Can You Forgive Her? (28 page)

‘Well, Pollock
¹
, when did you come?’ said Maxwell.

‘By George,’ said the literary gentleman, ‘just down from London by the 8.30 from Euston Square, and got over
here from
Winslow in a trap, with two fellows I never saw in my life before. We came tandem in a fly, and did the nineteen miles in an hour.’

‘Come, Athenian, draw it mild,’ said Maxwell.

‘We did, indeed. I wonder whether they’ll pay me their share of the fly. I had to leave Onslow Crescent at a quarter before eight, and I did three hours’ work before I started.’

Then you did it by candle-light,’
said Grindley.

‘Of course I did; and why shouldn’t I? Do you suppose no one can work by candle-light except a lawyer? I suppose you fellows were playing whist, and drinking hard. I’m uncommon glad I wasn’t with you, for I shall be able to ride.’

‘I bet you a pound,’ said Jones, ‘if there’s a run, I see more of it than you.’

‘I’ll take that bet with Jones,’ said Grindley, ‘and Vavasor shall
be the judge.’

‘Gentlemen, the hounds can’t get out, if you will stop up the gate,’ said Sir William. Then the pack passed through, and they all trotted on for four miles, to Cranby Wood.

Vavasor, as he rode on to the wood, was alone, or speaking, from time to time, a few words to his servant. ‘I’ll ride the chestnut mare in the wood,’ he said, ‘and do you keep near me.’

‘I bean’t to be galloping
up and down them rides, I suppose,’ said Bat, almost contemptuously.

‘I shan’t gallop up and down the rides, myself; but do you mark me, to know where I am, so that I can change if a fox should go away.’

‘You’ll be here all day, sir. That’s my belief.’

‘If so, I won’t ride the brown horse at all. But do you take care to let me have him if there’s a chance. Do you understand?’

‘Oh, yes, I understand,
sir. There ain’t no difficulty in my understanding; – only I don’t think, sir, you’ll ever get a fox out of that wood today. Why, it stands to reason. The wind’s from the north-east.’

Cranby Wood is very large, – there being, in truth, two or three woods together. It was nearly twelve before they found; and then for an hour there was great excitement among the men, who rode
up and down the rides
as the hounds drove the fox from one end to another of the enclosure. Once or twice the poor animal did try to go away, and then there was great hallooing, galloping, and jumping over unnecessary fences; but he was headed back again, or changed his mind, not liking the north-east wind of which Bat Smithers had predicted such bad things. After one the crowd of men became rather more indifferent
and clustered together in broad spots, eating their lunch, smoking cigars, and chaffing each other. It was singular to observe the amazing quantity of ham sandwiches and of sherry that had been carried into Cranby Wood on that day. Grooms appeared to have been laden with cases, and men were as well armed with flasks at their saddle-bows as they used to be with pistols. Maxwell and Pollock formed
the centre of one of these crowds, and chaffed each other with the utmost industry, till, tired of having inflicted no wounds, they turned upon Grindley and drove him out of the circle. ‘You’ll make that man cut his throat, if you go on at that,’ said Pollock. ‘Shall I?’ said Maxwell. Then I’ll certainly stick to him for the sake of humanity in general.’ During all this time Vavasor sat apart quite
alone, and Bat Smithers grimly kept his place, about three hundred yards from him.

‘ We shan’t do any good today,’ said Grindley, coming up to Vavasor.

‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ said Vavasor.

‘That old fellow has got to be so stupid, he doesn’t know what he’s about,’ said Grindley, meaning Sir William.

‘How can he make the fox break?’ said Vavasor; and as his voice was by no means encouraging
Grindley rode away.

Lunch and cigars lasted till two, during which hour the hounds, the huntsmen, the whips, and old Sir William were hard at work, as also were some few others who persistently followed every chance of the game. From that till three there were two or three flashes in the pan, and false reports as to foxes which had gone away, which first set men galloping, and then made them
very angry. After three, men began to say naughty things, to abuse Cranby Wood, to wish violently that they had remained at home or gone elsewhere, and to speak irreverently of their ancient
master. ‘It’s the cussidest place in all creation,’ said Maxwell. ‘I often said I’d not come here any more, and now I say it again.’

