One evening Albert Edward loitered up to the hen-house I was occupying at the time and chatted to me through the wires as I shaved.
"Put up seventeen hares and ten covey of partridges visiting outposts to-day—take my advice and scrap that moustache while you're about it, it must be a heavy drain on your system—and twenty hares and four covey riding home. Do you find lathering the ears improves their growth, or what?"
"The country is crawling with game," said I, ignoring his personalities, "and here we are hanging body and soul together on bully and dog biscuit."
"Exactly," said Albert Edward, "and in the meanwhile the festive lapin breeds and breeds. Has it ever occurred to you that, if something isn't done soon, we'll have Australia's sad story over again here in Picardy? Give the rabbits a chance and in no time they'll have eaten off all the crops in France. Why, on the Burra I've seen——"
"One moment," said I; "if I listen to your South Australian rabbit story again you've got to listen to my South African locust yarn; it's only fair."
"Oh, shut up," Albert Edward growled; "can't you understand this question is deadly serious?"
"Best put the Tanks on to 'em then," I suggested; "they'd enjoy themselves, and the Waterloo Cup wouldn't be in it—Captain Monkey-Wrench's brindled whippet, 'Sardine Tin,' 6 to 4; Major Spanner's 'Pig Iron,' 7 to 2; even money the field."
"Your humour is a trifle strained," said Albert Edward; "if you're not careful you'll crack a joke at the expense of a tendon one of these days."
"Look here," said I, wiping the blood off my safety-razor, "you're evidently struggling to give expression to some heavy brain wave; out with it."
"What about a pack of harriers?" said Albert Edward. "There must be swarms of sportive tykes about, faithful Fidos that have stuck to the dear old homestead through thick and thin, also refugee animals that follow the sweet-scented infantry cookers. I've got my old hunting-horn; you've got your old crop; between the two we ought to be able to mobilize 'em a bit and put the wind up these darn hares. I'm going to try anyway. I may say I look on it as a duty."
"Looked on in that light it's a sacred duty," said I; "and—er—incidentally we might reap a haunch of hare out of it now and again, mightn't we?"
"Incidentally, yes," said Albert Edward, "and a trifle of sport into the bargain—incidentally."
So we set about collecting a pack there and then by offering our servants five francs per likely dog and no questions asked.
No questions were asked, but I have a strong suspicion that our gentlemen were up all night and that there were dark deeds done in the dead of it, for the very next evening my groom and countryman presented us with a bill for forty-five francs.
The dogs, he informed us, were kennelled "in a little shmall place the like of an ice-house" at the northern extremity of the chateau grounds, and that "anyway a blind man himself couldn't miss them wid the screechin' an' hollerin' they are afther raisin' be dint of the confinement."
I had an appointment with the Q. Staff (to explain why I had indented for sixty-four horse rations while only possessing thirty-two horses, the excuse that they all enjoyed very healthy appetites apparently not sufficing), so Albert Edward went forth to inspect the pack alone.
He came into Mess very late, looking hot and dishevelled.
"My word, they've looted a blooming menagerie," he panted in my ear; "still, couldn't expect to pick Pytchley puppies off every bush, I suppose."
"What have they got, actually?" I inquired.
"Two couple of Belgian light-draught dogs—you know, the kind they hitch on to any load too heavy for a horse—an asthmatic beagle, an an?mic bloodhound, a domesticated wolf, an unfrocked poodle, and a sort of dropsical pug."
"What on earth is the pug for?" I asked.
"Luck," said Albert Edward. "Your henchman says 'them kind of little dogs do be bringing ye luck,' and backs it up with a very convincing yarn of an uncle of his in Bally-something who had a lucky dog—'as like this wan here as two spits, except maybe for the least little curliness of the tail'—which provided complete immunity from ghosts, witches' evil and ingrowing toe-nails. I thought it cheap at five francs."
"But, good Lord, that lot'll never hunt hares," I protested.
