_ CHAPTER THIRTEEN. BOB QUEEKER COMES OUT VERY STRONG INDEED
It is both curious and interesting to observe the multitude of unlikely ways in which the ends of justice are ofttimes temporarily defeated. Who would have imagined that an old pump would be the cause of extending Morley Jones's term of villainy, of disarranging the deep-laid plans of Mr Larks, of effecting the deliverance of Billy Towler, and of at once agonising the body and ecstatifying the soul of Robert Queeker? Yet so it was. If the old pump had not existed--if its fabricator had never been born--there is every probability that Mr Jones's career would have been cut short at an earlier period. That he would, in his then state of mind, have implicated Billy, who would have been transported along with him and almost certainly ruined; that Mr Queeker would--but hold. Let us present the matter in order.
Messrs. Merryheart and Dashope were men of the law, and Mr Robert Queeker was a man of their office--in other words, a clerk--not a "confidential" one, but a clerk, nevertheless, in whose simple-minded integrity they had much confidence. Bob, as his fellow-clerks styled him, was sent on a secret mission to Ramsgate. The reader will observe how fortunate it was that his mission was _secret_, because it frees us from the necessity of setting down here an elaborate and tedious explanation as to how, when, and where the various threads of his mission became interwoven with the fabric of our tale. Suffice it to say that the only part of his mission with which we are acquainted is that which had reference to two men--one of whom was named Mr Larks, the other Morley Jones.
Now, it so happened that Queeker's acquaintance, Mr Durant, had an intimate friend who dwelt near a beautiful village in Kent. When Queeker mentioned the circumstance of the secret mission which called him to Ramsgate, he discovered that the old gentleman was on the point of starting for this village, in company with his daughter and her cousin Fanny.
"You'll travel with us, I hope, Queeker; our roads lie in the same direction, at least a part of the way, you know," said the hearty little old gentleman, with good-nature beaming in every wrinkle, from the crown of his bald head to the last fold of his treble chin; "it will be such a comfort to have you to help me take care of the girls. And if you can spare time to turn aside for a day or two, I promise you a hearty welcome from my friend--whose residence, named Jenkinsjoy, is an antique paradise, and his hospitality unbounded. He has splendid horses, too, and will give you a gallop over as fine a country as exists between this and the British Channel. You ride, of course?"
Queeker admitted that he could ride a little.
"At least," he added, after a pause, "I used frequently to get rides on a cart-horse when I was a very little boy."
So it was arranged that Queeker should travel with them. Moreover, he succeeded in obtaining from his employers permission to delay for three days the prosecution of the mission--which, although secret, was not immediately pressing--in order that he might visit Jenkinsjoy. It was fortunate that, when he went to ask this brief holiday, he found Mr Merryheart in the office. Had it been his mischance to fall upon Dashope, he would have received a blunt refusal and prompt dismissal--so thoroughly were the joys of that gentleman identified with the woes of other people.
But, great though Queeker's delight undoubtedly was on this occasion, it was tempered by a soul-harassing care, which drew forth whole quires of poetical effusions to the moon and other celestial bodies. This secret sorrow was caused by the dreadful and astonishing fact, that, do what he would to the contrary, the weather-cock of his affections was veering slowly but steadily away from Katie, and pointing more and more decidedly towards Fanny Hennings! It is but simple justice to the poor youth to state that he loathed and abhorred himself in consequence.
"There am I," he soliloquised, on the evening before the journey began, "a monster, a brute, a lower animal almost, who have sought with all my strength to gain--perchance _have_ gained--the innocent, trusting heart of Katie Durant, and yet, without really meaning it, but, somehow, without being able to help it, I am--_not_ falling in love; oh! no, perish the thought! but, but--falling into something strangely, mysteriously, incomprehensibly, similar to--Oh! base ingrate that I am, is there no way; no back-door by which--?"
