CHAPTER III
THE MASTER OF HOUNDS
By Sir Charles Frederick, Baronet
Jorrocks.
The Horn.
WERE it not for Mr. Jorrocks’ apt remark above quoted the present chapter might have begun and ended without reference to the subject of hunting-horns at all, for so long as he employs a Huntsman to wield that instrument it occupies only a minor place in the equipment of the M.F.H. Allusion has been made, however, and the temptation to a reminiscence, unimportant certainly, irrelevant perhaps, is too strong to be resisted. I remember standing beside a Master of Hounds, and a very successful Master of Hounds too, in the middle of a wood at a point from which the ridings radiated in all directions. Hounds had just been thrown into covert and very soon had a fox on his feet. Guided by the music of the pack, we watched for a first sight of Reynard as he hopped across the green riding. Quickly and silently the elegant form came in view and promptly vanished perhaps a hundred yards from where we stood, and out came the Master’s horn. With the cry of hounds behind him, the fox crossed another quarter of the wood and flashed over the next quarter of the ridings, and the horn which had hardly been returned to its case was requisitioned to mark his appearance a second time. It soon became evident that we were to be listeners-in at a pretty concert, for fox number one was shortly joined by others, and by turning our horses’ heads this way and that like the weather-cock on a rough November day, we could command an almost unbroken view of foxes and hounds in their circular tour of the wood. By the time the Whipper-in’s holloa set us all in motion and attention was focused on the horn carried by the Huntsman, one had begun to feel some misgiving as to whether our M.F.H.’s breath would be equal to such protracted strain. No harm had been done, however, no one was any the worse. He simply “blew when he liked,” and small blame to him. But among the attributes that go to make up a successful Master of Hounds, and that these are many and difficult of attainment no one will gainsay, I should assign small importance to his performance on the hunting-horn. Proficiency on this instrument might even prove to be a pitfall and snare, and if he can blow sufficiently loudly and well to attract his Huntsman’s attention on an emergency and to awaken the slumbering stablemen when he returns home at night, he can count himself well enough equipped for the task in hand.
The late Mr. Bromley Davenport, by common consent one of the most delightful writers on sport of his own or any other generation, when describing the social joys of the hunting field, “The smiling countenances and jovial greetings,” and the “peace and charity” which hunting engendered, and let us hope still engenders, “between landlord and tenant, rivals in business, opponents in politics,” and such-like, makes a single reservation. “One man only,” he says, “may perhaps be sometimes excluded from the benefits of this approximation to the millennium, and he to whom I have not yet alluded is the most important of all—the Master. No position, except perhaps a Member of Parliament’s” (Mr. Bromley Davenport was himself entitled to write M.P. after his name) “entails so much hard work accompanied by so little thanks as that of a Master of Fox-hounds. A fierce light inseparable from his semi-regality beats on him; his every act is scrutinised by eyes and tongues ever ready to mark and proclaim what is done amiss. Very difficult is it for him to do right. There are many people to please, and often what pleases one offends another. Anything going wrong, any small annoyance, arriving too late at the Meet, getting a bad start, drawing away from and not towards the grumbler’s home (and grumblers, like the poor, must always be among us)—all these things are apt to be vented on the unhappy Master. He knows how much of his sport depends on the goodwill of the tenant farmers, and he sees with pain rails needlessly broken, crops needlessly ridden over, gates unhinged or left open, perhaps fronting a road along which the liberated cattle or horses may stray for miles, giving their angry proprietors possibly days of trouble to recover them.” He writes a good deal more which is very much to the point and relates a story, whether laughable or tragic the reader must determine for himself, of an incident of Sir Richard Sutton’s Mastership. Sir Richard, justly proud of his pack and fearful for their safety from the over-close attentions of the thrusters of his field, called aside a gentleman who was supposed by him to be not very particular as to how near he rode to the hounds, and pointing out one particular hound said, “Please kindly take notice of that hound, he is the most valuable animal in the pack and I would not have him ridden over for anything.” The gentleman promptly and courteously replied, “I would do anything to oblige you, Sir Richard, but I have a shocking bad memory for hounds and I am afraid he will have to take his chance with the rest.”
