distance of time I can do no harm in telling tales of those with whom
I was a _post facto_ accomplice. Not only I, but the very hounds knew
what was “up” when we met at Liverton. Hounds’ heads all one way; ears
cocked and sterns waving, and every now and again a dash of the wilder
members of the pack, followed by cracking whips and hunt servants
galloping round the paddock. Such days remain clear in my memory. The
fox generally had been procured overnight from the great sea-cliffs
of Boulby, where it was dangerous for hounds to draw, and where many
a leading hound has met his end with a last fearful fall of 600 feet
into the North Sea. I recollect a particularly long and trying run,
when, after a fast twenty minutes over the stiff enclosures between
Moorsholm and Grinkle, and after crossing two of the deep gills that
run up inland from the sea, our fox took the open moor, with some seven
or eight survivors of the field in hot pursuit. His first point was
Danby Beacon, and, keeping the high ridge of the moor for awhile, he
turned south into the valley of the Esk. A very excellent specimen of
the Cleveland hunting farmer, George Codling, senior, who will after
this lapse of time forgive me for naming him, had now the best of it,
and beat me to Castleton Park, being clearly first up when hounds
pulled down their fox on the very edge of the Esk River. I was there a
moment after Codling, and struggled with him to reach the fox, now in
deep water, in the midst of the swimming pack, for these were the days
when men turned their horses adrift, and almost fought for the honour
of the brush, which fell to him who took the fox from the hounds. In
our scuffle at the water’s edge, while we were using our hunting-crops
as boat-hooks, I unintentionally knocked Codling’s hat into the river,
thinking little of such a trivial accident at such a moment; but not
so Mr. Codling, who was hot with excitement, and annoyed by my efforts,
which so far had only resulted in boat-hooking the fox into deeper
waters. To lose the brush and his hat was too much, and though it was
sleeting and bitterly cold, we both of us had difficulty in keeping
our language at a decent temperature. I was too intent on my fishing,
being up to the waist and having a tug of war with the hounds over the
disputed trophy, to much heed the noise of my companion. When, at last,
after a successful dive for the remains, I regained the bank with the
head, backbone, and brush, I thought that he would be appeased when
I handed him the brush, for by this time I was cool enough, dripping
and shaking all over; but not a bit of it: the brush, of course, was
his before, so there was nothing generous in my handing it to him.
It was only adding insult to injury, to hand him a brush as if I was
presenting a testimonial. Well, anything for peace and quietness, so
in I went again for his hat, but still all efforts to make myself
agreeable were in vain. What was the use to him of a hat full of mud
and water on a coarse day like that? As we were wet through, and
covered with bog mud, I thought a wet and muddy tile was all that
any reasonable man had a right to expect, but I think I promised him
a new hat; if I have never given him one (and my memory fails me on
this point), I shall be most happy to do so now. I am certain of this,
that he demanded a new hat all the way homewards. What opportunities
artists miss! I can imagine no more comical scene for a looker-on.
Codling, in hatless wrath, with the draggled brush so hardly earned
and rescued, pouring curses on me, whilst I stood open-mouthed, blue,
and shaking, with the dripping head in my hands, the hounds crouching
and shivering and wretched around us, and the backbone of the fox
lying between us--our horses disappearing on the horizon! I think
what has stamped this day on my memory was the awful journey home in
a blizzard with a tired horse. I hardly knew what I did, but in those
days the head at my saddle, and the thought of the run, were ample
compensation for all I had endured from the water, the weather, and
the wrath of my successful competitor. I think that the disrespect I
showed to Mr. Codling’s hat rather increased in the end the friendly
relationship between him and myself. It formed a fresh link in our
hunting association, and he was far too keen a sportsman himself not to
forgive an excess of zeal on the part of another, even when it had gone
the length of nearly putting him in after his hat.
[Footnote 1: _Vide_ Turton’s “The Honor and Forest of Pickering,”
_North Riding Records_.]
