Lesbia Newman (1889)/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
Reformed Horseback in a Run With the Frogmore.
It was a dull grey morning in December; the two friends who were to start Reformed Horseback stood before the fire in the vicarage drawing-room, dressed exactly according to Mr Bristley’s design already described. Lesbia showed to the better advantage, because her waist had never been pinched in by, stays, nor her feet by shoes which jam the great and little toe together into a point like a well-cut cedar pencil, still less by those abominable stilt heels which torture the foot into the shape of an inverted U. Poor Letitia Blemmyketts had undergone all these barbarities, but nevertheless she contemplated the rounded robust figure of her athletic young friend with an admiration unmixed with any of that jealousy an inferior mind might have felt.
‘I congratulate you on your figure, love,’ she said. ‘I see you have never been waspified,—wish I hadn’t!’
‘Never been what, Letty?’
‘Waspified; your waist squeezed in like a wasp’s by those cussed stays. The waspification of girls by tight lacing is the ruin of their bodies, as ‘weakervesselism’ is the ruin of their minds. Good-morning, Mr Bristley; you find me just spitefully envious of this young beauty of yours. I guess she could digest a boa-constrictor, and guess a boa-constrictor couldn’t digest me: my hips are too sharp.’
‘That’s not the part of you which is sharp, my dear Miss Blemmyketts,’ said the vicar, as he shook hands with her. ‘What have you to complain of? Probably the greater part of the people who will see you to-day will prefer your figure to Lesbia’s.’
‘Don’t care a cuss for the approval of a pack of fools,’ she answered bitterly. ‘I can’t have my own, because of my waspification. Cuss’d be the waspifiers and deformers of girls, I say. I should like to see them all wedded to the Iron Maiden of Nuremberg. That would tighten them up à la mode to their hearts’ content, and also to the content of sensible people.’
‘Please, sir, breakfast’s ready,’ said Fidge, putting in her head, after having fumbled a minute at the door handle.
Meanwhile the two hunters, a bay hired by Miss Blemmyketts and a dappled grey, almost white, mare, about fifteen and a half hands, which the vicar, who had been a hunting man in his college days and was a judge of horseflesh, had bought for his niece—were sent on to the meet in charge of a boy whom Mr Bristley employed occasionally; while the whole party, including the two elder ladies, who liked going now and then to a meet to see their acquaintances, were to start later in the pony-carriage. At ten o'clock they drove off, the two girls in the small back seat, while the three elders managed to crush into the roomy front.
It was still a cold grey morning, with the wind in the east, and the party were well wrapped up in skins and rugs. On their way they had to pass through the town of Frogmore, stopping a minute at Bummingby’s for a parcel.
‘How’s the bicycle, ma’am?’ inquired the ironmonger of Lesbia, as he put the packet in the carriage.
‘Oh, she’s all right, thank you, Mr Bummingby,—had no mishaps since I saw you last. But the season’s about over for a few weeks; we're going to hunt this morning, you can see.’
‘Well, that is a novelty, ma’am!’ exclaimed the tradesman, as he surveyed with admiration all that was visible of the young ladies’ costume.
On getting clear of the town, they shortly came in sight of some water on the left, and about two miles further passed near where a solitary group of poplars could be seen on its brink. From that time until they neared the meet, continual shouts of laughter from Miss Blemmyketts made the occupants of the front seat look round repeatedly.
‘What is the joke, girls?’ Mrs Newman at last inquired.
‘It’s this unfeminine daughter of yours doing irate bargee,’ answered Letitia.
Lesbia had pointed out to her the place where she and the Frogmore bicyclists had been ferried over by Bill and Joe that summer afternoon, and was doing her best to reproduce the scene, language and all, for the American’s benefit.
‘Now, really, Lesbia,’ her mother remonstrated, ‘one would have thought you’d been ashamed of that affair, instead of dwelling on the recollection and making fun of it. Come, here’s something better to engage your attention; look at the red coats! What a large field for such a nasty day!’
