by R S Surtees
At last a cub slipped out at the low corner with Marksman, Merlin, and Midnight after him.
“Oh! pray turn those hounds, Mr. Muff!” hallooed Mr. Neville from the junction of the rides in the centre of the gorse.
Tarquinius Muff, when thus appealed to, was in the middle of a long dissertation on shirt frills, on which he particularly prides himself, being generally set off in front like a pouter pigeon; and thinking the appeal to him for assistance complimentary to his sporting skill, he immediately gathered his horse together, and with a touch of his large brass heel spurs, proceeded to show off before the ladies by giving chase to the fugitives.
The horse seemed to like the fun, and went off so resolutely that Muff never saw the brook until just in time to pull the horse in, which he did most skilfully, blobbing right over head in the middle of it!
We are ashamed to say the ladies laughed, as their dripping friend came spluttering ashore.
With that sorry exploit we will conclude Tom Scott’s first day of a bad season.
CHAP. II.
THE GOOSE AND DUMPLING HUNT.
“HARRIERS, TO BE good, like all other hounds, must be kept to their own game; if you run fox with them, you spoil them; hounds cannot be perfect unless used to one scent and one style of hunting. Harriers run fox in so different a style from hare, that it is of great disservice to them when they return to hare again; it makes them wild, and teaches them to skirt. The high scent which a fox leaves, the straightness of his running, the eagerness of the pursuit, and the noise that generally accompanies it, all contribute to spoil harriers.” — BECKFORD.
MR. SCOTT was debating whether to go to Holbrook Fair, or take his dogs and gun and stroll up to the ten-acre piece they were draining, when the short harsh bark of Snap at the door, and the clink of the German catch of the side gate, announced somebody coming.
It was Joe Stumps, Mr. Trumper of Jolly-rise’s man, whose trot and bustling air, with the portentous display of a ponderous hunting-whip, bespoke no common errand.
Tom went to the porch to meet him —
“Meazster’s compliments and hooundes be out,” said Joe, with which laconic speech he was turning his horse’s head to go away without deigning to say where “hooundes” were.
“Where are they, Joe?” hallooed Scott.
“Stockenchurch Hill, to be sure replied Joe, as if it was not possible for them to be anywhere else. The man of few words then trotted away, leaving Tom in contemplation of his enormous disk and the hind quarters of his short-legged, well-actioned bay dray-horse-looking nag, whose sides were covered with the flowing laps of Joe’s green frock coat.
Mr. Trumper took Stumps on account of his silent qualities (a great recommendation for harriers), a silence nearly reduced to muteness, by Joe’s leaving out as many words in the few sentences he does utter as he possibly can, according to the approved fashion of his native wolds. In other respects he is very like the hare-hunter — heavy, patient, ‘cute, and cunning, a good rider for a heavy man, careful of his horse and chary of damage. He is perfectly satisfied that there is not a more important personage under the sun than his master, and that he himself is the next greatest man going.
Mr. Scott, availing himself of Mr. Trumper’s politeness, enables us to introduce the hunt to our readers.
There is one advantage of harriers — you always know where to find them, and can cut in for a game at romps, just as a dowager does for a hand at whist.
Sleekpow the groom had anticipated Scott’s movements; for when he went to the stable, he found the “Wilkinson and Kid” astride of the hay crib, and the well-polished bridle hanging on the hook between the stalls.
“Just put the saddle on old Barbara,” said Tom, in the negligee sort of way that may mean any thing — any thing, at least, except fox-hunting.
“Hare-hunting certainly ought not to be made a business of. It should just be taken when one’s in the humour.” Nevertheless, we don’t subscribe to Beckford’s doctrine — that a ride to the sixth milestone and back would be as good as hare-hunting; for we think, taken quietly, that hare-hunting is the next best sport to fox-hunting. But to make hare-hunting enjoyable a man should live in a good country for it — in a country where he can just turn out within a mile or two of home, and not have to trash away to a distant one. The hounds, too, should be harriers, and not dwarf foxhounds, that burst a hare in ten minutes where there is any thing like a scent. A vicious desire for speed, and of making one thing serve two purposes, has gone far to annihilate the old, respectable, slow, and steady “well-hunted good dogs!” — harrier packs of former days. Instead of the “squire,” or a few substantial farmers, keeping their ten or twelve couple of harriers, we have a sort of bastard fox-hunt clubs that run a muck at everything, except the game licence.
