When We Got To Exford We Left Our Cycles At The Inn And Followed Mr.
Poplington To The Hunting Stables, Which Are Near By.
I had not gone a
dozen steps from the door before I heard a great barking, and the next
minute there came around the corner a pack of hounds.
They crossed the
bridge over the little river, and then they stopped. We went up to
them, and while Mr. Poplington talked to the men the whole of that pack
of hounds gathered about us as gentle as lambs. They were good big
dogs, white and brown. The head huntsman who had them in charge told me
there was thirty couple of them, and I thought that sixty dogs was
pretty heavy odds against one deer. Then they moved off as orderly as
if they had been children in a kindergarten, and we went to the stables
and saw the horses; and then the master of the hounds and a good many
other gentlemen in red coats, in all sorts of traps, rode up, and their
hunters were saddled, and the dogs barked and the men cracked their
whips to keep them together, and there was a bustle and liveliness to a
degree I can't write about, and Jone and I never thought about going in
to breakfast until all those horses, some led and some ridden, and the
men and the hounds, and even the dust from their feet, had disappeared.
I wanted to go see the hunt start off, but Mr. Poplington said it was
two or three miles distant, and out of our way, and that we'd better
move on as soon as possible so as to reach Chedcombe that night; but
he was glad, he said, that we had had a chance to see the hounds and
the horses.
As for himself, I could see he was a little down in the mouth, for he
said he was very fond of hunting, and that if he had known of this meet
he would have been there with a horse and his hunting clothes. I think
he hoped somebody would lend him a horse, but nobody did, and not being
able to hunt himself he disliked seeing other people doing what he
could not. Of course, Jone and me could not go to the hunt by
ourselves, so after we'd had our tea and toast and bacon we started
off. I will say here that when I was at the Ship Inn I had tea for my
breakfast, for I couldn't bring my mind to order coffee - a drink the
Saxons must never have heard of - in such a place; and since that we
have been drinking it because Jone said there was no use fighting
against established drinks, and that anyway he thought good tea was
better than bad coffee.
Letter Number Twelve
CHEDCOMBE
As I said in my last letter, we started out for Chedcombe, not abreast,
as we had been before, but strung along the road, and me and Mr.
Poplington pretty doleful, being disappointed and not wanting to talk.
But as for Jone, he seemed livelier than ever, and whistled a lot of
tunes he didn't know.
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