picture of Heywood Hardy’s, which illustrates to the full that artist’s
wonderful power in combining the life and colour of a sporting subject
with the poetry of English scenery. We are accustomed to many varieties
of hunting pictures, but how few are worthy of the painter’s art.
There is a dreadful family likeness amongst them--so many pink-faced
sportsmen in tall hats and vermilion coats, so many white pairs of
breeches, and so many tri-colour hounds. Sometimes we have these
objects arranged standing at a meet, as if to be photographed. As we
gaze, we are sad to think that they will continue to stand till time
rots the canvas, and how long time will be about it; that those wooden
hounds will never be thrown into cover; that the pink-faced huntsman
in the scarlet coat will never get the horn, which he clutches in his
dog-skinned hand, to his mouth; and that all those straight-limbed,
clean-legged horses will never dash a speck of mud on to those
spotless boots and awfully white breeches! But a more ambitious
artist, wrestling with his difficult but popular subject, will make
his red-coats leap over insignificant or impossible fences; he will
have his hounds flying out of the picture to meet you as they dash
over a rail or thread a fence; and will create not only a remarkable
study in foreshortening of hounds, but one that fills the onlooker
with amazement at the courage of the artist who, in order to make his
study, must have placed himself and his canvas betwixt fox and hound,
and braved the rush and charge of the yelling pack. The fox is often
introduced upon the scene, that fox we so frequently hear about, “dead
beat, with his tongue hanging out,” but so beautifully clean that one
wonders where is that mudless country in which, instead of dashing at
a draggled fox with his back up, the hounds follow this galloping and
cleanly animal, with his mouth wide open and, of course, his tongue
hanging; out. How different is the artist’s treatment of his subject
in the picture at Skelton Castle. There is no fox, there is not a
fence, there is not a covert, there is not even a picturesque top-hat
or top-boot. The picture is called “A Summer’s Day in Cleveland,” and
the scene is on the beach,--hounds swimming, splashing, and dashing
out of a tidal pool on a sunny morning, accompanied by the old squire
on a pony, the young squire (master and huntsman), and two servants in
pink exercising coats, the picture combining the beautiful animation
of the hounds with a wonderful harmony of colour and poetry of scene.
Behind, the sparkling splash and spray, in the foreground are the
breakers, whose white foam fades into the deeper grey of the North Sea
and then into the pale blue of a summer sky, while beyond loom the
rugged rocks of Huntcliffe Nab. As an admirer of the study, I can look
long at this wonderful example of catching and fixing for ever the
prettiness of a scene of a summer’s morning; but as a sportsman I begin
to get impatient with the sun, and to wish that the hounds will be done
splashing and “come on out of that”; that the master would change his
straw hat (which certainly is better in the picture than a splash of
black velvet) for his cap, and let us get up from the beach and go and
find a fox.
As August draws to a close, we know that, now the reapers are silent
and the stubbles are bare, we shall soon be once more astride of our
equine companions in the chase, that we shall see the covert quivering
and shaking, and sterns waving among the whins. Cub-hunting is a most
excellent and pleasant introduction to the serious business of the
season. We all--foxes, hounds, horses, and men--require the preparation
and the bustling about that the early hours of September and October
place within our reach. Much of the season’s success depends on how
the pack is used during these two months. A pack, as someone has said,
is made or marred in cub-hunting. After the 1st November there is
comparatively little opportunity for educating either cubs or puppies.
A man does not go to covert side in September to ride across country;
he goes to realise with his own eyes and ears the delightful fact that
another hunting-season has begun, to inhale the fresh air of the
early morning, to exercise his unconditioned horse, and to join those
choice spirits who love the cry of hounds better than their pillows. He
knows that it will be “Tally-ho back! tally-ho back!” all the morning,
and if, by a lucky chance, a cub is followed into the open air for
ten minutes, and he gets a gallop, it is but a _hors d’œuvre_ to whet
his appetite for better and more substantial things to follow, and to
serve as a reminder to his horse, when blind ditches entrap him, that
a good hunter must take care where he puts his feet, and jump big when
the boundary between fence and field is undefined. A master is seldom
hampered by an unwieldy “field” when he meets at six o’clock. Those
who are out at that time are likely to be sportsmen, and able to
appreciate the fact that all are there for educational purposes.
