Volume I Part 14 (1/2)
Under any circ.u.mstances a week's hunting is a good and healthy recreation: but it is difficult to enjoy a week's hunting more perfectly than in one of these hostelries, which have not, I rejoice to say, yet been swept away by the advancing tide of modern improvement.
Of whom did our company consist? We were not a party of Meltonian squires, such as it would have delighted the famous Nimrod to describe.
We were neither Osbaldestones nor Sir Harry Goodrickes: neither Myddelton Biddulphs nor Holyoakes. A Warwicks.h.i.+re or an Oxfords.h.i.+re hunting field differs very materially, so far as regards its _personnel_, from a Leicester or a Northamptons.h.i.+re gathering. The latter still preserves the memories and the traditions of a past _regime_, when hunting was confined to country gentlemen, farmers, and a few rich strangers: the former is typical of the new order of things under which hunting has ceased to be a cla.s.s amus.e.m.e.nt, and has become a generally popular sport. Now it is not too much to claim for hunting at the present day this character. The composition of the little band which on the morning now in question left the Lion Hotel at Chippington, bound for covert, was no unimportant testimony to this fact. We were half a dozen in number, and comprised among ourselves a barrister, a journalist, a doctor, and a couple of Civil servants, who had allowed themselves a week's holiday, and who, being fond of riding, had determined to take it in this way. In an average hunting field of the present day you will discover men of all kinds of professions and occupations--attorneys, auctioneers, butchers, bakers, innkeepers, artists, sailors, authors. There is no town in England which has not more than one pack of hounds in its immediate vicinity; and you will find that the riders who make up the regular field are inhabitants of the town--men who are at work four or five days in the week at their desk or counter, and who hunt the remaining one or two. There is no greater instrument of social harmony than that of the modern hunting field: and, it may be added, there is no inst.i.tution which affords a healthier opportunity for the ebullition of what may be called the democratic instincts of human nature. The hunting field is the paradise of equality: and the only t.i.tle to recognition is achievement. ”Rank,”
says a modern authority on the sport, ”has no privilege; and wealth can afford no protection.” Out of the hunting field there may be a wide gulf which separates peasant from peer, tenant from landlord. But there is no earthly power which can compel the tenant to give way to the landlord, or the peasant to the peer, when the scent is good and hounds are in full cry.
As we get to the bottom of the long and irregularly-paved street which const.i.tutes the main thoroughfare--indeed, I might add, the entire town of Chippington--we fall in with other equestrians bound for Branksome Bushes--the meet fixed for that day--distant not more than two miles from Chippington itself. There was the chief medical man of the place, mounted on a very clever horse, the head of the Chippington bank, and some half-dozen strangers. As we drew near to ”the Bushes” we saw that there had already congregated a very considerable crowd. There were young ladies, some who had come just to see them throw off, and others with an expression in their faces, and a cut about their habits, which looked like business, and which plainly indicated that they intended, if possible, to be in at the death. There were two or three clergymen who had come from adjoining parishes, and one or two country squires.
There were some three or four Oxford undergraduates--Chippington is within a very convenient distance of the city of academic towers--who were ”staying up” at their respective colleges for the purpose of reading during a portion of the vacation, and who found it necessary to vary the monotony of intense intellectual application by an occasional gallop with the Chippington or Bicester pack. Then, of course, there was the usual contingent of country doctors: usual, I say, for the medical profession gravitates naturally towards equestrianism. If a country doctor rides at all, you may be sure he rides well, and is well mounted, moreover. There was also a very boisterous and hard-riding maltster, who had acquired a considerable reputation in the district: a fair sprinkling of sn.o.bs; one or two grooms and stable cads. There was also an ill.u.s.trious novelist of the day, the guest of Sir Cloudesley Spanker, Bart., and Sir Cloudesley Spanker, Bart., himself.
