ON THE WOLDS.
Time passes quickly for the sportsman who has the good fortune to dwell
in the merry Cotswolds. Spring gives place to summer and autumn to
winter with a rapidity which astonishes us as the years roll on.
So diversified are the amusements that each season brings round that no
time of year lacks its own characteristic sport. In the spring, ere red
coats and "leathers" are laid aside by the fox-hunting squire, there is
the best of trout-fishing to be enjoyed in the Coln and
Windrush--streams dear to the heart of the accomplished expert with the
"dry" fly. In spring, too, are the local hunt races at Oaksey and
Sherston, at Moreton-in-the-Marsh and Andoversford. Pleasant little
country gatherings are these race meetings, albeit the _bonâ-fide_
hunter has little chance of distinguishing himself between the flags in
any part of England nowadays. The Lechlade Horse Show, too, is a great
institution in the V.W.H. country at the close of the hunting season.
Annually at Whitsuntide for very many centuries "sports" have been held
in all parts of the country. It is said that they are the _floralia_ of
the Romans. Included in these sports are many of those amusements of the
middle ages of which Ben Jonson sang:
"The Cotswold with the Olympic vies
In manly games and goodly exercise."
Horse-racing is a great feature in the programme of these Whitsuntide
festivities.
The "may-fly" carnival among the trout, together with lots of cricket
matches, make the time pass all too quickly for those who spend the
glorious summer months in the Cotswolds. By the time the Cirencester
Horse Show is over, the cubs are getting strong and mischievous.
Directly the corn is cut the hounds are out again in the lovely
September mornings. By this time partridges are plentiful, and must be
shot ere they get too wild. So year by year the ball is kept rolling in
the quiet Cotswold Hills; the days go by, yet content reigns amongst
all classes.
"Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife
Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
Along the cool, sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way."
Then there is so much to do indirectly connected with sport of all
kinds, if you live in a Cotswold village. Woods and fox coverts must be
kept in good order, so that there may always be cover to shelter game
and foxes. Cricket grounds afford unlimited scope for labour and
experiment.
If you either own or rent a trout stream there is no end to the
improvements that can be made with a little time and labour. Deep holes
or even lakes may be dug, great stones and fir poles may be utilised, to
form eddies and waterfalls and homes for the trout. By means of a little
stocking with fresh blood a stream may often be turned from a worthless
piece of water into a splendid fishery. There is no limit to the
articles of food which can be imported. Gammari, or fresh-water shrimps,
caddis and larvae, and various species of weeds which nourish insects
and snails--notably the _chara flexilis_ from Loch Leven--may all be
procured and transplanted to your water. The beautiful springs which
feed the Coln at various intervals, where the watercress grows freely,
would be of great service in forming lakes; there is so much poor marshy
land even in the fertile valleys that might be utilised, with advantage
and profit for the purpose of trout preserving.
Talking of watercress, this is a branch of farming which appears to be
somewhat neglected on the banks of the Coln. The villagers tell you that
watercress, like the oyster, is good in every month with an "r" in it:
so that all through the year, save in May, June, July, and August,
watercress may be picked and sent to market. But the proprietor of
watercress beds attaches little importance to the fact that he possesses
large beds of this wholesome and reproductive plant, and you will not
see it on his table once in a month of Sundays. In London one eats
watercress all the year round, more especially in the months without an
"r," but it does not come from the Cotswolds.
There is not much covert shooting on these hills. The country is so open
and the coverts so small and deficient in underwood that pheasant
preserving on a large scale is not practicable; for this reason the
preservation of foxes is the first consideration. At Stowell, Sherborne,
Rendcombe, Barnsley, and Cirencester, as well as on a few other large
estates, a large head of game is reared; while foxes are plentiful too.
But the owners and occupiers of most of the manors are content to rely
on nature to supply them with game in due season.
