English call it. The meet was to be at Goldicote House, one of the
"fixtures" of the Warwickshire Hunt. There were about a hundred
persons, including a few ladies, and one little bareheaded "blue-coat"
school-boy (from Charles Lamb's school), who, with his folded umbrella,
long skirt, low shoes, and yellow hose, was in for as much sport as
his Christmas holiday could give him. As a farther penalty for want of
forethought, I was reduced to riding a friend's coach-horse. However,
the reduction was not great, for whether by early instruction or by
inheritance, he was more than half a hunter, and gave me a capital
look at the whole day's chase; while his owner, on a most charming
black blood mare, being out of condition for hard riding, kindly
applied himself to urging me to severer work than one likes to do
with a borrowed horse. He introduced me to a venerable old gentleman
in a time-and-weather-stained red coat, velvet cap, and well-used
nether gear, mounted on a knowing-looking old gray, and attended by
his granddaughter. He could not have been less than eighty years old,
and his days of hard riding were over; but constant hunting exercise
every winter for over sixty years had protected him wonderfully well
against the ravages of time, and it is rare to see an American of
sixty so hale and hearty, and so cheerful and jolly. I was told that
if I would take him for my leader, I would see more of the run than I
could in any other way with such a mount as I had. He seemed to know
the habits of the foxes of South Warwickshire as thoroughly as he did
every foot-path and gate of the country, and he led us by cross-cuts to
the various points to which Reynard circled, so that we often had the
whole field in sight. It was not an especially interesting day, and the
fox got away at last, among a tangle of railway lines that blocked our
passage. My old mentor, who had given me much valuable instruction in
the details of hunting, was vastly disgusted at the result, and broke
out with, "Ah! it's all up with old England, I doubt; these confounded
railways have killed sport. There's no hunting to be had any longer,
for their infernal cutting up the country in this way. I've hunted with
these hounds under fifteen different masters, but I've about done, and
I sha'n't lose much,--it's all up. However, I suppose we could never
pay the interest on the national debt without the railways; but it's
all up with hunting." At that, he called away the young lady, bade me
a melancholy "good-by," and rode half sadly home. I galloped back to
Stratford with my handsome old host,--a little more knowing in the ways
of the field, but without yet having had a fair taste of the sport.
* * * * *
Seven miles from Peterborough, in the dismal little village of
Wansford, near the borders of Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire, is,
perhaps, the only remaining old posting-inn in England that is kept up
in the unchanged style of the ante-railroad days. The post-horses are
gone, but the posting-stables are filled with hunters; the travelling
public have fled to the swifter lines, and Wansford is forever deserted
of them; but the old Haycock keeps up its old cheer, and Tom Percival,
who boasts that he has had the Princess Victoria for a guest, and has
slept five dukes in one night, has little occasion to complain of
neglect. The good wine that needs no bush still makes his cellar known,
and no one should criticise English cooking until he has dined once at
the Haycock. Nowhere is the inn-maid of whom we have read so much to be
found in such simple, tidy, and courtesying perfection; and nowhere, in
short, can one find so completely the solid comfort of hostelry life.
Half old farm-house and half wayside-inn; with a marvellous larder,
through whose glass-closed side the guest sees visions of joints and
jams and pastry in lavish profusion; backed by a stable-yard where boys
are always exercising good horses; and flanked by a yardful of quaint
clipped yews,--the old house at Wansford (in spite of its dull-looking
road front) is worth a visit from those who would get out of the sight
and sound of steam, and see the old, old country life of England.
The visitor is not numbered and billeted and pigeon-holed, as in the
modern hotel; but the old fiction of host and guest is well kept up.
Your coming should be announced in advance; and you are received as
in some sort a member of the family, whose ways are made to conform
more or less to the wishes of yourself and your convives, mainly young
swells from London, who are few, and who are there, as you are, not for
business, but for rest, good living, and regular sport. Three packs
of hounds are within reach; and on the days when none of the meets is
near, there is always the "larking"--the training of young horses--to
supply a good substitute, so far as the riding goes. One who cares for
hunting pure and simple, rather than for the gayer life of Leamington
and Cheltenham, cannot do better than to make the season, or a part of
it, at the Haycock, with regularly engaged horses for as many days in
the week as he may choose to ride. It costs,--but it pays. One is none
the less welcome among the guests for being an American.
