A Selection of Original Songs, Scraps, Etc., by Ned Farmer (3rd ed.)/A Capital Run with the United Pack
A Capital Run with the United Pack.
[Kindly inserted in Bell's Life.]
Mr. Editor: Sir,—As your columns abound
With all sorts of sports, from the racehorse and hound
To a show of canaries, permit me a space
To describe an unusual, but excellent chase,
That came off near our village a few days ago.
And was well worth the seeing, as quickly I'll show.
A pig (Nay, don't start, Sir!)—a grunter, I say,
Who had got (as pigs oft have) a very bad way
Of "rooting" (that's proper, as every child knows)
The bricks from the floor of his "sty" with his nose;
So offended his owner by conduct like this,
That he sent for the blacksmith to shove through the gris-
Tle (or cartilage rather, for that's the just phrase),
A ring that should teach this vile pig better ways.
The morning and Vulcan are duly arrived,
And he who in similar ingoes had strived
With porkers before, got the waggoner's lad
To lay hold of his tail, and the notion warn't bad!
'Tis by no means essential, I fancy, to tell
How the lad got upset, or the noseborer fell,
'Tis enough that it was so; the pig, a real boar,
Made a put at the closed, but yet ill-fastened door,
And away, like blue blazes, the varmint was seen,
Going straight as a dart over Faddlemore Green.
To rise and to whistle, and halloa like mad
For the sheepdog and Pincher, and order the lad
To run and get round him—quite proper to do;
But the swine had got four legs, the lad had but two—
Was the work of a moment, every dog in the place,
Men, women, and children, all join in the race;
There was plenty of racket, as you may expect.
But the pace was severe, and the "field" got select—
The "Snieder" has cut it, the "Cobbler," his friend,
With Miss Marklew's fat footman, have "bellows to mend."
First Flightmen alone had a chance it was clear,
And they had to play all they knew to keep near.
This prince of all pigmeat full two miles had gone,
Yet still full of running, his course he held on;
The pig, through the open, scuds on like the wind,
Leaving "Welters" and "Craners" and "slow-uns" behind.
Hold hard! there's a check! but not long did it last,
He's viewed in the orchard, the fatal die's cast—
A mastiff of Haydon's had chanced to be loose,
Which rendered his dodging and game of no use;
He pursues and o'ertakes him, and into a ditch,
Knocked him head over heels, when a broken-haired bitch
Of Ratcatcher Roden's led on the gay pack,
With murderous intent, on the poor porker's track;
Oh, had you but heard how they made the place ring.
As though "Hullah" had tutored each canine to sing,
Till they came to the worry, when sad to relate,
They "settled his hash" against Latimer's gate.
Myself and two others, Joe Brigg's and his friend,
Were all that unluckily witnessed the end;
But his owner arriving, just at the last push,
Gave me the pigs bristles to make me a brush.
Say why should our nobles abroad ever roam
In search of wild boars when we've such pigs at home?