Starting up, and seizing a pen, at this point of irrepressible inspiration, he wrote, reading aloud as he set down the burning thoughts--
Oh for a postern in the rear,
Where wretched man might disappear;
And never more should seek her!
Fly, fly to earth's extremest bounds,--
Bounds, mounds, lounds, founds, kounds, downds, rounds, pounds, zounds!--hounds--ha! hounds--I have it--
"Fly, fly to earth's extremest bounds,
With huntsmen, horses, horns, and hounds
And die!--dejected Queeker.
"I wonder," thought Queeker, as he sat biting the end of his quill--his usual method of courting inspiration, "I wonder if there is anything prophetic in these lines! Durant said that his friend has splendid horses. They may, perhaps, be hunters! Ha! my early ambition, perchance, youth's fond dream, may yet be realised! But let me not hope. Hope always tells a false as well as flattering tale _to me_. She has ever been, in my experience" (he was bitter at this point) "an incorrigible li--ahem! story-teller."
Striking his clenched fist heavily on the table, Queeker rose, put on his hat, and went round to Mr Durant's merely to inquire whether he could be of any service--not that he could venture to offer assistance in the way of packing, but there _might_ be something such as roping trunks, or writing and affixing addresses, in regard to which he might perhaps render himself useful.
"Why, Miss Durant," he said, on entering, "you are _always_ busy."
"Am I?" said Katie, with a smile, as she rose and shook hands.
"Yes, I--I--assure you, Miss Durant," said Queeker, bowing to Fanny, on whose fat pretty face there was a scarlet flush, the result either of the suddenness of Queeker's entry, or of the suppression of her inveterate desire to laugh, "I assure you that it quite rouses my admiration to observe the ease with which you can turn your hand to anything. You can write out accounts better than any fellow in our office. Then you play and sing with so much ease, and I often find you making clothes for poor people, with pounds of tea and sugar in your pockets, besides many other things, and now, here you are painting like--like--one of the old masters!"
This was quite an unusual burst on the part of Queeker, who felt as though he were making some amends for his unfaithfulness in thus recalling and emphatically asserting the unquestionably good qualities of his lady-love. He felt as if he were honestly attempting to win himself back to his allegiance.
"You are very complimentary," said Katie, with a glance at her cousin, which threw that young lady into silent convulsions.
"Not at all," cried Queeker, forcing his enthusiasm up to white heat, and seizing a drawing, which he held up before him, in the vain attempt to shut Fanny out of his sight.
"Now, I call this most beautiful," he said, in tones of genuine admiration. "I _never_ saw anything so sweet before."
"Indeed!" said Katie, who observed that the youth was gazing over the top of the drawing at her cousin. "I am _so_ glad you like it, for, to say truth, I have felt disappointed with it myself, and papa says it is only so-so. Do point out to me its faults, Mr Queeker, and the parts you like best."
She rose and looked over Queeker's shoulder with much interest, and took hold of the drawing to keep it firmly in its position.
There was an excessively merry twinkle in Katie's eyes as she watched the expression of Queeker's face when he exclaimed--
"Faults, Miss Durant, there are no--eh! why, what--"
"Oh you wicked, deceptive man, you've got it upside down!" said Katie, shaking her finger at the unhappy youth, who stammered, tried to explain--to apologise--failed, broke down, and talked unutterable nonsense, to the infinite delight of his fair tormentor.
As for Fanny, that Hebe bent her head suddenly over her work-basket, and thrust her face into it as if searching with microscopic intensity for something that positively refused to be found. All that we can safely affirm in regard to her is, that if her face bore any resemblance to the scarlet of her neck, the fact that her workbox did not take fire is little short of a miracle!
Fortunately for all parties Queeker inadvertently trod on the cat's tail, which resulted in a spurt so violent as to justify a total change of subject. Before the storm thus raised had calmed down, Mr Durant entered the room.
