1'IBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 823 
 \W 85G2d
 
 THE O.V.H.
 
 LONDON : 
 ROBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.
 
 THE O.V.H. 
 
 OR 
 
 HOW MR. BLAKE BECAME AN M.F.I1 
 
 By WAT. BRADWOOD. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY. 
 
 1869. 
 
 [All rights reserved. ]
 
 r*3 
 
 8^5 
 
 v. X 
 
 TO EVERY 
 
 M. F. H. 
 
 WHO CAN SEE HIS HOUNDS OVERRIDDEN 
 
 WITHOUT LOSING HIS TEMPER, 
 
 AND TO 
 
 ANY YOUNG LADY WHO SHALL BE UNCONSCIOUS 
 
 THAT SHE IS EITHER PRETTY OR CLEVER, 
 
 &{j« Cottttirg JlJtfitjj 
 
 IS IN GOOD FAITH DEDICATED. 
 
 April 1869. 
 0° 
 
 1 
 
 s 
 
 c
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/ovhorhowmrblakeb01wood
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 i. In Medias Ees 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 il Mr. Blake discovers an Error 
 
 
 15 
 
 III. EUBY EXPLAINS MATTERS . 
 
 
 29 
 
 iv. General Inspection 
 
 
 
 
 39 
 
 v. Ashton Grove 
 
 
 
 
 56 
 
 vi. The Maule 
 
 
 
 
 73 
 
 vii. Overnight 
 
 
 
 
 94 
 
 viii. Before Breakfast . 
 
 
 
 
 109 
 
 tx. Recruiting 
 
 
 
 
 125 
 
 x. Mischief 
 
 
 
 
 143 
 
 xi. Mr. Blake at Home 
 
 
 
 
 175 
 
 xii. Ashton Spinnies 
 
 
 
 
 206 
 
 xiii. Second Horses 
 
 
 
 
 237
 
 THE O.Y.H. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN MEDIAS RES. 
 
 Mr. James Blake moodily picked his way 
 through the pink flakes of a Llanberis 
 trout. 
 
 " Letters, sir," said the waiter of the 
 period, as he deposited a tray full of docu- 
 ments on the breakfast-table. 
 
 Mr. Blake was rather precise in money- 
 matters. There were no such things as 
 bills unpaid, or "to bills delivered," to 
 swell his correspondence at so late a date 
 from quarter-day as the 5th of August. 
 He carefully scanned the outside of two or 
 
 VOL. i. B
 
 Z THE O.V.II. 
 
 three dubious-looking circulars that bore 
 claims of extra postage for their peregrina- 
 tions in search of him. Two he selected 
 and condemned unopened. 
 
 " You may take these back to the post- 
 office, and pay no postage for them, waiter," 
 said he, as he recognised the handwriting, 
 — a seedsman's circular soliciting the pa- 
 tronage of a champion swede, — and divined 
 the contents of the touting pamphlet of an 
 importunate wine-company that was eager 
 for his custom. 
 
 Then to business. 
 
 From the remaining enclosures he se- 
 lected as the basis of operations an en- 
 velope addressed to himself at the Victoria 
 Hotel, Llanberis, in that transition style 
 of fist that marks the schoolboy's hand at 
 an au'e when he has beo-un to shake off 
 the malformations engendered by the im- 
 positions of lower-school days.
 
 IN MEDIAS RES. 3 
 
 The pith of a boy's as of a woman's 
 letter is sure to lie in the finale, or post- 
 script : 
 
 "I shall he at Carnarvon 3.30, and 
 will drive straight over. Leave word 
 where you are srone to. 
 
 "Your affectionate cousin, 
 
 " C. R. Blake. 
 
 "P.S. Old Monsell died of apoplexy 
 yesterday; we heard it this morning. I 
 really am sorry, though he was so rude 
 about that rioting puppy of his at En- 
 glefield Gorse. Here's a chance for you, 
 old boy — someone is sure to be wanted 
 to take his hounds; and if you really 
 think of standing for the east division, 
 it will help to get you better known in 
 the place than anything else. Cub-hunt- 
 ing will begin in another three weeks,
 
 4 THE O.V.H. 
 
 and they are sure to have a meeting of 
 the Hunt as soon as the funeral is cleared 
 off. We'll talk about it to-morrow. 
 
 "C. R. B." 
 
 "What will the boy want next?" 
 grunted Mr. James Blake, as he proceeded 
 to unravel and decipher a draft for min- 
 ing-shares, an application from his agent 
 for lease of a house on the New Steyne, 
 Brighton, a begging -letter, and a sum- 
 mons to a committee-meeting of the Wind- 
 ham. 
 
 Mr^ Blake — " Jemmy Blake," as he was 
 denominated by his friends, and even 
 most casual acquaintances all the world 
 over — was rather abstracted as he lay on 
 the grass and lighted his morning ha- 
 vannah, to facilitate his study of the 
 Field and other sporting-papers that had 
 reached him by that Monday's post.
 
 IN MEDIAS RES. 5 
 
 His young cousin cannot possibly ar- 
 rive much before 3 p.m. Meantime, some 
 more definite introduction of each will 
 not be out of place. 
 
 A man's name and its adaptations go 
 far to define his real character and ex- 
 ternal appearances. Jemmy Blake was 
 like a majority of other Jemmies — middle 
 height, five feet nine inches, middle aged 
 (a relative term — children called him a 
 nice middle-aged man; elderly folk styled 
 him a well-behaved young man). He had 
 completed his thirtieth year; he had full 
 and sandy mutton - chop whiskers, and 
 brown frizzly hair; no particular charac- 
 teristic beauty of physiognomy, but a 
 broad expression of grim good -humour, 
 that would forbid any but a rival or 
 enemy to call him a plain man. Easy- 
 going good temper was stamped, too, 
 plainly in his face — not that he was by
 
 b THE O.V.H. 
 
 any means a fool, far from it, especially 
 in money - matters ; but he was that sort 
 of man who would never pick a quarrel 
 if he could help it — not only from dis- 
 like to the existence of personal enmity, 
 but literally from sheer indolence, which 
 made him grudge the trouble of bearing 
 malice to anyone. 
 
 He had obtained a berth in the Mo- 
 narch during his last summer at Eton, 
 done two years' hard duty in his college 
 torpid, and at last gained promotion to a 
 place in the bows of the eight, a credit- 
 able third upon the Isis. He went to 
 chapel, if not regularly, at least with suffi- 
 cient decency to save any collision with 
 the Dean; rode some three days a- week 
 fairly straight to hounds, in an unosten- 
 tatious black coat ; took his hand at whist 
 or loo when required; never dunned an 
 acquaintance for a debt if " forgotten ;" gave
 
 IX MEDIAS RES. 7 
 
 in his turn social and unexceptional 
 11 wines," and never was guilty of offering 
 to any of his friends a bottle from an Ox- 
 ford wine -merchant. He never was seen 
 drunk; had no ambition for "honours;" 
 but had only one second paper in schools, 
 and invariably secured his testamur; and 
 without having left any name in class, 
 cricket, or boating lists as a landmark to 
 posterity, was regretted by all contempo- 
 raries when he put on his gown as a 
 thoroughly easy-going and unselfish man. 
 
 Jemmy Blake was not a man of large 
 property, but he was decidedly comfort- 
 ably off. He owned a street and four or 
 five farms in the neighbourhood of Orle- 
 ton, some houses at Brighton, of which 
 the leases had lately fallen in, and a 
 round sum in stocks and securities. He 
 kept his chambers in St. James's, rented 
 hunting- quarters in various localities from
 
 8 THE O.V.H. 
 
 year to year, had no settled home of his 
 own, and was unobtrusively welcome every- 
 where, and nowhere more so than at the 
 house of his aunt, Lady Mary Blake. His 
 pocket-money would be under -estimated 
 at six thousand per annum, and it is need- 
 less to add that he was still in single 
 blessedness. 
 
 His father and the husband of Lady 
 Mary had been brothers. Cut off, the one 
 by Indian climate, the other at the Redan, 
 each had left an only son, who had grown 
 up more like elder and younger brothers 
 than even first-cousins. 
 
 Jemmy had lost his mother even earlier 
 than his father, and when released from 
 the guardianship of Chancery was in every 
 way an unencumbered man. 
 
 Lady Mary Blake was sole mistress of 
 the house and small property which Co- 
 lonel Blake had left to her — his moiety of
 
 IN MEDIAS RES. 9 
 
 his father's estate in and about Orleton. 
 The property had formerly no house at- 
 tached to it, and the "Maule" — originally 
 the " Maule Farm," though the latter term 
 had been dropped for euphony when the 
 transmogrification took place — was a snug 
 and fairly-sized mansion added on to the 
 more habitable portions of a quaint farm- 
 house that had principally been used as a 
 shooting-box by the Colonel, but which 
 was now altered to a more elegant resi- 
 dence by his relict in preference to her 
 jointure-house in Wilton-place, S.W. 
 
 She was a good, simple-minded, simple- 
 hearted soul, Lady Mary ; few faults could 
 her enemies have picked in her as a wife, 
 fewer still as a widow ; as the former she 
 had two idols, husband and son, to ab- 
 stract her worship ; as the latter, only one, 
 and in him was concentrated tenfold all 
 the sterling treasure of a mother's love.
 
 10 THE O.V.H. 
 
 Fond she was without being altogether 
 foolish ; she had wits enough to see his 
 faults as well as his good points, of which 
 latter he had many ; but she had still 
 further wits sufficient to teach her to en- 
 deavour to let the wisdom of experience 
 and tacit yet gentle influence work cure 
 for the future, without risking petulance 
 or impatience by restraint, or trying to 
 make her idol a mere automaton tied to 
 her apron-string. 
 
 Few lads had more liberty and license 
 than Ruby Blake — Charles Rubens Blake, 
 but known as "Ruby" exclusively since 
 his nursery-days, in home, village, school, 
 county, everywhere. Few suffered less 
 and gained more by free agency, or were 
 more trustworthy, from the fact that the 
 existence of truth and trust were never 
 for an instant called in question. 
 
 Jemmy Blake and Ralph Romilly (of
 
 IN MEDIAS RES. 1 1 
 
 whom more anon) used teasingly to say 
 that it was a pity that Ruby was not born 
 a girl. So far as external appearances and 
 many points of his disposition were con- 
 cerned, Xature might have made a mistake 
 when she modelled him slight, lathy, regu- 
 lar-featured, child-faced, rosy, and golden- 
 haired. Yet those who had known him 
 unflinchingly bear his share as bow of the 
 Eton eight in a neck -and -neck struggle 
 from Henley Island for the Ladies' Plate, or 
 had seen his slight physique and lathy 
 stride in the previous spring wear down 
 the whole field for the school steeplechase, 
 as in the last half-mile the holding plough 
 and severity of pace told successively upon 
 the "favourite," till none of that muddy 
 and tattered train were within thirty yards 
 of him at the Brocas "run in," — would 
 own that the girlish face and physique 
 concealed a man's heart and thorough-bred
 
 12 THE O.V.H. 
 
 pluck, only skin-deep, under those false 
 colours. 
 
 All out-door game was sport to Rub}'. 
 Better mounted by an idolising mother 
 than most lads of his age, his light weight 
 could show a good pair of heels to the best 
 of the field, especially when rains had been 
 heavy, enclosures were large, and hounds 
 running hard upon grass. 
 
 He was now coming down for a couple 
 of days' small-fry Welsh-trout fishing with 
 his quasi uncle or brother, Jemmy Blake, 
 and to proceed in quest of salmon in 
 the Tay till the Orleton partridges were 
 ready for destruction, but fully determined 
 in his own mind to bully his indolent rela- 
 tive into taking up practically the master- 
 ship of the Old Vale hounds, the neigh- 
 bouring pack to the Orleton hunt, and 
 blessed with a superior grass country ; in 
 whose company, located at the Crown and
 
 IN MEDIAS RES. 13 
 
 Sceptre, Creswick, Jemmy had spent most 
 of the previous hunting-season, alternating, 
 on non- hunting da) T s, between his public 
 and the Maule, and accompanied, at least 
 once a week, by Ruby, who was glad 
 enough to exchange the sticky ploughs of 
 Orleton for the stiff - bound blackthorn 
 fences of the Old Vale, whenever school 
 and home-ties were complaisant to liberate 
 him. 
 
 On one school-holiday he had actually 
 the audacity to obtain a fictitious leave for 
 dinner with an accommodating incumbent, 
 who allowed him to take his name in vain, 
 and to slip by the G. "W. R. in time for 
 second horses and second fox at a meet 
 not more than a hundred miles away. 
 But trains for return were not so accom- 
 modating as for exit. His absence was de- 
 tected ; and Ruby, having been " swished" 
 with due orthodoxy, did not risk a further
 
 14 THE O.V.H. 
 
 rupture with the authorities by any other 
 such experiments. 
 
 But the grassy slopes and flying fences 
 of the Old Vale had stung his ambition 
 and put him out of conceit with the agri- 
 cultural aspect of the Orleton country. 
 No wonder that he rose so readily to the 
 chance that seemed to offer itself of defi- 
 nitely domesticating his accommodating 
 relative in the country he courted, and 
 moreover in a position whence, as general 
 manager of a lar^e stud, he would be 
 better able to supply " mounts" when a 
 spare day could be snatched; and which 
 would no doubt, if accepted, induce him to 
 settle down, at least for the season, in some 
 rentable country-house instead of gadding 
 about, coming and going from pothouse 
 to public, according to the convenience of 
 meets, as was too much the tendency of 
 Jemmy Blake in the late hunting-season.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MR. BLAKE DISCOVERS AX ERROR. 
 
 We have said that Mr. James Blake was a 
 bachelor. His very tone and looks forbade 
 the idea that he was trammelled by any 
 such encumbrance as a wife ; yet were he 
 placed under the screw of the confessional 
 during that current summer, Jemmy might 
 avouch that his present singleness of exist- 
 ence was his misfortune rather than his 
 fault. 
 
 As a rule, Jemmy was not a ladies'- 
 man — not that he was awkward or a 
 " gowk ;" his manners were quite the pink 
 of politeness — not that he was un genial or 
 disagreeable in their society; he was too
 
 16 THE O.V.H. 
 
 unselfish in disposition, too "jolly" in ex- 
 pression, though taciturn, to be voted an 
 odious or ugly man. His pet corns de- 
 terred him from croquet, his natural indol- 
 ence damped waltzing aspirations, and for 
 him lancers and quadrilles, ne vaudraient 
 pas la chandelle. For dinner quaint origi- 
 nality made him, when in the vein, the 
 most agreeable companion that any woman 
 of the period could desire as escort from 
 the drawing-room; and there were auspi- 
 cious occasions when, on rejoining the 
 ladies, he had been known to come so far 
 out of his shell as to utter a comic song ; 
 not one of the vulgar school of mongrel, 
 Champagne-Charlie melodies that run riot 
 in our music-halls and. delight the ears of 
 rampant counterskippers and blase clerks, 
 but one of the old school, quaint and re- 
 fined, yet comical as Jemmy himself and 
 antique as his grandsire. It is on record,
 
 MR. BLAKE DISCOVERS AX ERROR. 17 
 
 moreover, that Jemmy, to fill a sudden 
 and unexpected vacancy in an amateur 
 corps dramatique of gentlemen only, was 
 induced at the special behest of Ruby to 
 do the Thespian, while the greatest " hits" 
 of the final performance were his imper- 
 sonification of the minor parts of the love- 
 lorn milkman to Ruby as the coquettish 
 Area-belle, and of Quasimodo to the same 
 young gentleman as Esmeralda (burlesque). 
 
 Yet with all these casual variations 
 from his general tone and inclinations, 
 exception proved the truth of the rule, 
 and Jemmy himself could not deny that 
 women bored him so long as he could ride 
 to hounds, stalk through turnips, or throw 
 his fly by daytime, and enjoy his weed and 
 rubber as a preventative to dyspepsia at 
 eventide. 
 
 But Jemmy was fond of children ; if 
 the adage may hold true, all good people 
 
 vol. i. c
 
 18 THE O.V.H. 
 
 are like him in this respect. It was the 
 conventionality and affectation of the ma- 
 jority of young women that wearied him 
 of their society ; it was the straightforward 
 originality of children that had a charm 
 for him. As he had confided to Ralph 
 Romilly years ago, he "would not so much 
 mind marrying to have two or three good 
 little brats of his own, but he had not the 
 pluck to face a wife — and so he was choked 
 off from matrimony." 
 
 Children always took to him sponta- 
 neously, not that he went out of his way 
 to bribe their friendship with dolls, tops, 
 or sugar-plums — he had generally made a 
 friend of a brat before he troubled himself 
 to cement the alliance with any such appli- 
 ances of this world's goods ; but his phy- 
 siognomy and tone had much to do with 
 his influence, and many a wilful brat that 
 despised governesses and sulked even at
 
 MR. BLAKE DISCOVERS AX ERROR. 19 
 
 parents would flinch from Jemmy's look 
 of astonished displeasure, and yield to his 
 half- hinted rebuke the obedience which 
 temper and passion had denied to the beck 
 and call of more orthodox authority. 
 
 Had Jemmy been asked before a com- 
 mittee of his views upon education and the 
 management of children, he would probably, 
 after an analysis of his due principles, have 
 agreed that though, following the orders of 
 the old school (Jemmy was conservative in 
 •all points), there was nothing like a " lick- 
 ing to make a child grow," and, theoreti- 
 cally, corporal punishment should always 
 be held in reservation in the background ; 
 yet, practically, if influence of eye and ani- 
 mus could not effect all that was wanted 
 in nine cases out of ten, the error lay not 
 in the material of the youthful mind so 
 much as in the gauclierie of the educational 
 artisan, who could not plan or practise the
 
 20 THE O.V.H. 
 
 proper system of training and moulding his 
 work to a pure and perfect model. 
 
 But it was this same tendency for chil- 
 dren that slowly developed a new phase, 
 and burnt insensibly Jemmy's fingers be- 
 fore he was fully aware of his position. 
 
 Among all his proteges none had for the 
 last dozen years, since first he had ranked 
 himself an Oxford "man," had greater 
 claims for him or he for her than a second- 
 cousin once removed — Georgie Warren. 
 Jemmy had never any tendency or pre- 
 dilection for ceremony or conventionality 
 of any sort. None of his proteges ever ex- 
 pected to hear from him any other appel- 
 lation than that which had fallen to them 
 from their godfathers and godmothers; 
 and, least of all, would one who could 
 claim relationship, however distant, have 
 fallen in any other category. For many 
 years had Georgie been a privileged romp
 
 MR. BLAKE DISCOVERS AN ERROR. 21 
 
 with him, and it was with misgivings that 
 he was playing false and violating a pledge 
 of friendship that Jemmy, some five years 
 ago, welcomed her, after six months' ab- 
 sence and a first half at a boarding-school, 
 with a mere shake of the hand, to the 
 exclusion of the more paternal kiss that 
 had ever till then been a passport between 
 them. But if conventionality had at last 
 raised this barrier, cordiality received no 
 lack on either side. The Colonel, her 
 father, rented one of Jemmy's own houses 
 .at the London -super -Mare, and not only 
 did business matters and change of air 
 often bring Jemmy down to that locality, 
 but the Maule welcomed at all seasons 
 Georgie's form and face as readily as it 
 did the grim good-humour of Jemmy. 
 
 The Sussex downs and Orleton bridle- 
 roads had witnessed many a tete-a-tiie ride 
 at all times and seasons, varied on and
 
 22 THE O.V.H. 
 
 oif with the company of Ruby, whom the 
 seniority of a short year seemed to privi- 
 lege Georgie to pat figuratively on the 
 back and to patronise as an authorised 
 elder sister. And this went on till, in the 
 past month of May, Georgie was defined 
 as formally " out," was presented at Court, 
 and allowed the run of a London season. 
 
 Jemmy Blake, as before explained, kept 
 his chambers in St. James's, and had al- 
 ways a good hack or two at command 
 when he chose to idle a few weeks in town 
 and seek air in the Row. He really had 
 an ear for music, and never had failed to 
 secure his stall at Her Majesty's ; but this 
 season, for no rhyme or reason, the stall 
 expanded to a box of which no one were 
 more frequent occupants than Colonel and 
 Miss Warren. 
 
 Perhaps Jemmy had never found out 
 or realised the fact that Georgie was, if
 
 MR. BLAKE DISCOVERS AX ERROR. 23 
 
 not a regular -featured statuesque beauty, 
 at least a pretty, piquant, child-faced belle, 
 sufficient to make her, especially as an 
 only and orphan daughter, the cynosure 
 of many of the jeiinesse cloree and sans- 
 soucie of the summer metropolis. Yet, 
 strange to say, he still teasingly called 
 her " Baby," or " my dear child," as often 
 as by her own name ; and Georgie, though 
 ready to stand on dignity with many a 
 downy- whiskered whipper-snapper, as a 
 matter of course endured and enjoyed 
 the petting and scolding and occasional 
 snubbing that Jemmy Blake was pleased 
 to put upon her. 
 
 And Jemmy, as before said, had ab- 
 jured dancing ; and even Georgie opened 
 her eyes when, one evening at Lady Cur- 
 zon's, Jemmy actually volunteered and per- 
 formed a brace of very creditable waltzes 
 with her. This was but a flash in the
 
 24 THE O.V.H. 
 
 pan ; the unwonted exercise, coupled with 
 Jemmy's utter want of condition, so upset 
 his head and ruined his appetite for sup- 
 per, that he never was guilty of the same 
 frivolity again ; and this imposed inertium, 
 coupled with a hitherto unknown sensa- 
 tion of uncharitableness that seemed to 
 pervade him when he beheld young Clif- 
 ford of the Royals, heir presumptive to 
 the best part of a Welsh county, securing 
 three round dances in an evening, and 
 too often finding excuses for dropping in 
 at lunch -times, and making unexpected 
 rencontres in the Row, had something to 
 do with an unaccountable feeling of rest- 
 lessness that seized the usually indolent 
 soul, and spurred him in solitude to the 
 banks of the winding Dove, and thence to 
 the Welsh lakes, ere ever the mayfly had 
 left the water. 
 
 But Jemmy was still restless, and ten
 
 MR. BLAKE DISCOVERS AN ERROR. 25 
 
 clays later saw him once more in his quar- 
 ters in St. James's, or riding as before with 
 his protege neath noonday sun in Rotten 
 Row ; while gradually the dormant truth 
 began to realise itself to his stubborn, coy, 
 yet hardly unwilling soul, that the crea- 
 ture he had petted and liked as a child, he 
 had insensibly learnt to love as a woman. 
 
 For a month or more Jemmy buried 
 and banished the reality as often as it 
 rose within him, the more society had a 
 charm for him that he could not or would 
 not define to himself; till one day, under 
 the discussion of his morning havannah, 
 the question suddenly struck his con- 
 science as to whether he was justified, to 
 himself no less than Georgie and the 
 Colonel, in concealing his change of ideas 
 and purpose, or in playing the patron 
 when he could no longer deny to himself 
 that he was really fostering the lover.
 
 26 THE O.Y.H. 
 
 Without recapitulating in detail the old, 
 old story — old as man himself, and which 
 daily rings the changes of a few hack- 
 neyed variations of form and phrase ; a 
 language as much the offspring of eye 
 and gesture as of mere lip-service — we 
 may conclude by saying, that before the 
 week was out, during one of the ac- 
 customed tcte-a-tcte rides, Jemmy sifted 
 his conscience and screwed his resolution 
 to sticking- point, and after a legitimate 
 amount of beating the bush, blurted out 
 to Georgie's astonished ears the tale of his 
 transformation as regarded herself. 
 
 And she, half- in credulous, half- sur- 
 prised, mortified for Jemmy's rather than 
 her own sake, hung fire, as if in shy con- 
 fusion for a second or two, and then stam- 
 mered : 
 
 " Jemmy, how could you ! I can't — 
 you can't, you don't mean it, do you? I
 
 MR. BLAKE DISCOVERS AN ERROR. 27 
 
 always thought you were my uncle, or 
 like something of the sort." 
 
 But Jemmy drew in his horns like a 
 shot ; and, contrary to his usual good- 
 breeding — only excusable under his dis- 
 trait annoyance, and the utter emptiness of 
 Kensington-gardens at noon-day — stuffed 
 a cigar into his mouth, burnt his fingers 
 in lighting it, and then said slowly through 
 his teeth : 
 
 " Never mind, I didn't mean to tease 
 you, child. Cross the road, and let us 
 ride in the shade." 
 
 And the ride home was a dead silence. 
 
 Two days later Jemmy did what he 
 had never been guilty of before — crossed 
 Channel, and spent a month in Paris and 
 the Continent in general. Then accepting 
 a run in Lord Yalehampton's (his uncle's) 
 yacht, from Cherbourg to Cowes, found his 
 way to London, to get his hair cut and
 
 28 THE O.V.H. 
 
 overhaul his breech-loaders ; and making 
 the appointment in question with Ruby, 
 who had been kicking his heels at home 
 since election Saturday, sneaked off to 
 Bangor for a night, and thence to the 
 Victoria, till the young one should join 
 him to chase care from his seat en croupe.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 RUBY EXPLAINS MATTERS. 
 
 Jemmy Blake was so bored with himself 
 and his own company that he chartered a 
 car by noon, and set off in quest of Rnby 
 at Carnarvon station. The Holyhead train 
 disgorged that young gentleman at the 
 appointed time, faultlessly got up in gray 
 tweed, with a portmanteau bigger than 
 himself, and an unlimited number of fish- 
 ing-rods and landing-nets. He soon dc- 
 posited himself on the seat of the car, vis-a- 
 vis to Jemmy. 
 
 " What on earth made you go abroad, 
 you old stupid ? Why couldn't you wait
 
 30 THE O.V.H. 
 
 till the beginning of the holidays and take 
 me with you ?" 
 
 " I couldn't waitj Ruby — I wanted some- 
 thing to do. But I'll go again now if you 
 want a nurse to take you there." 
 
 "No, it doesn't matter; I'd rather stick 
 to the salmon. I never killed one in my 
 life, and feel as fit as a flea to land one." 
 
 " We'll see when we get there next 
 week ; meantime, try whether you can 
 throw a trout-fly without flicking it off this 
 afternoon. How are the horses ?" 
 
 " Yours are in physic ; Owen had them 
 up this week. I've been riding Lady with 
 Georgie the last week or two since I came 
 back — Hotspur's too slow for me another 
 season, I think. He goes sweetly in har- 
 ness ; we tried him on Monday with Aaron 
 the breaker, and he went as if he had been 
 at it all his life. Mamma's going to put him 
 to station and hack work, and get me an-
 
 EUBY EXPLAINS MATTERS. 31 
 
 other — or rather, you are to look out for 
 one before I go up to Oxford." 
 
 " You at Oxford !" grunted Jemmy ; 
 "you've no business to leave school for the 
 next three years. What are you in such a 
 hurry about ? — you'll never pass matricula- 
 tion." 
 
 " I passed it last half, silly ; and I'm 
 eighteen, as you know, next month. Don't 
 call everyone a child because you are in 
 your dotage. Stop ; did you get my letter? 
 You'll see about the Vale Hunt at once, 
 won't you?" 
 
 "Anything else you would like?" Jemmy 
 growled, but without that dogged look of 
 resistance that he had often worn when 
 combating some wild whim of Ruby's, to 
 which he had in the long-run to strike his 
 colours. 
 
 " Nothing that I should like better, old 
 boy, and so will you, if you will shako off
 
 32 THE O.V.H. 
 
 dull sloth and have a shot at the thing. 
 It will do you a world of good at the 
 election, if you really mean to go in for 
 that ; and as for expense, you don't spend 
 enough money as it is, and there are plenty 
 of subscriptions." 
 
