Now Mrs. Pringle had always had a very laudable admiration of fox-hunters. She thought the best introduction for a young man of fortune was at the cover side, and though Jerry Pringle (who looked upon them as synonymous) had always denounced “gamblin’ and huntin’ ” as the two greatest vices of the day, she could never come in to that opinion, as far as hunting was concerned.
She now thought if she could get Billy launched under the auspices of that distinguished sportsman, the Earl of Ladythorne, it might be the means of reclaiming him from Butter Fingers, and getting him on in society, for she well knew how being seen at one good place led to another, just as the umbrella-keepers at the Royal Academy try to lead people into giving them something in contravention of the rule above their heads, by jingling a few half-pence before their faces. Moreover, Billy had shown an inclination for equitation—by nearly galloping several of Mr. Spavin, the neighbouring livery-stable-keeper’s horses’ tails off; and Mrs. Pringle’s knowledge of hunting not being equal to her appreciation of the sport, she thought that a master of hounds found all the gentlemen who joined his hunt in horses, just as a shooter finds them in dogs or guns, so that the thing would be managed immediately.
Indeed, like many ladies, she had rather a confused idea of the whole thing, not knowing but that one horse would hunt every day in the week; or that there was any distinction of horses, further than the purposes to which they were applied. Hunters and racehorses she had no doubt were the same animals, working their ways honestly from year’s end to year’s end, or at most with only the sort of difference between them that there is between a milliner and a dressmaker. Be that as it may, however, all things considered, Mrs. Pringle determined to test the sincerity of her friend the Earl of Ladythorne: and to that end wrote him a gossiping sort of letter, asking, in the postscript, when his dogs would be going out, as her son was at home and would “so like” to see them.
Although we introduced Lord Ladythorne as a philanthropist, his philanthropy, we should add, was rather lop-sided, being chiefly confined to the fair. Indeed, he could better stand a dozen women than one man. He had no taste or sympathy, for the hirsute tribe, hence his fields were very select, being chiefly composed of his dependents and people whom he could d—— and do what he liked with. Though the Crumpletin Railway cut right through his country, making it “varry contagious,” as Harry Swan, his first whip, said, for sundry large towns, the sporting inhabitants thereof preferred the money-griping propensities of a certain Baronet—Sir Moses Mainchance—whose acquaintance the reader will presently make, to the scot-free sport with the frigid civilities of the noble Earl. Under ordinary circumstances, therefore, Mrs. Pringle had made rather an unfortunate selection for her son’s début, but it so happened that her letter found the Earl in anything but his usual frame of mind.
He was suffering most acutely for the hundred and twentieth time or so from one of Cupid’s shafts, and that too levelled by a hand against whose attacks he had always hitherto been thought impervious. This wound had been inflicted by the well-known—perhaps to some of our readers too well-known—equestrian coquette, Miss de Glancey of Half-the-watering-places-in-England-and-some-on-the-Continent, whose many conquests had caused her to be regarded as almost irresistible, and induced, it was said—with what degree of truth we know not—a party of England’s enterprising sons to fit her out for an expedition against the gallant Earl of Ladythorne under the Limited Liability Act.
Now, none but a most accomplished, self-sufficient coquette, such as Miss de Glancey undoubtedly was, would have undertaken such an enterprise, for it was in direct contravention of two of the noble Earl’s leading principles, namely, that of liking large ladies (fine, coarse women, as the slim ones call them,) and of disliking foxhunting ones, the sofa and not the saddle being, as he always said, the proper place for the ladies; but Miss de Glancey prided herself upon her power of subjugating the tyrant man, and gladly undertook to couch the lance of blandishment against the hitherto impracticable nobleman. In order, however, to understand the exact position of parties, perhaps the reader will allow us to show how his lordship came to be seized with his present attack, and also how he treated it.
Well, the ash was yellow, the beech was brown, and the oak ginger coloured, and the indomitable youth was again in cub-hunting costume—a white beaver hat, a green cut-away, a buff vest, with white cords and caps, attended by Boggledike and his whips in hats, and their last season’s pinks or purples, disturbing the numerous litters of cubs with which the country abounded, when, after a musical twenty minutes with a kill in Allonby Wood, his lordship joined horses with Dicky, to discuss the merits of the performance, as they rode home together.
“Yas, my lord, yas,” replied Dicky, sawing away at his hat, in reply to his lordship’s observation that they ran uncommonly well; “yas, my lord, they did. I don’t know that I can ever remamber bein’ better pleased with an entry than I am with this year’s. I really think in a few more seasons we shall get ’em as near parfection as possible. Did your lordship notish that Barbara betch, how she took to runnin’ to-day? The first time she has left my oss’s eels. Her mother, old Blossom, was jest the same. Never left my oss’s eels the first season, and everybody said she was fit for nothin’ but the halter; but my!” continued he, shaking his head, “what a rare betch she did become.”
“She did that,” replied his lordship, smiling at Dicky’s pronunciation.
“And that reminds me,” continued Dicky, emboldened by what he thought the encouragement, “I was down at Freestone Banks yasterday, where Barbara was walked, a seein’ a pup I have there now, and I think I seed the very neatest lady’s pad I ever set eyes on!”—Dicky’s light-blue eyes settling on his lordship’s eagle ones as he spoke. “Aye! who’s was that?” asked the gay old gentleman, catching at the word “lady.”
“Why, they say she belongs to a young lady from the south—a Miss Dedancey, I think they call her,” with the aptitude people have for mistaking proper names.
“Dedancey,” repeated his lordship, “Dedancey; never heard of the name before—what’s set her here?”
“She’s styin’ at Mrs. Roseworth’s, at Lanecroft House, but her osses stand at the Spread Heagle, at Bush Dill—Old Sam ‘Utchison’s, you know.”
Indomitable Youth. Horses! what, has she more than one?
Dicky. Two, a bay and a gray—it’s the bay that takes my fancy most:—the neatest stepper, with the lightest month, and fairest, freeest, truest action I ever seed.
Indomitable Youth. What’s she going to do with them?
Dicky. Ride them, ride them! They say she’s the finest oss-woman that ever was seen.
“In-deed,” mused his lordship, thinking over the pros and cons of female equestrianism—the disagreeableness of being beat by them—the disagreeableness of having to leave them in the lurch—the disagreeableness of seeing them floored—the disagreeableness of seeing them all running down with perspiration;—the result being that his lordship adhered to his established opinion that women have no business out hunting.
Dicky knew his lordship’s sentiments, and did not press the matter, but