Part 32

It is not generally known, but there are many parts of Scotland where there is first-rate partridge-shooting, and arrangements can be made to have it after the grouse-shooters have done and returned to England. I know several men who have made this arrangement, and get their sport at a very moderate cost.

But gadding about to places is not my form. I prefer to remain on the spot, and then I can always see how matters are going on.

In taking a rough bit of shooting, only one keeper is necessary; one good man will do the work far better than half a dozen bad ones. It is, I admit, a difficult thing to get such a man, but they are to be had.

I have written this paper solely for the guidance of those whose means are limited; the rich can do as they like; money is often no object to them; but this I have known to be a fact, that the man who has only spent two or three hundreds, and often very much less, on his shooting has had far better sport than many of those who have spent thousands.

WHO IS TO RIDE HIM?

In a remote and lonely part of Dorsetshire stood, in a beautifully-wooded park, a fine old mansion, Bradon Hall, belonging to George Bradon, Esq., who at the time I speak of was about eight-and-twenty.

He was one of the old school, as his father had been before him. Early in life he had been placed in a crack regiment of Dragoons, so he was not without a pretty good knowledge of the world for his age. Allowed a liberal sum by his father, he had never exceeded it; on the contrary, there was generally a fair balance at the end of the year in the hands of his agent.

He was a remarkably handsome young fellow. Bred up in the country, and left to do pretty nearly as he liked, it was not wonderful he turned out an adept at all sorts of sports.

A good cricketer, a still better fisherman, a magnificent shot, and not only the straightest but the best rider in the country; indeed riding was his forte. Not so with our late friend Artemus Ward at "playing 'oss." With all these sporting accomplishments he was much looked up to in his regiment, and it was said that the man who could live with George Bradon in any country for twenty minutes was A1 in the pigskin.

Two years previous to the time I am speaking of, he found himself master of Bradon Hall; his mother had gone many years before.

The first thing he did was to sell out and come home, where he had ever since resided. All the men in his regiment had the blues when he left. "It was an infernal bore," Captain Swagger remarked, "to lose such a vewey fine fellaw as Bwadon; he should like to know who the devil could bwoo such a cwawat-cup as Bwadon?"

At any rate George left, taking with him a magnificent gold snuff-box, a present from his fellow-officers, "which would be," as the lieutenant-colonel said, "a doocid nice thing to push about the dinner-table when he and his old friends of the regiment came down to hunt and shoot with him."

Some of them had been true to their word, and paid him a visit now and then in the sporting season. George was delighted to see them; it put him in mind of old times, and he was always glad to know how matters were going on in his old corps.

His father had been a great breeder of horses, and as George was just as enthusiastically fond of them, the old blood had been kept up; and with the exception of a fine specimen of an old English gentleman, who used to be daily seen walking about in a blue coat with gilt buttons, buckskins and tops, looking over his brood mares and colts, everything was the same as before. All the servants had been retained; they loved "Master George" too well to quit, nor had they been asked to.

Bradon, when with his regiment, had been the crack rider in it, and many a good stake had he won for that gallant corps. His services had always been most anxiously sought after, and mounts given him in most of the great steeple-chases of the day.

He was so cool and collected, no bustle or flurrying with him. A fine eye, a fine hand, a famous judge of pace, and strong at the finish, with a knowledge, that must almost have been born in him, when to ease his horse, force the running, or take advantage of any mistake. "On the whole," Lord Plunger, who was no mean judge, used to say--"on the whole I consider George Bradon the finest cross-country rider in Europe."

Bradon, though uncommonly lucky in his mounts, bore his honours meekly, and when he sold out and came down to the old place to live, gave up steeple-chasing altogether. "He had so much to do, so much to attend to; after a bit he would have another squeeze at the lemon, but really he must attend to his affairs first."

Repeated refusals damped the ardour of his friends, so at last they gave up asking him to ride, and he was left in quiet to pursue his own way.

Time went on, and such a person as George Bradon had almost been forgotten by the sporting public. One morning, some eighteen months after he had come home, going into the harness-room, he carelessly seated himself in the weighing-chair, and exclaimed to the old stud-groom, an heirloom his father had left him: "The same weight, Tim, I suppose--eleven three?"

The person thus appealed to, standing on tiptoe, looked up at the dial as well as he was able; for, in addition to being short and stout, he had a very tight pair of trousers, which seemed to have been made on him, and was moreover incommoded by a stiff white neckcloth, which threatened to strangle him. After having studied the dial for a few seconds, he started back, and blurted out in a voice of horror and amazement: "Can I believe my haged heyes, Master George? You're twelve five, as I'm a miserable sinner!"

"What!" exclaimed George, jumping out of the chair considerably quicker than he had got into it, and throwing away the cigar which he had been indolently puffing--"what! twelve five? It cannot be; weigh me again, Tim."

The old man did so with the same result. "Oh, hang it!" said George, "the scale is wrong; it cannot be. I am not a bit heavier than I was; the same clothes fit me I wore two years ago. It's all bosh."

"I don't know, Master George, if it's all bosh or no," replied his old servant, "but the scale is right. Now lookee, sir, I've been fourteen stun nine for the last eleven years--not a hounce more or less. See my weight, sir."

George cast his eyes up at the dial as Tim wriggled himself into the chair.

"Yes," he said, "you are right--fourteen nine to a fraction, Tim. How the deuce I came to be this weight I have no idea; but I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that, instead of eleven three, my old walking weight, I am twelve five--sixteen pounds in less than two years," he muttered, as he sauntered away. "By George, I'll knock off that sixteen pounds pretty quickly, though. I detest fat people. An idle life will not suit me. I'll do Banting or something."

Tim looked after his young master as he walked away. "Well," he exclaimed at length, "Master George"--he was always Master George with the old servants--"twelve five; I'd never have thought it. There's something in his heye, though, that tells me he won't be that weight long. Although he is so cool he'll hunt every day the coming season, I'll bet my life; walk like blazes, and take physic enough to float a jolly-boat. I'll lay a sov," he remarked, as he slowly drew one out of a bag which he extracted from the depths of his capacious breeches-pocket, "that he is in his old form this day six months; dashed if I don't bet a fiver, or any part of it." But as no one was there to take him, he put back the coin, gave the neck of the bag a twist, and after a struggle managed to convey it to his breeches pocket again.

"What will my old woman say," he continued, "when I tells her o' this? she as nussed him as a foal, and said he'd never get fat like me. It's heart-breaking to think on. And there's Guardsman, the finest and fastest hunter in England, just coming six; how will he be able to carry him if he goes sticking mountains of flesh on like that?--he can't do it. He'll have to ride in a seven-pound saddle; but I don't let him do that, not if I knows it--he'd break his precious neck, and then I should like to be told where Tim Mason would be, the old woman, and all the kids. No seven-pound saddle for me. I ain't a-going to have my boy a-smashing of hisself, and all because he will put flesh on. He's the only one left of the old stock; it's time he married, and I hope he will. I'm almost afraid to tell the old woman. Twelve stun five!" he ejaculated, as he wended his way thoughtfully across the yard; "it seems almost impossible."

"Tim," said his master the next morning, "this idle life won't do for me. I'm going over to France for three or four months. Would you like a trip?"