“See, the day begins to break,
And the light shoots like a streak
Of subtle fire; the wind blows cold
While the morning doth unfold:
Now the birds begin to rouse,
And the squirrel from the boughs
Leaps to get him nuts and fruit:
The early lark that erst was mute,
Carols to the rising day
Many a note and many a lay.”
I woke the following morning soon after the first tinge of day had
streaked the east, and found myself terribly stiff and foot-sore. My
nose, too, was hot, and I felt very thirsty.
“What’s the matter?” asked Trimbush, waking, as I gave a whine of
uneasiness.
“I’m not well,” replied I, limping from the bench.
“Oh, it’s nothing to care about,” replied he, yawning and stretching
his limbs. “Yesterday’s work has taken the steel and wire out of ye,
that’s all.”
“It does not appear to have touched you,” rejoined I.
“Me!” returned Trimbush, grinning so that he showed every tooth in his
head. “Do you know, youngster, what you are?”
“Yes,” answered I proudly: “one who does his duty, and gives as much
satisfaction as any of you _oldsters_.”
“Well, well!” responded he, “I must admit that you allow yourself to be
_taught_; and both the duty and satisfaction which you give at present
are concentrated in that one great and good quality.”
Feeling somewhat humbled at this reply, and smarting under the
advantage taken of me the day before, I added sharply, “There was no
teaching me to instruct you how to obtain all the credit of the finish
yesterday.”
“Hear, hear, hear,” said one of our companions called Chancellor.
“At him again!” exclaimed a spaded bitch named Levity, and of the same
age as myself. “Take a suck at the lemon, and at him again!”
“You’re a sharp lot,” replied the old hound, with a mingled look of
contempt and indifference, “a very sharp lot indeed. I couldn’t think,”
he continued, turning to me, “what made the tip of your stern curl over
your head and tickle your nose until now. I have heard of a French
poodle’s being so stiff in the bend that he couldn’t get his hind legs
to the ground; but hang me if your conceit is not about a match for
his.”
“But you must admit,” observed Chancellor, “that without him we should
not have broken up our fox yesterday.”
“Well!” returned Trimbush, “and supposing I _do_ admit it, what then?”
“You should not have snatched the honour from him,” replied Levity.
“Honour?” rejoined Trimbush. “Pooh! The honour was already gained
before we mouthed the fox. We all like blood for the finish--men as
well as hounds--but it does not follow that there may not be quite
as much credit due to both without a _who-whoop_ as with it. For
instance,” continued he, “if that youngster Ringwood had had his nose
to the ground--as he should have done the moment the fox was lost to
view, instead of occupying himself by stargazing--we should, in all
probability, have lost our fox. What would have caused us to have done
so? A mere accident, for which no one would have been to blame. And
what, let me ask, enabled us to obtain a more desirable result? Just as
accidental a circumstance. Honour? Fudge!”
“At any rate,” said Chancellor, “I heard everybody praising what they
called your sagacity for discovering the fox in the tree.”
“It’s the way with those fools of men,” replied Trimbush. “They often
laud that in us which deserves no praise whatever, and pass by in
silence some of our most remarkable accomplishments.”
I felt that there was much truth in Trimbush’s argument; and although
a sly twinkle in his eyes led me to suspect that he made thus light of
my information for a selfish purpose, I lost a great deal of the vanity
which I hitherto had entertained from being the agent of so fine a
finish.
“You chanced to remark yesterday,” said I, “that foxes constantly run
down wind. Why do they? Is it to render the scent less strong for us?”
“Certainly not,” responded Trimbush. “The scent has nothing whatever
to do with it, notwithstanding what a parcel of cackling geese may
have said and written. The truth is, a fox is a timid, sly animal with
extraordinary quick ears and eyes, and a famous nose. When found, he,
of course, must break where there’s an opening; and as no men place
themselves up wind of us, or very seldom, that side is generally
left free, and away he rattles _up wind_ at the burst. I am now, of
course, speaking of the rule, and not the exceptions. He does not go
far, however, before he smells, hears, or sees something unpleasant,
which turns him either to the right or left. Another lurking cause of
suspicion that there’s an enemy in front, as well as those in the rear
turns him again, and so on until he gets his head straight down wind,
when, smelling and hearing nothing before him, he tries to make his
point and get out of the reach of our ringing cries, and, as he knows
full well--whetted appetites.”
“That sounds reasonable,” remarked I.
“Thank you,” rejoined the old hound, flourishing his stern. “I’m
flattered with your approval.”
“I noticed that the scent continued to improve after the first ten
minutes,” said I, “until within a short time of running him to view,
when it seemed to gradually die and become more faint.”
“It not only seemed,” replied Trimbush, “but it did so, and from
obvious reasons. Every animal with a skin--and I don’t remember at
this moment any without,” facetiously continued he, “smells stronger
when hot than cold. Fear often produces the same effect, but from
the like cause--as any excitement, whether pleasurable or the
reverse, produces physical heat. Now, after a fox is found, his scent
_increases_--although, from the state of the weather and ground, we may
not be able to hunt him a yard, nevertheless--so long as _exhaustion_
does not take place; and then as he sinks, so does the scent
_decrease_. The reasons for this,” continued Trimbush, “are as simple
as they are indubitable. The perspirable matter escaping through the
skin augments for a time from exertion, and the devil of a fright he
is in from our rattling behind him: but this begins to die away after
excessive evaporation, and often has caused us to lose a fox scarcely
able to crawl.”
