..... ....first week 1 Bedwardine Cork Southern Club (Killady Hill) ........ 2 Nottingham (Open) Holt, Worcester March (Open) ... Morning. 3 0 3 20 3 40 3 55 4 10 4 25 4 40 5 0 5 15 5 30 5 45 6 5 6 20 6 35 6 55 7 10 7 35 8 0 .......22 & 23 ...... 30 ................. 22 23 24, 25, & 26 ...................... 2 & 3 | Pattingham (Wolverhampton) ........24 & 25 7 Newmarket (Open) .........-28, &c. ..........9 & 10 Workington.........................28 & 29 9 & 10 Thirsk .......... Church Hill West Ward, Cumberland (Open) 10 Ardrossan ... ........17 & 18 ....... .. 31 CANINE CHARACTERISTICS. FOUR SKETCHES, FOUNDED ON FACT. BY CRAVEN. No. II.-CHICKEN HAZARD. "The hazard of a die." Some fourteen or fifteen years ago I passed a few weeks, towards the close of autumn, at a village on the Cheshire coast-Parkgate-visited occasionally by the neighbouring families for the purpose of bathing, but in every respect a most retired spot...... Adjoining the Hamlet there stood a humble whitewashed cottage, in which Riley, the eccentric author of "The Itinerant" (a true romance of real life), closed a career of many days and many troubles. Much to my surprise, I found it tenanted by an old friend, who had somewhat abruptly disappeared from the world a season or two before. By "the world," I mean that portion of it which constitutes the observed of our parks, theatres, racecourses, and similar places of fashionable rendezvous. I make no secret of name: it was Thornton, and will no doubt be familiar to many that read this passage of his fortunes.... But many who read the "mise en scène" of this opening passage of sketch, will know little of the geography of it...It is an isthmus lying between the Mersey and the Dee, leading from Chester to Hoylake. For several reasons the discovery was an agreeable one. I stood sadly in need of some one to keep me awake. Neither did he annoyed that I had discovered him in his otium sine dignitate...... appear He often came to see me at my hostel-" The George and Dragon" (represented by a brawny naked gentleman on horseback, charging with the pole of a coach a gigantic cod-fish, having a bonfire in its intestines)-found the landlord's brandy tolerable, my cigars capital, and my society what my modesty forbids me to state. Straightway we became the "Pylades and Orestes" of the place "A pair of friends, though I was young, And Thornton-" (unless Fame were fifty times as mendacious as she has credit for) as old and keen a file as ever tested the quality of metal. By the light of a purple sunset, having at my friend's "Tusculum," we sauntered abroad, inhaling the perfume of nature and Havannah cigars with a gusto the more intense that our pleasures of sense were circumscribed. Our party, moreover, included a third, who seemed to enjoy the excursion quite as much as either of his companions. This was a fine rollicking Scottish terrier, full of all the fire of his race, and with that intellectuality which is absolutely startling in many of the species. He scarcely touched the ground over which he bounded-his every movement was an impersonation of the delirium of existence. Either the golden atmosphere we were breathing, or the sherry of that colour we had been imbibing, had opened Thornton's heart; for he grew unusually communicative, and, by the help of a little pumping, I drew from him the mystery that constituted the nine days' wonder of his particular set. "You remember the widow Ward," said he; "the dashing Irishwoman whom we used to call Rocketty Ward,' from her peculiarity of gait-she who drove the unapproachable skewbald ponies, and dwelt in Upper Berkeley-street?" "Oh! you mean the divinity at whose shrine the mighty Lion Rouge (Johnny O'Brien)—” "The same. I am indebted to her for my present sojourn in these pastoral regions. Shall I tell ye all about it?" "Nothing like the twilight for confidence," said I. 66 Pooh, pooh! there is no scandal," he continued, "except, indeed, so much as attaches to myself. I was the sedu-that is, the victim. It was a near thing; but a miss is as good as a mile. Well, one pleasant May-day, some twenty moons since, I was doing the salutary between Grosvenor Gate and Hyde Park Corner, when a glance from a low cane-backed phaeton attracted me as irresistibly as the loadstone mountain did the barque of Sinbad the Sailor. Come to Berkeleystreet this evening,' said a silver voice, in the melting eloquence that infidels call brogue, but gods hail from the lip of woman as the heart's melody. "Ah! now do come. Sure you're a good soul, Thornton; and I'm very sad and solitary, that's the truth. Good-bye; and bring Cayenne, too: he is a warm-hearted dog-I love all dogs with warm hearts.'... "Nine o'clock saw Cayenne and his master in the widow's drawing room, surrounded by or-molu lamps, hothouse bouquets, nymphs in every variety of dishabillement, living love-birds on ivory perches, and dying gladiators whose marble manliness made doubly lamentable the prematurity of their fates. "People may talk as they please about paradise; but give me the boudoir of a mortal woman of a perfect savoir faire-the lady fair and spirituelle-her coffee flavoured for the palate of your True Believerher chasse of the veritable Kirschewassen, and I will go to loggerheads with no man on the score of his prepossessions. "All this I had, and something perhaps to boot; but, sinner that I am, a glance at such felicity was all that was to be permitted in my case. In the very crisis of a smile and a sip, either of which might have put life into the dust of a mummy, the door opened, and a fellow having his face, collar, and cuffs as shaggy as a polar bear's, swaggered into the room