 Dark visions and forebodings rose be- 
 fore Jemmy Blake's eyes of drunken whips 
 and an unsound stud, kennel lameness 
 and casual rabies, subscriptions in arrears, 
 farmers obdurate, bills for earth-stopping, 
 county -court claims, missing poultry and 
 trampled wheat. Yet one glance at Ruby's 
 face was enough to aid a brighter side to 
 show itself — of scot-and-lot voters judici- 
 ously conciliated, of pleasures as well as 
 cares of office, of beavers doffed at cover- 
 side in courteous welcome, of the inde- 
 pendence of his own horn at the pommel, 
 of himself the cynosure of drawing-room 
 curiosity in a new county (strange per-
 
 RUBY EXPLAINS MATTERS. 33 
 
 version this of Mr. Blake's former doctrines 
 and tenets of womanhood), of employment, 
 excitement, distraction, to say nothing of 
 digestion, at a time when of all others the 
 former incentives, if not the latter, were 
 most wanting to him. But Jemmy did 
 not change his mind in a hurry ; and even 
 if he should avow no especial dislike to 
 the course proposed to him by Ruby, he 
 was not the man to violate modesty by 
 proposing himself to a nearly strange Hunt 
 as a new M.F.H., and that before his pre- 
 decessor had been safely screwed down in 
 his coffin. 
 
 But after a five-minutes' cogitation, dur- 
 ing which Jemmy had recourse to his in- 
 variable havannah, and Ruby dived into 
 the columns of the Field, the former looked 
 up, and said in a very measured way, "I 
 don't know, Ruby — it might do, and it 
 might not. I should want a home, and 
 
 VOL. I. d
 
 34 THE O.V.H. 
 
 haven't got one; I should want a stud, 
 and where am I to find one? A pack of 
 hounds aren't picked up every day, and I 
 am not at all sure about money -matters. 
 Besides, if I felt ever so inclined to try 
 it for a season or so, I could not think of 
 offering myself, and I can't see why they 
 should be at all likely to pitch upon me. 
 I have next to no land in the hunt, and 
 have only been with them one season. I 
 do not see my way at all; and more, if 
 I succeeded in getting in for the east di- 
 vision, I could never afford to do the two 
 for a moment." 
 
 " You talk as if you were a married 
 man" (Jemmy winced), " with half-a-dozen 
 mouths to provide for. You've only your- 
 self to take care of, and you know you will 
 never marry. I don't want you to go and 
 cheek everybody by swaggering in at the 
 next meeting, and saying you will hunt the
 
 RUBY EXPLAINS MATTERS. 35 
 
 county, before anybody has time to speak ; 
 but that's no reason why you should not 
 go there quietly and listen, or anyhow wait, 
 till they decide something, and see if they 
 send to you. Of course no one had had 
 time to talk it over after old Monsell was 
 gone ; but last season, when he was think- 
 ing of giving up the hounds, a lot of the 
 fellows at the Sceptre were thinking of 
 you, said you were a bachelor" (again 
 Jemmy bit his fingers), " lots of money, as 
 idle as sin, and hard up for employment — 
 just the man for the job. It was Ned 
 Masters who met Georgie and me, and told 
 us about old Monsell. He seemed not to 
 think so much about the old boy as the 
 hounds; and almost the first thing he 
 said was, that my cousin ought to take 
 them." 
 
 " And if I did, where am I to live, 
 pray ? and how about stables and hounds ?
 
 36 THE O.V.H. 
 
 Even if I could afford to keep hounds for 
 a season or two, I could not build in that 
 way on land that was not my own, and in 
 a county where I shall never in all proba- 
 bility be a resident." 
 
 " Lots of houses — perhaps MonselTs it- 
 self will be let. Old Mrs. M. hates the 
 place like sin, and always draggd him to 
 Brighton or Tonbridge Wells when the 
 hunting was over. The kennels, you know, 
 are across the road, and distant from the 
 house ; and even if you could not live 
 there, I daresay she would be glad to let 
 them, instead of pulling them down ; that 
 is, if you could find even a farmhouse any- 
 where handy." 
 
 " The house wants lots of repair. I'm 
 not going to sink money in it." 
 
 " That's her look-out, if she lets it to 
 you furnished."
 
 RUBY EXPLAINS MATTERS. 37 
 
 " And where am I to find hounds and 
 horses?"' 
 
 " Horses ! Lots of them at Tattersall's. 
 A good judge like you ought to make a 
 profit instead of a loss by a stud at the 
 end of a season ; and the hounds, I should 
 think, will be kept together if the new 
 Master wants them. Stick to it, old boy ! 
 I'm sure you're game, if you only knew 
 your own mind." 
 
 And Jemmy, counter-argued and foiled 
 in all objections, was fain to yield a con- 
 ditional acquiescence. 
 
 " Well, we'll see how matters go on by 
 the next meeting of the Hunt. Don't you 
 say a word about it to anyone. If you let 
 the cat out of the bag that I have talked 
 it over with you, 111 have nothing more to 
 say to it — by Jove, I won't!" And Jemmy 
 actually roused himself to energy in this 
 final declaration.
 
 38 THE O.V.H. 
 
 " I'm game, I'm mum !" said Ruby. 
 "Here, let's tumble out; I suppose this is 
 our public," as they landed at the door of 
 the Victoria.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GENERAL INSPECTION. 
 
 Without being guilty of any breach of 
 faith in betraying ulterior views of him- 
 self and his ■ cousin, Ruby managed to 
 keep himself, and thence his cousin, tho- 
 roughly au courant as to the moves in pro- 
 gress relative to the vacancy in the master- 
 ship of the Old Vale hounds. 
 
 Ked Masters, a sporting gentleman- 
 farmer, son of a local clergyman, was his 
 principal correspondent, stimulated to a 
 great extent by a box of grouse that had 
 fallen to Ruby's share, after a few days' 
 roving upon Lord Valehampton's moor in 
 Perthshire.
 
 40 THE O.V.H. 
 
 Through the communicative Masters 
 Ruby soon ascertained that the funeral 
 had gone very nicely, and, except that the 
 foreman of old D'Aeth the undertaker had 
 got rousing drunk after the obsequies had 
 been paid, and had thrown his horses down 
 at the Bramham-road level crossing of the 
 G.W.R., so that the empty hearse, still 
 sticking in the road when the Flying 
 Dutchman came by, had been transmogri- 
 fied into splinters and touchwood, and the 
 horses unmercifully butchered, there was 
 no great news or variety in that line. 
 
 Mrs. Monsell was going at once to St. 
 Leonards, to recruit her shattered nerves 
 and console herself for her loss. Vale 
 House was to be let at least for the next 
 hunting-season, and there was to be a 
 general meeting of the Hunt at the Hand 
 and Sceptre on the 25th. 
 
 Nothing could be going more satisfac-
 
 GENERAL INSPECTION. 41 
 
 torily. A few days before the general meet- 
 ing was due, a letter from Sir John Marshall, 
 an elderly heavy-weight of great momen- 
 tum in the county, reached Jemmy at Vale- 
 hampton Lodge, asking him indirectly, and 
 simply on his own authority, whether he 
 would feel inclined to assume the duties 
 of M.F.H. of the O.V.H., should the pro- 
 posals of the general meeting on the 25th 
 instant find favour with Mr. Blake in the 
 important arrangements of subscriptions 
 and general finance, adding that the old 
 kennels had been secured for at least a 
 three -years' lease from old Mrs. Monsell, 
 and that he believed the hounds and Vale 
 House would equally be at the disposal 
 of the next Master, and on very moderate 
 terms. 
 
 Xow that matters were becoming more 
 imminent. Jemmy, who had for many days 
 slept upon the former proposal and con-
 
 42 THE O.V.E. 
 
 ditional plan of Ruby's without any great 
 qualm, nervousness, or nausea, began to 
 wince, show diffidence, and wish himself 
 out of the troubles which seemed so spon- 
 taneously to be closing round him. 
 
 He doubted himself, his nerve, his po- 
 pularity, and his purse. He thought he 
 had best leave well alone. The duties of 
 M.F.H. were well enough for an unen- 
 cumbered man of ten thousand a -year; 
 but he heard before now of a certain 
 earthern pot that would fain voyage in 
 company with brazen pans, trusting for* 
 sooth to compensate by its metallic con- 
 fidence of disposition for the inferiority of 
 composition; but its end was ruin and 
 misery. Why should he not take warn- 
 ing, and draw in his horns in time ? 
 
 But Ruby was not to be denied of his 
 pet scheme, and returned to the charge 
 more strenuously than before, flattering
 
 GENERAL INSPECTION. 43 
 
 Jemmy's modesty, gibing his sloth, laud- 
 ing his capacity ; and in Valehampton and 
 the other guests of the Lodge he found 
 sturdy allies to his purpose, who put on 
 the screw so vigorously upon easy-going 
 Jemmy on the evening of the arrival of 
 the eventful letter of Sir J. Marshall, that 
 he gasped out under the genial influence 
 of a bottle of Chateau Margaux. 
 
 " Anything, anything for a quiet life !" 
 And after a surrender so unqualified 
 and so public, no further attempt to escape 
 or breach of parole could possibly be con- 
 templated. 
 
 Thus it was that on the afternoon of 
 the 29th, in consequence of a formal mis- 
 sive, countersigned by the leading mem- 
 bers of the Old Vale Hunt, which had 
 reached the Lodge on the evening of the 
 27th, Jemmy found his way to his reserved 
 seat in the limited mail at Inverness —
 
 44 THE O.V.H. 
 
 accompanied by Ruby, who readily relin- 
 quished the remains of the grouse that he 
 might keep his protege out of mischief — 
 and having settled himself down upon 
 " travelling sticks," and stretched his legs 
 well into the opposite seat, laid himself out 
 to sleep over the monotony of the journey 
 to Euston as best he could. And Ruby, 
 though naturally loquacious, in considera- 
 tion of his obedience and ready submission 
 to his behests, bought up at Perth all sport- 
 ing papers and magazines of all dates that 
 he could lay his hands upon, and left him 
 in peace to " gang his ain gait," and snore 
 to his own satisfaction. 
 
 Jemmy, in his matter-of-fact, cold- 
 blooded way, had written to order " supper 
 and tubs" at the Euston Hotel on their 
 arrival at cockcrow. 
 
 The former commodity they did full 
 justice to — though to most Christians it
 
 GENERAL INSPECTION. 45 
 
 would have savoured more of a dejeuner — 
 and the luxury of the latter must be simi- 
 larly earned by wayfarers to be thoroughly 
 aj^preciated. 
 
 Fortified with a slight dose of rum-and- 
 water as a nightcap, Jemmy, who had 
 snored without intermission the whole jour- 
 ney, left orders with the yawning " boots" 
 to see him called at ten in the morning; 
 and then, in defiance of Ruby's entreaties, 
 who pleaded for a cat-hunt till the parks 
 were opened, and then a swim in the Ser- 
 pentine, tumbled straight off to bed, and 
 dreamt that the sausages that had com- 
 posed his late repast had been resurrection- 
 ised to a pack of hounds, and he in their 
 midst was sharing the fate of Action. 
 
 By 3 p.m. next day the Flying Dutchman 
 from Paddington had so far done its duty 
 that Ruby and Jemmy were discussing a late 
 lunch at Sir John Marshall's seat at Ashton
 
 46 THE O.V.H. 
 
 Grove. Two younger and more active mem- 
 bers oftlie improvised committee, into whose 
 hands the interests of the Hunt were for the 
 time being delegated till some autocrat 
 should be forced to take up the reins and 
 responsibility of office, were also there to 
 meet the expected guest, to drive there 
 with him to inspect the Vale House and the 
 kennels, and to aid him to draw a sketch 
 of future finance. The delegates of the 
 temporary union were Ned Masters and 
 Captain Winthrop, a retired cavalry-officer, 
 moneyed, but by no means comfortably set- 
 tled under the dominion of a wife nomi- 
 nally double his age and weight. 
 
 Sir John had exerted himself to the 
 utmost to pave the way for the expected 
 Master, by conducing to the arrangements 
 which have been before alluded to respect- 
 ing the house and hounds of the defunct 
 M.F.H.
 
 GENERAL INSPECTION. 47 
 
 The matters and details of subscriptions 
 were soon laid before Jemmy, and old 
 Gammon, the Ashton accountant, who had 
 for years past officiated as dun and col- 
 lector of the Hunt, at a premium of three 
 per cent upon good debts, was called in 
 from the still-room to submit his prospect 
 of a balance-sheet. 
 
 The Old Yale were a three-days-a-week 
 pack, and the contributions of a fair sprin- 
 kling of country gentlemen within the 
 range filled up some twelve hundred 
 pounds per annum, leaving in round num- 
 bers another thousand to be found by the 
 M.F.H. The general meeting had. more- 
 over, voted for the current season a further 
 sum of five hundred pounds, to be placed 
 in the hands of Mr. Blake — should he or 
 any really good judge of horseflesh accept 
 the office — to be used unreservedly at his 
 discretion in mounting the whips and ser-
 
 48 THE O.V.H. 
 
 vants of the Hunt. It was understood that 
 Mr. Blake would have his own hounds, 
 whether he compiled a new pack on his 
 own account or thought it worth while to 
 take to all or part of the kennels of the late 
 Mr. Monsell. 
 
 Jemmy also had a better eye for a horse 
 than a hound, and dreaded the labour of 
 advertisement and collection for a new pack 
 so late in the season ; to say nothing of his 
 knowledge of the shamble -legged, wall- 
 sided, blear-eyed, riotous drafts that are 
 always forced upon advertisers, perquisites 
 of needy and greedy huntsmen, and war- 
 ranted broke to "hunt anything," from a 
 pig to a weasel ; and preferred, if the com- 
 ing inspection confirmed the pleasing remi- 
 niscences that he carried with him of the 
 level and loyal " mixed" pack that had led 
 him so often during the past season over 
 the Old Vale, to take to Mr. Monsell's ken-
 
 GENERAL INSPECTION. 49 
 
 nels, or at least the working part of them, 
 at the asset price suggested by the com- 
 mittee as a fair one to the relict of the 
 defunct M.F.H. ; viz. thirteen guineas a 
 couple if he took the working lot of them 
 down to last year's entry, and eleven gui- 
 neas if he was agreeable to take the whole 
 lot — young entry and brood -bitches in- 
 cluded. The stud of the late Master was, 
 to simplify matters, to go to the hammer at 
 TattersalPs ; and insomuch as the servants' 
 horses were the worse for wear, and the 
 -elephantine weight-carriers of the defunct 
 were too much of a good thing for Jemmy's 
 12st.7lb., this was the best possible arrange- 
 ment. 
 
 One important question remained to be 
 put. Supposing the arrangements should 
 suit Mr. Blake, and he should take the 
 mastership, would he hunt the hounds him- 
 self? or, if he preferred to keep an active 
 
 VOL, I. e
 
 50 THE O.V.H. 
 
 instead of a mere kennel huntsman, had he 
 any objection to keep on Dan Morgan, who 
 had hunted for Mr. Monsell for the last 
 five years, and had been well entered 
 under Charles Payne in the Pytchley 
 country ? 
 
 In this respect also Mr. James Blake 
 was agreeable to meet the views of the 
 committee, so far as to keeping of Dan 
 Morgan at least for the season; and for 
 the present he considered the onus of mas- 
 tership quite sufficient, without adding to 
 his responsibilities by hunting hounds in 
 prqprid persona. 
 
 The next step was a visit to Yale House, 
 five miles distant ; and there was just time 
 to do the thing nicely before the 8 - p. m. 
 dinner. 
 
 Yale House was not as "fit" inside as 
 modern conveniences might have made it. 
 The furniture was all old-fashioned, and in
 
 GENERAL INSPECTION. 51 
 
 many cases the worse for wear; but new 
 chintz in the sitting-rooms would brighten 
 up matters; and the majority of the pic- 
 tures were not to be moved for the current 
 year. The billiard-table had a hill on one 
 side of it, all the pockets had gutters lead- 
 ins; to them, and the cushions were hard as 
 nails ; but Thurston could send down and 
 relay it. The bedrooms were useful, if not 
 especially ornamental. The kitchen and 
 cellars were good, for old Monsell had not 
 been above the good things of this world, 
 and could give one of the best dinners in 
 the county. The stable," though not fitted 
 with Adams's iron racks and mangers, or 
 any such modern improvements, were clean, 
 well drained and ventilated, containing 
 fourteen stalls and five loose boxes. 
 
 A special message had brought Simms, 
 the agent, upon the scene before the in- 
 spection was completed ; and the further 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 ILLINOIS LIBRARY
 
 52 THE O.V.H. 
 
 proffered arrangements were speedily un- 
 ravelled by him : cows and poultry left 
 for the season to Mr. Blake's use ; hay to 
 be taken at a valuation, if wanted ; the 
 gardeners and keepers to be kept on at the 
 usual wages ; rest of furnished house, ken- 
 nels, stabling, garden and stuff, upper part 
 of park within rails and gates, comprising 
 nineteen acres of pasture, five hundred 
 pounds per annum; inclusive of two thou- 
 sand two hundred acres of shooting, one 
 hundred and twenty of which were cover, 
 and well preserved. The kennels, on the 
 further side of the London road, a good 
 half-mile from the house, sheltered on 
 north and east by rising grounds and larch- 
 woods, and with a sunny southern aspect, 
 were the final item for inspection and criti- 
 cism. Accompanied by Dan Morgan, and 
 armed each with a good double - thong, 
 Jemmy and Ruby entered the yards, to
 
 GENERAL INSPECTION. 53 
 
 receive a boisterous and generally affec- 
 tionate greeting, decidedly to the detriment 
 of clean boots and tidy trousers. Roisterer 
 and Ransom, two habitual bullies, though 
 some of the staunchest in the field, sulked 
 in a far corner and glanced greedily at the 
 intruders' calves; but the majority wel- 
 comed Ruby so heartily that his waistcoat 
 was indelibly defiled with the slimy paw- 
 marks of cordiality. 
 
 The fathers of the pack had a fine 
 patriarchal stamp about them, and the two- 
 and three-year-old entries had been care- 
 fully drafted of all imperfections. The 
 Old Vale blood, especially the Blueboy and 
 Gamester strains, was held in high repute 
 in the Drake, Belvoir, and Beaufort ken- 
 nels ; and old Monsell had been perhaps 
 a better judge of a hound than a horse. 
 The voun£ entries and brood-stock were 
 also paraded ; and without laying deeply
 
 54 THE O.V.H. 
 
 to heart the entangled pedigrees which 
 Dan hastened to pour forth so often as 
 Jemmy's or Ruby's curiosity was turned 
 towards some wire -coated, straight -loined 
 sinewy aspirant at osculation, Mr. Blake 
 seemed inclined to agree that it would be 
 a pity that a pack that had been collected 
 and bred with so much care should be left 
 to the tender mercies of BelVs Life and 
 Tattersall's hammer. 
 
 Mr. Blake was a man of few words, and 
 was seldom guilty of buying a pig in a 
 poke ; but his countenance betrayed no 
 dissatisfaction as he thanked Mr. Simms 
 for his company and attention, bade Ned 
 Masters and the Captain a cordial farewell, 
 and, telling the agent that he would think 
 over the whole matter before the next 
 day's post, betook himself with Ruby, who 
 had been studiously unomcious, and had 
 followed Jemmy all day like an orderly
 
 GENERAL INSPECTION. 55 
 
 spaniel at heel, to his dinner with Sir 
 John, to indulge in a final cogitation and 
 discussion before he cast the dice and 
 crossed Rubicon.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ASHTON GROVE. 
 
 Sir John Marshall, banker and baronet r 
 kej)t house with all the cordiality of olden 
 times, and the luxury and appliances of 
 modern days. His cuisine was an ama- 
 teur rival to Francatelli ; his cellar deep 
 and recherche. His servants were drilled 
 to a hair s- breadth ; his carpets mossy ;. 
 chairs and couches deep and soothing ; 
 and the bedrooms and their prepara- 
 tions were equally elysian. The enter- 
 ing guest would find his apparel, for 
 morn or even, laid out at the precise mo- 
 ment ; his fire blazing, if in winter ; and 
 no stint of open windows and fresh air
 
 ASHTON GROVE. 57 
 
 (that bugbear of the British " slavey") in 
 summer. Tubs, baths, hot bottles, slip- 
 pers, Baden towels, or bootjacks were, as 
 a matter of course, " cut and dried" for 
 all guests, according to times and seasons. 
 
 The sedentaiy night, and rattle and 
 turmoil of the last twenty-four hours, had 
 begun to tell their tale of a reactional 
 weariness upon both the travellers, on 
 Ruby perhaps least of the two ; but nei- 
 ther was sorry to sink for a few moments 
 into his easy -chair before the open win- 
 dow, as soon as the 7.30 dressing - gong 
 had ushered them to their respective quar- 
 ters. 
 
 Jemmy had scarcely thought of rous- 
 ing himself, and be^an to kick off his 
 boots and discard his collar, when a tap 
 at the door announced a flunkey with an 
 array of cordials, and "pick-me-up" to 
 whet the appetite ; of which dry Amontil-
 
 58 THE O.V.H. 
 
 laclo and Canadian bitters were exactly to 
 the gentleman's taste. Ruby, who did not 
 notice the sherry, and had a deadly horror 
 of spirits in any shape (not having reached, 
 or else having discarded in the nursery, 
 that esprit de corps of hobbledehoy lads, 
 under the care of army or university 
 tutors, which leads them to esteem and 
 adore, as ex officio manly, any taste, in- 
 nocent, nondescript, or vicious, which is 
 beyond their perception or understanding, 
 and in all probability is an absolute nau- 
 sea, yet is sought for and endured as 
 ignotum pro magnifico), declined any stimu- 
 lant, and was perhaps none the worse for 
 his abstinence. 
 
 The womankind of the house knew 
 Ruby well, and Jemmy slightly. The 
 latter never went out of his way to show 
 up at county- or hunt-balls, flower-shows, 
 archery- or croquet-parties ; but Ruby, a
 
 ASHTON GROVE. 59 
 
 systematic little flirt, had been as common 
 as a sunbeam at all such, when holidays 
 emancipated him. Now, discharged from 
 Eton, a matriculated member of alma ma- 
 ter, a definite Oxford " man," his inde- 
 pendence was established, and he consi- 
 dered himself a free agent in society. 
 Lady Marshall was plump and motherly; 
 she had no especial failing except a blind 
 belief in the infallibility of her sons and 
 daughters, in their perfection of good 
 looks, good manners, abilities, and phy- 
 sique. 
 
 Johnny Marshall, of age some six 
 months ago, on which occasion the county 
 rejoicings had been prolific, had a better 
 opinion of himself than the world at large, 
 his mother of course excepted, entertained 
 of him. 
 
 His sisters were " fond" of " Jack" in 
 the ordinary acceptation of the term, so
 
 60 THE O.Y.H. 
 
 long as his pleasures or counsels in no 
 way ran counter to theirs. Sir John did 
 his duty by his son ; allowed him 500/. 
 a year, found him in a couple of nags 
 and groom at Merton College, and had 
 always a room for any guest he might 
 choose to invite down to Ashton Grove. 
 On the occasion of Johnny's twenty-first 
 birthday, he had grudged neither trouble 
 nor expense to proclaim the extinction of 
 his son's " infancy," and inaugurate his 
 new position in the county. As a duty 
 to the family and the county members, 
 he lost no time in ma-kins: Johnny the 
 freeholder of a farm and messuage suffi- 
 cient to place him upon the register of 
 east - division electors ; and though he 
 shrugged his shoulders, and even once or 
 twice launched into an attempt at con- 
 temptuous conviction and refutation of 
 Johnny's principles, when the latter pro-
 
 ASHTON GROVE. 61 
 
 pounded at dinner Gladstonian views upon 
 ehurch-rates and tests' abolition and rental 
 franchise, he used no pressure or inter- 
 ference with the liberty of subject or his 
 theories, any more than he would have 
 done with any opposition votes among his 
 own tenantry ; himself thoroughly liberal 
 in his Toryism. 
 
 Had Sir John been cross-questioned on 
 oath, and bidden define his son accord- 
 ing to his own consciousness, he would 
 probably have said, on reflection, " Good 
 lad; does no harm to anyone; and thinks 
 lies not a fool." 
 
 And similarly Ralph Romilly had de- 
 fined Marshall, when the latter was up for 
 election for the Bullingdon Club ; for which, 
 to Mr. Johnny's disgust, he was promptly 
 pilled the two first times of asking, though 
 he secured an entree at the third essay. 
 "There's no vice about him that I know
 
 62 THE O.V.H. 
 
 of; but he's only half broke, wants a tight 
 bearing-rein, a steady nag on the off-side, 
 and lots of whipcord." 
 
 Mr. John Marshall's personnel would go 
 far to define his character. His nearly 
 black hair was close cropped in the ortho- 
 dox Newgate fashion of the day, his whis- 
 kers respectable for his age, and moustache 
 promising. A rather regular set of features 
 forbade any enemy to call him plain; a 
 straight-cut mouth and vapid expression 
 of eye licensed the most disinterested to 
 assume him a fool. He was a decent shot, 
 had a better theoretical than practical 
 knowledge of riding and horseflesh in 
 general, and could talk by the yard of 
 what little he did know. 
 
 He subscribed to the " drag" at Oxford, 
 though his first season had taught him to 
 seek a less emulous scene of horseman- 
 ship; and though thirteen stone would have
 
 ASHTON GROVE. 63 
 
 taken liim clown, saddle and all, and his 
 two hunters had been carefully selected 
 regardless of expense, each at three figures, 
 from the celebrated sale when the dynast}' 
 of Lord Stamford at the Quorn came to 
 a close, he was invariably found in the 
 " term time" in the ranks of the Bicester 
 and Heythorp "heavy brigade;" and a fair 
 knowledge of the country of the Old Yale 
 made his pink continually a valuable 
 guiding -star through lines of gates and 
 bridle - roads when Christmas vacation 
 brought him to the shelter of Ashton 
 Grove. His " wines" were quite as fre- 
 quent as his position demanded; and the 
 name of his wine -merchant and cost of 
 each dozen found him ample funds for 
 conversation with any undergraduate con- 
 noisseur who would be so good as to criti- 
 cise his cellar. 
 
 He was no great athlete ; Tom Evans's
 
 64 THE O.V.H. 
 
 sparring-studio for a fortnight enticed, but 
 soon repelled, him; and the strong lan- 
 guage of an angry coach, coupled with the 
 contingencies of a wet cushion in a sou - 
 wester, disgusted him with the concomitants 
 of torpid apprenticeship. He was in good 
 odour with his " dons ;" kept a fair if not 
 an outrageous share of chapels ; subscribed 
 to the Holywell oratory, though only once 
 seen there ; and put the cards of the B. H. 
 T. to no more menial use than that of lug- 
 gage - labels. The wildest orgies of the 
 Myrmidons had never, never beheld him 
 inebriated; and he paid his losses at loo 
 by draft at sight upon the Old Bank. 
 His dress was scrupulous if not outre; and 
 though he kept fairly within range of his 
 allowance, a jeweller's account at Em- 
 manuel's was one of his weaknesses. Fool 
 though nany voted him, he had passed 
 responsions the first time of asking, and
 
 ASHTON GROVE. 65 
 
 secured a third in " mods." with the aid of 
 two coaches and a year's average reading. 
 Under the new statute he had abandoned 
 further classics in final schools, and was 
 aiming sedulously at a class in "stinks." 
 It was not so much capacity as that sixth 
 sense of tact that was a scarce commodity 
 with John Marshall. But that one thing 
 wanting seemed to pervade his whole sys- 
 tem, and stamp with mediocrity everything 
 that he put his hand (or his foot) to. Inter 
 alia he was a zealous dancer, and with utter 
 disregard of time and step generally suc- 
 ceeded in waltzing himself into a high 
 state of perspiration. He " liked dancing, 
 it was such capital exercise." 
 
 His powers of conversation were not 
 even so exalted as might have been ex- 
 pected of even a third-class moderation 
 man. His memory stocked his head with 
 sundry cut - and - dried commonplace 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 THE O.V.H. 
 
 speeches and sentiments ; but, on the 
 whole, like crammed competitors for civil 
 service, what little he had got into his 
 head he seemed utterly unable to get out 
 of it again, either for his own benefit or 
 anyone else's. 
 
