--Give ye, Britons then Your sportive fury, pitiless to
pour Loose on the nightly robber of the fold. Him from
his craggy winding haunts unearth'd, Let all the thunder of
the chase pursue.
THOMSON'S Seasons.
Brown rose early in the morning, and walked out to look at the
establishment of his new friend. All was rough and neglected in
the neighbourhood of the house;--a paltry garden, no pains taken to
make the vicinity dry or comfortable, and a total absence of all
those little neatnesses which give the eye so much pleasure in
looking at an English farm-house. There were, notwithstanding,
evident signs that this arose only from want of taste, or
ignorance, not from poverty, or the negligence which attends it. On
the contrary, a noble cow-house, well filled with good milk-cows, a
feeding-house, with ten bullocks of the most approved breed, a
stable, with two good teams of horses, the appearance of domestics,
active, industrious, and apparently contented with their lot; in a
word, an air of liberal though sluttish plenty indicated the
wealthy farmer. The situation of the house above the river formed
a gentle declivity, which relieved the inhabitants of the nuisances
that might otherwise have stagnated around it. At a little
distance was the whole band of children, playing and building
houses with peats around a huge doddered oak-tree, which was called
Charlie's Bush, from some tradition respecting an old freebooter
who had once inhabited the spot. Between the farm-house and the
hill-pasture was a deep morass, termed in that country a slack--it
had once been the defence of a fortalice, of which no vestiges now
remained, but which was said to have been inhabited by the same
doughty hero we have now alluded to. Brown endeavoured to make
some acquaintance with the children, but "the rogues fled from him
like quicksilver"--though the two eldest stood peeping when they
had got to some distance. The traveller then turned his course
towards the hill, crossing the foresaid swamp by a range of
stepping-stones, neither the broadest nor steadiest that could be
imagined. He had not climbed far up the hill when he met a man
descending.
He soon recognised his worthy host, though a maud, as it is called,
or a gray shepherd's-plaid, supplied his travelling jockey-coat,
and a cap, faced with wild-cat's fur, more commodiously covered his
bandaged head than a hat would have done. As he appeared through
the morning mist, Brown, accustomed to judge of men by their thews
and sinews, could not help admiring his height, the breadth of his
shoulders, and the steady firmness of his step. Dinmont internally
paid the same compliment to Brown, whose athletic form he now
perused somewhat more at leisure than he had done formerly. After
the usual greetings of the morning, the guest inquired whether his
host found any inconvenient consequences from the last night's
affray.
"I had maist forgotten't," said the hardy Borderer but I think this
morning, now that I am fresh and sober, if you and I were at the
Withershin's Latch, wi' ilka ane a gude oak souple in his hand, we
wadna turn back, no for half a dizzen o' yon scaff-raff."
[*Rabble.]
"But are you prudent, my good sir," said Brown, "not to take an
hour or two's repose after receiving such severe contusions?"
"Confusions!" replied the farmer, laughing in derision; "Lord,
Captain, naething confuses my head--I ance jumped up and laid the
dogs on the fox after I had tumbled from the tap o' Christenbury
Craig, and that might have confused me to purpose. Na, naething
confuses me, unless it be a screed o' drink at an orra
[*Occasional] time. Besides, I behooved to be round the hirsel
this morning, and see how the herds were coming on--they're apt to
be negligent wi' their footballs, and fairs, and trysts, when ane's
away. And there I met wi' Tam o' Todshaw, and a wheen o' the rest
o' the billies on the water side; they're a' for a fox-hunt this
morning,--ye'll gang? I'll gie ye Dumple, and take the brood mare
mysell."
"But I fear I must leave you this morning, Mr. Dinmont," replied
Brown.
"The fient a bit o' that," exclaimed the Borderer--"I'll no part wi'
ye at ony rate for a fortnight mair--Na, na; we dinna meet sic
friends as you on a Bewcastle moss every night."
Brown had not designed his journey should be a speedy one; he
therefore readily compounded with this hearty invitation, by
agreeing to pass a week at Charlies-hope.
On their return to the house, where the gudewife presided over an
ample breakfast, she heard news of the proposed fox-hunt, not
indeed with approbation, but without alarm or surprise. "Dand!
ye're the auld man yet--naething will make ye take warning till
ye're brought hame some day wi' your feet foremost."
"Tut, lass" answered Dandie, "ye ken yourself I am never a prin
the waur [*a pin the worse.] o' my rambles."
So saying, he exhorted Brown to be hasty in despatching his
breakfast, as, "the frost having given way, the scent would lie
this morning primely."