However, for those gunners who, like the writer, are both unskilful and
unambitious, the shooting obtained on the Cotswold Hills is very
enjoyable. In September from ten to twenty brace of partridges are to be
picked up, together with what hares a man cares to shoot, and a few
rabbits. Then landrails or corncrakes, and last, but not least, an
occasional quail, are usually included in the bag. Quails are rather
partial to this district; during the first fortnight of September a few
are generally shot on the manor we frequent. On August 17th this year we
found a nest containing five young quails about half-grown.
But the real pleasure connected with this kind of sport lies in the
sense of wildness. The air is almost as good a tonic as that of the
Scotch moors, whilst there is the additional satisfaction of being at
home in September instead of flying away to the North, and having to put
up with all the discomfort of a long railway journey each way.
There is no time of year one would sooner spend at home on Cotswold than
the month of September. Nature is then at her best: the cold, bleak
hills are clothed with the warmth of golden stubble; the autumnal haze
now softens the landscape with those lights and shades which add so much
of loveliness and sense of mystery to a hill country; the rich aftermath
is full of animal life; birds of all descriptions are less wild and more
easily observed than is the case later on, when the pastures and downs
have been thinned by frost and there is no shelter left. Now you may see
the kestrels hovering in mid air, and the great sluggish heron wending
his ethereal way to the upper waters of the trout stream. You watch him
till he drops suddenly from the heavens, to alight in the little valley
which lies a short mile away, invisible amid the far-stretching
tablelands. Occasionally, too, a marsh-harrier may be met with, but this
is a _rara avis_ even in these outlandish parts. Peregrine falcons are
uncommon too, though one may yet see a pair of them now and then if one
keeps a sharp look-out at all times and seasons. There are wimbrels and
curlews that have been shot here during recent years stuffed and hung up
in glass cases in old Mr. Peregrine's house.
Of other birds which are becoming scarcer year by year in England, the
kingfishers are not uncommon in these parts; you will often see the
brilliant little fellow dart past you as you walk by the stream in
summer. Water-ousels or dippers are scarce; we have seen but one
specimen in the last three years.
In September, as you walk over the fields, the Cotswolds are seen at
their best. Somehow or other a country never looks so well from the
roads as it appears when you are in the fields. The man who prefers the
high road had better not live in the Cotswolds; for these roads, mended
as they are with limestone in the more remote parts of the district,
become terribly sticky in winter, while the grass fields and stubbles
are generally as dry as a bone. There is but a small percentage of clay
in the soil, but a good deal of lime, and five inches down is the hard
rock; therefore this light, stony soil never holds the rain, but allows
it to percolate rapidly through, even as a sieve. When the sun is hot
after a frost the ploughs "carry" certainly, but this is because they
dry so quickly; they seldom remain thoroughly wet for any length of
time. Consequently, in hunting, the feet of hounds, horses, and even of
foxes pick up the sticky, arable soil, instead of splashing through it,
and scent is spoiled thereby. Doubtless the lime in the soil adds to its
stickiness. It is amusing to watch a fox "break" covert and make his way
over a plough which "carries": he travels very badly; we have seen him
fail to jump a sheep hurdle at the first attempt. Fortunately for the
fox, the hounds are also handicapped by these conditions, and scent is
wretched. This might appear at first sight to show that the scent of
foxes is chiefly given off from their feet. We can recall few occasions
on which a plough that "carried" held a "burning scent." But little
though we know of the mysteries of "scent," it is generally agreed that
the "steaming trail" emanates chiefly from the body and breath of a fox,
even though on certain days there is no evidence of any scent, save on
the ground. It is probable, however, that on light ploughlands
evaporation is so great when the sun is shining (unless the wind is
sufficiently cold to counteract the heat of the sun and prevent rapid
evaporation) that all scent from the body and breath of the fox, save
that which happens to cling to the ground, is borne upwards and lost in
the upper air. _The hounds therefore have to fall back on whatever scent
may remain clinging to the soil_, those occasions of course excepted
when the great density or gravity of the air prevents scent from rising
and dispersing, and causes it to hang _breast high_.