with the strut of a parish beadle on relief day. "He was presented to me as the Baron Von Hofman, but he had plaguily the look and air of a Jew clothesman. The lady invited the Baron to a hand at piquet, which she lost; and then, hinting to me in an aside that an Irishwoman may do anything,' she challenged him to give her revenge at chicken-hazard. The instruments were procured with fatal facility; for, after a few coups, all of them against her, she swo-that is, vowed-her luck was intolerable; and requested me, as preux chevalier, to espouse her quarrel, and batter the German, as her proper champion. To it we went: first for half-crowns, then crowns, pounds, tens of-and so on, by the regular arithmetical progression, till I rose from the table for the purpose of giving the fellow with the crooked nose my 1.0.U. for a thousand pounds. "Baron,' said I, with the best attempt at a smile I could get up for the occasion, allow me to owe you the amount of this acknowledgment till tomorr-' "Mit plaishure,' said the peer; and you shall bay me after deener at Sthevens's-ump! eh? Goot blaas, Sthevens's, for quiet deeners-ump! eh?" "Next night came, and I waited duly upon the illustrious foreigner at the time and place appointed, and dined as well could be expected for one who had just parted with ten pieces of oblong paper, payable, on demand, by the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, each to the melody of a hundred sovereigns. I had adopted the precaution to bring a few more of the same kind, for I was determined to have another "shy" for my money, and also had made up my mind to be especially tender with the decanters. I might, however, have spared myself any trouble about the latter part of my resolution, for the wine-merchant had taken care of that. With a little fencing, I suggested that, as we had nothing else to do, we might as well exercise the "bones" for an hour or so. What a lovely thing is continental politeness! I verily believe the dice were on the table before I had finished the sentence that contained the hint. As I had a thousand pounds to win back, we began a pretty high stake (the baron nothing loath), and the play soon waxed fast and furious. The awful crashes of boxes and dice upon the table drew growls from Cayenne, who was crouched beneath it; indeed, nothing in theshape of play could have more resembled earnest. For three mortal hours luck ran against me with the force of a winter torrent. It would have been madness longer to have attempted opposition; we therefore closed the night's amusements (with an understanding that they should be renewed on the following evening) by my handing over bills to the tune of £4,200 for the existing balance against me. "As I turned down Clifford-street, on my return to the Albany, I perceived that Cayenne carried something in his mouth. "Drop that bone, sirrah!' I exclaimed, in no very amiable tone; but he slunk away, and retained his burden. "Take the bone from that dog,' I said to the servant who admitted me. "He's got a couple of dice in his mouth, sir,' said the fellow; ' and I can't open it, unless I put a poker between his teeth.' He delivered his singular bonne bouche to me with a better grace, and I deposited the same upon my dressing-table. I know not what induced me to scrutinize them in the morning; but the examination ended in the discovery of their being so loaded as to insure a nick to five-the main the German called six times out of seven. The robbery was manifest for the Baron Munchausen (but the thief was by no means so) as the Baron of 'Stheven's. Nobody knew where he lived (if he ever lived anywhere), nor where he went, when aware that I sought him. He never appeared again, but my bills did in fulness of time. They were paid; and I am rusticating, to enable me to start again: but for Cayenne, however, the chances are that the next evening would have given me the coup de grace." As Thornton concluded, we turned ourselves towards home. The way led past a wood, on the border of which stood the cottage of an old woman who had charge of his poultry. This wood, as well as the various covers in the neighbourhood, was used as a preserve for foxes by Sir Thomas Stanley, who at the time hunted The Hundred of Worral, situated in the centre of the isthmus already described. This fine fox-hunting district has become the property of Sir Thomas Stanley's second son, Mr. Rowland Errington, the well-known master of the Quorn Hounds. We were within a few paces of the hen-wife's abode, when a rustling in the thicket attracted our notice, and brought Cayenne to a halt. At the instant a fine dog-fox "broke," with one of Thornton's pet bantams in his mouth. Like lightning the terrier was on the felon, and, as if stricken by the thunderbolt, he died the death. The fowl thus rescued literally from the jaws of death-though its jeopardy was perilous-had life enough left to induce us to bear it to the old dame's hut. As Thornton adjusted the torn plumage of the bird, and gazed upon his shaggy favourite that bounded before us in the proud consciousness of the achievement he had just accomplished, his master thus soliloquized, with an emphasis that was warranty for the sincerity of the speaker Cayenne, no wonder thou art so gamesome; my man, it is ever thy fortune to throw in at chicken-hazard !'” INSCRIPTION ON A CIGAR CASE: BENEATH THE PORTRAIT OF A FAVOURITE TERRIER THAT BELONGED TO THE WRITER. TO ONE alone that, through a chequer'd fate, I knew, who loved the man, and not his state: And seeing men would doubt such truth could be To prove the purpose, and the praise sincere, I caused the answer to be painted here. T. W. C. |