 Perhaps, after all, he was not so black 
 as the cold charity of this sketch has 
 painted him ; he was not selfish — at least, 
 not more than the majority of young men 
 of the period. He was just and honest in 
 his dealings, neither screw nor spendthrift ; 
 blind only to his own deficiencies, amus- 
 ingly rather than ofiiciously conceited. 
 Neither ruffian nor rowdy, bully or brag- 
 gart, ladies to some extent patronised him 
 as a passable young man well furnished 
 with expectations; men suffered him as 
 one whose wine and weeds were better 
 than his conversation, and shootings supe- 
 rior to the lot; and a cynic would have
 
 ASHTON GROVE. 67 
 
 summed him up as an ordinary and harm- 
 less specimen of the common fool. 
 
 Sir John, strange to say, though he 
 could never struggle beyond Little-go in 
 his young days, was as agreeable and col- 
 loquial a host, as shrewd and far-seeing a 
 man of business, as any in the kingdom. 
 
 And to the girls, Kate and Blanche 
 Marshall, Nature had been more munifi- 
 cent than to the son and heir. Though 
 female intellect, however well developed, 
 can never emulate or stand in the same 
 field with that of an ordinarily clever man 
 (who ever heard of any science or inven- 
 tion that could be traced to womanhood, 
 unless it were a primeval mirror ?) ; yet, 
 on the other hand, tact never is so utterly 
 wanting in a woman as too often it is in 
 a lord of creation. Learning and common 
 sense are by no means synonymous. Ped- 
 ants are continually fools and blue-stock-
 
 68 THE O.V.H. 
 
 ings idiots. Thus it was that, though the 
 Misses Marshall had neither read so highly 
 nor studied so deeply as their brother, they 
 had acquired a more liberal share of non- 
 and common sense — nothing beyond the 
 average, but sufficient to enable them to 
 hold their own in society, and, though not 
 paragon belles, or any better than well- 
 made, ruddy - complexioned, showy, yet 
 lady-like English girls, to be popular at 
 county reunions, and to have received one 
 or two offers of marriage " not quite good 
 enough for the present" to touch their own 
 hearts intact, or tempt the acquiescence 
 of the idolising and very worldly-minded 
 Lady Marshall. 
 
 Captain Winthorp had sped back to 
 attire himself, and escort his better and 
 bigger half to Asliton Grove. These two, 
 
 CO ' 
 
 with the Rev. Henry Craven, Yicar of Ash-
 
 ASHTON GROVE. 69 
 
 ton, made up the external complement for 
 the dinner-table that evening. 
 
 The Vicar had in early days been the 
 life and soul of the 21st Light Dragoons, 
 and had seen good service in the first Sikh 
 campaign at Ferozeshah and Aliwal. Few 
 could then go straighter in the " shires," 
 or better handle a favourite over a country 
 for the " Grand Military." When, to the 
 astonishment of his friends, the Major sold 
 out, and qualified at Cuddesdon for the ser- 
 vice of the Church militant, his old friend 
 the banker took the opportunity of the de- 
 mise of the then vicar of Little Ashton to 
 offer the ex-dragoon the berth ; and the lat- 
 ter, who had means of his own, and so was 
 better suited in that point for the charge 
 of 800 souls upon a commutation stipend 
 of 220/. per annum, closed with the offer, 
 and settled down. For the sake of pro- 
 priety and conscience he never risked his
 
 70 THE O.V.H. 
 
 reputation or influence with his flock by 
 appearing at meet or joining the hunting- 
 field ; but few phaetons could boast a more 
 workmanlike turn-out than that of the par- 
 sonage; and the still upright carriage of 
 the subject, tanned complexion, concise 
 style of language, ineradicable cavalry- 
 swagger, and regulation cut of whisker 
 (though the moustache had been sacri- 
 ficed) could not but betray the soldier of 
 the State as well as of the Church. Few 
 men had a keener eye for sport or more 
 thorough knowledge of horseflesh ; no bro- 
 ther of the cloth had more strict ideas of 
 the decorum due to it, or was more care- 
 ful not to offend the propriety of weaker 
 and foolish vessels. No chokered or JSoah's- 
 arked ritualist received more slippers and 
 sermon-cases, or offers of altar-covers and 
 embroidered stools and cushions. As a 
 bachelor, and a strictly handsome one,
 
 ASHTON GROVE. 71 
 
 though Punjaub summers and English win- 
 ters had silvered his temples in many a 
 spot, the parson was fair game to the pet- 
 ticoats of Ashton ; nor had seven years' so- 
 journ in celibacy in any way choked off 
 the ardour of each rising generation. 
 
 " Dinner, Sir John," said a sleek but- 
 ler to the jejune assemblage, as the gong 
 in the hall bellowed the same announce- 
 ment for the benefit of the house. 
 
 "Mr. Blake, will you be so good as to 
 take my eldest daughter ?" said the Baronet 
 as he tucked Mrs. Winthorp under his 
 wing, leaving the Captain to Kate, and 
 her ladyship to bring up the rear with his 
 reverence. " I am sorry, Mr. Charles Blake, 
 that we have managed so badly as to re- 
 serve no lady for you." 
 
 "Don't cry, Miss Ruby," said Blanche 
 as she sailed off; " and don't tread on my
 
 72 THE O.V.H. 
 
 train. Jack will give you an arm if you 
 ask him prettily." 
 
 And Ruby, diving his hands in his 
 pockets, followed the procession, looking 
 daggers at the son and heir, who smiled 
 patronisingly on him.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE MAULE. 
 
 Business was not broached till the ladies 
 had made themselves scarce. Though the 
 conversation during dinner had been com- 
 monplace, it had not been exorbitant. 
 Miss Blanche was sensible and merciful ; 
 she saw that Mr. Blake liked his dinner, 
 and she did not risk the making herself 
 officious or obnoxious by bullying him 
 with unnecessary queries and cross-ques- 
 tions. She kept him going well with gos- 
 sip and narrative rather than interrogatory, 
 allowing him chances of opening his mouth 
 between the courses. The cuisine was ex- 
 cellent, and Jemmy ravenous; dishes and
 
 74 THE O.V.H. 
 
 wines were mated with variety and felicity. 
 By the time that the bottle had well cir- 
 culated, and- the ladies sought the draw- 
 ing-room, Jemmy could not but confess to 
 himself that he felt in the best of hu- 
 mours. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Blake, what do you think 
 of the Yale House and hounds?" said Sir 
 John. 
 
 " House is big, and the furniture not 
 much account; but I suppose it will be 
 good enough as a bachelor's crib for what 
 I want. The old lady must do up the 
 drawing-room a little, and give me a coat 
 of clean paint in the hall. I showed Simms 
 that." 
 
 " Bravo ! then you mean to come to 
 us? Is that it? And you told Simms 
 so?" 
 
 "I suppose I shall come; it seems right 
 enough," said Jemmy rather dolefully. u I
 
 THE MAULE. 75 
 
 told the agent chap that I'd let him know 
 by to-morrow's post. Five hundred a-year 
 lie asks, all found. How is that for price, 
 Sir John?" 
 
 " Shooting and garden thrown in, and 
 the kennels, of course, eh?" 
 
 " Just so ; and the cows and poultry. 
 I pay keepers and gardeners." 
 
 " Cheap enough, I call it, I suppose 
 you'll go from next Michaelmas quarter?*' 
 
 "Yes, yes. Let's be there, and work 
 the covers from the 1st. I go up for 
 term on the 13th," chimed in Ruby, who 
 had sat so far with mouth and eyes 
 wide open, in satisfaction at Jemmy's 
 ready acquiescence in the momentous 
 question. 
 
 "Why, are you to keep house for him, 
 young man ?" said Sir John, half amused. 
 
 "I mean to set him going, and see 
 him afloat before I leave him. He's going
 
 76 THE O.V.H. 
 
 to give me whip's wages, and mount me 
 for the cub-huntino;." 
 
 " You deserve monkey's allowance," said 
 Jemmy. — " It's his idea, this making a fool 
 of me" (turning to the rest). "I do not 
 think I should have undertaken such an 
 office, but that the young one there bullied 
 me into it.'' 
 
 "Then the O.V.H. owe Mr. Charles 
 Blake a vote of thanks, which should be 
 duly recorded," said his reverence; "and 
 with Sir John's leave I beg to propose it." 
 
 " N'em. con. But our first duty is a 
 bumper, and no heel-taps, to our new 
 Master. — Pass the wine, Jack. — How about 
 the hounds, Mr. Blake ; do they take your 
 fancy also ?" as he filled himself a brim- 
 mer of Madeira. 
 
 " I think I like them ; anyhow, the 
 working couples are bound to do ; and in a 
 day or two I shall have time to make up
 
 THE MAULE. 77 
 
 my mind about the young entries and 
 
 the rest." 
 
 i 
 
 Ruby was an abstemious lad, but Jemmy 
 could carry a good deal of liquid, and that 
 discreetly. On the whole, ample justice 
 had been done to the cellar by the time 
 that coffee came in. 
 
 " Does your young cousin play a rub- 
 ber ?" asked Sir John of Jemmy when 
 they had begun to settle down in the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 " He can just hold his hand up and not 
 revoke ; but I do not think he is much use. 
 Cannot your son make a fourth, and leave 
 Ruby with the ladies ?" 
 
 "The very thing, if Mr. Charles will 
 excuse us. If I don't keep my son Jack 
 out of mischief he'll want to sing, and 
 that's awful — far worse than treading on a 
 pig's ear — enough to ruin one's digestion 
 for a week."
 
 78 THE O.V.H. 
 
 So Ruby was left to the tender mercies 
 of Blanche and Kate, and photographic 
 albums, and the Pall Mall Gazette, while the 
 M.F.H. and his reverence carefully cleaned 
 father and son out of three dozen sixpenny 
 points. 
 
 The Maule britzka, in answer to Ruby's 
 telegram, met the cousins at Orleton sta- 
 tion the next afternoon. 
 
 " Hang it ! there's a croquet- an d-tea 
 fight," said Ruby, as they landed at the 
 front-door, and caught the sound of clatter- 
 ing balls and voices on the back lawn. 
 
 " You have just come in time," said 
 Lady Mary, as she kissed Ruby in the 
 entrance-hall and held out her hand to 
 Jemmy. " Georgie is holding a croquet 
 tournament, and we are very short of gen- 
 tlemen. " 
 
 And Georgie shouldered her mallet and
 
 THE MAULE. 79 
 
 met them as they debouched on to the 
 lawn, receiving in a half-frightened manner 
 Jemmy Blake's proffered hand, but hiding 
 her nervousness by taking Ruby by the 
 arm, and saying directly to him and more 
 indirectly to Jemmy, " Come and make up 
 a six set on the further lawn ; w r e are just 
 ready — all ladies — and ought to have at 
 least two gentlemen." 
 
 "I have given up croquet for years,' 7 
 said Jemmy with nonchalance. " When 
 Ralph Romilly and his sisters first got the 
 game from Ireland fifteen years ago, we 
 had no vulgar slang such as Mayne Reid 
 tries to introduce nowadays ; nor far- 
 fetched differences between 'roqueting' 
 and ' croqueting ;' we invented the word 
 'croquet' ourselves, as a more euphonistic 
 and frenchified form for the ' crooked' or 
 'bandy' piece of wood with which we 
 played. I think the word 'rover' a use-
 
 80 THE O.V.H. 
 
 ful one ; we used to call such ' loose balls.' 
 With us all strokes were fair with the head 
 of the mallet, just as at billiards with the 
 point of a cue, or at cricket or racket with 
 any part of the bat. We were not allowed 
 to hit twice or make a ' foul' stroke, but 
 we held the mallet as we liked, generally 
 between the knees, and used to make 
 breaks of thirty strokes and upwards on a 
 ground sixty yards long. It was the sub- 
 sequent fashion of crinolines that made 
 ladies the advocates of a side stroke. The 
 straight stroke, with elbows close to the 
 side, played from the wrist, requires 
 strength of wrist, but is infallible. I 
 don't care to learn over again, or to be 
 accused of spooning in my old age." 
 
 Ruby looked rather astonished at this 
 decidedly crusty tirade, and said : 
 
 "Don't tease him, Georgie ; he is wor- 
 ried with cares of office, and the crown
 
 THE MAULE. 81 
 
 makes his uneasy head ache. He is the 
 new Master of the Old Vale hounds, and 
 stands on his dignity ; he has got some- 
 thing at last to keep him out of mis- 
 chief." 
 
 " Perhaps he has," said Georgie, half to 
 herself, as she turned up the lawn with 
 Ruby ; and Jemmy, looking after them till 
 they had lost themselves in a group at one 
 of the hoops, turned to inspect the stable 
 and enjoy a weed till dinner-time. 
 
 " We did not know that you were com- 
 ing to-day," said Lady Mary, as he was pass- 
 ing her at the garden-gate. " There is not 
 exactly a dinner to-night — a sort of mixed 
 lunch, tea, and supper. There are too 
 many for one simultaneous dinner : no- 
 thing will be hot but soup, tea, and coffee, 
 which will be at the same time ; you shall 
 have your cup sent up later; I hope you 
 will not mind the other things being cold." 
 VOL. i. G
 
 82 THE O.V.H. 
 
 "Not at all," said Jemmy, in a better 
 humour with himself and his weed. "Don't 
 put yourself out about me, Aunt Mary ; I 
 shall do very well. I'll come back in time 
 to do the civil to the ladies in the dining- 
 room ; but I want to look over my horses 
 that have been lately taken up from grass. 
 Has Ruby told you that I have undertaken 
 the mastership of the Old Yale hounds?" 
 
 " You have ! I never thought that 
 you were so energetic, Jemmy. The next 
 thing we shall hear will be that you have 
 set up house and got married." 
 
 " I have taken Old Vale House for a 
 year from Mrs. Monsell," said Jemmy, 
 wincing at the latter part of her speech, 
 and taking care not to meet her eyes. " If 
 you can help me in the way of servants 
 and menage, I shall be grateful." 
 
 " Of course ; when do you take posses- 
 sion?"
 
 THE MATTLE. 83 
 
 " Next Michaelmas, or October 1st ; not 
 much time to look about me ; but a bache- 
 lor will not want a very large staff to start 
 with. I can go a long way with mutton- 
 chops and clean towels. It will be some- 
 thing to talk about to-morrow when you 
 are free. I must go to town and pick up- 
 some horses in a week or two ; I suppose 
 you will let Ruby keep me company?" 
 
 "He is safe any where with you;" and 
 Lady Mary went back to her guests. 
 
 James Blake's stud of hunters consisted 
 generally of about three useful horses and 
 a young one in course of manufacture, one 
 of which former would perhaps take to 
 harness or dog-cart work in the summer, 
 and another possessed sufficient good looks ; 
 and style to do duty in the Row should' 
 the owner feel inclined for an idle month- 
 during the '" season." During the present 
 summer he had arranged to keep his non-
 
 84 THE O.V.H. 
 
 working horses at his aunt's, and two of 
 them had been duly summered, at first in 
 the spring grass, and, when the first growth 
 was over, in a straw-yard. They had been 
 now "up" nearly a month, had gone through 
 the first stage of physic, and were getting 
 on towards condition. 
 
 " How are the nags going on, Peter ?" 
 inquired he of Mell, his stud -groom and 
 factotum ; " Pell-Mell," as he was usually 
 styled, from his ramming- cramming style 
 of riding. 
 
 He had been a high-class steeple-jockey 
 in his younger days, had broken his col- 
 lar- and the small-bone of his bridle-arm 
 with periodical propriety, had never been 
 detected in roping a horse, and had rid- 
 depi the winner of some of the first-class 
 handicaps at Cheltenham, St. Albans, and 
 elsewhere. After his last accident, in Abd- 
 el-Kader's first Liverpool, he had become a
 
 THE MAULE. 85 
 
 victim to the daughter of the landlord at 
 whose public he was tended — married, re- 
 tired from active service, set up as trainer, 
 and failed, as a matter of course, from want 
 of capital ; and, with the aid of a character 
 from Lord Valehampton, fell on his legs in 
 the service of Mr. James Blake. His profes- 
 sional practice of younger days was turned 
 to good account in the tuition of " young 
 ones," of which, as before stated, Mr. Blake 
 had usually one or two in pickle, having 
 rather a partiality for "making" his own 
 hunters, though, in reality, Peter Mell sel- 
 dom passed them on to the hunting-field 
 till his own handling had made them pretty 
 handy at their work. Once or twice Jem- 
 my had been ambitious, and had run one 
 of his stud for the local hunters' stakes of 
 the Hunt which he patronised for the sea- 
 son ; but hitherto his attempts — only two 
 or three in number — had been unsuccess-
 
 86 THE O.Y.H. 
 
 ful, and he had neither inclination nor 
 energy to attempt to amuse himself by 
 keeping any regular steeplechasers. 
 
 " They be going nicely, thank you, mas- 
 ter," replied Peter; "leastways, Duchess 
 and the little ones ; but that chestnut 'oss 
 is a rummer customer nor ever he were. 
 Wuss-tempered nigh every day he's out; 
 won't jump at all unless he's a mind to; . 
 goes his own way ; and put the lad down 
 twice unawares last week. He's turning 
 rogue, master, I'm feared." 
 
 " I found that out two or three months 
 ago, Peter," said Jemmy. " I expect he'll 
 go up at Tattersall's before long. How 
 does the young one look? What can you 
 do with him ?" 
 
 " He'll be the best of the lot, sir, seem- 
 ingly; jumps very kind, and a wonderful 
 galloper. He ought to make a 'chaser, sir, 
 if you've a mind for him that way. I
 
 THE MAULE. 87 
 
 should say he's a thoroughbred one, or 
 near it, and he's beautiful in dirt." 
 
 " By King Tom out of Baroness is his 
 pedigree I think ; he was in Fobert's 
 stable, but they thought he was a roarer, 
 and never brought him out ; he went 
 back to Colonel Staveley, who had bred 
 him, and was blistered on the throat be- 
 fore I bought him. Does he ring pretty 
 sound in the wind?" 
 
 " Blows high at times, sir, at first start- 
 ing ; but I should say it's nothing at all — 
 not to stop his galloping ; it ain't as if he 
 was to go for the Derby. He'll never 
 stop with hounds, nor steeplechasing nei- 
 ther." 
 
 Jemmy proceeded to the five-stall stable, 
 in which stood the family carriage-horses, 
 and two of his own. Duchess was a big, 
 slow, strong mare, steady and sound, 
 but rather deficient in pace for the pas-
 
 88 THE O.V.H. 
 
 tures of the Yale, though just the stamp 
 for the ploughs, banks, and cramped fences 
 of the Orleton hunt. The " little oss," 
 Tommy, above alluded to, was a bay, 
 fifteen 1^ nearly, by Ethelbert, thorough- 
 bred, not fully up to Jemmy's 12st, 71b., 
 but fast, a perfect fencer, with wonderful 
 back and loins, that made him feel a 
 bigger horse when you were on him than 
 when alongside. He was an especial fa- 
 vourite with Jemmy, who seldom had^ a 
 fall with him ; and preferred, if it was 
 necessary, a short day on a safe and 
 speedy mount, to a long one upon an 
 elephant, who coidd not be depended to 
 go the pace or negotiate his fences. Hot- 
 spur, Ruby's cob and boy's hunter in 
 former years, made up the stable. 
 
 In a loose box on the other side of the 
 yard stood TVarrener, the unruly chestnut. 
 He, too, had been in a training-stable, and
 
 THE MAULE. 89 
 
 had won a fair race as a two-year old. 
 But his temper was too uncertain, and he 
 never forgot a punishing head-defeat for 
 the "Xew Stakes" at Ascot. From that 
 time he hated the sight of a silk jacket; 
 and though he performed well enough in 
 " trials" at home, ridden by a stable -lad 
 in fustian, he twice put his stable and 
 backers into the hole by laying back his 
 ears and sticking his toes into the ground 
 when " wanted" on a racecourse. Xeither 
 blinkers, coaxing, nor operations had any 
 effect upon him, and he finally passed as 
 useless for racing purposes into the hands 
 
 of F the jockey, and Avas ridden by 
 
 him as hack upon Newmarket-heath. From 
 him, as a four-year old, he was bought by 
 Jemmy, one Csesarewiteh day; his make 
 and shape looked well up to weight with 
 hounds, and a cheque for CA)!. effected his 
 transfer.
 
 90 THE O.V.H. 
 
 The horse took kindly to jumping, and 
 under Peter's hands was ready for Mr. 
 Blake's use by the following Christmas. 
 He was fast, a big jumper, and never 
 tired, however long the day; and except 
 that the old leaven now and then showed 
 itself in the shape of sulkiness when asked 
 to jump a fence apparently away from the 
 line of the hounds and horses, Mr. Blake 
 had every reason to be satisfied with his 
 bargain, and even refused an offer of a 
 hundred and fifty for him. 
 
 Probably much of the secret of the im- 
 provement that Peter had effected in the 
 brute lay in the fact that his experience 
 of similar animals led him to house a 
 donkey in the same box with Warrener, 
 with whom the savage soon fraternised, and 
 displayed corresponding improvement in 
 his temper. But the " moke" died sud- 
 denly of colic towards the end of the last
 
 THE MAULE. 91 
 
 hunting-season, and though a substitute 
 was soon found, Warrener nearly kicked 
 it to pieces, and could not be satisfied. 
 He showed temper more than once in the 
 middle of runs, and lost his rider his place 
 in the van for the day. Jemmy took him 
 on to London with him as park-hack, for 
 which his magnificent shape and stride 
 well adapted him, hoping to preserve his 
 temper from further deterioration by keep- 
 ing the same hands upon him as much as 
 possible. But he was disappointed ; and 
 though he was too steady a rider, with 
 too strong a seat to be easily spilt, he 
 could not help feeling awkward when once 
 or twice Warrener stuck his toes hard in 
 the ground in the middle of a canter, 
 stuck up his back like a pig, and whipped 
 round with his head where his tail should 
 have been. He was not the sort of horse 
 to be any safer in harness than for the
 
 92 THE O.V.H. 
 
 saddle ; and" the additional importance that 
 Jemmy should not be liable to be thrown 
 out at the outset of a run, now that he had 
 the cares of a mastership on his shoulders, 
 coupled with the report of Peter as to later 
 vagaries, now determined him to get the 
 horse into dealer's condition, and let him 
 take his chance at Tattersall's. 
 
 The last horse for notice was the Lady, 
 a fourteen -three, dark -brown, thorough- 
 bred mare of Ruby's, in her second season, 
 a picture of beauty, clever as a cat, rather 
 hot, and the envy of every schoolboy and 
 light-weight in the two hunts. Jemmy 
 had secured her two years ago for three 
 figures from a London dealer; and Ruby 
 used to boast monthly of the offers of two 
 hundred and upwards that he had been bid 
 for her sake. 
 
 "It is too dark to do much now, 
 Peter," said Jemmy, when he had felt all
 
 THE MAULE. 93 
 
 the legs and finished his general inspec- 
 tion. " I will have a ride on the young 
 horse about the close before we shoot to- 
 morrow. Have him saddled by eight. If 
 Mr. Charles wants to come with me I will 
 send word what he will ride. Perhaps I 
 may as well tell vou that I am going to 
 take on old Mr. MonselTs hounds in the 
 Old Vale, and move into his house in a 
 month. I shall have to pick up another 
 horse or two before long ; and I hope you 
 will prove yourself up to the mark. Good- 
 night/' 
 
 " Good-night sir, and I wish you luck, 
 master, I do," was the reply; " and I'll 
 hope I'll give you satisfaction/' Then to 
 himself, as his master retreated to the 
 house, " Well, surely summat like busi- 
 ness ; the sooner that 'ere Warrener goes 
 the better, if this is going to be our game."
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OVERNIGHT. 
 
 " Introduce me to your cousin, will you, 
 Grace?" 
 
 " To which ? I thought you knew 
 Ruby?" 
 
 " No, I mean the other that is just 
 coming on to the lawn now; the master 
 of hounds that you were talking about 
 during the game." 
 
 " Come across, then. Never mind the 
 mallets ; it is tea-time : we sha'n't play any 
 more, I suppose." 
 
 " Jemmy, let me introduce you to my 
 friend Miss Vane. — Clara, Mr. James Blake.
 
 OVERNIGHT. 95 
 
 They are going into the house, Jemmy, 
 You had better take care of her. Miss 
 Vane is staying in the house." 
 
 And Georgie, who had recovered her 
 equanimity, turned away to play the host- 
 ess to other guests of Lady Mary's. 
 
 " There is a sort of tea going on, or 
 dinner — half and half. AVill you come in, 
 Miss Vane, and see what we can do in that 
 way?" 
 
 " Thank you. Why did you not play 
 croquet ? We were so short of gentlemen 
 — only Mr. Ruby Blake, Mr. Paget, and 
 one or two curates. The old gentlemen 
 would not join us ; they thought it slow, 
 I suppose." 
 
 " I must excuse myself in the same 
 category. I am getting too old for the 
 game : it tires me to stand about, and I 
 can't risk lumbago by lying on the grass 
 till my turn comes."
 
 96 THE O.V.H. 
 
 " You an old man ! Well, I daresay it 
 is convenient to call oneself so sometimes, 
 Mr. Blake." 
 
 "Well, besides, I had to look after my 
 horses that I left here ; I have seen no- 
 thing of them since they came up from 
 grass, and I have not much time left before 
 the hunting-season. — What soup will you 
 take, thick or clear ?" 
 
 " Clear, if you please. Stop ! Was it 
 you that they were talking of just now as 
 going to hunt the hounds here ?" 
 
 " I am going to take the mastership of 
 the Old Yale pack, the next country and 
 this ; but I am not aspiring to the labour 
 of hunting them myself. I shall keep on 
 the old huntsman." 
 
 "The Old Yale? That is somewhere 
 near Sir John Marshall's. Do you know 
 Ashton Grove ? I often stay there. Blanche 
 Marshall is a great friend of mine."
 
 OVERNIGHT. 97 
 
 " I came from there this morning. It 
 was a good deal through Sir John that I 
 came to take the hounds. I formed his 
 acquaintance when I was hunting in the 
 country last winter." 
 
 " I was there at the hunt-ball, but I 
 do not remember seeing or hearing of 
 you, Mr. Blake ; did you not patronise 
 it?" 
 
 " I hate balls ; I am too old for danc- 
 ing," said Jemmy. 
 
 " I hope you won't convert all the 
 members of your Hunt to the same doc- 
 trine, or Blanche and I, to start with, are 
 sure to quarrel with you." 
 
 " No, you shall all have your dance the 
 same as usual ; and I suppose they will 
 expect me to be there now," said the 
 M.F.H. despairingly. 
 
 " Isn't your cousin pretty?" 
 
 VOL. 1. II
 
 98 THE O.V.H. 
 
 " Very," said Jemmy with a sigh. 
 
 " Isn't it a pity he is not a girl?" 
 
 "Who? isn't she one?" said Jemmy 
 whose thoughts were running on Georgie. 
 
 " 0, I didn't mean Georgie, of course ; 
 she is pretty too ; but I meant Mr. Charles, 
 Ruby, or whatever you call him." 
 
 " Yes, he is very good-looking, but not 
 a bit effeminate, for his looks. He is in the 
 Eton eight, and rides very well too." 
 
 " 0, ladies can ride, if that is all, Mr- 
 Blake. I am very fond of it myself ; aren't 
 you?" 
 
 " Hang the young woman !" mentally 
 ejaculated Jemmy ; " she won't swallow her 
 soup, nor let me have mine in peace." 
 
 " yes, Miss Vane, I like riding." And 
 Jemmy hastily sucked in two or three 
 spoonfuls of oxtail. 
 
 "Where do you live, Mr. Blake?" said 
 the inquisitor.
 
 OVERNIGHT. 99 
 
 "I am staying here just now for the 
 shooting. — Will you have some cold chicken 
 or grouse, or what, ZNliss Vane ?" 
 
 " Some grouse, thank you. — Are you 
 fond of shooting ?" 
 
 " I do not mind it when I can get no- 
 thing better to do." Jemmy secured some 
 grouse-pie. 
 
 " But you have not told me where you 
 live regularly. I suppose you have a house 
 in the Vale?" 
 
 u Will you drink claret-cup, champagne, 
 or coffee ? Champagne ? Very well. — 
 Live ? yes, I am going to take the Old 
 Vale House for a year or two." 
 
 " How nice ! You will be quite close 
 to the Marshalls. I daresay we shall meet 
 there sometimes." 
 
