THE HARBOURER.
Nature is always beautiful in her morning, evening, and noon-day
dresses, her fits of rage, her languor of repose, her storms, her calms,
her shadows, sunshine, tears, and smiles; but never perhaps are we so
conscious of her charms, as when abroad before daybreak, in a
mountainous country, we see her growing, line by line, out of darkness
into day.
First, through the hush of night, there steals a cool, soft breath, like
the sigh of some spirit of morning, longing for the dawn. Soon, swelling
to a breeze, it stirs the cloud on the moor, the leaf in the copse. A
bird awakes and twitters in its nest. Anon, in joyful chorus, answering
notes pipe shrill and clear, through all the woodland, while a pale
streak of light, low and level on the eastern ridges, peeps above the
sky line. Great black masses stand out from the gloom, in deeper shadows
and broader touches, soon to resolve themselves, as the eye masters
their shapes, into rock and coombe, hill, valley, and hanging wood. But
now the pale streak has changed to crimson, underlined with a yellow
seam, the mountain puts on his crown of fire, and the highest tree-tops,
in glade and valley, are tinged with flame, while, far and near, pointed
peaks, rugged tors, purple heather, dusky moorland, all are tipped with
gold. Then, in his blazing chariot, the lord of light comes up to run
his course, and night is past and man goes forth to his labour until
the evening, and the harbourer's day's work is done.
"Red Rube," if he worshipped the sun at all, worshipped him less in love
than fear, dreading, above all things, that his beams should cause the
dews to evaporate from the sward, and harden into an unimpressionable
surface the yielding clay beneath each sheltering bank, or round each
bubbling spring. Rube believed that, for beauty and majesty, no object
in the world could vie with the beam, and branches, the "Brow Bay and
Tray" of a warrantable deer, yet he had not been a nurse-child of
Nature, in all her seasons and all her moods, without learning her
lessons, and imbibing for his foster-mother an instinctive love, only
the deeper that it was unconscious, unsuspected, and in spite of
himself.
Is not this the secret of our attachment to field sports, and do not
those which bring us face to face with Nature retain their fascination
when every other pastime or excitement has palled on the satiated
senses, the weary world-worn heart?
That noblest beast of chase, the wild stag, in the West of England, has
a lordly habit of feasting during night, and seeking repose in the small
hours towards dawn of day. Gliding, like a ghost, through cornfield and
orchard, he travels many a league after sundown, feeding on the best
that moorland soil and scanty harvests can afford, nibbling the
half-ripened ears on one hill-farm at midnight, flinging the turnips
overhead in wasteful profusion on another ten miles off, within an hour;
seeking, before dawn, the shelter of some wooded coombe, in which he
means to harbour, at an equal distance from both. Restless, wary,
vigilant, he is always on the move, and habitually suspicious of an
enemy. It is to master, by man's intellect, man's powers of observation,
the superior speed, finer instinct, and craftier nature of the brute,
that "Red Rube" has been "after the deer" from boyhood, acquiring in the
experience of many seasons so intimate a knowledge of their haunts and
habits, that, in spite of age, infirmity, and a confirmed tendency to
drink, he has earned an unchallenged right to call himself the most
skilful "Harbourer" in the West.
The ground must indeed be hard, and the "slot," or print of the animal's
feet, many hours old to baffle Red Rube, who, stooping to the line like
a blood-hound, reads off, as from a book, the size, sex, weight, and age
of the passing deer, the pace at which it was travelling, its distance
ahead, and the probability of its affording a run. Therefore it was his
custom to be abroad long before daybreak, guiding his Exmoor pony, only
less wise and wary than himself, through broken paths and winding
tracks, by bog, boulder, and precipice, with an instinct, unerring as
that of the wild animal he went to seek. In the first twilight of
morning he would hobble the pony at the head of some remote coombe that
bordered on the moor; and prowling stealthily down its windings, would
begin his quest in the different haunts that he knew were frequented by
deer. He seldom made a cast in vain. Ere the light was strong enough to
distinguish it, he usually came upon the footprint of his game. Then he
stopped, examined it carefully, pondered, and made up his mind. If the
slot were three inches wide at the heel, after due allowance for nature
of ground and rate of speed, it would be that of a six-year-old hart at
least, carrying nine or ten branches on his two antlers, having, in
forester's language, "his rights," and to be described therefore as "a
warrantable deer." Such considerations would cause "Rube" to grin--he
never laughed--and to take a pull at his flask.
Following up the track to some deep impervious woodland, in which it was
again lost, he would make a circuit of many miles round its verge, with
or without the pony, in order to make sure that his quarry had not gone
on, and here an intimate acquaintance with its habits, and the passes
through which it would be likely to emerge, saved him many an hour of
fruitless search. Ere the sun was high he had so contracted the circle,
by ascertaining where the stag was _not_, that he could point out the
very copse, almost the very thicket, in which it lay ensconced. Again to
use woodsman's language, he had fairly "harboured his deer."