The meet was on a broad village green with a guide-post at cross roads; the servants and the dogs were moving about, waiting for the master, who was not always very punctual. Eleven was the nominal hour, it was now a quarter past. About a hundred and thirty riders of all sorts were present, including some dozen ladies. Several carriages were standing in the road, Lady Humnoddie’s, with herself and her two daughters, being among them. As Mr Bristley’s boy brought the nags to be mounted, it struck Lesbia for the first time how conspicuous she would be in her new style on her white steed.
‘It’s my belief, Uncle Spines,’ she said, ‘that if you could get my name painted in large black letters upon the sun, you wouldn’t hesitate to do it. Why did you choose a white horse for me?’
‘For the reason you state, Lesbie. When one is setting a new fashion, it is an object to be conspicuous.’
‘But one ought to ride better than I do before coming forward in such a character.’
‘I don’t see that; you ride quite well enough; there’s a deal of luck in hunting. Don’t let your mare blow herself, and don’t follow anyone in particular; choose your own place at the fences; you'll be quite as safe, and do yourself more credit.’
‘I'll do my best, but I feel a little nervous,’ she said.
‘So do I,’ added Miss Blemmyketts. ‘Not a little; I’m all in a twitter.’
‘Others here feel nervous too, depend upon it,’ said Mr Bristley, ‘those who really mean riding to the hounds.’
The two young girls now threw off their over garments, got out of the carriage, and mounted astride in public. This did not, however, attract very much attention, until Lady Humnoddie, who could not resist the temptation to quiz, called out to them, standing up in her barouche,—
‘Here, reformers! come and show yourselves this way. I want to examine you.’
After this it ran rapidly through the meet that the two neat little riders in dark costumes were young ladies mounted astride; and now numbers of people rode near and past them, scrutinising as closely as good manners would permit, some making remarks as they moved off which were just audible to the girls’ quick ears, such as ‘New idea that; what do you think of it?’ ‘Not bad; I wonder it’s not been done before.’ ‘I say, here’s the nineteenth century come out strong at its close!’ ‘Ah, never saw that before; very neat though, I will say.’ ‘Just look; there’s that eccentric parson Bristley brought out some girls astride!’ ‘H’m; I don’t dislike it; they’re devilish well got up, and they sit well.’ ‘Ha! that’s original. Wants a little brass to start, but, after all, it’s more natural than the lady’s seat, and better for the horse, else why don’t we ride side-saddle?’
From these and like observations our two girls gathered that their reception was on the whole favourable. Two or three of the more old-fashioned lady members of the hunt regarded the innovation with displeasure; but there was something in the demeanour of the two friends which made those who were inclined to be bitter against them think it well to reserve the expression of their opinions for occasions when the objects of them were not present. The master now arrived, and after excusing himself to those nearest for being late, started with the huntsman for cover at a steady trot.
‘Take care of yourselves; don’t be rash,’ called out Mrs Bristley from the carriage, turning round to go home. ‘The two girls replied by a wave of the hand, not very comfortably spared, as the nags were already pulling under them in the excitement of the move.
The route to the first cover usually drawn from that meet lay by a cart-track through a line of gates. It was a small square gorse, so called, but of late years it had grown more blackthorn than gorse, and was fenced in with hedge and ditch. Our two girls, partly, it must be said, from the eagerness of their horses, reached it among the first, and were much interested by watching the throw off.
‘Go hark, hark, hark! yoi! my beauties, go hark, hark!’ called the huntsman, cracking his thong, while his horse backed about in elegant curvetings.
‘How funny that all the dogs have the same name!’ remarked Miss Blemmyketts to her friend, as they drew up side by side. ‘If they’re all called Hark, how does he know one from another?’
A gentleman in red who came up at that moment, pretending to have his eyes fixed on the hounds leaping and scrambling into the thicket, but really with a view to study our two girls’ costume, bent forward and said with a smile,—
‘I think you are under a mistake; Hark is not the name of any dog, it’s only a way of sending hounds in to thread the cover and turn out a fox if there is one.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Miss Blemmyketts; ‘and do you think there is one in this little place?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ he replied; ‘but we shall know in a minute or two. Ah, I thought so—blank,’ he added, as a single short note on the horn came from the other side of the cover.
‘What’s blank, sir?’ asked Miss Blemmyketts.
