Mr Facey Romford's Hounds (11 page)

Who doesn't know little Tom Chowey?—Chowey, the man with the india-rubber-hall-like mouth?—Chowey, the mildest-mannered, civilestspoken, most drunken little dog in the kingdom? Chowey has been with half the hunts going, thus forming a large acquaintance, and so enabling him to earn a precarious livelihood when out of place, by touching his hat, and re-introducing himself to itinerant sportsmen, or gentlemen down Tattersall's yard. “Remembers your Lordship when I lived with the Crammers,” with a saw of the air with his arm. “Caught your 'oss, Sir Harry, when you got that juice of a fall with the Varickshire”(”juice” being the nearest approach to an oath that Chowey ever indulges in). “Was out, Mr Crasher, when you swam the Lune on Lehander,” and so on. A horsey scamp will generally get a shilling out of a sportsman, while a combey or a staylacey one would plead in vain. The most remarkable part of Chowey, however, was his mouth. This, as we said before, was like an india-rubber ball, and once seen could never be forgotten. In repose it was like the neck of the ball tied; when, however, the owner was excited—say, by the sight of a fox—it gaped again, just like one of the Dutch toys into whose mouth children try to chuck balls. When he screwed it up, it looked like the incipient trunk of an elephant. The whole of the lower part of his face seemed to converge to that feature. It was a most remarkable one.

Swig, with his three waistcoats on, was a few pounds heavier than Chowey, the two together weighing less than friend Facey. They were as lean as laths, just like so many feet of galvanized gristle. Both had piercing grey eyes that roved in all directions, like Daniel Forester's on dividend days. Their ages might be anything—anything between thirty and sixty. Swig's wardrobe went into a little valise that swung in the air as light as a pen case, while Chowey carried his in the crown of an extinguishing bell-shaped hat. These two geniuses, Romford, after due deliberation and much cautioning, at length engaged, and having paid their third-class fares by the Parliamentary train, and giving them each a penny roll and sixpence a-piece, sent them off to Minshull Vernon, thinking they could not do much harm till he came. And like a majestic master as he now began to be, he followed next day with his newly-acquired horses.

H
AVING ALREADY INTIMATED THAT
M
R
Romford did not stay very long with the Heavyside Hunt, and not having Brown, Jones, and Robinson in the field, the reader will not expect us to dilate much on the peculiarities of the country, or to tell who gave Mr Romford

but would doubtless rather that we trotted on with our story to the more permanent scene of his great sporting career.

To this end, therefore, we shall be very brief, merely observing that he got through his summer very comfortably, fishing where he liked, shooting where he liked, and, generally speaking, doing pretty much what he liked. The harvest was early, the corn was cut and carried in good order, and he satisfied himself that the litters of foxes were both numerous and strong. He had heard nothing of Jog or his check; nothing of Mr Holmside, the treasurer of the Stir-it-Stiff Poor Law Union; nothing of Mr Nathan Levy and his rent; and nothing of Mr Soapey Sponge, either about his shop or his wife. Altogether, Mr Romford felt like a new man—like the Turbot on its tail himself. If he ever thought of Oncle Gilroy, it was only to bless the day on which he stared into Wilkinson and Kidd's shop window, and was instigated to become a master of fox-hounds. Thanks to the generosity of his brother masters, or the gullibility of their huntsmen, he had now a most promising entry of hounds. If they were only as good as they looked, thought he, they would indeed be hard to beat. And he would stand by the hour in the kennel, criticising their shape and their make, incontinently culling samples of his beard, until he was actually sore with the operation. And as the glad day approached for trying the pack, he was more and more in the kennel, until he seemed absolutely to begrudge himself his necessary rest and relaxation. At length came the time for trying their prowess, as also that of his horses and men.

Most masters would have felt rather nervous in taking the field with two such coadjutors as Chowey and Swig, but Mr Romford knew no fear, for he looked carefully after them himself; and there being no public-house within three miles of the kennel, save the “Dog and Partridge” inn, where he himself lived, and whose every nook and cranny he could command from his sitting-room, they dare not come there, while he hardly gave them time to get elsewhere. Moreover, they had no money, and were not likely-looking customers for people to trust. So they had to “behave themselves” whether they were inclined to do so or not.

