Arthur O'Leary Part 28

'"Why, soldiers, why Should we be melancholy, boys?

Why, soldiers, why?

Whose business----"

Holloa, there, Francois, ain't they stirring yet? Why, it's past six o'clock!'

The person addressed was a serving-man, who in the formidable attire of an English groom--in which he was about as much at home as a coronation champion feels in plate armour--was crossing the garden towards the stables.

'No, sir; the count won't start before eight.'

'And when do we breakfast?'

'At seven, sir.'

'The devil! another hour--

"Why, soldiers, why Should we be-----"

I say, Francois, what horse do they mean for Mademoiselle Laura to-day?'

'The mare she rode on Wednesday, sir. Mademoiselle liked her very much.'

'And what have they ordered for the stranger that came the night before last--the gentleman who was robbed----'

'I know, I know, sir; the roan, with the cut on her knee.'

'Why, she's a mad one! she's a runaway!'

'So she is, sir; but then monsieur is an Englishman, and the count says he 'll soon tame the roan filly.'

'"Why, soldiers, why-----"'

hummed the old colonel, for it was Muddleton himself; and the groom pursued his way without further questioning. Whereupon two thoughts took possession of my brain: one of which was, what peculiar organisation it is which makes certain old people who have nothing to do early risers; the other, what offence had I committed to induce the master of the chateau to plot my sudden death.

The former has been a puzzle to me all my life. What a blessing should sleep be to that cla.s.s of beings who do nothing when awake; how they should covet those drowsy hours that give, as it were, a sanction to indolence; with what anxiety they ought to await the fall of day, as announcing the period when they become the equals of their fellow-men; and with what terror they should look forward to the time when the busy world is up and stirring, and their incapacity and slothfulness only become more glaring from contrast! Would not any one say that such people would naturally cultivate sleep as their comforter? Should they not hug their pillow as the friend of their bosom? On the contrary, these are invariably your early risers. Every house where I have ever been on a visit has had at least one of these troubled and troublesome spirits--the torment of Boots, the horror of housemaids. Their chronic cough forms a duet with the inharmonious crowing of the young c.o.c.k, who for lack of better knowledge proclaims day a full hour before his time.

Their creaking shoes are the accompaniment to the scrubbing of bra.s.s fenders and the twigging of carpets, the jarring sounds of opening shutters and the cranking discord of a hall door chain; their heavy step sounds like a nightmare's tread through the whole sleeping house. And what is the object of all this? What new fact have they acquired; what difficult question have they solved; whom have they made happier or wiser or better? Not Betty the cook, certainly, whose morning levee of beggars they have most unceremoniously scattered and scared; not Mary the housemaid, who, unaccustomed to be caught _en deshabille_, is cross the whole day after, though he was 'only an elderly gentleman, and wore spectacles'; not Richard, who cleaned their shoes by candle-light; nor the venerable butler, who from shame's sake is up and dressed, but who, still asleep, stands with his corkscrew in his hand, under the vague impression that it is a late supper-party.

These people, too, have always a consequential, self-satisfied look about them; they seem to say they know a 'thing or two' others have no wot of--as though the day, more confidential when few were by, told them some capital secrets the sleepers never heard of, and they made this pestilential habit a reason for eating the breakfast of a Cossack, as if the consumption of victuals was a cardinal virtue. Civilised differs from savage life as much by the regulation of time as by any other feature. I see no objection to your red man, who probably can't go to breakfast till he has caught a bear, being up betimes; but for the gentleman who goes to bed with the conviction that hot rolls and coffee, tea and marmalade, bloaters and honey, ham, m.u.f.fins, and eggs await him at ten o'clock--for him, I say, these absurd vagabondisms are an insufferable affectation, and a most unwarrantable liberty with the peace and privacy of a household.

Meanwhile, old Colonel Muddleton is parading below; and here we must leave him for another chapter.

CHAPTER XIV. THE CHASE

I wish any one would explain to me why it is that the tastes and pursuits of nations are far more difficult of imitation than their languages or inst.i.tutions. Nothing is more common than to find Poles and Russians speaking half the tongues of Europe like natives. Germans frequently attain to similar excellence; and some Englishmen have the gift also. In the same way it would not be difficult to produce many foreigners well acquainted with all the governmental details of the countries they have visited--the policy, foreign and domestic; the statistics of debt and taxation; the religious influences; the resources, and so forth. Indeed, in our days of universal travel, this kind of information has more or less become general, while the tastes and habits, which appear so much more easily acquired, are the subjects of the most absurd mistakes, or the most blundering imitation. To instance what I mean, who ever saw any but a Hungarian dance the mazurka with even tolerable grace? Who ever saw waltzing except among the Austrians? Who ever beheld 'toilette' out of France? So it is, however.

