FullReads

On Christmas day a great family gathering took place, and one and all agreed that little Rawdon was a fine boy. They respected a possible Baronet in the boy between whom and the title there was only the little sickly, pale Pitt Blinkie.

The children were very good friends. Pitt Blinkie was too little a dog for such a big dog as Rawdon to play with, and Matilda, being only a girl, of course not fit companion for a young gentleman who was near eight years old, and going into jackets very soon. He took the command of this small party at once, the little girl and the little boy following him about with great reverence at such times as he condescended to sport with them. His happiness and pleasure in the country were extreme. The kitchen-garden pleased him hugely, the flowers moderately; but the pigeons and the poultry, and the stables, when he was allowed to visit them, were delightful objects to him. He resisted being kissed by the Misses Crawley; but he allowed Lady Jane sometimes to embrace him, and it was by her side that he liked to sit rather than by his mother. Rebecca, seeing that tenderness was the fashion, called Rawdon to her one evening, and stooped down and kissed him in the presence of all the ladies.

He looked her full in the face after the operation, trembling and turning very red, as his wont was when moved. “You never kiss me at home, Mamma,” he said; at which there was a general silence and consternation, and by no means a pleasant look in Becky’s eyes; but she was obliged to allow the incident to pass in silence.

But the greatest day of all was that on which Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone’s hounds met upon the lawn at Queen’s Crawley.

That was a famous sight for little Rawdon. At half-past ten Tom Moody, Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone’s huntsman, was seen trotting up the avenue, followed by the noble pack of hounds in a compact body, the rear being brought up by the two whips clad in stained scarlet frocks, light, hard-featured lads on well-bred lean horses, possessing marvellous dexterity in casting the points of their long, heavy whips at the thinnest part of any dog’s skin who dared to straggle from the main body, or to take the slightest notice, or even so much as wink at the hares and rabbits starting under their noses.

Next came boy Jack, Tom Moody’s son, who weighed five stone, measured eight and forty inches, and would never be any bigger. He was perched on a large raw-boned hunter, half covered by a capacious saddle. This animal was Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone’s favourite horse, the Nob. Other horses ridden by other small boys arrived from time to time, awaiting their masters, who came cantering on anon.

Tom Moody rode up presently, and he and his pack drew off into a sheltered corner of the lawn, where the dogs rolled on the grass, and played or growled angrily at one another, ever and anon breaking out into furious fights, speedily to be quelled by Tom’s voice, unmatched at rating, or the snaky thongs of the whips.

Many young gentlemen cantered up on thoroughbred hacks, spatter-dashed to the knee, and entered the house to pay their respects to the ladies, or, more modest and sportsmanlike, divested themselves of their mud-boots, exchanged their hacks for their hunters, and warmed their blood by a preliminary gallop round the lawn. Then they collected round the pack in the corner, and talked with Tom Moody of past sport, and the merits of Sniveller and Diamond, and of the state of the country and of the wretched breed of foxes.

Sir Huddlestone presently appears mounted on a clever cob, and rides up to the Hall, where he enters and does the civil thing by the ladies, after which, being a man of few words, he proceeds to business. The hounds are drawn up to the hall-door, and little Rawdon descends among them, excited yet half alarmed by the caresses which they bestow upon him, at the thumps he receives from their waving tails, and at their canine bickerings, scarcely restrained by Tom Moody’s tongue and lash.