Tivington Nott

by Alex Miller

  And the truth is, I’m no use to her. She sees through me. Through the masquerade. I’ve got no right to love this country! It’s hers! And if I weren’t such a glutton for hard work she’d soon convince the Tiger to blast me off the premises. She’s hoping for a big mistake from me. That’s why she’s watching the Tiger so closely now, working his way round these horses, inspecting! But not a word! He’s tugging at this and poking and picking and pulling at stuff, lifting the saddle flaps, checking the billets, the girths, the stirrups, and who knows what else? He’s leaving nothing to chance but he’s still not finding anything to scream about. And here he is, by my elbow, at the throat-latch at last, jiggling the martingale under Kabara’s neck, the horse eyeing him, tense, ready to react.

  ‘Tighten it!’

  I do as I’m told and he hands me his rolled riding mac to tie on behind Finisher’s saddle. Then he bids me ‘good morning’.

  It’s time to mount up.

  Morris must have come in without me noticing him. He’s left the road gate open and I see him now going across the yard with a barrow load of chopped mangolds for the cows. He looks across at us, pausing to watch the Tiger, who is dancing around with one foot in the stirrup, the other hopping, striving to swing his bulk into position. Not a lot of bounce in him. He’d take a chop at me with his riding-crop if I dared offer my assistance. And it’s not much good me mounting up till he’s firmly in the saddle. So I watch him, like Roly-Poly and Morris, and Kabara too. We all watch him grunting and striving and hopping around, dragging at Finisher so that the horse is forced to shift his stance in order to keep his balance, and it’s this shifting and shuffling that’s frustrating the Tiger.

  ‘Stand! Damn you! Stand!’

  Finisher tossing his head and snorting, feeling his oats and half enjoying the struggle. Then with a mighty heave the Tiger’s swinging through the air, his right leg flying out into space and carrying him past the point of no return, Finisher skittering aside and ducking away! We’re holding our breath! All I can see is the Tiger’s enormous bum with the fine twill stretched bone-tight across it. He seems to be floating through the air, going the wrong way. Then Finisher coils back under him.

  And the Tiger’s up!

  A hand to his bowler, a haul on the reins, a couple of kicks and he’s a young man again! Up there! In command! A solid horseman growing out of the powerful horse’s back! He won’t come off unless Finisher falls. The Tiger is a fearless rider once he’s up. He is never reckless, just unafraid, and he will use Finisher to the utmost of the horse’s strength. He is a commander now! A director! And that’s that! Free and big and strong and not old any more once he’s up there, and he will put up with no resistance to his commands nor to any mistakes in carrying them out, and he will resort to his spurs and to his whip without hesitation. And there he is now, sorting out Finisher’s ideas about pig-rooting, holding the gelding’s head up and keeping him high on the toes so that he can’t set his weight squarely on to his hind legs. And the Tiger’s smiling with delight! Exercising his technique! He’s not a tenant farmer any more. Now he is a horseman! There is his own judgement in these matters, and there is the great strength and fitness of the animal under him. He is sure of both. And all this has suddenly engrossed him with his own will and happiness. His eyes are brighter. The blood is freshening his complexion. His heart is beating faster and he loves it all so well that he looks down at me from the height of his wonderful prancing perch, and he laughs. He can’t help it. The laugh escapes from him. ‘Get up, boy! Get up!’ he calls to me with great enthusiasm. And he snaps his reins and he wheels his mount and he trots briskly across the yard and out of the gate.

  Roly-Poly turns and goes into her kitchen, closing the door. And Morris bends to grasp the handles of the wheelbarrow. He lifts it, and looking at me, he smiles: ‘See you at Winsford.’ And away he goes, ducking his head and disappearing into the dim interior of the cowshed. I lead Kabara out on to the road, closing the gate before mounting. My heart, too, begins to beat faster as I turn him right-handed along the high-banked viewless road that twists and turns and meanders about, heading through the rich red farmland towards Wiveliscombe and the moor beyond. The Tiger’s already out of sight and so I lift Kabara into a trot. We have twenty-five miles to ride to the meet.