At Jenkinsjoy Queeker certainly did meet with a reception even more hearty than he had been led to expect. Mr Durant's friend, Stoutheart, his amiable wife and daughters and strapping sons, received the youthful limb of the law with that frank hospitality which we are taught to attribute "to Merrie England in the olden time." The mansion was old-fashioned and low-roofed, trellis-worked and creeper-loved; addicted to oak panelling, balustrades, and tapestried walls, and highly suitable to ghosts of a humorous and agreeable tendency. Indeed it was said that one of the rooms actually _was_ haunted at that very time; but Queeker did not see any ghosts, although he afterwards freely confessed to having seen all the rooms in the house more or less haunted by fairy spirits of the fair sex, and masculine ghosts in buckskins and top-boots! The whole air and aspect of the neighbourhood was such that Queeker half expected to find a May-pole in the neighbouring village, sweet shepherdesses in straw hats, pink ribbons, and short kirtles in the fields, and gentle shepherds with long crooks, playing antique flageolets on green banks, with innocent-looking dogs beside them, and humble-minded sheep reposing in Arcadian felicity at their feet.
"Where does the meet take place to-day, Tom?" asked Mr Stoutheart senior of Mr Stoutheart junior, while seated at breakfast the first morning after their arrival at Jenkinsjoy.
"At Curmersfield," replied young Stoutheart.
"Ah, not a bad piece of country to cross. You remember when you and I went over it together, Amy?"
"We have gone over it so often together, papa," replied Amy, "that I really don't know to which occasion you refer."
"Why, that time when we met the hounds unexpectedly; when you were mounted on your favourite Wildfire, and appeared to have imbibed some of his spirit, for you went off at a tangent, crying out, 'Come along, papa!' and cleared the hedge at the roadside, crossed Slapperton's farm, galloped up the lane leading to Curmersfield, took the ditch, with the low fence beyond at Cumitstrong's turnip-field, in a flying leap-- obliging me to go quarter of a mile round by the gate--and overtook the hounds just as they broke away on a false scent in the direction of the Neckornothing ditch."
"Oh yes, I remember," replied Amy with a gentle smile; "it was a charming gallop. I wished to continue it, but you thought the ground would be too much for me, though I have gone over it twice since then in perfect safety. You are far too timid, papa."
Queeker gazed and listened in open-mouthed amazement, for the young girl who acknowledged in an offhand way that she had performed such tremendous feats of horsemanship was modest, pretty, unaffected, and feminine.
"I wonder," thought Queeker, "if Fan--ah, I mean Katie--could do that sort of thing?"
He looked loyally at Katie, but thought, disloyally, of her cousin, accused himself of base unfaithfulness, and, seizing a hot roll, began to eat violently.
"Would you like to see the meet, Mr Queeker?" said Mr Stoutheart senior; "I can give you a good mount. My own horse, Slapover, is neither so elegant nor so high-spirited as Wildfire, but he can go over anything, and is quite safe."
A sensitive spring had been touched in the bosom of Queeker, which opened a floodgate that set loose an astonishing and unprecedented flow of enthusiastic eloquence.
"I shall like it of all things," he cried, with sparkling eyes and heightened colour. "It has been my ambition ever since I was a little boy to mount a thoroughbred and follow the hounds. I assure you the idea of 'crossing country,' as it is called, I believe, and taking hedges, ditches, five-barred gates and everything as we go, has a charm for me which is absolutely inexpressible--"
Queeker stopped abruptly, because he observed a slight flush on Fanny's cheeks and a pursed expression on Fanny's lips, and felt uncertain as to whether or not she was laughing at him internally.
"Well said, Queeker," cried Mr Stoutheart enthusiastically; "it's a pity you are a town-bred man. Such spirit as yours can find vent only in the free air of the country!"
"Amy, dear," said Katie, with an extremely innocent look at her friend, "do huntsmen in this part of England usually take 'everything as they go?' I think Mr Queeker used that expression."