We had drawn Branksome Bushes and the result was a blank. Local sportsmen commence to be prolific of suggestions. There was Henham Gorse, for instance, and two gentlemen a.s.severated most positively, upon intelligence which was indisputably true, that there was a fox in that quarter. Another n.o.ble sportsman, who prided himself especially on his local knowledge, pressed upon Jem Pike the necessity of turning his attention next to the Enderby Woods, to all of which admonitions, however, Mr Pike resolutely turned a deaf ear. These are among the difficulties which the huntsman of a subscription pack has to encounter or withstand. Every Nimrod who pays his sovereign or so a year to the support of the hounds considers he has a right to a voice in their management. Marvellous is the sensitiveness of the amateur sportsman.
It is a well-established fact, that you cannot more grievously wound or insult the feelings of the gentleman who prides himself upon his acquaintance with horses than by impugning the accuracy of his judgment in any point of equine detail. Hint to your friend, who is possessed with the idea that he is an authority upon the manners and customs of foxes in general, and upon those of any one neighbourhood in particular, that there exists a chance of his fallibility, and he will resent the insinuation as a mortal slight. Jem Pike had his duty to do to the pack and to his employers, and he steadfastly refused to be guided or misguided by amateur advice. So, at Jem's sweet will, we jogged on from Branksome Bushes to Jarvis Spinney, and at Jarvis Spinney the object of our quest was obtained.
'Tis a pretty sight, the find and the throw off. You see a patch of gorse literally alive with the hounds, their sterns flouris.h.i.+ng above its surface. Something has excited them, and there ”the beauties” go, leaping over each other's backs. Then issues a shrill kind of whimper: in a moment one hound challenges, and next another. Then from the huntsman comes a mighty cheer that is heard to the echo. ”He's gone,”
say half a score of voices. Hats are pressed on, cigars thrown away, reins gathered well up, and lo and behold they are off. A very fair field we were on the particular morning to which I here allude. The rector, I noticed, who had merely come to the meet, was well up with the first of us. Notwithstanding remonstrances addressed by timid papas and well-drilled grooms in attendance, Alice and Clara Vernon put their horses at the first fence, and that surmounted had fairly crossed the Rubicon. Nay, the contagion of the enthusiasm spread, as is always the case on such occasions, for their revered parents themselves were unable to resist the attraction. Sir Cloudesley Spanker a.s.serted his position in the first rank, as did also the distinguished novelist, his guest.
It has been remarked that all runs with foxhounds are alike on paper and different in reality. We were fortunate enough to have one that was certainly above the average with the Chippington hounds. Our fox chose an excellent line of country, and all our party from the Lion enjoyed the distinction of being in at the death. Mishaps there were, for all the bad jumpers came signally to grief. Old Sir Cloudesley related with much grim humour the melancholy aspect that two dismounted strangers presented who had taken up their lodging in a ditch. The two Miss Vernons acquitted themselves admirably; so did the rector, and I am disposed to think that the company both of the ladies and the farmers vastly improved our hunting field. It is quite certain that clergymen, more than any other race of men, require active change, and they need what they can get nowhere better than in a hunting field. Nor in the modern hunting field is there anything which either ladies or clergymen need fear to face. The strong words and the strange oaths, the rough language--in fine, what has been called ”the roaring lion element,”
these are accessories of the chase which have long since become things of the past. And the consummation is a natural consequence of the catholicity which hunting has acquired. There are no abuses like cla.s.s abuses. Once admit the free light of publicity, and they vanish.
There are hunting farmers and hunting parsons, clergymen who make the chase the business of their lives, and those who get a day with the hounds as an agreeable relief to their professional toils. There is not much to be said in favour of the former order, which has, by the way, nearly become extinct. It survives in Wales and in North Devon yet, and curious are the authentic stories which might be narrated about these enthusiastic heroes of top-boots and spur. There is a little village in North Devon where, till within a very few years, the meet of the staghounds used to be given out from the reading desk every Sunday after the first lesson. Years ago, when one who is now a veteran amongst the fox-hunting clerics of that neighbourhood first entered upon his new duties, he was seized with a desire to reform the ways of the natives and the practices of the priests. Installed in his new living, he determined to forswear hounds and hunting entirely. He even carried his orthodoxy to such a point as to inst.i.tute daily services, which at first, however, were very well attended. Gradually his congregation fell off, much to the grief of the enthusiastic pastor.