After some years of careful experiment with the hygrometer and
barometer, and after an intricate investigation of scent (that
mysterious matter which is given off from the skin and breath of foxes),
I have come to the conclusion that if we could get an Isaac Newton to
"whip in" to a Tom Firr for about a twelvemonth, we might very likely
come to know all about it. In standing on ground whereon "angels fear to
tread," I am fully aware that I speak as a fool. But let me state that
it is on the barometer that I now place my somewhat limited reliance on
a hunting morning, and not on the hygrometer, on the weight of the
column of air on a given point of the surface of the earth, rather than
on the state of the evaporations, the relative humidity, and the dew
point. And I have noticed that the best scenting days have been those
when the thermometer has given readings from 38º up to 46º Fahrenheit in
the shade. A high and steady glass, an almost imperceptible east or
north-east wind, with the ground soaked with moisture and no frost
during the previous night, is the only combination of conditions under
which scent on the grass is a moral certainty. On the other hand, a low
and unsteady glass, a warm, gusty south or west wind, with a hot sun,
following a frost, or a day with cold showers, with bright, sunny
intervals, or during the afternoon (but not always the morning) before a
storm of wind or rain,--such are the conditions which make so many of
our attempts to hunt the fox by scent a miserable farce; yet even on
these days hounds may run during some part of the day. When the
barometer is thoroughly unsettled there may be light local currents,
perfectly imperceptible to man, yet felt by cows and sheep--currents
created like winds by a variation of temperature in different parts of
any given field, and which will scatter the scent and spoil the sport.
These currents, rapid evaporation combined with a lack of steady
atmospheric pressure, and that sticky state of soil which on ploughed
land invariably follows a frost, and in a lesser degree affects grass,
causing a fox to take his pad scent on with him (all the particles that
do not cling to the ground having been diffused and lost in the
air),--these are the curses of modern hunting fields and the chief
causes of bad scenting days.
After September is past the shooting man will not get very much sport on
the Cotswolds, as far as the partridges are concerned, for they are not
numerous enough to be worth driving; they soon become as wild as they
can possibly be. On Hatherop and some other estates good partridge
driving is enjoyed. The farmers are very fond of shooting them under a
"kite,"--this, as it is hardly necessary to explain, is an artificial
representation of the hawk. It is flown high up in the air at some
distance ahead of the guns. The birds, seeing what they take to be a
very large and savage-looking hawk hovering above them, ready to pounce
down at a moment's notice, become frightened, and lie crouching in the
hedges and turnips, until they almost have to be kicked up by the
sportsmen. But when once they do get up they fly straight away, nor do
they come back for a long time. This mode of shooting is all very well
once in a way, but if indulged in habitually it scares the birds,
driving them on to other manors. Not having seen it successfully carried
out, we are not fond of the method, but there are good sportsmen in
these parts who advocate it. Some maintain that this cannot be called a
really sportsmanlike way of shooting partridges, though there is
doubtless room for two opinions on the question.
Later on in the autumn, when November frosts begin to attract snipes to
the withybeds and water meadows by the Coln, the unambitious gunner may
often enjoy the charm of a small and select mixed bag.
Two of us went out for an hour last winter before breakfast, having been
informed that a woodcock was lying in an ash copse by the river. We got
the woodcock--a somewhat _rara avis_ in small, isolated coverts on the
hills; in addition, the bag contained one snipe, one wild duck, two
pheasants, six rabbits, a pigeon, a heron, and some moorhens. Now this
was very good sport, because it was totally unexpected. The majority of
shooting people might not think much of so small a bag, but it must be
remembered that the charm of this kind of shooting is its wildness. It
seems rather hard to kill herons, but anybody who has tried to preserve
trout will agree that herons are the greatest enemies with which the
trout-fisher has to contend. One heron will clear a shallow stream in a
very short time. When the floods are out, trout fall a ready prey to
these rapacious birds. The kingfishers likewise have a very good time.
