is beyond you.'

'Is he?' snarled Sir Paget, who was in one of his worst humours this morning. 'But let me tell you, Lady Puddicombe, that I know something about the choice of a horse, if I don't about the choice of a wife!'

Eveline shrank back at this rude speech, and thought that, sooth to say, he knew little how to choose either.

'Well--ride the horse, if you will,' said she, resignedly.

'I shall!' he replied, sharply.

Lucretia detected that something was wrong, and, raising her voice in reply to something the Squire of Furzydown had said, she exclaimed, laughingly,

'Ah, yes, the country is indeed glorious; for here you can have eggs to breakfast that are laid while your hair is being dressed, and flowers on the table fresh with the morning dew on them--yet, I love London most, after all, especially in the season. And now,' she added, 'shall my Charlie have its nicey, nicey breakfast of cream?'

And she emptied a silver jug of the latter into a china bowl for her wheezy spaniel.

'What's up with old Sir Peter Teazle?' whispered her brother.

'That is more than I can tell you, Harry.'

The two ladies came forth to the door to see the gentlemen mount and depart.

Sir Paget got into his saddle with some difficulty, as the bay hunter swayed round and round, laid its ears back, and looked askance at him, with red and bloodshot eyes.

Eveline knew not of her brother's calamity, and neither did Sir Paget, for none had spoken of Egypt or Egyptian news, and no one at Hurdell Hall was particularly interested in the Black Watch, herself excepted; but she felt a mysterious and unaccountable prevision of coming evil, and once more drew near to offer her pretty hand to Sir Paget, doing so with affected playfulness, as the eyes of others were admiringly upon her; but he, giving full rein to his thoughts about that dead Cameron, whom she had loved and he hated, stooped from his saddle, and said to her, with a bland smile meant also for other eyes,

'I have read, Lady Puddicombe, that "nothing exalts a man so much in a woman's mind as his dying. Look at the affection of widows as compared with that of wives." Ah, you are sorrowful, no doubt; but sorrow takes a long while to kill anyone.'

She knew well what he meant. Her pale cheek crimsoned, and she turned without a word, deeming it both absurd and cruel that he should thus be retrospectively jealous.

The hunters rode merrily off, all in high spirits, save Sir Paget, who jerked away with his head and was disposed to sulk, for the visit to Hurdell Hall had wrought no change on Eveline; thus he did not, like his companions, enjoy the delightful sense of rest and peace in the cool morning ride to covert.

The country was silent; ploughmen and shepherds were, as yet, scarcely abroad; and the full-fed cattle lay couched on the damp grass that glistened with dew, and from amid which their breaths rose like silvery steam, and ere long the pack was in sight--Grasper, Pilot, Holdfast, Catch, and all the rest of them--

'With tails high mounted, ears hung low, and throats
With a whole gamut filled, of heavenly notes'

--at least in the estimation of the huntsmen.

Ere long the pack was put into the covert, and stirrup leathers were tightened and readjusted in hot haste, but with the hunting, the whipping of unbroken hounds that took to running after sheep, the gallops over a few fields to get up an appetite for an early luncheon at the Squire of Furzydown's, the 'chopping' of cubs, our story has nothing to do, save in so far as one episode of the day is concerned.

Sir Paget in his heart wished 'the whole affair at Jericho,' or in a warmer latitude. To him it was no amusement to set out without time for shaving, to breakfast at an untimeous hour and before he could get up an appetite, and to ride through the morning mist, with icy feet and grasping reins sodden with dew, with the certainty of an attack of rheumatism, when he should have been cosily nestling in bed; and in addition to all these, having a terrible conflict ever and anon with the bay hunter. Sir Harry thought him 'a silly old fogie, who _would_ go cub-hunting to show the world how juvenile he was,' and he was now beginning to console himself with the prospect of a luxurious luncheon at Furzydown and the long, lazy afternoon he would enjoy there before riding leisurely back in the evening to dinner at Hurdell Hall, when Sir Harry would be sure to sing them the old Coplow hunt song--

'Talk of horses and hounds
And the system of kennel,
Give me Leicestershire nags
And the hounds of old Menyell!'

To Eveline the long day after the early breakfast passed very slowly at the Hall. She was in no anxiety for Sir Paget's speedy return, especially after the cloudy manner of his departure, but there were no other lady visitors there just then, and she and Lucretia Hurdell had not a thought, sympathy, or topic in common, and she sighed in utter weariness of spirit as the October day drew to a close, and the brown and purple shadows of evening began to fall.

She thought how many such empty days as this were before her, as autumn passed into winter, winter into spring, and the joyless summer--joyless at least to her--would come again. Every morning with its hopelessness, every noon with its listlessness, every evening seeming more blank than the one that preceded it. Would she ever more feel bright and merry as at Dundargue, and regain her sweet and playful habits of caressing affection?

And for whom?

She stood in one of the many beautiful Tudor bay windows overlooking the terrace and chase, idly and full of her own thoughts, and curiously enough, to her, the rustle of the ivy on the painted panes, of leaves as they fell from the trees, the stillness of the evening hour, and the cawing of the rooks in the old belfry of the house seemed ominous of coming evil.

Dusk had come on, the trees were taking strange shapes against the sunset sky, a bat circled noiselessly before her, and the silver crescent of the moon came out above a coppice.

A few of these trivial things were, by after events, fixed in her memory, and associated with that calm and almost sultry October evening--the lurid brightness of the sun as he set beyond the black stems of the trees of the chase, the perfume of roses from a majolica jardinière in the bay window, and the angry hum of a great bee entangled among the lace of the curtains.

Suddenly she became aware that a group of men, some on horseback and some on foot, was slowly approaching the house by the avenue. Amid this group were four carrying a burden--a man apparently--on a door, or some such improvised litter.

Then appeared a groom leading a horse by the bridle--the bay hunter with a white star on his forehead!

A gasping cry escaped her; her poor, torn heart leaped, and then seemed to cease beating, with the dreadful certainty that something--a new calamity--had happened.