Then Rube's responsibility was over, and his day's work done.
Thus, it fell out, that on a cool grey morning, late in harvest, our
harbourer, stooping and prying over a level glade of turf by the
water-side, in the deep shadows of Horner Wood, came to a stop; and,
kneeling down, began to examine very closely a track that seemed to have
crossed the stream, and broken into a gallop towards the hill. It was no
cloven foot; and, consequently, neither deer nor devil, as Rube observed
to himself, with a grim smile; but the hoof-mark of a horse, shod with
iron, and going at speed, nor was this in any way remarkable, but that
the shoes were forged by no West-country blacksmith, and Rube was far
too practised a woodsman to pass such a slot without inquiry or remark.
"A horse," he muttered, "and a good one. Here's a stride of nigh six
yards, and every foot down at once in a ring I could cover with my hat!
And, here again, when the rider's hand turned him from that boggy bit,
see how he cut the moss out of the bank, and sprang back to the turf as
light as a brocket. But them shoes was never welded this side Taunton
town. That's what beats _me_! Parson Gale? Well, the Parson it might be,
only this is an up-country horse for sure. Up-country rider, too, or he
would have turned into the wood 'stead of keeping the track. No. He's
not heading for Exmoor, isn't this one. May be he'll double back before
sunup, and I'll fresh find him here in the coombe, if I only keep quiet
and lie close!"
So Rube put his ear to the ground, listened, grinned, took a suck at his
flask, and coiled himself down, like some beast of prey, on the watch.
He did not wait long. His lair was hardly warm ere he started to his
feet, at a crashing of branches within a hundred yards, a bounce, a
splash, an oath in a man's voice, and the snorting of a horse, plunging
and struggling through a bog.
In the solitudes of the West, as in the Arabian desert, every man you
meet must be a friend or enemy; but in Somerset and Devon, till you have
proved him the latter, you believe him to be the former. Rube ran to
help, and saw the best nag he had ever set eyes on, up to its girths in
a swamp, sinking deeper and deeper with every plunge.
The rider, already clear of his saddle, and imbedded over his boots in
the green yielding slime, did his best to aid and encourage his horse by
word and gesture, but the bog became only deeper and softer with every
struggle, while to turn back seemed as difficult, and almost as
hazardous as to charge through.
But that aid was near, a fossil man and horse, in perfect preservation,
might have been found centuries hence in a stratum below the surface,
puzzling the geologists of the future as to how they got there.
"Right hand, I tell'ee! push 'un to the right, man!" exclaimed Rube,
springing eagerly from his lurking-place. "This patch o' flag be the
only sound spot fur a landyard's round--Steady, lad! Let 'un catch wind
theer a bit, and he'll come through."
Presence of mind, that essential quality of a horseman, was never
wanting to John Garnet. Guiding Katerfelto to the little knot of rushes
indicated, which, true to their nature, afforded foothold where they
grew, he paused for a breathing-space, ere, patting his horse's neck
with a word of endearment, he roused him to another effort, that, after
a plunge or two, placed him in safety, with a bank of sound heather
beneath his feet.
The grey trembled all over, his eye rolled, his nostril dilated; but,
with a prolonged snort and a shake, he recovered his composure, rubbing
his handsome head against his master, as though to congratulate him on
their joint escape. "We'll never go there again, my boy!" said the
rider, whom this treacherous surface had so deceived, adding, as though
he did well to be angry, "why it looks like the best bit of gallopin'
ground in the whole coombe!"
Red Rube grinned. To one born and bred on Exmoor, this was a jest that
palled with no amount of repetition. These tempting islands of green
sward, smooth and level as a lake, while affording, indeed, but little
firmer support, seem designed by nature to lure a horseman from another
country to his downfall. But was this a horseman from another country?
The harbourer's keen grey eye had taken him in at a glance, just as it
would have mastered the points, size, and weight of a warrantable deer
in the brief second during which the creature bounded across a ride.
From the lace on his hat to the spur on his soiled boot, Red Rube had
reckoned up John Garnet, as it were, to the very counting of the buttons
on his coat. From Katerfelto's taper muzzle, to the last hair in his
tail, he had, in the same instant, so impressed the whole animal on his
mind, that he could have sworn to its identity under any circumstances,
at any future time. It struck him, even while man and horse were
struggling in the bog, that they answered the description of that
highwayman for whose capture so large a reward was offered in the
hand-bills; and it was from no considerations of humanity or fair-play
that the old man refrained from knocking the stranger on the head, when
he had him at disadvantage, un-horsed and knee-deep in a slough.
His reasons were extremely practical. In the first place, he had no
weapon with which he could hope to contend successfully against a
younger and stronger man; in the second, he could not bring himself to
believe that so experienced a West-country rider as Galloping Jack would
have fallen into a trap like this. "A bog," as he said, "so black and
ugly, that even Varmer Viall's cows, poor things, do have the sense to
keep out!"
[Illustration: WELL OUT OF IT.]