  It’s now that I can’t help feeling anxious. Riding second horse is not the easiest thing in the world. Even for the local, with a life’s knowledge of the moor and the habits of the wild red deer, it is a tricky business. And there is always the element of luck. Will things go my way today or not? Predicting the movements of the hunted deer and being in the right place when the fresh horse is needed, that’s what it’s all about. And most second-horsemen lead the second horse and ride a mount of their own. But Tiger can’t afford that luxury. In fact this whole business is really beyond his means. It’s stretching things. Keeping a pair of hunters, and taking me off the real work of the farm, is pushing his economy to the limit in anything but a year like this one has been for him. Now he’s a gambler. He’s won a big pot and he’s feeling confident. But it’s that silent look that Roly-Poly sent after him just now before she closed her door that tells the long-term story, the real story, you might say. It scares her to think he might buy Kabara with the surplus cash. She doesn’t want this expensive black aristocrat lodged in her stables, any more than she wants me round the place. It all adds up to risks she can do without. She has in her mind the run of bad years that will come, sooner or later. In their cycle. And she wants everything to be in order to meet that day. Tight. No loopholes where fate, or something worse, might sneak through and turn a couple of bad harvests into a full-scale disaster.

  But Tiger’s the master.

  And when it comes to hunting the deer he listens only to his heart. In hunting he seeks for perfection in himself. There is no logic to it really. If you look at it calmly it makes no sense. And it affects me in its own way too. Hunting is not something that I would care to fail at. There are some things I don’t mind making a mess of. But not this business. I see eye to eye with the Tiger on this one. Though I don’t really know why I should.

  I trot on after him. It is a fine clear day with only a light northerly breeze just starting to pick up now. There shouldn’t be any rain unless the weather swings round to the west later in the afternoon, something it can almost be relied on to do around Dunkery and the Chains—I’ll get gradually damp right down to my underpants through the day however, rain or not, for the bracken and ground-cover is at its height just now, and stays wet all day. Not to mention the foliage we’ll be plunging through.

  I give Kabara his head and we descend the hill, following the Tiger. And here the narrow road runs through Norton’s Coppice. A deteriorated island of woodland this, its twisted undernourished limbs of thorn and oak too close together in places even for a horse to pass between them. An unvisited little wilderness on its own, probably generations since it was cropped for poles. The Tiger says, without explanation, that it’s not fit ground.

  I catch up with him where the road passes through this gloomy spot, and a yellow, long-legged vixen crosses just in front of Finisher, going home, pausing for a second or two to examine us before tucking her tail and bounding lightly into the wet underbrush. Her gaze in that instant revealing the mask of a harried and hungry animal, weary with age, her hunting unsuccessful.

  Hearing me pounding up close behind him, the Tiger calls, ‘Her last winter coming up!’ while keeping the Finisher going at a good fast trot through the puddles, muddying the hooves I’ve just oiled. We draw quickly up the hill together and out of the shadows of the coppice, passing Gaudon Manor on our left—the big house still showing no light—and then a quick left-hand turn off the cambered road and we’re swallowed again, into the steep narrow tunnel of Will’s Lane. Keeping to our pace and startling the birds with our sudden entrance, slipping and splashing on the exposed rocks where water is cascading from the field drains in solid streams, gathering at th
e bottom of the lane and flooding the grass, before flowing slowly away through Handon’s cornfield—almost a lake. Here the storm has really done some damage. Nine acres of barley flattened into the earth. I’m almost going to yell out something but the Tiger bores ahead without a pause, square on his horse, looking neither left nor right, gaze scanning the ground ahead, sharp, saving his mount where he can and making the best time. Concentrated. Riding. No slowing down to look at lost corn. His mind on hunting now, not the miserable luck some farmers might have; neighbours or not. And we’re past it.

  Going on, we pass meadow after meadow all threaded with silver streams, down deep lanes, muddy and waterlogged, rutted, twisting, full of corners in endless meanderings—we cross the early-morning countryside. The Tiger attacks each bend and turn with confidence, taking a fork and wheeling at each junction—the entrances to some lanes are almost closed over with rank autumn growth; he rides without hesitation. As if it is all written in his brain; his ancestors treading and treading these tracks for a thousand years before him. We can never see more than a few yards ahead of us, except when we pass a gate or a break in the bank, and then the sweep of countryside is revealed for an instant. But there is no open road anywhere. No direct route going into the distance. The roads are forever coiling back on themselves. Aimless. Confusing and frustrating to any stranger trying to get from one place to another, but familiar to the inhabitants.