[Footnote 2: Foumart, foulmart, or polecat.]
[Footnote 3: The “gent” named in verse six was a great speculator
in railway shares.]
VI
FOX-HUNTING
[Illustration]--_continued_
VI
Stags in the forest lie, hares in the valley--O!
Web-footed otters are speared in the lochs!
Beasts of the chase that are not worth a tally-ho!
All are surpassed by the gorse-cover fox.
Fishing, though pleasant,
I sing not at present,
Nor shooting the pheasant,
Nor fighting of cocks;
Song shall declare a way
How to drive care away,
Hunting the fox!
THE fox-hunter loves the morning with a cloudy sky and a touch of
east in the wind, and, luckily for him, he lives in a land where he
can get it. From November till April he is happy to live without the
sun, and it is the little red rover that makes him more than content
to stay at home, while his unlucky compatriots are chasing the sun to
Monte Carlo or the banks of the Nile. There is a charm about English
country life that is a full compensation for all the discomforts of a
fickle climate. The inconstancy of the sun, and the variableness of
our weather, prevent life in England from ever being monotonous. A
hunting-man cannot go to bed with any certainty of being free from an
exciting anxiety about the weather, any more than he can go to cover
with any confidence that scent will be good or that a fox will run
straight. He can get between the sheets, and let his fancy picture an
ideal day’s sport on the morrow, and himself being well carried over
the cream of the country; and yet, when he wakes, he hurries downstairs
and on to the lawn with a stick, to poke about to see whether it will
be possible to hunt at all.
If we could hook a salmon every time we made a good cast; if we could
curl up the rocketing pheasant every time we pressed the trigger;
if we could kill our stag every time we beaded him, there would be
no pleasure and no satisfaction in such pursuits. No sport can give
a greater variety of incident than fox-hunting, or such wondrous
transformation scenes. Chance is the magic attraction of such pursuits;
the element of the unknown the soul of all adventure.
All the surroundings of the chase minister to man’s passion for
novelty, change, excitement, and to his love of movement, of display
of colour, or of the picturesque. The scene in which each act takes
place varies not only with the formation of the ground, the alternation
of hill and vale, of woodland and field, but alters its dress with
every month, or with the infinite changes wrought by sun and skies.
The line of a fox may be guessed, but never counted on; the pace of a
run may be fast or slow; the end may be near or far distant. Scent, as
incomprehensible as woman, may be good, bad, or indifferent; and when
you trust it, it may suddenly jilt you; when cold, may turn as suddenly
hot. The ill fortune of a day may be turned by a happy hit of hound
or huntsman, or a run lost by a careless halloo or an unlucky cast.
Your place with the pack will often depend on a decision taken quick
as lightning at a critical moment, or your discomfiture arise from
half a pound too much pull on your rein as you come up to a fence. All
these, and a thousand other elements of chance, keep the fox-hunters’
passion evergreen. The fisherman may weary of flogging the unresponding
waters; the best shot, no matter how satisfactory his own performance,
may feel sated with killing, grow disgusted at the shriek of dying
hares, and have moments when he asks in vain for a logical defence of
pleasure derived at the expense of wholesale slaughter and mutilation.
There is no sport without blood, but there is no field sport with so
little bloodshed about it as hunting. When the common fate overtakes
the little marauder of the night, it is usually after a well-matched
struggle, and his end is swift as the lightning flash.
Every act in the drama on nature’s stage is full of interest and life,
from the moment that hounds burst like a flood through the kennel
door, the huntsman astride his knowing horse shoves his horn into the
case, and “whips” scramble into their saddles--until, when the Master
has sounded “home,” the last good-night has been answered as heads
are turned in different directions, and the patter of the pack on the
muddy road, and the echo of the horses’ feet, fades on the ear as at
kennel fadge they trot home in the dusk. And in the interval between
the dawn and close of a hunting-day no man can tell what he may do or
what he may see; a wild racing ten minutes’ burst, twenty-five minutes’
glorious galloping and jumping, or fifty minutes over the broad vale.