Those who, when the season is in full swing, are crowding and watching
for a get away and a good start, and causing throughout the day untold
anxiety to the huntsmen, are now in shooting-caps and leggings,
chatting and indulging in gossip and chaff in a manner that would be
regarded as unprofessional when in tall hats and top-boots. Probably
nothing exasperates a hunting-man more than when, on the tip-toe of
expectancy, as hounds speak in covert, he is compelled to listen to
some bore who thinks the occasion suitable for airing his views on
local or Imperial politics, or for relating his own exploits of
valour the day you were not out. Business and politics should never be
permitted as subjects of conversation in the hunting-field, not even
during cub-hunting, when any other topic may certainly be tolerated, if
not encouraged. One of the secondary pleasures of the chase is social
intercourse, the cementing of friendships, and the opportunities of
better acquaintance with neighbours which it affords.
These opportunities are not always taken advantage of, for though we
all can point to fields where most of the regular followers are on such
terms as to make it almost a happy family circle, we probably all know
one or more hunts where jealousy, pride, or pure foolishness spoil much
of the comfort and pleasure of all. In most fields there is, however,
at least one individual whom all agree in desiring to avoid,--some cad,
some snob,--to escape whom we hang back in covert, jump some appalling
place, or, if in a crowd, endeavour to get our worst enemy or most
unselfish friend between him and us. If one of these objectionable
persons, or well-meaning bores, comes out cub-hunting, we are at his
mercy; he can get at us, and the music of the hounds is mingled with
his ceaseless jabber; our only escape is the road home to breakfast.
Oh, gentle reader, have you not often, at covert side, endeavoured
to stay the torrent of “shop” poured into your ear, by assenting to
any opinion, acquiescing in every view put forward, no matter at what
violation to conscience and conviction? Have we not all, in the dread
that an objection or divergent view, however gently expressed, might
open another floodgate, been false to our creeds, and thrown our most
cherished prejudices overboard? I wonder if Egerton Warburton had some
particular man in his eye when he wrote the following stanza in his
famous song, “Quaesitum Meritis.” I am certain that many a man who has
sung this verse has thought of some one to whom the words particularly
applied--
“For coffee-house gossip some hunters come out,
Of all matters prating save that they’re about;
From scandal and cards they to politics roam,
They ride forty miles, head the fox, and go home.
Such sportsmen as these we good fellows condemn,
And I vow we’ll ne’er drink a _quaesitum_ to them.”
The master, huntsman, and servants are, during the cub hunting-season,
free from many of the annoyances that a large and mixed field too
often brings in its train, but they have need of the liberty which
a small following and early hours afford. Some M.F.H.’s do not make
known their intentions as to when and where they hunt, and small blame
to them, for at the very beginning of the season the fewer there are
out the better, as thirty, forty, or more couple of hounds, including
entering puppies, will require their undivided attention. Yet if they
meet at 5.30 or 6 a.m. there is little to fear; for the men who hunt to
ride, the men who follow the ladies rather than the hounds, the men who
come out to display their attire, and even the horse-breakers who like
to educate their young ones at the expense of the hounds, are all most
likely still in their earths. A kindly Master who takes a pleasure
in seeing the schoolboy on his pony, and a pride in seeing these
youngsters enter well, will give them a chance to put in a day or two
before the summer holidays end, and will let every regular and trusted
member of the hunt have an opportunity of being present. It is to the
genuine Nimrod a pleasant thing to get up in the dark, and, after a
light breakfast, hastily swallowed, to mount in the dawn and once more
find himself jogging beside the hounds along the road on an autumn
morning. His mind is easy and his temper unruffled by struggles to get
into leathers and top-boots, or by the memory of letters unanswered
on his table; any clothes will do, and he will be home again in time
to attend to pressing matters of business. There are no lurking fears
as to whether his mount is equal to the task before him; there is no
waiting at the meet, and hounds are busy in the covert as soon as it
is reached. The sound of the horn, the opening pack, the view-halloo
from the whipper-in, the crack of the men’s whips, and the rattling
and rustling in the gorse, are pleasanter because of the interval that
has passed since last they woke the woodlands, and for the stillness
of the outside world at this early hour. Soon after the first brace of
cubs have been killed, and hounds are being taken to the next cover,
the labourer going to the field and the horses to the plough remind
him how young the day still is; and a little later the sun on his
back, and the “had enough” appearance of the five or six couple of
hounds trailing behind the huntsman, tell him that it is still only
cub-hunting, and time for all to be going home. There are, on these
days, reminders that one year has gone and another begun, and you miss
some of the old veterans with grizzled and scarred muzzles, and hear
that a few of those you welcome, as you have welcomed them for half
a dozen seasons, when work with cubs began, are there only till the
young ’uns have been entered; and you see the new entry, with their as
yet unfamiliar forms, answering to unfamiliar names. In October many
a run takes place that would do credit to the open season, and these
fast spins across the country, when the ground is hard and fences and
ditches horribly blind, can test the mettle of horse and rider, and
make any man feel very comfortably satisfied with his performance,
if, by luck or good management, he negotiates the hidden dangers that
lurk on one side or the other of most October fences. In a run at this
time of the year, gates are as yet fastened up, the gaps of a past
season are undiscoverable, the weak places and the strong blackthorn
branches are covered with the leaf and bramble. The fastest twenty-five
minutes I ever saw was run on a certain 14th October, hounds getting
away together in a bunch from Seamer Whin, and killing their fox in
ground now covered by the suburbs of smoky Middlesborough. It was
not cub-hunting, yet one of those delightful “things” that is the
well-earned reward of the constant follower, the envy of the absent
one, and ten times more enjoyed for being unexpected.