 " God forbid ! A — a — I mean, will you 
 have some salad ?" 
 
 u Xo coffee, thank you," said Miss Vane
 
 100 THE O.V.H. 
 
 to a flunkey who had prevented her from 
 noticing Jemmy's stifled prayer. 
 
 " What are your horses like, Mr. Blake ? 
 I'm so fond of horses !" 
 
 " I can't describe them. One's chest- 
 nut, another's bay, two are brown ; they're 
 all pretty clean on their legs, if they're not 
 all sound in temper. You may go round 
 the stables to - morrow if you like. By 
 the bye, just excuse me one second. — 
 Ruby," said he, across the table, " I am 
 going to try the young horse round the 
 close before breakfast to - morrow ; will 
 you come out with me? If so, we will 
 leave word when Peter comes in for his 
 orders." 
 
 " Yes ; I'll take out Lady, and get an 
 appetite. How are all the horses ?" 
 
 " Peter's very full of the young one, 
 who he says is a clinker. Tommy is 
 looking well ; Duchess must, I think, take
 
 OVERNIGHT. 101 
 
 to harness, as she will be too slow for 
 regular work in the Vale ; and Warrener 
 is going to TattersalTs." 
 
 " Sell Warrener ? Why?" 
 
 " Warrener going to be sold ?" asked 
 Georgie. 
 
 " Yes ; his temper is getting worse and 
 worse ; they can do nothing with him at 
 exercise ; he stops short in his canters, and 
 will only jump when he is in the mood 
 for it." 
 
 " I am sorry he is going ; I used to 
 like him so much in the Row this sum- 
 mer."' 
 
 And then she stopped in confusion, 
 and became diligent at cold chicken. 
 
 "Are you sure there is anything wrong 
 with Warrener, and that it is not the fault 
 of the grooms V Those sort of horses only 
 want handling, and rough usage spoils 
 their mouths and their tempers," said Mr.
 
 102 THE O.V.H. 
 
 Algernon Paget, a member of the Old Vale 
 Hunt, conspicuous always for his Bartley 
 tops and faultless breeches, the massive fold 
 of his double-breasted pink, and exqui- 
 sitely-polished bridle- and stirrup-irons. The 
 ladies always were taken with Mr. Paget's 
 get-up; even the men owned that it was 
 most workmanlike, and that his horses were 
 cheap at three figures; but he was better 
 to look at than to go, and no man "lost" 
 more girths and stirrup-leathers, or stop- 
 ped to catch more runaway horses, among 
 the blackthorn fences of the Lower Vale. 
 His Samaritanism in this latter respect 
 closed the mouth of many an otherwise 
 traducer. 
 
 "I do not think anything could be 
 made of the horse. He is a very fine one, 
 and will no doubt sell pretty well for his 
 looks alone." 
 
 " I'd buy him myself, but I can't afford
 
 OVERNIGHT. 103 
 
 another horse just now, though I am short 
 of one," said Paget, whose string was al- 
 ways six, and who had never been known 
 to sneeze at a hundred and fifty for a nag 
 with a good character. 
 
 " I'll let you have him cheap, and take 
 eighty for him," said Jemmy quietly. 
 
 "There's a chance for you, Mr. Paget!" 
 put in Miss Vane. 
 
 " You're very good ; but I must do with- 
 out another horse till Christmas," said the 
 gentleman, who could not reconcile the 
 price with the style in which he had seen 
 Warrener go in the spring under Jemmy's 
 12st, 71bs. 
 
 "Here's an offer for you, Paget," said 
 Jemmy; " I'll give him you if you can 
 ride him three times round the fences in 
 our close in half an hour, and throw you 
 a lead in." 
 
 "I'm only staying a couple of days at
 
 104 THE O.V.H. 
 
 the rectory, and I've got nothing to ride 
 in, my dear fellow." 
 
 "I'll lend you cords and gaiters; you 
 can always get up in them if they are 
 within a yard of the size." 
 
 "The ground is so hard, and the fences 
 as blind as a bat." 
 
 " They're all artificial — banks with furze 
 mounting, and dry dug ditches, or close 
 hurdles with gorse tops. There's nothing 
 blind in the place ; the horses go over some 
 or all of them most days." 
 
 "It rained cats and dogs last night, 
 and is beginning again now," said Ruby. 
 
 "Do go for it, Mr. Paget," said Clara 
 Vane. 
 
 "Never refuse a good offer," said 
 Georgie demurely, as she saw Ruby's eyes 
 twinkling. 
 
 "It's all right, old fellow. I'll send 
 the clothes down to the rectory in the
 
 OVEKNIGHT. 105 
 
 brougham," said Jemmy. " We'll meet in 
 our yard at 8 a.m." 
 
 And Mr. Paget could only murmur an 
 acquiescence, and a confession of his dis- 
 like to " take advantage" of Jemmy Blake's 
 good-nature. 
 
 a Is he a good rider?" said Miss Vane, 
 returning to the charge with Jemmy. 
 
 "I suppose so," said Jemmy, as he 
 reached the champagne- bottle. "Let me 
 fill your glass." 
 
 " Will you give me some tipsy-cake, if 
 you please, Mr. Blake?" she continued, as 
 Jemmy filled her a bumper, and did ditto 
 for himself. 
 
 Jemmy mechanically obeyed. 
 
 "Won't you take some yourself? It 
 looks so good." 
 
 "No, thank you; hate sweets," said 
 Jemmy. 
 
 "Do you? I thought all good people
 
 106 THE O.V.H. 
 
 liked sugar. Don't you even approve of 
 puddings?" 
 
 "No," said Jemmy, as he tried some 
 caviare. 
 
 "Not even wholesome ones — rice or a 
 hasty -pudding?" continued the gossip. 
 
 "As soon touch a sloe-pie," said the 
 victim. 
 
 " Don't laugh at me ! — Where are you 
 going to shoot to-morrow?" 
 
 " I don't know. Somewhere behind the 
 Home Farm, I suppose." 
 
 "I like looking at shooting. May 
 Georgie and I bring out lunch in the pony- 
 carriage, and lay the cloth for you?" 
 
 " dear yes ; much obliged," said 
 Jemmy, who thought he saw a prospect 
 of saving himself trouble. 
 
 " May we come and see Mr. Paget 
 ride to-morrow morning?" she half whis- 
 pered.
 
 OVERNIGHT. 107 
 
 "The grass will be too wet. If you 
 like to tell them to call you at seven, you 
 can put on goloshes, and go to the ha-ha 
 at the end of the kitchen -garden; the 
 course goes close to it, and you can see 
 all the close. Don't stand half hidden, so 
 as to make the horses shy when they come 
 upon you suddenly. I don't want to throw 
 Paget unfairly." 
 
 "Will he get sjrilt, as you call it?" 
 
 " He may stick on ; but I doubt if he 
 will be able to get round three times, if 
 all that Peter tells me is true." 
 
 " Is this your pocket-handkerchief?" he 
 continued, as Lady Mary gave the signal 
 for exit, and Miss Vane rose to leave the 
 room. 
 
 "Thank you. I hope you gentlemen 
 will not be too long at your wine ;" and 
 Miss Vane made herself scarce. 
 
 "Where did Georgie pick that girl
 
 108 the o.v.n. 
 
 up?" asked Jemmy of Ruby, as the superior 
 beings moved for the benefit of those who 
 wanted to smoke. " It's ten o'clock now ; 
 we won't go into the drawing-room till the 
 carriages come, so we can smoke without 
 injury, those who like it," offering his 
 cigar-case to the four or five gentlemen 
 assembled, all of whom but Ruby, and a 
 curate who was itching to have a conver- 
 sation with Miss Vane, gladly seized the 
 opportunity of the indulgence. 
 
 "I do not quite know. They were 
 friends at school, and I think they met at 
 Hastings years ago. Don't you like her?" 
 said Ruby, in answer to Jemmy's inter- 
 rogatory. 
 
 " There's no vice about her that I can 
 see ; but I wonder she can carry any flesh 
 at all; she is really in very good condi- 
 tion. I'm sure / can't talk and eat too."
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 BEFORE BREAKFAST. 
 
 " Here lie comes !" said Rub} 7 , ready 
 dressed, as lie looked forth from Jemmy's 
 open window while the latter completed 
 his toilette. 
 
 " Throw me the button-hook ; be ready 
 to meet him when they answer the bell. 
 By Jove, he's got spurs on !" 
 
 " You forgot them ; I slipped a pair 
 into the brougham just as he was starting." 
 
 " It's enough to mucker any chance he 
 has ; that animal won't stand a spur at 
 any price ; I'll take short odds he puts him 
 down the first round if he pricks him. I 
 always ride him bareheeled, you little 
 imp."
 
 110 THE O.V.H. 
 
 "You ought to thank me, you old fool! 
 What's the s>'ood f thro win g a chance 
 away? It is not as if you had any bet, 
 and had made terms. A pair of spurs are 
 cheaper than horseflesh, and you are never 
 safe to halloo till you are out of cover. 
 Suppose he gets round his three times ?" 
 
 "Grandmother!" said Jemmy. "Run 
 down and get someone to hold his pony; 
 say I'm coming." 
 
 " Ruby," called Georgie, as she put her 
 head out of a door on the landing, with a 
 foot or two of brown hair adrift on her 
 shoulders, " when do you begin ? I sha'n't 
 be ready for ten minutes. Do get them to 
 wait." 
 
 " I'll get you five minutes' law if I can. 
 Look sharp ! never mind your thatch ; it 
 looks very nice. Come to the end of the 
 kitchen-garden, and you'll see it all. It's 
 a quarter-past eight already."
 
 BEFOEE BREAKFAST. Ill 
 
 Ruby escorted Paget into the breakfast- 
 room, the only apartment as yet cleared for 
 action. 
 
 "I hope you feel fit," he said to his 
 guest. " Jemmy will be down in a minute. 
 Will you have anything to pick you up 
 before we go to stables ?" 
 
 An egg and sherry was just the thing 
 for Mr. Paget, and by the time that he had 
 swallowed it, with a biscuit to preserve its 
 gravity, Jemmy had joined them, and they 
 stalked off to the stables. 
 
 Algernon Paget was not so deficient in 
 seat as in nerve ; it took an awkward horse 
 to put him down when once up, and he 
 was not guilty of " cutting voluntaries" in 
 the hunting -field. The difficulty was to 
 induce him to risk himself outside a nasty 
 horse or over an ugly fence ; if he could 
 screw up his courage to do this, he had
 
 112 THE O.V.II. 
 
 sufficient science to enable him to acquit 
 himself creditably. 
 
 He had made a mistake in not asking 
 for brandy -and -soda instead of the milder 
 stimulant of Qgg and sherry. Dutch cour- 
 age would have been worth everything to 
 him. 
 
 He sat down upon Warren er in a de- 
 cidedly workmanlike manner as he ambled 
 him gently up the yard and out into the 
 close, preceded by Ruby on the Lady, and 
 backed up by Jemmy on the " young one.*' 
 
 The close and two adjoining small pas- 
 tures were laid out with the artificial fences 
 before described by Jemmy; where real 
 fences had existed on the line of gallop 
 they had been removed, stakes and stubs 
 dug out, and fresh barriers built up in 
 their places. 
 
 The circle was about 1400 yards, the 
 enclosures too small, and the turns too
 
 BEFORE BREAKFAST. 113 
 
 sharp for real steeplechasing or for try- 
 ing the racing merits of any long-striding 
 nag ; but the place was admirably adapted 
 for schooling raw hunters and steeple- 
 chasers in mere fencing. 
 
 "We mil both lead you if you prefer 
 it," said Jemmy to Paget, " or one shall 
 go behind you, as you like ; perhaps you 
 are less likely to get trodden on in case 
 of a fall if you ride in the rear of both.'' 
 
 This comforting and thoughtless speech 
 nearly upset the horse-tamers nerves, but 
 he had self-command to reply, "Til follow 
 last ; perhaps it is best." 
 
 " Look at your watch, then — so will I ; 
 half-an-hour to get round three times ; one 
 horse at least always to lead you. If you 
 win, you're a better man than either Peter 
 or myself ; and you've well - earned the 
 horse." 
 
 " Come along," said Ruby; "it's horrid 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 THE O.V.H. 
 
 cold ;" and he put the Lady slowly at the 
 first flight of hurdles. 
 
 Jemmy's young one was rather eager, 
 but cleared a good twenty foot in his stride 
 as he followed, and Warrener cocked his 
 ears and followed suit in good style. 
 
 The next two were furzed banks, with 
 dry ditches on the farther side, and were 
 easily negotiated; then they reached the 
 pastures, crossed them, turned round a 
 farm - building that marked the limit of 
 the course, and came back in the same 
 tracks tiil they regained the close. They 
 then swung to the left, under the garden- 
 wall, to a line of fresh fences on the oppo- 
 site side of the enclosure to which they 
 had started. As they cleared the next 
 hurdles, Jemmy looked back to see how 
 Warrener was coming, and was rather sur- 
 prised to see Paget sitting nicely down, his 
 hands low, and his body well back at each
 
 BEFORE BREAKFAST. 115 
 
 drop. " He sits well enough so long as he 
 don't flinch," thought he. 
 
 " Shove along, Ruby," he added aloud, 
 w and make a pace ; we must choke him 
 off and frighten him. — By the holy! what's 
 this?" said he in the next breath as they 
 shot from a slow canter to a hand gallop, 
 and were close upon the next fence. 
 
 On the top of one of the ordinary furze- 
 banks had been built up a stiff oak-rail — a 
 post at each end and one in the middle to 
 support it — a nasty balking jump, with 
 a lot of daylight between the furze and 
 the rail, enough to deceive many a horse. 
 And the tout ensemble was nothing short of 
 five feet from the ground, with a ditch 
 towards them. 
 
 Ruby had no time to answer. Clack, 
 clatter, rattle, came the Lady's hoofs as 
 she hit the rail all round and dropped as 
 safe as a cat on the other side, Ruby
 
 116 THE O.V.H. 
 
 rather shaken in the saddle from the con- 
 cussion, but recovering instantaneously and 
 sitting well back again. In less time than 
 it takes to say this, the " young one," seeing 
 what was expected of him, had cocked his 
 ears, gone straight at the centre post, and 
 landed ten feet to the good on the farther 
 side of the fence, without having touched 
 a hair's-breadth of the rail. 
 
 " By George, he can jump, though !" 
 said Jemmy, as he turned round to watch 
 the progress of the Warrener, who had not 
 got into his gallop so quickly as the leaders. 
 
 Pa^et's heart was in his mouth as he 
 came to the rail, but it was too late to 
 turn. There were hurdle sidings to lead 
 up to the jump, to say nothing that petti- 
 coats were visible at the ha-ha, and the 
 whole posse of grooms had taken up quar- 
 ters on an empty spring-cart in the middle 
 of the close. Warrener could jump if he
 
 BEFORE BREAKFAST. 117 
 
 chose, and he was in a good - humour ; 
 his rider had just nerve enough left to sit 
 extra far back as the rogue rose at it, and 
 with a little rasp of a hind-fetlock, came 
 safely over it. 
 
 " Thank goodness !" thought the re- 
 prieved one. Then, seeing that the next 
 flight of hurdles were nothing formidable, 
 he stood up in his stirrups to ease War- 
 rener's stride, and shooting up to Jemmy, 
 as he patted the animal's neck, exclaimed, 
 " Best horse I ever rode in my life ; jumps 
 like a deer, and as good as gold ; he only 
 wants — " 
 
 Flop ! Warrener's reminiscences of the 
 usual contingencies of a jockey standing 
 up and sending him along a cracker, stimu- 
 lated by a slight pricking of the spur, had 
 suddenly flashed into his equine brain : as 
 instantaneously he had stopped, stuck his 
 toes into the ground, spun round upon his
 
 118 THE O.V.H. 
 
 near fore-leg, and sent his rider flying like 
 a sack half-a-dozen yards over his tail, in 
 the original direction in which they had 
 been proceeding ; then, satisfied with the 
 performance, he dropped his head and be- 
 gan to graze without further to-do. 
 
 Ruby was over the next fence before 
 he had found out that anything was 
 wrong ; and Jemmy, though he heard 
 Paget's exclamation of horror as he found 
 himself flying in mid -air, did not like to 
 risk spoiling the "young one's" education by 
 pulling him up under a fence, so let him 
 follow before he checked him and turned 
 to see what was the matter. 
 
 The grass was nicely saturated by the 
 night's rain, and Paget, more frightened 
 than hurt by the aerial journey, was sitting 
 up trying to realise his whereabouts, by 
 the time that his companions had got up 
 to him. Ruby looked to see if he seemed
 
 BEFORE BREAKFAST. 119 
 
 injured ; and then, first taking the pre- 
 caution to dismount, unfeelingly laughed 
 
 till he was nearly black in the face. The 
 
 i 
 posse of grooms came up at a run, while 
 
 Jemmy also dismounted, and giving his 
 
 friend an arm, assisted him upon his legs. 
 
 "Are you damaged, old boy?" said he, 
 in concern at the result of his experiment. 
 
 " Only shaken a little. How the deuce 
 was it all?" 
 
 " The horse stopped, I think," said 
 Jemmy, swallowing his laughter ; " I dare- 
 say he won't do it again. There's only ten 
 minutes gone now, and we have been once 
 round all but these hurdles ; won't you try 
 again r 
 
 " Not if you paid me for it ! I don't 
 mind fences, but I can't stand such circus 
 tricks as these. — Lead him back, will you, 
 Peter?" he continued to the latter, who had 
 without difficulty captured the now de-
 
 120 THE O.V.H. 
 
 mure - looking Warrener. — "I shall go in 
 across the lawn and get a drop of brandy." 
 
 " 0, Mr. Paget, I hope you're not 
 hurt !" said Georgie sympathisingly, as she 
 met him in the garden putting on a limp 
 as the crinolines came in view. 
 
 " I hope not, Miss Warren," said the 
 fallen hero rather dolefully ; " but that 
 horse is such a devil ! I beg your pardon. 
 But who could have thought of his playing 
 such a trick as that? One lives and learns. 
 By Jove, I thought I was never coming 
 down again !" 
 
 " Come in and have some breakfast ; or 
 would you like us to send for the doctor?" 
 said she doubtingly. 
 
 "Ono!" with a tone of resignation; 
 " I am very grateful for your sympathy, 
 but there are no bones broken." 
 
 " The horse used to do like that once 
 or twice with Jemmy in Rotten Row last
 
 BEFORE BREAKFAST. 121 
 
 June," said Georgia " I suppose he would 
 not put you up to his tricks, lest you 
 should have conquered him. I sent Clara 
 in for my vinaigrette and some brandy, 
 — here she comes ;" and a sip of eau de vie 
 soon lulled the limp into oblivion, and 
 made Algernon himself again. 
 
 " How long has that rail been upon 
 the last fence but one under the garden?" 
 asked Jemmy of Peter as he rode back ; 
 " it's too big for safe practice, and is not 
 built up from the furze to the timber; it 
 is enough to balk four horses out of five ; 
 the ' young one' here was the only one that 
 did not touch it, and I was afraid he was 
 going to overjump himself." 
 
 "Ah, he can jump, sir, he can; but it 
 was Mister Charles as told me to make a 
 big one or two somewhere, to frighten 
 Muster Paget, like. Says he, ' It cant be 
 too bis', Peter; and the ground's nice and
 
 122 THE (XV.II. 
 
 soft ; and make it stiff,' says he. c There's 
 nothing like timber,' sa} r s he. So I had 
 Stone and me and gardener a digging and 
 sticking the postesses sin' sunrise or more. 
 No offence, master, I hope ?" 
 
 "No harm done, Peter; and I am glad 
 to find that the l young one' can jump so 
 well. He has grown, has he not, since 
 the early spring ?" 
 
 "Pretty nigh half- an -inch, sir; he's 
 nigh sixteen one by the standard the other 
 day." 
 
 " Walk them up and down till they're 
 cool," said the master, as he dismounted in 
 the yard, and turned into the house, fol- 
 lowed by Ruby. 
 
 "You young sinner!" said Jemmy, as 
 he took his cousin's arm, " you nearly 
 broke all our necks by meddling with the 
 fences; and you didn't funk him or bring 
 him down after all."
 
 BEFORE BREAKFAST. 123 
 
 "Didn't I?" said Ruby, "I did just 
 as good ; if he hadn't got so cheeky at 
 clearing the big rail, he would not have 
 had the pluck to use his spurs and get 
 spilt. By Jove, how I laughed ! he did 
 look such a fool, sitting up on his tail in 
 the mud." 
 
 " We must ask him to stay and shoot, 
 and lend him a gun, after gibing him in 
 this way." 
 
 And so they reached the breakfast- 
 room. 
 
 " You'll stay and shoot with us to-day, 
 will you not, Mr. Paget ? There are plenty 
 of guns in the house, if you have not 
 brought yours. The girls are going to 
 drive out, and bring lunch to the bottom 
 of the Hurst Bank." 
 
 And this latter clause alone decided 
 Paget upon accepting with emjpressement. 
 
 Clara had during the morning walk
 
 124 THE 0.V.II. 
 
 told the luncheon plan to Georgie, who at 
 first set her face dead against it. 
 
 " A great deal of trouble, and they would 
 rather be without us," said she. 
 
 It was not till Clara mendaciously 
 added, " Georgie's cousin had expressed a 
 wish for their company," meaning Ruby, 
 but understood by Georgie as a command 
 from Jemmy, that she consented to obey, 
 half-frightened, half-pleased at the order. 
 
 " I have picked out a good Lancaster 
 central-fire of Jemmy's for you," said Ruby 
 to Paget as they sat down to breakfast, 
 " and I'll find you some knickerbockers. 
 I'm sorry you've dirted the breeches."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 RECRUITING. 
 
 " I had no idea that Leigli Haughton was 
 going to break so soon ; but perhaps, on 
 the whole, it was the best thing for him, 
 before he had run through his wife's 
 money as well as his own." 
 
 " You will be the gainer anyhow, 
 Jemmy. The sale is just in the nick of 
 time, and he had A 1 cattle under him at 
 Leamington this last season." 
 
 Ralph Romilly (hitherto behind scenes) 
 had been spending a rational afternoon 
 with Jemmy and Ruby Blake, in inspection 
 of the stud of an ex-captain of the Blues 
 who had lately retired by sale of his com-
 
 126 THE O.V.H. 
 
 mission, and sent his horses to the hammer 
 at Tattersall's. 
 
 Ralph, who had seen something of the 
 horses and their performances when he had 
 " sent on" from Oxford to the more acces- 
 sible meets of the Warwickshire, or had 
 met the patrons of the Spa on the half-way 
 borders at Fenny Compton, had joined his 
 brains and experiences to those of Jemmy, 
 as they passed from box to box and stall 
 to stall of the new establishment at Albert 
 Gate. 
 
 Ralph's father, brother of Lord Vale- 
 hampton and Lady Mary Blake, had mar- 
 ried an heiress in his early days, settled 
 down to a fair landed estate in the north- 
 east corner of the Bicester country, devoted 
 himself to hunting and silently representing 
 the county in Conservative politics for some 
 five years, till a drunken engine-driver on 
 the L. and N.W.R. put a sudden end to
 
 RECRUITING* 127 
 
 him on his return from a debate upon the 
 Chartist riot, by charging a broken-clown 
 coal-train, in defiance of flags and signals, 
 killing the unfortunate Honourable Charles 
 Romilly and eight other passengers, maim- 
 ing another score for life, and doing his 
 best to atone for the evil by fracturing his 
 own skull at the same time. 
 
 The reckless eagerness with which, with- 
 out any previous intimation or attempt to 
 break the news of the catastrophe, the rail- 
 way officials conveyed at dead of night the 
 scattered remains of the M.P. to his seat at 
 Wrottesden Park, proved fatal also to the 
 Honourable Mrs. Romilly, then within a 
 week of her confinement; and before an- 
 other forty-eight hours had elapsed, Ralph, 
 Mary his sister, and a new-born baby were 
 orphans, under the joint guardianship of 
 Valehampton and his sister. 
 
 Ralph was in the middle of his fourth
 
 128 THE O.V.H. 
 
 year at Merton College, Oxford, and just 
 awakening to the awkward realities of final 
 schools after a long and easy spell of idle- 
 ness. He had come of age some months 
 before this date, but, beyond clearing a 
 few rooms for occasional bachelor use and 
 setting-up a new billiard-table, had done 
 nothing towards providing any final estab- 
 lishment or attempting any domesticity at 
 "Wrottesden. 
 
 His sisters were still " infants" in the 
 eye of the law, and under the charge of his 
 uncle, with whom they lived ; and without 
 their or some such equivalent company he, 
 Ralph, did not care to live in solitary gran- 
 deur; generally dispensing the favour of 
 his vacations with his relations in turn, but 
 confining his summer months only to his 
 sisters, in consequence of the inferiority of 
 the hunting round Leconferrv Park in Sus- 
 sex, the usual country-seat of Valehampton.
 
 RECRUITING. 129 
 
 He had served apprenticeship in the way 
 of defeat, if not disgrace, as seven in the 
 Ptadley eight, in two essays for the Ladies' 
 Plate, and thence had been promoted to 
 the berth of Xo. 7 in the Oxford eight in 
 two successive victories against Cambridge. 
 Scaling little over list. Tibs, in full train- 
 ing, and not two pounds heavier even upon 
 a loose diet, he could ride 13st, and could 
 waste on emergency to 12st, saddle and 
 all, went as straight to hounds as any 
 of the rough-shod riders of the 'varsity, 
 and had a better eye for hounds and a 
 country than any of them. Under his 
 mastership the "drag" had shown better 
 sport in the past season than on former 
 records, and even in a catch-weight college 
 " grind" he could hold his own, and win 
 a sweep with the most feather-weight 
 freshman. 
 
 The Romilly family were unexception- 
 VOL. i. k
 
 130 THE O.V.H. 
 
 ably handsome. It was through his mother 
 that Ruby Blake inherited that strange 
 girlish beauty that so belied his capacity. 
 Ralph, though on a far larger scale, was 
 cast much in the same mould — as fair, but 
 not as fragile ; rather more manly in style 
 from his superior height and physique, his 
 face embellished with promising whiskers, 
 but adulterated with no cockneyfied or un- 
 warranted moustache. 
 
 With a liberal allowance for the pre- 
 sent, and ample provision for the future, 
 no fear that future professional prospects 
 should hinge upon his performance in the 
 Schools, added to a too natural love of ease 
 and indolence of mind — though he was 
 always ready for emulous physical exer- 
 tion — there was small wonder that Ralph 
 had never troubled himself to add to the 
 fatigues of the "moderators" in the honour- 
 schools, but slipped through with an easy
 
 RECRUITING. 131 
 
 pass on that occasion. However, he had 
 fair abilities, if he could but be persuaded 
 to use them ; and it was in consequence of 
 a private request and arrangement with his 
 college dean, — who engaged to stave - off 
 any danger of rustication that might have 
 been contingent upon Ralph's entire ab-, 
 sence from college-walls upon the night of 
 Blair Athol's Derby, on condition that Mr. 
 Romilly, who as a rule was a pretty steady 
 hand at morning chapel, and had never 
 been seen intoxicated or indulging in a 
 bear-fight, would put on a good coach, and 
 see what he could do in the way of a class 
 for final schools, — that he later on laid 
 himself out for honours in " greats," 
 
 The storm passed over with no worse 
 consequences than a week's gate from 8 
 p.m. ; and Ralph, in discharge of his obli- 
 gation, had spent the whole of July and 
 August, and the first two weeks of Sep-
 
 132 THE O.V.H. 
 
 t ember, in the Channel Islands, under R — 
 of B.N.C., abandoning grouse and birds, 
 with praiseworthy resignation to his fate 
 and to the "greats" forthcoming in De- 
 cember. He had then come up to Oxford 
 to continue his work through the dreary 
 dulness of the tail-end of a Long Vacation ; 
 and partly for the sake of change, and to 
 gratify his cousins' and his own anxiety, 
 had joined them at the Grosvenor Hotel 
 for the last Sunday in September; spent 
 the afternoon as above described at Tatter- 
 sail's; had attended Wells -street evening 
 service with them ; enjoyed the anthem ; 
 sacrilegiously slipped out before the ser- 
 mon; then settled down to an 8.15 dinner, 
 and did justice to the resources of the 
 menage. 
 