‘Drawn blank; that is, there’s no fox. Never mind, we shall find at Midham Leys, if we don’t before.’
‘Pray, is it far to Midham Leys?’ inquired Lesbia.
‘Why, yes, it’s nearly three miles. You can just see the top of the wood over the rising ground. There are several little spinnies to be drawn on the way; if we don’t find in them, we’re sure, at all events, at the big wood. I’ve hunted twenty years over this country, and never knew Midham Leys drawn blank yet.’
The trot was resumed until they reached the first of the spinnies; it was tedious work the drawing blank of one little copse after another, but the popping over gaps out of the lane which it entailed, settled our two girls in their saddles and wore away their nervousness. They were among the first to enter the long straggling wood of Midham Leys when at last it was reached, between one and two o’clock. They entered through a narrow hand-gate, and after traversing some three hundred yards of wet deep slough called a ride, they were arrested by the halt of the column of horsemen of which they formed part; the master, who now pushed to the front, holding up his hand on reaching a wide circular space whence several rides diverged. Here our two girls, sitting at ease on their horses like the rest, chatted freely to each other, their somewhat naive observations being listened to in silent amusement by their hunting neighbours. The same gentleman in red who had given them information before happened to be near them again.
‘There!’ he suddenly exclaimed; ‘didn’t a hound speak?’
‘Speak, sir?’ said Miss Blemmyketts, opening her eyes wide.
‘Speak—that is, whimper.’
‘Whimper, sir, why? has he got scratched by a bramble?’
‘No,’ replied the gentleman, after a second’s pause, ‘he wants to tell us that a fox is afoot.’
‘In what sense is a fox a foot, sir? More than a foot long, sure-ly?’ inquired Miss Blemmyketts.
‘I mean,’ explained the gentleman, biting his lips, ‘that he has got scent of a fox and is trying to let the other hounds know it. There it is again, don’t you hear? No doubt about it. They’ve found.’
‘Tallyho, over!’ holloaed the huntsman from lower down the wood. ‘Over—over—over—over!’
‘Just keep an eye down that next ride, gentlemen, will you,’ said the master, turning his head.
The hounds were now in full cry through the wood, and our two girls, who heard the sound for the first time, began to feel the excitement.
‘Yoi over—over—over!’ called another, who was in front down that ride.
‘Now, ladies,’ said the good-natured one who had spoken to them before, ‘you can help us too. Keep your eyes fixed down this third ride, and you'll most likely see the fox cross from right to left.’
‘There he goes!’ exclaimed Lesbia, raising herself in her stirrups and pointing with her crop.
‘Right you are. Yoi over—yoi over—over—over—over—over!’
‘Can’t go on like this, I should think; he must break soon, said a farmer in grey coat, gaiters, and white cords, close by Miss Blemmyketts.
‘Poor creature, I hope not!’ she exclaimed in a disappointed tone. ‘Guess he’d hardly carry his tail so sprightly if he were going to break.’
This was too much for the politeness of her hearers, and laughter exploded on all sides. But the next moment there came the voice of the first whip from the end of the wood.
‘Tally-ho, gone away! Gone away — away —away — away!’
Bridles shortened up, hats jammed on heads, heels dug into horses’ flanks, a thundering, floundering, splashing, dashing, helter-skelter rush down the long ride after the tooting horn, not a few knees bruised in crowding out of the hand-gate—in this fashion, the open field was reached, the pack streaming over it in full chorus. Our two novices had a good place, but they had not got away scatheless. Miss Blemmyketts had her right eye closed by a huge clot of wet mud, kicked up from the quagmire by the horse next in front of her, and with difficulty she cleared her sight by hastily smearing the mud down over her cheek. Lesbia had a worse mishap; her mare stumbled in one of the deep grips of the ride, and as the girl was not prepared, she was thrown so much forward over the pommel that her face met the mare’s head as she jerked it up in recovering, thereby giving her rider a nasty blow on the mouth, as well as making her nose bleed. Thus, the one with her face half masked by dirt, the other with blood trickling over her chin, they settled into their stride across the open, and began to taste the not unmixed pleasures of fox-hunting.
