Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man

having got Cockbird so fit. Those few lofty minutes when he was making much of his horse were Dixon’s reward for all the trouble he had taken since Cockbird had been in his charge. He had needed no such incentive, but he asked for nothing more. While he was on his way back to Downfield he may also have thought to himself how he had made me into a good enough rider to have got round the course without a catastrophe. (He had yet to hear full details of the race⁠—including my peculiar acrobatics toward the end, which had been witnessed by no one except the rider of Mikado, who had been kind enough to tell Croplady that he never saw such a thing in his life, which was, I hoped, intended as a compliment.)

When I had watched Dixon’s departure I found that public interest was being focused on the Yeomanry Team-Race. I was glad to slip away by myself: a few fields out in the country I relaxed my legs on a five-barred gate and contemplated my achievement with as much mental detachment as I could muster. Even in those days I had an instinct for getting the full flavour of an experience. Perhaps I was fortunate in not yet having become aware that the winner of the last race is forgotten as soon as the next one starts.

Forty minutes later I had claimed my cup. (There was no ceremony of presentation.) Having crammed the ebony pedestal into my kit-bag I came out into the Paddock with the cup in my other hand. It was convenient to carry, for it had handles to it.

Good-natured Arthur Brandwick came up and offered me a lift back to Downfield. While he was patting me on the back I caught sight of a figure which seemed somehow familiar. A loose-built ruddy faced young sportsman was talking to a couple of jovial whiskered farmers; he sat on a shooting-stick with his thin neatly gaitered legs straightened; a brown felt hat was tipped well over his blunt nose, for the five o’clock sun was glaring full in his eyes. I wondered who it was he reminded me of. Brandwick answered my unspoken question.

“D’you twig who that is?” I shook my head. “Well, take another good look at him. It’s our new Master, and a hell of a good lad he is, from all I’ve heard. Up till a month ago everyone thought the country’d have to be hunted by a Committee next season. There was something fishy about every one of the coves who’d applied for the Mastership. And then this chap wrote and offered to hunt the hounds himself and put up fifteen hundred a year if we guaranteed him another two thousand. Hardly a soul knew about it till today. We’re lucky to get him. He’s been hunting a good rough country in Ireland the last two seasons and showing rare sport. He’s run across for a couple of days to have a look at us.” As we walked away the new Master turned his head and favoured us with a slow and rather blank stare.

“What did you say his name was?” I asked, when we were out of earshot. Brandwick informed me that his name was Milden⁠—Denis Milden⁠—and I knew that I’d known it all the time, though I hadn’t set eyes on him since I was eleven years old.

Aquamarine and celestial were the shoals of sunset as I hacked pensively home from Dumbridge. The Colonel’s Cup clinked and joggled against my saddle. Time was irrelevant. But I was back at Butley by eight o’clock, and Cockbird, who had returned by an earlier train, was safe and sound; a little uneasily he wandered around his loose-box, rustling the deep straw, but always going back to the manger for another mouthful of clover-hay. Dixon serenely digested triumph with his tea; presently he would go out to the Rose and Crown to hand Homeward his multiplied half-crown and overawe the gossips with his glory.

Absolved and acquiescent was the twilight as I went quietly across the lawn and in at the garden door to the drawing-room. Aunt Evelyn’s armchair scrooped on the beeswaxed floor as she pushed it back and stood up with her bottle of smelling-salts in her hand. For the first time since my success I really felt like a hero. And Miriam served the dinner with the tired face of a saint that seemed lit with foreknowledge of her ultimate reward. But at that time I didn’t know what her goodness meant.

At the end of our evening, when they had gone upstairs with my highly coloured history of the day in their heads, I strolled out into the garden; for quite a long time I stared at the friendly lights that twinkled from the railway-station and along the dark Weald. I had brought something home with me as well as the Cup. There was this new idea of Denis Milden as Master. For I hadn’t forgotten him, and my persistent studying of Horse and Hound and The Hunting Directory had kept me acquainted with his career as an amateur huntsman since he had left Oxford. A dog barked and a train went along the Weald⁠ ⁠… the last train to London, I thought.⁠ ⁠…

Going back to the drawing-room, I lit a pair of candles which made their miniature gold reflections on the shining surface of the massive Cup. I couldn’t keep my eyes away from it. I looked round the shadowed room on which all my childhood and adolescence had converged, but everything led back to the talisman; while I gazed and gazed on its lustre I said to myself, aloud, “It can’t be true that it’s really there on the table!” The photograph of Watts’s Love and Death was there on the wall; but it meant no more to me than the strangeness of the stars which I had seen without question, out in the quiet spring night. I was