Riding Recollections, 5th ed. Part 11

"It began to get very interesting, I was near enough to watch each hound doing his work, eighteen couple, all dogs, three and four season hunters, for I hadn't a single puppy out. I wish you had been there, my boy. It was a real lesson in hunting, and I'll tell you what I thought of them, one by ----. Hulloh! Yes. You'd better ring for coffee--Hanged if I don't believe you've been fast asleep all the time!"

But such runs as these, though wearisome to a listener, are most enjoyable for those who can appreciate the steadiness and sagacity of the hound, no less than the craft and courage of the animal it pursues.

There is an indescribable charm too, in what I may call the _romance_ of hunting,--the remote scenes we should perhaps never visit for their own sake, the broken sunlight glinting through copse and gleaming on fern, the woodland sights, the woodland sounds, the balmy odours of nature, and all the treats she provides for her votaries, tasted and enjoyed, with every faculty roused, every sense sharpened in the excitement of our pursuit. These delights are better known in the provinces than the shires, and to descend from flights of fancy to practical matters of _s._ _d._, we can hunt in the former at comparatively trifling expense.

In the first place, particularly if good hors.e.m.e.n, we need not be nearly so well-mounted. There are few provincial countries in which a man who knows how to ride, cannot get from one field to another, by hook or by crook, with a little creeping and scrambling and blundering, that come far short of the casualty we deprecate as "a rattling fall!" His horse must be in good condition of course, and able to gallop; also if temperate, the more willing at his fences the better, but it is not indispensable that he should possess the stride and power necessary to cover some twenty feet of distance, and four or five of height, at every leap, nor the blood that can alone enable him to repeat the exertion, over and over again, at three-quarter speed in deep ground. To jump, as it is called, "from field to field," tries a horse's stamina no less severely than his courage, while, as I have already observed, there is no such economy of effort, and even danger, as to make two small fences out of a large one.

I do not mean to say that there are any parts of England where, if hounds run hard, a hunter, with a workman on his back, has not enough to do to live with them, but I do consider that, _caeteris paribus_, a good rider may smuggle a moderate horse over most of our provincial countries, whereas he would be helpless on the same animal in Leicestershire or Northamptonshire. There, on the other hand, an inferior horseman, bold enough to place implicit confidence in the first-cla.s.s hunter he rides, may see a run, from end to end, with considerable credit and enjoyment, by the simple process of keeping a good hold of his bridle, while he leaves everything to the horse. But he must not have learned a single letter of the n.o.ble word "Funk." Directly his heart fails, and he interferes, down they both come, an _imperial crowner_, and the game is lost!

Many of our provincial districts are also calculated, from their very nature, to turn out experienced sportsmen no less than accomplished riders. In large woods, amongst secluded hills, or wild tracts of moor intersected by impracticable ravines, a lover of the chase is compelled by force of circ.u.mstances to depend on his own eyes, ears, and general intelligence for his amus.e.m.e.nt.

He finds no young Rapid to pilot him over the large places, if he _means going_; no crafty band of second-hors.e.m.e.n to guide him in safety to the finish, if his ambition is satisfied with a distant and occasional view of the stirring pageant; no convenient hand-gate in the corner, no friendly bridge across the stream; above all, no hurrying cavalcade drawn out for miles, amongst which to hide, and with whom pleasantly to compare notes hereafter in those self-deceiving moments, when

"Dined, o'er our claret, we talk of the merit, Of every choice spirit that rode in the run.

But here the crowd, Sir, can talk just as loud, Sir, As those who were forward enjoying the fun!"

No. In the provinces our young sportsman must make up his mind to take his own part, to study the coverts drawn, and find out for himself the points where he can see, hear, and, so to speak, command hounds till they go away; must learn how to rise the hill with least labour, and descend it with greatest dispatch, how to thread glen, combe, or dale, wind in and out of the rugged ravine, plunge through a mora.s.s, and make his way home at night across trackless moor, or open storm-swept down.