"Well, it might have been worse!" replied John Garnet, good-humouredly,
while he swung himself into the saddle, and put a crown-piece in Red
Rube's hand. "You halloaed in time, my friend, or I should have missed
the rushes, and never got out at all. I am beholden to you, and I won't
forget it. This is the best horse in England, and I wouldn't have done
him a mischief for more money than you could count."
The old man's fingers closed readily on the silver. "You be making for
Porlock!" said he. "You do seem strange hereabouts. My day's work is
done, and I don't mind if I show you the way."
John Garnet laughed--"I know the way well enough," he answered. "But why
should you have done work when most men are just going to begin?"
Red Rube's grey eye twinkled. He laid his horny hand on Katerfelto's
mane and looked in the rider's face, with a cunning leer. "Every man to
his trade," said he. "My business lies betwixt the dark and the
daylight. Yours, may-be, takes you out of a warm bed when the moon's up.
I've been backwards and forwards on the moor, fifty years or more, and
no harm come of it yet. It's safer riding, may-be, than the road."
"Not with such cursed bogs as these about," replied the other,
carelessly. "Bogs that would swallow a coach-and-six: only I don't
suppose you ever saw a coach-and-six in this wild outlandish country!"
"You're a stranger may-be?" asked Rube, sorely perplexed, for how could
this horseman so resemble Galloping Jack, yet betray such practical
ignorance of the moor and its peculiarities? "A stranger from up the
country, no doubt, though you do handle your horse prettily enough, and
sit in your saddle like a rock. May-be you never heard of 'slotting' a
stag, twenty score weight, with a back like a bullock, and all his
rights fairly counted, into a lone quiet coombe, where you harboured him
so close you could touch him with the top joint of a trout-rod? May-be
you never saw an old black-and-tan twenty-six inch tufter, with long
flapping ears and hanging jowl, as steady as a clock, and as wise as a
bishop, snuffle and quest and traverse, till he owned the scent with a
roar, deeper, louder, fuller of music than the organ I heard in Exeter
fifty years ago, when I was a boy. May-be, I'm only wasting my breath.
You up-country gentlemen know nothing of our sport on the moor."
The spark had caught. That strange enthusiasm common to all votaries of
the chase brightened John Garnet's eye, while he continued the other's
narrative of an imaginary stag hunt.
"Then, with a crash of broken twigs and leafy branches, up he starts
from a brake of deep green hazels,--stares about him for half a minute,
time enough to count his points, and look him over--turns his head from
side to side, displaying his mighty neck and noble width of beam, lays
his antlers back, and leaves the wood at a springing trot, too proud to
hurry himself, and deliberating calmly where he shall go next. Presently
we lose sight of him, to emerge a mile off on the open moor. When he
treads heather he breaks into a gallop, and speeds away like an arrow
from a bow. You have moved him fairly now. Take up your tufters and let
us lay on the pack."
"Right you are!" exclaimed Rube, holding his breath in sheer excitement.
"You've been there before, I'll wager a gallon!"
"Talk of music and the organ in Exeter Cathedral!" proceeded John
Garnet, "thirty couple of such voices as these would silence a battery
of cannon. They spread like a lady's fan; they swarm like a hive of
bees. Soon they settle into their places and stream across the moor,
like horses in stride and speed, like lions in strength and energy, and
fierce desire for blood. Now's your time, old man. You sit down in your
saddle and say to yourself, there is nothing on earth worth living for
compared to such moments as these."
"_My_ work is over when you come to that," said Rube, adding
respectfully, "You're a true sportsman, sir. If I do know how to harbour
a stag, you do know how to hunt him, I'll warrant. Yet I never saw you
out with us on the moor here, as I can call to mind."
"Do you think there is no hunting but in the West?" replied John Garnet.
"We have red deer in my country, and hounds that can set them up to bay.
Horses, too, and men who dare ride them as straight as a bird of the air
can fly. There's many a horn wound, and many a pair of spurs going from
morning till night, all the season through, in the canny North."
"Like enough!" answered Rube. "But I'll always maintain that the moor is
the moor. When your honour has once forded Badgeworthy water, you'll
never want to follow hounds in any other country again."
"And that shall be before I am many days older," replied John Garnet,
reflecting what an agreeable addition to the amusements of his
retirement would be this favourite pursuit; and remembering also, no
doubt, that Mistress Carew, on the wonderful white pony that fed in the
orchard, was a keen votary of the chase. "Do _you_ find a good stag,
and, unless we get into a bog again, my grey horse and I will try to see
him killed."
"I'll do my best," said Rube; and with a clumsy obeisance, turned back
towards the moor, looking after John Garnet's figure as it disappeared
amongst the giant stems of Horner Wood, with a puzzled expression on his
quaint old face. This frank, well-spoken stranger was a riddle he could
not read; "a slot," as he would have expressed it, that left him "at
fault." The man might be a robber and an outlaw; but at any rate he rode
to admiration, was cordial, open-handed, and a sportsman to the
back-bone.