 Jemmy had long ago come to the same 
 conclusion as Ralph upon the subject of
 
 RECRUITING. 133 
 
 the Leigh-Haughton horses, and replied, in 
 answer to the opening observation : " The 
 horses are good enough, but they will 
 fetch such a figure. The shooting-sea- 
 son is slack, and there will be lots of 
 buyers. I shall try to get two of these 
 somehow — the gray and the young chest- 
 nut for choice. It depends upon how 
 prices run whether I go for another couple 
 to-morrow, or bide my time." 
 
 " I agree with you as to the young 
 one ; he went very well when he was 
 quite raw last March. Haughton could 
 always shove them along a bit; but I do 
 not think the gray has much constitution 
 — a sick and sorry sort of beast. I fancy 
 he 'stopped' one day at Fenny Compton, 
 though Haughton made out it was a lost 
 shoe. He can jump well at starting; but 
 I suspect he's only a onee-a-fortnight cus- 
 tomer. I like that sister to AngelFs Cooks-
 
 134 THE O.V.H. 
 
 boro better than anything, though she has 
 a blemished knee; she scarred it by acci- 
 dent one day, when Haughton was staying 
 at Aston for the night, and went over to 
 Bradwell Grove. She put her foot on a 
 loose flint, blundered, and pecked a wall 
 as she rose to it. It was a bad cut at the 
 time, and Haughton swore like a sinner; 
 but she's the steadiest fencer of the lot to 
 my mind, and the scar will choke off many 
 of the ' fancy.' I'd cut in t for her if I 
 were you." 
 
 " There's a four-year-old in that draft 
 of Lord Oswestry's from Woodyeates that 
 goes up to-morrow that I'm thinking of 
 bidding for," said Jemmy. "He is by 
 Ethelbert, a good cross-country stock, and 
 has some curious malformation of the knee- 
 cap that makes him a little too stiff in his 
 action to be any great form in the flat; 
 but he won a welter race once at Brecon
 
 RECRUITING. 135 
 
 as a three-year-old, and is an uncommonly 
 well-ribbed-up one. He lias gone slow this 
 year, and ran nowhere ; the knees look as 
 if they had been broken, and stamp him 
 as blemished ; but he was foaled so. I saw 
 him sold at East Aston three years ago as 
 a yearling, and he had the same curious 
 conformation then. If he goes cheap, I 
 shall let Peter see what he can make of 
 him." 
 
 u I have seen that sort of horse before," 
 said Ralph. " The patella has a triangular 
 plate at the top instead of being rounded. 
 Gayboy, a thoroughbred one like this, and 
 with similar knees, won some good handi- 
 caps over country in the midlands a couple 
 of years ago." 
 
 u How far ought we to bid for that 
 little horse of Austen's that we were look- 
 ing at ?" said Ruby. " I am to have an- 
 other this year instead of Hotspur, and
 
 136 THE O.V.H. 
 
 this brown horse looks just the thing. 
 May I bid for him, Jemmy?" 
 
 " He's a good-mannered one ; but has 
 seen too much wear and tear. I have 
 heard of one lately that will be just the 
 sort for you," said Ralph. "He is in 
 Ellis's stables — Gamecock — you may have 
 heard of him. He won a good military 
 steeplechase or two, and lost the big 
 handicap at Warwick by a head. That 
 race broke his heart, and he became cur — 
 turns it up now whenever he is collared. 
 They put the money down for him at Bed- 
 ford and Croydon ; but he cut it when he 
 had all his own way at the finish. He's 
 sound, no vice, except that he coils into 
 a canter when it comes to a finish, is a per- 
 fect hunter, a little one, but handsome — 
 not such a rogue as old Warrener — and 
 they are so sick of him that they will let 
 him go for a hundred. He fences tern-
 
 RECRUITING. 137 
 
 perately, and doesn't rush like so many 
 horses do just out of training. I larked 
 him last Friday over their training-ground, 
 and he went A 1. You can try him any 
 day this week you like, Ruby. I booked 
 them to give me the refusal of him to the 
 end of the week, and meant to have told 
 you of him sooner." 
 
 "We'll go there to-morrow," said Rub)-. 
 "He might do very well for me. You 
 come too, Jemmy, as I mayn't buy any- 
 thing without you." 
 
 " Ring for coffee," said Jemmy. " Let's 
 turn in early; we can't play billiards on 
 sabbath-days, and there's nothing in any 
 of the papers." 
 
 It was a dripping, dreary afternoon that 
 they spent at TattersalTs on the Monday, 
 The fully-advertised draft from Woodyeates 
 and Leigh -Haughton stud drew a goodly
 
 138 THE O.V.H. 
 
 assemblage of buyers — gentlemen, dealers, 
 commission-agents, copers, and the usual 
 throng of helpers, broken-down stablemen, 
 and touts, looking out for odd jobs and 
 stray sixpences, accosting everyone, even 
 the ladylike Ruby, indiscriminately as 
 "captain" and "colonel," and looking more 
 draggled, more dirty and repulsive, than 
 -was even their wont. 
 
 The gray of Leigh Haughton's stud was 
 run up to 230 guineas, from his looks alone 
 and the general reputation of the stud; 
 but Romilly's scepticism as to the merits 
 of his constitution had caused Mr. James 
 Blake to cry content when the animal 
 reached 120 guineas. The sister of Cooks- 
 boro, Belleboro, became his for 115 gui- 
 neas ; and for the young chestnut the ham- 
 mer fell to the same nod for 170. The 
 Ethelbert horse with the queer knees found 
 so little favour, that Jemmy secured him
 
 RECRUITING. 139 
 
 also for 24 guineas; and he picked up at 
 an average of a " pony" apiece two useful- 
 looking light-weight hunters, sold singly 
 and without an owner's name, that would 
 do to experimentalise the whips upon. 
 
 "That will do," said he, as he booked 
 his last purchase ; " these screws and the 
 two that came from Bretherton and Harri- 
 son's will keep the hounds going till cub- 
 bing is over. It plays the deuce with 
 Duchess and my own horses to do hunts- 
 man's duty on hard ground, as they have 
 this month, and in no condition. That 
 young one is too good to spoil, Ralph; I 
 rode him that morning when Warrener put 
 Paget down, as I told you. He'll make a 
 steeplechaser; and it's a sin and shame 
 to rattle him with cub-hunting." 
 
 " Here the old rogue comes," said Ralph, 
 as Warrener was trotted up to the entrance, 
 clean on his legs, full, but not gross, in
 
 140 THE O.V.H. 
 
 the barrel, a coat like silk, and looking the 
 beau-ideal of an English steeplechaser. 
 
 "No. 107, Warrener, gentlemen, by 
 Idle Boy out of the Rabbit ; master of four- 
 teen stone, and well known with the Old 
 Vale and Orleton hounds ; very fast, and 
 believed to be sound. How much for War- 
 rener, gentlemen? A hundred? Eighty? 
 Sixty? Will no one start the horse at 
 fifty ? Forty guineas bid. Thank you, 
 sir. Trot him down again." And no fault 
 could be found with Warrener, shape or 
 action. " Forty-five guineas" — and a seedy- 
 looking scoundrel came forward to feel 
 Warreners legs at the risk of his brains — 
 u forty-eight — fifty — fifty-five — — — — 
 eighty — eighty-one. Any advance upon 
 eighty-one ? Going ! A magnificent-look- 
 in o* horse like that, gentlemen ? Ought to 
 win the Liverpool in good hands. Eighty- 
 two guineas. Thank you, sir. Eighty-two.
 
 RECRUITING. 141 
 
 It's positively giving him away ! I never 
 saw a horse so thrown away ! Any ad- 
 vance upon eighty-two guineas? Eighty- 
 three. Going at eighty-three ! At eighty- 
 three guineas, going ! For the last time, at 
 eighty-three guineas !" Tap. And Mr. E. 
 TattersalTs hammer fell. "What name, 
 sir? Grove, sir? Thank you, sir/' 
 
 " It is a pity that you didn't send up 
 one or two of the others with him, if only to 
 buy them in. He would have sold treble 
 as well if he had gone up with the rest of 
 a string," said Ralph. 
 
 " I suppose it would have been better ; 
 but I literally hadn't horses to spare from 
 the cub-hunting. Morgan was riding my 
 own for want of proper mounts. I can't 
 grumble — I've had two seasons out of the 
 brute, no falls, and sold him for a profit 
 of nearly a ' pony.' " 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir," said a neat
 
 142 THE O.V.H. 
 
 and rather dealer-like -looking individual 
 to Ralph, as the trio of cousins were pre- 
 paring to enter a "growler" at the outside 
 door of the yard; a but could I speak a 
 word ? No offence, sir ; but do you know 
 anything about the chestnut 'oss 107, as 
 was sold just now, as you could tell me or 
 put me up to? I fancied you seemed as 
 if you knew the horse, sir. I've bought 
 him for a genelman, sir, not for myself, 
 and was thinking of putting him to steeple- 
 chasing maybe." 
 
 "Where do you live?" said Ralph la- 
 conically. 
 
 " Clark, sir, is my name," producing a 
 card, " and I live at Hornsey, and — " 
 
 "Turn his head to Putney Bridge at 
 once, and perhaps you'll get him to Horn- 
 sey to-morrow," said Ralph, as he entered 
 the "growler," leaving Mr. Clark staring 
 in stolid contemplation.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MISCHIEF. 
 
 By the aid of Lady Mary and the columns 
 of the Times, Jemmy had managed to scrape 
 together menage sufficient for himself, Ruby, 
 and Ralph to inhabit Vale House during 
 the first week of cover-shooting. Jemmy's 
 family-plate, excepting a small supply in 
 his chambers, had been resuscitated from 
 the cellars of Drummonds' and sent to the 
 Vale ; but he felt as if he had his pocket 
 picked when his aunt Mary told him a list 
 of necessaries in the way of buckets, brooms, 
 knives, table-linen, crockery, that would 
 not come of their own accord to Vale 
 House. Jemmy groaned in spirit a*> he
 
 144 THE O.V.H. 
 
 began to awake to the onus and horrors 
 of his undertaking, but, jumping at the 
 good-natured offer of his relative to cater 
 for him with her better experience in that 
 line, he shoved a blank cheque into her 
 hands, poured his blessing upon her, and 
 found excuse to run away for the next 
 three days to shoot with Sir J. Marshall. 
 
 The selection of butler and footman 
 Lady Mary insisted on leaving in Jemmy's 
 own hands, and thus they had not yet 
 come into the house as a permanency, 
 though one respectable - looking party of 
 the Baptist persuasion had called one day 
 from Leamington in answer to the adver- 
 tisement, and had secured Jemmy's best 
 overcoat, a pair of sealskin-gloves, and an 
 umbrella before taking his departure. 
 
 As the month of October began to draw 
 to a close and lawn-meets were coming due, 
 yet no gentleman in black had been in-
 
 MISCHIEF. 145 
 
 stalled in office, Jemmy became desperate. 
 He anathematised college dons for summon- 
 ing Ralph and Ruby to Alma Mater and 
 leaving him in exile ; telegraphed to his 
 valet in town to close his chambers, leave 
 them in charge of "the laundress," and 
 come down to new duties in the Yale; 
 and having set that disgusted gentleman 
 to clean the plate and rule the pantry, 
 chuckled vast!}' at the economy of the 
 idea. 
 
 The one piece of forethought that did 
 Jemmy most credit was that he had laid 
 in a fair and various stock of wine to settle 
 and heal its ui sickness" before the end of 
 the first week in September, there being a 
 spare cellar at his immediate disposal. His 
 own appetite, though partial to good things, 
 yet preferred plain cooking of luxuries to 
 made dishes of any sort, so that the cook 
 had so far been called upon to do little 
 
 VOL. I. l
 
 146 THE O.V.H. 
 
 more than to grill a haunch of Valehamp- 
 ton venison (which Jemmy refrained to 
 roast, but, with the aid of Ralph and Ruby, 
 got through in detail in the really superior 
 method of grille'd steaks cut clean through 
 loin and leg), roast game, devil kidneys, 
 and broil rashers of bacon. 
 
 Twice at least in the week Jemmy had 
 taken refuge in the Maule ; but the cares 
 of office soon summoned him back to his 
 bachelor quarters, wherein he slaved like 
 a horse all day, bolted his solitary dinner 
 at eventide, and sneaked off to bed at the 
 first opportunity from sheer ennui and 
 satiety of his own company. 
 
 It was with a feeling of relief that he 
 received the following epistle on one of the 
 last days in October : 
 
 " Vincents Club, Oxford. 
 " Dear Jemmy, — Ruby is keener than
 
 MISCHIEF. 147 
 
 ever upon Gamecock ; nothing that he can 
 get from Symonds seems to suit him. It 
 is a pity that we did not go down to Ellis's 
 when we proposed. However, I have now 
 asked him to send the little horse, that we 
 may try him as much as we like. It is as 
 good as agreeing to buy him to order him 
 to be sent up like that ; but if he does not 
 suit Ruby, he will carry me with the drag, 
 though not for a whole day with hounds. 
 I have seen also a likely-looking one at 
 Charlie Symonds' that may suit you if you 
 have not yet filled up all your ranks. He 
 is a young one, by Neville, bred at Chip- 
 ping Norton. I expect Charlie will want a 
 hatful of money for him, but, if he is as 
 good as he looks, he ought to pay his way 
 and carry you monstrous. Cub - hunting 
 at Bagley on Thursday. Come and try 
 the two ; if the hounds don't get away, we 
 can lark on to Kingston Inn. Ruby insists
 
 148 THE O.V.H. 
 
 on your coming, or else giving him carte- 
 blanche to cater for himself. 
 
 " Thine, as usual, 
 
 " Ralph Romilly." 
 
 By 7.30 that said night the three were 
 discussing a social dinner at the Cross, 
 Oxford. Ruby had begun to settle down 
 iii his attic at Merton ; had been guilty 
 of no laches as yet in the way of lectures ; 
 been subjected to no practical jokes; found 
 daily the usual influx and litter of trades- 
 men's circulars and cards of junior men 
 upon his table ; paid morning visits with 
 Ralph to the stable in Holywell ; and, 
 jealous of hurting the Lady's legs in blind 
 fences till the legitimate hunting-season 
 had begun, had already acquired a fair 
 inkling of the merits of the hack-hunters 
 in Oxford livery-stables. 
 
 Ralph and Ruby, though nursed in
 
 MISCHIEF. 149 
 
 separate schools and homes, had for years 
 been as inseparable as circumstances would 
 permit. There was a good deal of the 
 uncle as well as of the elder brother in 
 Jemmy's cousinship ; but between the two 
 undergraduates of Merton the gap of three 
 years that usually makes such a difference 
 between a big boy and a little one at 
 school, and carries on the prejudice to ma- 
 turer years, was no bar to friendship of the 
 highest caste. Ruby was perhaps Jemmy's 
 especial pet in the whole world, unless his 
 change of views and self-examination with 
 reference to Georgie Warren during the 
 spring had of late caused the latter at 
 times to reign uppermost in influence. 
 And Ruby must not be accused of not 
 reciprocating Jemmy's paternal affection, 
 if it be confessed that, had he analysed 
 his own mind and inquired in invidious 
 comparison which of the two entered the
 
 150 THE O.V.H. 
 
 more completely into all his thoughts, 
 hopes, and aims, the verdict would have 
 been with Ralph. The latters natural in- 
 dependence, and Jemmy's easy-going ton- 
 Jiomie, placed these two on a par of pres- 
 tige with each other, completely merging 
 any claims to superior knowledge of the 
 world that Jemmy's extra nine years might 
 have been supposed to have laid upon his 
 shoulders. 
 
 They had come to an end of dinner, 
 and were debating upon the expediency 
 of joining the college " pool," when the 
 parlour-door was unceremoniously thrown 
 open, and a proctor, backed by a leash of 
 bulldogs, stood in the doorway, and then, 
 advancing with a gaucherie of which such 
 officials are seldom guilty, asked point- 
 blank for the names and colleges of the 
 three, ignoring the usual opening formula 
 as to whether they were "members of this
 
 MISCHIEF. 151 
 
 University." Ruby, with childish cheek, was 
 fumbling for a card-case ; Ralph looked as 
 savage as a bear at the intrusion ; when 
 Jemmy, with the most winning suavity, 
 broke the silence. 
 
 " I have not the honour of your ac- 
 quaintance, sir ; but you will perhaps al- 
 low me to remind you that this is a private 
 room; that you have entered it without 
 leave or invitation. I presume you are a 
 magistrate of the University ; I am a mas- 
 ter of arts, and these gentlemen are my 
 guests. I have the honour to wish you a 
 very good - evening. — Charles" (to the 
 waiter), " hold a light upon the stairs. — 
 Good- evening, sir," as the proctor (more 
 strictly a pro) backed out of the room 
 with wholesale apologies. 
 
 " Scored one for you, Jemmy," said 
 Ralph. " I am not sure whether you had 
 the law of him by rights ; but there's no-
 
 152 THE O.V.H. 
 
 thing like standing on one's dignity. I 
 must go back to read. — Take him to pool, 
 Ruby, and come for a weed before bed- 
 time." And Ralph lounged off to his lodg- 
 ings in St. Aldate's. 
 
 It was on the morrow, after one of the 
 usual heavy and unwholesome Oxford 
 lunches, that, the horses were led up by 
 helpers to Romilly's door. Jemmy and 
 Ruby had spent an idle morning inspect- 
 in o* Symonds' stud and the stables in ge- 
 neral, commenting on the young bay horse 
 by Neville, and inspecting the Lady and 
 the newly-arrived Gamecock, who stood in 
 a four-stall stable with three others of 
 Ralph's hunters, at present doing little bet- 
 ter than eating their heads off, in a loose- 
 box. Next door stood Baronet — a winner 
 of the Undergraduates' Stakes at Ayles- 
 bury, and ridden for them by Ralph a 
 couple of days after the Putney boat-race ;
 
 MISCHIEF. 153 
 
 a useful sort of horse for "hunters' 
 races," but deficient in speed for anything 
 approaching to handicap duty — by the Duke 
 from some half-bred Yorkshire hunter's 
 dam. 
 
 The horse which Ralph had ordered for 
 his own riding that day was Bluster, a big 
 Irish brown, ragged-hipped, broad-loined, 
 up to hosts of weight, and a terrific puller 
 in company — by no means an agreeable 
 horse to ride in a cramped run, but so 
 perfect a fencer, good stayer, and flyer in 
 an open country, and staunch feeder, no 
 matter how hard the day, that Ralph, ra- 
 ther than part with him, was content to go 
 the round of Chifney bits, gag-snaffles, and 
 other patents, finally settling down to a 
 Xewmarket snaffle and nose-band, as the 
 only thing which inculcated anything like 
 submission. 
 
 " We shall be too late for any cub-hunt-
 
 154 THE O.V.H. 
 
 ing," said Ralph, as they settled down into 
 the saddles and began to regulate stirrups. 
 " Let's go up Hincksey Hill, anyhow, and 
 if we see nothing we'll strike across to 
 Besselsleigh ; there's a farmer there has 
 got a bit of blood or two to sell, and I 
 want to look out for something that has 
 been tried to jump, to qualify for Ayles- 
 bury. Baronet will hardly win again with 
 a stone extra, and I mean to work him a 
 bit in hunters' races when these blessed 
 schools are over." 
 
 So they ambled gingerly down the rug- 
 ged pave, and over Folly Bridge, where 
 Isis looked desolation personified, and 
 through the toll-bar up Hincksey Hill, 
 where they met old F — , the keeper of the 
 drag-hounds, and learnt that the old Berk- 
 shire hounds had accounted for a couple 
 of cubs, rattled a ring round Sunning well 
 after an old one, and gone back to kennels
 
 MISCHIEF. 155 
 
 betimes. So they left the high-road, jump- 
 ing a low blind fence into pasture, Bluster 
 knocking off his master's hat under a tree 
 as he took off, and then pretending to take 
 fright at the fall of the beaver upon his 
 croup, bolting round the whole ten acres 
 before he could be pulled to a standstill. 
 Then they picked their way over two more 
 fences till they struck the footpath and line 
 of stiles, whence it was plain sailing and 
 nice country, past the Old Fox public, be- 
 hind Sunningwell, across the Cumnor road, 
 through Wootton, and into a line parallel 
 with and close to the main high-road to 
 Kingston Inn — here and there larking over 
 a sheep-hurdle, to the disgust of the shep- 
 herd and wrath of the farmer on his cob 
 at the other end of the field; or negoti- 
 ating the straggling and blind fences that 
 divided the ploughs or stubbles that formed 
 the greater part of their track.
 
 156 THE O.V.II. 
 
 "How does yours do, Ruby?" said 
 Jemmy, when they had crossed about six 
 miles of ordinary fences, without having 
 gone out of their way to encounter any- 
 thing particularly formidable. 
 
 " Very handy indeed — such a nice 
 mouth, throws his hind-quarters up rather, 
 and wants a bit of sitting back.' 1 
 
 " Yes, he took you by surprise the first 
 fence, Ruby. You showed a bit of day- 
 light, boy; but he seems a clean, steady 
 fencer, and if he goes all well to the end 
 of the day we will take him off Ralph's 
 hands/' 
 
 " I think this young one of mine will 
 do, if Charlie does not want too much for 
 him ; he is a bit eager, and jumps bigger 
 than he need at small places, but he'll 
 get a little more fashion in a month or 
 
 two. 
 
 "Two hundred was his figure last
 
 MISCHIEF. 157 
 
 week." said Ralph, who had pulled back 
 to a walk alongside of them, as they 
 crossed a wet, heavy, newly-ploughed stub- 
 ble; "but of course that will have to come 
 down about thirty when you come to a 
 deal, provided Wadlow passes him, which 
 I think he will do. Give us a lead, Jemmy, 
 into the road," he continued, as theyneared 
 a sfood-sized but clean-cut stake and bound 
 fence, with evidently a ditch on the far- 
 ther side, dividing the field from the King- 
 ston-road, but with a nice slip of grass 
 landing between the ditch and the pave. 
 
 " No hurry," said Jemmy; "let's make 
 sure that there are no stone-piles or muck- 
 heaps to land on. I bar falls when there 
 is no need for them." 
 
 Then, having satisfied himself that 
 the landing was sound, Jemmy Blake 
 put the Ll young one" at it in a slow can- 
 ter, and, topping it cleverly, dropped safe
 
 158 THE O.V.H. 
 
 on the turf border just as Bluster, going 
 forty miles an hour at it, cleared a good 
 fifteen feet on the farther side, disgusting 
 Jemmy with a splash of mud between his 
 teeth, as he turned round to see how Game- 
 cock performed. Then, as soon as Ruby 
 had joined them, they crossed the next 
 fence in search of a well-known line of 
 gates and bridle-path, and within half an 
 hour were picking their way round the 
 muck -yard of Mr. Collis of the Yew-tree 
 Farm. 
 
 " Good-morning, Mr. Romilly," said the 
 agriculturist, as he came out of his piggery. 
 — "Service to you, gentlemen," taking offhis 
 hat to Ralph and Ruby. " Beautiful mild 
 weather, ain't it? Step in and have a 
 glass of wine, if you please, gentlemen." 
 
 "With your leave we will presently, 
 Mr. Collis," said Ralph ; " but I have come 
 to look at some of your blood-stock, if you
 
 MISCHIEF. 159 
 
 have anything of the same class as the last 
 one I bought of you." 
 
 "Ah, he turned out well, did he not? 
 I heard of him at Aylesbury, and was glad 
 he did not disappoint you. Yes, sure I 
 have got two sisters rising four and five, 
 out of a half-sister of Baronet's dam — Oak- 
 ball, a thoroughbred as she was, and won 
 the Coronation Stakes or something of 
 that sort — by Taurus. I think they're 
 curious, Mr. Romilly, and I'm glad you 
 have come over just now. I was thinking 
 of giving 'em a turn or two at hurdles this 
 afternoon, as I had nothing particular to 
 do, and I shall like you to see them at it." 
 
 " Well, we have nearly an hour to 
 spare; but we must keep daylight to go 
 back with, or we shall lose a couple of 
 miles round by the road. I hate fences 
 in cold blood in the dark." 
 
 "Yes, sure; I'll have them out in five
 
 160 THE O.V.H. 
 
 minutes. Step in, sir, and have a glass of 
 something." And the trio obeyed, leaving 
 the horses in the hands of farm-servants. 
 
 By the time that they had shaken hands 
 with Mrs. and the Miss Collises — plump, 
 buxom young ladies, who gazed in wonder- 
 ment at Ruby till even his impudence 
 had nearly recourse to blushes — and had 
 pledged the farmer in a couple of glasses 
 apiece of passable sherry, the young fillies 
 were saddled and mounted by Mr. Collis's 
 two sons, lithe lathy lads of seventeen and 
 nineteen respectively. 
 
 " This way, gentlemen," said Collis, ■ 
 leading the way across a four-acre pasture 
 into a half-cleared turnip-held with hurdled 
 enclosures of sheep and roots in various 
 quarters. 
 
 The two fillies were much of the same 
 stamp, and bore unmistakable marks of 
 quality. A racing connoisseur might have
 
 MISCHIEF. 161 
 
 styled tliem a little too " coachy" to possess 
 first-class speed on the flat, and their action 
 a little too high, and perhaps unnecessarily 
 tiring for Ascot or Newmarket Heaths ; but 
 their long slashing stride, deep girth, well- 
 ribbed-up loins, lengthy quarters, and pow- 
 erful hocks, stamped them as future weight- 
 carriers and no sticklers at dirt, judging by 
 the way in which they each laid themselves 
 out at a hand -gallop through the hold- 
 ing and squelching soil of the turnip-field. 
 Each was a gold chestnut about sixteen 
 hands, with four white fetlocks and star; 
 the only distinction between the four-year- 
 old and three-year-old consisting in the 
 extra development and maturity of the 
 elder sister, and a light splash of silver in 
 the raking tail of the younger. 
 
 "Hold hard !" said Collis, as they came 
 round the second time, pulling double and 
 throwing the dirt behind them like cata- 
 
 vol. I. • M
 
 162 THE O.V.H. 
 
 pults. "Take 'em to the hurdles. — You 
 lead first, Bill/' to his younger son on the 
 four-year-old. 
 
 And the filly, as soon as she saw what 
 was demanded of her, went at the hurdles 
 like a cricket-ball, clearing a good twenty 
 feet, and jumping out of the enclosure on 
 the further side in similar style. The 
 junior followed, tossing her head from side 
 to side from jealousy of losing the lead, 
 covering as much or more ground in her 
 jump, but audibly touching the upper rail 
 each time, and rather wild in her taking 
 off. 
 
 " It's only the second time' that the 
 young one has seen a fence, sir," said the 
 farmer; " and the other one has only been 
 showed what to do a few times last spring. 
 Pretty handy, considering, don't you think, 
 sir? 
 
 " The older one jumps big, and clears a
 
 MISCHIEF. 163 
 
 lot of ground, and I daresay the young one 
 will rise a little better in a month or two ; 
 but she wants regularly schooling," said 
 Ralph. 
 
 " Just what I can't give them here in 
 this heavy land — enough to spring a sinew 
 in young 'osses to jump and gallop them 
 regular in such dirt ; yet they're beauties to 
 move in it, they are," continued Mr. Collis, 
 as the two chestnuts came once more round 
 the field, taking the hurdles in their stride 
 in rather improved style. 
 
 " Have you ever tried the bigger one at 
 real fences ?" said Ralph. 
 
 " I showed her the hounds, just to qua- 
 lify like, at Tar Wood and Tubney, last 
 month, sir; but the ground was too hard 
 and the fences too blind to do much ; but 
 she jumped the big stile as crosses the rail- 
 way rattling well, she did. I saw that she 
 wanted to follow Treadwell, and wouldn't
 
 164 THE O.V.H. 
 
 say her nay. She's got a deal to learn 
 still ; but it's my opinion that she's more 
 pace and style nor ever Baronet had, sir, 
 and ought to make a better sort all 
 round." 
 