  I follow the Tiger through this intimate labyrinth of his, not speaking, threading our way, the regular creak of our saddles and the splash of our horses’ hooves accompanying us. I hold the big stallion a few paces behind Finisher, just out of range of the mud and water that he’s throwing up, and we trot on, holding forward into the strengthening day, until the sun lights the golden beeches suddenly where they meet over our heads.

  Time stands still after a while, and the regular rise and fall of Tiger’s broad back and the bobbing black bowler ahead of me are hypnotic. It is the rhythm of the slap and splash of the hooves too. It could go on forever.

  I don’t know what I have been thinking about. In another world. Forgetting Winsford and the hunting ahead of us today, forgetting to be anxious about the way things will go. Daydreaming. For how long? Carried along securely by Kabara, his stride not faltering once. That’s why I’m not a real horseman, letting my thoughts drift off like this, so that when the Tiger suddenly slows to a walk I almost come off as Kabara wheels to avoid Finisher’s rump. I recover my seat, relieved the Tiger hasn’t looked round. We have begun to climb. We have arrived at the edge of the valley—the boundary of the Tiger’s labyrinth. We are at the foot of Ridge Hill.

  Rising in front of us are the eastern ramparts of the moor.

  Sensing hunting country under him Finisher snorts and shakes his head, stretching at the bit, keen to get on, and Tiger cautions him. Kabara has tightened up a little—taken himself in a notch or two. He doesn’t snort or prance or attempt to increase his pace against the walk that Tiger is holding us to. But I feel a difference in him. Like the day I took him down the steep combe into the larchwoods, to the soiling pit of the Tivington nott, there’s a balance in him now, an alertness, a readiness for action that is so well tuned that I am reminded again of how far I am outclassed by him.

  As we ascend the long hill slowly (skirting the town of Wiveliscombe) and the rich red farmland drops away behind us, the weave of its ways laid out in a pattern below us, the breeze cools and shifts towards the west. We’re coming into a wild uplifted landscape. It’s not clover and turnips and wheat up here. We’re finished with all that, farmers and crops. Up here it’s great brakes of bracken, six foot high, dense, wet, concealing holes and old rubbish, abandoned junk and wire and God-knows-what else; deer even! Gorse almost as bad, and dominating everything the thick tussocky moor grass, criss-crossed with hidden channels and ancient peat diggings. We can’t help becoming quieter, taking it more carefully, looking around, more intent now, more concentrated on this business that we’re here for. Up there ahead of us there are vast tracts of heather and bog that have never been broken by a plough. Untouched! The way God left it, from here to the uninhabited Atlantic coast. We’re entering the last ancient homeland of the wild red deer of England.

  Coming over the crest at last we see a stony road stretching ahead of us, a wide-looping silvery-grey scratch diving and curving through the empty landscape, tussocks of flying bent as far as the eye can see, in flower, laying a purple mist over it all. We keep going, straight on, not pausing to look back over our shoulders at the view of the valley we’ve just left. Intent now on penetrating this place. There’s no one about. It’s quiet, empty, still. We’d better watch out. If we come to grief in this country we’ve got no one to look to but ourselves. It’s true! We’re intruders, outsiders, the Tiger as well as me, looming up suddenly over the crest from down below. And the inhabitants have seen us. They’re on the defensive. They’re wary. They know we’re up to no good. So they’re keeping out of sight. This stillness is not natural. They’re holding their breath and hoping we’ll just pass through. Hoping we’ll keep going and let them get on with whatever it was they were getting on with before we appeared on the horizon; they know what to expect from men on horses.

  We follow this unfenced road for over an hour, keeping our mounts at a good fast walk, and seeing nothing but the silent purple moorland all around us. There’s a high, thin cloud forming as the sun climbs, and the steady northwesterly has a damp chill in it; ideal for hunting after last night’s rain. Breaking the silence, Tiger says, ‘It’ll stay fine then.’ Talking to himself. Not addressing me really, so I don’t answer, just accidentally letting his private conversation with himself pop out. And that’s about it for conversation all round, on this ride, until we begin to come down off the moorland and descend towards the steep wooded hill behind Winsford; at which point he says, ‘Well, what’s John Grabbe got for us today?’ And leads me down, still at a walk, through the pinewoods and out into a field with four red cows in it. They watch us while we negotiate the gate, maybe hoping we’ll forget to close it. And maybe nothing. Across this field and out a final gate, the hooves of our horses clatter on to the tarmac.