I there had a day with the George Fitz William hounds. Not being, as
yet, quite at home in the field, I took a wise old horse, "Cock Robin,"
who was well up to my weight, and who, as Percival told me, would
teach me more than I could teach him. He was sent on early with the
other hunters, and I took a "hack" to ride to cover. We were a party
of four, and we went through the fields and the lawns and the rain,
to where the meet was fixed for eleven o'clock, at Barnwell Castle, a
fine old Norman ruin,--square and low, with four large corner towers
draped in magnificent ivy. It was a dreary morning, and not more than
sixty were out; but among these, as always, there were ladies, and
there was more than the usual proportion of fine horses. One cover
was drawn blank, and we moved to another, where a fox was found, and
whence the run was sharp and too straight for a prudent novice to see
very much of it; and it was some minutes before Cock Robin and his
rider came up with the hounds, who had come to a check in a large wood.
Throughout the day there was a good deal of waiting about different
covers, between which the fox ran back and forth. Finally he broke away
for a long, quick burst over the fields, which lay to the left of a
farm-road down which we were riding, and which was flanked by a high
and solid-looking hedge. Near the head of the party was a well-mounted
blonde of seventeen, who had hitherto seemed to avoid the open country
and to keep prudently near to her mother and her groom. The sight of
the splendid run, fast leaving us behind, was too much for her, and she
turned straight for the hedge, clearing it with a grander leap than I
had seen taken that day, and flying on over hedges and ditches in the
direct wake of the hounds. A young German who followed her said, as
we rode back to the Haycock, "It is vort to come from America or from
Owstria to see zat lofely Lady ---- go over ze cowntry"; and it was.
Luck often favors the timid; Cock Robin and I were quite alone--he
disgusted, and I half ashamed with my prudence--when the fox, who had
found straight running of no avail, came swerving to the right over
the crest of a distant hill, closely followed by the hounds, and, in
splendid style, by the first flight of the field. Soon he crossed a
brook which was fenced in with rails, and the horsemen all had to make
a long détour, so that I, who had been last, now became first. I had
the fox and the hounds all to myself; my horse was fresh, and the way
was easy. My monopoly lasted only a moment, but it was not a moment of
tranquillity. Finding an open gate and bridge, I followed the pack into
a large low field, surrounded on three sides by the wide brook. The fox
was turned by this and ran to the right along the bank; at the corner
of the field he turned again to the right, still keeping by the edge of
the stream; this gave the hounds an immense advantage, and cutting off
the angle, they came so closely upon him that with still another turn
of the brook ahead of him, he had but one chance for his life, and that
was a desperate one for a tired fox to consider. He did not consider,
but went slap at the brook, and cleared it with a leap of nearly twenty
feet. The foremost hounds whimpered for a moment on the bank before
they took to the water, and when they were across Reynard was well out
of sight, and they had to nose out his trail afresh. He brought them
again to a check, and finally, after half an hour's skirmishing, he ran
down a railway cutting in the wake of a train, and got away.
Incidentally, here was an opportunity for an English gentleman to show
more good temper and breeding than it is one's daily lot to see. He was
one of a bridgeful of horsemen watching the hounds as they vainly tried
to unravel the fox's scent from the bituminous trail of the locomotive,
when, full of eager curiosity, one of the ladies, middle-aged and not
"native and to the manner born," but not an American, rode directly
on to his horse's heels. To the confusion of my lady, the horse, like
a sensible horse as he was, resented the attack with both his feet.
His rider got him at once out of the way, and then returned, bowing
his venerable head in regretful apology, and trusting that no serious
harm had been done. "How can you ride such a kicking brute!" was the
gracious acknowledgment of his forbearance.
In this storied little island one is never for long out of the presence
of places on the traditions of which our life-long fancies have been
fed. Our road home lay past the indistinct mass of rubbish, clustered
round with ivy and with the saddest associations, which was once
Fotheringay Castle; and as we turned into the village my companions
pointed out the still serviceable but long-unused "stocks" where the
minor malefactors of the olden time expiated their offences.