By the time he has acquired these accomplishments, the horsemanship will have come of itself. He will know how to bore where he cannot jump, to creep where he must not fly, and so manage his horse that the animal seems to share the intentions and intelligence of its rider.

If he can afford it, and likes to spend a season or two in the shires for the last superlative polish, let him go and welcome! He will be taught to get clear of a crowd, to leap timber at short notice, to put on his boots and breeches, and that is about all there is left for him to learn!

In the British army, though more than a hundred regiments const.i.tute the line, each cherishes its own particular t.i.tle, while applying that general application indiscriminately to the rest.

I imagine the same illusion affects the provinces, and I should offend an incalculable number of good fellows and good sportsmen, were I to describe as _provincial_ establishments, the variety of hunts, north, south, east, and west, with which I have enjoyed so much good company and good fun. Each has its own claim to distinction, some have collars, all have sport.

Gra.s.s, I imagine, is the one essential that const.i.tutes pre-eminence in a hunting country, and for this the shires have always boasted they bear away the palm, but it will surprise many of my readers to be told that in the south and west there are districts where this desideratum seems now more plentiful than in the middle of England. The Blackmoor Vale still lies almost wholly under pasture, and you may travel to-day forty miles by rail, through the counties of Dorset and Somerset, in general terms nearly from Blandford to Bath, without seeing a ploughed field.

What a country might here be made by such an enthusiast as poor "Sam Reynell," who found Meath without a gorse-covert, and drew between thirty and forty "sure finds" in it before he died!

Independently of duty, which ought to be our first consideration, there is also great convenience in hunting from home. We require no large stud, can choose our meets, and, above all, are indifferent to weather.

A horse comes out so many times in a season; if we don't hunt to-day we shall next week. Compare this equable frame of mind with the irritation and impatience of a man who has ten hunters standing at the sign of "The Hand-in-Pocket," while he inhabits the front parlour, without his books, deprived of his usual society and occupations, the barometer at set fair, and the atmosphere affording every indication of a six-weeks'

frost!

Let us see in what the charm consists that impels people to encounter bad food, bad wine, bad lodgings, and above all, protracted boredom, for a campaign in those historical hunting-grounds, that have always seemed to const.i.tute the rosiest illusion of a sportsman's dream.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE SHIRES.

"Every species of fence every horse doesn't suit, What's a good country hunter may here prove a brute,"

Sings that clerical bard who wrote the Billesdon-Coplow poem, from which I have already quoted; and it would be difficult to explain more tersely than do these two lines the difference between a fair useful hunter, and the flyer we call _par excellence_ "a Leicestershire horse!"

Alas! for the favourite unrivalled over Gloucestershire walls, among Dorsetshire doubles, in the level ploughs of Holderness, or up and down the wild Derbyshire hills, when called upon to gallop, we will say, from Ashby pastures to the Coplow, after a week's rain, at Quorn pace, across Quorn fences, unless he happens to possess with the speed of a steeple-chaser, the courage of a lion and the activity of a cat! For the first mile or two "pristinae virtutis haud immemor" he bears him gallantly enough, even the unaccustomed rail on the far side of an "oxer," elicits but a startling exertion, and a loud rattle of horn and iron against wood, but ere long the slope rises against him, the ridge-and-furrow checks his stride, a field, dotted with ant-hills as large as church-ha.s.socks and not unlike them in shape, to catch his toes and impede his action, changes his smooth easy swing to a laborious flounder, and presently at a thick bullfinch on the crest of a gra.s.sy ridge, out of ground that takes him in nearly to his hocks, comes the crisis. Too good a hunter to turn over, he gets his shoulders out and lets his rider see the fall before it is administered, but down he goes notwithstanding, very effectually, to rise again after a struggle, his eye wild, nostril distended, and flanks heaving, thoroughly pumped out!

He is a good horse, but you have brought him into the wrong country, and this is the result.

