by R S Surtees
His competitor, we understand, had bid within five hundred of that sum at starting; so if a sportsman in the neighbourhood, doubtless well acquainted with the pack, would give that money for them, we must presume that the hounds were good and worth the price. At all events, we can only say it was not like a “North-country trick,” bidding 2500 guineas for them if they were not. Well, the result was that Lord Suffield got them, and they went into Leicestershire, where, as we said before, new kennels were built for their accommodation at Billesdon; that being the third new set erected since 1828. A new huntsman was also engaged, new whips, new feeder, new everything; and, report says, new names were given to some of the hounds; the names by which they were known in Mr Lambton’s kennel having been lost or confused in the hurry of transfer on the North Road.
Charles Treadwell — one of the nicest fellows of the present day — was engaged by Mr Smith, his first master, for Lord Suffield; and though the Craven and Mr Horlock’s countries, in each of which Treadwell had been, were rather different to Leicestershire, it was considered that a better country would only show him as a better man than he had theretofore had opportunity of proving himself.
Well, the result was that though the hounds lost their character their late Master gained the reputation of a true prophet, for they certainly did what he predicted: they lost caste; they “ran like mad” as the saying is, and often in the most gratuitous way — a mile beyond the scent; sometimes, people say, without having ever struck a scent at all. Added to this, the bitches were marvellously mute, and most of the Meltonians being short-sighted, they had no means of knowing whether the hounds were on the scent or off. Of course we are now speaking of the Fashionable fox-hunters, that portion of the field who hunt because it is the fashion. The old stagers found fault with legs and loins, but foretold better things with a scent; which that season was sadly deficient. The huntsman, like the hounds, they thought a devil of a one to go. They scrambled through the season somehow — sport was very indifferent, but that was largely due to the lack of scent already mentioned, and to the short-running of foxes. The three-thousand-guinea pack, however, did not answer the expectations which had been raised by the price given; and the season closed, we believe, rather abruptly by the intrusion of those unwelcome, familiar brothers John Doe and Richard Roe; the wonder is that with the unlucky name the hounds had acquired, John and Richard thought them worth “grabbing.” Hounds are awkward things to deal with, as the Leamington grocer found when he accepted a mortgage on a pack with the boiler, feeding-troughs, and other utensils. We really believe that, had the hounds formerly been the property of any save so noted a sportsman as Mr Lambton, they would have been left for some one else. As it was they went to our friends at the “Comer,” and it was reserved for a member of the far-famed Surrey Hunt to oppose common-sense to popular clamour and preserve this much decried pack from utter oblivion by dispersal in lots.
Mr Majoribanks, now Mr Robertson, the owner of Olympic and other celebrated race-horses, being about to keep hounds, boldly bid £1500 for this then despised pack, a sum that would be difficult to get for any pack nowadays, and which even in the palmy era of prosperity would have been a very fair price. It should be remembered that prior to Mr Lambton’s sale of his hounds for 3000 gs., two thousand was the highest price ever given for a pack — viz., by Mr Horlock for the late Mr Warde’s when Mr Warde retired from the Craven country and from the field generally. We have heard that the late Lord Midleton gave Mr Osbaldeston 1000 gs for the pick of ten couple out of his pack; but Mr Osbaldeston was in tiptop repute as a breeder, was hunting a country surrounded by wealthy judges, and therefore the sum must be regarded more as a fancy price than as a just criterion of the amount a pack would bring. Before Mr Warde’s sale £1000 or £1500 was looked upon as a fair price for a pack of hounds. Price, however, must be a good deal a matter of chance, depending on demand, fashion, young men coming out with more money than wit, and other such contingencies.
Packs have been sold for all prices. Mr Assheton Smith gave Sir Richard Sutton 1000 gs for his when he took to hunting the country near his seat in Hampshire; Lord Midleton gave Mr Corbet 1200 gs in 1812 for seventy couple; in May 1840 the Duke of Cleveland’s old-established and entire pack consisting of forty-three couple only fetched £262; and Mr Mytton once sold a pack for the value of their skins. Concerning that last transaction the price was no matter for surprise, the huntsman facetiously observing that they were “a capital lot, and would hunt anything from a helephant to a hearwig.”
