LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 429, 28 October 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

LOVE FINDS THE WAY. (London Society.) The flat grey stone front of Haughmond Hall looked cheerless in the early dawn of a January morning in the year 1794. One bit of bright colour only broke the drab monotony of its upper storey—the face of its master, that instant clean shaved in cold water, and now appearing, as rosy as Aurora at his open dressing-room window. ‘ Keep your hands down, boys’, he called out. Five stable boys, riding five promising four-year-olds at exercise in the park on the other side of the ha-ha, looked up at the Squire’s window together, touched the peaks of their caps together, and skirting the lawn, trotted gently away under a clump of beeches, and so out of sight. Mr Haughmond went on with his toilet. By the time the horses came round again he had tied his long green-and-white checked neckerchief twice or thrice round his full neck and made a neat and sportsmanlike little bow under his chin. ‘ Take ’em on a bit faster’ was the Squire’s command. Five hands rose in acknowledgement of the head at the window, and five pairs £of vigorous youngj heels at the same moment pressed their horses’ flanks. They disappeared behind the beeches at a smart pace, and the Squire put on his morning jacket. .‘They’ll do,’ he said, as the last pair of hind hoofs in the string were lost to view, and, drawing in his head from the window, he picked up his keys and money from the dressing-table, counting the latter with the care of a methodical man; and then he warily dropped his cumbrous great gold repeater into his fob.

Mm r ■■■■■ A s he laid his hand on the heavy brass handle of his bedroom door, there came through the thick oak panels sounds of anxious scratching and whining on the - ther side, and directly the space of a few inches permitted, two white fox-terriers prime favourites of their master—bounded into the room and wished him good morning as plainly as if they had spoken in the purest Saxon. While the Squire searched in the pockets of the clothes he had worn the evening before the dogs sniffed about the room. The result of his search was a great letter, six inches square, rather the worse for the Squire’s after dinner custody, sealed on the obverse with the arms of the Elliots of Whitewell, and addressed on the reverse, in the somewhat boyish small-text hand of the heir of that house, to * Miss Georgiana Eavghmond, ‘ per favour of ‘ Gilbert Haughmond , Esq.’ Having straightened out the creases and put the corners right, the Squire, preceded by his terriers, went downstairs into the hall, where he stuck the letter in a prominent place in the letter-rack—a contrivance of sporting design which hung in the window to the right of the door, faced on the opposite shutter by a collection of seaweeds, and flanked by Mr Haughmond’s select library of twenty-one more or less useful and entertaining volumes, which reposed in well-dus-ted array in the window seat. It was towards the window to the left of the hall door that the Squire now directed his attention. Here, among his fishing-rods and guns, hung his weather-glass. This long-suffering piece of furniture came in for its usual morning allowance of thumps; after which, having thoroughly satisfied himself of the state of the weather, Squire Haughmond turned his steps towards his stable-yard. As he takes a short cut through his shrubbery and kitchen-garden, let me say a word about him. First, he is a foxhunter—an M.F. H. of five-and-twenty years’ standing ; secondly, he is a widower of fifty-five, blessed with an only child Georgiana whom he has brought up from infancy with such slight assistance as was absolutely necessary from governesses ; thirdly, he is a very red-faced elderly gentleman, to whom it is a great trouble that he seldom scales under sixteen stone. In politics, he is a Tory. In religion, 'he takes his nap in the family pew twice on every Sunday from Advent to the last of the ‘ after Trinitys. ’ His views in relation to foreign affairs may be gathered from the remark he made when a nobleman of the county who had hunted hounds badly for three or four seasons was appointed to an important embassy, that ‘he was good for nothing else.’ In home affairs Mr Haughmond was supremely satisfied with his own doings. Popular as a sportsman; {mssionate, but kind, as a master and landord; as |a magistrate, dealing out rough-and-ready justice ; obstinate as a pig. Squire Haughmond found his bosom friend, the Reverend Mr Downes, vicar of the parish, and perpetual curate of Potcote as well, dismounting from a smart crop-tailed cob in the stable-yard, , The friends shook hands across the cob’s broad back. ‘ Well, squire.’ ‘Well, parson.’ ‘ The wind shifted sou’-west as I was riding home last night. Tlere’U be a heavenly scent to-day. ’ ‘ It’s the best scenting day we’ve had for a month, in my opinion. We shall have a run—mark me. I’m going to draw Windmill Gorse first, and I haven’t drawn that blank six times in thirty years. ’ ‘My eye, how soon that bay’s legs got right ! ’ exclaimei the parson, critically scanning a great bright bay of the Squire’s own breeding. ‘My doctoring, Downes,’ explained the Squire with a triumphant smile. Having given his directions about the horses for the day’s sport, Mr Haughmond led the way to the kennels. At the end of a walk bordered bn either side by high laurels was an ivied archway, guarded by two stone foxes; behind it were the quarters of the pack. Here the Squire was quite in a congenial element. His hounds were deserving of their widespread fame. Most of them he had bred from Lazarus, a draft from the Duke’s, whose broad head the Squire now patted fondly, saying: ‘ One of the best dogs I ever cheered. ’ ‘He is a made one ! ’ cried the parson, caressing the old hound admiringly, while his friend went into the details of feeding with his head man, and personally superintended the mixing of a pudding for the pack. ‘ Come, then. How’s your appetite ? ’ said the Squire, when his labours were ended, ‘lt’s time to think about breakfast.’ ‘ I’m your man,’ was the ready response, ‘ Tell you what it is, Jack Downes, you fellows at Elliot’s last night won more of me than I thought. I could not make my money right by half a guinea this morning.’ ‘I did not have it, I’ll swear to that,’ protested the parson. ‘You won, though, I know. Never knew you lose. You’ve the best luck of any man I ever knew, and I’ve the worst. ’ ‘At cards, Squire. Only at cards. ’ *At everything. Look here, now. Last week I lose a mare worth four hundred guineas, if she was worth a brass farthing, and her foal and all. And now, here’s Georgy refuses when I put her at young Elliot, Hut she shall have him. I’ve made up my mind to that. I told the old boy so after you left last night. ‘Your son and my son-in-law,’ I said, clapping the young one on the back, I always have liked the Elliots, They’re the right strain. The lad runs like a good straightforward fox that knows his country—bred in it—none of your Leaienhall bag gentlemen. Goes out of the room and writes it all out in black and white there and then. Thai.’s what I like ’ and I jput the letter in my pocket. She shall have Talking in this strain, the sportsmen found their way into the dining-room. The Squire planted himself with his broad back to the fireplace, in which the logs were just brightening to a blaze. Two greyhounds, who had long since said good-bye to slips and stakes, lay dozing on the hearth so comfortably that they hardly cared to lift an eyelid or wag a tail for their master. A pure-bred bull-dog occupied the place of honour, and growled lazily at the terriers following closely on their master’s heels. Everything about the place was pure, from a breeder’s point of view. All the cats were black, the cocks were black-breasted reds, the bulls were the father’s of Coates’s catalogue, the cart-horses were Punches, and the hunters the progeny of well-tried winners over many a mile of emerald turf. (To be continue#,)