  Around the bend to our right, coming down from their kennels at Exford, and filling the narrow road from bank to bank, is the pack of tall, solemn, heavy hounds. The red-coated huntsman is leading them towards us. As we come out the gate on to the road suddenly in front of them, every eye focuses on us; the unsmiling huntsman’s too. Startled by this unexpected sight, Kabara backs off and lets out a tight, high-pitched sound, something of fear and aggression in it. And there is something frightening in the way they are coming towards us, tightly packed, mouths lolling, staring at us. I get the feeling they would hunt us. We wait for them to go by, giving them precedence, their due I suppose, and the huntsman nods, exchanging an off-hand and ungenial greeting with Tiger, preoccupied and talking to his hounds all the while, doing his job. It’s only fear of him that’s keeping them in check. He’d hang any one of them that got out of line, he’d do it now, this minute, without any discussion or second chances. He’d string it up by the neck in the hedge here, and they know it. But they’re bred against control, they’re bred to hunt to the limit, and that’s what they’ll all die doing. And they’ll hunt anything he lets them hunt. In a pack or alone. They don’t care. And without his permission if they can manage it. There’s not much they’re afraid of, these big lead hounds coming up now, in the front, each one capable of pulling down a full-grown stag—but they’re afraid of him. They’ve known him from the day they were born and they know he has power over their lives; whether they live or whether they die, whether they hunt or whether they just long to, whether they eat or whether they starve, whether they breed or, in the end, whether they hang; it’s up to him. Without him they’re nothing.

  I watch him talking to them all the time, speaking a private language that only he and they really understand. He doesn’t greet me as he goes by in the lead
, and I say nothing, just watch him. His hunting cap’s jammed home tight on his small round skull and his big dog-ears are sticking out conspicuously, each side of his close-shaven head. His eyes are deep-set and almost completely hidden by the low peak of his hard cap, but you can tell by the resolute set of his lips that there’s not a lot of humour in their expression; knowing, and keeping it to himself, that’s what he’s on about. And it’s true, he’s the only one, really, who can ever fully appreciate the performance these dogs put up, who can ever really know what it’s all about. No one else knows them well enough. No one else is so far into it as he. So he’s isolated by it, a knowing, superior solitude, alone with his hounds and his private understanding. They all look to him, the hunters, but it cuts him off from them, even from his employer, the master, and from the few really passionate devotees of this business. No matter how carried away they get, how deep into it they go, how great the risks they take, with their money or their necks, for them hunting’s still something else. He and his dogs are in it together for life. There’s nothing else for them, only this. It’s not a game. It’s life and death. And he, as well as his hounds, very likely despise everything else, except perhaps the high priest of it all, John Grabbe the harbourer. At any rate, Kabara and I are just obstacles in the road at this moment, something in the way to be got round; second-horsemen in the wrong place at the wrong time are one of the regular frustrations of his day!

  I watch him going by, riding his scruffy-looking mare, Kit, his red coat faded, threadbare at the collar, and weathered to a smooth pale gloss by hard usage.

  A grim little man.

  Not daring to get ahead of him, it’s not till he’s gone past that the hounds come surging round us; on foot I wouldn’t last a minute down there. Pressed to the side of the road, Kabara is unsteady for a moment, scrabbling for a secure footing and getting his offside feet onto the rise of the bank. I can feel his panic at being boxed in, and his anger too, mounting in a wave inside him as these heavy senior dog-hounds come up close on him, pushing and snarling and snapping and whining and sniffing and licking around his dancing legs. They are the mature survivors, these, of maybe four or five or even six seasons; many of them, by the law of averages, are facing their last season now. At their peak, each one is hardened to suffering, experienced in strategy, and bold and strong enough to stay with any deer to the bitter end. There has to be courage in this, but it goes deeper than courage; in this pack these hounds are the nobility. And Kabara hunches up as they touch him, sensing the menace in them, tightening the girth, his flanks quivering, I can feel him getting ready to strike, tuning his stance for it.