Many young gentlemen canter up on thoroughbred hacks, spatter-dashed to

the knee, and enter the house to drink cherry-brandy and pay their

respects to the ladies, or, more modest and sportsmanlike, divest

themselves of their mud-boots, exchange their hacks for their hunters,

and warm their blood by a preliminary gallop round the lawn. Then they

collect round the pack in the corner and talk with Tom Moody of past

sport, and the merits of Sniveller and Diamond, and of the state of the

country and of the wretched breed of foxes.

Sir Huddlestone presently appears mounted on a clever cob and rides up

to the Hall, where he enters and does the civil thing by the ladies,

after which, being a man of few words, he proceeds to business. The

hounds are drawn up to the hall-door, and little Rawdon descends

amongst them, excited yet half-alarmed by the caresses which they

bestow upon him, at the thumps he receives from their waving tails, and

at their canine bickerings, scarcely restrained by Tom Moody's tongue

and lash.

Meanwhile, Sir Huddlestone has hoisted himself unwieldily on the Nob:

"Let's try Sowster's Spinney, Tom," says the Baronet, "Farmer Mangle

tells me there are two foxes in it." Tom blows his horn and trots off,

followed by the pack, by the whips, by the young gents from Winchester,

by the farmers of the neighbourhood, by the labourers of the parish on

foot, with whom the day is a great holiday, Sir Huddlestone bringing up

the rear with Colonel Crawley, and the whole cortege disappears down

the avenue.

The Reverend Bute Crawley (who has been too modest to appear at the

public meet before his nephew's windows), whom Tom Moody remembers

forty years back a slender divine riding the wildest horses, jumping

the widest brooks, and larking over the newest gates in the country--his

Reverence, we say, happens to trot out from the Rectory Lane on his

powerful black horse just as Sir Huddlestone passes; he joins the

worthy Baronet. Hounds and horsemen disappear, and little Rawdon

remains on the doorsteps, wondering and happy.

During the progress of this memorable holiday, little Rawdon, if he had

got no special liking for his uncle, always awful and cold and locked

up in his study, plunged in justice-business and surrounded by bailiffs

and farmers--has gained the good graces of his married and maiden

aunts, of the two little folks of the Hall, and of Jim of the Rectory,

whom Sir Pitt is encouraging to pay his addresses to one of the young

ladies, with an understanding doubtless that he shall be presented to

the living when it shall be vacated by his fox-hunting old sire. Jim

has given up that sport himself and confines himself to a little

harmless duck- or snipe-shooting, or a little quiet trifling with the

rats during the Christmas holidays, after which he will return to the

University and try and not be plucked, once more. He has already

eschewed green coats, red neckcloths, and other worldly ornaments, and

is preparing himself for a change in his condition. In this cheap and

thrifty way Sir Pitt tries to pay off his debt to his family.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024