AT BAY.
Tancred, a marvel of canine sagacity, had good reason for deserting his
comrades, to engage in some quiet researches of his own. It is
unnecessary to inform those who love stag-hunting--and those who do not
will hardly care to learn--that scent often hangs over running water,
and travels downwards with the moving stream; therefore the deer, wading
craftily towards the river's source, emerged on its farther bank,
refreshed and strengthened by the bath, at some considerable distance
above the place where it plunged in. Such tactics were only in
accordance with the calculation and reflection we call _instinct_; but
Tancred was possessed of _instinct_ too, and remembered, no doubt, many
a cast he had made on similar occasions with successful result. The old
hound, therefore, assuming an expression of ludicrous solemnity, dashed
through the water, to enter without delay, on a close scrutiny of his
own, along the opposite bank, in the reverse direction from that
mistaken line on which his grandson was insisting with unbecoming
clamour, and snuffled at every pebble, poked his black nose into every
tuft of brushwood, grass, or heather he came across. Soon, with a flap
of his pendant ears, a lash of his stern against his mighty ribs, up
went the wise and handsome head in a roar of triumph--a roar that, for
the first, struck terror to the red-deer's heart, some furlongs on in
front--a roar that brought the old hound's comrades to his side, with an
alacrity sufficiently denoting how, by the best of all judges, this lord
of the kennel was trusted and revered.
"He's forward!" exclaimed John Garnet, plunging through briar and
brushwood, with the rein on Katerfelto's neck. "Hold up, old man! we
shall soon be in the open again; and, by George, this is the best run
you or I ever saw in our lives."
These words of encouragement were addressed by the rider to his horse,
as the latter scrambled sideways up a bank that would have taxed the
agility of a goat. Gaining the top they were rewarded by a spectacle
that seemed equally to the taste of each. Through an open wood of grand
old oaks, standing wide apart, ran twenty couple of powerful
stag-hounds, majestic in shape, gigantic in stature, deep and rich in
colour, stringing somewhat, it may be, as they passed in and out the
gnarled substantial stems, but shaking the very acorns from the autumn
boughs above, as that leafy canopy trembled to the music of their full
sonorous cry. Katerfelto's neck swelled with delight, while he reached
at his bridle for liberty to go faster still. The sunbeams broke and
sparkled overhead amongst the flickering green, the waving ferns lowered
their banners in graceful homage as they bent and yielded underfoot, the
dark moor, visible here and there through the trees, stretched to the
horizon in front. The whole pageant seemed too beautiful for reality,
and John Garnet felt as if he were hunting in a dream.
Emerging once more on the open, he found he was no longer alone with the
hounds. "That must be a good black horse," he said to himself, and
thought no more about it; for although, as a stranger in the county, he
believed the run to have been perfectly straight, he was no ungenerous
rival, and felt rather gratified that his pleasure should be shared by
one who could appreciate its charm. He might want assistance too, he
reflected, at the finish; for to kill a stag at bay, and rescue his
carcase from the fangs of a pack of hounds, however tired, that had "set
him up," was no pleasant job to undertake single-handed in the wilds of
Devon. Therefore he greeted the appearance of Parson Gale, galloping
steadily towards him, with an encouraging wave of the arm, and a jolly
cheer.
The Parson's knowledge of wood-craft had served him at last. Of the few
turns the deer made out of its direct line, this at least had been in
his favour. It was in a strange tumult of mingled exultation and
malignity, that he now found himself almost within speaking distance of
his rival, well within hearing of the hounds. "It must soon be over,"
thought the Parson, "and he shall not boast he rode clean away from
Abner Gale after all! Anyhow, Master Garnet, the deer cannot surely
travel much farther, and then comes the reckoning between you and me."
But one notable peculiarity of this wild stag-hunting in the West, is
the impossibility of calculating on the endurance of a red-deer. A light
young hart, four or five years old, unencumbered by flesh, and with the
elasticity of youth in every limb, can naturally skim the surface of his
native wastes like a creature with wings; but it is strange, that on
occasion, though rarely, a stag should be found with branching antlers
to prove his maturity, and broad well-furnished back to denote his
weight, that can yet stand before a pack of hounds, toiling after him at
steady three-quarter speed, over every kind of ground, for twenty, and
even thirty miles on end. We can gauge to a nicety the lasting qualities
of our horse--we have a shrewd guess at about what stage of the
proceedings even such staunch hounds as Tancred and Tarquin must begin
to flag; but the powers of a hunted stag defy speculation, or as old
Rube observed, in his more sober and reflective moments, "'Tis a creatur
three parts con-trairiness and only a quarter venison. Why, even I can't
always tell ye where to vind 'un, nor which road he'll think well to
travel, nor how fur he'll go. Them as made 'un knows, I'll warrant; but
there's many a deer lies in the forest, as is one too many for Red
Rube!"