Some artificial boundary drawn with a red line on a map by the hand of Nesselrode or Talleyrand, some pin stuck down in the chart by the fingers of Metternich, decides the whole question, and says, 'Thus far shalt thou dance and no farther. Beyond this there are no _pates de Perigord_. Here begin pipes and tobacco; there end macaroni and music.'

Whatever their previous tastes, men soon conform to the habits of a nation, and these arbitrary boundaries of the gentlemen of the red tape become like Nature's own frontiers of flood or mountain. Not but it must have been somewhat puzzling in the good days of the Consulate and the Empire to trim one's sails quick enough for the changes of the political hurricane. You were an Italian yesterday, you are a Frenchman to-day; you went to bed a Prussian, and you awoke a Dutchman. These were sore trials, and had they been pushed much further, must have led to the most strange misconceptions and mistakes.

Now, with a word of apology for the digression, let me come back to the cause of it--and yet why should I make my excuses on this head? These 'Loiterings' of mine are as much in the wide field of dreamy thought as over the plains and valleys of the material world. I never promised to follow a regular track, nor did I set out on my journey bound, like a king's messenger, to be at my destination in a given time. Not a bit of it. I 'll take 'mine ease in mine inn.' I'll stay a week, a fortnight--ay, a month, here, if I please it. You may not like the accommodation, nor wish to put up with a 'settle and stewed parsnips.'

Be it so. Here we part company then. If you don't like my way of travel, there's the diligence, or, if you prefer it, take the extra post, and calculate, if you can, how to pay your postillion in kreutzers--invented by the devil, I believe, to make men swear--and for miles, that change with every little grand-duchy of three acres in extent. I wish you joy of your travelling companions--the German who smokes, and the Frenchman who frowns at you; the old _vrau_ who falls asleep on your shoulder, and the _bonne_ who gives you a baby to hold in your lap. But why have I put myself into this towering pa.s.sion? Heaven knows it's not my wont And once more to go back, and find, if I can, what I was thinking of. I have it. This same digression of mine was _apropos_ to the scene I witnessed, as our breakfast concluded at the chateau.

All the world was to figure on horseback--the horses themselves no bad evidence of the exertions used to mount the party. Here was a rugged pony from the Ardennes, with short neck and low shoulder, his head broad as a bull's, and his counter like the bow of a Dutch galliot; there, a great Flemish beast, seventeen hands high, with a tail festooned over a straw 'bustle,' and even still hanging some inches on the ground--straight in the shoulder, and straighter in the pasterns, giving the rider a shock at every motion that to any other than a Fleming would lead to concussion of the brain. Here stood an English thoroughbred, sadly 'shook' before, and with that tremulous quivering of the forelegs that betokens a life of hard work; still, with all his imperfections, and the mark of a spavin behind, he looked like a gentleman among a crowd of low fellows--a reduced gentleman it is true, but a gentleman still; his mane was long and silky, his coat was short and glossy, his head finely formed, and well put on his long, taper, and well-balanced neck. Beside him was a huge Holsteiner, flapping his broad flanks with a tail like a weeping ash-a great ma.s.sive animal, that seemed from his action as if he were in the habit of ascending stairs, and now and then got the shock one feels when they come to a step too few. Among the ma.s.s there were some 'Limousins'--pretty, neatly formed little animals, with great strength for their appearance, and showing a deal of Arab breeding--and an odd Schimmel or two from Hungary, snorting and pawing like a war-horse; but the staple was a collection of such screws as every week are to be seen at Tattersall's auction, announced as 'first-rate weight-carriers with any foxhounds, fast in double and single harness, and "believed" sound by the owner.'

Well, what credulous people are the proprietors of horses! These are the great exports to the Low Countries, repaid in mock Van Dycks, apocryphal Rembrandts, and fabulous Hobbimas, for the exhibition of which in our dining-rooms and libraries we are as heartily laughed at as they are for their taste in manners equine. And in the same way exactly as we insist upon a great name with our landscape or our battle, so your Fleming must have a pedigree with his hunter. There must be 'dam to Louisa,' and 'own brother to Ratcatcher' and t.i.tus Oates, that won the 'Levanter Handicap'

in--no matter where. Oh dear, oh dear! when shall we have sense enough to go without Snyders and Ostade? And when will Flemings be satisfied to ride on beasts which befit them--strong of limb, slow of gait, dull of temper, and not over-fastidious in feeding; whose parentage has had no registry, and whose blood relations never were chronicled?