The fish will gorge themselves with worms picked up on the inundated
meadows, until they are so full that the worms actually begin falling
out of their mouths. I picked several up last autumn which had been
stabbed, I suppose, by a heron. They were unharmed, save for a small
round hole, as if made by a bullet; there was no other mark on them. But
when taken up, the worms came out of their mouths by the score!
Kingfishers are carefully preserved, in spite of their destructiveness,
but one must draw the line at herons.
Waiting for wild duck coming into the "spring" on a frosty night is
cold work, but very good fun. They breed here in fair numbers, and fly
away in August. But when the ground becomes "scrumpety," as the natives
say, with the first severe frost, back they come from the frozen meres
to their old home; and if one can keep out of sight (and this is no easy
matter in December) many a shot can be obtained in the withybeds by the
river. Teal and widgeon may be shot occasionally in the same manner.
Sometimes, when you are upon the hills with Tom Peregrine, the keeper,
trying to pick up a brace or two of partridges for the house, he will
suddenly say, "_Quad down!_" then, throwing himself on to his hands and
knees in breathless anxiety, he will begin whistling for "all he knows."
You imitate him to the best of your ability, and soon, if you are lucky,
an enormous flock of golden plover flash over you. Four barrels are
fired almost instantaneously, and the deadly "twelve-bore" of your
companion is seldom fired in vain.
Green plover, or lapwings, are numerous enough on the Cotswolds. They
are wonderfully difficult to circumvent, nevertheless. You crouch down
under a wall, while your men go ever so far round to drive them to you;
but it is the rarest thing in the world to bag one. Their eggs are very
difficult to find in the breeding season. It is the male bird that, like
a terrified and anxious mother, flies round and round you with piteous
cries; the female bird, when disturbed, flies straight away.
Pigeon-shooting with decoys is a very favourite amusement among the
Cotswold farmers. They manage to bag an enormous quantity in a hard
winter, sometimes getting over a hundred in a day. Wood-pigeons come in
thousands to the stubble fields when the beech nuts have come to an end.
Large flocks of them annually migrate to England from Northern Europe.
Crouching in a hedge or under a wall, you may enjoy as pretty a day's
sport as ever fell to the lot of mortal man. A few dead birds are placed
on the stubble to attract the flocks, and a grand variety of flying
shots may be obtained as the wood-pigeons fly over. The year 1897 was
remarkable for this shooting. Between November 20th and 30th two of our
farmers killed close on a thousand of these birds. Some of them
doubtless were potted on the ground. Tom Peregrine remarked that "he
never saw such a sight of dead pigeons. The cheese-room up at the farm
was full of them." The vast flocks that blacken the skies for a few
short weeks in November disappear as suddenly as they come. After
November they are no more seen.
There would be many more partridges were it not for the rooks and
magpies. Hedges wherein the birds can hide their nests are few and far
between in the wall country, so the keen-eyed rook spies out many a nest
in the spring of the year. For this reason and because they eat the
corn, the farmers hate them. We cannot share their feelings. We should
be sorry to see the old rookery in the garden diminished in the
slightest degree. Jays and magpies are terribly numerous; they are rare
egg-stealers. We have seen as many as twelve of the latter lately
flying all together. Magpies are difficult to get at; they will sit
perched upon the topmost twigs of the trees, but will invariably fly
away before you get within shot.
It is interesting to rear a few pheasants annually. There is no bird
which gives more delight, even if fairly tame; their beautiful colouring
and cheerful crowing are always pleasant in the garden and woods around
your house. If you feed them every day, they will come regularly up to
the very door; and with them come the swans, waddling up from the water,
looking very much out of their element. Sometimes, too, a moorhen will
join the party; whilst two little wild ducks, the sole survivors of a
brood of sixteen, which were attacked and killed by a stoat, will take
food right out of the mouths of the good-natured old swans. Peacocks I
would not care to have round the house; but there is nothing more in
touch with English country life than the glorious red, green, and brown
colouring of a "fine" cock pheasant strutting proudly across the lawn on
his way to his roosting-place in the firs, contrasting as he does with
the majestic form and snowy plumage of the stately swans, which glide
about the silent Coln at the bottom of the garden--the incarnation of
grace and symmetry. Truly some of the most common of animals are also
the most beautiful.