One day, observing his churchwardens lingering in the aisle after the service had been concluded, he went up and asked them whether they could at all inform him of the origin of the declension. ”Well, sir,”
said one of the worthies thus addressed, ”we were a-going to speak to you about the very same thing. You see, sir, the parson of this parish do always keep hounds. Mr Froude, he kept foxhounds, Mr Bellew he kept harriers, and least ways we always expect the parson of this parish to keep _a small cry of summut_.” Whereupon the rector expressed his entire willingness to contribute a sum to the support of ”a small cry”
of harriers, provided his congregation found the remainder. The experiment was tried and was completely successful, nor after that day had the new rector occasion to complain of a deficiency in his congregation.
Tories of the old school, for instance Sir Cloudesley Spanker, who has acquitted himself so gallantly to-day, would no doubt affirm that fox-hunting has been fatally injured as a sport by railways. The truth of the proposition is extremely questionable, and it may be dismissed in almost the same breath as the sinister predictions which are never verified of certain naval and military officers on the subject of the inevitable destiny of their respective services. Railways have no doubt disturbed the domestic tranquillity of the fox family, and have compelled its various members to forsake in some instances the ancient Lares and Penates. But the havoc which the science of man has wrought, the skill of man has obviated. Foxes are quite as dear to humanity as they can be to themselves; and in proportion as the natural dwellings of foxes have been destroyed artificial homes have been provided for them. Moreover, railways have had the effect of bringing men together, and of establis.h.i.+ng all over the country new fox-hunting centres.
Hunting wants money, and railways have brought men with money to the spots at which they were needed. They have, so to speak, placed the hunting field at the very doors of the dwellers in town. In London a man may breakfast at home, have four or five hours' hunting fifty miles away from the metropolitan chimney-pots, and find himself seated at his domestic mahogany for a seven o'clock dinner. Nor is it necessary for the inhabitant of London to go such a distance to secure an excellent day's hunting. To say nothing of her Majesty's staghounds, there are first-rate packs in Surrey, Ess.e.x, and Kent, all within a railway journey of an hour. Here again the inveterate _laudator temporis acti_ will declare he discerns greater ground for dissatisfaction than congratulation. He will tell you that in consequence of those confounded steam-engines the field gets flooded by c.o.c.kneys who can't ride, who mob the covert, and effectually prevent the fox from breaking. Of course it is indisputable that railways have familiarised men who never hunted previously with horses and with hounds, and that persons now venture upon the chase whose forefathers may have scarcely known how to distinguish between a dog and a horse. Very likely, moreover, it would be much better for fox-hunting if a fair proportion of these new-comers had never presented themselves in this their new capacity. At the same time with the quant.i.ty of the hors.e.m.e.n there has been some improvement also in the quality of the horsemans.h.i.+p. Leech's typical c.o.c.kney Nimrod may not have yet become extinct, but he is a much rarer specimen of sporting humanity than was formerly the case.
It is a great thing for all Englishmen that hunting should have received this new development among us, and for the simple reason that salutary as is the discipline of all field sports, that of hunting is so in the most eminent degree. ”Ride straight to hounds and talk as little as possible,” was the advice given by a veteran to a youngster who was discussing the secret mode in which popularity was to be secured; and the sententious maxim contains a great many grains of truth. Englishmen admire performance, and without it they despise words. Performance is the only thing which in the hunting field meets with recognition or sufferance, and the braggart is most inevitably brought to his proper level in the course of a burst of forty minutes across a good country. Again, the hunting field is the most admirably contrived species of discipline for the temper. Displays of irritation or annoyance are promptly and effectively rebuked; and the man who cannot bear with fitting humility the reprimand, when it is merited, of the master or huntsman, will not have long to wait for the demonstrative disapproval of his compeers.