Countries vary so much in the proportion of woodland they contain, and
in the stock of foxes that may be depended upon, that the circumstances
of each district influence the character of cub-hunting. Where coverts
are extensive and numerous, and litters abound, cubbing may mean the
deliberate killing down of a great number of cubs in the interests
of the sport that is to follow, and far beyond what is required for
blooding hounds. When foxes are well preserved, and in plenty, a Master
does well to kill a large number, for there is this amount of truth in
the saying, “The more foxes you kill, the more you will have,” that
owners of game coverts and non-hunting proprietors are unwilling
very often to encourage foxes or to have litters on their places if a
fair proportion are not killed. In such a country as this, even when,
owing to an early harvest or absence of arable land, a start is made
in August, cub-hunting may be cub-hunting and cub-killing all the
time up to the end of October. In other hunts, after a week or two’s
cubbing, hunting may be very much the same as after the opening day,
the scarlet coat and top-boot alone marking the transition. The conduct
of the huntsman will not be so much actuated by blood-thirstiness,
as by the wish to discover where there are foxes, to give the cubs a
little instruction in going away, and hounds a few lessons of how to
behave in the open. He will not, or need not, ask every time whether
a fox is an old one or not, and many a run that would be considered
good in the winter can be enjoyed in October in such a country as this.
But for the great majority of hunting-men, these early days are but
the time for getting their studs together, their horses and themselves
into condition; and custom and tradition has consecrated the first
hunting-day in November as the New Year for a follower of hounds.
VIII
THE GREATEST RUN I EVER SAW
[Illustration: INCIDENTS WITH THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY DRAG. From a
sketch by C. M. Newton.]
VIII
IF anyone were to ask me which was the best run I ever saw, I should
say the great run with the Cleveland hounds on Monday, January 9, 1882.
Probably many, if not most, hunting-men would turn up their noses at
it if they saw the country over which the most extraordinary fox in my
experience took us, for I admit that nothing but the fact of having
been bred in such a wild hunting country would make it in the widest
sense a rideable one. I must further confess that the fact of being
sole survivor of it makes its memory all the dearer, though I regret to
this day that I had no companion during the last twenty-five minutes to
support my evidence, or to discuss with me in after years its wonders.
I trust that in attempting to describe it, if I seem to be utterly
devoid of modesty and to be blowing loud blasts on my own horn, it will
be remembered that every man has some day in a long life, in which he
is conscious that he has had the best of it. This was my day, and I
certainly felt at the end of it that it would have been worth risking
one’s life for; it gave me the sensation that comes now and again in
every life, of not having lived in vain. The following account is for
the most part from my diary, written while I was still stiff from the
previous day’s exertions.
Monday, 9th January 1882.--Hounds met at Ayton, where there was
breakfast at the Buck. This was the most extraordinary day I ever
had. I rode Queen Mab in the morning till she got an overreach, when
I changed on to Faraway, on which horse I finished the first, and was
there when Bob Brunton took the fox from the hounds in Hell Gill. I
state this to correct the press accounts, which describe my getting
my second horse in the great run--not to save my own credit, but to
preserve the record of my horse’s marvellous performance. The first
was a ringing run, fairly fast, on the hills between Roseberry Topping
and Guisborough Banks, and for forty minutes I rode Faraway up and
down the hills, over the moors, and in and out of the gills before we
found the second and ever-memorable fox. My brother Jack did not have
a second horse, but rode his mount (a blood Irish hunter called Sligo,
that cost two hundred and fifty guineas, and was worth every sixpence
of the money) all day, and “let him have it” in the first run. If we
had both started from scratch, he might have taken first honours; as it
was, he took the second place in a numerous field, as the sequel will
show. I have no doubt that the competition between us ministered to my
success, for we generally rode a trifle jealous, but were always best
pleased when we could share the honours.
