Mr Facey Romford's Hounds (47 page)

At this juncture it occurred to Jack that there are other ways of obtaining a livelihood than by valeting, and, though valeting certainly was the easiest and pleasanter line of all, he had no objection to his early professional career, and bethought him of trying his luck in the sawdust circle once more. Accordingly he sought out Mr Crackenthorpe, the manager of Crackenthorpe's Royal European Hippodrome, and offered his services as a general performer; but twenty years had made a striking change in Jack's elasticity of limb. Instead of coming cleverly through the paper balloon, after throwing a somersault, he hit his head against the hoop, and sent it flying into the pit. Then, having accidentally slipped from his saddle when rehearsing the part of Billy Button the tailor, he could not regain his seat for some seconds, and was so blown with running alongside the brute and trying to pacify him, that Mr Crackenthorpe lost all patience, and left his
locum tenens
to bow him out at his leisure. Jack then withdrew from that line entirely, and after driving a country doctor about in his pill-box for three months, who worked him both day and night, he was next found as the odd man at Skidmore's Livery and Bait Stables in Pont Street, Pimlico, with twelve shillings a week and a hayloft to sleep in. If Sir Bernard Burke, having exhausted the vicissitudes of families, were to turn his hand to the vicissitudes of servants, he would not find a more checkered or eventful career than that of our distinguished friend Mr Rogers.

But it is a long lane that never has a turn, and Jack's turn came at last. One fine summer's afternoon in the height of a London season, when every job-master could send out double the number of vehicles he could supply, and when every caitiff with a coat to his back was elevated to the rank of a coachman, one summer's afternoon, we say, as Jack was clattering about Skidmore's yard in the wooden clogs of servitude, with straw bands wrapped around his ankles, our squeakey friend Mr Stotfold came rolling in in a high state of excitement, demanding first the master, then the mistress, then the ostler, then the helper, then anybody he could see. He had just bought ten couple of hounds at Tattersall's, and didn't know how the deuce to get them away, or what to do with them when he had got them away. And, as luck would have it, there was nobody in the yard but Rogers—Rogers attired as aforesaid—“but needs must,” says the proverb, “when a certain old gentlemen drives,” and our master had no alternative but to address himself to Jack. He told him candidly how they had knocked the hounds down to him, and how he wanted them housed.

Now, Jack had a turn for the chase, and when with Mr Pringle at Tantivy Castle, on a visit to his late master's noble mother, the Countess, had cultivated the acquaintance of Mr Dickey Boggledike, Lord Ladythorne's huntsman, and knew all about boiling and feeding and kennelling, at least thought he did, and gladly volunteered his services to Mr Stotfold.

“If Jack could only get a man to mind the yard while he was away, he would go for them himself,” he said, and a job brougham coming in at the moment, he transferred his responsibility to the driver, and, divesting himself of his
sabots,
put on an old puce-coloured livery vest, now worn almost black, and proceeded on his way to the Corner, inwardly hoping his employer might prove as simple as he looked.

The hounds were in two lots of five couples each, now, however, clubbed together like a bunch of onions, pulling and striving, and straining all ways to be off they didn't know where to, and Jack, seeing the position, summoned the intelligent bare-footed man in the old green-collared Surrey hunt coat and cap, who haunts the passage, and directing him to divide them (Jack thinking it would be better for Surrey man to be bit than him), each then seized the tow rope of five couple, and separating them proceeded up the entry, and down Grosvenor Place with his charge, amid cries from the attendant street urchins of “Talli o! talli o! A hunt! a hunt! Vere do you meet? Vere's the stag? Have you seen my oss? Crikey O! vot a hugly man!” meaning, of course, Mr Rogers. The “hugly” man, however, had his hands too full to be able to resent the indignity, and, moreover, saw the fat boy's large figure looming in the rear.

“Handsome is that handsome does,” says the proverb, and the way our friend managed his hounds, and above all the skilful compliments he paid Mr Stotfold on his judgment in buying such a nice-looking lot for so little money, completely ingratiated him with our master, and made Mr Stotfold glad when Jack hinted that he wouldn't mind giving up the capital place he then had under Mr Skidmore and coming to him. And Jack, not overrating himself—indeed, putting his services rather low, Squeakey and he quickly came to terms, and Jack left his
sabots
in Pont Street for the man who came after him. He then became a huntsman—huntsman to Mr Stotfold, master of stag-hounds, in which capacity the reader will now have the goodness to view him.

