Under One Flag

"This is something like!" he gasped.

"Magnificent!" I answered.

I but voiced the feelings of my heart-it was magnificent. The ground, which was open pasture, descended in a gentle slope for fully half a mile. Far away, and getting farther and farther, was the deer. Although it still seemed to be travelling at its leisure, plainly enough it kept away from the hounds with ease. A hundred yards behind they followed it like a single dog. You could not have covered them with the proverbial pocket-handkerchief, because they were scattered pretty widely, both to the right and to the left, and behind and in front; but evidently they were animated by a common purpose, to get on even terms with their quarry.

"This is too hot to last!" gasped Philipson.

I was becoming conscious of that fact myself. Horses jobbed out at a guinea a day are not supposed to be Derby fliers; nor are they guaranteed to keep on at top speed for an indefinite distance. Away we raced-it was, literally, racing; but, the further we went, the more clearly I realised that something was going wrong with my animal's works. I should have to ease up soon or stop entirely. The stag, and the hounds, and the country together, settled the question for me in a fashion of their own.

We had come down a reasonably graduated incline, I know not how far, and I know not how long, when I suddenly perceived that the graduation of the incline was ceasing to be reasonable. From a mere slope it was becoming transformed into a positive declivity. Instead of falling, say, one in a hundred, it was beginning to fall one in ten, and, so far as I could perceive, bade fair, ere long, to fall one in something less than two. Indeed, not more than a couple of hundred feet in front of us, unless appearances were deceptive, the ground dropped away into what looked uncommonly like a sheer precipice. At any rate, the deer and hounds, passing over it in their wild career, had disappeared from view as if by magic. Philipson and I reined up our horses as short as we could. I do not fancy that either of the brutes objected. As we did so, several other men came up one after another from behind; the legitimate hunt they were, who had followed from the first, and whom we had all but robbed of their laurels. They reined up almost in a line with us.

"Pretty steep bit here," said a man upon my left.

A man upon his left replied to him.

"Beastly! That's an old quarry ahead; you can get down it, but it isn't easy. There's the railway in front; there's a devil of a fence, and a devil of a hedge to tackle before you reach it. Then ditto, ditto on the other side, then a brook, then a plantation of young trees which want thinning, and which is not so well adapted to horse exercise as the maze at Hampton Court."

The speaker's knowledge of the country proved to be correct-at least, as far as Philipson and I investigated it, which was as far as the old quarry. It might have been possible to get down it-indeed, the speaker proved that it was by going down it himself, and inducing three other idiots to go down with him; but precipice-climbing on horseback had not been the sort of experience we had been in search of when we went "stagging." Philipson and I refrained. We remained up above with several other sensible persons, and watched those enthusiastic "staggers" tearing-with no slight expenditure of labour-bars out of the strongly and carefully-constructed fence, the property of the railway company. Then, with their pocket-knives, they commenced to cut a gap in the thickest six-foot hedge, an appurtenance of the same corporation. When we had seen so much, Philipson and I had seen enough. We induced our horses to retrace their steps uphill.

The descent had been delightful, the ascent was not so pleasant. If it was half a mile down, it was, certainly, three miles up. Nor was the sum total of our satisfaction heightened when, after sundry divagations, we found ourselves in what bore a singular resemblance to that unending lane which we had originally-and so gladly! – quitted.

"It strikes me," remarked Philipson, as he looked to the right and to the left of him, "that I've been here before. I seem to know this lane."

I seemed to know it, too. But it was no use making the worst of things. I endeavoured to put a fair front upon the matter.

"I dare say if we keep on we shall get somewhere soon."

"I hope we shall," said Philipson, in what struck me as being a tone of almost needless gloom.

We did keep on-that I do earnestly protest. Not very fast, it is true-our horses, for reasons of their own, seemed to object to hurry. I said nothing, and as Philipson, if possible, said still less, conversation languished. We had pursued the devious twistings of that eternal lane for what seemed to be ten miles, and which, possibly, were nearly two, when an exclamation from Philipson roused me to a consideration of the surroundings.

"Hallo! – I say! – what's that?"

"What's what?"