‘And yet you’ll be here the next meet,’ said Grindley, who had sneaked
back to his old companions in weariness of spirit.

‘Grindems, you know a sight too much,’ said Maxwell; ‘you do indeed. An ordinary fellow has no chance with you.’

Grindley was again going to catch it, but was on this time saved by the appearance of the huntsman, who came galloping up one of the rides, with a lot of the hounds at his heels.

‘He isn’t away, Tom, surely?’ said Maxwell.

‘He’s
out of the wood somewheres,’ said Tom; – and off they all went Vavasor changed his horse, getting on to the brown one, and giving up his chestnut mare to Bat Smithers, who suggested that he might as well go home to Roebury now. Vavasor gave him no answer, but, trotting on to the point where the rides met, stopped a moment and listened carefully. Then he took a path diverging away from that by which
the huntsmen and the crowd of horsemen had gone, and made the best of his way through the wood. At the end of this he came upon Sir William, who, with no one near him but his servant, was standing in the pathway of a little hunting-gate.

‘Hold hard,’ said Sir William. The hounds are not out of the wood yet’

‘Is the fox away, sir?’

‘What’s the good of that if we can’t get the hounds out? – Yes,
he’s away. He passed out where I’m standing.’ And then he began to blow his horn lustily, and by degrees other men and a few hounds came down the ride. Then Tom, with his horse almost blown, made his appearance outside the wood, and soon there came a rush of men, nearly on the top of one another, pushing on, not knowing whither, but keenly alive to the fact that the fox had at last consented to
move his quarters.

Tom touched his hat, and looked at his master, inquiringly. ‘He’s gone for Claydon’s,’ said the master. ‘Try them up that hedgerow.’ Tom did try them up the hedgerow, and in half a minute the hounds came upon the scent. Then you might see men settling their hats on their heads, and feeling their feet in the stirrups. The
moment for which they had so long waited had come, and
yet there were many who would now have preferred that the fox should be headed back into cover. Some had but little confidence in their half-blown horses; – with many the waiting, though so abused and anathematized, was in truth more to their taste than the run itself; – with others the excitement had gone by, and a gallop over a field or two was necessary before it would be restored. With most
men at such a moment there is a little nervousness, some fear of making a bad starts a dread lest others should have more of the success of the hunt than falls to them. But there was a great rush and a mighty bustle as the hounds made out their game, and Sir William felt himself called upon to use the rough side of his tongue to more than one delinquent.

And then certain sly old stagers might
be seen turning off to the left, instead of following the course of the game as indicated by the hounds. They were men who had felt the air as they came out, and knew that the fox must soon run down wind, whatever he might do for the first half mile or so, – men who knew also which was the shortest way to Claydon’s by the road. Ah, the satisfaction that there is when these men are thrown out, and
their dead knowledge proved to be of no avail! If a fox will only run straight, heading from the cover on his real line, these very sagacious gentlemen seldom come to much honour and glory.

In the present instance the beast seemed determined to go straight enough, for the hounds ran the scent along three or four hedgerows in a line. He had managed to get for himself full ten minutes’ start, and
had been able to leave the cover and all his enemies well behind him before he bethought himself as to his best way to his purposed destination. And here, from field to field, there were little hunting-gates at which men crowded lustily, poking and shoving each other’s horses, and hating each other with a bitterness of hatred which is, I think, known nowhere else. Mo hunting man ever wants to jump
if he can help it, and the hedges near the gate were not alluring. A few there were who made lines for themselves, taking the next field to the right, or scrambling through the corners of the fences while the rush was going on at the gates; and among these was George Vavasor. He
never rode in a crowd, always keeping himself somewhat away from men as well as hounds. He would often be thrown out,
and then men would hear no more of him for that day. On such occasions he did not show himself, as other men do, twenty minutes after the fox had been killed or run to ground,–but betook himself home by himself, going through the byeways and lanes, thus leaving no report of his failure to be spoken of by his compeers.