He had a capital time of it, too, for his master being ignorant enough to hire him, was ignorant enough to keep him also, and a peripatetic stag-hunter like Mr Stotfold was not troubled with those too critical fields that raise or lower the fame of a huntsman, according to the sport he shows. Jack was not only huntsman but master of the horse, buying the meat for the kennel and the forage for the stables, making up in overcharge on the articles what he considered himself underpaid in the matter of wages.

Hunting on what the swells call the scientific principle was quite beside Jack's mark. Nevertheless he could ride—ride over almost anything, and also blow the key-bugle, and seldom or ever had he occasion to play—

in consequence of losing his stag. If he whiles, as he said, let the hounds have a bite of its haunch, it was to make the lobbing gentleman more agile in future, Jack being of opinion that if a hound once put his fangs well into him, the stag would take care not to let him do it again if he could help it. At least, Jack knew he wouldn't if he were the stag.

Such, then, was the gentleman now invited by Mrs Watkins to meet our distinguished sportsman Mr Romford, and obliterate the recollection of the Carstangs disappointment.

R
AILWAYS ARE CAPITAL THINGS FOR
long distances, but they don't do much for short ones. It is a grand thing to fly from one end of the kingdom to another in a day, but, for anything within ten miles, there is nothing like having one's own horse or conveyance. With them there is no hurry or confusion, ten minutes is neither here nor there, but one minute makes all the difference with a railway. It is very provoking to see a train gliding smoothly out at one end of a station as we come hurrying in at the other; yet such things do happen with parties wearing even the best regulated chronometers. But if railways do little for travellers, they do less for visitors, who are generally set down either far too early or much too late—extremes greatly to be deprecated. It is tiresome in the short winter days, when there is no alleviating turn to take round the farm or the garden, to have to consume the intervening time before dinner in the house, still worse to meet the first course leaving the dining-room, all hope of one's coming being extinct.

Neither of these casualties, we are happy to say, awaited our friend Mr Stotfold, for, having consulted his amanuensis, Mr Tomkins, the station-master at Pickering Nook, that official chose him a train that would not only set him down in good time, but secure him a conveyance to Dalberry Lees, “It being no fun,” as Tomkins truly said, “to have to walk several miles in the dark.” This was a through train, and many of the passengers having come long distances and made themselves comfortable, were not inclined to be disturbed, certainly not to admit a stranger of our friend's dimensions, so the usual artifices were resorted to, dummies exhibited, and babies plied at the windows, it being a well ascertained fact that there is nothing so efficacious as a
babby
for keeping men out of a carriage. But Loggan, the guard, always had a place in reserve for a “gent” like our friend, and now obsequiously met and led him along the line to a newly-painted carriage, in the centre compartment of which were only an elder lady and her handsome, but slightly
passé,
daughter, who he knew would have no objection to the introduction of such a stranger as Squire Stotfold; indeed Loggan rather thought that the two travelled for the purpose of picking up an eligible young man if they could. And the fat boy having squeezed himself in sideways, squeaking his apologies as he got himself seated, proceeded to unfold his rug and set his tongue agoing on a sort of general issue expedition—weather, crops, concerts, balls, pic-nics, the usual staple of unmarried conversation—making himself what the ladies call very agreeable, or very forward, according as they or another is the object of attention.

But it was a short-lived triumph, for they had hardly got the full swing of conversation established ere the slackening speed of the train announced a coming stop, and it presently pulled up before the now familiar Firfield Station. Loggan's rosy face then appeared at the carriage window, announcing to our master of stag-hounds that his railway journey was at an end. Mr Stotfold had, therefore, to tear himself away from his newly-found friends before he had even run them to their homes. With a radiant smile to each, out then he rolled, wrapper and all, and presently began squeaking for a porter—“Porter! Porter! Porter!”—attracting all eyes to the windows to see such a jolly cockatoo, all green and yellow and red, for the fat boy did not seem to think he could make himself sufficiently conspicuous. The train presently sped on, and having given up his ticket, he began squeaking for the 'bus.

