Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour Part 25

A peat-cutter, more humane, received the horse as he emerged from the black sea, exclaiming, as the now-piebald Sponge came lobbing after on foot, 'A, sir! but ye should niver set tee to ride through sic a place as that!'

Sponge, having generously rewarded the man with a fourpenny piece, for catching his horse and sc.r.a.ping the thick of the mud off him, again mounted, and cantered round the point he should at first have gone; but his chance was out--the farther he went, the farther he was left behind; till at last, pulling up, he stood watching the diminishing pack, rolling like marbles over the top of Rotherjade Hill, followed by his lordship hugging his horse round the neck as he went, and the huntsman and whips leading and driving theirs up before them.

'Nasty jealous old beggar!' said Sponge, eyeing his lessening lordship disappearing over the hill too. Sponge then performed the sickening ceremony of turning away from hounds running; not but that he might have plodded on on the line, and perhaps seen or heard what became of the fox, but Sponge didn't hunt on those terms. Like a good many other gentlemen, he would be first, or nowhere.

If it was any consolation to him, he had plenty of companions in misfortune. The line was dotted with hors.e.m.e.n back to the brick-fields. The first person he overtook wending his way home in the discontented, moody humour of a thrown-out man, was Mr. Puffington master of the Hanby hounds; at whose appearance at the meet we expressed our surprise.

Neighbouring masters of hounds are often more or less jealous of each other. No man in the master-of-hound world is too insignificant for censure. Lord Scamperdale _was_ an undoubted sportsman; while poor Mr.

Puffington thought of nothing but how to be thought one. Hearing the mistaken rumour that a great writer was down, he thought that his chance of immortality was arrived; and, ordering his best horse, and putting on his best apparel, had braved the jibes and sneers of Jack and his lordship for the purpose of sc.r.a.ping acquaintance with the stranger. In that he had been foiled: there was no time at the meet to get introduced, neither could he get jostled beside Sponge in going down to the cover; while the quick find, the quick get away, followed by the quick thing we have described, were equally unfavourable to the undertaking. Nevertheless, Mr. Puffington had held on beyond the brick-fields; and had he but persevered a little farther, he would have had the satisfaction of helping Mr. Sponge out of the bog.

Sponge now, seeing a red coat a little before, trotted on, and quickly overtook a fine nippy, satin-stocked, dandified looking gentleman, with marvellously smart leathers and boots--a great contrast to the large, roomy, bargemanlike costume of the members of the Flat Hat Hunt.

'You're not hurt, I hope?' exclaimed Mr. Puffington, with well-feigned anxiety, as he looked at Mr. Sponge's black-daubed clothes.

'Oh no!' replied Sponge. 'Oh no!--fell soft--fell soft. More dirt, less hurt--more dirt, less hurt.'

'Why, you've been in a bog!' exclaimed Mr. Puffington, eyeing the much-stained Hercules.

'Almost over head,' replied Sponge. 'Scamperdale saw me going, and hadn't the grace to halloa.'

'Ah, that's like him,' replied Mr. Puffington, 'that's like him: there's nothing pleases him so much as getting fellows into grief.'

'Not very polite to a stranger,' observed Mr. Sponge.

'No, it isn't,' replied Mr. Puffington, 'no, it isn't; far from it indeed--far from it; but, low be it spoken,' added he, 'his lordship is only a roughish sort of customer.'

'So he is,' replied Mr. Sponge, who thought it fine to abuse a n.o.bleman.

'The fact is,' said Mr. Puffington, 'these Flat Hat chaps are all sn.o.bs.

They think there are no such fine fellows as themselves under the sun; and if ever a stranger looks near them, they make a point of being as rude and disagreeable to him as they possibly can. This is what they call keeping the hunt select.' 'Indeed,' observed Mr. Sponge, recollecting how they had complimented him, adding, 'they seem a queer set.'