However many good things a man in a long life may see with hounds, he
will never see two alike; each will make a different call on his valour
or discretion, and yield some new experience of the wonderful power of
a good horse.
There is a fine array of arguments made use of by those who think it
necessary to defend hunting or to recommend it. The farmer may be told
it is good for him to see his seeds ridden over and his fences gapped,
and that barbed wire is the unpardonable sin referred to in Holy Writ;
that it is good for him, because hunting will enable him to sell hay,
oats, and straw, and provide horses for his landlord’s stud; and
that his tolerance of damage will gain him the generous consideration
of the proprietor of his fields; the statistician may marshal his
figures and demonstrate the economic value of hunting to the provincial
communities and the nation; the man with a liver may be recommended
the exercise for his health; and the evolutionist may point out the
progressive and physical development of man and horse that has resulted
from this pastime of a country life. But hunting will never be pursued
for utilitarian ends, or live because of the benefits it undoubtedly
bestows on either the individual or the community. These apologies or
commendations are the result of that solicitude that accompanies true
love. The chase is so dear to the hunter that he has always the dread
upon him of losing it, as a lover’s hopes are mixed with the fears of
losing what in his eyes only makes life worth living. Love of hunting
is a passion, and, like other passions, is unreasoning and illogical.
A man may marry, but does he love a woman because she brings him
a fortune, because it is his duty to the community, or because he
feels he is a better man in doing so? While his passion lasts he is
indifferent to the superior beauty, accomplishments, or wealth of any
other.
A man loves the air of a hunting morning, the horse he is astride
of, the cry of the hounds, the sound of the horn, and the cheer of
the chase without knowing why or wherefore; and though there be no
reason for it, the instinct is buried in the breasts of thousands
of non-hunting people, and the undefined sympathy of public opinion
causes it to countenance visible damage that it would never tolerate
for any arguments, however convincing, of duty to country or indirect
benefit to the individual. It is to any thinking being touching to see
the patience and kindliness shown, by a class that cannot afford loss,
to those who ride over their holdings in pursuit of pleasure, which
is often done with too little consideration for those without whose
passive support their sport must come to an end.
The question of wire has in many districts become a serious one, but
let the hunting-man ask himself how he would regard the subject if
his own livelihood and home depended entirely on what he could make
of one or two hundred acres of land, and he were asked to forego, for
the pleasure of others, the substantial saving and economy that a
particular kind of fencing would enable him to make. No man hates the
sight of wire, or laments the invention of the hideous barbed variety,
more than the writer; but it appears to him worse than unjust to
abuse and upbraid the farmer who puts it up. In the first place, the
landlord, who is more often a worse friend to hunting than the tenant,
is the man to whom representation should be made. A farmer may say,
My ability to pay my rent depends on my carrying out this, with other
economies; and if an occupier does not hunt, the only proper way to
prevent his putting up wire is to compensate him for the loss which
he incurs by foregoing his right to do so. The men who can afford
thousands for the maintenance of their studs may be expected to respond
to an appeal to find a few pounds to secure the existence of hunting.
On the other hand, the farmer who places wire so as to be a trap,
without notice, deserves the censure of all who dislike a mean or cruel
deed. In the north of England there are few counties where wire is a
serious inconvenience, and I know of none where it is a danger that is
likely to entrap a man, save on the rarest occasions.