The two sports — hare-hunting and fox-hunting — do not differ more in their nature than the relative expenses of each differ.
Hare-hunting requires neither state, machinery, nor preparation; nobody expects to see anything but a lot of merry-looking little animals wriggling and jumping about, attended, perhaps, by a man on foot with the couples, or an elderly servant on an elderly horse; but an establishment, calling itself a fox-hunt, is a very different thing, and raises very different expectations.
There must be a couple of men at the least, with three or four horses that can both gallop and jump. These two men, and these three or four horses, trifling as they appear upon paper, make a considerable item at the end of the year; and if the country is at all hollow, which most countries are fast becoming, from the quantity of draining going on, the expense of “stopping” alone, comes to as much as the whole annual expense of the merry harriers. Then the promoters have recourse to all sorts of screwing and scraping, applying to members of Parliament, and people who don’t hunt, and go running open-mouthed at every chance person that comes out, to support the rickety concern, which is generally a disgrace to fox-hunting, and a nuisance to the country they haunt, not hunt.
Fox-hunting should be done handsomely! There is something about the noble animal that forbids our treating him slightingly. He should be hunted like a gentleman. What chance have a lot of trencher-fed, milk-fattened, street-scouring beggars with a good high-couraged, clean-feeding, well-conditioned flyer? None whatever! The further they go the further they are left behind, till the lagging sportsmen have the satisfaction of seeing them struggling in fits, or sinking exhausted in the furrows. Then the talk and noise they make on a kill shows how unusual a thing it is with them. Nothing can be more pitiable than the half-rigged turn out of an ill supported pretension to a fox-hunt. The boosey-looking huntsman (generally the saddler or publican) — the wretched broken-kneed, over-worked, leg-weary job horse — the faded half jockey, half huntsman-looking caps — the seedy, misfitting, Holywell-street-looking coats — the unclean boots and filthy breeches — with the lamentable apologies for saddles and bridles. We never see a Tom-and-Jerry-looking “scarlet” without thinking how much more respectable the wearer would look in black. We never see a country-scouring, fence-flattening field without thinking how much better they would be with a pack of harriers. But to the hunt.
Mr. Scott reached Stockenchurch Hill just in time to see the delighted Mr. Trumper pick up his hare before the baying pack on the moor-edge side of the country.
Puss had made a wide circuit of the whole, and was run into a small enclosure, whose crop of oats still stood in stook upon the ground.
It was a fine view. Three parts of the hill are encircled with fertile pastures and productive corn fields, while the fourth stretches away, far as the eye can reach, in undulating and occasionally. broken moorland ground. The fertile patches irrigating the whole were dotted over with little black-faced sheep, while from the then browning heather the wild and scared muir-fowl rose in noisy clamour, winging their ways to quieter regions in the distance.
The day was clear and bright, good both for hearing and seeing, and occasional fitful gleams of
sunshine fell upon the distant landscape, lighting up the green patches, or disclosing rocky hill-sides, which, but for the sun, would have been lost in the general dimness of the scene.
The field was small, none but members of the hunt being out; indeed, they don’t encourage any other, and Mr. Scott looked upon it as no small compliment their asking him. It was composed of Giles Gosling, of Goose Green Farm, who pays tax for three couple of hounds, and, after Mr.Trumper, is the chief supporter of the hunt; Harry Beanstack, of Ricot; Michael and Thomas Hobbletrot, of Lingfield Green; Simon Driblets, of Loxley Hill Farm; his cousin, Ben Bragg, of the Water down; and the chaplain, the Reverend Timothy Goodman, rector of Swillingford.