What with the H.H. and his own, Facey had nearly a hundred couple of hounds in kennel, and meal being costly, it was his interest to reduce their numbers as quickly as possible. So he would be at it by daybreak, making the welkin ring with their melody, long before Hodge and his ploughmen awoke from their slumbers. Often, as our sportsmen have been returning home, all dust and perspiration, after handling a cub or two, they have been asked when they were “gannin to cast off?” And Swig and Chowey, seeing they had a master mind in our friend, readily seconded his efforts, and played into his hands with skill and enthusiasm. The presentation hounds were indeed capital, and Facey, having satisfied himself that he couldn't do wrong whichever he kept, again had recourse to the good bread-seal, offering most superior drafts to outlying distant masters, at what he called the very moderate price of five guineas a couple; and some of them knowing the Turbot on its tail personally, others by character, they readily accepted the offer, and Facey got a great number of five-pound notes in a very easy, agreeable manner. “Nothin' like bein' a master of hounds,” said he, as they came rolling in post after post. And he revolved in his mind what other packs he could draw further supplies from. It was clear that either his own credit or that of the other Mr Romford was extremely good, and he saw no reason why he should not profit by it. It was lucky that he had dropped the name of Gilroy, thought he.

At length, the Romford orchestra being properly tuned, and all things ready for an opening, Swig and Chowey clad in good second-hand clothes, bought off the pegs, the fox-hunting curtain arose early in November, to the old familiar H.H. audience.

Facey had matched his hounds admirably; they could both hunt and run, and the foxes having been well disturbed, flew as they had never done before. The new horses, too, were admired; and, altogether, the Romford star seemed in the ascendant. Still, there was nothing flash or showy in the establishment—indeed, our master had not even treated himself to a new coat, the Romford theory being that a hunting-coat, like a shooting-jacket, should be worn as long as it would hang together. But the plumcoloured coats brought many a fox to hand, one a day being the rule, instead of one a week, as it was in old Lotherington's time.

We now come to what broke up all this apparent prosperity and, as there is a lady, or rather two ladies, involved in the case, we will begin a fresh chapter.

W
E DO NOT KNOW THAT
we have ever mentioned it before, but if we have, we venture the observation again,—that among other great advantages afforded by railways, has been that of opening out the great matrimonial market, whereby people can pick and choose wives all the world over, instead of having to pursue the old Pelion on Ossa or Pig upon Bacon system of always marrying a neighbour's child. So we now have an amalgamation of countries and counties, and a consequent improvement in society—improvement in wit, improvement in wine, improvement in “wittles,” improvement in everything. Among the members of the Heavyside Hunt; who profited by this state of things during the summer of Mr Romford's noviciate, was the rich Mr Rowley Rounding, of Grandacres Hall, a good turnip-headed, turnip-growing Squire, whose faculties generally served him about twenty or five-andtwenty minutes after they were wanted. Being on a gaping excursion all along the Southern coast, he was perfectly galvanised with the beauty of the fair-haired, blue-eyed, brisk young widow, Madame de Normanville (
née
Brown), of Boulogne-sur-Mer, who came upon him at Ramsgate, in such a succession of bonnets, as almost to deprive him of reason and at first prevented his laying that and that together, and deciding that if he couldn't be Monsieur de Normanville, she, at all events, might be Mrs Rowley Rounding.

For first of all, being a Madame, he had to ascertain and digest the fact that she might be and indeed was single; then it opportunely occurred to him that he was single too, after which he came to the conclusion that there was no reason why—though he wasn't in search of a wife—he shouldn't try to catch the widow and carry her down into the H.H. country. To be sure, Bob Ricketts, Billy Meadows, and Charley Westrope might laugh and deride him, but they had not his means, and, moreover, had never been tempted by—such extraordinary beauty and bonnets, as hers. If she wasn't an angel, she was as near hand one as could be—but he thought she was one entire. He only wished he could make up to her. But what the “juice,” as Chowey would say, is a country gentleman with no acquaintance but the landlord of his hotel to introduce, to do under such circumstances?