I followed, with my eyes, the direction in which he was pointing with his outstretched hand. He had stayed his horse, and was raising himself in his stirrups with what seemed to be positive excitement. His interest seemed centred in a flock of sheep which browsed unconcernedly in the meadow on our left. At the first glance I thought that they were sheep, "and nothing more." A moment's inspection, however, disclosed the fact that among them was a creature of another species, a little larger than themselves, but not much, and of a different shape and colour. Like them, it grazed, "the world forgetting," if not "by the world forgot," and seemed to be so very much at its ease, and so entirely at peace with all the world, that some seconds elapsed before ocular demonstration succeeded in convincing me that it might be a relation to the noble animal which a large number of enthusiastic sportsmen were ardently pursuing.

"It is a deer?"

The words came from me in the form of a query. For some reason the inquiry seemed to nettle Philipson. He seemed to think that there could be no possible room for doubt.

"Of course it's a deer. What's more, it's the deer."

"No!"

That did seem to me to be almost inconceivable. How came the creature there? Why did it not betray more symptoms of anxiety? Did it suppose that it was out for a holiday, the programme of which included refreshments by the way? Was it possible that it could already have forgotten its wild flight from the red-hot ardour of the heated chase? What had become of the hounds, and the hunt, and the array of dog-carts, and the excited pedestrian throng? Were we two all that was left of them?

While such questions passed through my brain, for which I in vain sought answers, we sat on our horses on one side of the hedge, while on the other the proud monarch of the woodland cropped the sweet grasses with the humble sheep, for all the world as if he were one of them. Plainly, we were more interested in him than he in us; the close proximity of men caused him no annoyance.

Philipson volunteered an observation.

"I fancy we'd better stop here till the cart comes along. Someone ought to keep an eye on him. The last time I was out the deer was lost. I believe it was over two months before he was found again."

It occurred to me that Philipson was proposing that we should act towards this denizen of the forest glades very much as if we were a couple of policemen-we were to guard, not to hunt it. The responsibility which Philipson was desirous that we should assume was not, however, forced upon us. Before I could say "Yes" or "No" to what struck me as being his somewhat singular proposition, who should come trotting along the lane but the Master of the Hunt himself. He was alone. One perceived that he had not unduly spurred his willing beast. Philipson nodded. He jerked his thumb over the hedge.

"There's the deer."

"Eh?" The Master pulled up. He looked where Philipson pointed. He saw that the thing was so. "What the dickens is it doing there?" That is what I wanted to know. He was a portly man. The peculiar behaviour of the deer seemed to fill his soul with indignation. His face put on an extra tinge of ruddiness. "Where're the hounds?"

"I expect the stag threw them off in the forest; we quitted when we crossed the line and made for it-didn't think it was good enough."

I thought that Philipson's words were neatly chosen; they conveyed the impression that we had been in the hunt from the beginning, all the way, to the point alluded to.

"Where's the cart?"

"Haven't a notion. My friend and I thought that we would keep an eye upon the stag till we had news of it."

Although he did not say so, the Master appeared to think that it might be advisable that he also should keep an eye upon the stag. His interest in the creature's safety was certainly likely to be of a more personal kind than either Philipson's or mine. I take it that stags are animals of intrinsic value, not to be regarded as things to be lightly trifled with, deserving of as much care and consideration as, say, the domestic cow. So we sat, all three in a row; pretty silent, on the whole; staring over the hedge at the monarch of the woodland, as he enjoyed an adventitious meal.

Presently a boy came into the field through a gate at the side. I imagine he was a shepherd boy-I have no positive proof to adduce of the fact, but such is my impression. I noticed that he cast at the flock what I felt was an interested glance, and, as he did so, observed the stranger in their midst. It was enough for him that there was a stranger; he did not stop to inquire who he was or what had brought him there, but on the instant he obeyed what I suspect to be the natural instinct of the natural boy. I believe that I was the only one of the trio who had noticed his approach-as yet he had not noticed us at all. Had I foreseen his fell design, I should, undoubtedly, have given tongue; but by the time I had so much as an inkling of his intention it already was too late, the deed was done. It is possible that he was under the impression that the intruder was, uninvited, taking a gratuitous meal, and that he resented both his impertinence and his dishonesty. Anyhow, stooping down, he picked up a stone and hurled it at the deer with that force and that directness of aim with which boys can throw stones. The missile struck the animal a resounding blow, I should judge, in the neighbourhood of the ribs, at a moment when it was not expecting anything of the kind. It leaped high in the air in the first flush of its surprise; then, without staying to make inquiries, it bolted across the field and over the hedge at a pace which was very much in excess of anything which I had seen it display in the presence of the hounds.