"N-not exactly," replied Amy, with a smile and glance of uncertainty, as if she did not quite see the drift of the question.
"Ah! I thought not," returned Katie with much gravity. "I had always been under the impression that huntsmen were in the habit of going _round_ stackyards, and houses, and such things--not _over_ them."
Queeker was stabbed--stabbed to the heart! It availed not that the company laughed lightly at the joke, and that Mr Stoutheart said that he (Queeker) should realise his young dream, and reiterated the assurance that his horse would carry him over _anything_ if he only held tightly on and let him go. He had been stabbed by Katie--the gentle Katie--the girl whom he had adored so long--ha! there was comfort in the word _had_; it belonged to the past; it referred to things gone by; it rhymed with sad, bad, mad; it suggested a period of remote antiquity, and pointed to a hazy future. As the latter thought rushed through his heated brain, he turned his eyes on Fanny, with that bold look of dreadful determination that marks the traitor when, having fully made up his mind, he turns his back on his queen and flag for ever! But poor Queeker found little comfort in the new prospect, for Fanny had been gently touched on the elbow by Katie when she committed her savage attack; and when Queeker looked at the fair, fat cousin, she was involved in the agonies of a suppressed but tremendous giggle.
After breakfast two horses were brought to the door. Wildfire, a sleek, powerful roan of large size, was a fit steed for the stalwart Tom, who, in neatly-fitting costume and Hessian boots, got into the saddle like a man accustomed to it. The other horse, Slapover, was a large, strong-boned, somewhat heavy steed, suitable for a man who weighed sixteen stone, and stood six feet in his socks.
"Now then, jump up, Queeker," said Mr Stoutheart, holding the stirrup.
If Queeker had been advised to vault upon the ridge-pole of the house, he could not have looked more perplexed than he did as he stood looking up at the towering mass of horse-flesh, to the summit of which he was expected to climb. However, being extremely light, and Mr Stoutheart senior very strong, he was got into the saddle somehow.
"Where _are_ the stirrups?" said Queeker, with a perplexed air, trying to look over the side of his steed.
"Why, they've forgot to shorten 'em," said Mr Stoutheart with a laugh, observing that the irons were dangling six inches below the rider's toes.
This was soon rectified. Queeker's glazed leather leggings--which were too large for him, and had a tendency to turn round--were put straight; the reins were gathered up, and the huntsman rode away.
"All you've to do is to hold on," shouted Mr Stoutheart, as they rode through the gate. "He is usually a little skittish at the start, but quiet as a lamb afterwards."
Queeker made no reply. His mind was brooding on his wrongs and sorrows; for Katie had quietly whispered him to take care and not fall off, and Fanny had giggled again.
"I _must_ cure him of his foolish fancy," thought Katie as she re-entered the house, "for Fanny's sake, if for nothing else; though I cannot conceive what she can see to like in him. There is no accounting for taste!"
"I can at all events _die_;"--thought Queeker, as he rode along, shaking the reins and pressing his little legs against the horse as if with the savage intention of squeezing the animal's ribs together.
"There _was_ prophetic inspiration in the lines!--yes," he continued, repeating them--
"Fly, fly, to earth's extremest bounds,
With huntsmen, horses, horn, and hounds,
And die--dejected Queeker!
"I'll change that--it shall be rejected Queeker _now_."
For some time Tom Stoutheart and Queeker rode over "hill and dale"--that is to say, they traversed four miles of beautiful undulating and diversified country at a leisurely pace, having started in good time.
"Your father," observed Queeker, as they rode side by side down a green lane, "said, I think, when we started, that this horse was apt to be skittish at the start. Is he difficult to hold in?"
"Oh no," replied Tom, with a reassuring smile. "He is as quiet and manageable as any man could wish. He does indeed bounce about a little when we burst away at first, and is apt then to get the bit in his teeth; but you've only to keep a tight rein and he'll go all right. His only fault is a habit of tossing his head, which is a little awkward until you get used to it."