 Visions of the Grand National Hunt at 
 Market Harborough and Crewkerne, or 
 wherever was next the rendezvous, flashed 
 across Ralph's ambitious mind ; but it did 
 not do to look too keen ; so he merely said, 
 holding out his hand, 
 
 " Well, thank you very much, Mr. Col- 
 lis. I think they are rather likely-looking 
 fillies on the whole, though even the elder 
 one is not grown enough to carry me well 
 to hounds just now. However, I will think 
 about them, and shall be sure to be riding 
 this way again within a week. — May we 
 go out this way?" he continued, pointing 
 to the boundary -fence, a low quickset ; and 
 receiving an affirmative, he cantered up to
 
 MISCHIEF. 165 
 
 Jemmy and Ruby, who had been looking 
 over the hurdles for the last five minutes, 
 and calling them to come on, gave Bluster 
 his head over the quickset, followed by the 
 cousins, and put his head pretty straight 
 for Cumnor. 
 
 They had passed Applet on on their left, 
 and were cantering across a stubble-field 
 bounded on all sides by impervious bull- 
 finches, when the buzz of a threshing- 
 machine down wind of them became audi- 
 ble, and almost simultaneously a posse of 
 rustics charged helter-skelter from the 
 cover of some ricks at the lower end; the 
 farmer jogging behind upon a pony, with a 
 gigantic cartwhip in his hands, and his 
 voltigeurs indiscriminately armed with oak- 
 rails, pitchforks, spades, et hoc genus omne. 
 
 " Forard, for'ard !" shouted Jemmy, as 
 a couple of rustics made straight for the 
 double-swing gate at the end of the field,
 
 166 THE O.V.H. 
 
 the only possible egress, unless they re- 
 traced their steps to the stile by which 
 they had entered. 
 
 Ruby had at the first alarm turned 
 Gamecock's head to the fence opposite to 
 that from which the sally proceeded, and 
 picking the only spot through which the 
 least daylight was visible, went at it for 
 his life. Gamecock pricked his ears and 
 charged the thicket forty miles an hour, 
 but neither he nor Ruby had weight 
 enough to carry their own way ; and they 
 had no sooner plunged gallantly into the 
 thick of the fence than two strong binders 
 closed round Gamecock's legs, and a third 
 round Ruby's neck, while the horse, strug- 
 gling to push his way through, dropped on 
 his knees, his hind-legs still finding purchase 
 on the top of the bank on which the fence 
 grew, but a low rail catching him under 
 the belly, and his loins and whole body
 
 MISCHIEF. 167 
 
 behind the saddle gripped tight by strong 
 upright growers that closed together after 
 the first charge. Both Ruby and horse 
 were firmly shackled, and after a struggle 
 or two remained passive and helpless. 
 
 " I want two sufferings apiece, or you 
 don't go, you don't !" said the spokesman 
 of the rustics, as Jemmy and Ralph found 
 themselves too late for the gate, which 
 was already seized and held, while another 
 lout hurled a pitchfork at them, that might 
 have broken a leg or disembowelled a 
 horse had it struck direct, but fortunately 
 it did no w^orse than rebound between the 
 legs of the " young one" and bring him on 
 his nose for a second. 
 
 " My good man," said Jemmy blandly, 
 " I know the law better than you ; you 
 have no right to stop us; you can have 
 a summons for a trespass, if you like to 
 have my card. I do not think we have
 
 168 THE O.V.H. 
 
 done any damage ; but if there has been 
 any, my solicitor can settle it with your 
 master." 
 
 " Damages be d — d !" said the rustic, 
 a very unsavoury and uncleanly specimen 
 of the common British clod. " We'll have 
 'em now, unless so be as you like to bide 
 instead." 
 
 " Push up to the latch, Jemmy," said 
 Ralph, seeing that the rustics were run- 
 ning round to secure the defenceless Ruby, 
 and rapidly losing his temper. — "Drop that, 
 you scoundrel!" he continued, as one of the 
 louts seized Bluster's bridle, and another 
 barred the way with a large piece of timber. 
 "You won't!" Then unshipping his stirrup 
 as the man with the rail made a blow at 
 Jemmy, " If you want a row, you shall 
 have one," he continued, regardless of man- 
 slaughter, and swinging his weapon down 
 upon the head of the leader of the band,
 
 MISCHIEF. 169 
 
 then dropping a smasher upon the knuckles 
 of Jemmy's assailant, he pushed Bluster 
 almost standing at the gate, cutting a 
 third lout over the collar-bone as he came 
 up to it, while Bluster, unable to clear the 
 obstacle, reared up at it, threw his knees 
 and forearm well over the top, and crush- 
 ing the two upper rails to splinters with 
 his weight, dragged his hind -legs after 
 him uninjured, leaving a clear space for 
 Jemmy, who jumped the remains of the 
 timber and a prostrate rustic, and followed 
 at a gallop to Ruby's rescue. 
 
 One rustic had got hold of Gamecock's 
 bridle and was nearly tugging his head 
 off. Another was crawling through a good- 
 sized hare's meuse to attack Ruby from 
 behind, when Ralph reached the spot and 
 commenced operations by springing off his 
 horse and smiting the creeping rustic vi- 
 ciously with his lash upon the tightened
 
 170 THE O.V.H. 
 
 trousers ; then hanging all his weight upon 
 one of the imprisoning binders he so far re- 
 leased the pressure from Gamecock that the 
 horse was enabled to roll head first into the 
 ditch, pinning underneath him the rustic 
 who had been hauling at his head, and 
 leaving Ruby still suspended in binders, 
 till Ralph tucked him under one arm and 
 dragged him to the bottom, just as Game- 
 cock had picked himself up and scrambled 
 out of the ditch. Neither riders lost time 
 in remounting, for a reinforcement of la- 
 bourers was pouring through the shat- 
 tered gate, and the report of a gun, and 
 whistle of a handful of No. 6 safe over- 
 head in the bullfinch, warned them that the 
 matter was getting serious. 
 
 " Shove on P hallooed Ralph, still 
 brandishing his disengaged stirrup, while 
 Ruby took the lead at the next fence — 
 a plain stake and bound — Jemmy follow-
 
 MISCHIEF. 171 
 
 ing, and Ralph, with, a feeling of compunc- 
 tion at using such a murderous weapon 
 now that Ruby was safe, took the leather 
 in his bridle-hand, caught the nearest lout 
 two fearful wipes over the face with a Not- 
 tingham cutting-whip, dodged his head to 
 avoid a stray pitchfork, and giving Bluster 
 his head was safe with his cousins in a 
 dozen strides. 
 
 "It's lucky that none of these beggars 
 have any idea of refusing," said Jemmy, as 
 they pulled up on the roadside after nego- 
 tiating two more moderate fences. a We 
 should have been up a considerable tree. I 
 hate law-courts and petty-sessions ; and, by 
 George, Ralph, I was afraid it was going to 
 be a case of assizes when you took off your 
 stirrup ! It is a beautiful weapon in a 
 row, but it runs risks of manslaughter : 
 you really should be careful." 
 
 " I was a bit cross, I think," said Ralph.
 
 172 THE O.V.H. 
 
 " I feared the)* would begin to maul Ruby ; 
 but I was careful after I caught that first 
 fellow on the head, and only went for 
 shoulders and knuckles afterwards. His 
 tile saved that first chap ; I saw him pick 
 himself up as you followed over the gate. 
 — Are you damaged, Ruby, my boy?" 
 
 " I was horrid near hung, till you came 
 and pulled me out ; and I am afraid Game- 
 cock must be full of thorns. I am scratched 
 all round the neck ; and his knees will want 
 a deal of picking and poulticing. You're 
 a good lad, Ralph, I must say; how you 
 did hustle those louts ! I should like to 
 sro over it again." 
 
 " Better fun for you than for them, so 
 far ; but it would have been very nasty 
 if that gun had peppered us," said Jemmy. 
 " We're very well out of it, I think ; and 
 you can have that horse if you like, he 
 seems to go W ell and handy. It was not
 
 MISCHIEF. 173 
 
 every nag that would have faced that bull- 
 finch with so much leaf left upon it." 
 
 " What do you think of your own ?" 
 said Ralph. 
 
 " He'll do 'at a hundred and fifty," said 
 Jemmy, "with a warranty; I shall not go 
 farther. Did you come to a deal? They 
 seem a nice stamp." 
 
 " I am going to look at a young horse 
 at Kidlington to-morrow afternoon, and 
 shall then make a selection. I think the 
 fillies for choice ; and if I take one, I 
 may as well have the pair, if they go 
 reasonable." 
 
 " It strikes me that we are all <roin<r 
 muckers in horseflesh ; but they'll be cheap 
 at three hundred the pair, without school- 
 ing," said Jemmy. " It's too dark to fence 
 any more, but we may as well jog on." 
 
 " I ordered dinner at my lodgings at 
 half-past six ; and took a table at some
 
 174 THE O.V.H. 
 
 new billiard -rooms in the High, at eight 
 o'clock, for you two, while I read," said 
 Ralph, as they dismounted in Holywell.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 MR. BLAKE AT HOME. 
 
 Colonel Warren had been doing the Lakes 
 with his daughter during October. On his 
 return south it had been arranged that he 
 should at once go to Hungary and use his 
 own personal influence and inspection in 
 reference to some mining-property of his, 
 for the purchase and working of which a 
 company, with imperial sanction, had lately 
 been promoted. 
 
 The house on the Steyne was to be let 
 for the winter months, Georgie to be put 
 under the care of Lady Mary, and the 
 Colonel to be home in time for Christmas 
 at Orleton.
 
 176 THE O.V.H. 
 
 Thus it was that Georgie and Lady 
 Mary sat vis-a-vis at breakfast on October 
 31st; and the latter said, as she ran her 
 eye over her mornings correspondence, 
 
 " Jemmy is getting nervous at his re- 
 sponsibilities, Georgie. He sends for me 
 to come over and help him with his first 
 entertainment, and to spend next week 
 with him. The first meet is to be at 
 Ashton Grove on Monday, and Sir John 
 gives a large breakfast. Ruby and Ralph 
 are coming from Oxford that morning, and 
 we are all to drive over there by nine 
 o'clock. You must go with me to the 
 Yale on Saturday." 
 
 " Me ! Jemmy does not expect me— 
 how can I go ?" 
 
 " My dear child, what can that matter ? 
 You and Jemmy are too old friends to 
 stand upon ceremony. Of course, I can- 
 not leave you here by yourself; I shall
 
 MR. BLAKE AT HOME. 177 
 
 write and say that you are coming with 
 
 me." 
 
 " But why does he want us — want you, 
 I mean — -just to go to breakfast at Ash ton 
 Grove?" 
 
 " It is more for his own breakfast, which 
 he gives to the meet on Friday; he is afraid 
 of having some failure unless I am there to 
 set it £oin<r, and vou can be of use to me." 
 
 O wxii O? 
 
 you 
 
 " I will go if you wish it," said Georgie 
 in a tone of resignation, at which Lady 
 Mary looked up in astonishment; "but I 
 think it is not fair that he should make a 
 drudge of you like this ; he ought to get a 
 housekeeper." 
 
 " Nonsense, Georgie ! What is the good 
 of relations if they are not to make use of 
 each other? I wonder at you turning 
 against Jemmy in this way ; have you had 
 a quarrel, child ?" 
 
 "Xo," said Georgie, as red as a giant de 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 THE 0.V.1I. 
 
 batailles; " I was only speaking in chaff. Of 
 course I'll go with you, and help him as 
 much as he wants. I daresay his whole 
 house is upside down already." 
 
 " He only came back from Oxford yes- 
 terday. He writes that he has been stay- 
 ing with Ralph and buying horses — a new 
 one for Ruby among others. I daresay he 
 will mount you, if you ask him, at the 
 lawn -meet, if your father does not send 
 your own horse down in time." 
 
 " I never ride with hounds, and Jemmy 
 hates ladies in the hunting-field ; he says 
 they are only out of place." 
 
 " He has been converted, then ; he says 
 that Clara Vane has made him promise her 
 a mount on a new horse of his when he 
 was dining last night at Ashton Grove. 
 She is to ride it at the Friday's home-meet, 
 and he is going to put her up for the night 
 if I am there to play chaperone. There
 
 MR. BLAKE AT HOME. 179 
 
 is the letter. Take care, my dear !" she 
 continued, as Georgie put forth a shaky 
 hand to reach it, and rolled a cup of cho- 
 colate liberally over a clean table-cloth. 
 
 " I am so sorry," said the culprit, as she 
 did her best to scrape up the mess with a 
 teaspoon. u My hand shakes ; I do not 
 think I am quite well this morning." 
 
 "That long journey yesterday was too 
 much for you, my dear. Go and keep 
 quiet till lunch, and do not attempt music 
 or anything of the sort ; we will drive in 
 the afternoon if you are better." 
 
 " I won't go to the breakfast at Ash- 
 ton," said Georgie. "I know Jemmy has 
 no carriage. I won't ride his strange 
 horses, and he will have no room for me 
 in a dog-cart." 
 
 "If you read my letter, my dear, you 
 will see that I am to bring my carriage 
 for that very reason. It is not more than
 
 180 THE O.V.H. 
 
 twenty-five miles to the Vale, and we can 
 go over gently on Saturday in time for 
 lunch, if you like. I daresay they will let 
 you have breakfast alone at the Vale if you 
 very much wish it. I must go and give 
 orders for the day," she continued as she 
 left the table ; and Georgie, crumpling the 
 obnoxious letter in her little fist, decamped 
 to her own room, and indulged in the luxury 
 of a good cry. She could hardly, if she 
 had been asked, have defined what it was 
 that vexed her. It was not that she had 
 any horror of encountering the crudities 
 and possible desagrements of Jemmy's in- 
 cipient establishment at the Vale. In a 
 general way, her first impulse would have 
 been to have volunteered her services to 
 aid Lady Mary in getting things ship-shape 
 and smooth for her old friend. But then 
 when she realised the idea of being his 
 guest, and perhaps in that way under an
 
 MR. BLAKE AT HOME. 181 
 
 obligation to him, she hung back again. 
 A lawn-meet, a drive to cover, the throw- 
 off, and find were just the incidents that 
 would otherwise have drawn Georgie more 
 than anything else at that time of year. 
 But now, though the fact that they were 
 Jemmy Blake's hounds served to asso- 
 ciate the O.V.H. with an especial interest, 
 she was conscious of a sort of repellent 
 anxiety, a deterrent attraction, that made 
 her more keen to see the meet and more 
 shy of being seen at it. 
 
 When Jemmy had in June let the cat 
 out of the bag, and spoken plainly of his 
 hitherto unconscious change of mind and 
 purpose with respect to Georgie, the latter 
 had been so startled, so taken aback at the 
 novelty of the idea, at the change of atti- 
 tude in one who had hitherto stood to her 
 more in the light of an uncle or extra 
 parent, whom she was privileged to obey
 
 182 THE O.V.H. 
 
 and bully at pleasure, that she said no 
 more than the brief exclamation already 
 recorded of her, which Jemmy had tacitly 
 received as a negative, and never alluded 
 again to the subject ; and Georgie had 
 never broached the case to her father, but 
 had kept her own counsel on the subject; 
 and Jemmy seeing this, and at a loss how 
 for the future to treat her, had been, if 
 anything, distant and neglectful when they 
 had subsequently met. It was this appa- 
 rent snubbing, or cold courtesy, which 
 piqued Miss Warren. Had Jemmy been as 
 cordial and paternal as ever, it is very pro- 
 bable that Georgie would have been shy 
 and reserved in her manner to him, if only 
 from the consciousness of the new phase in 
 her friendship ; but when he seemed, on 
 the contrary, to neglect or keep aloof from 
 her, as if an injured individual, she could 
 not help feeling offended, though relieved
 
 MK. BLAKE AT HOME. 183 
 
 and disembarrassed at his conduct. A 
 
 thorough good cry was the best thing to 
 clear her mind and her temper ; and when 
 she came down to lunch, she owned her 
 headache was better, and herself ready to 
 assist in any way in the arrangements of 
 Jemmy's household, and was conscious, at 
 the same time, of novel and strangely- 
 inimical sentiments with regard to her 
 school-friend Clara Vane. 
 
 " She could not hunt herself ; she did 
 not care for it, and Jemmy did not like it 
 — why should Clara try to be fast, and 
 tease Jemmy into what he disapproved?' 
 thought she. "And Jemmy invited her 
 on purpose, and sent no message that he 
 wanted either aunt Mary or anyone else, 
 except to make ourselves useful. I have 
 a great mind not to go at all. He does 
 not deserve to be helped." 
 
 A cordial note from Jemmy himself to
 
 184 THE O.V.II. 
 
 Georgie on Saturday morning — expressing 
 his surprise that Georgie was again in the 
 country, the pleasure it would be to him 
 to see her at the Vale, and his thanks for 
 the proffered assistance of herself and Lady 
 Mary in his troubles of the ensuing week 
 — upset any remaining artificial scruples of 
 etiquette against a self- invitation that 
 Georgie might have been content to foster, 
 and brought her in a happier frame of 
 mind with herself to the A 7 ale House that 
 day, in time for a cup of tea after the drive 
 of twenty -five miles. Jemmy had the 
 whole pack of hounds at walk at his heels 
 as they drove up ; but, leaving them in 
 charge of Dan Morgan, he met them at the 
 door as they landed, radiant with his na- 
 tural cordiality to his aunt, and a touch 
 of his old paternal patronage as he handed 
 Georgie out of the britzka, helped her to 
 discard wraps and mufflers, and led the
 
 MB. BLAKE AT HOME. 185 
 
 way to a roaring fire and social kettledrum 
 in the library. 
 
 Tea over, there was an hour to kill in 
 inspection of the house. Jemmy's own 
 sanctum opened into the library, and from 
 its air of habitation rather than of tidiness, 
 carried with it perhaps a greater idea of 
 comfort than any other of the day-rooms. 
 Whips, sticks, spare thongs, and multitu- 
 dinous spurs clinging to pendent racks; 
 guns, clean, sober, and oily, standing up 
 in a glazed pillory over the fireplace ; 
 gloves, boxes of havannahs, and a couple 
 of dog- whips lying on a side -table; a 
 davenport littered with correspondence ; 
 a sofa strewn with to-day's edition of the 
 sporting-papers, always excepting Bell's Life* 
 
 * These sketches of manners and customs were 
 penned more than three years ago. Bell's Life has lately 
 passed into new and energetic hands, and none will be 
 better pleased than the author to hear that " Nunquam 
 DornnV has regained its old prestige.
 
 186 THE O.V.H. 
 
 — which, in its then decayed and penny-a- 
 line state of all sport, and more especially 
 aquatics, Jemmy, in common with many 
 sportsmen, had withdrawn from his cata- 
 logue of weekly literature ; two new sad- 
 dles striding the backs of chairs ; a half- 
 opened parcel of new stirrup-irons ; and on 
 the rug "Yes," the old grizzled terrier 
 from Jemmy's London chambers, made up 
 an average medley of business and evidence 
 of activity as the ladies commenced their 
 inspection. Ordnance-maps of three scales 
 showing the two counties which had their 
 boundaries in the Old Yale hung round 
 the fireplace ; a huge parish-map, six feet 
 square, that Jemmy had picked up at a bar- 
 gain from a local solicitor of Ashton, stood 
 half unrolled in a corner ; a carefully-com- 
 piled table of meets and covers, distance 
 from kennels, and points whither to " send 
 on" hung vis-a-vis with his almanack upon
 
 ME. BLAKE AT HOME. 187 
 
 either cupboarcl-door. Two good fauteiiils 
 flanked his hearth-rug, and his slippers 
 stood cosily in a row in a corner. Com- 
 pared with this den, the other rooms bore a 
 desolate and uninhabited look. The cover- 
 ins: was not off the billiard-table. The draw- 
 ing-room was resplendent in new and gaudy 
 chintz and polished chandeliers, but it 
 bore an aspect at present of show rather 
 than of use. It would do very well for a 
 ballroom, and Jemmy was at once booked 
 to commit himself to a "hop," for a hun- 
 dred and fifty guests at least, not later than 
 Christmas. 
 
 The dining-room was capacious, the 
 mahogany rich in colour, the walls glower- 
 ing with the cavernous physiognomies of 
 various Monsell dynasties of the Yale. 
 There was an airy breakfast-room, which at 
 Georgie's suggestion should be used for all 
 purposes of comestion, in preference to the
 
 188 THE O.V.H. 
 
 gloomy salon , whenever numbers did not 
 exceed half-a- dozen. The bedrooms fur- 
 nished ample funds for exploration ; and 
 Georgie was only dissuaded from scaling 
 the attic -stairs to the leads, on the plea 
 that it was getting too dark for any 
 view. 
 
 The cook was bearded in her own den, 
 and servants' offices thoroughly criticised, 
 before it was time to dress for dinner ; at 
 which the whole force of Ashton Grove — 
 Sir John, his lady, son, daughters, and 
 Clara Vane — were to make an appearance, 
 together with Algernon Paget. The latter 
 announcement rather clouded Georgie's 
 brow for an instant. She had hoped that 
 they were going to have a quiet evening ; 
 and even Jemmy's paternal assurance that 
 he had brought visitors on purpose to 
 amuse her, and thought that she would be 
 glad to meet her friend Miss Vane, failed
 
 MR. BLAKE AT HOME. 189 
 
 to reassure her dissatisfaction ; though 
 Jemmy, busy in pioneering and piloting 
 about the chambers, had no time to notice 
 frowns in the increasing darkness. 
 
 They came, at last, to a momentary 
 anchor on the antique oak-chairs of the 
 entrance -hall, a good old-fashioned area 
 opening into most of the ground-floor rooms. 
 The polished floor of the same, Jemmy, who 
 had an antipathy to skating, had ruthlessly 
 covered with drugget, having given up his 
 original idea of scraping and sanding it, on 
 the strong representations of Mr. Simms, 
 the agent, who had a taste for the antique, 
 even at the expense of backslidings. 
 
 Jemmy had bought a few cords of wood 
 to foster mushrooms, to which he was par- 
 tial, and to supply at the same time with 
 reasonable logs the high - arched fireplace 
 and its brazen " dogs," that raised a glow 
 through the centre of the house, and lighted
 
 190 THE O.V.H. 
 
 up the shadows of the broad staircase at the 
 farther end. 
 
 Georgie had just launched into indigna- 
 tion at the tale of Jemmy's proposed van- 
 dalism to the oak-floor, when the roll of 
 wheels and a peal at the front- door flus- 
 tered the covey and sent them full-speed to 
 their chambers, to make up for lost time 
 and prepare to receive the expected 
 guests. 
 
 Jemmy, as he pulled off boots and 
 gaiters in nervous haste to receive his 
 visitors, was relieved to find his door 
 opened by Ralph Romilly, who, having 
 read himself stupid during morning and 
 afternoon, had seized the 5 - p. m. train, 
 secured the solitary fly at Ashton, and 
 turned in in time for dinner. Baronet for 
 himself and the Lady for Ruby had arrived 
 at the Vale House early that afternoon. 
 Ralph, who was almost as much a misogy-
 
 MB. BLAKE AT HOME. 191 
 
 nist as Jemmy had been, laid his ears back 
 at the news of the unexpected visitors. 
 
 " That was why Marshall made such a 
 bolt for the train that I came by. A batch 
 of women like that are a nuisance anyhow ; 
 and he is such a rubbishing fool, Jemmy, 
 I wonder you went out of your way to 
 fetch him down from Oxford.*' 
 
 " My dear fellow, I won't do it again. 
 if you don't like it,*' said Jemmy, as he 
 finished his ablutions and dived into a 
 clean shirt, hooking the studs in his hair 
 in his haste, and letting off steam with a 
 mild anathema. " Young Marshall was 
 coming up, anyhow, for the Monday's meet, 
 and I thought I ought to do the civil and 
 include him in the invitation. You see 
 they would have had to bring him if he had 
 been at home ; so one might as well have 
 the credit of asking him, don't you see ?" 
 
 " He would have heard nothing about
 
 192 THE O.V.II. 
 
 it if you had not written. He was going 
 to dine with Merriott at the Mitre, and put 
 him off at lunch-time, when I was there, 
 just to come to you. I see how it was." 
 
 " I feel very much flattered," said Jem- 
 my as he carefully parted his back-hair ; 
 " I did not know that Jack thought me 
 such good company. He's only a fool, and 
 no knave, Ralph. Don't be rude to him, 
 if you can help it. Look sharp and dress, 
 old boy," he continued; "I was in a funk 
 that you were the Marshall* with a punc- 
 tual fit. They're overdue now, and you'll 
 spoil the soup. Do go." 
 
 " Flattered, "thought Ralph as he went to 
 his own quarters — " very likely ! I didn't 
 think Jemmy was so soft. Blanche Mar- 
 shall was sure to split to that fool of a 
 brother when she heard that Georgie was 
 coming here. He must be choked off; she's 
 too good for any such confounded ass.'
 
 ME. BLAKE AT HOME. 193 
 
 Ralph had no other feeling for Georgie 
 than that of an elder brother to a pet 
 sister; nor was he likely to mistake his 
 own views and awake to a despairing love- 
 stricken reality, as had James Blake; but 
 the former, for the very reason of his inter- 
 est in his cousin, was particularly careful as 
 to attentions paid to her by strangers. He 
 would never grudge her the free run of any 
 ballroom, though too lazy to dance himself 
 unless spurred into the thing, but would do 
 his best to pick for her the most eligible 
 partners, both on the score of wits and 
 physiognomy ; and it was the same absence 
 of rivalry that led him thus to a good 
 selection for her in a trivial matter, that 
 made him trebly conscious when he saw, or 
 fancied he saw, an idiot, as he esteemed 
 Jack Marshall, launching himself at the 
 head of his pet. 
 
 Nor was Ralph's suspicion unfounded. 
 
 vol. i. o
 
 194 THE O.V.H. 
 
 He knew well enough whose was the lost 
 plain gold locket, for which the high 
 reward of ten pounds had been offered in 
 placards round about Oxford, on condition 
 of its restoration, if found, to " Brown, the 
 marshal/' He had picked it up himself 
 one day in the spring, in Symonds' pad- 
 dock, just after Jack Marshall had cut a 
 clear " voluntary" from a hack whose pur- 
 chase he had been contemplating. Ralph 
 succeeded in manipulating the secret spring 
 of the bijou, and therein discovered his 
 cousin's physiognomy, cut from a carte-de- 
 visite surreptitiously obtained from Silvy. 
 For a day he kept it in his possession, 
 doubting whether he should not send 
 the locket direct to his cousin ; but on 
 second thoughts, fearing to annoy her by 
 the accidental betrayal of a secret engage- 
 ment, if any there could be, or by the 
 knowledge of Marshall's admiration if unre-
 
 ME. BLAKE AT HOME. 195 
 
 ciprocatecl — whichever should be the case, 
 he gave the locket to his scout to make 
 what he could for himself by the reward, 
 and satisfied his own mind, a week or two 
 later, when he met Georgie during the 
 boat-race week, and turned the conversa- 
 tion on Jack Marshall, that her heart was 
 so far intact by master Jack's adoration. 
 
 Ralph felt no better disposed to Jack 
 Marshall when, on being the last to reach 
 the drawing-room, he saw that ladies were 
 in preponderance by one ; and inasmuch as 
 he could only take in one Miss Marshall, 
 and Jack would be wasted upon his own 
 sister, the latter would have a good chance 
 of shunting Paget upon Miss Vane, and of' 
 so being free to devote himself to Miss 
 Warren. Ralph tried to manoeuvre Jack 
 into Miss Vane's hands; but Jemmy was too 
 indolent to go out of his way to dictate to
 
 196 THE O.V.H. 
 
 his guests who should lead in who ; and 
 congratulating himself that Lady Marshall's 
 presence saved him from the clutches and 
 gossip of Clara Vane, he took the lead 
 boldly with her ladyship the instant that 
 dinner was announced. Paget was looking 
 down for an instant, to make sure that his 
 boots fitted him, and that Stultz had given 
 the right fall at the knee of his trousers, 
 and so lost the golden opportunity. Mar- 
 shall, who, though engaged in conversation 
 to the last minute with Lady Mary, had 
 kept his eyes open in the right direction, 
 had crossed like a shot to Georgie's corner ; 
 and though Ralph, in the act of taking 
 charge of Kate Marshall, so timed his steps 
 with a dancing - master's accuracy as to 
 drop, with a brief " Beg your pardon," his 
 twelve stone deftly upon the toes of his an- 
 tipathy, as the two threaded a circuitous 
 bit of navigation between an ottoman and
 
 MR. BLAKE AT HOME. 197 
 
 chiffonier, Jack never flinched or faltered 
 in his stride, and in an instant was at 
 Georgie's side. 
 
