The man who hunts and does like it is an object of keen envy to the man
who hunts and doesn't; but he, too, has his own miseries, and I am not
prepared to say that they are always less aggravating than those endured
by his less ambitious brother in the field. He, too, when he comes to
make up his account, when he brings his hunting to book and inquires
whether his whistle has been worth its price, is driven to declare that
vanity and vexation of spirit have been the prevailing characteristics
of his hunting life. On how many evenings has he returned contented with
his sport? How many days has he declared to have been utterly wasted?
How often have frost and snow, drought and rain, wind and sunshine,
impeded his plans? for to a hunting man frost, snow, drought, rain, wind
and sunshine, will all come amiss. Then, when the one run of the season
comes, he is not there! He has been idle and has taken a liberty with
the day; or he has followed other gods and gone with strange hounds.
With sore ears and bitter heart he hears the exaggerated boastings of
his comrades, and almost swears that he will have no more of it. At the
end of the season he tells himself that the season's amusement has cost
him five hundred pounds; that he has had one good day, three days that
were not bad, and that all the rest have been vanity and vexation of
spirit. After all, it may be a question whether the man who hunts and
doesn't like it does not have the best of it.
When we consider what is endured by the hunting man the wonder is that
any man should like it. In the old days of Squire Western, and in the
old days too since the time of Squire Western, the old days of thirty
years since, the hunting man had his hunting near to him. He was a
country gentleman who considered himself to be energetic if he went out
twice a week, and in doing this he rarely left his house earlier for
that purpose than he would leave it for others. At certain periods of
the year he would, perhaps, be out before dawn; but then the general
habits of his life conduced to early rising; and his distances were
short. If he kept a couple of horses for the purpose he was well
mounted, and these horses were available for other uses. He rode out and
home, jogging slowly along the roads, and was a martyr to no ambition.
All that has been changed now. The man who hunts and likes it, either
takes a small hurting seat away from the comforts of his own home, or he
locates himself miserably at an inn, or he undergoes the purgatory of
daily journeys up and down from London, doing that for his hunting which
no consideration of money-making would induce him to do for his
business. His hunting requires from him everything, his time, his money,
his social hours, his rest, his sweet morning sleep; nay, his very
dinners have to be sacrificed to this Moloch!
Let us follow him on an ordinary day. His groom comes to his bed-chamber
at seven o'clock, and tells him that it has frozen during the night. If
he be a London man, using the train for his hunting, he knows nothing of
the frost, and does not learn whether the day be practicable or not till
he finds himself down in the country. But we will suppose our friend to
be located in some hunting district, and accordingly his groom
visits him with tidings. "Is it freezing now?" he asks from under the
bedclothes. And even the man who does like it at such moments almost
wishes that the answer should be plainly in the affirmative. Then
swiftly again to the arms of Morpheus he might take himself, and ruffle
his temper no further on that morning! He desires, at any rate, a
decisive answer. To be or not to be as regards that day's hurting is
what he now wants to know. But that is exactly what the groom cannot
tell him. "It's just a thin crust of frost, sir, and the s'mometer is
a standing at the pint." That is the answer which the man makes, and
on that he has to come to a decision! For half an hour he lies doubting
while his water is getting cold, and then sends for his man again. The
thermometer is still standing at the point, but the man has tried the
crust with his heel and found it to be very thin. The man who hunts
and likes it scorns his ease, and resolves that he will at any rate
persevere. He tumbles into his tub, and a little before nine comes out
to his breakfast, still doubting sorely whether or no the day "will do."
There he, perhaps, meets one or two others like himself, and learns that
the men who hunt and don't like it are still warm in their beds. On such
mornings as these, and such mornings are very many, the men who hunt and
do not like it certainly have the best of it. The man who hunts and
does like it takes himself out to some kitchen-garden or neighbouring
paddock, and kicks at the ground himself. Certainly there is a crust,
a very manifest crust. Though he puts up in the country, he has to go
sixteen miles to the meet, and has no means of knowing whether or no the
hounds will go out. "Jorrocks always goes if there's a chance," says one
fellow, speaking of the master. "I don't know," says our friend; "he's a
deal slower at it than he used to be. For my part, I wish Jorrocks would
go; he's getting too old." Then he bolts a mutton chop and a couple of
eggs hurriedly, and submits himself to be carried off in the trap.
Though he is half an hour late at the meet, no hounds have as yet come,
and he begins to curse his luck. A non-hunting day, a day that turns out
to be no day for hunting purposes, begun in this way, is of all days the
most melancholy. What is a man to do with himself who has put himself
into his boots and breeches, and who then finds himself, by one o'clock,
landed back at his starting-point without employment? Who under such
circumstances can apply himself to any salutary employment? Cigars and
stable-talk are all that remain to him; and it is well for him if he can
refrain from the additional excitement of brandy and water.