I must for a moment depart from my diary, and say a word about
Faraway. He was an Irish thoroughbred, by Fairyland, purchased at
Tattersall’s in 1880, from the stud of chestnuts sent up by Captain
Amcotts, of the 5th Dragoon Guards. He was knocked down to me for fifty
guineas. I followed him back to his box, and when I asked the groom
why he had only two old shoes on, and what was wrong with the brute,
he said, “Sure, he’s a grand hunter, and nothing wrong wid him; but
ye can’t shoe him, clip him, or physic him.” Some years after I found
that he had killed a blacksmith just before I bought him; he was quite
capable of killing any number of that profession or any other--yet it
was not temper, but fear and nerves, that made him dangerous. Fast
as the wind, hard as nails, wild as a hawk, are all expressions
that fitted him. His little failings were discourtesy--for he met
strangers visiting his box on his hind-legs and sparred at them--and
buck-jumping, at which he could beat anything I ever saw at the Wild
West Show, refusing to let anyone hold his bridle or to stand still
while being mounted. One great fault he had--he would not, when hounds
ran, allow you to open a gate, always managing, if you did succeed
in getting your hand out to reach the catch, to dive under your arm
and whip round; while, if anyone opened the gate for you, he went
through it like a bullet. But when once I had become familiar with his
eccentricities, and abandoned all attempts to differ with his methods
and manners, I found him one of the most delightful mounts I ever got
across--all life, liberty, and whalebone, and impossible to tire. I
counted him among the most precious of my possessions, till after a bad
fall he nearly killed me, breaking a few of my bones, and making me
literally sit up and spit blood. I then yielded to the solicitations of
my friends, and sold him to Mr. James Darrell, who told me he had gone
well in Leicestershire in other hands.
To return to my diary. After the first fox had been broken up, and
the brush presented to the Hon. A. Sidney, of Ingleby, the head being
attached to my own saddle, we went to Highcliff, where we found the
real old Cæsar, a great grey-hound fox. He broke over the moor at once,
and we raced across to Bethel Slack. They drove down Wiley Gill,
making the ravine ring again, as far as Slapewath, and then he again
took the open for a short time, till he got level with Cass Rock. He
then took along Guisborough Banks to where we found him, hounds running
hard all the way. He now tried a change of tactics, and took a line
that was to astonish all and to make most cry “_capevi!_”[4] breaking
on to Guisborough Moor. Hounds followed at a terrific pace, leaving
all but the blood horses far behind. By Sleddale he turned west and
crossed the great bog. My brother (who was level with, or in front of
me here) and I went straight at it, our only chance of getting near
the now flying pack being to take everything as it came. In we went,
both together, he getting to the other side with a frantic struggle;
Faraway, mad with being thus checked, rolled, plunged, and kicked, so
that I could not recover the reins after I had got on to my feet. After
a minute’s delay, that seemed an eternity, we bucketed up the hill,
while below us were others in the bog, looking in vain for a crossing.
When I reached the sky-line, nothing could I see or hear. One moment of
agonising anxiety, and I caught a glimpse of my brother’s hat, bobbing
up as he rose a distant hill. As hard as I could take my horse, I made
for this ever-blessed top-hat, and came up with him near the Piggeries,
as he rode at the tail of the now almost silent pack, streaming in
a file along the moor road. They ran as if it were a drag; it was
real business. A mile like this on the straight, and then a swift,
sure swing over the wall to the right, and they were flying over the
Kildale Valley--my brother and I, in our glory, taking every wall and
fence as it met us. A left turn, and in a minute we were going up the
valley to the moors above Baysdale. Here were sheep pastures enclosed
with hideous walls, wire on most, and all uphill. Sligo takes a line
of barricaded gaps; Faraway goes slap-bang through the first gate,
and then takes the timber decently and in order. Another bog, another
stream, a few more fences, and then the open moor. How much longer can
a horse go this pace? It is too serious a business to speak to each
other as we pound down into Baysdale, the hounds getting the better
of us. As we cross the enclosures by Baysdale Abbey, the one solitary
ploughman in the out-of-the-world valley stops in his work to look at
the rare spectacle.
“Have you seen him?” I shout.
“Ay! a gurt grey-hound fox.”
“How long since?”
“Seven minutes.”