But let people say what they will about price, or legs, or loins, this is indisputable — that Mr Lambton’s hounds capped all others in point of price in the most legitimate way the value of property can be ascertained — viz., by the freewill offer of one who knew them; and if Lord Suffield rued his bargain he had no one to thank but himself.
Now to the subsequent sale of the hounds when they became the property of “Doe & Roe.” Mr Robertson, we say, boldly bid £1500 for them; but fortunately for him, and unfortunately for Lord Suffield, “John & Richard” considered it necessary that they be sold at the hammer. The consequence was that they were bought for £500. Mr Robertson engaged Lord Suffield’s huntsman, Treadwell, and the pack went to the Border — sometimes hunting in Scotland, sometimes in England; and, huntsman and hounds becoming better acquainted with one another in country free from Leicestershire crowds, the pack very soon took to steady hunting and showed most excellent sport. We take the truth of the matter to be that in Leicestershire they had been over-hurried and over-ridden, to neither of which operations had they been accustomed before. In his Northern Tour, Nimrod dwelt upon the good order and sporting spirit of Mr Robertson’s fields, each man taking care, as Paley recommends, “if he could do no good to do no harm.”
The pack has now ceased to exist as a whole; Mr Robertson, after four seasons’ occupation of his country and in the midst of extensive preparations to hunt it for ever, suddenly resigned; and sold the hounds to Lord Elcho for £700 — two hundred more than he gave for them. His lordship, having replaced a draft from his own pack with the pick of Mr Robertson’s, sent the remainder of each to Tattersall’s, where they were sold for £200 or £300 — the wonder being, as times are, that they sold for anything.
Returning to consideration of the injury frequent changes do to hunting countries, let us take a look at Northamptonshire — the admitted second best, though we should be inclined to say the best country in England. Northamptonshire is rendered famous by the prolonged occupation of the renowned John Warde who held office there for eleven seasons. He was for fifty-seven years a Master of Fox-hounds. Fifty-seven years! What a time to look forward to or back upon! Mr Warde’s Mastership, however, dates back further than we propose to go. We will begin with Mr Musters’ occupation of it, some twenty years ago. Mr Musters has been one of the “lasting sort,” having been M.F.H. for hard upon, if not fully, forty years; he is one of the few remaining pupils of the celebrated Hugo Meynell; we have heard servants say that they never saw his equal in the management of hounds, attaching them to himself and making them do what he liked. Mr Musters’ father, it may be mentioned, was a Master of Hounds before him.
Mr Musters had the Pytchley when Mr Osbaldeston had the Quorn, and, if we remember rightly (we are writing at that most appropriately named place, Patterdale, with the rain beating in a most determined way against the windows, and no one in the house to consult but three Quaker ladies, the boots and the ostler), if, we say, we remember rightly, Mr Osbaldeston replaced Mr Musters in the former country. But there must have been interregna, for Mr Osbaldeston had a season in the Hambledon country (Hampshire), which could not have been the case had he continued in the occupation of Northamptonshire from the period of Mr Musters’ secession down to 1833-34 when he, Mr Osbaldeston, finally quitted it. However, that is immaterial to the point, our object being to show that changes have become more frequent than they used to be, to try and account for this, and indicate a remedy if
we can. The Northamptonshire squires have never been great supporters of hounds, differing in this respect from their humbler brethren, the graziers and farmers, than whom a better or more sporting lot nowhere exists.