Not only does the non-hunting farmer deserve all the assistance
that lies in the power of master and field to show to him, but the
shooting tenant should equally be the object of thoughtful and
kindly consideration. Half the sins of hunting-men, and nearly every
complaint on their part of being ill-used, are the result of their
own thoughtlessness and carelessness. As life yields its experience,
the similarity of the average human nature, whether a man be peer,
commoner, or peasant, becomes more and more apparent, as does the
magic power of charity, that best cure and preventive of bad blood. A
little attention, a little effort towards acquaintance, a few minutes
given up now and again to a friendly chat, a word or two indicating
an interest in their sport, or even a courteous salutation whenever
occasion offers from the Master and his friends, will turn opposition
into genial welcome in nine cases out of ten. It should be remembered
that these men are brother-sportsmen; circumstances or the ties of
business may have placed hunting out of their reach. Love of field
sports has led many men to make pecuniary sacrifices to obtain shooting
for themselves and their friends. There is many a hard-worked man
of business whose sole recreation consists in a day snatched from
the cares of his office, or earned by working overtime. He may have
one covert, affording one or two days’ sport out of the year, and
he naturally looks forward to these rare occasions; but to have his
little preserve rummaged by hounds, and himself abused for not having
a fox always within it, will never teach him to love the fox-hunter.
Great care should be used by an M.F.H. not to disturb and draw such
places without a courteous consideration of the shooting-tenant’s
convenience, and when this is done it will generally be found that the
shooting-man generously responds to the desire not to spoil his sport.
Little harm is done to game by running through a covert, and unless
the Master knew that such a place was just about to be shot, he could
not be expected in a good run to stop hounds. Necessity knows no law,
and in a good thing, and in the heat of action, fox-hunters would be
false to their calling to abandon the pursuit without a very strong
reason. Where there is any danger of an annoyance to a covert owner,
a polite letter, or, still better, a call to explain, will probably
cause the aggrieved one to discount heavily his previous estimate
of damage done. There is little danger of misunderstanding between
game-preservers and hunting-men so long as they cultivate a neighbourly
feeling and are kind to each other’s little weaknesses. Some of the
best fox-preservers are game-preservers, and the best among these are
not always those with the most extensive shooting. But where is the sum
of all these generalities when the circumstances of each county differ?
In some counties the game-preserver is a difficulty; in others, as in
Norfolk, he has, with his armies in velveteen, kept fox-hunting almost
off the land; in others there is little shooting and much hunting; in
others again a good deal of both. In one hunt the very number who turn
out, or a tactless Master, spoil the sport, while in another the field
consists, in the main, of farmers who take a neighbourly delight in
riding over each other’s holdings. Whenever you see a hunt where wheat
and seeds are ridden over more ruthlessly than usual, you may be sure
it is a farmer’s country.
There are as many ways of hunting a country as there are styles of
riding a horse. The object of one huntsman is to kill foxes, of another
to give his field a run, of another to see hounds work. The character
of the country itself decides in some degree whether hounds are to be
left to themselves or handled. The great points and fine runs are for
the open countries where coverts are few and foxes sufficient, but not
too plentiful. In wild or rough countries, or in high-banked counties
like Devonshire and Cornwall, hounds must to a great extent be made
self-reliant and left to hunt themselves. But fox-hunting, to be the
real thing, must have dash and go. To spend half your life standing
by a gorse watching a huntsman sauntering about, evidently equally
pleased if he can catch a fox within its precincts as in the open; to
march leisurely from one draw to the next; to see hounds kept to the
skulking fox when old Cæsar has taken the open; to follow a pottering
hunt through hand-gates and across fences, when the huntsman’s course
is pioneered by timber-felling and gap-making servants, is not hunting.