It may be that the breeze was from the north, bringing with it the keen
salt savour of the sea; it may be that the deer, reckoning up its
remaining strength, felt unable to traverse all that width of broken
country which must intervene, ere it could reach the sheltering heights
of Seven Ash, or the dark gorge that shuts in Combe-Martin Cove, between
the cliffs; for turning short to the right, it set its head resolutely
upward, and the pace became more severe with every stride. The line too
was exceedingly trying to hounds and horses, from the undulating nature
of the ground, intersected at every mile with deep and narrow
coombes--unseen, till it was too late, by judicious coasting, to avoid
their laborious steeps. Up and down these the deer travelled obliquely,
using the broken sheep-tracks that afforded but little foothold to a
hound, and none whatever to a horse. Katerfelto began to lean on his
bridle, and Cassock, following at a respectful distance, relapsed into a
trot. Their riders also wished from their hearts that the thing would
come to an end. There is but little satisfaction in the finest run on
record if, spite of troubles, triumphs, pains, and perils, we never get
to the finish after all.
But to one individual the turn thus taken at so critical a period of the
chase was welcomed with exceeding gratitude and delight. Red Rube, on
the broken-kneed pony, had hung perseveringly on the line instinct
rather than experience prompted him to adopt. Steadily adhering to his
western course, and keeping the high ground, he was fortunate enough to
hit on the chord of the arc, and travelled less than a mile for every
two covered by the chase. Therefore, halting above the green slopes of
Paracombe to listen, his ears tingled, and his heart thrilled while he
caught the dear familiar cry. "They do run ov 'un still!" exclaimed the
old man, his grey eye sparkling, and the colour rising in his wrinkled
cheek; "and they do come nigher momently, for sure. He do mean 'soilin'
in the Lynn, I'll warrant, but they'll set him up this side Waters-meet,
I'll wager a gallon!" Then he consulted that elaborate map of the
country he carried in his head, and admonished the broken-kneed pony
with a touch of his single spur.
Now, Red Rube's proficiency in stag-hunting and Parson Gale's only
differed in degree, nor was the divine very far behind the harbourer in
knowledge of their favourite pursuit. He too, could make his guess at
the probable termination of the run, and husbanded Cassock's powers to
the utmost, with shrewd misgivings, lest his horse should prove unable
to outlast the deer.
Yes, the good stag must falter and fail ere long. His russet hide is
blackened now with sweat and mire, his eye starts wild and blood-shot
from his reeking head; he stops more than once to take breath and
listen, but toiling on again labours heavily in his gait, and sways from
side to side. Facing a steep hill, he breasts it gallantly, and for the
first time since he left his harbour, scales the ascent in a direct line
for the top. Parson Gale, a mile behind, catches a glimpse of him in the
act, and plies his spurs freely, for he knows that now the game is
played out.
[Illustration: BEAT!]
[Illustration: SET UP!]
John Garnet too, who obtains a nearer view, is not surprised to see the
stag come faintly back, ere he has mounted half-way up, and plunge
downward into a thickly-wooded valley, dark and silent, but for the
brawling of a distant torrent in its depths. Crashing through the leafy
underwood with a cry that grows louder, fiercer, and yet more musical,
as they come nearer and nearer their game, Thunderer, Tarquin, Tancred,
and the rest, dash eagerly forward, with flaming eyes, impatient of delay,
and heads flung up at frequent intervals, as each hound catches its
ravishing particles, and owns the transport afforded by the scent of a
sinking deer. Crossing and recrossing the stream downwards, always
downwards, they plunge and splash through the water, on the track of
their prey, rousing the echoes with a yell and chorus that announce
their certain triumph, and cruel thirst for blood.