'There's a fellow they call "Jack,"' observed Mr. Puffington, 'who acts as a sort of bulldog to his lordship, and worries whoever his lordship sets him upon. He got into a clay-hole a little farther back, and a precious splashing he was making, along with the chaplain, old Blossomnose.'

'Ah, I saw him,' observed Mr. Sponge.

'You should come and see _my_ hounds,' observed Mr. Puffington.

'What are they?' asked Sponge.

'The Hanby,' replied Mr. Puffington.

'Oh! then you are Mr. Puffington,' observed Sponge, who had a sort of general acquaintance with all the hounds and masters--indeed, with all the meets of all the hounds in the kingdom--which he read in the weekly lists in _Bell's Life_, just as he read _Mogg's Cab Fares_. 'Then you are Mr.

Puffington?' observed Sponge.

'The same,' replied the stranger.

'I'll have a look at you,' observed Sponge, adding, 'do you take in horses?'

'Yours, of course,' replied Mr. Puffington, bowing; adding something about great public characters, which Sponge didn't understand.

'I'll be down upon you, as the extinguisher said to the rushlight,'

observed Mr. Sponge.

'Do,' said Mr. Puffington; 'come before the frost. Where are you staying now?'

'I'm at Jawleyford's,' replied our friend.

'Indeed!--Jawleyford's, are you?' repeated Mr. Puffington. 'Good fellow, Jawleyford--gentleman, Jawleyford. How long do you stay?'

'Why, I haven't made up my mind,' replied Sponge. 'Have no thoughts of budging at present.'

'Ah, well--good quarters,' said Mr. Puffington, who now smelt a rat; 'good quarters--nice girls--fine fortune--fine place, Jawleyford Court. Well, book me for the next visit,' added he. 'I will,' said Sponge, 'and no mistake. What do they call your shop?'

'Hanby House,' replied Mr. Puffington; 'Hanby House--anybody can tell you where Hanby House is.'

'I'll not forget,' said Mr. Sponge, booking it in his mind, and eyeing his victim.

'I'll show you a fine pack of hounds,' said Mr. Puffington; 'far finer animals than those of old Scamperdale's--steady, true hunting hounds, that won't go a yard without a scent--none of your jealous, flashy, frantic devils, that will tear over half a township without one, and are always looking out for "halloas" and a.s.sistance--'

Mr. Puffington was interrupted in the comparison he was about to draw between his lordship's hounds and his, by arriving at the Bolsover brick-fields, and seeing Jack and Blossomnose, horse in hand, running to and fro, while sundry countrymen blobbed about in the clay-hole they had so recently occupied. Tom Washball, Mr. Wake, Mr. Fyle, Mr. Fossick, and several dark-coated hors.e.m.e.n and boys were congregated around. Jack had lost his spectacles, and Blossomnose his whip, and the countrymen were diving for them.

'Not hurt, I hope?' said Mr. Puffington, in the most dandified tone of indifference, as he rode up to where Jack and Blossomnose were churning the water in their boots, stamping up and down, trying to get themselves warm.

'Hurt be hanged!' replied Jack, who had a frightful squint, that turned his eyes inside out when he was in a pa.s.sion: 'hurt be hanged!' said he; 'might have been drownded, for anything you'd have cared.'

'I should have been sorry for that,' replied Mr. Puffington, adding, 'the Flat Hat Hunt could ill afford to lose so useful and ornamental a member.'

'I don't know what the Flat Hat Hunt can afford to lose,' spluttered Jack, who hadn't got all the clay out of his mouth; 'but I know they can afford to do without the company of certain gentlemen who shall be nameless,' said he, looking at Sponge and Puffington as he thought, but in reality showing nothing but the whites of his eyes. 'I told you so,' said Puffington, jerking his head towards Jack, as Sponge and he turned their horses' heads to ride away; 'I told you so,' repeated he; 'that's a specimen of their style'; adding, 'they are the greatest set of ruffians under the sun.'

The new acquaintances then jogged on together as far as the cross-roads at Stewley, when Puffington, having bound Sponge in his own recognizance to come to him when he left Jawleyford Court, pointed him out his way, and with a most hearty shake of the hands the new-made friends parted.

