In this way I became acquainted with one of the most popular characters in the Hunt. Arthur Brandwick was a doctor who had given up his small country practice some years before. “Always merry and bright” was his motto, and he now devoted his bachelor energies to the pursuit of the fox and the conversion of the human race to optimism.
A solemn purple-faced man, who had been eyeing me as if he also had his doubts about my identity, now came up and asked me for a sovereign. This was Mr. McCosh, the Hunt secretary, and it was my first experience of being “capped” as a stranger. I produced the gold coin, but he very civilly returned it when Stephen informed him that I was staying at the Rectory.
Just as these negotiations concluded, a chorus of excited hallooings on the outskirts of the wood proclaimed that Reynard had been viewed by some pedestrians.
“Those damned foot people again! I’ll bet a tenner they’ve headed him back!” sneered Croplady, whose contempt for the lower classes was only equalled by his infatuation for a title. (His family were old-established solicitors in Downfield, but Nigel was too great a swell to do much work in his father’s office, except to irritate the clients, many of whom were farmers, with his drawling talk and dandified manners.)
“Come on, Snowball!” exclaimed Brandwick, shaking his corpulent white steed into a canter, and away he went along the main-ride, ramming his hat down on his head with the hand that held his whip and scattering mud in every direction.
“Chuckle-headed old devil! Mad as a hatter but as kindhearted as they make ’em,” said Stephen, watching him as he dipped in and out of the hollows with his coattails flapping over his horse’s wide rump. And without any undue haste he started off along one of the smaller rides with myself and my hireling at his heels.
Everybody hustled away into the wood except the stolid secretary and two other knowledgeable veterans. Having made up their minds that the fox would stick to the covert, they remained stock-still like equestrian statues, watching for him to cross the middle-ride. They were right. Foxhunting wiseacres usually are (though it was my wilful habit in those days to regard everyone who preferred going through a gate to floundering over a fence as being unworthy of the name of sportsman).
Later on, while Stephen and I were touring the covert with our ears open, we overtook a moody faced youth on a handsome bay horse. “Hullo, Tony! I thought you’d parted with that conspicuous quad of yours at Tatts last week,” exclaimed Stephen, riding robustly up alongside of him and giving the bay horse a friendly slap on his hind quarters.
Young Lewison (I remembered what Stephen had said about him and the expensive hunter which he “couldn’t ride a hair of”) informed us that the horse had been bought by a Warwickshire dealer and then returned as a slight whistler. “I’m sick of the sight of him,” he remarked, letting the reins hang listlessly on the horse’s neck.
Gazing at the nice-looking animal, I inwardly compared him with dear old Harkaway. The comparison was all in favour of the returned whistler, whose good points were obvious even to my inexperienced eyes. In fact, he was almost suspiciously good-looking, though there was nothing flashy about his fine limbs, sloping shoulders, and deep chest.
“His wind can’t be very bad if you’d never noticed it,” remarked Stephen, eyeing him thoughtfully, “and he certainly does look a perfect gentleman.”
Meanwhile the horse stood there as quiet as if he were having his picture painted. “I wish to goodness someone would give me fifty pounds for him,” exclaimed Lewison petulantly, and I had that queer sensation when an episode seems to have happened before. The whole scene was strangely lit up for me; I could have sworn that I knew what he was going to say before a single word was out of his mouth. And when, without a second’s hesitation, I replied, “I’ll give you fifty pounds for him,” I was merely overhearing a remark which I had already made.
Young Lewison looked incredulous; but Stephen intervened, with no sign of surprise, “Damn it, George, you might do worse than buy him, at that price. Hop off your hireling and see what he feels like.”
I had scarcely settled myself in the new saddle when there was a shrill halloa from a remote side of the covert. We galloped away, leaving Lewison still whoaing on one leg round the hireling, who was eager to be after us.
“Well, I’m jiggered! What an enterprising old card you are!” ejaculated Stephen, delightedly slapping his leg with his crop and then leaning forward to listen for the defect in the bay horse’s wind. “Push him along, George,” he added; but we were already galloping freely, and I felt much more like holding him back. “Dashed if I can hear a ghost of a whistle!” muttered Stephen, as we pulled up at a hunting-gate out of Basset Wood.
“We’re properly left this time, old son.” He trotted down the lane and popped over a low heave-gate into a grass field. My horse followed him without demur. There wasn’t a trace of the hunt in sight, but we went on, jumping a few easy fences, and my heart leapt with elation at the way my horse took them, shortening and then quickening his stride and slipping over them with an ease and neatness which were a revelation to me.
“This horse is an absolute dream!” I gasped as Stephen stopped to unlatch a gate.
But Stephen’s face now looked fit for a funeral. “They must have run like stink and we’ve probably missed the hunt of the season,” he grumbled.
A moment later his face lit up again. “There’s the horn—right-handed—over by the Binsted covers!” And away he went across a rushy field as fast as old