The scent was good, the line of country mostly grass, the fences fair, and both girls did credit to the reformed style, Lesbia generally giving the lead to her friend. The run had lasted about twenty minutes without a check, the fox making straight up wind; our two girls were still in the first flight, and a few yards in rear of the master—who was a hard man to beat—when they crossed a large pasture which they had entered over a small double rail and ditch. The master here bore away to the left, toward a gap visible in the formidable stake-and-bind fence which bounded the field on its opposite side, and toward the middle part of which the hounds were running. This move was followed by the rest of the field, including Miss Blemmyketts, for reasons which they judged sufficient, after a cursory glance at the stake-and-bind; but Lesbia, whose courage was rather warmed than otherwise by her little misadventure at the start, determined to stick to the hounds as long as possible, and trust to the chapter of accidents for getting out of the pasture. Arrived at the gap, the master and huntsman found that it had been lately repaired, two sheep-hurdles having been bound together in it, end upwards, with wire, and supported by very sharp stakes, which again had been wattled at the bottom.
‘What’s to do now, Miller?’ said the master; ‘they’ve been playing the deuce here!’
‘Yes, Sir Richard,’ answered the huntsman. ‘I'd better try and pull that hurdle down; it won't do as it is, I reckon.’
He was off his horse in a moment and tugging away at the vexatious obstacle, which was well anathematised by eager riders coming up one after another; but it was quite three minutes before they could get the place open enough to be passed without a certainty of staking the horses.
Meanwhile Lesbia, not in the line of the pack, but a good many yards on one side—a rule of riding her uncle had carefully impressed on her—was steering cheerfully for a place of a very different sort. It was a gap in the high top of the stake-and-bind, barred across by a quite new timber railing. She felt a little trepidation during the short breathing-time afforded while the hounds were climbing the high and difficult fence; but her mare was already pricking her ears and shortening under her in that peculiar bucking whereby a good hunter seems to convey to his rider, ‘I can do it, if you'll let me.’ A bold horse makes more than half the boldness of the rider; Lesbia took her decision at once, kept her shoulders down, elbows in, head erect and knees well closed on the saddle, as the mare charged the formidable place. A violent spring that tried her seat, a splintering crash under her, a deep swoop down, and she was striding away over the ridge and furrow, alongside of the pack, and alone, not having even slipped a stirrup.
‘Criky!’ exclaimed the master, whose attention had been diverted from his accursed hurdle by curiosity as to what Lesbia meant to do; ‘that was an ugly one, and no mistake. Who’s that lad, d’ye know, Miller?’
‘It’s not a lad, Sir Richard, it’s a young lady,’ gasped the huntsman as, very red and hot, he scrambled back and caught his bridle.
‘A girl! the devil—you don’t mean to say so! I never saw anything like it. We sha’n't catch her now; they’re going like smoke.’
The huntsman then put his horse at the gap, knocking out two of the pointed stakes in his passage; the master followed, and Miss Blemmyketts was the first after him. They put on all the pace they could, but only to hear the distant music of the hounds, and now and then see over intervening hedges the head and shoulders of the solitary rider flying along with them.
Lesbia’s initiation into hunting had not been all smooth, but she had now the very cream of the sport, and no longer felt any pain in her swollen upper lip and nose, The fox could not have taken a better line of country, mainly grass pastures with a plough, stubble, or turnip at intervals; and us she crossed them at a swinging gallop, with plenty of time to take a pull at every fence, now a trim quickset in and out of a road, now a succession of common hedges with double ditch, now a bullfinch twelve or fifteen feet high, which the strong mare cleft as if it were a paper-hoop, now and then a stile where the hedge was impracticable, and two or three locked five-barred gates, over which she rose with an easy lift, the young girl experienced a physical exhilaration beyond what she had known before, as also a feeling of triumph at having shown her new style of horseback to advantage by distancing the field.