"Won't they?" said Albert Edward grimly. "With the only meal they'll ever see prancing along in front of them, and you and me prancing along behind scourging 'em with scorpions, I rather fancy they will. By the way, I know you won't mind, but I've had to shift your bed out under the chestnut-tree; it's really quite a good tree as trees go."
"But why can't I stop in my hen-house?" I objected.
"Because I've just moved the pack there," said he.
"But why?" I went on. "What's the matter with the ice-house?"
"That's just it," he hissed in my ear; "it isn't an ice-house—never was; it's the De Valcourt family vault."
The next day being propitious, we decided to hold our first meet that evening, and issued a few invitations. The Veterinary Bloke and the Field Cashier promised to show up, likewise the Padre, once the sacredness of our cause had been explained to him.
At noon "stables" Albert Edward reported the pack in fine fettle. "Kicking up a fearful din and look desperate enough to hunt a holy angel," said he. "At five o'clock, me lad, Hard forrard! Tally-ho! and Odds-boddikins!"
However at 4.45 p.m., just as I was mounting, he appeared in my lines wearing slacks and a very downcast expression.
"Wash-out," he growled; "they've been fed and are now lying about, blown up and dead to the world."
"But who the devil fed them?" I thundered.
"They fed themselves," said Albert Edward. "They ate the blooming lucky dog at half-past four."
We therefore postponed the hunt until the morrow; but cannibalism (so cannibals assure me), once indulged in, becomes as absorbing as morphia or jig-saws, and at two-fifteen the next afternoon my groom reported the beagle to have gone the way of the pug, and the pack once more dead to the world.
There was nothing for it but to postpone the show yet again, and tie up each hound separately as a precaution against further orgies.
However it seemed to have become a habit with them, for the moment they were unleashed on the evening of the third day they turned as one dog upon the poodle.
I wiped the bloodhound's nose for him with a deft swipe of my whip lash, and Albert Edward's charger anchored the domesticated wolf by treading firmly on its tail, all of which served to give the fugitive a few seconds' start; and then a wave of mad dog dashed between our horses' legs and was on his trail screaming for gore.
The poodle heard the scream and did not dally, but got him hence with promptitude and agility. He streaked across the orchard, leading by five lengths; but the good going across the park reduced his advantage. He dived through the fence hard pressed and, with the bloodhound's hot breath singeing his tail feathers, leaped into the back of a large farm-cart which happened, providentially for him, to be meandering down the broad highway.
In the shafts of the cart was a sleepy fat Percheron mare. On the seat was a ponderous farmeress, upholstered in respectable black and crowned with a bead bonnet. They were probably making a sentimental excursion to the ruins of their farm. I know not; but I do know that the fat mare was suddenly shocked out of a pleasant drowse to find herself the centre of a frenzied pack of wolves, bloodhounds and other dog-hooligans, and, not liking the look of things, promptly bolted.
Albert Edward and I dropped over the low hedge to see the cart disappearing down the road in a whirl of dust pursued by our vociferous harriers.
The fat farmeress, her bonnet wobbling over one ear, was tugging manfully at the reins and howling to Saint Lazarus of Artois to put on the brakes. Over the tail-board protruded the head of the poodle, yelping derision at his baffled enemies.
People will tell you Percherons cannot gallop; can't they? Believe me that grey mare flitted like a startled gazelle. At all events she was too good for our pack, whom we came upon a mile distant, lying on their backs in a ditch, too exhausted to do anything but put their tongues out at us, while far away we could see a small cloud of dust careering on towards the horizon.
"God help the Traffic Controlman at the next corner," Albert Edward mused; "he'll never know what struck him. Well, that was pretty cheery while it lasted, what? To see that purler the Padre took over the garden-wall was alone worth the money."
"Oh, well, I suppose we'd best herd these perishers home to kennels while they're still too weak to protest. Come on."
"And in the meanwhile the festive lapin breeds and breeds," said Albert Edward.