Nearer, clearer, deadlier, every moment, it rouses all the red deer's
instincts of courage and defiance. If fight he must, he will fight at
the best advantage and to the bitter end! His pitiless foes are not a
hundred paces off, not twenty, not ten. But for a bound those failing
limbs could only make in extremity of despair, they must have been upon
him now, and would have got him down, had he not leaped out of their
very jaws, to a ledge of water-worn granite, whence he slips deftly into
a pool that reaches his brisket, and takes up a position of defence,
with his back to an overhanging rock.
Right well he knows the advantage of standing firm on his legs, while
his assailants must swim to the attack; and, lowering his head, delivers
the thrusts of those formidable antlers with deadly effect. Hound after
hound dashes in for the death-grapple, only to turn aside, worsted, if
not overcome. Tarquin and Tancred, swimming warily out of distance, are
watching their opportunity; and Thunderer, seamed from shoulder to
flank, dripping with blood and water, bays wrathfully from the shore.
Facing his death in the deep wild glades and rocky glens of beautiful
Waters-meet, the stag seems undaunted still and undefeated, as when
fresh from his leafy lair, bold and triumphant, he spurned the red
mountain heather on the moor by Cloutsham Ball.
Admiration, dashed with pity, thrills John Garnet's heart, while he
contemplates the noble creature thus defending himself, like a true
knight, against overwhelming odds; but the hunter's instinct of
destruction rises paramount, and, leaping lightly from his horse, he
scrambles over the wet and slippery boulders, with some vague notion of
affording assistance to the hounds.
It is not till he gains the rock beneath which the deer has taken
refuge, and comes near enough to touch the animal with his whip, that he
realises his own helplessness. He carries no hunting-knife, and his only
weapons, a brace of horse-pistols, are safe in Katerfelto's holsters, a
hundred yards above him in the wood.
But Abner Gale is not thus to be caught at a disadvantage, and unarmed.
He too has dismounted; and, rather from instinct than reflection, runs
in behind the quarry, with eight inches of bare steel in his hand. The
Parson is an adept in all ceremonies of the chase, and no man knows
better how to administer its death-stroke to a hunted deer.
The roar of the torrent, the continuous baying of the pack, drown all
other noises; and John Garnet, stooping over the stag, while considering
whether he shall noose the beast in his whip, and try to hold it till
assistance arrives, little thinks so fierce an enemy stands behind him,
with his arm up to strike!
Now, it is but justice to say, that the Parson, running in upon the
red-deer thus "set-up," and holding its own against the hounds, was
wholly moved by the force of habit and the instincts of his craft. He,
too, had pressed forward when he heard "the bay," and, leaving Cassock
beside the grey horse, had rushed down with all the speed his heavy
riding-boots permitted, to cut the stag's throat from behind.
It was only when he looked from that hated rival, unconscious of his
presence, and within arm's length, to the steel in his hand, that the
hideous temptation came upon him; and while the sky seemed turning
crimson, and the river running blood, through the stupefying roar of the
water and deafening clamour of the hounds, a whisper from hell, in the
Tempter's own voice, bade him "Slay! slay!--Smite and spare not!"
Men undergo strange experiences at such moments, and live a long time in
the dealing of a thrust, or the drawing of a trigger! Parson Gale,
glancing wildly round, believed that no human eye was on his movements,
believed that, save for himself and his victim, the solitude was
unbroken by human presence, believed that the devil in person was at
hand to help him in his crime, and that this hellish tinge of crimson
colouring sky and wood and water was a reflection from his wings!
His eye had already marked the spot where, between the shoulders of that
laced hunting-coat, he could plant a blow that should pierce the very
heart. He nerved himself, set his teeth, and raised his hand.
One convulsive effort of the braced sinews, one flash of the descending
steel, a choking sob, a gasping cry, a hoarse rattle of the hard-drawn
parting breath, and all would have been over; but even while the knife
quivered in air, John Garnet turned his head, leaped to his feet, and
caught his enemy by the wrist.
A yell of rage from the grey stallion, jealous of Cassock's approach,
and rearing on end for an unprovoked assault, attracted his attention
and saved his rider's life.
The green leaves shining in the sun wove bowers of Fairyland overhead,
the torrent plunged, and roared, and tumbled in foaming eddies round
that translucent pool, shining like silver through the dark tangled
beauties of wooded Waters-meet.
Above stood two strong men, rigid, motionless as statues for the space
of a full minute, locked in each other's grasp, and below, leaping,
swimming, dashing, retreating, traversing to and fro, the noblest pack
of hounds in Europe clamoured round the stag at bay!