The squires have the money and the graziers have not, so the hounds stand a bad chance if the former do not give them a lift; and before Mr Osbaldeston relinquished the country the subscriptions had dwindled to below the average of a second-rate provincial. £1200 a year, we believe, was all that could be raised; a sum wholly inadequate to the expenses; yet, sooner than be thrown out, Mr Osbaldeston offered to go on if they would raise him something short of £2000. This could not be, or was not, done; and the country absolutely became vacant without the prospect of a successor to the Squire. Many gentlemen were magnified into great sportsmen and were paid the flattering compliment implied by the offer of Northamptonshire—” the second best, if not the very best country in the world”; but somehow there was no demand for it; neither natives nor strangers would bite. Providence then did more for the country than it deserved, seeing the landowners would do so little for them selves, finding it a Master in the person of a Welch gentleman, Mr Wilkins, M.P. for Radnorshire, a good sportsman who had kept hounds for some years in his own country. His pack not being suited to Northamptonshire, and Mr Osbaldeston’s hounds having passed into Mr Harvey Combe’s hands, Mr Wilkins reinforced his kennel with a considerable portion of Mr Grantley Berkeley’s pack, Mr Berkeley having then just resigned the Oakley country — indeed it was generally supposed that Mr Berkeley had a share in the management. Mr Wilkins got Jack Stevens from Mr Osbaldeston as his huntsman, and the hounds had very fair sport, all things considered; but at the end of the season the country was again vacant, Mr Wilkins returning with the pick of his hounds and horses to Wales.
This arose, we believe, in great measure from want of proper support, no one caring to subscribe or put the stranger in the way of saving his money. There is the great difficulty with which strangers have to contend: no one will give them a lift. Whatever we do in this world we are sure to find out that if we had to do it again we could do it both cheaper and better; and hunting a country is no exception to the rule; mistakes are always made that would not be committed a second time. The local sportsman knows how to go about everything, knows who to trust and who to shun. If he is a good fellow the hearts and sympathies of the people are with him, and even the wicked are restrained by the fear of after-retribution. But a new man comes in without post or beacon, friend or guide; if he has a subscription, half those who contribute look upon him as their servant or debtor. He has the ways of the people as well as the ways of the country to learn. Public companies, from Fox-hunting down to Railways — those banes of fox-hunting — are always looked upon as privileged plunder. What John Stiles would hesitate in charging Squire Smith he makes no bones whatever in sending in to “Company”—” Co.”; that mysterious numerical force or comprehensive unit.
II.
SUBSCRIPTION PACKS — INCREASED EXPENSES OF HUNTING — SUBDIVISION OF PASTURES — NORTHAMPTONSHIRE — MR PAYNE — LORD SUFFIELD — MR SMITH OF THE CRAVEN — SIR HOLYOAKE GOODRICKE — INCREASED WEALTH OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES — MONEY NOW SPENT IN LONDON — COUNTRY BALLS — MODERN EXTRAVAGANCES — THE ‘FASHIONABLE’ FOX-HUNTER — STEEPLECHASING — HORSE-DEALING IN THE HUNTING FIELD.
THERE ARE VARIOUS ways of getting a living in this curious everyday world, but we know of none so unpromising as that of making money by farming a pack— “living out of hounds,” as it is called. Fortunately this is rarely done, but we have known it attempted more than once, and that too by parties who, to hear them talk, gave one to think they would be above taking a subscription at all.
Let us not, however, be supposed to disparage the importance of a subscription; quite the contrary; we maintain that a subscription pack with a local sportsman of station and influence at the head, is the most legitimate of establishments; but the head must be a real head, not merely a man to carry a horn. We also think that subscription packs are productive of more energy and less cavilling than private packs; every man feels his interest at stake both summer and winter, and will look to things all the year round, instead of lounging carelessly out during the season, leaving the breeding and protection of foxes, the propitiation of farmers and other etceteras to the private owner of the hounds, who in all probability leaves it to the huntsman, who deputes it to the earth-stopper, who leaves it to an assistant who leaves it undone. A subscription pack makes every man put his shoulder to the wheel, not only to keep down expense but to promote sport, each subscriber feeling his own credit identified with the credit of the establishment.
Somehow or other the present generation do not subscribe to hounds as their father did; we know men who used to come down with their fifties as regularly as could be, while their sons can hardly screw out five pounds for the Club; and then they talk as big about it as if they gave a hundred. One reason perhaps is that luxuries have become more diffused, and the men of the present day have expenses of which their fathers and grandfathers did not dream. Other pleasures too, are more come-at-able, and altogether we are a less tarrying-at-home people than we used to be. To be sure in Boney’s time there was no such thing as going abroad except in the “dashing white sergeant” style; but still our forefathers enjoyed their hunting and thought it the greatest luxury of life; we dare say wished for nothing better.