Presently the ground began to rise, and on passing the crest and beginning to descend, a wide grass valley opened before her, along the middle of which was visible that ominous line of pollard willows which makes many a straight-going man reconsider his position. But Lesbia had no hesitation about her now, and as she sailed away by the chorusing pack, her only thought was whether she could jump or would have to swim. As the gleam of the brook came in sight, she pulled up for a few seconds to choose her place, then, sitting well down in the saddle, let the mare rush. A powerful effort, and some twenty feet of water swept away behind her, the edge of the bank breaking where she landed, and causing a struggle but no fall. Half the pack was still swimming the stream whilst she galloped, standing in stirrups, up the opposite slope almost abreast of the leading hound, who was pointing straight for a group of large and remarkable grass mounds with a hawthorn or two growing on their summits. It was an ancient tumulus, and had been the scene of antiquarian excavations some years before. Of late it had been abandoned to rabbits, and for that reason was a favourite earth for foxes. A regular passaze inwards, large enough for a wheelbarrow, had been cut by the explorers, and a footpath led close by. It so happened that on this afternoon an Irish labourer who was employed in the neighbourhood every autumn, was passing the spot, when he heard the hounds, and presently saw them coming like smoke down the meadows, with the white steed stretched out in full gallop a few yards on their right rear. Having before seen a run end at these mounds, a happy thought struck him; he ran into the cutting and threw himself flat on his stomach near the entrance, with his head out, to watch the event. Sure enough, in another mimute appears the beaten fox, making straght toward hm. Up jumps Pat—‘Dhivel a bit, ye varrment! an it's skhulking into the eartth ye'd be afther—get along wid ye, ye halting spalpeen!’ and first his hatchet then his hat whirled after the scared animal, who turned and went at random northwards, parallel with the brook, not knowing what he was about, his howling pursuers now in full view and gaining upon him every second.
Meanwhile, the master and the huntsman, seeing there was no saving the rest of the run unless by a chance of cutting in, took their course, followed by the rest, toward an eminence which commanded a view of the grass valley and the brook. Arrived there, they pulled up and looked in the direction of the cry.
‘We're quite out of it,’ said the master. ‘Yonder they go right across the valley; Eastwold Mounds is his point: I thought it would be. Now then, how will that young Amazon tackle the brook? There! She’s over! Capital, upon my word!’
‘Well done, Lesbia!’ ejaculated Miss Blemmyketts at his side. They all had seen the leap which, being at a bend in the brook, was taken broadside to the spectators.
‘Eh? she’s a friend of yours?’ asked Sir Richard, turning with sudden interest on hearing the girl’s voice from one mounted and dressed in the same style as our heroine.
‘Yes, that’s my intimate friend Lesbia Newman, sir,’ said Letitia; ‘we came out together; but she’s too good a rider for me.’
‘So she is for all of us, it would seem, Miss—I haven't the pleasure of knowing your name.’
‘Miss Blemmyketts—Letitia Blemmyketts of Brooklyn, New York, sir.’
‘Thank you; I took the liberty of asking, because I have heard of your friend Miss Newman through the Guinea-bushes of—there now! how odd! the fox must have got headed and missed his point; they’re turning to the left, by Jove! Come along, we'll see the finish yet perhaps.’
Away they all cantered down the slope towards a hamlet, through which a stony by-road led over the brook by a bridge. ‘The clatter of hoofs on the hard bottom and the glint of scarlet—for the sun shone out now—scurrying past the windows, brought out many a small brat to the cottage doors, shouting with glee, ‘Oh, ma! ’ere are some fox-hunters!’
The houses past, they turned into the fields by a gate on the right and trotted up another rise, where they halted again. The cry was nearing rapidly, but the hedges between were too tall for anything to be seen yet.
‘Here they are!’ exclaimed Miss Blemmyketts, as at last the hounds came pouring over a gate into the furthest field visible from where they were.
‘Hold hard, gentlemen, please,’ said the master; ‘no use riding to meet ’em; not a bit; let ’em come, let ’em come.’
The next moment the white mare topped the gate in first-rate form; then the cry ceased suddenly behind the near hedge, and Lesbia was seen to pull up and dismount in the middle of the same field.
‘All right, they’ve run into him!’ exclaimed the master. ‘Try and save the fur, Miller; that young lady has won it well.’
‘Yes, she has indeed, Sir Richard,’ and the huntsman dashed off as hard as he could. The whips and several of the field trotted after him.