I conceive that the Master was to the full as amazed as the deer had been, and also, when he understood what had happened, as indignant. He looked after the vanished animal as if totally at a loss to comprehend the cause of its curious conduct-no doubt he had known that deer before-then he brought his head round slowly, scouring the landscape as he did so, till the boy came within his line of vision. Having sighted him, he glared as at some monstrosity, his cheeks purpling, and the blood-vessels becoming more and more distinct. Philipson explained.

"The young beggar threw a brick at him-nice young rascal!"

The Master shook his clenched fist at the boy across the hedge. I never before saw an elderly gentleman in such a passion.

"You somethinged somethinged something, what do you mean by throwing your somethinged somethinged bricks at my blankety blankety deer?" Even the casual reader must have read something about the remarkable language which occasionally exudes from the lips of gentlemen, in moments of excitement, on the hunting-field. The Master flavoured the atmosphere with examples of that sort of language then. "If I get hold of you, I'll twist your somethinged somethinged head off your blankety blankety shoulders!"

If there had been a handy gate, it is probable that the Master would have used it to pursue that boy, and, regardless of consequences, when caught, have given him something for himself. But there was no gate just there. The hedge was well established and closely grown. The Master's horse was not the kind of quadruped to force its way through such an obstacle, or to surmount it by a jump, especially with its owner on its back.

The Master's stentorian tones were the first intimation the boy had received that there had been spectators of his action. When he heard that strident voice, and was saluted by that flow of language, and recognised the Master's "pink," no doubt he realised the full enormity of his offence. As he did so, like the deer, "he stood not on the order of his going, but went at once," rushing pell-mell through the gate by which he had entered, and passing from our sight.

"I'd give five pounds," declared the Master, "for a chance of breaking every bone in the scoundrel's body!"

As I was hoping that he did not mean exactly what he said, Philipson, who kept his eyes open, diverted our interest into a new channel.

"Hallo! There's the hounds!" he cried.

Turning round, as Philipson had done, sure enough, in the field behind us, there were the hounds. At least, there were some of them. Each individual member of the pack was wandering about in a desultory fashion, doing nothing in particular, apparently not a little bored, and wondering what it was that had brought it there.

"What are those dogs doing there by themselves? Where's the hunt?" inquired the Master.

That was the question. So far as could be seen, not a person was in sight. Since the deer had come in one direction, and now a portion of the hounds had come in another, perhaps, shortly, the hunt might appear in a third. One never knew. There seemed to be little or no connection between the various parties. That this was so seemed to occur to the Master. The reflection excited him. It moved him to action. There was a gate into that field, a decrepit gate, which hung loosely on its hinges. Pushing it open, the Master bustled into the meadow, holloaing and shouting with much zeal, but to little purpose. The hounds did not seem to understand him in the least, or to know him either. But when he rode right into their midst, and commenced to strike out at them indiscriminately with the lash of his hunting-whip, they began to bark at the top of their voices, and, as the poet has it, to make "the welkin ring." If clamour was what he was aiming at, then he succeeded to perfection-the "music of the pack" was deafening. But if, as I rather fancy, he entertained some dim idea of whipping the dogs on to the trail of the stag, then the result was ignominious failure. They barked and jumped about, and jumped about and barked, and he lashed them and shouted, but, beyond that, nothing and nobody got any "forwarder."

The performance might have continued until one side or the other had had enough of it-the probability being that the Master would have been the first to tire-had not the deer, finding that the hounds did not come to it, saved them trouble by coming to them. That sagacious animal-I was beginning to suspect that it was a sagacious brute, and at least as well acquainted as anyone else with the rules of the game-put in a fresh, and, as usual, wholly unexpected appearance on the scene. Philipson, as his habit seemed to be, had his eyes the widest open.

"By Jove! There's the deer!"