Besides the rooks, there is another bird which the farmers love to wage
incessant war upon. The other day I received the following message
printed on the back of a postcard:--
"A meeting will be held at the Swan Hotel, Bibury, on Friday, November
13th, at 6.30 p.m., to arrange about starting a _Sparrow Club_ for the
district."
* * * * *
"_What is a Sparrow Club?_" I anxiously enquired the other day of a
labouring man, a particular friend of mine, whom I happened to fall in
with on his way to chapel. He answered that it was a club for killing
sparrows when they get too numerous--paying boys a farthing a head for
every bird they catch, and giving prizes for the greatest number killed.
Boys may often be seen out at night, with long poles and nets attached
to them, catching sparrows in the trees. But my friend tells me that the
way he likes to catch them is to go into a barn at night with a lantern.
"You must hold the lantern under your coat so as to half screen the
light, and the birds will fly at the light and settle on your
shoulders." He tells me you can pick them off your clothes by the dozen.
I have never tried it, certainly, as, personally, I have no quarrel with
the sparrows. I was disappointed that the "Sparrow Club," for which a
great public meeting had to be convened, was not of a more exciting
nature. One was led to believe by the importance of the printed postcard
that some good old English custom was about to be revived.
A farmer has just brought me in a peregrine falcon that he shot this
morning. He is of course very proud of the achievement. It is useless to
argue with him on the question of preserving birds that are becoming
scarce in England. He considers that a _rara avis_ such as this, which
is "here to-day and gone to-morrow," is a prize which does not often
fall to the lot of the gunner; it must be bagged at all hazards. Nor is
it easy to answer the argument which he seldom fails to put forth, that
if he doesn't shoot it, somebody else will.
Talking of rare birds, I shall never forget seeing a wild swan come
sailing up the Coln during a very hard frost two years ago. Two of us
were out after wild duck, and it was a grand sight to watch this
magnificent bird winging his way rapidly up stream at a height of about
fifty yards. It is rare indeed to see them in these parts, though the
vicar of Bibury tells me that seven wild swans were once seen on the
Coln near that village; but this was some years ago. On the same
authority I learn that a Solan goose, or gannet, has been known to visit
this stream. Tom Peregrine shot one a few years back; also a puffin, a
bird with a parrot-like beak and of the auk tribe. Wild geese frequently
pass over us, following the course of the stream.
On a bright, warm day in October, such a day as we usually have a score
or more of in the course of our much-abused English autumn, it is
pleasant to take one's gun and, leaving behind the quiet, peaceful
valley and the old-world houses of the Cotswold hamlet, to ascend the
hill and seek the great, rolling downs, a couple of miles away from any
sign of human habitation. You may get a shot at a partridge or a
wood-pigeon as you go. Hares you might shoot, if you cared to, in every
field. But on the other hand you will be equally well pleased if your
gun is not fired off, for it is peace and quiet that you are really in
search of,--the noise of a shot and the jar of a gun do not suit your
present mood.
After walking for half an hour you come to a bit of high ground, where
you have often stood before, and, resting your gun against a wall, you
gaze at the view beyond.
"Quocunque adspicias, nihil est nisi gramen et aer."
Nothing particularly striking, perhaps, is visible to the eye, yet to my
mind there is a charm about it which the pen is quite unable to
describe. Below is a wide expanse of undulating downland, divided into
fifty-acre fields by means of loose, uncemented walls of grey stone. The
grass is green for the time of year, and scattered about are horses,
cattle, and sheep, contentedly nibbling the short fine turf. In the
midst of mile upon mile of rolling downs stands forth prominently one
field of plough, of the richest brown hue; whilst six miles away a long
belt of tall trees, half hidden by haze, marks the outline of Stowell
Park. Save for one ivy-covered homestead, miles away on the right,
nothing else is in sight.