 It was needless for the latter, as a sort 
 of deputy hostess, to suggest sotto voce to 
 Mr. Marshall that he should take Miss 
 Vane, so that his younger sister could go 
 with Mr. Paget, and she herself follow 
 alone. Jack had not sacrificed his corns 
 so unflinchingly for nothing ; and Georgie y 
 to save wrangling, surrendered. Paget, 
 finding himself cut out, led on with Clara 
 Vane, the latter contriving to find two 
 vacant seats at the bottom of the table; 
 and everyone seemed satisfied more or 
 less, excepting Paget, who found himself* 
 vis-a-vis instead of alongside of Georgie ; 
 and the host himself, who, on seeing who 
 was his left-hand neighbour, groaned in- 
 wardly for having chuckled before he was 
 out of cover.
 
 198 THE O.V.H. 
 
 As a matter of course, Jack Marshall 
 had brought his music; and so neither 
 Paget nor he could be persuaded to join in 
 a rubber. When they rejoined the ladies 
 at 9.15, and Jemmy could hardly spare 
 himself to make a fourth with Lady Mary, 
 Ralph sat down to console Sir John at 
 ecarte. 
 
 " Hang that lad of mine !" began Sir 
 John, as the Marshall girls concluded a 
 creditable performance of the overture to 
 Zanvpa ; and Jack, on being asked by Lady 
 Mary whether he could perforin in any way, 
 did not wait to be asked a second time, 
 but jerked out " If doughty deeds," and 
 detained Blanche for an accompaniment. 
 
 " He'll turn all the milk sour, and play 
 the deuce with those mushrooms. — Very 
 good vol au vent that just now. Who's 
 your cousin's cook ?" 
 
 " A new one. Sir John ; no chef, that I
 
 MR. BLAKE AT HOME. 199 
 
 am aware of. Jemmy lias been on thorns 
 about her ever since she came. He has 
 never tested her till to-day. He will be 
 delighted to hear that she has found favour 
 in your eyes." 
 
 " 0, she has much to learn, and so has 
 he j but it is good, very good indeed, for a 
 start. Those cocks were a leetle overdone. 
 I don't hold to the proverb that a wood- 
 cock should only see the fire : that is non- 
 sense ; but it is sheer ruination to overdo 
 him; and the salad had too much endive. 
 Mr. Blake should mix his own, tell him. 
 I always mix mine — would not trust any- 
 one else." 
 
 " Certainly," said Ralph, as Sir John 
 paused for a second. 
 
 " And there's nothing like a sprig of 
 scented verbena — sure to be some in the 
 hothouse, even now — to flavour sweet- 
 bread ; tell him that too. Brown sherry
 
 200 THE O.V.H. 
 
 was good too. — Eh ? I have done very 
 nicely, thank you. Coffee when it comes 
 — no hurry. — Your deal this hand ; I was 
 the last. Lay you five to two on the rub. 
 Yah ! horrible ! awful !" as Jack concen- 
 trated all his energies upon the " Care he'd 
 take for thy dear sake," and succeeded in 
 varying a good quarter-tone from the ori- 
 ginal as contemplated by the composer. 
 
 Paget meanwhile had got deep into 
 conversation with Georgie, expressed his 
 pleasure that she was coming to see the 
 Ashton-Grove meet, assured her, in answer 
 to kind inquiries, that he had quite reco- 
 vered from the effects of his shaking in the 
 close of the Maule, and was going to ride a 
 perfect mount of his, a four-hundred-guinea 
 purchase, on Monday, and hoped she would 
 admire it, &c. 
 
 Jack Marshall, as the only way to get 
 the young lady away from his rival, came
 
 MR. BLAKE AT HOME. 201 
 
 up with a request that Georgie herself 
 would sing, and, while Paget looked dag- 
 gers at the intruder, Georgie hung fire, 
 and seemed unwilling till a nod and signal 
 from Jemmy sent her to obey; and Jack, 
 following like a spaniel, made himself use- 
 ful in turning over the pages of Blumen- 
 thal's " Requital." Miss Vane had got 
 Jemmy into a corner, and was insisting 
 on having the name of every hound in his 
 pack ; Jemmy was looking anxiously at 
 the door for tea to come to the rescue; 
 Paget had fallen back upon Blanche Mar- 
 shall ; Lady Mary and Lady Marshall were 
 discussing the characters of servants and 
 the needfuls for a public hunting-breakfast, 
 which was rather beyond the details of 
 Lady Mary's experience ; Georgie was pon- 
 dering between the bars of the symphony 
 what Jemmy and Miss Vane could be talk- 
 ing about, and thinking that she wondered
 
 202 THE O.V.H. 
 
 tow she could have liked the latter so well 
 in her school-days ; and Sir John had just 
 lost the long odds and the rubber to Ralph, 
 when Soames, the valet, rapidly entered 
 the room and informed his master that a 
 little girl wished to see him, and he was 
 afraid there was something the matter with 
 the hounds. 
 
 Jemmy, too thankful for any ordinary 
 mischief that could grant him temporary 
 respite from his tormentor, made a hasty 
 apology, and securing a pot-hat, pea-jacket, 
 and double-thong as precaution, went to 
 the servants' hall. There he learnt from 
 the blubbering lips of a little daughter of 
 Dan Morgans that the "hounds had eat 
 the new whip, surely — and that mother 
 was afraid they weren't satisfied neither, 
 for they was a-howling awful." 
 
 It flashed across Jemmy's mind that he 
 had given leave to Morgan, and the first
 
 MR. BLAKE AT E0ME. 203 
 
 whip, and Peter Mell to attend some 
 conjuring entertainment that evening in 
 Ashton, and that this new whip had been 
 so reckless as to enter the kennels without 
 a thong to protect himself. He felt queer, 
 and nearly repudiated the dinner, which, 
 upon the whole, he had enjoyed, notwith- 
 standing the cares of office, as he pictured 
 the wretched whip throttled, dismembered, 
 and already entombed in the maws of the 
 pack ; but he was speedily on his way, 
 having first heard, to his partial consola- 
 tion, that Lady Mary's coachman, his own 
 under-grooms, and Sir Johns also had set 
 off to the rescue as soon as the first alarm 
 was raised. 
 
 It was with a feeling of deep relief that 
 he met in the moonlight as he crossed the 
 main -road the whole posse of stablemen 
 escorting the missing whip, still in the 
 flesh, but rather mangled in one calf and
 
 204 THE O.V.H. 
 
 decidedly tattered about the breeches. On 
 the whole, he had been more frightened 
 than hurt, and soon blubbered out to the 
 effect that the hounds had been fighting, 
 and that he had gone in the dark to sepa- 
 rate them, and dropped the whip. Old 
 Forester went slap at his throat; he man- 
 aged to thrust him off, and, clutching the 
 palisades for dear life, scrambled like a cat 
 to the top, leaving a gaiter and small por- 
 tions of his calf in the jaws of Caterer ; but 
 gaining the summit in safety, whence he 
 would have securely dropped to the out- 
 side, but that some envious nail or pro- 
 jecting spike hooked the stout cord of his 
 breeches as he slid down backwards and 
 suspended him, with the cold and hungry 
 noses of the hounds sniffing and baying 
 through the palisades at his person for 
 some ten minutes, till old Owen and the 
 rest arrived to the rescue.
 
 MR. BLAKE AT HOME. 205 
 
 All was well that ended well, and the 
 narrative formed ample funds and diver- 
 sion for gossip, till carriages released Jem- 
 my from his duties and left him breathing- 
 time with his cousins. 
 
 " To-morrow is the first Sunday in the 
 month, Jemmy," said Georgie, sotto voce, as 
 she came to say good-night; "and aunt 
 Mary and I want to go to the eight-o'clock 
 service before breakfast ; it is only half-a- 
 mile — do you mind our going ?" 
 
 " What, for morning service ? yes ; 
 I know. Go by all means if you like. 
 Well wait breakfast for you;" then, as 
 Ralph had strolled into the hall to light 
 bed-candles, he added, " If you like, I will 
 come with you myself. Good-night, child ;" 
 and went meditatively to bed instead of 
 keeping Ralph company over a weed and 
 night-cap.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ASHTON SPINNIES. 
 
 " For mercy's sake let's get out of this!" said 
 Jemmy to Ralph so soon as lie had swal- 
 lowed a bloater and kidney, been roused to 
 his legs to speak for himself and the O.V.H., 
 stammered his thanks and apologies in a 
 brief yet not unbusiness-like manner, and 
 finished off matters with a glass of curagoa. 
 " I must have a weed to settle me down 
 before we get away; come on down to 
 stables;" and, regardless of anxious signals 
 from Miss Vane and pressing invitations 
 from his host and hostess to try a little of 
 this and a little of that, Jemmy slipped his
 
 ASHTON SEDDTIES. 207 
 
 arm into Ralph's and picked his way to the 
 door. 
 
 The dining- and breakfast-rooms of Ash- 
 ton Grove were crowded with some seventy 
 men in hunting -dress of all denomina- 
 tions. The dandy pink, the workman- 
 like pink, the seedy pink, the clerical black, 
 the retiring black, the sporting pepper- 
 and-salt, the invalid or undress -gray of 
 a hunting -man on the shelf or in mufti 
 for the time being; heavy-weights, light- 
 weights, middle-weights, schoolboy feather- 
 weights, hippopotamus welter - weights ; 
 men who meant to go, and did go ; men 
 who as invariably meant to go, and didn't 
 go when they came to the scratch ; men 
 come to look on; men who made it their 
 duty to themselves and their families to 
 look before they leapt, and run no undue 
 risks to themselves or their dependents. 
 Some half-a-dozen ladies in riding-skirts:
 
 208 THE O.V.H. 
 
 the two Misses Madclox, daughters of Tom 
 Maddox of the Jockey Club, owner of a 
 well-known breeding-stud in the southern 
 end of the Vale, and of a string at Jeffrey's 
 stables on the Yorkshire downs, where, 
 amongst that string, daily took his gallop 
 Imperial, reigning favourite for the next 
 year's Derby. Withered and hardy Mrs. 
 White, who imperatively kept the old Major, 
 her spouse, at home, unless, on occasions like 
 these, he was suffered to drive with her to 
 cover. Mrs. White, who was the bugbear 
 of every stickler and craner in the O.V.H., 
 always thereabouts with the hounds, never 
 especially in anyone's wa}^ in a strong run, 
 quite capable of taking care of herself and 
 of generally pounding the groom who nomi- 
 nally accompanied her, but fond of acci- 
 dentally giving the lead to muddlers who 
 huno; back, and of telling them that " it 
 is nothing when you're over it," as she
 
 ASHTON SPINXIES. 209 
 
 leered at them from the further side of 
 the obstacle; whose ill-fau'red, harridan 
 face was proof against brambles, case- 
 hardened to snow and hail, and never be- 
 reft of a grin of self-satisfaction. Mrs. St. 
 Paul, a fast and golden -haired widow, 
 lately resident with her brother, the Rev. 
 George Peronet, the ritualistic incumbent 
 of Hubbard-on-Lyne ; and two Miss Mar- 
 riotts, under convoy of their grandsire, 
 Sir William Marriott, K.C.B., suffered by 
 him. to attend the meet as spectators, but 
 in nowise to go beyond the throw- off. 
 And on the slope of the part across the 
 ha-ha were fast congregating farmers, 
 butchers, grooms, and loungers leading 
 horses, a cheesemonger from Orleton, a 
 couple of rival " vets.," a sporting publican 
 or two, two or three gentlemanly-looking 
 strangers, and the inevitable and rheu- 
 matic Farmer Dodd and lad in his gig. 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 THE O.V.H. 
 
 Rain had fallen moderately in the night ; 
 the grass was moist and fragrant; two or 
 three sharp white frosts during the past 
 week had nearly cleared the fences of 
 straggling foliage ; the soil was rather hold- 
 ing and squelching ; wind S.W., breeze 
 light, and sun shining brightly through 
 fleecy beds of cirro-stratus. 
 
 The outside crowd began to bestir 
 themselves as the servants of the estab- 
 lishment came forth with ale - tankards, 
 spirit -glasses, and snacks of pork -pie or 
 sausage -roll, which Sir John was fond of 
 purveying indiscriminately on such occa- 
 sions. Then presently there was a buzz, as 
 Dan Morgan jogged round from the back 
 premises with a level, twenty -five -inch, 
 average mixed pack of eighteen couple; the 
 whips sedately bringing up the rear, and all 
 resplendent in new pinks and plush collars. 
 
 Then there was a general exodus from
 
 ASHTON SPINNIES. 211 
 
 the house ; grooms bringing hunters up 
 the drive to meet their masters, cramp- 
 loined heavy-weights mounting judiciously 
 with aid of the portico -steps, the Maule 
 britzka rolling up to escort Lady Mary 
 Blake and Georgie Warren to the Moorfield 
 cross-roads, whence they were safe to get 
 a bird's-eye view of the probable line taken 
 down the Ashton water-meadows, presuming 
 that they should find for certain in the 
 Ashton spinnies. 
 
 Then Jemmy, Ralph, Ruby, and Paget 
 came jogging round, also from the back- 
 way, in the track of the hounds ; the new 
 M. F. H. — the cynosure of all eyes, and 
 centre-piece of all tongues — capped and 
 good-morninged wholesale to bewildermeut 
 by the multitudinous strangers around him. 
 But Mr. Blake soon rescued himself from 
 the ordeal; and on the arrival at his side 
 of Sir John, on a massive and elephantine
 
 212 THE O.V.H. 
 
 weight-carrier, with gorgeous deep-sloping 
 shoulders, back-ribs like a whale, and quar- 
 ters like a dray-horse, the Master gave 
 Dan Morgan the " office," and they jogged 
 to the spinnies, at the upper end of the 
 park, the cavalcade spreading leisurely 
 over the turf; some here and there lark- 
 ing over a sheep-hurdle, or stray drain- 
 dyke that led down to the lake ; some gos- 
 siping; some tightening girths; some try- 
 ing all sorts of lengths of stirrups. Horses, 
 too, of all denominations. Thoroughbred 
 weeds, and a few thoroughbred weight- 
 carriers; half-bred knackers, and half-bred 
 hunters cheap at three figures ; raw four- 
 year-olds, and seasoned twelve-year hunt- 
 ers ; restive plungers in the hands of 
 breakers and rough-riders, and staid old 
 stagers conscious of the precious burden 
 of patres familiar wn ; butchers' ponies, and 
 rough-coated, shamble-kneed cobs, just up
 
 ASHTON SPINNIES. 213 
 
 from grass ; a couple of cast-off flat-racers, 
 now studying the " country" under Ellis, 
 tlie steeplechase trainer, sent out to see 
 the hounds and " qualify" for hunters' races; 
 and last, not least, the leading cavalcade, 
 consisting of Sir John on his elephant, 
 Jack Marshall on a neat-looking importa- 
 tion from Vine's, Jemmy on the sister to 
 Cooksboro, and Baronet and the Lady for 
 Ralph and Ruby. 
 
 " Hoick, in there !" said Dan, as he came 
 round to the north end of the upper spin- 
 ney, and sent the hounds tumbling and 
 dashing through the underwood and briers 
 to the lower end, without evoking the 
 slightest challenge and whimper. 
 
 "No go, that!" said Sir John to Jemmy; 
 "but they work steady, seemingly; no riot 
 among the younger entries." 
 
 " Better luck in the next," said Jemmy, 
 as Dan, without need to draw his horn,
 
 214 THE O.V.H. 
 
 trotted down to the lower spinney, and 
 threw his hounds in at the nearer end. 
 
 "There go the British public! will spoil 
 their own sport, of course !" said Ralph, as 
 some fifty horsemen followed an indefinite 
 leader at a canter through a gateway, so 
 as to be the safe side of the first fence 
 in case the fox should go away at once 
 for the open ; whereas, if he ran the ring 
 of the park, they would have ample time 
 to retrace their steps and join the rest of 
 the field. 
 
 " Hark !" said Sir John as they stood 
 still under the dingle fence. 
 
 " Found, by George !" said Jemmy, as 
 the whimper rose to a challenge. 
 
 "All right!" said Ralph, as the chal- 
 lenge became a duet. 
 
 " Tally-ho !" yelled some on in front at 
 the head of the group in the next field, as 
 the duet swelled to a chorus.
 
 ASHTON SPIXXIES. 215 
 
 " Deuce !" said Sir John in the next 
 breath, as the chorus hushed for an in- 
 stant at the further side of the cover, and 
 a whips "Tally-ho, back!" explained mat- 
 ters. 
 
 "At him again!" said Jemmy, standing 
 up in his stirrups, as the chorus reopened 
 again at the lower end, and was coming 
 towards them. 
 
 " Back a little, eh, Jemmy ?" said 
 Ralph; " or we shall be heading him." 
 
 " Gone back in again, Dan ?" said Sir 
 John, as that functionary took the bound- 
 ary fence out of cover at a stand, and 
 landed beside them. 
 
 " Like enough, Sir John ; with a pack 
 o' fools a -stinking over there up -wind of 
 him;" indicating with his elbow the ex- 
 pectant crowd over the next fence, at the 
 head of which, resplendent in . a new pink, 
 sat Jack Marshall.
 
 216 THE O.V.H. 
 
 " Gone awa-a-a-y !" hallooed Ned Mas- 
 ters from the east side of the cover, stand- 
 ing still and holding up his hat. 
 
 " Straight for the decoy !" said Sir 
 John, as they viewed the fox sailing away 
 down the gully side. 
 
 " Hold hard, if yon please, gentlemen !" 
 sung out Dan, as everyone made a rush 
 for a gateway in a line of four-foot tim- 
 ber. 
 
 "Hounds first, if you please, sirs," said 
 Jemmy, gathering courage and importance 
 as the pack streamed over the boundary 
 fence and raced down the slope, within a 
 few yards of the gateway. 
 
 " Toot, toot !" went Dan's horn as he 
 shoved his horse at the rail, followed by 
 Ralph; and Jemmy, finding the block in 
 the gateway impassable, turned round and 
 followed suit ; in his rear Ned Masters, on 
 a long-legged four-year-old that hit it hard
 
 ASHTON SPINXIES. 217 
 
 all round, and some four or five other 
 impatients. 
 
 Through the swamps and osiers of the 
 decoy, half-a-mile below, the pack rattled 
 their fox, unkennelling a brace of others 
 as they made the hill and waterside echo 
 to the music, but sticking well to the line 
 of their own first find. 
 
 " Gone away !" hallooed old Docld in 
 his gig from the top of the rising ground, 
 as the fox, stealing a march in the rather 
 cold-scenting swamp, got well away under 
 the slope of the hill ; and running a ring 
 round the park, close in front of the lawn, 
 as if for the benefit of the ladies, made 
 good his first point across the Ashton 
 road. 
 
 " Hold hard ! hold hard !" said Dan, as 
 the field of a hundred and a half, who 
 had kept well together in the open pas- 
 tures of the park, poured en masse at the
 
 218 THE O.V.H. 
 
 gateway just as the hounds threw up their 
 heads on the further side of the next fence. 
 
 " Boy with the pigs," said Mr. Blake r 
 as he pushed his bay mare nearly stand- 
 ing at the straggling fence and landed 
 alongside of Dan on the bean-stubble. 
 
 " Right you are, sir !" said the hunts- 
 man, as the hounds spread to their own 
 cast, and in a few seconds Jezebel had 
 it at a meuse under the opposite hedge- 
 row, and the pack flew to her tongue. 
 
 " Forrard ! forrard !" sang out the 
 mob behind, who waited for satisfactory- 
 gaps to be forced in the fence out of the 
 road. 
 
 "He is making for Whortle Woods/' 
 said Jemmy, as Ralph ranged alongside 
 of him in a big pasture about two miles 
 and a half further on, and a dozen mi- 
 nutes after Jezebel had led through the 
 meuse.
 
 ASHTON SPIXXIES. 219 
 
 "Here come all the roadsters!" growled 
 the latter, as the hounds bore to the left 
 on the next two fields, and crossed a bye- 
 road — along which in the rear clattered 
 some fifty macadamisers — and raced down 
 a muddy blind lane to a long belt of 
 plantation, at the lower end of which 
 flowed a moderate brook. The fox's line 
 ran up along the belt for a hundred yards 
 or so, till a tinker setting springes in the 
 underwood had turned him once more to 
 the open pastures. 
 
 By the time that the hounds had 
 threaded the plantation, till they momen- 
 tarily checked where the tinker had turned 
 the fox, some fifteen of the leaders had 
 reached the bottom of the muddy lane. 
 Dan plunged into the plantation to his 
 hounds, but ere he was with them, Fores- 
 ter had hit the line, and the pack streamed 
 away over the water-meadow.
 
 220 THE O.V.II. 
 
 A gate, at the foot of which flowed 
 in a ford the brook which threaded the 
 plantation, blocked the end of the lane 
 down which the whole hunt was fast pour- 
 ing. Six-barred, cross-laced with "kids" 
 or pea -sticks, and water beyond it, it 
 looked anything but a handy jump for 
 anyone. Dan had just pushed through 
 the rather rotten fence that bounded the 
 plantation and jumped the water-ditch at 
 a stand. 
 
 Farmer Green essayed to open the gate, 
 and found it double- chained and nailed. 
 
 Ralph, plunging into the plantation 
 close by, pushed up to the fence, found it 
 too stiff on his quarter to push through, 
 too hidden in rubbish and underwood for 
 a horse to see it if he backed to take a 
 run at it. Dismounting, crushing it down 
 with his boot, and starting a little day- 
 light through twigs and dead nettles, he
 
 ASHTON SPINNIES. 221 
 
 again put Baronet at it, who got over it, 
 but dropped his hind-legs in the brook 
 beyond and rolled over with him. The 
 two or three behind, Jemmy included, who 
 were awaiting the benefit of Ralph's pio- 
 neering, had to wait till he had got him- 
 self clear ; for Ralph, first come, first 
 served, had secured the only practicable 
 place within range. Meantime, at the 
 same moment that Ralph had made for 
 the plantation, Farmer Green and a pal had 
 dismounted and brought their stirrup-irons 
 vainly to bear, hammer and tongs, upon 
 the double chains which ran clean round 
 the gatepost, and offered no staple or weak 
 point to attack. 
 
 " Out of the way, Turnips !" sang out 
 Ruby, hemmed in on both sides by reek- 
 ing cavalry, and only one egress available. 
 
 " Clear out, there, and let the gentle- 
 man come, if he's a mind," said two or three
 
 222 THE O.V.H. 
 
 who thought that the timber might prove 
 more fragile than the iron. 
 
 "What on earth is the use of that?" 
 exclaimed young Shortbread, of the firm 
 of Shortbread and Co., haberdashers, of 
 Tottenham - court - road, as Ruby caught 
 the Lady tight by the head, and went with 
 a rush at the bush-twined gate — the little 
 mare going at the obstacle with a will, 
 splashing mud right and left as she went 
 down the lane, hitting it with a hind fet- 
 lock as she went over like a buck, fairly 
 clearing the sloping bank and loose stones 
 of the ford at the bottom of the gateway, 
 and staggering all over the place as she 
 landed. 
 
 " Sich waste ! to send a hinfant and 
 powney to break timber — poof! — ain't no- 
 body got never a cart-colt handy ?" sput- 
 tered Farmer Green, raking a clot of mud 
 out of his teeth with his little finger, while
 
 ASHTON SPINUIES. 223 
 
 the Lady, after skating and scrambling 
 along the short wet grass for some thirty 
 yards, settled down once more safe upon 
 her legs, and was off forty miles an hour 
 over the water-meadows. 
 
 " Let us have a try now, will yer ?" 
 hallooed Ned Masters, bringing the four- 
 year- old rather slowly up to the gate, and 
 holding his head like a rock, dead-straight 
 at it. 
 
 The young one was game, if not quite 
 competent, and rearing well up, laid his 
 whole chest on to the top rail, bringing the 
 best part of the structure down with a 
 smash, dragging his hind -legs clear of the 
 debris, and indulging in two or three rat- 
 tling kicks at two or three over-eager fol- 
 lowers who pressed at once to the opening, 
 keen to follow the results of Ned's pio- 
 neering. 
 
 Meantime, a mile farther back, Jack
 
 224 THE O.V.H. 
 
 Marshall, in the safe pursuit of jxleasure, 
 so far as compatible with macadamising 
 action, had suddenly espied, a quarter of a 
 mile ahead of him, the Maule carriage, 
 waiting on the rising ground of Moorfields 
 cross-roads, to snatch, if possible, a glimpse 
 of any run that might cross the Moorfielcl 
 pastures. Nor had they been disappointed. 
 Ili^ht below them at that instant, some 
 half-mile distant, the Old Vale pack, in 
 close order, were holding a good head 
 upon a hot scent over the water-meadows 
 of Moorfields. Some three or four pink 
 and black coats in the next field to them, 
 another eight or ten riders pretty handy, 
 some a little wide on the farther side, some 
 following the tracks and gaps of the leaders, 
 a couple of dozen riders, headed by Sir 
 John Marshall, essaying a short cut through 
 gateways to Whortle ; a long line following 
 helter-skelter, through gaps and gateways,
 
 ASHTON SPINNIES. 225 
 
 over a stretch half a mile back ; and a 
 goodly brigade of road-hunters, clattering 
 along out of a gateway and into the Moor- 
 field-lane, some three hundred yards below 
 the carriage. Half a mile or more in front 
 of the hounds loomed the dark plantation 
 already mentioned. 
 
 Jack Marshall had, in certain cases, a 
 large amount of wits about him. In the 
 present case he had made up his mind in a 
 very few seconds after the carriage broke 
 upon his view. There was, he thought, 
 but little choice in the matter. True, his 
 knowledge of the country had made him 
 take the upper road in question, from an 
 inkling that the fox would make for the 
 big woods six miles off, and a little to the 
 right, if he could hold his own line ; but 
 it now dawned upon him that the road 
 swung over too much to the right, that no 
 
 VOL. i. Q
 
 226 THE O.V.H. 
 
 friendly gateways were visible, the black- 
 thorn fences of Moorfields stiff and unin- 
 viting, the ditches deep and disagreeable, 
 the hounds too far ahead already for him 
 to hope to overtake them. His plan of 
 action was short and simple : in an instant 
 he had unshipped his off stirrup-leather, 
 slung it over the right-hand fence, under 
 shelter of a large haystack, and bumping 
 painfully and lopsidedly in his saddle as 
 he pulled Perfection from his canter to a 
 slow jog, he ranged up to the britzka, and, 
 bowing low, wished to know if he could be 
 of any use to the ladies. 
 
 Georgie's counter- query as to why he 
 was not with the hounds was explained by 
 pointing to the loss of the "broken" leather, 
 which had given way a little distance back, 
 much to Mr. J. Marshall's disgust. 
 
 " Can't you go on without it, Mr. Mar- 
 shall?" said Georgie. "I thought that all
 
 ASIITON SPIXXIES. 227 
 
 good riders could manage almost as well 
 without stirrups as with them. I know 
 my cousin Ralph won a race this year at 
 Aylesbury after he had broken his stirrup 
 the first time round." 
 
 But Mr. Marshall's horse was one that 
 " required a good deal of handling and 
 management, more than the best man in 
 the world could give with only one stirrup; 
 such one - sided work ; better no stirrup 
 than only one." 
 
 " You can leave the other with me, 
 Mr. Marshall, if you like," volunteered 
 Lady Mary in her sweetest tones. " We 
 will leave it for you at your house as we 
 drive back ; and then you will be evenly 
 balanced, as you say." 
 
 " It is a very different thing, you know, 
 riding over a steeplechase- course without 
 stirrups, where all the fences are easy 
 made-up ones — nothing that a horse cannot
 
 228 THE O.V.H. 
 
 jump, if lie's worth, anything — from going 
 straight in a blind, stiff country like this. 
 I am afraid I must give it up ; it is a bad 
 job, but for the good fortune" — glancing at 
 Georgie — " of falling in with you in this 
 way." 
 
