Riding Recollections, 5th ed. Part 9

Now if you are a mile behind, you miss all these interesting incidents, and lose, as does your disappointed hunter, more than half the amus.e.m.e.nt you both came out to enjoy. The latter too, works twice as hard when held back in the rear, as when ridden freely and fearlessly in front.

The energy expended in fighting with his rider would itself suffice to gallop many a furlong and leap many a fence, while the moral effect of disappointment is most disheartening to a creature of such a highly-strung nervous organisation. Look at the work done by a huntsman's horse before the very commencement of some fine run, the triumphant conclusion of which depends so much on his freshness at the finish, and yet how rarely does he succ.u.mb to the labour of love imposed; but then he usually leaves the covert in close proximity to his friends the hounds, every minute of his toil is cheered by their companionship, and, having no leeway to make up he need not be overpaced when they are running their hardest, while he finds a moment's leisure to recover himself when they are hunting their closest and best. In those long and severe chases, to which, unhappily, two or three horses may sometimes be sacrificed, the "first flight" are not usually sufferers. Death from exhaustion is more likely to be inflicted cruelly, though unwittingly on his faithful friend and comrade, by the injudicious and hesitating rider, who has neither decision to seize a commanding position in front, nor self-denial to be satisfied with an una.s.suming retirement in rear. His valour and discretion are improperly mixed, like bad punch, and fatal is the result. A timely pull means simply the difference between breathlessness and exhaustion, but this opportune relief is only available for him who knows exactly how far they brought it, and where the hounds flashed beyond the line of their fox at a check.

I remember in my youth, alas! long ago, "the old sportsman"--a character for whom, I fear, we entertained in my day less veneration than we professed--amongst many inestimable precepts was fond of propounding the following:--

"Young gentleman, nurse your hunter carefully at the beginning of a run, and when the others are tired he will enable you to see the end."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Page 193.]

Now with all due deference to the old sportsman, I take leave to differ with him _in toto_. By nursing one's horse, I conclude he meant riding him at less than half-speed during that critical ten minutes when hounds run their very hardest and straightest. If we follow this cautious advice, who is to solve the important question, "Which way are they gone?" when we canter anxiously up to a sign-post where four roads meet, with a fresh and eager horse indeed, but not the wildest notion towards which point of the compa.s.s we should direct his energies? We can but stop to listen, take counsel of a countryman who unwittingly puts us wrong, ride to points, speculate on chances, and make up our minds never to be really on terms with them again!

No, I think on the contrary, the best and most experienced riders adopt a very different system. On the earliest intimation that hounds are "away," they may be observed getting after them with all the speed they can make. Who ever saw Mr. Portman, for instance, trotting across the first field when his b.i.t.c.hes were well out of covert settling on the line of their fox?--and I only mention his name because it occurs to me at the moment, and because, notwithstanding the formidable hills of his wild country and the pace of his flying pack, he is always present at the finish, to render them a.s.sistance if required, as it often must be, with a sinking fox.

"The first blow is half the battle" in many n.o.bler struggles than a street-brawl with a cad, and the very speed at which you send your horse along for a few furlongs, if the ground is at all favourable, enables you to give him a pull at the earliest opportunity, without fear lest the whole distant panorama of the hunt should fade into s.p.a.ce while you are considering what to do next.

Not that I mean you to over-mark, or push him for a single stride, beyond the collected pace at which he travels with ease and comfort to himself; for remember he is as much your partner as the fairest young lady ever trusted to your guidance in a ball-room: but I _do_ mean that you should make as much haste as is compatible with your mutual enjoyment, and, reflecting on the capricious nature of scent, take the chance of its failure, to afford you a moment's breathing-time when most required.

At all periods of a fox-chase, be careful to _antic.i.p.ate a check_.

Never with more foresight than when flying along in the ecstasy of a quick thing, on a brilliant hunter. Keep an eye forward, and scan with close attention every moving object in front. There you observe a flock of sheep getting into line like cavalry for a charge--that is where the fox has gone. Or perhaps a man is ploughing half-a-mile further on; in all probability this object will have headed him, and on the discretion with which you ride at these critical moments may depend the performance of the pack, the difference between "a beautiful turn" and "an unlucky check." The very rush of your gallop alongside them will tempt high-mettled hounds into the indiscretion of over-running their scent.