It is past five o'clock, and the sun, which has been shining brightly
all day, with that genial warmth which one only fully appreciates as the
winter approaches, is beginning to descend. It is the lights and shades
which play over this wide stretch of open country which makes the
landscape look so beautiful. And when the wreaths of white, woolly
clouds begin to glow round their furthermost edges like coals of fire on
a frosty night, with all the promise of a brilliant sunset, this stretch
of hill and plain wears an aspect which, once seen, you will never
forget. It takes your thoughts away into the great unknown--the
infinite,--that mysterious world which is ever around us, and which
seems nearer when we are looking at a beautiful sunset or a beautiful
view than at any other time in this life, save, for ought we know,
during the last few moments of our earthly existence. And although no
human habitation is anywhere to be seen, the air is full of the spirits
of bygone generations and of bygone _races_ of men. There are traces of
humanity in all directions, wherever your eye may gaze, but they are the
traces of a forgotten people.
Yonder semicircular ridge was once the rampart of an ancient British
town; though, save in the tangled copse hard by, where the plough has
never been at work, it is fast disappearing. Many a stone lying about
the camp bears unmistakable marks of fire.
A glance of the eye westwards, and your thoughts are carried back to the
Roman invasion; for scarce five miles off lies the ancient Roman villa
of Chedworth. Then, again, tradition has it that a mile away from this
spot, and close to the old manor house, skirmishes were fought in later
days, at the time the Civil Wars were raging, when many a chivalrous
cavalier and many a stern, unbending Puritan lay dead on yonder field,
or, maybe, was carried into the old house to linger and to die in the
very room in which you slept last night. Everywhere in England are
battlefields; but they are, in the words of De Quincey, "battlefields
that nature has long ago reconciled to herself with the sweet oblivion
of flowers."
This very mound on which you are standing, is it not the burying-place
of a race which dwelt on the Cotswolds full three thousand years ago?
And were not human remains found here a few years back, when this, in
common with many other barrows hard by, was opened, and an underground
chamber discovered therein--the earthly resting-place of the bones of
the unknown dead?
"The silence of deep eternities, of worlds from beyond the morning
stars--does it not speak to thee? The unborn ages,--the old graves, with
their long-mouldering dust,--the very tears that wetted it, now all
dry,--do not these speak to thee what ear hath not heard?"
"Solemn before us
Veiled the dark Portal--
Goal of all mortal.
Stars silent rest o'er us,
Graves under us silent."
Well has Carlyle translated the great German poet. And the old barrows
that lie scattered over these wide-stretching downs are not dumb; they
are continually speaking to us of those things "which ear hath not
heard"; and at no time have they more to tell than at the close of a
mild, peaceful day in October, when all else, save for the faint
tinkling of the distant sheep-bells, is silent as death, and the sun,
ere once more disappearing, is shedding a solemn glow over the deserted,
mysterious uplands of the Cotswold Hills.