It would be a hopeless task to extract from young Rapid's laconic phrases, and general indifference, any particulars regarding the burst in which, to give him his due, he has gone brilliantly, or the merits of the horse that carried him in the first flight without a mistake. He wastes his time, his money, his talents, but not his words. For him and his companions, question and answer are cut short somewhat in this wise:--

"Did you get away with them from the Punchbowl?"

"Yes, I was among the lucky ones."

"Is, 'The King of the Golden Mines' any use?"

"I fancy he is good enough."

And yet he is reflecting on the merits of Self and Co. with no little satisfaction, and does not grudge one shilling of the money--a hundred down, and a bill for two hundred and fifty--that the horse with the magnificent name cost him last spring.

Their performance, I admit, does them both credit. I will endeavour to give a rough sketch of the somewhat hazardous amus.e.m.e.nt that puts him out of conceit with the sport shown by his father's hounds.

Let us picture to ourselves then, Rapid junior, resplendent in the whitest of breeches and brightest of boots, with a single-breasted, square-cut scarlet coat, a sleek hat curly of brim, four feet of cane hunting-whip in his hand, a flower at his breast, and a toothpick in his mouth, replaced by an enormous cigar as somebody he doesn't know suggests they are not likely to find. Though he looks so helpless, and more than half-asleep, he is wide-awake enough in fact, and dashes the weed unlighted from his lips, when he spies the huntsman stand up in his stirrups as though on the watch. There lurks a fund of latent energy under the placidity of our friend's demeanour, and, as four couple of hounds come streaming out of cover, he shoots up the bank rather too near them, to pick his place without hesitation in an ugly bullfinch at the top. Two of his own kind are making for the same spot at the same moment, and our young friend shows at such a crisis, that he knows how to ride. Taking "The King of the Golden Mines," hard by the head, he changes his aim on the instant, and rams the good horse at four feet of strong timber, leaning towards him, with an energy not to be denied.

Over they go triumphantly, "The King," half affronted, "catching hold"

with some resentment, as he settles vigorously to his stride. What matter? most of the pack are already half-way across the next field, for Leicestershire hounds have an extraordinary knack of flying forward to overtake their comrades. His father would be delighted with the performance, and would call it "scoring to cry," but young Rapid does not trouble himself about such matters. He is only glad to find they are out of his way, and thinks no more about it, except to rejoice that he can "put the steam on," without the usual remonstrance from huntsman and master.

The King can gallop like a race-horse, and is soon at the next leap--a wide ditch, a high staked-and-bound hedge, coa.r.s.e, rough and strong, with a drop and what you please, on the other side. This last treat proves to be a bowed-out oak-rail, standing four feet from the fence.

"The King," full of courage, and going fast, bounds over the whole with his hind legs tucked under him like a deer, ready, but not requiring, to strike back, while two of Rapid's young friends with whom he dined yesterday, and one he will meet at dinner to-day, fly it in similar form, nearly alongside. An ugly, overgrown bullfinch, with a miniature ravine, or, as it is here called, "a bottom," appears at the foot of the hill they are now descending, and, as there seems only one practicable place, these four reckless individuals at once begin to race for the desirable spot. The King's turn of speed serves him again; covering five- or six-and-twenty feet, he leaps it a length in front of the nearest horse, and a couple of strides before the other two, while loud reproachful outcries resound in the rear because of Harmony's narrow escape--the King's forefoot, missing that priceless b.i.t.c.h by a yard!

Our young gentleman, having got a lead now, begins to ride with more judgment. He trots up to a stile and pops over in truly artistic form; better still, he gives the hounds plenty of room on the fallow beyond, where they have hovered for a moment and put down their noses, holding his hand up to warn those behind, a "bit of cheek," as they call this precautionary measure, which he will be made to remember for some days to come!

He is not such a fool but that he knows, from experience in the old country, how a little patience at these critical moments makes the whole difference between a good day's sport and a bad. It would be provoking to lose the chance of a gallop now, when he has got such a start, and is riding the best horse in his stable, so he looks anxiously over his shoulder for the huntsman, who is "coming," and stands fifty yards aloof, which he considers a liberal allowance, that the hounds may have s.p.a.ce to swing.