Whereas, if you take a pull at your horse, and give them plenty of room, they will swing to the line, and wheel like a flock of pigeons on the wing.

Always ride, then, to _command_ hounds if you can, but never be tempted, when in this proud position, to press them, and to spoil your own sport, with that of every one else.

If so fortunate as to view him, and near enough to distinguish that it is the hunted fox, think twice before you holloa. More time will be lost than gained by getting their heads up, if the hounds are still on the line, and even when at fault, it is questionable whether they do not derive less a.s.sistance than excitement from the human voice. Much depends on circ.u.mstances, much on the nature of the pack. I will not say you are never to open your mouth, but I think that if the inmates of our deaf and dumb asylums kept hounds, these would show sport above the average, and would seldom go home without blood. Noise is by no means a necessary concomitant of the chase, and a hat held up, or a quiet whisper to the huntsman, is of more help to him than the loudest and clearest view-holloa that ever wakened the dead "from the lungs of John Peel in the morning."

We have hitherto supposed that you are riding a good horse, in a good place, and have been so fortunate as to meet with none of those reverses that are nevertheless to be expected on occasion, particularly when hounds run hard and the ground is deep. The best of hunters may fall, the boldest of riders be defeated by an impracticable fence. Hills, bogs, a precipitous ravine, or even an unlucky turn in a wood may place you at a mile's disadvantage, almost before you have realised your mistake, and you long for the wings of an eagle, while cursing the impossibility of taking back so much as a single minute from the past.

It seems so easy to ride a run when it is over!

But do not therefore despair. Pull yourself well together, no less than your horse. Keep steadily on at a regulated pace, watching the movements of those who are with the hounds, and ride inside them, every bend. No fox goes perfectly straight--he must turn sooner or later--and when the happy moment arrives be ready to back your luck, and _pounce_! But here, again, I would have your valour tempered with discretion. If your horse does not see the hounds, be careful how you ride him at such large places as he would face freely enough in the excitement of their company. Not one hunter in fifty is really fond of jumping, and we hardly give them sufficient credit for the good-humour with which they accept it as a necessity for enjoyment of the sport. Avoid water especially, unless you have reason to believe the bottom is good, and you can go in and out. Even under such favourable conditions, look well to your egress. There is never much difficulty about the entrance, and do not forget that the middle is often the shallowest, and always the soundest part of a brook. When tempted therefore to take a horse, that you know is a bad water-jumper, at this serious obstacle; you are most likely to succeed, if you only ask him to jump half-way. Should he drop his hind-legs under the farther bank, he will probably not obtain foothold to extricate himself, particularly with your weight on his back.

We are all panic-stricken, and with reason, at the idea of being submerged, but we might wade through many more brooks than we usually suppose. I can remember seeing the Rowsham, generally believed to be bottomless, forded in perfect safety by half-a-dozen of the finest and heaviest bullocks the Vale of Aylesbury ever fattened into beef. This, too, close to a hunting-bridge, put there by Baron Rothschild because of the depth and treacherous nature of the stream!

A hard road, however, though to be avoided religiously when enjoying a good place with hounds, is an invaluable ally on these occasions of discomfiture and vexation, if it leads in the same direction as the line of chase. On its firm, unyielding surface your horse is regaining his wind with every stride. Should a turnpike-gate bar your progress, chuck the honest fellow a shilling who swings it back and never mind the change. We hunt on sufferance; for our own sakes we cannot make the amus.e.m.e.nt too popular with the lower cla.s.ses. The same argument holds good as to feeing a countryman who a.s.sists you in any way when you have a red coat on your back. Reward him with an open hand. He will go to the public-house and drink "fox-hunting" amongst his friends. It is impossible to say how many innocent cubs are preserved by such judicious liberality to die what Charles Payne calls "a natural death."

And now your quiet perseverance meets its reward. You regain your place with the hounds and are surprised to find how easily and temperately your horse, not yet exhausted, covers large flying fences in his stride.

A half-beaten hunter, as I have already observed, will "lob over" high and wide places if they can be done in a single effort, although instinct causes him to "cut them very fine," and forbids unnecessary exertion; but it is "the beginning of the end," and you must not presume on his game, enduring qualities too long.

