Men We Meet in the Field; or, The Bullshire HoundsBagot, A. G.
General
Men We Meet in the Field; or, The Bullshire Hounds
Bagot, A. G.
Hunting -- Anecdotes; Hunting -- Great Britain; Hunting -- Humor
With all his wheedling powers, Mr. Boulter is a thorough sportsman.
There is not an earth in the country that he does not know as well as
his own house; and he is equally well acquainted with the run of every
fox. Every hound he knows by name, and can give you chapter and verse
for both pedigree and performance.
A sure find for breakfast, dinner, or lunch, too, is The Grange, and for
a bottle of real old '47 port never drawn blank. Unbounded hospitality
is the order in that establishment, where throughout the season Mrs.
Boulter takes care that something is always on the table "in case the
hounds should come that way." Talking of Mrs. Boulter, there is a piece
of chaff against her husband that the day he was married he not only got
a subscription to the hounds out of the parson, but by exercising his
persuasive powers actually got off the fees!
The annual hunt-dinner is a great day for the Secretary. On that
occasion he takes the vice-chair, and proposes the health of Sir John,
the Master, in a speech which poor Mrs. B. has to listen to off and on
for the three previous days. Once the meek little woman did rebel. The
speech she had put up with, but when her lord and master returned home
at two o'clock, exceedingly jovial, and kept her awake till six o'clock
by alternately treating her to "John Peel," and informing her, with a
somewhat foolish laugh, that "they called me besht f'ller in shworld,
drunk m'very good shealth, 'pon m'shoul," she thought it was a little
too much; and when the orator awoke next day, headachey, chippy, and
penitent, she gave him a piece of her mind which so astonished him that
he has never exceeded again, and now returns at eleven sharp.
Sometimes during the summer months Boulter is to be seen struggling with
a pile of luggage at a foreign railway station, looking as miserable as
a man can look, and heavily handicapped as to the language of the
country in which his wife has elected to travel. But the trip never
lasts long. Some business connected with the hunt invariably calls him
back, and on a hot August day you will find him at the kennels chatting
with Tom Wilding over the prospects of the coming season or the young
entry, and anxiously longing for the "beastly harvest" to be over, and
for November leaves to fall.
If not there he will be riding round looking up Velveteens and his
satellites, and endeavouring to imbue them with the motto of "Live and
let live," as applicable to the fox.
THE FARMER.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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