The Eustace Diamonds Part 48

"Sit just where you are and light a cigar, if you're given to smoking."

"Pray don't joke with me. You know I want to do it properly."

"And therefore you must sit just where you are, and not gallop about.

There's a matter of a hundred and twenty acres here, I should say, and a fox doesn't always choose to be evicted at the first notice.

It's a chance whether he goes at all from a wood like this. I like woods myself, because, as you say, we can take it easy; but if you want to ride, you should-- By George, they've killed him!"

"Killed the fox?"

"Yes; he's dead. Didn't you hear?"

"And is that a hunt?"

"Well;--as far as it goes, it is."

"Why didn't he run away? What a stupid beast! I don't see so very much in that. Who killed him? That man that was blowing the horn?"

"The hounds chopped him."

"Chopped him!" Lord George was very patient, and explained to Lizzie, who was now indignant and disappointed, the misfortune of chopping.

"And are we to go home now? Is it all over?"

"They say the country is full of foxes," said Lord George. "Perhaps we shall chop half-a-dozen."

"Dear me! Chop half-a-dozen foxes! Do they like to be chopped? I thought they always ran away."

Lord George was constant and patient, and rode at Lizzie's side from covert to covert. A second fox they did kill in the same fashion as the first; a third they couldn't hunt a yard; a fourth got to ground after five minutes, and was dug out ingloriously;--during which process a drizzling rain commenced. "Where is the man with my waterproof?" demanded Mrs. Carbuncle. Lord George had sent the man to see whether there was shelter to be had in a neighbouring yard. And Mrs. Carbuncle was angry. "It's my own fault," she said, "for not having my own man. Lucinda, you'll be wet."

"I don't mind the wet," said Lucinda. Lucinda never did mind anything.

"If you'll come with me, we'll get into a barn," said Sir Griffin.

"I like the wet," said Lucinda. All the while seven men were at work with picks and shovels, and the master and four or five of the more ardent sportsmen were deeply engaged in what seemed to be a mining operation on a small scale. The huntsman stood over giving his orders. One enthusiastic man, who had been lying on his belly, grovelling in the mud for five minutes, with a long stick in his hand, was now applying the point of it scientifically to his nose.

An ordinary observer with a magnifying-gla.s.s might have seen a hair at the end of the stick. "He's there," said the enthusiastic man, covered with mud, after a long-drawn, eager sniff at the stick.

The huntsman deigned to give one glance. "That's rabbit," said the huntsman. A conclave was immediately formed over the one visible hair that stuck to the stick, and three experienced farmers decided that it was rabbit. The muddy enthusiastic man, silenced but not convinced, retired from the crowd, leaving his stick behind him, and comforted himself with his brandy-flask.

"He's here, my lord," said the huntsman to his n.o.ble master, "only we ain't got nigh him yet." He spoke almost in a whisper, so that the ignorant crowd should not hear the words of wisdom, which they wouldn't understand or perhaps believe. "It's that full of rabbits that the holes is all hairs. They ain't got no terrier here, I suppose. They never has aught that is wanted in these parts. Work round to the right, there;--that's his line." The men did work round to the right, and in something under an hour the fox was dragged out by his brush and hind legs, while the experienced whip who dragged him held the poor brute tight by the back of his neck. "An old dog, my lord. There's such a many of 'em here, that they'll be a deal better for a little killing." Then the hounds ate their third fox for that day.

Lady Eustace, in the meantime, and Mrs. Carbuncle, with Lord George, had found their way to the shelter of a cattle-shed. Lucinda had slowly followed, and Sir Griffin had followed her. The gentlemen smoked cigars, and the ladies, when they had eaten their luncheons and drank their sherry, were cold and cross. "If this is hunting,"

said Lizzie, "I really don't think so much about it."

"It's Scotch hunting," said Mrs. Carbuncle.

"I have seen foxes dug out south of the Tweed," suggested Lord George.

"I suppose everything is slow after the Baron," said Mrs. Carbuncle, who had distinguished herself with the Baron's stag-hounds last March.

"Are we to go home now?" asked Lizzie, who would have been well-pleased to have received an answer in the affirmative.

"I presume they'll draw again," exclaimed Mrs. Carbuncle, with an angry frown on her brow. "It's hardly two o'clock."

"They always draw till seven, in Scotland," said Lord George.

"That's nonsense," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "It's dark at four."

"They have torches in Scotland," said Lord George.

"They have a great many things in Scotland that are very far from agreeable," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "Lucinda, did you ever see three foxes killed without five minutes' running, before? I never did."

"I've been out all day without finding at all," said Lucinda, who loved the truth.

"And so have I," said Sir Griffin;--"often. Don't you remember that day when we went down from London to Bringher Wood, and they pretended to find at half-past four? That's what I call a sell."

"They're going on, Lady Eustace," said Lord George. "If you're not tired, we might as well see it out." Lizzie was tired, but said that she was not, and she did see it out. They found a fifth fox, but again there was no scent. "Who the ---- is to hunt a fox with people scurrying about like that!" said the huntsman, very angrily, dashing forward at a couple of riders. "The hounds is behind you, only you ain't a-looking. Some people never do look!" The two peccant riders unfortunately were Sir Griffin and Lucinda.

The day was one of those from which all the men and women return home cross, and which induce some half-hearted folk to declare to themselves that they never will hunt again. When the master decided a little after three that he would draw no more, because there wasn't a yard of scent, our party had nine or ten miles to ride back to their carriages. Lizzie was very tired, and, when Lord George took her from her horse, could almost have cried from fatigue. Mrs. Carbuncle was never fatigued, but she had become damp,--soaking wet through, as she herself said,--during the four minutes that the man was absent with her waterproof jacket, and could not bring herself to forget the ill-usage she had suffered. Lucinda had become absolutely dumb, and any observer would have fancied that the two gentlemen had quarrelled with each other. "You ought to go on the box now," said Sir Griffin, grumbling. "When you're my age, and I'm yours, I will," said Lord George, taking his seat in the carriage. Then he appealed to Lizzie.

"You'll let me smoke, won't you?" She simply bowed her head. And so they went home,--Lord George smoking, and the ladies dumb.

Lizzie, as she dressed for dinner, almost cried with vexation and disappointment.

There was a little conversation up-stairs between Mrs. Carbuncle and Lucinda, when they were free from the attendance of their joint maid.

"It seems to me," said Mrs. Carbuncle, "that you won't make up your mind about anything."

"There is nothing to make up my mind about."

"I think there is;--a great deal. Do you mean to take this man who is dangling after you?"

"He isn't worth taking."

"Carruthers says that the property must come right, sooner or later.

You might do better, perhaps, but you won't trouble yourself. We can't go on like this for ever, you know."

"If you hated it as much as I do, you wouldn't want to go on."

"Why don't you talk to him? I don't think he's at all a bad fellow."

"I've nothing to say."

"He'll offer to-morrow, if you'll accept him."

"Don't let him do that, Aunt Jane. I couldn't say Yes. As for loving him;--oh, laws!"

"It won't do to go on like this, you know."

"I'm only eighteen;--and it's my money, aunt."

"And how long will it last? If you can't accept him, refuse him, and let somebody else come."

"It seems to me," said Lucinda, "that one is as bad as another. I'd a deal sooner marry a shoemaker and help him to make shoes."