To my mind there are few more pleasant ways of spending an afternoon,
than in having a good rousing gallop with the Drag. Of course there be
Drag-hunts and Drag-hunts, and unless the sport is conducted smartly
and well, 'twere better far that it should not be done at all. The
hounds need not be bred from the Beaufort Justice, but on the other
hand, they need not be a set of skulking, skirting brutes, that one
"wouldn't be seen dead with." Of course the members of such hunts
ride in mufti--more familiarly called, in these degenerate days,
"ratcatcher"--but I always think that Huntsman and Whips should be
excepted from this rule, and anyone who is privileged to share the fun
of the Royal Artillery Draghounds will find that the high officials of
the hunt are arrayed, not _certes_, as was Solomon in all his glory,
but in the very neatest and smartest of "livery," and nothing could
look more sportsmanlike than the dark-blue coat, red collar and cuffs,
surmounted by the orthodox black velvet hunting-cap, which are _de
rigeur_ at Woolwich now. When I first joined in their cheery
gallops, there was no hunt uniform, and the appearance of the "turn
out" suffered accordingly. Now, nothing is left to be desired in this
direction. Good fellowship in the field we have always had, and does
not this go far indeed to make up the sum of one's enjoyment? When
every man out, almost without exception, knows the rest of the field
personally; when a kindly hand is always ready to be stretched forth to
aid a brother in distress--when you know every man well enough to say
"mind you don't jump on me, old chap, if this 'hairy' comes base over
apex at the next fence!" or, "Let me have that place first; I can't
hold this beggar!" things all seem so much pleasanter than they are in
a country where you know few people, and don't know them very well:
yes, sociability, depend upon it, goes very far indeed to make up the
charm of any sport, and in none more so than in that of crossing a
country.
Let us imagine ourselves arrived at Woolwich and "done well" at
luncheon in the R.A. mess. And here I would observe, _par parenthese_,
that it would require a big effort of imagination to picture to
yourself any occasion upon which you were _not_ "done well" within
those hospitable portals. About 2.30 when we are half way through that
cigar in the ante-room, which alone "saves one's life" after such a
luncheon, a crack of the whip, and a "gently there, Waterloo!" brings
us quickly to the window overlooking the parade ground, where hounds
have just arrived in charge of the Master and two Whips. We hurry out,
after a farewell to such of our kindly hosts as are not intending to
accompany us, and find that that big-boned black horse with a hog mane,
is intended to carry "Cæsar and his fortunes" this afternoon. A right
good one he is, too, with a perfect snaffle mouth. He is "not so young
as he was," but "sweet are the uses of adversity," and this fact has
its advantages, as he will not fret and worry, and pull one's arms off
before starting: he has "joined the band," which is also an excellent
thing in its way, because the man just ahead of you can hear him
coming, and will, you hope, get out of the way at the next fence! After
a short period of moving up and down the parade ground, and exchanging
greetings with a few whom you have not had a chance of speaking to
before, the word is given, and at that indescribable and, to me, most
direful pace, a "hound's jog," off we go along the road over the
Common.
How the bricks and mortar fiend has been working his wicked will with
the place since last we saw it! The trots out to the several meets get
longer and longer as season after season rolls by. What was once almost
our best line, and where for two or three years the annual
point-to-point race was held, is now an unwieldy mass of buildings,
prominent amongst which stands that gigantic fraud on the
long-suffering ratepayers, the Fever Hospital, with its staff of 350 to
wait on a maximum of 450 patients!
At last we emerge from the region of building and railway "enterprise"
(save the mark!) and see glimpses of the country ahead of us. A winding
lane traversed, and we find a gate propped open on our left: here a
halt is called. The Master rides into the field, whilst the Whips
remain where they are in charge of the pack. Two minutes later our
worthy chief returns and addresses the assembled company, not in the
studied beauty of language employed by Cicero, nor in the perfervid
oratory of Demosthenes, but in a manner very much more to the point
than most of the harangues of those somewhat long-winded classics. "Let
'em get over the first fence: then you can ride like blazes!" he says.
The Whips move forward gently: hounds are all bristling with
excitement, for they seem to know as well as we that the moment for
action has arrived. "Gently there, Safety! have a care, then!" Yow,
yow, yow! from the hounds. Toot, toot, from the Master's horn, and away
they go. "Do wait, you dev---- fellows! You'll be bang into the middle
of 'em! There, now, you can go and be blessed to you!" Amid a confused
rush of horses, clatter of hoofs, and babel of tongues, we are away,
and thundering down to the first fence, a big quickset. With a crash
the first Whip is over or through; it doesn't matter which so long as
he finds himself "all standing" on the right side. Half-a-dozen men
make for the same place and great is the thrusting thereunto. The first
and second get over: the third man falls: the next alights almost on
top of him: now comes a gallant "just joined" one, who does not jump
when his horse does, and then that first fence becomes of no further
interest to us, for are we not over it, and speeding along at our best
sprinting pace towards a line of post and rails, where, the Powers be
praised! there is plenty of room for the whole field to have it
abreast, if they wished. Two refuse at this: it is a pretty big one,
and worse still the timber is new: but the next comer smashes the top
rail and lets everyone through: then for three or four fields all is
plain sailing--brush fences that our steeds almost gallop through, form
the only obstacles. We jump into a park, and "Ware hole!" is the cry:
we pull off to the right of where hounds are running in order to avoid
the home of the ubiquitous bunny, but not soon enough, unluckily, to
save one youngster from a tumble: the horse puts his foot in a rabbit
hole and rolls over as if he is shot. "Not hurt a bit! Go on," calls
out the rider, pluckily. Yes, no doubt about it, this is the game for
the making of young soldiers. On we go, now descending a gentle slope
to where an ominous little crowd of yokels and loafers are lining a
narrow strip of green on each side: a second glance, as we rise in our
stirrups for inspection purposes, shows us that this is evidently
looked upon as the sensation "lep" of the run: a good sized brook, in
front of which have been placed some stout, well furze-bushed hurdles.
