Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/91

78 the direction of Oxford, and tell us the time by St. Mary’s clock.”

“Frank, how can you, with your love of translations, look so happy and at ease on that destroyer of ‘cribs? ” Q. E. D.

And even if our proposition be not proven, there must be silence now. The master of the Drag has collected according to custom a purse from the non-subscribers, and the hounds are brought into the field. Inspect them now, if you wish to do so, for you will see them no more to-day in anything like proximity. Fastidious indeed must that man be who cannot here find something to his taste, for no two of the five couple are at all alike. Here you have none of that monotonous uniformity which makes it so difficult to distinguish ordinary foxhounds, but every member of the pack, from that huge mastiff-like hound, which they sent us from the Old Berkshire, to that light little harrier from Bradley Farm, has a distinct individuality and character. But why dwell upon mere appearances? Two or three of them can go like the wind, and the others add materially to the excitement by making a good deal of noise, especially when they are ridden over, a not unfrequent catastrophe. The former will run out the Drag, and be taken home in triumph; the latter will find their way, sometime before midnight, to M. Bouquet’s chateau in the Slums, half-drowned, and maimed, and weary.

They hit the scent now, and stream away at speed. The first few fences are easy enough today, and all get over nearly in line. Now there is a formidable post and rail, which says plainly noli me tangere, and some of our party slacken their pace. Hark! there is a crashing sound, as though twenty wickets went down at once to the fast bowling of Jackson, and a couple of steeds gallop onwards riderless. Gentlemen in the rear press gratefully to the welcome fissures, and on goes the Drag.

On, swiftly over the springing turf, and steadily through the heavy plough, never swerving at wood or water, bullfinch or stile, stone-wall or stake-and-bound; on goes the Drag. An agriculturist invites us pressingly to stop, and to discuss our right to “ride over folks’ land like Beelzebubs;” some labourers salute us with a harmless discharge of turnips; but on goes the Drag. On, but how changed! Steeds came down at that horrid double, where the bank was burrowed like a spunge; three, pumped in that humid fallow, dropped short in the drain which bounded it; and from other sorrowful causes only seven out of a field of twenty (two miles gone over) are with the hounds.

And now “we few, we happy few” (for though it may not be sport, and must not be called so, it is certainly glorious fun!) rushing at full speed through a high, black-looking fence, which holds the lighter ones for a while as it were weighing them, come into a large open pasture of level and elastic sward. It need be even and elastic, for half-way across is the brook, deep and dangerous, with something like eight yards of water. My horse sees it now, and cheers my fluttering heart with a strong attempt to quicken his pace, as though he longed to be over. But I keep him well together at a moderate gallop, till we come within some five-and-twenty yards of those broad waters, so dark and cold, and then, rushing at his leap in all his strength and speed, he is over, and I am patting my brave, dear horse, in an ecstasy of gratified pride!

Looking back upon the chase, I see Percy coming next on Giraffe, in very workmanlike form; but the big brute loses heart at the last moment, desires to refuse but cannot, and, jumping short, lands his rider on the bank, and then slips back into the stream. Percy kept his hold of the reins; and I shall not readily forget the face of his quadruped, raised to the firmament as though in earnest supplication, while he tugged away with one hand, and applied his hunting-whip with the other—in vain. This unhappy precedent was fatal. The crib-biter stopped with a startling suddenness, and poor Frank looked as if he was playing at leap-frog as he bounded off into the stream, a regular case of “stand and deliver;” the rest either got in or refused; and, for the first and only time in my life, I had an undisputed monopoly of the Christ Church Drag!

On I went exulting, and without stop or stay, until, after jumping a hedge and ditch into a lane, we—my pack of four and I—came suddenly to a check. Concluding that, of course, the Drag was onwards, as Sweet William had very severe injunctions to avoid all highways and byways, I was about to charge the opposite fence with a view to casting forward, when the hounds took up the scent down the lane, and were off again at full speed. I could not understand it, but I was bound to follow. Presently we came to a neat white gate, then, to my increasing surprise, into a park-like enclosure; galloping across it to a gravelled road, which led us through plantations and shrubberies; until turning suddenly, and going at full swing, we found ourselves all at once within the portals of a stable-yard!

“ the yard doors, Crupper, and lock up the coach-house,” were the first words which I heard on entrance, and these roared with such amazing volume, that my horse positively shied at them.

“Væ Victis!” In a corner of that coach-house stood, if anything so limp and drooping could be said to stand, poor little Billy Bouquet,—a piteous contrast to his happy hounds, who, in their guileless ignorance of evil, were leaping joyfully upon him, and could not understand his grief! Solemnly and slowly, the huge folding-doors were closed by two keepers upon the unhappy captive; and Mr. Crupper, the groom, having previously cut off my retreat, locked them, and put the key in his pocket.

Then I turned in the direction whence the word of command had issued, and boldly fronted the foe. He was a handsome, military man, six feet, and sixty; and I ought to have been frightened, I know I ought. But when a young fellow of twenty has been successfully showing to the University of Oxford the way over a big brook, he is very apt to be flushed and thoughtless, and to have a strong distaste for that humble pie,