CHAPTER LVI

THE BATTUE

WHILE Tonguey Thomson was buttonholeing the Prince, telling him about his ewes, and Jackey Jones’s ewes, and somebody else’s ewes, Mr. Bagwell stepped forward with one of those exuberant military salutes which generally denote that the donors take their change in the way of impudence out of other people, and then most respectfully submitted the programme of the day’s performance to the Duke.

Ever since Lord Brougham unbagged the schoolmaster, and sent him on his travels, there has been a growing tendency to shed ink until it has become almost impossible to arrange the simplest transaction without a great consumption of paper. Every one wants to show off in his own particular line. So Bagwell got Rodwell, the village-schoolmaster of Skelperton, to draw him an elaborate plan of the cover and country, showing two different modes of attack, one of which plans was emblazoned with a triumphant pheasant, the other with a lethargic-looking hare, both thought at Skelperton to be perfect triumphs of the art. Alas, for the aspirations of mankind! The Duke having glanced at them, cut short all discussion by handing them back, saying, “Take us where we will get the best shooting.” So Bagwell and Rodwell, and all the population of Skelperton were cushioned with as little respect as is paid to a petition in Parliament. Bagwell having restored the plans to their smart blue case, gave a chuck of the head to Ranger, who forthwith dived into his Lodge, and presently emerged with an armful of guns for the use of the distinguished trio. These being duly distributed among the loaders, his Grace, with a slight inclination of the head and wave of the hand to the Prince, put himself at the head of the party, and led the way to the scene of action.

Of course, as in showing a house, or a club, or a castle, nobody begins with the best rooms first, but draws the guests on through gradually increasing splendour, until they end in—say—St. George’s Hall, at Windsor, or in that most extraordinary production the banqueting-room in the Pavilion at Brighton, so the Duke did not dive at once into the thick of his pheasants, but nibbled a little at the outskirts, going from middling covers to better, from better to good, and from good to capital. The first the invading army halted before was South Rippleford, a long plantation of about thirty years’ growth, with a tolerable crop of fern, privet, and brushwood generally. It was some five or six acres of generally even width, close at top, and not very good travelling.

Here then they all halted on the green sward to receive arms and arrange the form of attack. Gun to his Highness, gun to the Duke, gun to Lord Marchhare. The first thing that struck the assembled group was the extreme laxity with which his Highness handled his implement. Now, it is all very well for great men to condescend, but there is no occasion to carry their familiarity to their guns, and it struck both Captain Cambo and Mr. Brown White, that there was very little to choose between being shot by a poacher or a Prince. The Duke, however, trusting these matters to Bagwell, just as he trusted the hounds to Haggish, took it for granted that all was right, so placed his distinguished guest in the post of honour, and the rest of the party having fallen into line, his Grace gave the signal to Bagwell to commence the attack, and lead them to glory, despite the want of the barley.

We do not wish to say anything unpolite, but we do think there seems something rather akin to placing the twenty-pounder against the pig-sty door, this bringing such an array of men, boys, beaters, loaders, and guns against a lot of birds, which, though handsome and ornamental, are not the most sagacious in the world. In fact, a pheasant, of all the game tribe, is the least self-provident—for though they can run pretty fast, yet when they come to fly it must be an indifferent shot who can’t knock them over—while the way in which they show themselves on their feeding-places, and the proclamations they make of their whereabouts at nights, are perfectly “unpardonable,” as the old gamekeeper said.

However, it does not do for guests to find fault with their host’s entertainment, so having come to a battue we must make the best of the business. The beaters are into the cover, the line is formed, so let us advance.

Now an unwonted clatter, and cries of cock, cock, cock, resound through the wood, scaring the cushets, and causing alarm among the denizens generally. Meanwhile all eyes are strained, and guns kept ready cocked, eager for the excitement of the “first-shot.”

Now an unusual clatter resounds across the cover, and—Bang! there it goes to Mr. Brown White’s gun.

