A WARRANTABLE DEER.
Meantime John Garnet, enjoying the golden hours at Porlock with the
carelessness of his nature, thought no more of the toils that surrounded
him than the wild deer of the forest thought of the many preparations
made for its capture; of the good horses stabled, the staunch hounds
fed, the distances travelled by lords and ladies, the laced coats
tarnished, the bright spurs reddened, the jingling of bit and bridle,
the gathering of horsemen and varlets, the energy expended in a chase
that must be followed with so much pomp and circumstance for its
especial downfall. Large and stately, gliding from field to field, it
passed through the twilight, like some majestic ghost, to crop the yet
unharvested grain, or tear the juicy turnips from the earth, with
appetite unimpaired by misgivings of to-morrow, rejoicing in its pride
of strength, trusting implicitly in those fleet, shapely limbs that bore
it lightly over its native moor, as the wild-bird's pinions waft her
through the air.
How many centuries have elapsed since the fatal morning that saw the Red
King mount for his last ride through the stately stems of Bolderwood!
How many since that woful hunting in Chevy Chase which began in joyous
notes of hound and horn, to end in the battle-cry of the Percy, the
sword strokes of the Douglas, and the pouring out like water of the
bravest, noblest, gentlest blood two countries could afford! Yet has the
pursuit of the wild animal by the instinct of the tame continued to be
the favourite sport of Englishmen from those rude times to our own,
while now, as then, many a bold, adventurous nature, panting for an
outlet to its energies, finds engrossing occupation in the pleasures of
the chase.
Taken in good sense and moderation, as each man's discretion teaches him
to judge, the draught thus offered by a bountiful providence, which
provides for our mental health the sweet no less freely than the bitter,
is exhilarating in the extreme. It rouses our manly qualities of mind
and body, excites our intellectual faculties and our muscular powers,
braces the nervous system, stimulates to healthy effort the vital force
of arm and heart and brain. Many of the most distinguished men in every
time have been "fond of hunting." Few men "fond of hunting" but are
frank of nature, kindly, generous, unselfish, and good fellows, to say
the least!
If such a position be granted, it follows that all hunting, conducted in
a spirit of humanity and fair play, is more or less to be esteemed. The
stout sexagenarian who halts his steady cob on a hill, and from that
point of vantage watches in the valley below his ten couple of beagles
unwinding and puzzling out the line of a hare that has just crossed
under his pony's nose, without assisting them by so much as a whisper,
is a sportsman to the back-bone. No music on this lower earth can ravish
his ears like the tuneful cry of his little darlings, who are indeed
nothing loth to hear their own voices, and refuse to hunt a yard without
assuring each other that it is all right. No triumph can afford him
greater pleasure than his ride home to dinner with a hare dangling
across his saddle, honestly killed by the patience and perseverance of
that tedious pursuit which has fairly wearied her to death! and when he
lays his head on his pillow, before his closing eyes passes a vision of
Challenger opening in the turnips, of Rock-wood and Reveller feathering
with scarce a whimper up the stony lane.
Surely his enjoyment is undeniable as that of his converse, the
scarlet-coated hero in vigorous manhood, who bestrides three hundred
guineas' worth of blood and symmetry, while he watches a gorse covert
shaking under the researches of twenty couple of high-bred fox hounds,
wild with eagerness to push up their game and dash after him over the
sea of grass that lies spread around, like falcons on the wing. A
physiologist might study to advantage the countenance of the rider; an
artist would long to portray on canvas the attitude of the horse.
These two friends, loving each other dearly, are moved by a common
sympathy. Simultaneously the eyes of each brighten, and their hearts
beat fast. A crash of music from two score merry voices proclaims that a
fox has been found, a hat held up against the sky-line, and, after a
discreet interval, one long, ringing holloa announce that he is away!
That joyous excitement for which some men are content to live, and even
in a few sad cases to die, has begun in good earnest now, and trifling,
puerile as it may seem, I doubt whether any pursuit in life affords for
the moment such intense gratification as "a quick thing over a grass
country, strongly enclosed, in a good place, and only half-a-dozen men
with the hounds!"