Truly, England is the land of 'turn-out.' All the foreign imitations of it are most ludicrous--from Prince Max of Bavaria, who brought back with him to Munich a lord-mayor's coach, gilding, emblazonry, wigs, and all, as the true type of a London equipage, down to those strange merry-andrew figures in orange-plush breeches and sky-blue frocks, that one sees galloping after their masters along the Champs elysees, like insane comets taking an airing on horseback. The whole thing is absurd.

They cannot accomplish it, do what they will; there's no success in the endeavour. It is like our miserable failures to get up a _pet.i.t diner_ or a _soiree_. If, then, French, Italians, and Germans fail so lamentably, only think, I beseech you, of Flemings--imagine Belgium _a cheval_! The author of _Hudibras_ discovered years ago that these people were fish; that their land-life was a little bit of distraction they permitted themselves to take from time to time, but that their real element was a d.y.k.e or a ca.n.a.l. What would he have said had he seen them on horseback?

Now, I am free to confess that few men have less hope to win the world by deeds of horsemans.h.i.+p than Arthur O'Leary. I have ever looked upon it as a kind of presumption in me to get into the saddle. I have regarded my taking the reins as a species of duplicity on my part--a tacit a.s.sumption that I had any sort of control oyer the beast. I have appeared to myself guilty of a moral misdemeanour--the 'obtaining a ride under false pretences.' Yet when I saw myself astride of the 'roan with the cut on her knee,' and looked around me at the others, I fancied that I must have taken lessons from Franconi without knowing it; and even among the moustached heroes of the evening before, I bore myself like a gallant cavalier.

'You sit your horse devilish like your father; he had just the same easy _degage_ way in his saddle,' said the old colonel, tapping his snuff-box, and looking at me with a smile of marked approval; while he continued in a lower tone, 'I 've told Laura to get near you if the mare becomes troublesome. The Flemings, you know, are not much to boast of as riders.'

I acknowledged the favour as well as I could, for already my horse was becoming fidgety--every one about me thinking it essential to spur and whip his beast into the nearest approach to mettle, and caper about like so many devils, while they cried out to one another--

'Regardez, Charles, comment il est vif ce "Tear away." C'est une bete du diable. Ah, tiens, tiens, vois donc "Albert." Le voila, c'est, "All-in-my-eye," fils de "Charles Fox," frere de "Sevins-de-main."'

'Ah, marquis, how goes it? Il est beau votre cheval.'

'Oui, parbleu; he is frere aine of "Kiss-mi-ladi," qui a gagne le handicap a l'Ile du Dogs.'

And thus did these miserable imitators of Ascot and Doncaster, of Leamington and the Quorn, talk the most insane nonsense, which had been told to them by some London horse-dealer as the pedigree of their hackneys.

It was really delightful amid all this to look at the two English girls, who sat their horses so easily and so gracefully. Bending slightly with each curvet, they only yielded to the impulse of the animal as much as served to keep their own balance; the light but steady finger on the bridle, the air of quiet composure, uniting elegance with command. What a contrast to the distorted gesture, the desperate earnestness, and the fearful tenacity of their much-whiskered companions! And yet it was to please and fascinate these same pinchbeck sportsmen that these girls were then there. If they rode over everything that day--fence or rail, brook or bank--it was because the _cha.s.se_ to them was less _au cerf_ than _au mari_.

Such was the case. The old colonel had left England because he preferred the Channel to the fleet; the glorious liberty which Englishmen are so proud of would have been violated in his person had he remained. His failing, like many others, was that he had lived 'not wisely, but too well'; and, in short, however cold the climate, London would have proved too hot for him had he stayed another day in it.

What a deluge of such people float over the Continent, living well and what is called 'most respectably'; dining at emba.s.sies and dancing at courts; holding their heads very high, too--most scrupulous about acquaintances, and exclusive in all their intimacies! They usually prefer foreign society to that of their countrymen, for obvious reasons.

Few Frenchmen read the _Gazette_. I never heard of a German who knew anything about the list of outlaws. Of course they have no more to say to English preserves, and so they take out a license to shoot over the foreign manors; and though a marquis or a count are but 'small deer,'

it's the only game left, and they make the best of it.