But on the present occasion we will not presume that our friend has
fallen into so deep a bathos of misfortune. At twelve o'clock Tom
appears, with the hounds following slowly at his heels; and a dozen men,
angry with impatience, fly at him with assurances that there has been no
sign of frost since ten o'clock. "Ain't there?" says Tom; "you look at
the north sides of the banks, and see how you'd like it." Some one makes
an uncivil remark as to the north sides of the banks, and wants to know
when old Jorrocks is coming. "The squire'll be here time enough," says
Tom. And then there takes place that slow walking up and down of the
hounds, which on such mornings always continues for half an hour. Let
him who envies the condition of the man who hunts and likes it, remember
that a cold thaw is going on, that our friend is already sulky with
waiting, that to ride up and down for an hour and a half at a walking
pace on such a morning is not an exhilarating pastime, and he will
understand that the hunting man himself may have doubts as to the wisdom
of his course of action.
But at last Jorrocks is there, and the hounds trot off to cover. So dull
has been everything on this morning that even that is something, and
men begin to make themselves happier in the warmth of the movement.
The hounds go into covert, and a period of excitement is commenced. Our
friend who likes hunting remarks to his neighbour that the ground is
rideable. His neighbour who doesn't like it quite so well says that he
doesn't know. They remain standing close together on a forest ride for
twenty minutes, but conversation doesn't go beyond that. The man who
doesn't like it has lit a cigar, but the man who does like it never
lights a cigar when hounds are drawing.
And now the welcome music is heard, and a fox has been found. Mr.
Jorrocks, gallopping along the ride with many oaths, implores those
around him to hold their tongues and remain quiet. Why he should trouble
himself to do this, as he knows that no one will obey his orders, it is
difficult to surmise. Or why men should stand still in the middle of a
large wood when they expect a fox to break, because Mr. Jorrocks swears
at them, is also not to be understood. Our friend pays no attention to
Mr. Jorrocks, but makes for the end of the ride, going with ears erect,
and listening to the distant hounds as they turn upon the turning fox.
As they turn, he returns; and, splashing through the mud of the now
softened ground, through narrow tracks, with the boughs in his face,
listening always, now hoping, now despairing, speaking to no one, but
following and followed, he makes his way backwards and forwards through
the wood, till at last, weary with wishing and working, he rests himself
in some open spot, and begins to eat his luncheon. It is now past two,
and it would puzzle him to say what pleasure he has as yet had out of
his day's amusement.
But now, while the flask is yet at his mouth, he hears from some distant
corner a sound that tells him that the fox is away. He ought to have
persevered, and then he would have been near them. As it is, all that
labour of riding has been in vain, and he has before him the double task
of finding the line of the hounds and of catching them when he has found
it. He has a crowd of men around him; but he knows enough of hunting
to be aware that the men who are wrong at such moments are always more
numerous than they who are right. He has to choose for himself, and
chooses quickly, dashing down a ride to the right, while a host of
those who know that he is one of them who like it, follow closely at
his heels, too closely, as he finds at the first fence out of the woods,
when one of his young admirers almost jumps on the top of him. "Do you
want to get into my pocket, sir?" he says, angrily. The young admirer is
snubbed, and, turning away, attempts to make a line for himself.
But though he has been followed, he has great doubt as to his own
course. To hesitate is to be lost, so he goes on, on rapidly, looking as
he clears every fence for the spot at which he is to clear the next; but
he is by no means certain of his course. Though he has admirers at
his heels who credit him implicitly, his mind is racked by an agony of
ignorance. He has got badly away, and the hounds are running well, and
it is going to be a good thing; and he will not see it. He has not
been in for anything good this year, and now this is his luck! His eye
travels round over the horizon as he is gallopping, and though he sees
men here and there, he can catch no sign of a hound; nor can he catch
the form of any man who would probably be with them. But he perseveres,
choosing his points as he goes, till the tail of his followers becomes
thinner and thinner. He comes out upon a road, and makes the pace as
good as he can along the soft edge of it. He sniffs at the wind, knowing
that the fox, going at such a pace as this, must run with it. He tells
himself from outward signs where he is, and uses his dead knowledge to
direct him. He scorns to ask a question as he passes countrymen in his
course, but he would give five guineas to know exactly where the hounds
are at that moment. He has been at it now forty minutes, and is in
despair. His gallant nag rolls a little under him, and he knows that he
has been going too fast. And for what; for what? What good has it all
done him? What good will it do him, though he should kill the beast?
He curses between his teeth, and everything is vanity and vexation of
spirit.
"They've just run into him at Boxall Springs, Mr. Jones," says a farmer
whom he passes on the road. Boxall Springs is only a quarter of a mile
before him, but he wonders how the farmer has come to know all about it.
But on reaching Boxall Springs he finds that the farmer was right, and
that Tom is already breaking up the fox. "Very good thing, Mr. Jones,"
says the squire in good humour. Our friend mutters something between his
teeth and rides away in dudgeon from the triumphant master. On his road
home he hears all about it from everybody. It seems to him that he alone
of all those who are anybody has missed the run, the run of the season!
"And killed him in the open as you may say," says Smith, who has already
twice boasted in Jones's hearing that he had seen every turn the hounds
had made. "It wasn't in the open," says Jones, reduced in his anger to
diminish as far as may be the triumph of his rival.
Such is the fate, the too frequent fate of the man who hunts and does
like it.