The object of your pursuit, however, is also mortal. By the time you have tired an honest horse in good condition the fox is driven to his last resources, and even the hounds are less full of fire than when they brought him away from the covert. I am supposing, of course, that they have not changed during the run. You may now save many a furlong by bringing your common sense into play. What would you do if you were a beaten fox, and where would you go? Certainly not across the middle of those large pastures where you could be seen by the whole troop of your enemies without a chance of shelter or repose. No; you would rather lie down in this deep, overgrown ditch, sneak along the back of that strong, thick bullfinch, turn short in the high, double hedgerow, and so hiding yourself from the spiteful crows that would point you out to the huntsman, try to baffle alike his experienced intelligence and the natural sagacity of his hounds. Such are but the simplest of the wiles practised by this most cunning beast of chase. While observing them, you need no further distress the favourite who has carried you so well than is necessary to render the a.s.sistance required for finishing satisfactorily with blood; and here your eyes and ears will be far more useful than the speed and stamina of your horse.

Who-whoop! His labours are now over for the day. Do not keep him standing half-an-hour in the cold, while you smoke a cigar and enlarge to sympathising ears on his doings, and yours, and theirs, and those of everybody concerned. Rather jog gently off as soon as a few compliments and congratulations have been exchanged, and keep him moving at the rate of about six miles an hour, so that his muscles may not begin to stiffen after his violent exertions, till you have got him home. Jump off his honest back, to walk up and down the hills with him as they come. He well deserves this courtesy at your hands. If you ever go out shooting you cannot have forgotten the relief it is to put down your gun for a minute or two. And even from a selfish point of view, there is good reason for this forbearance in the ease your own frame experiences with the change of att.i.tude and exercise. If you can get him a mouthful of gruel, it will recruit his exhausted vitality, as a basin of soup puts life into a fainting man; but do not tarry more than five or six minutes for your own luncheon, while he is sucking it in, and the more tired he seems, remember, the sooner you ought to get him home.

If he fails altogether, does not attempt to trot, and wavers from side to side under your weight, put him into the first available shelter, and make up your mind, however mean the quarters, it is better for him to stay there all night than in his exhausted condition to be forced back to his own stable. With thorough ventilation and plenty of coverings, old sacks, blankets, whatever you can lay hands on, he will take no harm. Indeed, if you can keep up his circulation there is no better restorative than the pure cold air that in a cow-shed, or out-house, finds free admission, to fill his lungs.

You will lose your dinner perhaps. What matter? You may even have to sleep out in "the worst inn's worst room," unfed, unwashed, and without a change of clothes. It is no such penance after all, and surely your first duty is to the gallant generous animal that would never fail _you_ at your need, but would gallop till his heart broke, for your mere amus.e.m.e.nt and caprice.

Of all our relations with the dumb creation, there is none in which man has so entirely the best of it as the one-sided partnership that exists between the horse and his rider.

CHAPTER XII.

RIDING _AT_ STAG-HOUNDS.

I have purposely altered the preposition at the heading of this, because it treats of a method so entirely different from that which I have tried to describe in the preceding chapter. At the risk of rousing animadversion from an experienced and scientific majority, I am prepared to affirm that there is nearly as much intelligence and knowledge of the animal required to hunt a deer as a fox, but in following the chase of the larger and higher-scented quadruped there are no fixed rules to guide a rider in his course, so that if he allows the hounds to get out of sight he may gallop over any extent of country till dark, and never hear tidings of them again. Therefore it has been said, one should ride _to_ fox-hounds, but _at_ stag-hounds, meaning that with the latter, skill and science are of little avail to retrieve a mistake.

Deer, both wild and tame, so long as they are fresh, seem perfectly indifferent whether they run up wind or down, although when exhausted they turn their heads to the cold air that serves to breathe new life into their nostrils. Perhaps, if anything, they prefer to feel the breeze blowing against their sides, but as to this there is no more certainty than in their choice of ground. Other wild animals go to the hill; deer will constantly leave it for the vale. I have seen them fly, straight as an arrow, across a strongly enclosed country, and circle like hares on an open down. Sometimes they will not run a yard till the hounds are at their very haunches; sometimes, when closely pressed, they become stupid with fear, or turn fiercely at bay. "Have we got a good deer to-day?" is a question usually answered with the utmost confidence, yet how often the result is disappointment and disgust. Nor is this the case only in that phase of the sport which may be termed artificial. A wild stag proudly carrying his "brow, bay, and tray" over Exmoor seems no less capricious than an astonished hind, enlarged amongst the brickfields of Hounslow, or the rich pastures that lie outstretched below Harrow-on-the-Hill. One creature, familiar with every inch of its native wastes, will often wander aimlessly in a circle before making its point; the other, not knowing the least where it is bound, will as often run perfectly straight for miles.