Rider and horse, I say, are moved by a common sympathy, science and
conduct being furnished by the man, strength, speed, and courage by
the brute. From field to field they speed rejoicing, facing and
surmounting each obstacle as it presents itself, with a varied
dexterity of hand and eye that amounts to artistic skill, and even
should unforeseen difficulty or treacherous foothold entail a downfall,
rising together, parted, but not at variance, each perfectly satisfied w
ith the efforts of his friend. Then, when the rattling burst is over,
and the hounds are baying round a good fox who has never turned his
head from the distant covert that killing pace alone forbade him to
reach, how fond the caress laid by stained glove on reeking neck, how
proudly affectionate the muttered words of praise, a generous animal
interprets by their tone. "You're the best horse in England. I never
was so well carried in my life!"
[Illustration: MOONLIGHT.]
But of all forest creatures hunted by our forefathers and ourselves, the
stag has been considered from time immemorial the noblest beast of
chase. His nature has been the study of princes, his pursuit the sport
of kings. The education of royalty itself would once have been thought
incomplete without a thorough knowledge of his haunts and habits, while
books were written, and authorities quoted, on the formalities with
which his courteous persecutors deemed it becoming that he should be
hunted to death. To this day the royal and gallant sport flourishes in
West Somerset and North Devon with its former vigour. When George the
Third was king, that wild, romantic western county was already famous
for staunch hounds, untiring horses, and daring riders, no less than for
the strength, size, and lasting qualities of its red deer.
An animal that can fly twenty miles on end for life, and die with its
back to a rock, undaunted in defeat, a true gentleman to the last, is
surely no unworthy object of pursuit.
But what are these shadows that cross the Barle by moonlight, with the
water dripping like molten silver off their sides as they emerge one by
one from the glistening stream to disappear again in the black night of
its overhanging woods? And is not that their king who lags behind, with
beam and branches of those wide-spread horns flashing in points of white
as he stoops his crowned head to drink, and passes on? No shadow this,
but a stately beast in all the strength and beauty of its prime. A stag
of size and substance, with goodly fat on his ribs and many tines on his
antlers. Thickening, too, somewhat in the neck, for already the clear
air of an autumn night tells of early frosts, and soon the peaceful
majesty of his repose will change to turmoil of love and war. In the
meantime he feeds lazily on, turning without apparent object in a
different direction from the herd.
Thus he wanders over a broad surface of country--now cropping the rank
grasses that border the Exe, ere he dashes through its swift and shallow
stream as though disdaining a bath that only reaches to his knees. Anon
dallying with the standing oats, that pine thin and scanty on a bare
hill farm, by the verge of the forest; then crossing the swampy skirts
of Exmoor at his long jerking trot, to rouse the bittern and the curlew
from their rest, he makes his way by many a broken path and devious
sheep-track to the impervious coppices and steep wooded declivities of
Cloutsham Ball. It is an hour or two before dawn when he reaches this
well-known haunt, and the lordly beast, penetrating to its inmost
thicket, lays himself down with the intention of sleeping undisturbed
till late in the day.
With an indolent hoist of his haunches, that hardly seemed an effort, he
has cleared the hazel-grown bank round his resting-place in a spring
that covered some five or six yards, but left imbedded in the yielding
clay a distinct impression of his cloven feet. Therefore Red Rube,
stooping over the slot at daybreak, chuckles inwardly, and observes to
his flask, "a warrantable deer!" kneeling down to examine the footprint
more closely, and measure its width by the fingers of his own brown
hand. Then he takes a wide circuit, embracing several favourite passes
for deer, and satisfies himself that, save one light hart or "brocket,"
as he calls it, not another animal of the species is this morning
harboured in Cloutsham Ball.
The stag-hounds are to meet some two miles off to the eastward. It must
be travelling that distance with the sun in his eyes that causes Red
Rube to blink and grin and occasionally hiccough all the way to their
accustomed trysting-place.