"Yes, I have discovered that fault already," replied Queeker, as the horse gave a practical illustration of it by tossing his enormous head back until it reached to within an inch of the point of his rider's nose. "Twice he has just touched my forehead. Had I been bending a little forward I suppose he would have given me an unpleasant blow."
"Rather," said Stoutheart junior. "I knew one poor fellow who was struck in that way by his horse and knocked off insensible. I think he was killed, but don't feel quite sure as to that."
"He has no other faults, I hope?" asked Queeker.
"None. As for refusing his leaps--he refuses nothing. He carries my father over anything he chooses to run him at, so it's not likely that he'll stick with a light-weight."
This was so self-evident that Queeker felt a reply to be unnecessary; he rode on, therefore, in silence for a few minutes, comforting himself with the thought that, at all events, he could die!
"I don't intend," said Queeker, after a few minutes' consideration, "to attempt to leap everything. I think that would be foolhardy. I must tell you, Mr Stoutheart, before we get to the place of meeting, that I can only ride a very little, and have never attempted to leap a fence of any kind. Indeed I never bestrode a real hunter before. I shall therefore content myself with following the hounds as far as it is safe to do so, and will then give it up."
Young Stoutheart was a little surprised at the modest and prudent tone of this speech, but he good-naturedly replied--
"Very well, I'll guide you through the gates and gaps. You just follow me, and you shall be all right, and when you've had enough of it, let me know."
Queeker and his friend were first in the field, but they had not been there many minutes when one and another and another red-coat came cantering over the country, and ere long a large cavalcade assembled in front of a mansion, the lawn of which formed the rendezvous. There were men of all sorts and sizes, on steeds of all kinds and shapes--little men on big horses, and big men on little horses; men who looked like "bloated aristocrats" before the bloating process had begun, and men in whom the bloating process was pretty far advanced, but who had no touch of aristocracy to soften it. Men who looked healthy and happy, others who looked reckless and depraved. Some wore red-coats, cords, and tops--others, to the surprise and no small comfort of Queeker, who fancied that _all_ huntsmen wore red coats, were habited in modest tweeds of brown and grey. Many of the horses were sleek, glossy, and fine-limbed, like racers; others were strong-boned and rough. Some few were of gigantic size and rugged aspect, to suit the massive men who bestrode them. One of these in particular, a hearty, jovial farmer--and a relative of Tom's--appeared to the admiring Queeker to be big and powerful enough to have charged a whole troop of light dragoons single-handed with some hope of a successful issue. Ladies were there to witness the start, and two of the fair sex appeared ready to join the hunt and follow the hounds, while here and there little boys might be seen bent on trying their metal on the backs of Shetland ponies.
It was a stirring scene of meeting, and chatting, and laughing, and rearing, and curvetting, and fresh air, and sunshine.
Presently the master of the hounds came up with the pack at his heels. A footman of the mansion supplied all who desired it with a tumbler of beer.
"Have some beer?" said young Stoutheart, pointing to the footman referred to.
"No, thank you," said Queeker. "Will you?"
"No. I have quite enough of spirit within me. Don't require artificial stimulant," said the youth with a laugh. "Come now--we're off."
Queeker's heart gave a bound as he observed the master of the hounds ride off at a brisk pace followed by the whole field.
"I won't die yet. It's too soon," he thought, as he shook the reins and chirped to his steed.
Slapover did not require chirping. He shook his head, executed a mild pirouette on his left hind leg, and made a plunge which threatened first to leave his rider behind, and then to shoot him over his head. Queeker had been taken unawares, but he pressed his knees together, knitted his brows, and resolved not to be so taken again.
Whew! what a rush there was as the two or three hundred excited steeds and enthusiastic riders crossed the lawn, galloped through an open gate, and made towards a piece of rough ground covered with low bushes and bracken, through which the hounds were seen actively running as if in search of something. The bodies of the hounds were almost hidden, and Queeker, whose chief attention was devoted to his horse, had only time to receive the vague impression, as he galloped up, that the place was alive with white and pointed tails.