But the partridges are "calling" all around, and a covey actually
passes over your head. Your sporting instincts begin to revive, and you
take up your gun and proceed to stalk that covey, stealing round under a
wall. Then you suddenly remember that the V.W.H. hounds meet in your
village to-morrow, and you begin wondering whether they will once again
find the great dog fox that several times last season led you over the
wide, open country that now lies mapped out before you. _Your_ fox, too,
one of a litter you came upon two springs ago, in a little spinney not
half a mile from where you are standing now, stub-bred and of the
greyhound stamp, fleet of foot and lithe of limb. Each time the hounds
had come to draw he was at home in the covert on the brow of the hill
which shelters the old manor house you inhabit from the cold blast of
winter. Here he loved to dwell, and hunt moorhens and dabchicks and
water-rats all night long by the banks of silvery Coln. But on three
occasions within six weeks, no sooner did the hounds enter the wood than
a shrill scream proclaimed him away on the far side. You were mounted on
a good horse, and were away as soon as the pack. And then for thirty
minutes the "old customer" cantered away over those broad pastures,
hounds and horses tearing after him on a breast-high scent, but never
gaining an inch of ground. Two leagues were quickly traversed ere yonder
distant belt of trees was reached, where the dry leaves lay rotting on
the ground, and there was not an atom of scent. So he saved his life,
and the tired, mud-bespattered sportsmen vow that there never was such
a run seen before, so thrilling is the ecstasy of "pace" and so
enchanting the stride of a well-bred horse.
'Tis a wild, deserted tract of country that stretches from Cirencester
right away to the north of Warwickshire. For fifty miles you might
gallop on across those undulating fields, and meet no human being on
your way. We have ridden forty miles on end along the Fosseway, and,
save in the curious half-forsaken old towns of Moreton-in-the-Marsh and
Stow-on-the-Wold, we scarcely met a soul on the journey. What a
marvellous work was that old Roman Fosseway! Raised high above the level
of the adjoining fields, it runs literally "as straight as an arrow"
through the heart of the grassy Midlands. And what a rare hunting
country it passes through! We saw but one short piece of barbed wire in
our journey of over forty miles. Now that farming is no longer
remunerative, the whole country seems to be given up to hunting. Depend
upon it, it is this sport alone that circulates money through this
deserted land.
Time was when the uplands of Gloucestershire were almost entirely under
the plough, when good scenting days seldom gladdened the heart of the
hunting man, and when, in a ride over the Cotswold tableland, the
excitement of a fast gallop on grass was an impossibility. Those were
the days when land at thirty shillings an acre was eagerly sought after
and the wheat crop amply repaid those who cultivated it. Now, alas!
farms are to be had for the asking, rent free; but nobody will take
them, and the country is rapidly going back to its original
uncultivated state. The farmer, nevertheless, does not lose heart.
To lay down such light land into permanent pasture does not pay; it is
therefore left to its own devices, with the result that in a short time
weeds and moss and rough grasses spring up--less unprofitable than
ploughed fields, and almost as favourable for hunting the fox as the
fair pastures of the Vale of Aylesbury. However,
"Nihil est ab omni
Parte beatum."
There are other things to be done in this life besides riding across
country in the wake of the flying pack, glorious and exhilarating though
the pastime be; and the sooner these great wastes of unprolific land are
once more transformed into wheat-growing plough, the better will it be
for all of us.
So you stroll dreamily homewards, musing on these things, and wondering
whether you will have another glorious gallop to-morrow. You will just
go round by that spinney to see if the earth you gave orders to be
stopped up is properly closed. But stop! What is that lying curled up
under the wall not ten yards off? See, he stirs! he rises lazily and
looks round! 'Tis the very fox! Long and lean and wiry is he, fine drawn
and sleek as a trained racehorse, with a brush nearly two feet long!
Brown as the ploughed field you were looking at just now, save for the
tip of his brush, which is white as snow. He trots off along the wall,
offering the easiest of broadside shots if you were villain enough to
take advantage of it. He does not hurry; he stops and looks round after
a bit, as much as to say, "I trust you." But when you steal cautiously
towards him he once more lollops along. You follow, to see where he goes
to when he has jumped over the high wall into the next field. But he
does not jump over, but _on to_ the wall, and there he sits looking at
you until you are once more nearly up to him; then he disappears the
other side, and you run up and peep over. He is nowhere to be seen! You
look along the wall for a hole into which he could have popped, but in
vain. You stoop down and try to track him by scent and the mark of his
pad, but all to no purpose; and from that day to this you have never
discovered what became of him.
[Illustration: "THE OLD CUSTOMER." 138.png]