They were all in a similar state of elation to the master; indeed, Mr. Trumper might be taken as a prototype of the whole, for, making allowance for the difference of size, they were all as like each other as peas. This similarity arose a good deal from the sameness of their costume and the singularity of its cut — extremely long, loose, bed-gown sort of bottle-green frock-coats, with laps reaching nearly down to their spurs, and great pewter plate-looking buttons set extremely wide apart behind.
There is nothing makes a person look so queer as an extremely long frock or great-coat, and our friends making “Guys” of themselves arising a good deal from a spirit of covetousness — unworthy of the generous pursuit they follow — we trust this mention of their foible may have the effect of rectifying it, and of saving the expenditure of much good cloth, which they are always tearing or leaving behind on the fences, or, more properly speaking, gaps. The fact is, the hunt always keep a web of cloth in common, and one man having got his coat a little longer than the others on a former occasion, it set the rest agog, and they have gone on, web after web, stealing a march upon each other, till every man puts on as much sail as ever he can carry. They all turn out in things like dressing-gowns, with huge flapped pockets on the sides, each pocket being capable of carrying a hare. Their waistcoats and breeches bear the same affinity — the former small striped toilanettes, the latter large, deep-ribbed, fallow-field looking, patent cords; and the great mahogany tops were evidently the production of the same hand, and made without regard to “right or left.” Between them and the breeches good warm grey or white lambs’-wool stockings may be seen. On this day, each man clutched a ponderous iron hammer-headed whip, that looked for all the world like flails, they, too, having been bought in stock, and apportioned out to them like swords to yeomanry. Their hats are broad-brimmed, dog-hairy looking things, rather inclining to oval at the crown.
Living in a retired part of the country, away from towns and even railways, the members of the “Goose and Dumpling Hunt,” as they call it, from the members dining off goose and apple puddings at each other’s houses after the first day’s hunting in each week — the members of the Goose and Dumpling Hunt we say — have fully satisfied themselves that they are the finest, primest, heartiest cocks in the kingdom, and their hounds the best that ever were seen. —
Indeed, the hounds are as good as can be, and have been in existence nearly forty years, during the whole of which time the greatest care and attention have been paid to their breeding.
Long and solemn have been the consultations and arguments respecting the crosses, and deep the consideration as to the propriety of introducing fresh blood.
These have all been faithfully chronicled by the chaplain and secretary, Mr. Goodman, as also the days of meeting and parties composing each dinner. The members of the hunt are all real sportsmen, men who love hunting innately, but who take no pleasure in leaping. Indeed, to tell the truth, since Beanstack broke his collar-bone by landing on a donkey instead of “terra firma” on the far side of an unsurveyed fence, the members have declined “extra risk,” as the insurance offices say, and if there isn’t a gap where they want to he over, why they make one.
Some people fancy hard riding an indispensable quality for a sportsman, but we believe, if we were to canvass the sporting world, we should find that the real lovers of hunting are any thing but a hard-riding set. Fond of seeing hounds work, they use their horses as a sort of auxiliary to their legs, and having got a good lift across a field, they are all the abler to compete with a hedge, when they come to one, which they feel they would have had to take, even if on foot.
Our friends of the hunt we are describing are all of this sort. Mr. Trumper, who stands six feet high, and turns the scale on eighteen stone, never pretends to ride over anything. He thinks if his great bay horse Golumpus can carry him handsomely over the heavy, he is entitled to all the ease he can give him at his leaps: and if in the early part of the season, when the old gaps are not well re-established, or a place has grown over during the summer, Mr. Trumper never attempts to break them through with his horse, but dismounting, and taking a bed-gown lap over each arm, he pushes backwards through, and clears the way for his horse. So the field take it in turns to clear the course for each other.
We should add, that their breeches are all seated with leather, most probably with an eye to these prickly performances.
The hounds are of a breed now seldom seen — long, low, mealy reddish, whole-coloured hounds, inclining to a brownish grey along the back. They are fine-headed, fine-coated, and fine-stemed animals, with light musical tongues, and power and pace quite equal to, but not an over-match for, the best and wildest of their moor-edge hares. They look like harriers, and are very much of the colour of the hare herself.