The lady, however, soon solved that mystery. Madame de Normanville seeing she had Basilisk'd the booby, presently afforded him an opportunity of making her acquaintance by dropping her finely-laced and ciphered kerchief as she floated before him on the pier, when she gave him such a pearly-teeth-showing smile of gratitude on restoring it as immediately finished the business.

Next day she had him as handy as a French poodle, and looking about as sensible as one. And widows being generally pretty good men of business, short, sharp, and decisive, she brought him up to the “what have you got, and what will you do?” gate, without giving him a chance of leading her over it. Indeed, her beauty ought to have exempted her from any such operation as that, for though inclining to
embonpoint
, she had a beautiful figure and complexion, set off by the best of modistes and milliners, as Rowley found when the rather long-standing bills came pouring in—some dating even as far back as the time when she was Miss Brown—or Brown Stout, as the impertinent young fellows of that day called her.

To make a long story short, however, which was more than Rowley could do by the bills, he married her off hand, and then, of course, according to the old needles and pins song—

his sorrows began.

Of course he took her down into the country, and here we may observe that we cannot imagine a greater change than from the light elastic gaiety of southern watering-places to the sober realities of dull out-of-the-way country quarters, where the ladies were all prolific, and their talk was of children or nurses, and cooks, and how many candles each used in the kitchen.

Mr Rowley Rounding, though a very good man, and a capital judge of a cow, had very little in common with his sprightly wife, who having no family, required the excitement that children supply. And as it is not often given to the same man to be a good judge of a horse as well as of a cow, our Squire cared little about the former, and could not enter into the spirit of the equestrian performances of his wife, who was known for her capering qualities to all the small riding-masters along the Southern coast. Indeed, at Brighton they used to charge her rather more than other people in consequence of her weight and galloping propensities.

Having exhausted her country circle, got all their histories and grievances by heart, domestic economy included, she now took it into her head she would like to resume her riding, alleging that it was no use wasting a good habit; and although Mr Rowley Rounding pointed out that a habit ate nothing, and did not cost anything keeping, she stood to her point firmly, and insisted that she ought to ride, that she would be much better if she rode, that horse exercise would do her a great deal of good, that Doctor Senna had strongly recommended her to ride, the Doctor having said, in reply to her inquiry if he didn't think she would be better if she rode, that “perhaps she might.”

And she talked and teased so much about a horse, declaring she couldn't do without a horse—that she must have a horse—that she would be perfectly happy if she had a horse, that Mr Rowley Rounding, greatly appreciating peace and quietness, agreed to buy her a horse, and forthwith she besieged all her friends and acquaintance with inquiries if they knew of a horse, a lady's horse, a horse with a flowing mane and tail—a whole coloured horse with racing-like points—that she wouldn't be ashamed to ride in Hyde Park, for she had some notion of getting up to town in the spring if she could. And a person wanting to buy a horse being a novelty in the H.H. country, where they almost all bred their own, and wore them from end to end, it was talked of a good deal, and it seemed to be the general opinion that the wonderful Leotard was the likeliest horse to suit our fair friend. Not that Romford had said anything about selling him, but people thought he didn't seem to be of much use to him, and he might perhaps be tempted to part with him. So our old friend Colonel Chatterbox, who dearly loved a commission of that sort, and also, with some ten or a dozen others, fancied himself a great favourite of the lady's, deputed himself to sound our master on the subject, and pretending the horse was for himself, Mr Romford accommodated Chatterbox with him for a hundred—a cool hundred—Facey observing that it was absolutely giving him away. And though Colonel Chatterbox thought it was plenty of money, yet as he seemed the very thing Mrs Rowley Rounding wanted, and he knew she wouldn't like to ride a cheap horse, he closed with the offer by giving Mr Romford a draft on Checksby and Shorter's bank at Ridwell, which of course Facey immediately cashed, and felt very comfortable in consequence. So the wondrous Leotard again changed hands, and of course furnished abundant food for comment and criticism in his new quarters, no two connoisseurs agreeing in their opinion of him.