My own experience of "the calf," as it has been ignominiously termed, is limited to three packs--Mr. Bissett's, who hunts the perfectly wild animal over the moorlands of Somerset and North Devon; Baron Rothschild's, in the Vale of Aylesbury; and Lord Wolverton's blood-hounds, amongst the combes of Dorsetshire and "doubles" of the Blackmoor Vale. With her Majesty's hounds I have not been out more than three or four times in my life.

Let us take the n.o.ble chase of the West country first, as it is followed in glorious autumn weather through the fairest scenes that ever haunted a painter's dream; in Horner woods and Cloutsham Ball, over the gra.s.sy slopes of Exmoor, and across the broad expanse of Brendon, spreading its rich mantle of purple under skies of gold. We could dwell for pages on the a.s.sociations connected with such cla.s.sical names as Badgeworthy-water, New-Invention, Mountsey Gate, or wooded Glenthorne, rearing its garlanded brows above the Severn sea. But we are now concerned in the practical question, how to keep a place with Mr.

Bissett's six-and-twenty-inch hounds running a "warrantable deer" over the finest scenting country in the world?

You may ride _at_ them as like a tailor as you please. The ups and downs of a Devonshire _coombe_ will soon put you in your right place, and you will be grateful for the most trifling hint that helps you to spare your horse, and remain on any kind of terms with them, on ground no less trying to his temper and intelligence than to his wind and muscular powers.

Till you attempt to gallop alongside you will hardly believe how hard the hounds are running. They neither carry such a head, nor dash so eagerly, I might almost say _jealously_, for the scent as if they were hunting their natural quarry, the fox. This difference I attribute to the larger size, and consequently stronger odour, of a deer. Every hound enjoying his full share, none are tempted to rob their comrades of the mysterious pleasure, and we therefore miss the quick, sharp turns and the _drive_ that we are accustomed to consider so characteristic of the fox-hound. They string, too, in long-drawn line, because of the tall, bushy heather, necessitating great size and power, through which they must make their way; but, nevertheless, they keep swinging steadily on, without a check or hover for many a mile of moorland, showing something of that fierce indomitable perseverance attributed by Byron to the wolf--

"With his long gallop that can tire The hound's deep hate and hunter's fire."

If you had a second Eclipse under you, and rode him fairly with them, yard for yard, you would stop him in less than twenty minutes!

Yet old pract.i.tioners, notably that prince of sportsmen the Rev. John Russell, contrive to see runs of many hours' duration without so entirely exhausting their horses but that they can travel some twenty miles home across the moor. Such men as Mr. Granville Somerset, the late Mr. Dene of Barnstaple, Mr. Bissett himself, though weighing twenty stone, and a score of others--for in the West good sportsmen are the rule, not the exception--go well from find to finish of these long, exhausting chases, yet never trespa.s.s too far on the generosity and endurance of the n.o.ble animal that carries them to the end. And why?

Because they take pains, use their heads sagaciously, their hands skilfully, and their heels scarcely at all. To their experience I am indebted for the following little hints which I have found serviceable when embarked on those wide, trackless wastes, brown, endless, undulating, and s.p.a.cious as the sea.

There are happily no fences, and the chief obstructions to be defeated, or rather _negotiated_, are the "combes"--a succession of valleys that trend upward from the shallow streams to the heathery ridges, narrowing as they ascend till lost in the level surface of the moor. Never go down into these until your deer is sinking. So surely as you descend will you have to climb the opposite rise; rather keep round them towards the top, watching the hounds while they thread a thousand intricacies of rock, heather, and scattered copse-wood, so as to meet them when they emerge, which they will surely do on the upper level, for it is the nature of their quarry to rise the hill aslant, and seek safety, when pressed, in its speed across the flat.

