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Maria Elena melecannel4fd5 — Rosalind Belben, HOUND MUSIC, Vintage 2002 A British foxhunting family's climb out of despair following their father's hunting accident. Fox hunting in England, 1900-1902. We start out on a glorious hunt with the master George Lupus, the hunt staff, and his wife Dorothy and children--teen-age Ida, then Griselda, and youngest Bevis--and Pastor Cornforth and various disparate characters. Bevis proves quite able to bring home a wayward hound. On another hunt George Lupus takes a tragic spill. The children tiptoe about their incapacitated father; growing brave, they sneak favored hounds up the back stairs to his bedroom. Oldest son Esmond is away at school, the other children home and being tutored by proper “Miss Inkpen.” Dorothy, also most proper, countenances no rudeness (backtalk) from the children: they stand helpless when she dismisses the whipper-in, sells off George’s hunters and all the hounds--because their “music” unbearably brings back the horrible night George died. George’s well-meaning brother Oliver suggests a trip to Africa, and off he and Dorothy go, leaving the children bereft--no father, no mother, no hunting--only George’s partially crippled, sympathetic brother Archie. The family’s house dogs--Dorothy’s dachshunds, various terriers and spaniels--remain the only canines until a foxhound finds his way home. Bevis recognizes Rumour, one of their pack, and gets his gypsy friend Jem to die the hound black, and the grounds man‘s wife to keep it. Before long, he‘s working Rumour to form the motley collection of house dogs into a pack. Young Bee--about 8 or 9, I imagine--proves to have quite a knack. Soon he and the girls and Jem, and pastor Cornforth, who has found them another hound, are riding out with their pack and preparing for a foxhunt. Ida has written to masters who bought some of their hounds to ask if they would be willing to return any of them. Meanwhile, Dorothy finds travel in Africa rather tedious--until one night, visiting acquaintances from the ship in their new, rural home. Out for a walk, Dorothy gets lost, falls down, gets hurt, and spends a ghastly night in the creepy woods. Two native boys find her. Fifteen-year-old Douod brings her water, cleans her wounds and, while practically carrying her back to civilization, peels prickly fruit to feed her its luscious red berries. The next day, Dorothy sends for Douod and gifts him magnanimously. The next day, he returns with more of the painfully peeled, precious fruit. They walk, and sit on the ground together, even though Dorothy has nothing to sit upon. She experiences an epiphany of phenomenal tenderness when Douod affectionately lays his arm across her shoulders. The tenderness lies dormant until Dorothy is home and discovers the magnitude of her children’s achievement. Their hunt has attracted subscribers now, and procured more hounds, forming a pack sufficiently large to dismiss the wayward dachshunds. In her enthusiasm, Dorothy sets out to hire a huntsman, build new kennels, etc etc--intruding so overwhelmingly that the children, having lost control, begin to back out. Uncle Archie lays into Dorothy and sets her straight. Thinking of Douod, she submits, even lets Bee wait a few more years before going off to school. Near the end of that hunting season, Snowmaid, a favorite old hound, gets lost, then returned dead in a sack. Snowmaid’s nose and face had been clenched in a trap, her paws ragged from trying to escape. Everyone mourns; that night, the hounds do not sing. I loved this book, and reread passages before picking up on it again to resavor the entire story. Rosalind Belben also wrote the wonderful OUR HORSES IN EGYPT, portraying the sisters Griselda and Ida as adults.

Kareem Shokry kareem_shofccd — just super