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 fanner. 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 grey shepherd's plaid, supplied his travelling jockey-coat, and a
cap, faced with wild-cat's fur, more comrhodiously 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 thewes 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
Withershins' Latch, wi' ilka ane a gude oak souple in his hand, we
wadna turn back, no for half a dizzen o' yon scaff-raff.'
'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 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' Tarn 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 Charlie's Hope.
On their return to the house, where the goodwife 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 Dandle, 'ye ken yoursell I am never a prin the
waur 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 Otterscope Scaurs, 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 at 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
foxhounds. 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 obl'ged 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 both 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 sports 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 Charlie's 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 goodwife 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.