Not being great hands at riding, the object of the members of the hunt has been to keep down the pace of the pack, rather than to increase it, and they oftener draft at the head than the tail. Indeed, one of the rules of the hunt is, that no man is to ride over a leap that can by any possibility be avoided. When any thing in the shape of a poser intervenes, such as Narrowdell-brook or a moor-edge boundary wall, what craning and holding, and leading over is there. “Now, Mr. Trumper,” says Harry Beanstack, “I’ll hold your nag till you get over and Trumper, knowing the impossibility of clearing the brook on foot, just slides down the bank into the water, and wobbles through; then comes the old nag, who takes it quite naturally, and begins eating as soon as he lands. Beanstack follows in similar style, and a roar of laughter bursts forth as Giles Gosling disappears under water after a valiant attempt to clear the brook on foot, which checks the ardour of all the rest, who just stump through as Mr. Trumper did, trusting to the strength and honesty of their boots for not taking the wet in.
But we will suppose Mr. Scott joining the hunt.
“Halloo, Mr. Scott,” exclaims Mr. Trumper, who had just paid the last obsequies to poor Puss, who was then nodding her head out of one end of Joe Stumps’s hare case; “Halloo, Mr. Scott, are half an hour too late! you are half an hour too late! missed the finest thing that ever was seen! three quarters of an hour with only a slight check at Littleton cross roads, and ran into her in view.” (It had been a good twenty minutes.) “Didn’t Joe tell you where we were?” inquired he.
“Oh yes,” replied Scott; “but I waited for my letters, and then came leisurely along, trusting to chance for falling in with you before you found, or in the course of the run.”
“You should never trust to chance with our hounds,” retorted Trumper, somewhat nettled at the unfortunate speech. “If a thing’s worth coming to at all, it’s worth coming to in time,” with which somewhat irately delivered remark, he began to hoist himself on to a great sixteen hands horse that looked for all the world like a pony under him.
“It’s not often,” observed he, as he dangled for his stirrup, “that we trouble you fine foxhunting gentlemen; for, to tell you the truth, most of you make far too much noise, and press far too close upon hounds for our taste; but, as I know you can hold your tongue, and as the Squire hasn’t begun advertising yet, I thought I’d just let you know, you know.”
“Much obliged,” replied Scott, “much obliged; you may rely upon it, I won’t do any mischief.”
“Ay, but you may do mischief by riding as
well as by shouting,” observed Trumper, who had had his wheat desperately damaged on a former occasion by some of the flyers. “Your wild fox-hunters are all for cramming and ramming where-ever hounds go, without ever considering that, by standing still, p’raps you’ll see a deal more of the hunt. But you must just follow me,” added he, putting his great horse before Barbara, “and I’ll show you what to do.” —
“Let’s be doing then,” added he, slipping a small bugle into his bedgown pocket mouth, which disappeared like a rabbit down a boa constrictor’s throat.
The dismounted heavies then clambered on to their horses, and the now refreshed pack began baying and frolicking with delight, making the bright sunshiny scene merry with their presence.
Good humour reigning o’er all the currant-jelly mugs with the glorious find and kill, they proceeded to some fresh ground in the neighbourhood that had not been touched upon in the previous run.
There was no bother or fuss about gathering or restraining the hounds; they just followed on as they liked; and first one and then another claimed the admiration of our sportsmen as they passed.
It was quite clear that our harrier masters were not ashamed of their turn-out, and indeed both hounds, horses, and men had a most substantial, yeomanlike, unpretending appearance. The hounds we have already described, and for the horses, We may say that their general stamp was extreme strength and activity on remarkably short legs. They had all square docks, otherwise the ponderous carcases of many of the riders would have made them look more like ponies or cobs than full-sized hunters, which they were.
Before Scott had finished his mental valuation of the whole, he was interrupted by Mr. Trumper hallooing out to his whip, who was a little behind, “Which way now, Joe?”
“Braydoikes,” replied Joe; and accordingly the field separated, each man taking his own hedgerow.