That first rush scattered Queeker's depression to the winds. What cared he for love, either successful or unrequited, now? Katie was forgotten. Fanny was to him little better than a mere abstraction. He was on a hunter! He was following the hounds! He had heard, or imagined he had heard, something like a horn. He was surprised a little that no one cried out "Tally-ho!" and in the wild excitement of his feelings thought of venturing on it himself, but the necessity of holding in Slapover with all the power of his arms, fortunately induced him to restrain his ardour.
Soon after he heard a shout of some sort, which he tried to believe was "Tally-ho!" and the scattered huntsmen, who had been galloping about in all directions, converged into a stream. Following, he knew not and cared not what or whom, he swept round the margin of a little pond, and dashed over a neighbouring field.
From that point Queeker's recollection of events became a train of general confusion, with lucid points at intervals, where incidents of unusual interest or force arrested his attention.
The first of these lucid points was when, at the end of a heavy burst over a ploughed field, he came to what may be styled his first leap. His hat by that time had threatened so frequently to come off, that he had thrust it desperately down on his head, until the rim behind rested on the back of his neck. Trotting through a gap in a hedge into a road, young Stoutheart sought about for a place by which they might clamber up into the next field without going round by the gate towards which most of the field had headed.
"D'you think you could manage that?" said Tom, pointing with the handle of his whip to a gap in the hedge, where there was a mound and a hollow with a _chevaux-de-frise_ of cut stumps around, and a mass of thorn branches sufficiently thin to be broken through.
Queeker never looked at it, but gazing steadily in the face of his friend, said--
"I'll follow!"
Stoutheart at once pushed his horse at it. It could not be called a leap. It was a mere scramble, done at the slowest possible pace. Wildfire gave one or two little bounds, and appeared to walk up perpendicularly on his hind legs, while Tom looked as if he were plastered against him with some adhesive substance; then he appeared to drop perpendicularly down on the other side, his tail alone being visible.
"All right, come along," shouted Tom.
Queeker rode up to the gap, shut his eyes, gave a chirp, and committed himself to fate and Slapover. He felt a succession of shocks, and then a pause. Venturing to open his eyes, he saw young Stoutheart, still on the other side of the fence, laughing at him.
"You shouldn't hold so tight by the reins," he cried; "you've pulled him back into the road. Try it again."
Queeker once more shut his eyes, slacked the reins, and, seizing the pommel of the saddle, gave another chirp. Again there was a shock, which appeared to drive his body up against his head; another which seemed to have all but snapped him off at the waist; then a sensation about his hat, as if a few wild-cats were attempting to tear it off, followed by a drop and a plunge, which threw him forward on his charger's neck.
"Dear me!" he exclaimed, panting, as he opened his eyes, "I had no idea the shock would have been so--so--shocking!"
Tom laughed; cried "Well done!" and galloped on. Queeker followed, his cheeks on fire, and perspiration streaming from his brow.
"Now, then, here is an easy fence," cried Stoutheart, looking back and pointing to a part of the field where most of the huntsmen were popping over a low hedge, "will you try it?"
Queeker's spirit was fairly up.
"I'll try it!" he said, sternly.
"Come on then."
Stoutheart led the way gallantly, at full speed, and went over like an india-rubber ball. Queeker brought the handle of his riding-whip whack down on the flank of his astonished horse, and flew at the fence. Slapover took it with a magnificent bound. Queeker was all but left behind! He tottered, as it were, in the saddle; rose entirely out of it; came down with a crash that almost sent him over the horse's head, and gave him the probable sensations of a telescope on being forcibly shut up; but he held on bravely, and galloped up alongside of his companion, with a tendency to cheer despite his increased surprise at the extreme violence of the shocks to which his unaccustomed frame was being exposed.