CHAPTER XXIV

LORD SCAMPERDALE AT HOME

[Ill.u.s.tration]

We fear our fair friends will expect something gay from the above heading--lamps and flambeaux outside, fiddlers, feathers, and flirters in.

Nothing of the sort, fair ladies--nothing of the sort. Lord Scamperdale 'at home' simply means that his lordship was not out hunting, that he had got his dirty boots and breeches off, and dry tweeds and tartans on.

Lord Scamperdale was the eighth earl; and, according to the usual alternating course of great English families--one generation living and the next starving--it was his lordship's turn to live; but the seventh earl having been rather unreasonable in the length of his lease, the present earl, who during the lifetime of his father was Lord Hardup, had contracted such parsimonious habits, that when he came into possession he could not shake them off; and but for the fortunate friendship of Abraham Brown, the village blacksmith, who had given his young idea a sporting turn, entering him with ferrets and rabbits, and so training him on with terriers and rat-catching, badger-baiting and otter-hunting, up to the n.o.ble sport of fox-hunting itself, in all probability his lordship would have been a regular miser. As it was, he did not spend a halfpenny upon anything but hunting; and his hunting, though well, was still economically done, costing him some couple of thousand a year, to which, for the sake of euphony, Jack used to add an extra five hundred; 'two thousand five under'd a year, five-and-twenty under'd a year,' sounding better, as Jack thought, and more imposing, than a couple of thousand, or two thousand, a year. There were few days on which Jack didn't inform the field what the hounds cost his lordship, or rather what they didn't cost him.

Woodmansterne, his lordship's princ.i.p.al residence, was a fine place. It stood in an undulating park of 800 acres, with its church, and its lakes, and its heronry, and its decoy, and its racecourse, and its varied gra.s.ses of the choicest kinds, for feeding the numerous herds of deer, so well known at Temple Bar and Charing Cross as the Woodmansterne venison. The house was a modern edifice, built by the sixth earl, who, having been a 'liver,' had run himself aground by his enormous outlay on this Italian structure, which was just finished when he died. The fourth earl, who, we should have stated, was a 'liver' too, was a man of _vertu_--a great traveller and collector of coins, pictures, statues, marbles, and curiosities generally--things that are very dear to buy, but oftentimes extremely cheap when sold; and, having collected a vast quant.i.ty from all parts of the world (no easy feat in those days), he made them heirlooms, and departed this life, leaving the next earl the pleasure of contemplating them. The fifth earl having duly starved through life, then made way for the sixth; who, finding such a quant.i.ty of valuables stowed away, as he thought, in rather a confined way, sent to London for a first-rate architect. Sir Thomas Squareall (who always posted with four horses), who forthwith pulled down the old brick-and-stone Elizabethan mansion, and built the present splendid Italian structure, of the finest polished stone, at an expense of--furniture and all--say 120,000_l._; Sir Thomas's estimates being 30,000_l._ The seventh earl of course they starved; and the present lord, at the age of forty-three, found himself in possession of house, and coins, and curiosities; and, best of all, of some 90,000_l._ in the funds, which had quietly rolled up during the latter part of his venerable parent's existence. His lordship then took counsel with himself--first, whether he should marry or remain single; secondly, whether he should live or starve. Having considered the subject with all the attention a limited allowance of brains permitted, he came to the resolution that the second proposition depended a good deal upon the first; 'for,' said he to himself, 'if I marry, my lady, perhaps, may _make_ me live; and therefore,' said he, 'perhaps I'd better remain single.' At all events, he came to the determination not to marry in a hurry; and until he did, he felt there was no occasion for him to inconvenience himself by living. So he had the house put away in brown holland, the carpets rolled up, the pictures covered, the statues shrouded in muslin, the cabinets of curiosities locked, the plate secured, the china closeted, and everything arranged with the greatest care against the time, which he put before him in the distance like a target, when he should marry and begin to live.