“Rabbit!” cries Ranger, adding, “smallest donation thankfully received,” as the boy brings it up.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three guns all in a row. Two hares killed by Wheeler and Col. Nettlestead, and a hen pheasant well missed by Captain Cambo.

W-h-i-r-r! Up goes a great gollaring red-eyed cock pheasant from the ground, right in a line with the Prince.

Bang! goes his Highness half at the noise, half at the object.

“Good miss,” cries the Duke letting drive, and missing also.

Bang! Bang! Bang! go three or four guns, blowing a hen pheasant all to atoms, followed by cries of “Captain Cambo! Do keep in line!”

Bang! Bang! again, the Prince’s gun has gone off incontinently, the charge ploughing up the ground, a few paces in front of a fustian-clad beater. The second gun was that of Mr. Daintry, who let drive at an owl, thinking it was a woodcock.

On, on the invaders go, up fly the game, bang go the guns, as either fur or feathers happen to appear.

And now the fugitive pheasants having run the cover’s utmost limits, are at length ensconced amidst the ground feathering spruce and hollies, at the high end of the plantation, and the shooters emerge to take up favourable positions for the final destruction. Clatter, clatter, clatter, go the beaters, and after one or two solitary w-h-i-r-r-h-s, the rest rise as it were in a cloud, and going up like rockets come down like dumplings to the bang, bang, bangings of the guns.

So South Rippleford is shot, and the parties after recounting their individual success, and excusing their misses, enjoin Captain Cambo to keep better in line, and proceed to Yeavering Hill, rejoicing. Here the same sort of scene ensued, with the exception that the sportsmen encircled the clump, and the game being driven out in all directions, the shooting was more short, sharp, and decisive. There was plenty of firing for every one, and the steady shooting of Mr. Brown White and others made up for the missing of their companions. From the clump they marched to the Nightingale Shades’ Wood, into which they had scarcely entered ere Mr. Humphrey Cheadle viewed a fox, who came stealing along in a sort of half-cautious, half-careless, way that as good as said, “I think these are not my enemies.”

“Look out, Prince!” cried Tonguey Thomson, thinking to afford his Highness a rich treat, when the latter mistaking his meaning, levelled his gun, and doubled poor Reynard up in a minute. Then came such wailing and lamentation and such surprise on the part of the Prince, that he was not complimented on his prowess, while the Duke endeavoured to soothe matters, and get parties dispersed on their beats. At length they left the fallen hero, and the bang, bang, banging of the guns was presently resumed on the legitimate objects of their care. So they shot the Nightingale Shades, and proceeded to the Wiltshire Walk Wood, then to the Juniper Banks, and afterwards to Willowdale Glen. Here the powdered footmen appeared in the hermit’s cave—an open-fronted room cut out in the rock, with a rustic table well supplied with sandwiches, sherry, soda water, and so on. Then the victorious army halted, and the piles of provisions suddenly diminished, while the subdued pop, pop, popping of the corks supplied the place of the bang, bang, banging of the guns. And still the talk was of what each had done, what wonderful shots they had made, and how they could not help missing those that they had. Taking their own words for it, there was not a bad shot in the party. And now exhausted nature being recruited, they looked to their fire-arms, and prepared for the bon bouche of the day—the range of the crack cover, the Duchess’s Grove. This was formed of tall stately oaks, carrying their wood well up, without taking more room for their tops than was absolutely necessary. Some oaks are very unreasonable, and spread themselves out like cauliflowers, or like ladies’ crinoline, never considering that there is any one to be accommodated but themselves. In this respect they somewhat resemble the newspaper monopolists at the Clubs, who tuck the Post into the Times, sit on the News, and impale old Punch under their elbows on the tables. The oaks in the Duchess’s Grove grew nobly and well, just as Mr. Bunting’s ought to have done if they had gone for the good of their master. Many Duchesses had reigned in the Castle since they were planted, and many more would reign ere they arrived at maturity. It is trees such as these that deceive people as to the relative value of their wood. A man reads of, say, six acres of oak selling for six thousand pounds, and forthwith he jumps to the conclusion, that his forty acres at Hagburnmoss, that have been going back these twenty years, are worth the same—forty thousand pounds! whereas perhaps they are not worth a thousand. Again, a man hears of another having cut down a thousand oak trees, and estimating them all by the value of such as we are now about to enter, reckons them roundly at five pounds a-piece—five thousand pounds! and it is wonderfully surprising to hear that they are only worth a hundred. Our friend Admiral Bunting is not the only man who has been deceived by this sort of property.