He is there betimes with his broken-kneed pony, yet two riders have
arrived before him. Rube chuckles and sidles up to them.
"Your servant, Mistress Carew--your servant, your honour," says he, in a
deferential tone. "The spurs had need be sharp to-day, master. I'll
warrant there'll be wicked riding, with the likeliest lass in Devon
looking on!"
Nelly Carew deserved the epithet. The close-fitting blue habit so well
set off her trim figure, the saucy little hat was so becoming to her
fresh delicate face, that it seemed no wonder John Garnet's eyes should
be fixed on his beautiful companion rather than on the opposite ridge of
moor, over which hounds and horsemen were expected every moment to
appear.
And Nelly, too, was more than proud of her cavalier. How handsome she
thought him, and how princely, with his dark eyes, his ruddy cheeks, his
pleasant, careless smile, and clustering hair. Never another rider in
the West, thought Nelly, could sit his horse so fairly, and where in the
bounds of England was the steed to compare with Katerfelto? "I used to
think Cowslip the most beautiful creature in the world," said she,
patting her favourite's neck; "but your horse has quite put me out of
conceit with mine."
"I know _who_ is the most beautiful creature in the world," answered
John Garnet, not unconscious that he had arrived at the idiotic stage of
his malady. "I have never seen her equal, and never shall; but we'll
argue that point going home," he added, while his bright eye grew
brighter. "There's no time to wrangle now, sweet Mistress Nelly, for
here come the hounds!"
Cowslip and Katerfelto raised their heads at the same moment, with
pointed ears and eager, solemn eyes; the grey indulging in a snort of
approval and delight.
The cavalcade, consisting of huntsman, hounds, a whipper-in, and half a
score of sportsmen, were to be seen filing across the moor in slanting
line down the opposite hill.
John Garnet tightened his girths. "It won't be long before the fun
begins," observed this impatient young man.
Nelly laughed. "When you know our country better," said she, "you will
find out that a mile in distance with a coombe to cross, sometimes means
a good half hour's-ride. Let us go and meet them," she added, putting
Cowslip into a canter. "Here comes my aversion, Master Gale."
The Parson, mounted on his staunch black nag, was within a bow-shot,
trotting softly through the heather, husbanding strength for the
exertions of the day. Even to John Garnet's eyes, prejudiced as he was
by Nelly's dislike, there seemed much to admire in the bearing of man
and horse. The free, stealing action, the close and easy seat, the light
hand, the well-bitted mouth, the confidence of the one, the docility of
the other, and the good understanding prevailing between them, argued a
partnership that prided itself on encountering difficulties and setting
danger at defiance in concert.
"He looks like _business_, that parson of yours," said John Garnet to
his companion, as they bounded away together; "if he's half as good in
the pulpit as he seems in the saddle they ought to make him a bishop!"
Nelly's only answer was a little grimace of disgust, followed by a
loving smile.
Meeting the assemblage of stag-hunting sportsmen, already increased by
fresh arrivals, who turned up from every quarter as if they were the
natural growth of the moor, John Garnet could not but observe that many
a practised eye travelled approvingly over the symmetrical shape of
Katerfelto ere it rested on the better known beauty of Mistress Carew.
The honest squires whispered each other with nods, winks, and looks of
intelligence.
"'Tis a rare bit of horseflesh!" said one in a faded scarlet
hunting-frock with tarnished lace. "Strong as a yoke of bullocks, and
light as a January brocket. Seems to me, neighbour, I've seen that nag
before."
"Like enough," was the answer. "Thof I never thought to clap eyes on's
rider again. That's the lad robbed Sir Humphrey and his three varlets
single-handed a twelvemonth gone last Whitsuntide, by Upcot Sheepwash,
and showed six hours afterwards in the market at Taunton town. It's
fifty miles, squire, if it's a furlong. Aye, aye, a good horse,
neighbour, and a bad trade."
"I heard tell he was hanged!" said the listener, opening round eyes of
astonishment.
