Sporting Society Volume Ii Part 18

"'That is easily done,' he returned, drawing up a small table between us, with a bottle of claret on it, that sent its aroma all over the apartment as he drew the cork.

"'You know how I was served in London?' and his face a.s.sumed a hard, stern expression as he asked the question.

"'Well, yes,' I replied; 'but you have forgotten all that, Horace?'

"'I have not forgotten it. I never can forget it; it was a dreadful blow to me; but I have forgiven it years ago, and am content with my lot. I left London in disgust, wandered about, and at last found this little spot. I have the shooting of three thousand acres of land--ten acres for my two cows--I am as happy as possible. I breed lots of those,' pointing to his setters, who were lying about; 'and they pay me well. I have poultry, pigs, shooting--the woodc.o.c.k and snipe shooting is particularly good in the season--and fis.h.i.+ng in abundance; as good a cob as any man need possess; deny myself nothing in reason, and never know what a dull hour is. But you will sleep here, for I have already found out where you were, and sent for your things.'

"I never pa.s.sed a happier evening than I did with my long-lost friend; we smoked our cigars and talked of old times and old things that had happened years ago, pa.s.sed never to return again.

"'So your eldest boy is sixteen,' he remarked, after one of the pauses.

'Well, you must buy this place, Frederick, it is as cheap as dirt, and will pay you well. I will make your lads sportsmen--but I suppose you have done that yourself. I want companions now--no female ones,' he added, laughingly, 'your wife excepted; but some one to fish and shoot with me--the partridge-shooting is capital.'

"I was delighted with all I saw the next day; the place was lovely, and I was induced to spend a week with him. At the end of that time I was the purchaser of the property, and left to bring down my family and all my belongings.

"I have never regretted the step; though far away from the busy hum of the world, we are as happy as may be. Horace and I fish and shoot away; there is a calm quietness which I love. I, like my friend, have had some ups and downs in life, but the memory of them, in my country retreat, is gradually 'fading away.'"

It is all very well for men who have long purses and large possessions to take expensive shootings; they can afford it and why should they not? What might I not be tempted to do if I had the chance? I cannot say, and, therefore, I will not speculate.

To my young readers who are not _au fait_ at all these matters, I would urge them never to be too hasty in deciding on taking any shooting. If they are not in easy circ.u.mstances, they must go very cautiously to work; but that fair partridge and general shooting is to be had at a moderate figure I can prove.

It is not generally known, but there are many parts of Scotland where there is first-rate partridge-shooting, and arrangements can be made to have it after the grouse-shooters have done and returned to England. I know several men who have made this arrangement, and get their sport at a very moderate cost.

But gadding about to places is not my form. I prefer to remain on the spot, and then I can always see how matters are going on.

In taking a rough bit of shooting, only one keeper is necessary; one good man will do the work far better than half a dozen bad ones. It is, I admit, a difficult thing to get such a man, but they are to be had.

I have written this paper solely for the guidance of those whose means are limited; the rich can do as they like; money is often no object to them; but this I have known to be a fact, that the man who has only spent two or three hundreds, and often very much less, on his shooting has had far better sport than many of those who have spent thousands.

WHO IS TO RIDE HIM?

In a remote and lonely part of Dorsets.h.i.+re stood, in a beautifully-wooded park, a fine old mansion, Bradon Hall, belonging to George Bradon, Esq., who at the time I speak of was about eight-and-twenty.

He was one of the old school, as his father had been before him. Early in life he had been placed in a crack regiment of Dragoons, so he was not without a pretty good knowledge of the world for his age. Allowed a liberal sum by his father, he had never exceeded it; on the contrary, there was generally a fair balance at the end of the year in the hands of his agent.

He was a remarkably handsome young fellow. Bred up in the country, and left to do pretty nearly as he liked, it was not wonderful he turned out an adept at all sorts of sports.