“I thought the scent came from the pads,” remarked Levity.
“And what made ye think that?” sneered the old hound.
“I don’t exactly know,” replied Levity; “but certainly such was my
opinion.”
“Then never express such a foolish one for the future,” rejoined
Trimbush. “If it came from the foot, how could we carry a good head in
a body, and each have a fair share of the scent? We should have to run
and follow each other in a string, and one or two might do the work,
after drawing, as well as twenty or five-and-twenty couples. Again, if
it came from the foot, how could we carry it through water? I say, and
ought to know something about the matter,” continued the old hound,
emphatically, “that the scent proceeds from the entire animal. The
back, belly, head, foot, brush, and--and--and--exactly so, and every
part else.”
Old Mark was now heard approaching, which at once put a stop to the
discussion; and as soon as the good old man saw that I was lame he
examined my feet and washed them with something which he took from a
bottle hung by a piece of string to the button-hole of his frock. A
few others he served in the same way; and calling us each by name, let
us into another court, saying, “You puppies shall feed by yourselves
this morning; you all want a little nursing, I find.”
Will Sykes entered soon afterwards, and, seeing Mark’s arrangement for
our comfort, observed, “That’s right; those puppies want taking care
of.”
“Ay,” replied Mark, smoothing down my sleek ears and patting my sides,
“I hear some of ’em deserve it.”
“That Ringwood,” rejoined the huntsman, “is more like a third-seasoned
hound than a puppy at the beginning of his first.”
Old Mark’s eyes glistened again at this; and looking at me for a few
seconds as I lashed my stern to and fro and stared him full in the
face, to let him understand I knew all that was being said of me, he
muttered, “If a draft of hounds ever goes to heaven, you’ll be one of
’em, my lad.”
All this praise tended to make me a little vainer than I otherwise
should have been, perhaps; but at the same time it fixed my resolution
to merit as much as I could of it. And I have often thought since, that
there is nothing like encouragement to the young and inexperienced.
The difficulties of attaining anything worth learning are always great,
and using harsh and severe means on the part of the teachers only makes
the attempt more painful and repulsive. Punishment is, occasionally,
indispensable for obstinacy or repeated offences; but there is nothing
like a cheer for improvement.
After breakfast, and when we were all assembled in the court,
the subject of scent was again renewed by Levity observing, in a
confidential whisper to me, but which was overheard by Trimbush, “that
she very much questioned the correctness of the old hound’s opinion
concerning it.”
“You question?” snarled Trimbush. “We shall certainly hear,” continued
he, “of mewling, puking babes teaching their grandmothers to suck eggs,
by and bye.”
Levity looked abashed at this satirical remark, and, burying her nose
between her fore feet, appeared resolved to give herself to silence
bordering on the sulky.
“There’s nothing so puzzling, nothing so difficult to comprehend by
the best and most experienced of us,” said Trimbush, addressing me,
“as the philosophy of scent; and yet, forsooth, we are to be told by a
babbling puppy that----”
“Well, well!” said I, interrupting his irate speech, “don’t get in a
passion about a trifle.”
“Right,” replied my friend, smoothing the bristling hackles on his
back. “Quite right. Life is made up of trifles, as the hours are of
seconds, days of hours, years of days, and ages of years. Life’s
trifles are the atoms in unity, forming the whole.”
Not wishing to enter into a discussion of this sort, I led Trimbush
back to the original subject by saying, “I should like to hear a little
more about the philosophy of scent.”
“There is little more to add,” returned he, “as far as I know.
Depending, as I have before said, on the weather, which changes
sometimes three or four times in a day, and the state of the ground,
the rule is, that it is invariably uncertain. In windy weather we are
often accused of being wild and flashy; but the fact is, that the
particles of scent being widely spread and wafted about, one hits it
here, another there, and we fly from one to the other, each thinking
that some are on the right line, and may slip away with it unseen down
wind. There is nothing more tiresome than a gale of wind in hunting,
both to us and men. We can’t hear each other, and they can’t hear us;
and it is matter of doubt to me which is the worst of the two--a thick
fog, or a blowing gusty wind. I may here remark,” continued Trimbush,
“that there is a strange fact connected with scent, which I have not
heard attempted to be accounted for. On the going off of a frost, we
can run the drag hard, right up to the kennel, and yet be unable to run
an inch afterwards.”
“That seems very singular,” said I.
“I suppose it to be,” resumed my companion, “that the scent clings to
whatever the animal rubs against or passes over during the night; and
having gone slowly, a greater portion is emitted, which is preserved by
the frost, and the thaw having loosened the particles, enables us to
take them up.”
“But how do you account for not being able to run after he is
unkennelled?” asked I.
“Because his skin is cold; and going at a greater pace, there is not
sufficient time for the small quantity of scent escaping to lie strong
enough to overcome the exhalations from the ground, occasioned by the
warmth of the day.”
This sage reasoning on the part of Trimbush made me feel very small in
my own estimation, and I made up my mind to follow his advice for some
time to come, and listen rather than give tongue.