The Duchess’s Grove, in addition to its fine crop of oak, had a beautiful undergrowth of healthy hazel, with abundance of shelter from briars and brambles. Here too were patches of sedgy grass for the accommodation of the hare and rabbit, so that altogether it was well reserved for the grand finale. The line being again formed, it seemed the evident desire of all parties to give the Prince a wide berth, for his random style of shooting was not at all considered as conducive to safety.

The bang, bang, banging was soon resumed, the clamour increasing in intensity as the invaders advanced up the wood, until the noise resembled the skirmishing of troops in Hyde Park on a field day. It was now fine shooting, for the pheasants rose clear and straight, giving each sportsman his fair unmistakeable mark. A man who could not hit one of these had no business to waste his substance on a licence. The Prince blazed away most assiduously, frightening them well if he did not hit them.

The wood ran out into a broad double hedge-row, whose high banks were riddled with rabbits, and studded with every description of scrubby unprofitable brush-wood, stunted birch, shabby holly, dwarfy beech, the whole plentifully mixed with blackthorn, brambles, and box-bushes. To this last refuge came all the runaway pheasants, hoping for peace and safety at last, a calculation that was grievously disappointed by the shooters forming on either side, while a few diminutive urchins were sent in to beat every bush and nook in the place. Up they flew in volleys, and volleys of shot responded to the sound. The guns could hardly be loaded quick enough.

At length the fire began to slacken, and gradually to die out, Lord Marchhare giving, like the fiddler in the rejected addresses, a “tiny flourish still,” by firing at an unfortunate rabbit that popped out prematurely. This closed the grand battue. The sport was over, and nothing remained but to recapitulate their respective performances, and count the game.

Then the great Mr. Bagwell again rose to importance, and stepping forward to relieve the Prince of his gun, hoped His Royal Highness had had a satisfactory day, whereupon the Prince assured him that he had, and slipped a couple of shillings wrapped up in tissue-paper into his hand, which Bagwell conveyed to his waistcoat-pocket with the dexterity of a railway porter, feeling perfectly satisfied that he had got a couple of sovereigns. And not too much either for a Prince to give, thought Bag, who had had some sort of mental conflict whether he wouldn’t be good for a “fi’ pun’ note.” The Duke and Lord Marchhare then surrendered their arms, and there was a general grounding of guns.

Last scene of all in this brave battue was the counting of the killed. All the pickers-up having come in and contributed their quota, the accumulated slaughter was strewn on the green sward. Cock pheasants, hen pheasants, hares, rabbits, snipes, woodcocks, wood-pigeons huddled hand over head in promiscuous confusion, from which, however, they were speedily extricated by throwing out a separate sample of each, and then dealing the rest to it like a person sorting a pack of cards. Then Mr. Bagwell, with an eye to the paragraph, having jobbed some twenty brace of pheasants from his fox-supplying friend in Leadenhall Street, introducing them stealthily into the heap, so that when the final announcement came to be made, the result was pronounced to be very satisfactory—seventy brace of pheasants, forty-three hares, three brace of wood-cocks, ten couple of rabbits, one owl, and a fox. Write ninety brace of pheasants, sixty hares, ten brace of wood-cocks, and twenty couple of rabbits, muttered his Grace to Mr. Bagwell, adding, as he returned to his companions, “that’s diplomacy.” And when the return appeared in the country paper on the Saturday following, the Earl of Musk and Lavender was extremely surprised, and wondered how his “noble friend” managed so well without the barley. And when Mr. Bagwell packed up the return pheasants, he too said, “that’s diplomacy,” though he did not exactly know the meaning of the term.