Hunting has been cla.s.sed amongst those sports--_detestata matribus_--by reason of the intrinsic risk which it involves. Is it in any degree more dangerous than cricket or football, shooting or Alpine climbing?
In Great Britain and Ireland there are at present exactly two hundred and twenty packs of hounds. Of these some hunt as often as five days a week, others not more frequently than two. The average may probably be fixed at the figure three. Roughly the hunting season lasts twenty-five weeks, while it may be computed that at least ninety hors.e.m.e.n go out with each pack. We thus have one million four hundred and fifty-eight thousand as the total of the occasions on which horse and rider feel the perils of the chase. ”If,” said Anthony Trollope, in the course of some admirable remarks on the subject, ”we say that a bone is broken annually in each hunt, and a man killed once in two years in all the hunts together, we think that we exceed the average of casualties. At present there is a spirit abroad which is desirous of maintaining the manly excitement of enterprise in which some peril is to be encountered, but which demands at the same time that it should be done without any risk of injurious circ.u.mstances. Let us have the excitement and pleasure of danger, but for G.o.d's sake no danger itself. This at any rate is unreasonable.”
These observations have somewhat diverted me from the thread of the original narrative. Should, however, the reader desire more precise information as to the particular line of country taken up by the fox on that eventful day with the Chippington hounds, will he not find it written for him in his favourite sporting paper?
So we met, so we hunted, and so we rode home and dined; and if any person who is not entirely a stranger to horses wishes to enjoy a few days' active recreation and healthy holidays, he cannot, I would submit, for the reasons which I have above attempted to enumerate, do better than go down to the Lion at Chippington, and get a few days with the Chippington hounds.
A MILITARY STEEPLE-CHASE
We were quartered in a very sporting part of the country, where the hunting season was always wound up by a couple of days'
steeple-chasing. The regiment stationed here had usually given a cup for a military steeple-chase, and when we determined to give one for an open military handicap chase, the excitement was very great as to our chances of winning the cup we had given. As there were some very good horses and riders in the regiment, it appeared a fair one, eight nominations having been taken by us. There were also about the same number taken by regiments in the district. Our Major, who was a first-rate horseman, entered his well-known horse Jerry; I and others nominated one each, but one sub., a very celebrated character amongst us, took two. This man's father had made a very large fortune by nursery gardens, and put his son into the army, where, of course, he was instantly dubbed ”The Gardener.” He was by no means a bad sort of fellow, but he never could ride. The riding-master almost cried as he said he never could make ”The Gardener” even look like riding; not that he was dest.i.tute of pluck, but he was utterly unable to stick on the horse. He had a large stud of hunters, but when out he almost invariably tumbled off at each fence.
Amongst those who nominated horses was the celebrated Captain Lane, of the Hussars, who was said to be so good a jockey that the professionals grumbled greatly at having to give him amateurs' allowance. No one was better at imperceptibly boring a compet.i.tor out of the course; and at causing false starts and balking at fences he was without a rival. The way he would seem to be hard on his horse with his whip, when only striking his own leg, was quite a master-piece. Report declared that he trained all his own horses to these dodges, and I believe it was quite true, as his were quite quiet and cool under the performances when the rest were almost fretted out of their lives.
When the handicap came out I found, to my great disgust, that such a crusher had been put on my horse that I at once put the pen through his name--not caring to run him on the off-chance of his standing up and the rest coming to grief, or with the probability, anyhow, of a punis.h.i.+ng finish. However, the next night after mess, the Major called me up to him in the ante-room, and said: ”I hear you have scratched your horse, and quite right, too. I have accepted, and if you like to have the mount, you are quite welcome.” Of course, I was greatly delighted, but told him that I had never ridden in steeple-chase before. ”But I have,” growled the Major, ”and am not going to waste over this tin-pot,” as he irreverently called the cup, ”so I can show you the ropes. Come to my quarters after breakfast to-morrow, and we will try the horse.”