We reached the Haycock at three, a moist but far from unpleasant body
of tired and dirty men, having ridden, since nine in the morning, over
fifty-five miles, mostly in the rain, and often in a shower of mud
splashed by galloping hoofs. By six o'clock we were in good trim for
dinner, and after dinner for a long, cosey talk over the events of the
day, and horses and fox-hunting in general. My own interest in the
sport is confined mainly to its equestrian side, and I am not able to
give much information as to its details. Any stranger must be impressed
with the firm hold it has on the affections of the people, and with the
little public sympathy that is shown for the rare attempts that are
made to restrict its rights.
It would seem natural that the farmers should be its bitter
opponents. It can hardly be a cheerful sight, in March, for a thrifty
man to see a crowd of mad horsemen tearing through his twenty acres of
well-wintered wheat, filling the air with a spray of soil and uprooted
plants. But let a non-riding reformer get up after the annual dinner
of the local Agricultural Association and suggest that the rights of
tenant-farmers have long enough lain at the mercy of their landlord and
his fox-hunting friends, with the rabble of idle sports and ruthless
ne'er-do-weels who follow at their heels, and that it is time for them
to assert themselves and try to secure the prohibition of a costly
pastime, which leads to no good practical result, and the burdens of
which fall so heavily on the producing classes,--and then see how his
brother farmers will second his efforts. The very man whose wheat was
apparently ruined will tell him that in March one would have said the
whole crop was destroyed, but that the stirring up seemed to do it
good, for he had never before seen such an even stand on that field.
Another will argue that while hunting does give him some extra work in
the repair of hedges and gates, and while he sometimes has his fields
torn up more than he likes, yet the hounds are the best neighbors he
has; they bring a good market for hay and oats, and, for his part, he
likes to get a day with them himself now and then. Another raises a
young horse when he can, and if he turns out a clever fencer, he gets a
much larger price for him than he could if there were no hunting in the
country. Another has now and then lost poultry by the depredations of
foxes, but he never knew the master to refuse a fair claim for damages;
for his part, he would scorn to ask compensation; he likes to see the
noble sport, which is the glory of England, flourishing, in spite of
modern improvements. At this point, and at this stage of the convivial
cheer, they bring in the charge at Balaklava, and other evidences that
the noble sport, which is the glory of old England, breeds a race of
men whose invincible daring always has won and always shall win her
honor in the field;--and Long live the Queen, and Here's a health to
the Handley Cross Hunt, and Confusion to the mean and niggardly spirit
that is filling the country with wire fences and that would do away
with the noble sport which is the glory of old England! Hear! hear!!
And so it ends, and half the company, in velvet caps, scarlet coats,
leathers and top-boots, will be early on the ground at the first meet
of the next autumn, glad to see their old cover-side friends once more,
and hoping for a jolly winter of such healthful amusements and pleasant
intercourse as shall put into their heads and their hearts and into
their hearty frames and ruddy faces a tenfold compensation for the
trifling loss they may sustain in the way of broken gates and trampled
fields.
I saw too little to be able to form a fair opinion as to the harm
done; but when once the run commences no more account is made of wheat,
which is carefully avoided when going at a slow pace, than if it were
so much sawdust; fences are torn down, and there is no time to replace
them; if gates are locked, they are taken off the hinges or broken; if
sheep join the crowd in an enclosure and follow them into the road, no
one stops to see that they are returned: we are after the hounds, and
sheep must take care of themselves. I saw one farmer, in an excited
manner, open the gates of his kitchen-garden and turn the hounds and
twenty horsemen through it as the shortest way to where he had seen the
fox go; his womenfolk eagerly calling "Tally-ho!" to others who were
going wrong. I have never seen a railroad train stopped because of the
conductor's interest in a passing hunt, but I fancy that is the only
thing in England that does not stop when the all-absorbing interest is
once awakened.