Out they sallied accordingly for Otterscopescaurs, the farmer
leading the way. They soon quitted the little valley, and involved
themselves among hills as steep as they could be without being
precipitous. The sides often presented gullies, down which, in the
winter season, or after heavy rain, the torrents descended with
great fury. Some dappled mists still floated along the peaks of the
hills, the remains of the morning clouds, for the frost had broken
up with a smart shower. Through these fleecy screens Were seen a
hundred little temporary streamlets, or rills, descending the sides
of the mountains like silver threads. By small sheep-tracks along
these steeps, over which Dinmont trotted with the most fearless
confidence, they at length drew near the scene of sport, and began
to see other men, both on horse and foot, making toward the place
of rendezvous. Brown was puzzling himself to conceive how a
fox-chase could take place among hills, where it was barely
possible for a pony, accustomed to the ground, to trot along, but
where, quitting the track for half a yard's breadth, the rider
might be either bogged, or precipitated down the bank This wonder
was not diminished when he came to the place of action.
They had gradually ascended very high, and now found themselves on
a mountain ridge, overhanging a glen of great depth, but extremely
narrow. Here the sportsmen had collected, with an apparatus which
would have shocked a member of the Pychely Hunt; for, the object
being the removal of a noxious and destructive animal, as well as
the pleasures of the chase, poor Reynard was allowed much less fair
play than when pursued in form through an open country. The
strength of his habitation, however, and the nature of the ground
by which it was surrounded on all sides, supplied what was wanting
in the courtesy of his pursuers. The sides of the glen were broken
banks of earth, and rocks of rotten stone, which sunk sheer down to
the little winding stream below, affording here and there a tuft
of scathed brushwood, or a patch of furze. Along the edges of this
ravine, which, as we have said, was very narrow, but of profound
depth, the hunters on horse and foot ranged themselves; almost
every farmer had with him; it least a, brace of large and fierce
greyhounds, of the race of those deer-dogs which were formerly used
in that country, but greatly lessened in size from being crossed
with the common breed. The huntsman, a sort of provincial officer
of the district, who receives a certain supply of meal, and a
reward for every fox he destroys, was already at the bottom of the
dell, whose echoes thundered to the chiding of two or three brace
of fox-hounds. Terriers, including the whole generation of Pepper
and Mustard, were also in attendance, having been sent forward
under the care of a shepherd. Mongrel, whelp, and cur of low
degree, filled up the burden of the chorus. The spectators on the
brink of the ravine, or glen, held their greyhounds in leash in
readiness to slip them at the fox, as soon as the activity of the
party below should force him to abandon his cover.
The scene, though uncouth to the eye of a professed sportsman, had
something in it wildly captivating. The shifting figures on the
mountain ridge, having the sky for their background, appeared to
move in the air. The dogs, impatient of their restraint, and
maddened with the baying beneath, sprung here and there, and
strained at the slips, which prevented them from joining their
companions. Looking down, the view was equally striking. The thin
mists were not totally dispersed in the glen, so that it was often
through their gauzy medium that the eye strove to discover the
motions of the hunters below. Sometimes a breath of wind made the
scene visible, the blue rill glittering as it twined itself through
its rude and solitary dell. They then could see the shepherds
springing with fearless activity from one dangerous point to
another, and cheering the dogs on the scent, the whole so
diminished by depth and distance that they looked like pigmies.
Again the mists close over them, and the only signs of their
continued exertions are the halloos of the men, and the clamours of
the hounds, ascending as it were out of the bowels of the earth.
When the fox, thus persecuted from one stronghold to another, was
at length obliged to abandon his valley, and to break away for a
more distant retreat, those who watched his motions' from the top
slipped their greyhounds, which, excelling the fox in swiftness,
and equalling him in ferocity and spirit, soon brought the
plunderer to his life's end.
In this way, without any attention to the ordinary rules and
decorums of sport, but apparently as much to the gratification bath
of bipeds and quadrupeds as if all due ritual had been followed,
four foxes were killed on this active morning; and even Brown
himself, though he had seen the princely reports of India, and
ridden a-tiger-hunting upon an elephant with the Nabob of Arcot,
professed to have received an excellent morning's amusement. When
the sport was given up for the day, most of the sportsmen,
according to the established hospitality of the country, went to
dine at Charlies-hope.
During their return homeward, Brown rode for a short time beside
the Huntsman, and asked him some questions concerning the mode in
which he exercised his profession. The man showed an unwillingness
to meet his eye, and a disposition to be rid of his company and
conversation, for which Brown could not easily account. He was a
thin, dark, active fellow, well framed for the hardy profession
which he exercised. But his face had not the frankness of the
jolly hunter; he was down-looked, embarrassed, and avoided the eyes
of those who looked hard at him. After some unimportant
observations on the success of the day, Brown gave him a trifling
gratuity, and rode on with his landlord. They found the gudewife
prepared for their reception--the fold and the poultry-yard
furnished the entertainment, and the kind and hearty welcome made
amends for all deficiencies in elegance and fashion.