A good cricketer, a still better fisherman, a magnificent shot, and not only the straightest but the best rider in the country; indeed riding was his forte. Not so with our late friend Artemus Ward at "playing 'oss." With all these sporting accomplishments he was much looked up to in his regiment, and it was said that the man who could live with George Bradon in any country for twenty minutes was A1 in the pigskin.

Two years previous to the time I am speaking of, he found himself master of Bradon Hall; his mother had gone many years before.

The first thing he did was to sell out and come home, where he had ever since resided. All the men in his regiment had the blues when he left.

"It was an infernal bore," Captain Swagger remarked, "to lose such a vewey fine fellaw as Bwadon; he should like to know who the devil could bwoo such a cwawat-cup as Bwadon?"

At any rate George left, taking with him a magnificent gold snuff-box, a present from his fellow-officers, "which would be," as the lieutenant-colonel said, "a doocid nice thing to push about the dinner-table when he and his old friends of the regiment came down to hunt and shoot with him."

Some of them had been true to their word, and paid him a visit now and then in the sporting season. George was delighted to see them; it put him in mind of old times, and he was always glad to know how matters were going on in his old corps.

His father had been a great breeder of horses, and as George was just as enthusiastically fond of them, the old blood had been kept up; and with the exception of a fine specimen of an old English gentleman, who used to be daily seen walking about in a blue coat with gilt b.u.t.tons, buckskins and tops, looking over his brood mares and colts, everything was the same as before. All the servants had been retained; they loved "Master George" too well to quit, nor had they been asked to.

Bradon, when with his regiment, had been the crack rider in it, and many a good stake had he won for that gallant corps. His services had always been most anxiously sought after, and mounts given him in most of the great steeple-chases of the day.

He was so cool and collected, no bustle or flurrying with him. A fine eye, a fine hand, a famous judge of pace, and strong at the finish, with a knowledge, that must almost have been born in him, when to ease his horse, force the running, or take advantage of any mistake. "On the whole," Lord Plunger, who was no mean judge, used to say--"on the whole I consider George Bradon the finest cross-country rider in Europe."

Bradon, though uncommonly lucky in his mounts, bore his honours meekly, and when he sold out and came down to the old place to live, gave up steeple-chasing altogether. "He had so much to do, so much to attend to; after a bit he would have another squeeze at the lemon, but really he must attend to his affairs first."

Repeated refusals damped the ardour of his friends, so at last they gave up asking him to ride, and he was left in quiet to pursue his own way.

Time went on, and such a person as George Bradon had almost been forgotten by the sporting public. One morning, some eighteen months after he had come home, going into the harness-room, he carelessly seated himself in the weighing-chair, and exclaimed to the old stud-groom, an heirloom his father had left him: "The same weight, Tim, I suppose--eleven three?"

The person thus appealed to, standing on tiptoe, looked up at the dial as well as he was able; for, in addition to being short and stout, he had a very tight pair of trousers, which seemed to have been made on him, and was moreover incommoded by a stiff white neckcloth, which threatened to strangle him. After having studied the dial for a few seconds, he started back, and blurted out in a voice of horror and amazement: "Can I believe my haged heyes, Master George? You're twelve five, as I'm a miserable sinner!"

"What!" exclaimed George, jumping out of the chair considerably quicker than he had got into it, and throwing away the cigar which he had been indolently puffing--"what! twelve five? It cannot be; weigh me again, Tim."

The old man did so with the same result. "Oh, hang it!" said George, "the scale is wrong; it cannot be. I am not a bit heavier than I was; the same clothes fit me I wore two years ago. It's all bosh."

"I don't know, Master George, if it's all bosh or no," replied his old servant, "but the scale is right. Now lookee, sir, I've been fourteen stun nine for the last eleven years--not a hounce more or less. See my weight, sir."

George cast his eyes up at the dial as Tim wriggled himself into the chair.