After this our enthusiastic Nimrod went at everything, and feared nothing! Well was it for him that he had arranged to follow Tom Stoutheart, else assuredly he would have run Slapover at fences which would have taxed the temerity even of that quadruped, and insured his destruction. Tom, seeing his condition, considerately kept him out of danger, and yet, being thoroughly acquainted with the country, managed to keep him well up with the hounds.
Towards the afternoon Queeker's fire began to abate. His aspect had become dishevelled. His hat had got so severely thrust down on his head, that the brim in front reposed on the bridge of his nose, as did the brim behind on the nape of his neck. His trousers were collected in folds chiefly about his knees, and the glazed leggings had turned completely round, presenting the calves to the front. But these were matters of small moment compared with the desperate desire he had to bring his legs together, if even for a moment of time! Sensations in various parts of his frame, which in the earlier part of the day had merely served to remind him that he was mortal, had now culminated into unquestionable aches and pains, and his desire to get off the back of Slapover became so intense, that he would certainly have given way to it had he not felt that in the event of his doing so there would be no possibility of his getting on again!
"Where are they all away to?" he asked in surprise, as the whole field went suddenly off helter-skelter in a new direction.
"I think they've seen the fox," replied Stoutheart.
"Seen the fox! why, I forgot all about the fox! But--but haven't we seen it before? haven't we been after it _all day_?"
"No, we've only got scent of if once or twice."
"Well, well," exclaimed Queeker, turning up his eyes, "I declare we have had as good fun as if we had been after the fox in full sight all the time!"
"Here is a somewhat peculiar leap," said Stoutheart, reining up as they approached a fence, on the other side of which was a high-road, "I'll go first, to show you the way."
The peculiarity of the leap lay in the fact that it was a drop of about four feet into the road, which was lower, to that extent, than the field, and that the side of the road into which the riders had to drop was covered with scrubby bushes. To men accustomed to it this was a trifle. Most of the field had already taken it, though a few cautious riders had gone round by a gate.
When Queeker came to try it he felt uneasy--sitting as he did so high, and looking down such a precipice as it seemed to him. However, he shut his eyes, and courageously gave the accustomed chirp, and Slapover plunged down. Queeker held tight to the saddle, and although much shaken, would have come out of the ordeal all right, had not Slapover taken it into his head to make a second spring over a low bush which stood in front of him. On the other side of this bush there was an old pump. Queeker lost his balance, threw out his arms, fell off, was hurled violently against the old pump, and his right leg was broken!
A cart was quickly procured, and on trusses of straw the poor huntsman was driven sadly and slowly, back to Jenkinsjoy, where he was tenderly put to bed and carefully nursed for several weeks by his hospitable and sympathising friends.
Queeker bore his misfortune like a Stoic, chiefly because it developed the great fact that Fanny Hennings wept a whole night and a day after its occurrence, insomuch that her fair face became so swollen as to have lost much of its identity and all its beauty--a fact which filled Queeker with hopes so high that his recovery was greatly hastened by the contented, almost joyous, manner in which he submitted to his fate.
Of course Queeker's secret mission was, for the _time_ being, at an end;--and thus it came to pass that an old pump, as we said at the beginning of this chapter, was the cause of the failure of several deep-laid plans, and of much bodily anguish and mental felicity to the youthful Nimrod.
Queeker's last observation before falling into a feverish slumber on the first night after his accident, was to the effect that fox-hunting was splendid sport--magnificent sport,--but that it appeared to him there was no occasion whatever for a fox. And ever after that he was wont to boast that his first and last day of fox-hunting, which was an unusually exciting one, had been got though charmingly without any fox at all. It is even said that Queeker, descending from poetry,--his proper sphere,-- to prose, wrote an elaborate and interesting paper on that subject, which was refused by all the sporting papers and journals to which he sent it;--but, this not being certified, we do not record it as a fact. _