To-day there is a good scent and a good fox, a combination that happens oftener than might be supposed. Harmony, who, notwithstanding her recent peril, has never been off the line, though the others over-shot it, scours away at a tangent, with the slightest possible whimper, and her stern down, the leading hounds wheeling to her like pigeons, and the whole pack driving forward again, harder than before.

It is a beautiful turn; young Rapid would admire it, no doubt, were his attention not distracted by the gate out of the field, which is chained up, and a hurried calculation as to whether it is too high for the King to attempt.

The solution is obvious. I need hardly say he jumps it gallantly in his stride. It would never do, you see, to let those other fellows catch him, and he sails away once more with a stronger lead than at first.

What a hunting panorama opens on his view!--a downward stretch of a couple of miles, and a gentle rise beyond of more than twice that distance, consisting wholly of enormous gra.s.s fields, dotted here and there with single trees, and separated by long lines of fences, showing black and level on that faded expanse of green. The smoke from a farm-house rises white and thin against the dull sky in the middle distance, and a taper church-spire points to heaven from behind the hill, otherwise there is not an object for miles to recall everyday life; and young Rapid's world consists at this moment of two reeking pointed ears, with a vision of certain dim shapes, fleeting like shadows across the open--swift, dusky, and noiseless as a dream.

His blood thrills with excitement, from the crown of his close-cropped head to his silken-covered heel, but education is stronger than nature, and he tightens his lips, perhaps to repress a cheer, while he murmurs--"Over the brook for a hundred! and the King never turned from water in his life."

Two more fences bring him to the level meadow with its willows. Harmony is shaking herself on the farther bank, and he has marked with his eye the spot where he means to take off. A strong pull, a steady hand, the energy of a mile gallop condensed into a dozen strides, and the stream pa.s.ses beneath him like a flash. "It's a _rum_ one!" he murmurs, standing up in his stirrups to ease the good horse, while one follower exclaims "Bravo! Rapid. Go along, old man!" as the speaker plunges overhead; and another, who lands with a scramble, mutters, "D----n him, I shall never catch him! my horse is done to a turn _now_."

"The King," his owner thinks, is well worth the 350 that has _not_ been paid. The horse has caught his second wind, and keeps striding on, strong and full of running, though temperate enough now, and, in such a country as this, a truly delightful mount.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Page 242.]

There is no denying that our friend is a capital horseman, and bold as need be. "The King of the Golden Mines," with a _workman_ on his back, can hardly be defeated by any obstacle that the power and spring of a quadruped ought to surmount. He has tremendous stride, and no less courage than his master, so fence after fence is thrown behind the happy pair with a sensation like flying that seems equally gratifying to both.

The ground is soft but sound enough; the leaps, though large, are fair and clean. One by one they are covered in light, elastic bounds, of eighteen or twenty feet, and for a mile, at least, the King scarcely alters his action, and never changes his leg. Young Rapid would ask no better fun than to go on like this for a week.

Once he has a narrow escape. The fox having turned short up a hedgerow after crossing it, the hounds, though running _to kill_, turn _as_ short, for which they deserve the praise there is n.o.body present to bestow, and Rapid, charging the fence with considerable freedom, just misses landing in the middle of the pack. I know it, because he acknowledged it after dinner, professing, at the same time, devout thankfulness that master and huntsman were too far off to see. Just such another turn is made at the next fence, but this time on the near side.

The hounds disappear suddenly, tumbling over each other into the ditch like a cascade. Peering between his horse's ears, the successful rider can distinguish only a confused whirl of muddy backs, and legs, and sterns, seen through a cloud of steam; but smothered growls, with a certain vibration of the busy cl.u.s.ter, announce that they have got him, and Rapid so far forgets himself as to venture on a feeble "Who--whoop!"

Before he can leap from the saddle the huntsman comes up followed by two others, one of whom, pulling out his watch, with a delighted face repeats frantically, "Seven-and-twenty minutes, and a kill in the open!

_What_ a good gallop! Not the ghost of a check from end to end.