‘What does your father mean to do about Trumpington
Wood?’ That was the first word from Lord Chiltern
after he had shaken hands with his guest.
‘Isn’t it all right yet?’
’All right? No! How can a wood like
that be all right without a man about the place who
knows anything of the nature of a fox? In your
grandfather’s time—’
‘My great-uncle you mean.’
’Well—your great-uncle!—they
used to trap the foxes there. There was a fellow
named Fothergill who used to come there for shooting.
Now it is worse than ever. Nobody shoots there
because there is nothing to shoot. There isn’t
a keeper. Every scamp is allowed to go where
he pleases, and of course there isn’t a fox in
the whole place. My huntsman laughs at me when
I ask him to draw it.’ As the indignant
Master of the Brake Hounds said this the very fire
flashed from his eyes.
‘My dear,’ said Lady Chiltern expostulating,
’Lord Silverbridge hasn’t been in the
house above half an hour.’
’What does that matter? When a thing has
to be said it had better be said at once.’
Phineas Finn was staying at Harrington with his intimate
friends the Chilterns, as were a certain Mr and Mrs
Maule, both of whom were addicted to hunting,—the
lady whose maiden name was Palliser, being a cousin
of Lord Silverbridge. On that day also a certain
Mr and Mrs Spooner dined at Harrington. Mr and
Mrs Spooner were both very much given to hunting,
as seemed to be necessarily the case with everybody
admitted to the house. Mr Spooner was a gentleman
who might be on the wrong side of fifty, with a red
nose, very vigorous, and submissive in regard to all
things but port-wine. His wife was perhaps something
more than half his age, a stout, hard-riding, handsome
woman. She had been the penniless daughter of
a retired officer,—but yet had managed to
ride on whatever animal anyone would lend her.
Then Mr Spooner, who had for many years been part
and parcel of the Brake hunt, and who was much in
want of a wife, had, luckily for her, cast his eyes
upon Miss Leatherside. It was thought that upon
the whole she made him a good wife. She hunted
four days a week, and he could afford to keep horses
for her. She never flirted, and wanted no one
to open gates. Tom Spooner himself was not always
so forward as he used to be; but his wife was always
there and would tell him all that he did not see himself.
And she was a good housewife, taking care that nothing
should be spent lavishly, except upon the stable.
Of him, too, and of his health, she was careful, never
scrupling to say a word in season when he was likely
to hurt himself, either among the fences, or among
the decanters. ’You ain’t so young
as you were, Tom. Don’t think of doing
it.’ This she would say to him with a
loud voice when she would find him pausing at a fence.
Then she would hop over herself and he would go round.
She as ‘quite a providence to him’, as
her mother, old Mrs Leatherside, would say.