Seven minutes, and hounds racing like this! Will they never check?--no,
they never will, and some will never return to the kennel again. The
Abbey is passed in one hour and twenty minutes from the find, with
only one momentary check, and the mountain beyond looks impossible
to negotiate. I cross the stream, and begin the ascent with a few
tail hounds. They have shot their bolt, and are struggling on with
bloodshot eyes, dropping into my wake as I pass them.
“Come on, Jack! You must do it.”
“I can’t. Look at Sligo.”
Sligo was standing rocking at the foot of the hill, with his back
up and staring eye--he was completely done. Could I get up to that
sky-line where the last trailing hounds were disappearing? It looked
desperate, but Faraway did it, and now I must give him a minute. I had
dismounted the last twenty yards to pull him up the top edge of the
scar. I could see about eleven couple filing away along the ridge of
the moor half a mile ahead. Absolutely nothing but range after range of
barren moors was now in sight! Where was this strange fox bound for?
I was astonished to find my horse still full of going, as I got on to
the ridge and on to sound ground, and in a few minutes I was alongside
the leading seven couple. Hounds now bore along for the Farndale head
moors, and one by one the stragglers gave up the chase. Now and then
one of these would pull up all at once. I saw the veteran Hermit roll
into the heather, where he was found cold and dead next day. Still the
leading bunch held on, and Wrangle (from the Oakley) is driving away
first, followed closely by Statesman, Bajazet, Rascal, and Ringwood.
As they crossed a boggy slack, I strained my eyes to see this terrible
fox; it was impossible he could stand up many minutes more. I felt for
my knife--but the end is not to be yet. The thought uppermost in my
mind is, what a wonder my horse is! Is it possible for any animal to
survive this? and yet he is going strong. The moors look endless; I can
see, even in the fast-deepening dusk, miles of desolation in front.
A turn to the right, and we reach the edge of the hillside above
Ingleby. Down the rocks and the cliff-side dash the now only seven
couple, and once more open into cry. The pace on the moor was too great
for much speaking. I cannot get down there. I make a despairing effort
to cross a bog at the top--I cannot do it. The north wind is blowing
a cloud of spray from the dripping bog at the edge of the cliff, and
the stars are coming out. I see beyond me an abandoned workman’s
shanty, and my mind is made up. The door is locked; a good kick and
it is open. In the inside there is just room for my horse. The ceiling
is low, but so is now his head. I shut the door and run as fast as
top-boots will allow along the edge of the cliff to the top of Midnight
Crags. Here I hear the hounds still running some hundred of feet below
me in the darkness. I labour on, till, exhausted, I sit down above
the pass into Bilsdale. I can still hear them occasionally, in spite
of the wind howling up the gully, and then all is still. I wait some
minutes, then halloo with all my might. They have either killed or run
to ground, but wherever it is, I cannot reach them.
Eventually five and a half couples came to me, and I floundered and
blundered over the moor to my horse. I had not a match, so as to
examine the mouths of the hounds, but, as far as I could judge, they
had not killed. I could find no blood--perhaps if they had run into him
they had not managed to do more than just kill. I drained my flask,
and led my horse down the Ingleby incline, reaching at length Ingleby
village.
When I got to the inn, to my surprise, there was Bob Brunton, who,
having lost all trace of us in Kildale, whither he had tracked us,
had ridden on here with Richard Spink of the Bilsdale, where, night
overtaking them, they had sought shelter and refreshment. Bob, on
seeing me, literally hugged me, and swore I ought to be knighted. We
got the hounds bedded in a barn and fed, and my horse gruelled, and
then I jogged home--but sleep was banished by aching limbs, and the
excitement of the day. All night I saw the whole scene enacted over
again. The streaming ten couple always tearing and racing on as if
for ever over valley and lonely moor. I felt my horse floundering
through the bogs again; myself clambering up and down those gills under
the stars--each wall and stream, gate and stile were jumped a dozen
times. I could see again the straggling hounds, run out, sitting in
the heather, and hear their dismal howling as they realised they were
“done” and “lost.”
Now this run was an extraordinarily long one; it cannot be made less
than 19 miles, and is more like 21. It was 11 miles from point of find
to Ingleby Landslip; but where I think it tops the record is the pace.
I believe the whole run to have occupied 1 hour and 45 minutes--1 hour
and 20 minutes to Baysdale, and 25 on to the landslip. I know that it
will not be credited by most hunting-men, but it must be remembered
that it was mostly over open moorland, with few obstacles to check
hounds, and, except the solitary ploughman in Baysdale, no sign of
humanity all the way. Three hounds died of exhaustion, and the other
lost ones were only got back by degrees during the week following.