Independent Jimmy stared with astonishment as the fat boy's great stomach came looming along, tightly buttoned into a bright green double-breasted cut-away coat, with a buff vest, yellow leathers, and rose-tinted tops; his short neck being adorned with a bright scarlet sensation tie, secured by a massive blue and gold ring.

“'Bus, 'bus! where's the 'bus?” squeaked he.

“'Bus!|” growled Jimmy, eyeing him, adding, “sink ye should have a barge.”

But the fat boy still continued his vociferations.

“Are ye gannin to tak' the whole on't yoursel' now?” demanded Jimmy.

“No, only me and my man,” replied the boy, pointing to a grinning little ear-ringed Frenchman, all teeth and hair, like a rat-catcher's dog.

“Ar dinna think we can hould any but yersel',” replied Jimmy, “ye're se fat,” added he, looking him over.

“Hut,” snorted the boy indignantly, half-inclined to kick him “an impudent 'bus man talking to a master of stag-hounds in that way.”

“Why, then, ar tell ye what, ye mun just wait for the melon-frame,” replied Jimmy, “for there are two women, 'maist as big as yoursel' with their hoops, who want to be gannin wi' me.”

“Melon-frame!” squeaked our friend; “melon-frame! what the deuce have I to do with a melon-frame?”

“It's the private carridge,” explained Jimmy, “and ye'll ride far comfortabler, and besides be set doon at the Dalberry Lees door, 'stead o' bein' left by the side of the road with the 'bus,” and Jimmy's master appearing at the moment, bearing a basket of live geese, Jimmy jerked his head at our fat friend and said “here's a gent wants to be gannin wi' ye.”

The melon-frame door was then opened, the wraps were put in, and the fat boy squeezed himself in sideways, leaving his valet to see to the luggage. All being presently adjusted,
“Jip!”
cried the driver, and away they drove from the station. Twenty minutes brought them to Dalberry Lees. Here, though Mr Stotfold, master of stag-hounds, expected to be the hero of the party, yet he was not so in reality, being in fact only auxiliary to Mr Romford. Indeed, if it hadn't been for our fox-hound master, Stotfold wouldn't have been there at all. So, when he rolled into the drawing-room after his name, and found Mr Romford, who had somewhat recovered from his Tarring Neville fever, playing the flute to Miss Cassandra Cleopatra, he took him rather smally, just as a master of fox-hounds might be supposed to take a master of harriers. In this he was somewhat confirmed by finding Mr Romford in mufti—tweed ditto suit—instead of being arrayed, as he himself was, in the costume of the chase. Stotfold thought a master of hounds should always look like his work.

Stotfold, indeed, had not ascertained his exact status as a master of stag-hounds, and having found his name when he advertised his meets at the top of the list of hounds, along with the Queen's, a baron's, a baronet's, and so on, thought himself entitled to look down upon the followers of all other branches of venery, and looked down upon them accordingly. He talked of the Queen and I, Davis and I, Bessborough and I, &c. Nor was Stotfold's ignorance peculiar to himself, for Mrs Watkins, fully believing she was going to give Mr Romford a great treat, would not anticipate his delight by telling him the name, so Mr Romford was kept in a state of pleasurable excitement.

The reader will therefore readily imagine that it was with no very satisfactory feelings that our Master was interrupted in the middle of his accompaniment on the flute of Miss Cassandra Cleopatra on the harp in the popular air of “Dixey's Land,” by the announcement and entry of this extraordinary contribution to the chace. Facey started, for his puffing and blowing had prevented his hearing the ring and arrival, and, as he sat with his back to the door, it was only by Miss Cassandra Cleopatra breaking off abruptly to do the honours in the absence of mamma, that Facey was sensible of the presence of a stranger. Up he got too, and, instead of finding Lord Who-knows-what, confronted the before-mentioned fat boy.

“Mither Romford, Mither Stotfold,” lisped the fair lady, and as soon as Mr Stotfold relinquished her soft hand, which he claimed just as he would that of one of the nymphs of the Pickering Nook Station, he tendered his own to Mr Romford.