Whatever may be the effect on material interests, the benefit of this
eager, vigorous, outdoor life on the health and morals of the people
is most unmistakable. Such a race of handsome, hale, straight-limbed,
honest, and simple-hearted men can nowhere else be found as in the wide
class that passes as much of every winter as is possible in regular
fox-hunting; and to make an application of their example, we could well
afford to give over many of our fertile fields to ruthless destruction,
and many of our fertile hours to the most senseless sport, if it would
only replace our dyspeptic stomachs, sallow cheeks, stooping shoulders,
and restless eagerness with the hale and hearty and easy-going life
and energy of our English cousins. Hardly enough women hunt in England
to constitute an example; but those who do are such models of health
and freshness as to make one wish that more women had the benefit of
such amusement both there and here. It is very common to see men of
over sixty following the hounds in the very _élite_ of the field; they
seem still in the vigor of youth. At seventy many are yet regular at
their work; and it is hardly remarkable when one finally hangs up his
red coat only at the age of eighty. Considering all this, it almost
becomes a question whether, patriotism to the contrary notwithstanding,
it would not be a good thing for a prosperous American, instead of
settling down at the age of forty-five to a special partnership and a
painful digestion, to take a smaller income where it would bring more
comfort, and by a judicious application of the pig-skin to rehabilitate
his enfeebled alimentation.
Fox-hunting is a costly luxury if one goes well mounted and well
appointed. It can hardly be made cheap, even when one lives in his
own house and rides his own horses. With hotel bills and horse-hire,
it costs still more. As an occasional indulgence it is always a good
investment. My own score at the Haycock was as follows,--by way of
illustration, and because actual figures are worth more than estimates.
(I was there from Thursday afternoon until Sunday morning, went out
with a shooting-party on Friday, dined out on Friday night, and hunted
on Saturday.)
THE HAYCOCK INN.
£ _s._ _d._
Jan. 2. Dinner and wine, 10 6
Bed and fire, 3 6
" 3. Breakfast, 2 6
Apartments,[A] bed and fire, 5 0
Attendance,[B] 1 6
Jan. 4. Breakfast, 2 6
Dinner and wine, 10 6
Apartments, bed and fire, 5 6
Attendance, 1 6
" 5. Breakfast, 2 6
STABLE.
Conveying luggage from station, 2 6
Dog-cart to Sharks Lodge, 10 6
" " " Oundle, 12 6
" " " Peterborough, 8 0
THOMAS PERCIVAL.
Jan. 4. Hire of hunter to Barnwell, 4 4 0
" hack " " 10 6
[A] The run of the house.
[B] We are apt to consider this a petty swindle, but it has the
advantage that you get what you pay for.
Eight pounds, twelve shillings, and sixpence; which being interpreted
means $47.30 in the lawful currency of the United States. The hunter
and hack for one day cost $23.52.
An American friend living with his family in Leamington (much more
cheaply than he could live at home), kept two hunters and a hack, and
hunted them twice a week for the whole season (nearly six months) at a
cost, including the loss on his horses, which he sold in the spring, of
less than $1,500. I think this is below the average expense.
The cost of keeping up a pack of hounds is very heavy. The hounds
themselves, a well-paid huntsman, two or three whippers-in, two
horses a day for each of these attendants (hunting four days a week,
this would probably require four horses for each man), and no end of
incidental expenses, bring the cost to fully $20,000 per annum. This is
sometimes paid wholly or in part by subscription and sometimes entirely
by the Master of the Hounds. One item of my friend's expenses at
Leamington was a subscription of ten guineas each to the Warwickshire,
North Warwickshire, Atherstone, and Pytchley hunts. Something of this
sort would be necessary if one hunted for any considerable time with
any subscription pack, but an occasional visitor is not expected to
contribute.
A stranger participating in the sport need only be guided by common
modesty and common-sense. However good a horseman he may be, he cannot
make a sensation among the old stagers of the hunting-field. Probably
he will get no commendation of any sort. If he does, it will be for
keeping out of the way of others,--taking always the easiest and safest
road that will bring him well up with the hounds, not flinching when a
desperate leap must be taken, and following (at a respectful distance)
a good leader, rather than trying to take the lead himself. However
promising the prospect may be, he had better not do anything on his own
hook; if he makes a conspicuous mistake, he will probably be corrected
for it in plainer English than it is pleasant to hear.
* * * * *
One of the memorable days of my life was the day before New-Year's.