As long as the line of gates lasted, the crowd continued as thick as ever,
and the best man was he whose horse could shove the hardest After passing some four or five fields in this way they came out upon a road, and, the scent holding strong, the dogs crossed it without any demurring. Then came doubt into the minds of men, many of whom, before they would venture away from their position on the lane, narrowly watched the leading hounds to see whether there was indication
of a turn to the one side or the other. Sir William, whose seventy odd years excused him, turned sharp to the left, knowing that he could make Claydon’s that way; and very many were the submissive horsemen who followed him; a few took the road to the right, having in then-minds some little game of their own. The hardest riders there had already crossed from the road into the country, and were going
well to the hounds, ignorant, some of them, of the brook before them, and others unheeding. Foremost among these was Burgo Fitzgerald, – Burgo Fitzgerald, whom no man had ever known to crane at a fence, or to hug a road, or to spare his own neck or his horse’s. And yet poor Burgo seldom finished well, – coming to repeated grief in this matter of his hunting, as he did so constantly in other matters
of his life.

But almost neck and neck with Burgo was Pollock, the sporting literary gentleman. Pollock had but two horses to his stud, and was never known to give much money for them; – and he weighed without his boots, fifteen stones!
²
No one ever knew how Pollock did it; – more especially as all the world declared that he was as ignorant of hunting as any tailor. He could ride, or when he couldn’t
ride he could tumble, – men said that of him, – and he would ride as long as the beast under him could go. But few knew
the sad misfortunes which poor Pollock sometimes encountered; – the muddy ditches in which he was left; the despair with which he would stand by his unfortunate horse when the poor brute could no longer move across some deep-ploughed field; the miles that he would walk at night
beside a tired animal, as he made his way slowly back to Roebury!

Then came Tom the huntsman, with Calder Jones close to him, and Grindley intent on winning his sovereign. Vavasor had also crossed the road somewhat to the left, carrying with him one or two who knew that he was a safe man to follow. Maxwell had been ignominiously turned by the hedge, which, together with its ditch, formed a fence
such as all men do not love at the beginning of a run. He had turned from it acknowledging the cause. ‘By George!’ said he, ‘that’s too big for me yet awhile; and there’s no end of a river at the bottom.’ So he had followed the master down the road.

All those whom we have named managed to get over the brook, Pollock’s horse barely contriving to get up his hind legs from the broken edge of the
bank. Some nags refused it, and their riders thus lost all their chance of sport for that day. Such is the lot of men who hunt. A man pays five or six pounds for his day’s amusement, and it is ten to one that the occurrences of the day disgust rather than gratify him! One or two got in, and scrambled out on the other side, but Tufto Pearlings, the Manchester man from Friday Street, stuck in the mud
at the bottom, and could not get his mare out till seven men had come with ropes to help him. ‘Where the devil is my fellow?’ Pearlings asked of the countrymen; but the countrymen could not tell him that ‘his fellow’ with his second horse was riding the hunt with great satisfaction to himself.

George Vavasor found that his horse went with him uncommonly well, taking his fences almost in the stride
of his gallop, and giving unmistakeable signs of good condition. ‘I wonder what it is that’s amiss with him,’ said George to himself, resolving, however, that he would sell him that day if he got an opportunity. Straight went the line of the fox, up from the brook, and Tom began to say that his master had been wrong about Claydon’s.

‘Where are we now?’ said Burgo, as four or five of them dashed
through the open gate of a farmyard.

‘This is Bulby’ s farm,’ said Tom, ‘and we’re going right away for Elmham Wood.’

‘Elmham Wood be d—,’ said a stout farmer, who had come as far as that with them. ‘You won’t see Elmham Wood today,’

‘I suppose you know best,’ said Tom; and then they were through the yard, across another road, and down a steep ravine by the side of a little copse. ‘He’s been
through them firs, any way,’ said Tom. ‘To him, Gaylass!’ Then up they went the other side of the ravine, and saw the body of the hounds almost a field before them at the top.

‘I say, – that took some of the wind out of a fellow,’ said Pollock.

‘You mustn’t mind about wind now,’ said Burgo, dashing on.

‘Wasn’t the pace awful, coming up to that farmhouse?’ said Calder Jones, looking round to
see if Grindley was shaken off. But Grindley, with some six or seven others, was still there. And there, also, always in the next field to the left, was George Vavasor. He had spoken no word to any one since the hunt commenced, nor had he wished to speak to any one. He desired to sell his horse, – and he desired also to succeed in the run for other reasons than that, though I think he would have
found it difficult to define them.