Fox-hunting is becoming a very expensive amusement. We do not hesitate to say that some countries pay more for preserving foxes and earth-stopping than kept our grandfathers a good, useful “cry of dogs” all the year round. Leicestershire covert rent we have heard stated at from £1000 to £1200 a year. This may or may not be the case; though if it is we can only say the sooner half the coverts are stubbed the better. If Sir Harry Goodricke spent £6000 a year and Sir Bellingham Graham had, as is reported, a subscription of £4000 a year when he hunted the country above twenty years ago, we might put down even a larger sum than that for covert rent; and if so we can only say that land in Leicestershire must be very valuable.
We have it in black and white, on the authority of Mr Delmé Radcliffe who hunted the metropolitan county of Herts, that some £300 a year is there paid for what is called the mere “goodwill” of the keepers towards foxes. This is all artificial; and the more artificial things become, the more expensive they grow. Indeed, if population and agricultural improvement keep pace during the next half century, hunting will be a mere matter of history in half the countries in England. Leicestershire now is no more like the Leicestershire of Mr Meynell’s time than Salisbury Plain is like the Vale of Blackmore at the present day.
The richer land becomes, whether by draining or other artificial means, and the larger the crops it yields, the likelier it is to be subdivided; and there is little doubt that many of the large fields we still see, parts of common lands inclosed within the present century, will gradually become smaller and smaller as the land becomes richer and more valuable; until hunting will be a sort of “hopping-in-and-out, clever sort of thing all day.” This, however, is looking to the future; and our concern is with the past and the present.
We were speaking of Northamptonshire, and had reached the Mastership of Mr Wilkins. On his retirement, after one season of office, Mr Payne of Sulby Hall in that county, was induced to take the hounds, and certainly a better sportsman, a more popular or fitter man could not have been selected; he combined all the advantages of birth, talent, local influence and possessions. Mr Payne continued to hunt the country till the season 1837-8 when he was succeeded by Lord Chesterfield; Lord Suffield, whose short career we have already noticed, taking the Quom — at all events, Leicestershire — at the same time. Poor Jack Stevens, who had passed from Mr Wilkins to Mr Payne, died about this time; and Will Derry, who had been first whip to the Quom dining more than one administration, and, we believe, hunted the hounds dining the temporary indisposition of Mountford, was raised to the rank of his lordship’s huntsman: Webb and Ball
being continued in their places as whips. We believe that Lord Chesterfield’s turn-out was as good as was ever seen in any country; his horses were superb; his numberless men were mounted in a magnificent way. But his lordship had too many other distractions, or amusements, to allow of his reign being prolonged; his hours, too, were desperately late; and after two seasons he retired, leaving the vacancy more difficult than ever to fill, owing to the splendour with which he had carried on the affairs of the hunt.
The country was hawked about and offered to everybody; and at the eleventh hour an arrangement was made with Mr Smith, late of the Craven, who undertook at short notice to get together an establishment before the season commenced. Following such a Master as Lord Chesterfield under any circumstances was a hazardous experiment; doubly so with the disadvantages against which Mr Smith had to contend; but conscious of his own powers, he felt, we suppose, that he could make up in real out-and-out fox-hunting and zeal what his establishment wanted in style and appearance. He proved himself quite the dread enemy of foxes, and maintained the reputation he had acquired in Berkshire. Difficulties notwithstanding, he showed sport; but his tenure of office was brief, lasting only two seasons. Then the country was again vacant, and we really believe would have been so at this moment but for the magnificent liberality of Lord Cardigan, who came forward with a subscription more than equal, we hear, to what the whole country formerly raised. Other gentlemen followed the noble example; a good subscription was at length raised, and Sir Holyoake Goodricke accepted the Mastership.