At last the host appeared, attired in a scarlet frock, and wearing a badge at his b.u.t.ton-hole something about the shape and colour of a new penny-piece. He was followed by above a dozen others, similarly habited, minus the badge; and then came about twenty more, dressed in green frocks, with red collars and cuffs--a species of smaller deities, who I learned were called 'Aspirants,' though to what they aspired, where it was, or when they hoped for it, n.o.body could inform me. Then there were _piqueurs_ and grooms and whippers-in without number, all noisy and all boisterous--about twenty couple of fox-hounds giving tongue, and a due proportion of the scarlet folk blowing away at that melodious pipe, the _cor de cha.s.se_.

With this goodly company I moved forward, 'alone, but in a crowd'; for, unhappily, my want of tact as a sporting character the previous evening had damaged me seriously with the hunting youths, and Mademoiselle Laura showed no desire to accept the companions.h.i.+p her worthy father had selected for her. 'No matter,' thought I, 'there's a great deal to see here, and I can do without chatting in so stirring a scene as this.'

Her companion was the Comte d'Espagne, an admirable specimen of what the French call 'Tigre'; for be it known that the country which once obtained a reputation little short of ludicrous for its excess of courtesy and the surplusage of its ceremony, has now, in the true spirit of reaction, adopted a degree of abruptness we should call rudeness, and a species of cold effrontery we might mistake for insolence. The disciples of this new school are significantly called 'Young Prance,'

and are distinguished for length of hair and beard, a look of frowning solemnity and mock preoccupation, very well-fitting garments and yellow gloves. These gentlemen are sparing of speech, and more so of gesture.

They give one to understand that some onerous deed of regeneration is expected at their hands, some revival of the old spirit of the nation; though in what way it is to originate in curled moustaches and lacquered boots is still a mystery to the many. But enough of them now; only of these was the Comte d'Espagne.

I had almost forgotten to speak of one part of our cortege, which should certainly not be omitted. This was a wooden edifice on wheels, drawn by a pair of horses at a brisk rate at the tail of the procession. At first it occurred to me that it might be an ambulant dog-kennel, to receive the hounds on their return. Then I suspected it to be a walking hospital for wounded sportsmen; and certainly I could not but approve of the idea, as I called to mind the position of any unlucky _cha.s.seur_, in the event of a fall, with his fifteen feet of 'metal main' around him, and I only hoped that a plumber accompanied the expedition. My humanity, however, led me astray; the paG.o.da was destined for the accommodation of a stag, who always a.s.sisted at the _cha.s.se_, whenever no other game could be started. This venerable beast, some five-and-twenty years in the service, was like a stock piece in the theatres, which, always ready, could be produced without a moment's notice. Here was no rehearsal requisite if a prima donna was sulky or a tenor was drunk; if the fox wouldn't show or the deer were shy, there was the stag, perfectly prepared for a pleasant canter of a few miles, and ready, if no one was intemperately precipitate, to give a very agreeable morning's sport. His perfections, however, went further than this; for he was trained to cross the highroad at all convenient thoroughfares, occasionally taking the main streets of a village or the market-place of a bourg, swimming whenever the water was shallow enough to follow him on horseback, and giving up the ghost at the blast of a _grand maitre's_ bugle with an accuracy as unerring as though he had performed at Franconi's.

Unhappily for me, I was not fated to witness an exhibition of his powers; for scarcely had we emerged from the wood when the dogs were laid on, and soon after found a fox.

For some time the scene was an animated one, as every Fleming seemed to pin his faith on some favourite dog; and it was rather amusing to witness the eagerness with which each followed the movements of his adopted animal, cheering him on, and encouraging him to the top of his bent. At last the word 'Away' was given, and suddenly the dogs broke cover, and made across the plain in the direction of a great wood, or rather forest, above a mile off. The country, happily for most of us (I know it was so for me), was an open surface of gentle undulation, stubble and turnips the only impediments, and clay soft enough to make a fall easy.

The sight was so far exhilarating that red coats in a gallop have always a pleasant effect; besides which, the very concourse of riders looks well. However, even as unsportsmanlike an eye as mine could detect the flaws in jockeys.h.i.+p about me--the fierce rus.h.i.+ngs of the gentlemen who pushed through the deepest ground with a loose rein, flogging manfully the while; the pendulous motions of others between the mane and the haunches, with every stride of the beast.