A deer descends these declivities one after another as they come, but it is for the refreshment of a bath in their waters below, and instinct prompts it to return without delay to higher ground when thus invigorated. Only if completely beaten and exhausted, does it become so confused as to attempt scaling a rise in a direct line. The run is over then, and you may turn your horse's head to the wind, for in a furlong or two the game will falter and come down again amongst its pursuers to stand at bay.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Page 208.]

Coast your "combes," therefore, judiciously, and spare your horse; so shall you cross the heather in thorough enjoyment of the chase till it leads you perhaps to the gra.s.sy swamps of Exmoor, the most plausible line in the world, over which hounds run their hardest--and now look out!

If Exmoor were in Leicestershire, it would be called a bog, and cursed accordingly, but every country has its own peculiarities, and a North Devon sportsman more especially, on a horse whose dam, or even grandam, was bred on the moor, seems to flap his way across it with as much confidence as a bittern or a curlew. Could I discover how he accomplished this feat I would tell you, but I can only advise you to ride his line and follow him yard for yard.

There are certain sound tracks and pathways, no doubt, in which a horse does not sink more than fetlock deep, and Mr. Knight, the lord of the soil, may be seen, on a large handsome thorough-bred hunter, careering away as close to the pack as he used to ride in the Vale of Aylesbury, but for a stranger so to presume would be madness, and if he did not find himself bogged in half a minute, he would stop his horse in half a mile.

Choose a pilot then, Mr. Granville Somerset we will say, or one of the gentlemen I have already named, and stick to him religiously till the welcome heather is brushing your stirrup-irons once more. On Brendon, you may ride for yourself with perfect confidence in the face of all beholders, bold and conspicuous as Dunkery Beacon, but on Exmoor you need not be ashamed to play follow my leader. Only give him room enough to fall!

As, although a full-grown or warrantable stag is quickly found, the process of separating it from its companions, called "tufting," is a long business, lasting for hours, you will be wise to take with you a feed of corn and a rope halter, the latter of which greatly a.s.sists in serving your horse with the former. You will find it also a good plan to have your saddles previously well stuffed and repaired, lined with smooth linen. The weather in August is very hot, and your horse will be many hours under your weight, therefore it is well to guard against a sore back. Jump off, too, whenever you have the chance; a hunter cannot but find it a delightful relief to get rid of twelve or thirteen stone b.u.mping all day against his spine for a minute or two at a time. I have remarked, however, with some astonishment that the heavier the rider the more averse he seems to granting this indulgence, and am forced to suppose his unwillingness to get down proceeds, as my friend Mr.

Grimston says, from a difficulty in getting up again! This gentleman, however, who, notwithstanding his great weight, has always ridden perfectly straight to hounds, over the stiffest of gra.s.s countries, obstinately declines to leave the saddle at any time under less provocation than a complete turn over by the strength of a gate or stile.

To mention "the Honourable Robert" brings one by an irresistible a.s.sociation of ideas into the wide pastures of that gra.s.sy paradise which mortals call the Vale of Aylesbury. Here, under the excellent management of Sir Nathaniel Rothschild, a.s.sisted by his brother Mr.

Leopold, the _carted_ deer is hunted on the most favourable terms, and a sportsman must indeed be prejudiced who will not admit that "ten mile points" over gra.s.s with one of the handsomest packs of hounds in the world, are most enjoyable; the object of chase, when the fun is over, returning to Mentmore, like a gentleman, in his own carriage, notwithstanding.

Fred c.o.x is the picture of a huntsman. Mark Howcott, his whip, fears nothing in the shape of a fence, and will close with a wicked stag, in or out of water, as readily as a policeman collars a pickpocket! The horses are superb, and so they ought to be, for the fences that divide this grazing district into fields of eighty and a hundred acres grow to the most formidable size and strength. Unless brilliantly mounted neither masters nor servants could hold the commanding position through a run that they always seem to desire.

In riding to these hounds, as to all others, it is advisable to avoid the crowd. Many of the hedgerows are double, with a ditch on each side, and to wait for your turn amongst a hundred hors.e.m.e.n, some too bold, some too cautious, would entail such delay as must prove fatal with a good scent. Happily, there are plenty of gates, and a deer preferring timber to any other leap, usually selects this convenient mode of transit. Should they be chained, look for a weak place in the fence, which, being double, will admit of subdividing your leap by two, and your chance of a fall by ten.