Now Gameboy, seeing by the newly thrown out gravel the magnitude of the venture, thrusts down his hat firmly on his brow, while Hicks gets his chesnut well by the head, and hardening their hearts they clear it in stride, and the Damper takes soundings for the benefit of those who come after. What a splash he makes!
And now the five-and-thirty years master of “haryers” without a subscription coming up, seeks to save the credit of his quivering-tailed grey by stopping to help the discontented Damper out of his difficulty, whose horse coming out on the wrong side affords them both a very fair excuse for shutting up shop.
The rest of the detachment, unwilling to bathe, after craning at the cut, scuttle away by its side down to the wooden cattle-bridge below, which being crossed, the honourable obligationers and the take-care-of-their-neckers are again joined in common union. It is, however, no time to boast of individual feats, or to inquire for absent friends, for the hounds still press on, though the pace is not quite so severe as it was. They are on worse soil, and the scent does not serve them so well. It soon begins to fail, and at length is carried on upon the silent system, and looks very like failing altogether.
Mr. Boggledike, who has been riding as cunning as any one, now shows to the front, watching the stooping pack with anxious eye, lest he should have to make a cast over fences that do not quite suit his convenience.
“G—e—ntly, urryin’! gently!” cries he, seeing that a little precipitancy may carry them off the line. “Yon cur dog has chased the fox, and the hounds are puzzled at the point where he has left him.”
“Ah, sarr, what the daval business have you out with a dog on such an occasion as this?” demands Dicky of an astonished drover who thought the road was as open to him as to Dicky.
“O, sar! sar! you desarve to be put i’ the lock-up,” continues Dicky, as the pack now divide on the scent.
“O, sar! sar! you should be chaasetised!” added he, shaking his whip at the drover, as he trotted on to the assistance of the pack.
The melody of the majority however recalls the cur-ites, and saves Dicky from the meditated assault.
While the brief check was going on, his lordship was eyeing Miss de Glancey, thinking of all the quiet captivating women he had ever seen, she was the most so. Her riding was perfection, and he couldn’t conceive how it was that he had ever entertained any objection to sports-women. It must have been from seeing some clumsy ones rolling about who couldn’t ride; and old Binks’s chance at that moment was not worth one farthing.
“Where’s Pringle?” now asked his lordship, as the thought of Binks brought our hero to his recollection.
“Down,” replied Miss de Glancey carelessly, pointing to the ground with her pretty amethyst-topped whip.
“Down, is he!” smiled the Earl, adding half to himself and half to her, “thought he was a mull’.”
Our friend indeed has come to grief. After pulling and hauling at his horse until he got him quite savage, the irritated animal, shaking his head as a terrier shakes a rat, ran blindfold into a bullfinch, shooting Billy into a newly-made manure-heap beyond. The last of the “harryer” men caught his horse, and not knowing who he belonged to, just threw the bridle-rein over the next gatepost, while D’Orsay Davis, who had had enough, and was glad of an excuse for stopping, pulls up to assist Billy out of his dirty dilemma.
Augh, what a figure he was!
But see! Mr. Boggledike is hitting off the scent, and the astonished drover is spurring on his pony to escape the chasetisement Dicky has promised him.
At this critical moment, Miss de Glancey’s better genius whispered her to go home. She had availed herself of the short respite to take a sly peep at herself in a little pocket-mirror she carried in her saddle, and found she was quite as much heated as was becoming or as could be ventured upon without detriment to her dress. Moreover, she was not quite sure but that one of her frizettes was coming out.
So now when the hounds break out in fresh melody, and the Flying Hatter and Gameboy Green are again elbowing to the front, she sits reining in her steed, evidently showing she is done.
“Oh, come along!” exclaimed the Earl, looking back for her. “Oh, come along,” repeated he, waving her onward, as he held in his horse.
There was no resisting the appeal, for it was clear he would come back for her if she did, so touching her horse with the whip, she is again cantering by his side.
“I’d give the world to see you beat that impudent ugly hatter,” said he, now pointing Hicks out in the act of riding at a stiff newly-plashed fence before his hounds were half over.
And his lordship spurred his horse as he spoke with a vigour that spoke the intensity of his feelings.
The line of chase then lay along the swiftly flowing Arrow banks and across Oxley large pastures, parallel with the Downton bridle-road, along which Dicky and his followers now pounded; Dicky hugging himself with the idea that the fox was making for the main earths on Bringwood moor, to which he knew every yard of the country.
And so the fox was going as straight and as hard as ever he could, but as ill luck would have it, young Mr. Nailor, the son of the owner of Oxley pastures, shot at a snipe at the west corner of the large pasture just as pug entered at the east, causing him to shift his line and thread Larchfield plantations instead of crossing the pasture, and popping down Tillington Dean as he intended.
Dicky had heard the gun, and the short turn of the hounds now showing him what had happened, he availed himself of the superiority of a well-mounted nobleman’s huntsman in scarlet over a tweed-clad muffin-capped shooter, for exclaiming at the top of his voice as he cantered past, horn in hand,
“O ye poachin’ davil, what business ’ave ye there!”
“O ye nasty sneakin’ snarin’ ticket-o’-leaver, go back to the place from whance you came!” leaving the poor shooter staring with astonishment.
A twang of the horn now brings the hounds—who have been running with a flinging catching side-wind scent on to the line, and a full burst of melody greets the diminished field, as they strike it on the bright grass of the plantation.
“For—rard! for—rard!” is the cry, though there isn’t a hound but what is getting on as best as he can.
The merry music reanimates the party, and causes them to press on their horses with rather more freedom than past exertions warrant.
Imperial John’s is the first to begin wheezing, but his Highness feeling him going covers a retreat of his hundred-and-fifty-guineas-worth, as he hopes he will be, under shelter of the plantation.
****
“I think the ‘atter’s oss has about ‘ad enough,” now observes Dicky to his lordship, as he holds open the bridle-gate at the end of the plantation into the Benington Lane for his lordship and Miss de Glancey to pass.
“Glad of it,” replied the Earl, thinking the Hatter would not be able to go home and boast how he had cut down the Tantivy men and hung them up to dry.
“Old ‘ard, one moment!” now cries Dicky, raising his right hand as the Hatter comes blundering through the quickset fence into the hard lane, his horse nearly alighting on his nose.
“Old ‘ard, please!” adds he, as the Hatter spurs among the road-stooping pack.
“Hooick