Orley Farm Part 43

But though Harriet may have cried when she got home on that fatal Friday evening, she was full of the triumph of the hunt on this morning. It is not often that the hounds run into a fox and absolutely surround and kill him on the open ground, and when this is done after a severe run, there are seldom many there to see it.

If a man can fairly take a fox's brush on such an occasion as that, let him do it; otherwise let him leave it to the huntsman. On the occasion in question it seems that Harriet Tristram might have done so, and some one coming second to her had been gallant enough to do it for her.

"Oh, my lord, you should have been out on Friday," she said to Lord Alston. "We had the prettiest thing I ever saw."

"A great deal too pretty for me, my dear."

"Oh, you who know the roads so well would certainly have been up. I suppose it was thirteen miles from Cobbleton's Bushes to Rotherham Common."

"Not much less, indeed," said his lords.h.i.+p, unwilling to diminish the lady's triumph. Had a gentleman made the boast his lords.h.i.+p would have demonstrated that it was hardly more than eleven.

"I timed it accurately from the moment he went away," said the lady, "and it was exactly fifty-seven minutes. The first part of it was awfully fast. Then we had a little check at Moseley Bottom. But for that, n.o.body could have lived through it. I never shall forget how deep it was coming up from there to Cringleton. I saw two men get off to ease their horses up the deep bit of plough; and I would have done so too, only my horse would not have stood for me to get up."

"I hope he was none the worse for it," said the sporting character who had been telling Staveley just now how she had cried when she got home that night.

"To tell the truth, I fear it has done him no good. He would not feed, you know, that night at all."

"And broke out into cold sweats," said the gentleman.

"Exactly," said the lady, not quite liking it, but still enduring with patience.

"Rather groggy on his pins the next morning?" suggested her friend.

"Very groggy," said Harriet, regarding the word as one belonging to fair sporting phraseology.

"And inclined to go very much on the points of his toes. I know all about it, Miss Tristam, as well as though I'd seen him."

"There's nothing but rest for it, I suppose."

"Rest and regular exercise--that's the chief thing; and I should give him a mash as often as three times a week. He'll be all right again in three or four weeks,--that is if he's sound, you know."

"Oh, as sound as a bell," said Miss Tristram.

"He'll never be the same horse on a road though," said the sporting gentlemen, shaking his head and whispering to Staveley.

And now the time had come at which they were to move. They always met at eleven; and at ten minutes past, to the moment, Jacob the huntsman would summons the old hounds from off their haunches. "I believe we may be moving, Jacob," said Mr. Williams, the master.

"The time be up," said Jacob, looking at a ponderous timekeeper that might with truth be called a hunting-watch; and then they all moved slowly away back from the Grange, down a farm-road which led to Monkton Wood, distant from the old house perhaps a quarter of a mile.

"May we go as far as the wood?" said Miss Furnival to Augustus.

"Without being made to ride over hedges, I mean."

"Oh, dear, yes; and ride about the wood half the day. It will be an hour and a half before a fox will break--even if he ever breaks."

"Dear me! how tired you will be of us. Now do say something pretty, Mr. Staveley."

"It's not my _metier_. We shall be tired, not of you, but of the thing. Galloping up and down the same cuts in the wood for an hour and a half is not exciting; nor does it improve the matter much if we stand still, as one should do by rights."

"That would be very slow."

"You need not be afraid. They never do here. Everybody will be rus.h.i.+ng about as though the very world depended on their galloping."

"I'm so glad; that's just what I like."

"Everybody except Lord Alston, Miss Tristram, and, the other old stagers. They will husband their horses, and come out as fresh at two o'clock as though they were only just out. There is nothing so valuable as experience in hunting."

"Do you think it nice seeing a young lady with so much hunting knowledge?"

"Now you want me to talk slander, but I won't do it. I admire the Miss Tristrams exceedingly, and especially Julia."

"And which is Julia?"

"The youngest; that one riding by herself."

"And why don't you go and express your admiration?"

"Ah, me! why don't we all express the admiration that we feel, and pour sweet praises into the ears of the lady that excites it? Because we are cowards, Miss Furnival, and are afraid even of such a weak thing as a woman."

"Dear me! I should hardly have thought that you would suffer from such terror as that."

"Because you don't quite know me, Miss Furnival."

"And Miss Julia Tristram is the lady that has excited it?"

"If it be not she, it is some other fair votary of Diana at present riding into Monkton Wood."

"Ah, now you are giving me a riddle to guess, and I never guess riddles. I won't even try at it. But they all seem to be stopping."

"Yes, they are putting the hounds into covert. Now if you want to show yourself a good sportsman, look at your watch. You see that Julia Tristram has got hers in her hand."

"What's that for?"

"To time the hounds; to see how long they'll be before they find.

It's very pretty work in a small gorse, but in a great wood like this I don't care much for being so accurate. But for heaven's sake don't tell Julia Tristram; I should not have a chance if she thought I was so slack."

And now the hounds were scattering themselves in the wood, and the party rode up the centre roadway towards a great circular opening in the middle of it. Here it was the recognised practice of the hors.e.m.e.n to stand, and those who properly did their duty would stand there; but very many lingered at the gate, knowing that there was but one other exit from the wood, without overcoming the difficulty of a very intricate and dangerous fence.

"There be a gap, bain't there?" said one farmer to another, as they were entering.

"Yes, there be a gap, and young Grubbles broke his 'orse's back a getting over of it last year," said the second farmer.

"Did he though?" said the first; and so they both remained at the gate.

And others, a numerous body, including most of the ladies, galloped up and down the cross ways, because the master of the hounds and the huntsman did so. "D---- those fellows riding up and down after me wherever I go," said the master. "I believe they think I'm to be hunted." This seemed to be said more especially to Miss Tristram, who was always in the master's confidence; and I fear that the fellows alluded to included Miss Furnival and Miss Staveley.

And then there came the sharp, eager sound of a hound's voice; a single, sharp, happy opening bark, and Harriet Tristram was the first to declare that the game was found. "Just five minutes and twenty seconds, my lord," said Julia Tristram to Lord Alston. "That's not bad in a large wood like this."

"Uncommonly good," said his lords.h.i.+p. "And when are we to get out of it?"