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
Quite a museum of sport is Story's den, or "sanctum," as he calls it.
Round the walls are hung innumerable sporting pictures, foxs' brushes
and masks, all mounted, and bearing the date, length of run, find, and
kill, emblazoned in gold letters underneath. On the left-hand side of
the fireplace is a gun-cupboard, well stocked with breechloaders and
rifles; for Story has some wonderful adventures in the Rocky Mountains
to relate. Opposite, on the other side, is a stick-rack, crowded with
crops, cutting-whips, ash-plants, spurs of all sizes, and hunting-caps;
while underneath are arranged a pile of white band-boxes, each
containing a shining Lincoln and Bennett. Between the windows are a row
of hat-pegs, four in number, and on every peg hangs a hat reduced to the
state of flatness said to be peculiar to pancakes.
Naturally one is struck with so novel an arrangement in dilapidated
head-gear, and in a weak moment, perhaps, one asks "What on earth those
old hats are for? Are they used in the summer to keep the birds from the
peas, or what?"
"Peas, my dear fellow; no, by gad," will be the ready reply. "They are
the hats I have come to grief in. I keep them for old lang syne. In that
one on the right I rode the famous Willowfield run. Fourteen falls, and
finished up in the Swill. On my honour, I thought I never should have
got out. Horse got on the top of me, and I was under water for a
minute;" and then, taking down the other three in succession, Story will
relate the romance attached to each.
Ill-natured slander says that their present shape is attributable to
having been violently sat upon in the garden after two days' rain, and
the authority of a discharged valet, who remonstrated on this wholesale
destruction of his perquisites, is given. But then there is nothing that
ill-natured slander will not say.
One good point about the Boaster is that he is a most stanch preserver
of foxes, and although his property is not a large one, Lappington is
always perfectly certain of finding in his coverts. It is a great-day
for him when the hounds meet in the village. No general commanding a
division feels half such a great man as Mr. Story, who, having
confidentially informed Sir John that there are no less than five foxes
in the wood, takes charge of Tom and the pack and leads them on to
victory.
Should they not find immediately, the various stages of anxiety depicted
on his face are intensely amusing, and the triumphant "I-told-you-so"
expression he assumes when at last the swelling chorus proclaims the
varmint at home, is well worth coming any distance to see.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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