‘Fifty-three minutes from breaking cover, or just an hour from find to finish,’ said the master, taking out his watch as he jogged in the same direction by the side of the American girl. As he spoke the horn sounded several blasts, and the well-known Whoo—oop! mingled with the renewed chorus of the hounds.
‘I congratulate you, Miss Newman, it’s been the fastest thing this season, and you’ve had it all to yourself ever since you beat us at that ugly place,’ said the master, dismounting to shake hands with our heroine. ‘Devilish fine fencer that mare of yours, and very plucky of you both to go at that rail; I was afraid it wouldn’t break. Fortune favours the brave. Now you must be blooded—I presume this is your first kill in the open?’ So saying, he approached her again, with the dripping brush in his hand. ‘Why there’s blood upon your face already! How’s that? No, don’t wipe it off, it’s an honourable scar.’
‘Mare tripped at the start in the big wood, and threw up her head; it’s nothing, Sir Richard, thanks,’ answered Lesbia, all aglow.
‘No, that’s a small mishap; but you had a fine piece of luck at that rail, I can tell you. It was quite a relief to see you safe over; and even when you had broken it, I don’t think anyone followed you. Now for the rite’,—and he drew the sanguinary stump down each of her cheeks. ‘By the way, aren’t you the young lady who had from the Guineabushes a bull pup by my dog?’
‘Yes, they gave me a milk-white one, a beauty; I’ve named him Gossamer; I hope he’ll be my pet for years to come.’
After more friendly chat about the run, Lesbia, in her war-paint, with the brush suspended to the cantle of her saddle, the mask and pads tied on the pommel, rode up to Miller and slipped a half sovereign into his hand—he had saved the fur for her with difficulty, as the dogs were savage—and then jogged home by the road with her friend, reaching Dulham, a distance of eleven miles, just before dusk.
The vicar had come out on foot a little way in hope to meet them.
‘Who is this that cometh from Edom—why, Lesbie, you sanguinary barbarian! I wish you joy of your blushing honours: you bear them thick upon you, with a vengeance!’
‘Yes, Uncle Spines, sanguinary barbarian is the right word. A small part of the blood is my own, however; I can’t help wishing it were all so. They talk of hounds running for blood, but I have been running for it too.’
‘Oh, that’s all right, Lesbie, you needn’t have any scruples of that sort; I can soon prove that to you. But what have you had to eat and drink all day?’
‘The sandwiches and my sherry-flask supplied our wants.’
‘Why didn’t you stop at a pub and have a tankard, or three of Irish hot?’ asked her uncle.
‘I was afraid Letty would take too much, and get to using bad language.’
‘I like that, you bargee!’ laughed Letitia, striking at her with her crop. ‘Guess I’d have to get up early, across the pond, to hear such language as yours in the pony-chase this morning.’
The American accompanied them to the vicarage to stay that night. As the family party sat at dessert, talking over the events of the day, the vicar remarked,—
‘By the way, Lesbie, about your scruples against being accessory to the death of a fox, the answer to them is obvious. Foxes owe their lives and their enjoyments of life entirely to the practice of fox-hunting, for which they are preserved. Put a stop to that sport, and within a year foxes will be as scarce in England as wolves. A price will be set on their heads by farmers, game-keepers, and poultry breeders, and they will be shot, trapped, and poisoned out of hand. Is that a better fate than the prospect of being occasionally chased during the winter months and perhaps caught at last? If I were a fox, I should notthink so. I should be only too glad to compound for my life and liberty on such easy terms. No; if you like to take up other grounds of objection against fox-hunting, they may be debateable. For instance, it might be questioned whether the sport be worth the destruction of edible animals which foxes prey on. Or farmers may change their mind and not care to have their fences broken and their fields trampled by the hunt, or they may conceive a grudge against the country gentry, and thence discourage the sport. Or various social causes, like those which have prevented the sport from taking root on the Continent, may operate against its continuance here. All these may be open questions, but I think it must be clear to you, Lesbie, that arguments against fox-hunting on the ground of cruelty to animals will not hold water.’
‘I see,’ his niece replied; ‘you have relieved my conscience, Uncle Spines. I certainly should have been sorry not to go out again, now that I have made a good beginning.