Old Grumble Attends the Opening Hunt and gets Hunted

Feilding Star, Volume IX, Issue 108, 12 April 1888, Page 3

Old Grumble Attends the Opening Hunt and gets Hunted

♦■ " I have been to the opening hunt, Madam, in obedienoe to jour wishes, and a pretty smudge my clothes are in through it. Not jour fault, Mrs Grumble, you say? Didn't you tell me it was necessary now that the honor of " Justice of the Peace" has been conferred upon me, that I should patronise all gentlemanly sports, if we were to maintain our dignity as an old county btmily— cajolery. Tell you all about it 1 Well, when I got to the meet, where a number of horsemen had already assembled, and saw the hounds, docile animals they looked as they playfully wagged their tails ; they had not as yet disclosed their savage nature. I asked the man in charge of them what we were going to hunt, as I could see nothing to be hunted. 'It is to be a drag hunt today, sir,' he said. ' Oh, ah,' I replied knowingly, although I could not guess what kind of an auimal was. At last I conceived the idea that it was merely an abbreviation of the word dragon. * Yes, it is a dragon,' I thought, and my heart sank to the seat of my saddle at the thought of having to chase a. fierce, fiery, winged creature, the like of which I had never seen. At a signal we galloped towards a hedge. I was the first over. What do you say ? Bosiuante won't jump ? I i dion't say the horse did. No, it stopped short when it came to the hedge, and I shot off through the air like a meteor, until my gravity (the centre of which became very much diffused, extending through both arms ; and legs, including my stomach) brought me to the earth, where 1 made an impression in the mud that would have done for a mould to make a cast of the Russian Imperial arms in, which, you know, is a split crow. One of the riders who picked me up said I was a spectacle. I don't know how I looked, but I felt as flat as the glasses of a pair of them. You laugh, Mrs G.* at my • discomfiture, but had it been you who went over that hedge «8 I did, I should hare said there had been another transit of Venus. However, I had enough of busting, so I got on Bosinante, and made for home. As I was returning, I perceived a man running across a field, dragging a sheepskin behind him. He had evidently stolen it, for on seeing me he turned as though he would avoid me. I followed in pursuit, and soon overtook him, when he made his guiltiness apparent by concocting a cook and bull story about leaving a scent, so I exercised the authority which is rested in me as a J.P., and took the skin from him, which I fattened to my saddle by the string attacked to it, letting it drag upon the ground after me, as it was dirty. After I had wrung from him his name and address, which I shall give to the police, I had not gone far after leaving him when I heard the hounds in full cry coming up behind me, following in my wake. I hurried on, but they drew closer. I urged my horse to a gallop, but that did not shake them off. Faster and faster I aped, still nearer and nearer the; drew. I could hear the shouts and laughter of the huntsmen, as they urged the hounds on. Great Vesuvius! Yes, I admit I an> swearing now, my dear. I was being hunted, chased down like a negro slave, and I a J.P- too. I now threw my arms round my horse's neck to save me from falling, as its speed was outstripping the wind. (I used to laugl at John Gilpin's famous ride, but no* X can fully understand his sensations and shall never hear that recital agaii with feelings of levity. Indeed, ] shall probably weep at the account o his misfortunes). The hungry hounds with open jaws, were close upon me cheered on by the fiends who accom panied them. I expected every mo inent to be devoured, when I though of the water, and dashed into th xiver up to my saddle flaps. I wa never in so much water before. As entered the river the sheepskin go disengaged. That saved my life, fo the ravening brutes stayed and f ougl over it, and did not attempt to follow me further. But! to-morrow! mi dan»t to-morrow ! I will sit in judj m ent on the gentlemen who gave us juch a chevy, when if I do not senteu< them for toe term of their unuatur,