Ford had secured me a capital hunter, a well-clipped gelding, over
sixteen hands high, glossy, lean, and wiry as a racer. "You've got
a rare mount to-day, sir," said the groom as he held him for me to
get up; and a rare dismount I came near having in the little measure
of capacity with which Master Dick and I commenced our acquaintance,
before we left the Regent. He was one of those horses whose spirits
are just a little too much for their skins, and all the way out he
kept up a restless questioning of his prospect of having his own way.
Still he was in all this, as in his manner of doing his work when he
got into the open country, such a perfect counterpart of old Max, who
had carried me for two years in the Southwest, that I was at home at
once. If I had had a hunter made to order, I could not have been more
perfectly suited.
The meet (North Warwickshire) was at Cubbington Gate, only two miles
from Leamington, and a very gay meet it was. The road was filled with
carriages, and there was a goodly rabble on foot. About three hundred,
in every variety of dress, were mounted for the hunt, a dozen or so
of ladies among them. Three of these kept well up all day, and one of
them rode very straight. The hounds were taken to a wood about a mile
to the eastward of Cubbington, where they soon found a fox, which led
us a very straight course to Princethorpe, about three miles to the
northeast.
I had done little fencing for seven or eight years, and the sort
of propulsion one gets in being carried over a hedge is sufficiently
different from the ordinary impulses of civil life to suggest at first
the element of surprise. Consequently, though our initial leap was a
modest one, I landed with only one foot in the stirrup and with one
hand in the mane; but I now saw that Dick was but another name for Max,
and this one moderate failure was enough to recall the old tricks of
the craft. As the opportunity would perhaps never come again, this one
was not to be neglected, and I resolved to have one fair inside view
of real fox-hunting. Dick was clearly as good a horse as was out that
day; the leaping was less than that to which we were used among the
worm-fences, fallen timber, and gullies of Arkansas and Tennessee; and
there was but a plain Anglo-Saxon name for the only motive that could
deter me from making the most of the occasion. Mr. Lant, the Master of
the Hounds, was not better mounted for his lighter weight than was I
for my fourteen stone; and his position as well as his look indicated
that he would probably go by the nearest practicable route to where the
fox might lead, so we kept at a safe distance behind him and well in
his wake. The hesitation and uncertainty which had at first confused my
bridle-hand being removed, my horse, recognizing the changed position
of affairs, settled down to his work like a well-trained and sensible
but eager beast as he was. From the covert to Princethorpe we took
seven fences and some small ditches, and we got there with the first
half-dozen of the field, both of us in higher spirits than horse and
rider ever get except by dint of hard going and successful fencing.
Here there was a short check, but the fox was soon routed out again and
made for Waveley Wood, a couple of miles to the northwest.
Waveley Wood is what is called in England a "biggish bit of timber,"
and the check here was long enough to allow the whole field to come up.
As we sat chatting and lighting our cigars, "Tally-ho!" was called from
the other side of the cover, and we splashed through a muddy cart-road
and out into the open just as the hounds were well away. Now was a ride
for dear life. Every one had on all the speed the heavy ground would
allow. In front of us was a "bullfinch" (a neglected hedge, out of
which strong thorny shoots of several years' growth have run up ten or
twelve feet above it). I had often heard of bullfinches, and no hunting
experience could be complete without taking one. It was some distance
around by the gate, the pace was strong, and the spiny fringe had just
closed behind Mr. Lant's red coat as he dropped into the field beyond.
"Follow my leader" is a game that must be boldly played; so, settling
my hat well down, holding my bridle-hand low, and covering my closed
eyes with my right elbow, with the whip-hand over the left shoulder, I
put my heart in my pocket and went at it, and through it with a crash!
An ugly scratch on the fleshy part of the right hand was the only
damage done, and I was one of the very few near the pack. Dick and I
were now up to anything; we made very light of a thick tall hedge that
came next in order, and we cleared it like a bird; but we landed in a
pool of standing water, covering deeply ploughed ground, the horse's
forefeet sinking so deeply that he could not get them out in time, and
our headway rolled us both over in the mud, I flat on my back. Dick
got up just in time for his pastern to strike me in the face as I was
rising, giving me a cut lip, a mouthful of blood, and a black and blue
nose-bridge. My appearance has, on occasions, been more respectable
and my temper more serene than as I ran, soiled and bleeding, over the
ploughed ground, calling to some workmen to "catch my horse."