The scent has been thoughtfully laid a little on one side of this, so
there is no fear of stray hounds getting in one's way. One look shows
us that it will take a bit of doing, and hats are crammed on, and
horses "taken by the head" in earnest, as the three leading men come
along at it. A quick glance round and a lightning calculation as to
where you'll go to, should your neighbour whip round or fall just in
front of you, and then a vigorous hoist over the hurdles carries you
just clear--and no more than just clear--of the frowning and muddy
stream just beyond. The man on your left gets over also, but with one
hind leg dropped in: three come slashing over, all right: then little
Miffkins, in an agony of incertitude, takes a pull at his horse when
within three lengths of where he should take off. Fatal mistake! for he
merely succeeds in putting the break on: the horse jumps short, and
just clearing the hurdles drops helplessly into the turbid stream amid
the ribald jeers and laughter of the crowd assembled. Baulked by this
_contretemps_ the next horse refuses, and though ridden at the obstacle
again and again, resolutely persists in remaining on the wrong side of
the water. But "forrard on, forrard on!" Miffkins will get dry
again--he is not hurt, in the least--and his horse will be taught an
invaluable lesson in swimming. The pack is still racing away half a
field ahead, but they are beginning to "string" a good deal now, from
the severity of the pace. And by the same token, most of our good nags
are obviously feeling that this sort of fun can't go on for ever. My
own musical steed is, in especial, making the most appalling
observations on the subject as we breast the next sharp slope. I feel,
somehow, that he is using the equinese for "Hang it all, you know, I'm
not a steam roundabout, my dear chap!" and my heart smites me. Before,
however, I can make up my wavering mind as to whether conscience
imperatively demands of me "a pull," or not, to my great joy, hounds
suddenly throw up their heads where the drag has evidently been lifted,
and we find ourselves at the ever welcome check. Most of us slip off
our smoking steeds, whose shaking tails and sweat-lathered coats attest
the rate at which these three miles have been covered. By twos and
threes, the stragglers, and those whose luck is "out," arrive. One man
has broken the cantle of his saddle, another has managed to pull his
horse's bridle off in the floundering of a fall: here is a rider whose
spur has been dragged off his boot: there one who has broken his
girths: two men are hatless and another has lost his cigarette case,
presumably whilst standing on his head after trying unsuccessfully to
negotiate a stile without jumping it. However, these are but common
incidents of the chase, and "all in the day's work." The troubles are
taken good humouredly, and in the true spirit of philosophy. The men
who have second horses out, have now mounted them, whilst the rest of
us who intend riding the concluding half of the line, resume
acquaintance with our splashed saddles and mud-stained steeds. Trotting
off across a road, we again lay on, and have a gallop of quite five
hundred yards before coming to anything in the way of an obstacle. Over
a piece of timber, to the tune of a most unholy cracking of top rails,
we go, and soon find ourselves approaching the far boundary which
offers us the choice of a blind, hairy place, with a big ditch on the
far side, a gate securely nailed up, and a greasy-looking foot-bridge
adorned with several dangerous-looking holes. This last we all--as I
think, wisely--eschew. Some make for the gate: the rest of us try the
first-named place. One of the whips goes at it "hell for leather," and
gets over. I, following him, I blush to say, rather--just a very
little--too closely, utter a silent prayer that my leader may not fall,
and somewhat to my astonishment feel "the musician" apparently
disappearing into the bowels of the earth beneath me whilst I shoot
over his head and sprawl, spread-eagled, on my hands and face into the
ploughed field beyond. He has jumped short and paid the penalty by
dropping into the ditch. I shout back "No" to a kindly enquiry as to
whether I am hurt, and the questioner gallops on, leaving me to wrestle
with the problem of how I am to extract the hog-maned one from his
present retreat. As I take him by the rein and wonder how deeply his
hind legs are imbedded in the sticky clay, he makes a wild flounder,
plunges up the bank, rams his big, bony head into my chest and causes
me to take up a most undignified position, for nothing can look much
more aimless than to see the ardent sportsman attired in boots and
breeches, seated involuntarily in the wet furrow of a ploughed field,
his horse standing over him in an apparently menacing attitude.
However, although I felt damped--and was--the animal was out of what
might have been "a tight place," and I climbed into the saddle again
with muddy breeches, but a cheerful heart. To catch hounds after this
was, of course, out of the question, but I jogged slowly across the
field I was in, and felt, I humbly confess, a thrill of unholy joy, as
from the farther side of the thick hedge there, I heard a plaintive
voice saying:
"Come through the gap and give us a hand, old fellow; I've come down,
busted both girths and a stirrup leather, lost my curb chain and split
my br--waistcoat!"
I was happy again. I had a companion in misfortune, and, better still,
one in sorrier plight than my own. By the time we had (as far as a
piece of string, two torn handkerchiefs and a necktie, the thongs of
both hunting crops, and a pair of braces would allow) repaired damages,
lighted and smoked a couple of cigars, and talked the day's doings over
as we rode back to the cheery lights shining from the barrack windows,
I for one felt just as happy as if I had managed to live through the
whole, instead of only part, of that invigorating gallop with the
Woolwich Drag.