 And then, as the hounds had disap- 
 peared into the plantation belt, and the 
 majority of the field in the deep, high- 
 hedged, muddy lane above described, Lady 
 Mary suggested that they should drive a 
 little farther along the ridge of upland, so 
 as, if possible, to catch a view of the field 
 and pack again, should they emerge on the 
 farther side of the strip of trees which now 
 hid them. 
 
 So the britzka proceeded, Jack Marshall 
 bumping piteously alongside, ever and anon 
 taking sly props from the pommel to save 
 the concussion of Perfection's really smooth- 
 going trot, till Lady Mary took pity on
 
 ASHTON SPINNIES. 229 
 
 him again, and signalling to old Owen to 
 pull up his horses, offered Jack a seat in- 
 side, if he liked to surrender his horse to 
 the Maule footman on the box. 
 
 Nothing could have been more auspi- 
 cious, no man in the world better pleased 
 with himself and his ruse than Master 
 Jack, as he took the precaution to unbuckle 
 his sandwich-case and sherry-flask, that he 
 might have excuse for offering refreshment, 
 and persuading the ladies to drive on else- 
 where, and delay their return till after 
 luncheon -hours. Then wrapping himself 
 in a mackintosh, that veiled from curious 
 eyes the gaudy tones of his new pink, he 
 leant back vis-a-vis to Georgie, supremely 
 happy with himself and the world. 
 
 But not less happy than he, each in his 
 own way, a select few were then sailing down 
 the water-meadows of the Slake-brook at a 
 pace that would have done credit to the
 
 230 THE O.V.H. 
 
 lady pack in the most open pastures of the 
 Pytchley. 
 
 Euby and Dan Morgan had got a clear 
 start of the rest of the field from the strip 
 of plantation below Moorfields, Morgan a 
 good hundred yards in front, and nearer 
 at first to the hounds; but in a field or 
 two farther on the line of the fox swung 
 round sharp to the left, towards Ruby, so 
 as to nearly meet the edge of the brook, 
 which aoain curved to the right: and 
 then the fox, for a distance of a mile or 
 more, had pursued a course exactly pa- 
 rallel to the stream, which, under a system 
 of modern high-farming, had been led in 
 a dead-straight artificial channel to save 
 the waste land of the winding course that 
 Nature had formerly taught. 
 
 Dan had lost ground by the sweep of 
 the hounds, now running due east ; a foot- 
 way over the water-meadows, with easy
 
 ASHTON SPIXNIES. 231 
 
 stiles in each fence, ran close handy to 
 the line of the hounds, not a dozen paces 
 from them, and for some way no wayfarer 
 was visible to turn the head of the var- 
 mint. 
 
 Dan was a good horseman at twelve 
 stone, and well mounted; but it' was as 
 much as he could do to hold his own at 
 the pace they were running, with scent 
 breast-high, hounds mute and compact as 
 a tablecloth, all but a brace of stragglers, 
 one a young one, the other trodden and 
 lamed in the first crush in the park gate- 
 way. To overhaul the Lady, who carried 
 no more than ten stone seven at the outside, 
 and was as thoroughbred as Blair Athol, was 
 asking too much of the rat-tailed bay that 
 was going so gallantly under Morgan. 
 Two fields behind, Baronet was doing 
 his best to make up Ralph Romilly's lost 
 ground; Jemmy was shoving Sister to
 
 232 THE O.V.H. 
 
 Cooksboro along at a creditable pace ; and 
 one of Ellis's stable -lads, reduced from 
 nominal to real qualification upon Garry- 
 gowan, winner of the Punchestown Hunt 
 Cup, was close handy. The first whip 
 was alongside of him, and the second 
 had been cropped in coming in Ralph's 
 track out of the plantation, and was in- 
 visible. 
 
 A certain Captain Starkey, on a neat- 
 made bay, fired on both fore-legs; Mrs. 
 Major White, glancing beacon-like upon a 
 thoroughbred gray ; Ned Masters, who had 
 already twice saved the four-year-old when 
 down on his ears ; and a couple of stran- 
 gers of a cavalry cut, well mounted, and 
 just down for the season at the Hand and 
 Sceptre, — were each and all doing their very 
 best to keep within calculation of the fast- 
 receding pack. 
 
 The fox, a game but decidedly gorged
 
 ASHTON SPIKNIES. 233 
 
 one, had found even the five miles or so 
 that had been covered a little too hot for 
 him, and it was not his fault that presently 
 a little girl and old woman, hobbling and 
 helping over a hog-backed stile, caused him 
 to check short and cross the Slake, not a 
 couple of "fields in front of the pack, as 
 they hung for a second at a hedgerow. 
 
 Ruby viewed him as he slipped into 
 the stream, and emerged draggled, muddy, 
 and panting on the farther side, to set off 
 hopelessly again on his weary way, and to 
 trail his dirt-clotted brush heavily on the 
 wet grass. 
 
 Raising his voice to his best attempt 
 at a view-halloo, Ruby capped the pack 
 towards the place of crossing, and Dan — 
 to his credit be it said — so far from being 
 jealous of the lead of the golden-haired 
 baby in a gray shooting-jacket and " pot"- 
 hat that had been cutting down the whole
 
 234 THE O.V.H. 
 
 field, and eager to give a good account 
 of his first fox, backed him up with a 
 cheery " Hark, halloo ! Hark, halloo !" and 
 with a crack of his whip sent the whole 
 pack flying to the cry. 
 
 The turn to the left over the water 
 let in somewhat Ned Masters and one or 
 two who had followed him through the 
 broken gate out of the lane. Ruby was 
 first over the water, and had still a clear 
 lead of a ten-acre field, when Dan, Ralph, 
 and Jemmy took it pretty well in a line, 
 Sister to Cooksboro landing her off hind- 
 leg in a rat-hole, and putting herself and 
 the Master to earth. Mrs. White, not far 
 behind, nearly jumped over him as he 
 picked up the pieces ; and one of the ca- 
 valry- officers met with a refusal, and was 
 not able to persuade his beast to face the 
 water, until some twenty of the line-fol- 
 lowers had come up, charged, taken to or
 
 ASHTON SPINNIES. 235 
 
 shirked tlie new element, according to cir- 
 cumstance and fancy. The fox could not 
 last many minutes farther at the pace. 
 After five more fences he tried a couple of 
 short doubles under the hedgerow, that by 
 fortuitous circumstances were still more in 
 Ruby's favour, and then, as the poor per- 
 secuted varmint made one more effort, and 
 pushed gamely across a twenty-acre mea- 
 dow, at the end of which some ricks and 
 farm-buildings might afford him an off- 
 chance for his salvation, the scene changed 
 from scent to view, and while his wearied 
 limbs could scarcely lift him over the wet 
 hummocks of a feg" and thistle, Forester, 
 Jezebel, and May Queen led the race up 
 to him, and, within fifty yards of the rick- 
 yard, he gnashed his teeth in despair as he 
 felt their hot breath fanning his flanks, 
 and then turned short to bay, fighting and 
 snapping silently and grimly to the last,
 
 236 THE O.V.H. 
 
 as the leaders closed upon his throat, and 
 the rest rushing in gripped and shook 
 the remaining breath from his gasping 
 carcass.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SECOND HORSES. 
 
 Then Ruby, giving the Lady her head, 
 charged up to the worrying pack, ecstatic 
 at his claim to his first fairly-earned brush, 
 and, heedless of the risk so recently run 
 by the second whip on Saturday night, 
 dropped the little mare's rein so soon as 
 he could jump off, and recklessly forcing 
 his way into the hounds, set to flog them 
 off their prey. 
 
 Fortunately for him the pack were for 
 the instant deeply engrossed with the still 
 palpitating body of the varmint, and Dan, 
 who was scarce a hundred yards behind 
 the boy as they entered the last field,
 
 238 THE O.V.H. 
 
 galloped up with a " Have a care, young 
 master! Have a care there, egad!" and 
 in a few seconds had taken the matter 
 into his own hands, and held up aloft the 
 limp and muddy remains of a fine dog- 
 fox; while his who-o-op! gave notice on 
 the other side of the fence to Ralph Ro- 
 milly and the rest of the leaders, of the 
 end of all things for the present. 
 
 "About thirty minutes altogether from 
 the find," said Ralph to the Master, look- 
 ing at his watch, as the two dismounted 
 to wait for the obsequies; "and I suppose 
 about four miles as the crow flies — a good 
 two miles more than that, the way we 
 came.'' 
 
 " Pretty fast those two last miles or so, 
 after that bit of cover," said Jemmy. u I 
 am afraid I saw very little of the hounds 
 after you went down in front of me com- 
 ing out of it; they got clear away, and
 
 SECOND HORSES. 239 
 
 my mare put me down too at that water. 
 That old cat," he continued, pointing to 
 Mrs. Major White, tucking up the scraggy 
 remains of her back -hair, and sitting 
 loosely on her gray, whose stretched neck 
 and heaving flanks showed that the pace 
 had been rather too hot for his condition 
 in the first week in November, " precious 
 nearly did for me ; came slap at me when 
 I was down, and landed on my hat, hang 
 her! Women have no business in the 
 hunting-field ; they always get in the way, 
 and you can't slang them as if they were 
 men." 
 
 And Jemmy took off and contemplated 
 the tatters of a brand-new, low-crowned 
 Chapman and Moore, built new for the 
 season, and indelibly stamped with the 
 mark of the beast that had so well car- 
 ried Mrs. Major White. The fact was, that 
 Jemmy's usually placid temperament had
 
 240 THE O.V.H. 
 
 been ruffled not so much by the destruc- 
 tion of his beaver, as by seeing himself 
 headed by a petticoat after his fall. It 
 was only by the happy style in which 
 Sister to Cooksboro had negotiated a five- 
 barred gate, with a balking footboard 
 leading up to it, two fields from the kill, 
 while the Major's wife was tearing her hat 
 and habit clear of a huge loose thorn- 
 bush that she had dragged into the mid- 
 dle of the field from the parallel bull- 
 finch, that he was enabled to regain his 
 ascendency and lower his colours on his 
 first appearance as Master of the O.V.H. 
 to none but his two cousins and his hunts- 
 man. 
 
 " That young sinner had it all to him- 
 self for the last half, so far as I could see," 
 said Ralph, pointing to Ruby, who was 
 carefully picking a thorn out of the Lady's 
 knee.
 
 SECOXD HORSES. 241 
 
 " He has earned his first brush, and 
 shall have it," said Jemmy, who had 
 rather fostered the idea of giving his first 
 spoils to Georgie, but would not for a 
 second defraud Ruby of his due so sig- 
 nally won. 
 
 Close behind the cousins and Mrs. 
 ."White had come in the other "plunger" 
 and first whip, and Captain Starkey : Gar- 
 rygowan had twined his fetlocks in a stiff 
 binder, and broken his jockey's collar-bone, 
 to the great detriment of the stable in the 
 forthcoming steeplechase season. Xed 
 Masters had at last succeeded in cropping 
 the four-year-old, in attempting to follow 
 Jemmy over the gate that put the latter 
 once more on terms with Mrs. Major White ; 
 but he entered the winning field before dis- 
 memberment was complete, in company 
 with some four or five other fairish goers 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 THE O.V.H. 
 
 of the Vale, generally thereabouts' all the 
 season, but whose cattle had not the pace 
 or caste sufficient for such an exception- 
 ally fast bit of racing as the last eight or 
 nine minutes had shown. 
 
 " A very pretty forty-five minutes," said 
 Algernon Paget as he entered the pasture 
 through an improved gap on the other side 
 of the enclosure between the haystacks, just 
 as Tomboy and Trumpeter were tugging 
 and growling over the last visible morsels 
 of loose skin from the "scruff" of the fox's 
 neck ; " one of the fastest things that I have 
 seen this many a year," as he loosened his 
 girths, and wiped his forehead, which was 
 in high perspiration from the exertion of 
 holding his horse to a more moderate pace 
 that enabled him to pick his way with 
 greater safety. 
 
 " I did not think it was quite so long," 
 said Ralph drily; "I made it hardly any
 
 SECOND HORSES. 243 
 
 more than half an honr : are you sure you 
 are correct?" 
 
 " Half an hour? impossible, my dear 
 fellow ! Hounds and horses could not do 
 such a thing ; it is at least seven miles as 
 the crow flies, and we must have gone 
 another three out of our road. No, I as- 
 sure you I timed it all the way from the 
 find to the end here." 
 
 So Ralph fished for his sherry-flask, and 
 gave up the point ; and then the thirty or 
 forty horsemen, who had by now congre- 
 gated, followed Jemmy and his huntsman 
 to Whortle covers and common, where 
 those who had so provided themselves 
 would fall in with their second horses, the 
 Master exchanging Sister to Cooksboro for 
 the new bay from Symonds', now known 
 as " Pioneer." 
 
 Mr. James Blake felt very well pleased 
 with himself so far, as he jogged down
 
 244 THE O.V.H. 
 
 a ride of Whortle wood parallel to the 
 line which Dan and the hounds were 
 drawing. 
 
 It was not many minutes before a find 
 .was proclaimed; but it was a good half- 
 liour ere the fox, a bad faint-hearted one, 
 -could be persuaded, after ringing three 
 times the entire range of the woods, to set 
 his face for the open. 
 
 By that time those who had ridden 
 with anything like honesty or intent to 
 the first run, and had since kept on the 
 move more or less from point to point of 
 the deep claying rides, till the cheery 
 voice of the first whip proclaimed that the 
 sneak had at last " gone away," had taken 
 decidedly the best polish off their horses 
 for the day. 
 
 However, some thirty or forty were 
 handy at Dan's heels, as he rapidly hal- 
 looed his hounds out of cover and clapped
 
 SECOND HORSES. 245. 
 
 tliem to the line where the fox had crossed 
 the first fallow. 
 
 The rush of the field down a couple of 
 rides had prevented the fox from again 
 doubling into cover on the other side of 
 his first fence, as he had at first attempted, 
 and Dan, cheering his hounds to the scent 
 not three minutes in his rear, soon made 
 him stretch his legs, already none the 
 lighter for draggling in the soaking greasy- 
 cover, and set his head for the open. 
 
 So he led them, at a moderate hut not 
 outrageous pace, a couple of miles pretty 
 straight, to Elsted dingles ; through which 
 the mixed pack rattled him merrily, and 
 forced him out to make for shelter in the 
 gorse- bushes of Xeville's Heath, another 
 mile off; then back again he broke, close 
 to his old line, for Elsted ; but being 
 coursed by a mischievous sheep-dog as he 
 crossed the Ashton road, he turned sharp
 
 246 THE O.V.H. 
 
 to the left, and notwithstanding his gain 
 of three or four minutes' law, by the check 
 engendered by the sheep-cur's interference, 
 he made no farther than Farmer Stone's 
 rickyard, in Little Elsted ; and there lying 
 down to hide himself in a cartshed, died 
 like a craven. 
 
 It was just the sort of run that suited 
 the majority of subscribers to the O.V.H. ; 
 not that many of them would point-blank 
 have so confessed, or have had the candour 
 to express their dislike of a steeplechase- 
 gallop, such as the morning run, which was 
 too fast for nine-tenths or more of them to 
 see or even hear anything of the hounds, or 
 indeed to trace or follow in any way save 
 through the gradual line or medium of the 
 "tail;" but they fully appreciated a run such 
 as that of the afternoon, of which the pace 
 was exhilarating, yet not heart-breaking, 
 sufficiently accommodating to allow some
 
 SECOND HORSES. 247 
 
 five-and-twenty to maintain their pride of 
 place at a hand canter, within an average 
 range of an enclosure's distance from the 
 hounds, and yet have time and space, with 
 the aid of short cuts, friendly checks, and 
 delays in cover, to seek convenient gaps 
 and gateways, when extra timber or un- 
 usually stiff- planted fences enviously barred 
 the more direct line of the hounds. 
 
 Nothing could be more cordial and 
 congratulatory than the valedictions of the 
 assemblage as Dan drew off the hounds, 
 well-filled with blood ; and Mr. Blake, doff- 
 ing his hat, informed his company with 
 urbanity that he should not draw any 
 more that day. 
 
 " Capital day's sport !" — " First-rate be- 
 ginning !" — " Never saw hounds better 
 handled in my life, sir!" — "Wish you all 
 success, Squire!" — " Hope we shall have 
 many such days' sport, sir!" — "A 1 turn-
 
 248 THE O.V.H. 
 
 out, and rattling good sport, Mr. Blake !" 
 And similar compliments and benedictions 
 made Mr. James Blake hug himself in 
 satisfaction, as he jogged along a bridle- 
 path to the north of Moorfields, contem- 
 plating the second brush, which he had 
 reserved for Georgie, and grudging that it 
 was not the trophy of a gamer fox. 
 
 " What on earth is the meaning of 
 that ! Look, Jem !" exclaimed Ralph, as 
 the Maule carriage drove into the Moor- 
 fields cross-roads, not a couple of hundred 
 yards hi front of them, and pulled up at 
 the side to wait for them. 
 
 " Eh ? they're late out ! I thought they 
 were to have been home for lunch," said 
 Jemmy obtusely. 
 
 " Late ! I don't mean that ; look at 
 that idiot; how did he come there?" in- 
 timating Jack Marshall, whose seventh 
 heaven of felicitation seemed, to judge by
 
 SECOND HORSES. 249 
 
 his countenance, rather abased by the in- 
 opportune arrival of the M.F.H., his cou- 
 sins and belongings, who jogged up for a 
 few seconds' gossip. 
 
 " We have had a most delightful drive," 
 began Miss Vane, forty miles an hour; "and 
 we saw the hounds running, and the horses 
 jumping so well down below there — two 
 or three hours ago I think it was, Mr. 
 Blake ; and I think I saw you too — I am 
 sure I knew the shape of your hat ;" point- 
 ing to Jemmy's ruined Chapman and 
 Moore. 
 
 " I hope you had a good day," said 
 Lady Mary. " I am sorry to say that poor 
 Mr. Marshall spoilt his sport quite early, by 
 breaking his stirrup-leather; we met him 
 just here, and took compassion on him, 
 and sent John home with his horse. We 
 have been hunting on wheels ever since ; 
 but we have not seen anything much of
 
 250 THE O.V.H. 
 
 the hounds, only a few red and black 
 coats here and there in the roads." 
 
 "Horrid bore, wasn't it?" said Master 
 Jack confusedly. " Such hard lines ! and 
 I had got a good start, and the bay horse 
 was going beautifully. Just my luck! I 
 suppose you had rather a good thing?" 
 Hoping with all his heart that there had 
 not been a breath of scent after the Moor- 
 fields plantation had hidden the hounds 
 from view. 
 
 " We had a very pretty thirty minutes 
 of about half a-dozen miles," said the Mas- 
 ter, addressing himself to Georgie and Lady 
 Mary rather than the two former speakers ; 
 " and young Ruby here cut us all down 
 by a good field at the finish: we all feel 
 quite small alongside of him now." While 
 Ruby blushed up to his golden hair, and 
 dismounted to search for imaginary stones 
 in the Lady's feet.
 
 SECOND HORSES. 251 
 
 " Mr. Marshall's horse has, I expect, 
 gone on to the Vale House with John ; 
 so I have taken upon myself to ask him 
 to take pot-luck there before he rides home 
 this evening." 
 
 " Very glad indeed to see you, Mr. 
 Marshall," said Jemmy with urbanity. " I 
 am exceedingly sorry to hear of your mis- 
 hap. I trust that you did not sustain a 
 fall from the breakage." 
 
 " dear no !" said Jack ; then un- 
 guardedly adding, " It was only just above 
 here, about half- a -mile back, as I came 
 into the road; but somehow I could not 
 see it afterwards, I suppose it is gone for 
 good." 
 
 " Dinner at six sharp !" said Jemmy ; 
 " these fellows have to get back to Oxford 
 to-night. Ain't you all starving, without 
 lunch?" 
 
 "0 dear no!" said Lady Mary; "Mr.
 
 252 THE O.V.H, 
 
 Marshall kindly supplied us with plenty 
 of sandwiches and sherry." 
 
 "I promised you the first brush of the 
 season, little one," said Jemmy to Georgie 
 (he had done nothing of the sort) ; " but 
 Ruby so completely stumped us all with 
 the first fox, that I was obliged to give 
 it up to him, and to find a second one at 
 Whortle woods for you. Perhaps Ruby 
 will give you his also, if you ask him," 
 he continued, reaching over and handing 
 her the half-dried, raw-tipped brush ; while 
 Miss Vane first opened her mouth at 
 Jemmy in astonishment, and then turned 
 round to face Georgie, looking as if she 
 could eat her. 
 
 Ruby, from behind the Lady's shoulders, 
 muttered ungallantly something, that he 
 wanted his own brush, and Georgie must 
 not be greedy. And Jack Marshall looked 
 sheepishly impotent and in the shade as he
 
 SECOND HOKSES. 253 
 
 drew back out of the way of Jemmy's pre- 
 sentation arm. 
 
 Georgie held out her hand for the 
 spolia opima with a gleam of the old child- 
 ish light upon her face, and with a brief, 
 yet cordial '"Thank you, Jemmy;" then 
 took out her pocket-handkerchief to smooth 
 and dry the fur, while Miss Vane ex- 
 claimed in disgust, " How can you, Geor- 
 gie? — a clean handkerchief, and such a 
 nasty, wet, muddy, bleeding thing as 
 that!" 
 
 Then Jemmy, looking radiant and 
 pleased with himself; Ralph black, and 
 scowling savagely at Jack Marshall ; Ruby 
 and Dan relieved to be once more on the 
 move, turned their heads towards a bridle- 
 gate, to cut a mile corner off the road 
 down to the Vale House, and left the 
 britzka to pursue its way. 
 
 " Hang it !" said Jemmy, as they came
 
 254 THE O.V.H. 
 
 to the gateway, and lie dropped his fusee 
 in the mud in an ineffectual attempt to 
 light a havannah ; " that's my last. Have 
 you got a light, Ralph?" 
 
 " Ne'er a one," said the latter, feeling 
 his pockets; "but here are some wax- 
 matches. Cut up under the lee of this 
 haystack, and they won't blow out." 
 
 " Here's summat of a find," said Dan, 
 as he dismounted to reach an object which 
 caught his eye under the rick, while 
 Jemmy was diligently burning a light 
 under the shelter of Ralph's beaver. 
 
 "Eh?" said Ralph, as he turned his 
 head and saw Dan elevating a stirrup and 
 new brown leather. "What the deuce is 
 that?" 
 
 " That's young Mr. Marshall's, 111 swear 
 any day," said the second whip to Dan, 
 as he came up to inspect the treasure- 
 trove.
 
 SECOND HOKSES. 255 
 
 "You can?" said Ralph sharply. 
 " Brand-new ! And where on earth is the 
 breakage ?" he continued, as he overhauled 
 the sound and intact strap and buckle. 
 "How can you swear to it?" 
 
 " I was in Mavis's the saddler's, sir, in 
 Ashton last Michaelmas when Mr. Marshall 
 come in to order them irons. I remember 
 the pattern, and that cross-bar in the hol- 
 low foot. I've seen 'em, too, since, and 
 noticed 'em in the Grove harness-room." 
 
 " That's how Master Jack Marshall 
 breaks his leathers, is it?" said Ralph. 
 " We will have a look at his saddle before 
 he starts home to-night; I'll take short 
 odds the saddle is no more broken than 
 the leather. He's a sly beggar, Jem," he 
 continued, as the two jogged on together, 
 Ruby a little in the rear, untwisting a knot 
 in his whip-thong. 
 
 " I don't see," said Jemmy indolently.
 
 256 THE O.V.H. 
 
 "How did he lose his leather, if nothing 
 broke or gave way?" 
 
 " Chucked it over the fence there to 
 shirk the run, you old silly, and for an 
 excuse to wriggle himself into aunt Mary's 
 carriage. Can't you see ?" 
 
 " I know he's better to talk about hunt- 
 ing than to get over a country; but why 
 should he want to play the fool or invalid 
 in her carriage? He's generally keen 
 enough to see a run so long as there are 
 plenty of roads and gateways.'' 
 
 " He thinks he is not a fool ; that's just 
 what it is. I only hope Georgie will never 
 be so weak as to think him anything else ; 
 but he ought to be choked off at once, to 
 make things safe." 
 
 "Georgie! what! how do you mean?" 
 gasped Jemmy. 
 
 " Mean ? Why the gowk is after Georgie, 
 you old silly ! Have you not twigged that
 
 SECOND HORSES. 257 
 
 with half an eye for the last six months ? 
 As good a catch in the way of coin, and 
 as bad for common sense, as you would 
 find in the two counties ; but I hope there 
 is no great danger." 
 
 "The devil!'' said Jemmy, for once in 
 a way using stronger language than his 
 wont. 
 
 " I should think it was the devil if he 
 got hold of her. I fancied you too good 
 a parent not to have kept an eye all this 
 time upon your little protegee" 
 
 " My protegee ! The devil P said Jemmy 
 once more. " I mean," correcting himself 
 suddenly, " I never dreamt of such a 
 thing P 
 
 "And aunt Mary has made things 
 worse by asking him to dinner, the brute ! 
 That was why he shunted his stirrup and 
 lied like a trooper; and don't he chuckle, 
 
 VOL. I, S
 
 258 THE O.V.H. 
 
 that's all! In the britzka all day, and 
 nicking in for dinner at the end of it" 
 
 " Dinner !" said Jemmy savagely. " I'll 
 jalap his claret; don't touch any of it to- 
 night; stick to brown sherry, it's very sound. 
 — 'Ware dirt, young un !" he concluded to 
 Ruby, as the boy splashed alongside of them 
 to join the conversation. 
 
 "That's his o-ame, is it?" thought 
 Jemmy an hour later at his toilet, as he 
 brushed his hair and whiskers viciously, 
 and settled a white tie with unusual pre- 
 cision. " If he sneaks into my preserves 
 again like this, I'll find out how much 
 calomel he can carry in his nightcap without 
 troubling the coroner." 
 
 " Where was it that your stirrup gave 
 way, old fellow?" asked Ralph benignly of 
 Marshall over the cod and oyster -sauce. 
 " Was it the leather that went, or did the 
 spring in the saddle break or give?"
 
 SECOND HOESES. 259 
 
 i; I don't know. The leather parted at 
 the buckle-hole, that was it," said Jack 
 hesitatingly. " It very nearly spilt me, 
 taking me unawares like that," he added, 
 to strengthen his position. 
 
 " Yes, you must have had a good grip 
 to keep your seat under the circumstances," 
 said Ralph demurely and flatteringly. 
 " Then, if the saddle-clips are all right, 
 you will be able to carry another stirrup 
 of Jemmy's to go home with ?" 
 
 " Certainly ; I am very much obliged 
 to Mr. Blake," was the answer, as Jack 
 saw, to his delight, a reprieve from the 
 jolting and bumping of Perfection, that in 
 a five -mile ride home would have made 
 even his delightful vis-a-vis drive with 
 Georgia an expensive luxury. 
 
 " Have )'ou got a small deal-box in the 
 place, Jemmy?" asked Ralph sotto voce in 
 the hall, as they went to the drawing-room.
 
 260 THE O.V.H. 
 
 " There's an empty one that a coat 
 came in from Stultz's, somewhere under the 
 billiard-table. What do } r ou want it for?" 
 
 " That will do nicely," said Ralph, turn- 
 ing back. " I'll tell you to-night later on ; 
 our train is 9.45 ; see that the dogcart is 
 in time, will you ?" 
 
 " See this box booked carefully by the 
 carrier to Ashton to-morrow afternoon," 
 said Ralph to the valet-butler, when he 
 had carefully tacked outside the case a 
 label, — " Glass, with care. To J. Marshall, 
 Esq., Ashton Grove, Ashton," — and had 
 placed deftly in cotton -wool the intact 
 stirrup-leather and iron, with an inscription 
 affixed, " Salvage, Monday, Nov. 3d. With 
 Mr. James Blake's compliments and good 
 wishes." 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 Robson and Sons, Printers, Pancras Road; N.V.