Tom’s voice was something extraordinary, and on one occasion when he had fallen into an old pit shaft, which had given way on the sides, and could not get out, it saved him. His halloo to the dogs brought him assistance, and he was extricated. It was capable of wonderful modulations, and to hear him rehearse the sports of the day in the big roomy servants’ kitchen at the Hall, and give his tally-ho, or who-who-hoop, was considered a treat. On one occasion, when Tom was in better trim than usual, the old housekeeper is said to have remarked, “La! Tom, you have given the who-who-hoop, as you call it, so very loud and strong to-day that you have set the cups and saucers a dancing;” to which a gentleman, who had purposely placed himself within hearing, replied, “I am not at all surprised—his voice is music itself. I am astonished and delighted, and hardly know how to praise it enough. I never heard anything so attractive and inspiring before in the whole course of my life; its tones are as fine and mellow as a French horn.”
When Squire Forester gave up hunting, the hounds went to Aldenham, as trencher hounds; the farmers of the district agreeing to keep them. They were collected the night before the hunt, fed after a day’s sport, and dismissed at a crack of the whip, each dog going off to the farm at which he was kept. But it was a great trial to Tom to see them depart; and he begged to be allowed to keep an old favourite, with which he might often have been seen sunning himself in the yard. He continued with his master from first to last, with the exception of the short time he lived with Mr. Corbet, when the Sundorne roof-trees were wont to ring to the toast of “Old Trojan,” and when the elder Sebright was his fellow-whip.
Like the old Squire, Tom never married, although, like his master, he had a leaning towards the softer sex, and spent much of his time in the company of his lady friends. One he made his banker, and the presents made to him might have amounted to something considerable if he had taken care of them. In lodging them in safe keeping he usually begged that they might be let out to him a shilling a time; but he made so many calls and pleaded so earnestly and availingly for more, and was so constant a visitor at Hangster’s Gate, that the stock never was very large. Indeed he was on familiar terms with “Chalk Farm,” as the score behind the ale-house door was termed; still he never liked getting into debt, and it was always a relief to his mind to see the sponge applied to the score.