"He did ought to have been," replied the other. "But Galloping Jack had
good friends in the West, and a good friend he's been himself, not so
long ago neither, to one or two honest fellows you and me would be main
vexed to see called to account. Live and let live, says I, but if we
find a right stag in yonder hazels who knows his way to the sea, why,
that grey horse and his rider are bound to be at one end of the hunt,
and I leave it to you, neighbour, to say which!"
With these words he dismounted heavily to adjust girths and bridle, for
Red Rube was already in close confabulation with the huntsman, and
business seemed about to begin.
The harbourer looked more than half-drunk, yet not for an instant was
that sagacity of his at fault which partook rather of animal instinct
than human experience.
"The old stag will move the brocket," said he, with a laborious wink,
"and it's _your_ business to drive him to the moor, Abel. I'll warrant I
bring you within a land-yard of 'un, and all as _you've_ got to do is to
catch 'un if you can!"
"Tancred and Tarquin will do that much," replied Abel, a man of few
words, and in less than a minute those venerable "tufters" were
uncoupled and at his horse's heels, forcing their way through the
tangled underwood.
To control twenty couple of hounds hunting different lines is no easy
matter. One or two are held in command without difficulty, so that their
staunch pursuit may be transferred from scent to scent till they have
forced the right deer into the open, when they can be stopped, while the
body of the pack are brought up and laid on. Then for the crash, the
chorus the jubilee! Hark together! Hark! and Forrard away!!
The brocket's heart beats fast at the first note of the "tufters," and
well it may. Tancred and Tarquin are two majestic black and tan hounds,
six and twenty inches high, with sweeping ears, pendant jowls, and large
lengthy frames, nearly as heavy as himself. For one palpitating moment
the wild deer's instinct prompts him to leap from his lair, and scouring
at speed across the moor to seek the distant fastnesses of Swincombe,
the gorge of Badgeworthy, or wheeling down-wind, like a bird on the
wing, by Culbone slopes, to take refuge in the hanging woods of
Glenthorne where they fringe the Severn Sea. But the next, a deep, loud,
and melodious roar, seems to paralyse his very heart, and he crouches to
the earth, scarce daring to move an ear. Suddenly the branches crash
behind him, an antlered head looms wide and stately between him and the
sky, while he leaps to his nimble feet in a bound that is hastened by
the sharp thrust of a horn against his haunch. In less than a minute the
old stag couches in the young one's lair, and the brocket, scared with
fear, is darting across the moor like an arrow from a bow.
[Illustration: MOVED!]
"Hark back, Tancred! Tarquin! TARQUIN! hark back!" Morose and solemn,
conscientiously, yet sore against the grain, these veterans desist from
their pursuit, soon to be rewarded for this disciplined sagacity by a
nobler quarry, a higher and stronger scent. But for a leap that covers
twenty feet of distance, and lifts his antlers twice his own height in
air, the old stag's flank would be torn by Tancred's reeking muzzle, his
haunches crushed under Tarquin's weighty paws. But no! with half-a-dozen
bounds he crashes through the hazels, speeds up a narrow glade, and
emerges stately and triumphant on the open moor.
Standing erect upon an eminence against the sky, he pauses one instant,
as if to afford his pursuers an opportunity of noting his grand
proportions and noble width of head. All eyes are turned towards him in
admiration and delight.
"Beautiful!" exclaims Parson Gale, forgetting the existence of John
Garnet and the terms of his own wicked oath.
"Beautiful!" whisper the lovers, exchanging a lover's glance, while
Katerfelto's rider feels a thrill of delight creep through his whole
frame with the consciousness of his horse's speed and endurance; nor can
Nelly herself spare him more than half her attention, so taken up is she
with the gallant appearance of the deer.
"Beautiful!" echo the honest squires and yeomen, already speculating on
the line, and anticipating the severity of the chase, while Red Rube,
with his hand pressing Abel's knee, who is laying on his hounds with a
cheer, thus delivers himself:--
"Brow, Bay, and Tray, I tell'ee, with four on the top! All his rights,
as I am a living sinner, a warrantable deer, if ever there was one, or
I'll eat'un, horns and all!"