There are few ideal huntsmen. There is many a good kennel-huntsman,
many a good rider to hounds who carries the horn; but they mostly fall
into two categories, hound-men or horsemen. What is wanted is the
combination,--the man who can get anywhere with his hounds, who can
infect the pack with his fire and dash while holding them in hand, who
can throw their heads down or lift them, who never leaves them there at
the critical check to mark the place where they had it last, and who,
whilst rejoicing in the race for blood, can, when scent is catching and
fallows are cold, keep himself in hand and enjoy the slow and patient
unravelling of the puzzle. Swift and sure when he has the chance, slow
but sure when needs must. A pack takes its cue from the huntsman,
provided always he has a knowledge of his craft, for a pack will never
heed a fool. A fast huntsman will make a fast pack; a pack handled by a
dashing huntsman, if he be a huntsman, will drive; the slow huntsman
will have slack hounds,--but there is less danger that a cautious
and deliberate huntsman will spoil hounds or mar sport more than the
man who is for ever galloping his hounds. Do not imagine that when I
speak of a dashing huntsman I mean a noisy, hollering, horn-blowing,
harum-scarum Hotspur; but one to whom hounds rush, knowing he means to
give them sport; who goes sharp to cover, and into it as if he meant
business; who expects, as soon as the clear view-halloo tells that a
fox has “gone away,” that, as he flies to the open, his whips will look
sharp and get every eager hound to him; who intends that every man who
wishes to go shall have the chance if he can give it them; and that
till his fox is accounted for, his place is with his flying beauties.
Much of the comfort and pleasure depends on the Master; and if huntsmen
vary, how various are the types of Masters! There are the jolly
familiar ones, and the “speak-to-me-if-you-dare-sir” sort; there are
the military precision, and the no-discipline-at-all kind. There is
the M.F.H. who notices none but his intimates, who does not take the
trouble to recognise his field, or say “good-morning” to the farmer,
or “thank you” to the man who opens the gate. There is the damning
cursing, swearing species--with varieties: the one that swears from
bad temper; the one that swears thinking it is professional; and
the one that swears from pure excitement. The first sort is always
offensive, the second makes a mistake, and the last is sometimes
amusing. I have heard remarkable language proceed from the mouths of
M.F.H’s., and heard them scream, bellow, and yell, sometimes with some
cause, sometimes without. We can forgive it when it is the froth of
enthusiasm. A friend of mine told me he heard a Master say to himself
under his breath, while he watched his hounds eating their fox after
a good run, with keen longing in his eyes, “Lucky devils. Now why the
---- can’t I do that?”
When following the same hounds, I heard a whip slanged by one of the
field for not getting a gate open quicker. “Well, you are a blank
fool,” said the critic. “And so would you be a blank fool if you was
called one every ten minutes.” But unhappily the expressions used by
M.F.H’s., when they throw their tongues, cannot always be considered
fit for print. I heard a story once of a mail coachman who had been
using such frightful language to his team that the passenger beside
him at last remonstrated and said, “My friend, you should not use such
language. Remember the patience of Job!” The coachman replied “Yes,
sir; but did Job ever drive three blind ’uns and a bolter?” There is
no doubt that a M.F.H. requires the patience of Job. His office at
home, in the kennel, in the field is no sinecure; and few things try
the temper more than to have worked hard to show sport, and then to
see yourself defeated, and the enjoyment of your field spoiled by some
individual act of thoughtlessness, ignorance, or idiocy. I am always
much more struck by the patience and forgiving disposition of masters
than by their rough words. It is hard for the eager and impetuous, with
every desire to give room to hounds, to have his forbearance rewarded
by seeing some less scrupulous rider take his place. It is hard
sometimes on a tearing flyer to get him pulled in at a moment’s notice.
But a follower of hounds knows when he has done wrong, and seldom does
a man catch it without deserving it; and if he is a sportsman, whose
zeal only has outrun its discretion, he may be sure of forgiveness.
This is not the time to debate whether fox-hunting has a long life
before it in crowded little England. Its existence depends on its
popularity. As long as an Englishman loves a horse and a hound, as long
as hunting-men maintain the principles of equality and fraternity in
the hunting-field, are generous to those who afford them the sport, are
willing to give when they take, are considerate and kindly in their
behaviour to all and every class with whom they associate--so long will
the country be proud of its packs, and its people enjoy the sight of
the scarlet coats coming by road and bridle-path, and public opinion
will check the gin and gun of those who have a vulpicidal tendency.
Like all the best amongst our institutions, fox-hunting is secure so
long as it is broad based upon the people’s will.
VII
CUB-HUNTING
[Illustration: FROM A SKETCH BY THE LATE SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD.]
VII