"Yes," he said, "you are right--fourteen nine to a fraction, Tim. How the deuce I came to be this weight I have no idea; but I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that, instead of eleven three, my old walking weight, I am twelve five--sixteen pounds in less than two years," he muttered, as he sauntered away. "By George, I'll knock off that sixteen pounds pretty quickly, though. I detest fat people. An idle life will not suit me. I'll do Banting or something."

Tim looked after his young master as he walked away. "Well," he exclaimed at length, "Master George"--he was always Master George with the old servants--"twelve five; I'd never have thought it. There's something in his heye, though, that tells me he won't be that weight long. Although he is so cool he'll hunt every day the coming season, I'll bet my life; walk like blazes, and take physic enough to float a jolly-boat. I'll lay a sov," he remarked, as he slowly drew one out of a bag which he extracted from the depths of his capacious breeches-pocket, "that he is in his old form this day six months; dashed if I don't bet a fiver, or any part of it." But as no one was there to take him, he put back the coin, gave the neck of the bag a twist, and after a struggle managed to convey it to his breeches pocket again.

"What will my old woman say," he continued, "when I tells her o' this?

she as nussed him as a foal, and said he'd never get fat like me. It's heart-breaking to think on. And there's Guardsman, the finest and fastest hunter in England, just coming six; how will he be able to carry him if he goes sticking mountains of flesh on like that?--he can't do it. He'll have to ride in a seven-pound saddle; but I don't let him do that, not if I knows it--he'd break his precious neck, and then I should like to be told where Tim Mason would be, the old woman, and all the kids. No seven-pound saddle for me. I ain't a-going to have my boy a-smas.h.i.+ng of hisself, and all because he will put flesh on.

He's the only one left of the old stock; it's time he married, and I hope he will. I'm almost afraid to tell the old woman. Twelve stun five!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, as he wended his way thoughtfully across the yard; "it seems almost impossible."

"Tim," said his master the next morning, "this idle life won't do for me. I'm going over to France for three or four months. Would you like a trip?"

"Me, sir?" said the old man. "Why in course I should like to see them mounseer fellows eat frogs, and taste their brandy, too."

"Well, Tim, so you shall," replied George; "and look here, we will take Guardsman and the gray with us. I will run them both at some of the meetings. Young Harry shall go with us; he is a good rider, a light weight, and can keep his mouth shut."

"Yes, sir," said Tim. "He and I can do the horses as they ought to be done, and a little work now will do them good."

"Well," continued his master, "I'm off to London this afternoon to make some arrangements. Travel the horses down to Southampton, and meet me at the 'Dolphin,' in High Street, you know. Be there on Monday morning; take saddles, clothing, and all you want. However, I need not tell you all this, or of the necessity of keeping our movements a profound secret."

"No occasion--no occasion, sir; I'll be there. Huzza!" he exclaimed, as soon as his master was out of hearing. "My words are coming true--racing again, by all that's jolly! This is a proud day for me. My boy will get into form again, I know he will. I should like to give him a leg up once more, and see him set a field." So saying he waddled off to inform his old woman, as he irreverently called her, of the change about to take place.

Some few days after this Bradon, his servants and horses, were located in a quiet little village in Lower Brittany.

"Well, Tim," said his master one morning, as the old stud-groom came in to say the horses were well, and ask what exercise they were to take.

"What exercise?" said George; "why, I'll tell you. They are to go into regular training; they are in pretty good fettle now, but they must be better. We can do it in quiet here, without those confounded touts and fellows watching us, as they would have done at home. I should have had a scoundrel perched up in nearly every tree in the park if they knew the game I was flying at. I have found out good ground here, and have permission to use it. Now, Tim, I am going to astonish your weak nerves. I need not caution you of the necessity of being silent. All the races, I find, are over in France for the year; but, Tim, what do you think? I have entered both the horses for the Grand Silverpool Steeple-chase. I did it when I was in town the other day."