Before we turn to the many preoccupations and cares of the present-day M.F.H. in the course of his endeavour to provide sport for the countryside, let us first ask ourselves why it is that the supply of candidates for the honoured post never fails and never has failed to keep pace with the vacant Masterships. No matter how rough and unattractive a country may be, let the financial inducements be ever so meagre, there is always someone ready and willing to throw himself into the breach and carry on in the Englishman’s best tradition. Where a vacancy is not filled after the normal time allowance it is usually less attributable to a lack of applicants than to a feeling on the part of the Hunt Committee that they are in a sufficiently strong position to pick and choose the right man, or to a reluctance on their part to entrust the destinies of their country to anyone who has not given definite proof of his qualifications for the post. Whatever may perchance be lacking in kennel experience or in territorial qualification for the Mastership of a pack, these gentlemen who come forward (I may in perfect correctness say ladies and gentlemen, since ladies are in no wise excluded from office nowadays) are inspired by real keenness and enthusiasm, impelled by public-spirited anxiety to further the interest of sport and possess, let us hope, an abiding love of the fox-hound. In the last named there is consolation more than sufficient to counterbalance all the thousand and one bothers with which the M.F.H. is confronted in the course of the daily round. It is an interest that grows upon a man moreover with surprising facility, and although a lifetime study may leave one with much to learn at the end of it, yet a very few years spent in kennel in the company of the right advisers should produce a sufficing knowledge of the fox-hound, his qualities and points, and a fair discrimination between what is good and what is bad.
New Masters.
While a hunting country becomes vacant on the Ist May, the preliminary negotiations for the transfer from one Master to another should take place prior to the Ist March. Hunt servants are entitled to their notice by this date so that hardship and inconvenience must result if arrangements for the following season are not completed by then. Delay, moreover, would necessarily handicap a prospective Master in the engagement of his staff, since the best men are likely to be snapped up at once. The new M.F.H. may desire to hunt his own hounds, or he may need to engage a Huntsman. Good Huntsmen are born and not made, so it is said, but they clearly are not born every day and the right man may be by no means easy to find. Before engaging a Hunt servant it is well if possible to go and see him at work and form an impression of the figure he cuts in the field rather than rely on a written character. The practice of inviting an applicant for a Whipper-in’s place to come for a day’s trial and turn hounds to you or your Huntsman has always seemed to me to provide an unreliable and somewhat brutal test. In a strange country and on strange horses, trying to serve a Huntsman of whose methods he is ignorant, and endeavouring to make an impression on a pack of hounds who do not know his voice, the man would be something more than human who did justice to himself. I would rather see how he shapes in his own surroundings. While on the subject of engaging servants it should be quite understood that under no circumstances may overtures be made to a man who is in employment without the previous consent of his Master. No one could calculate the amount of bad feeling and enmity that has from time to time been created by departure from this plain convention.
Taking Over a Hunt.
A Master of Hounds takes over his kennels, stables, and cottages (in lieu of any special arrangement with his Committee) as a tenant, paying tenant’s rates and taxes thereon and making himself responsible for the upkeep of the interior (hound-benches, mangers, etc.), the Committee of the Hunt exercising, per contra, the functions of landlord. Should the M.F.H. desire to supplement his pack by making purchases at the Rugby Hound sales or elsewhere, or should he be in a position to bring some hounds with him, they remain his personal property, but it is laid down that their produce bred in the kennel become merged in the pack.
The days are past, if indeed they ever existed, when a Master of Hounds could turn his back on the country of his adoption during the summer months. This surely is the time when the foundations of his future sport are laid, and if they be not, as the saying is, “well and truly laid,” no eleventh-hour efforts are likely to avail when the first of November is in sight. Till the country is learnt by heart and a pretty comprehensive knowledge gained of the dwellers therein, a Master of Hounds is in no condition to take the field, and it is plain enough that his task is only mastered at the cost of hard work. Probably the human problem will form the more difficult. Some men have the gift of memorising faces and names which others never acquire. Certainly the possession of this talent is a very great asset and some of the most successful Masters of Hounds of the present day owe their popularity in no small measure to their ready recognition of a face in the hunting field or the local markets. The last-named assemblies provide a rendezvous for all the countryside and a pretty constant attendance there is to be recommended, since it leads sooner or later to a meeting with everyone over whose land the fox-hunter rides. But, after all, a casual word in the market is not quite the same thing as the compliment of a personal visit. To suggest that the M.F.H. should pay a call upon every farmer living within the boundaries of his Hunt seems perhaps a counsel of perfection, but it is surprising how much ground can be covered and what a lot can be done with the aid of a motor car. Moreover, hounds cross a great deal of country in the course of their summer conditioning and a visit from hounds, Huntsman, and all on a summer morning pays an unforgettable compliment. The Puppy Show and its accompanying entertainment need not for the time being exercise the mind of a new Master, since it was for his predecessor that the puppies were walked and upon him that the duties of host devolve. His successor nevertheless will welcome the privilege of attending and the opportunity to make the acquaintance of a host of good folks who will prove to be his friends and allies of the future. The style of these entertainments vary in different countries, some assuming the proportions of a banquet while others are limited to a more modest tea-party for the puppy walkers and their wives; all must depend on local custom. The main thing is that the Master and the ladies and gentlemen who hunt with the hounds should be afforded opportunities of meeting the farmers during the summer. Cricket matches and such-like are frequently arranged with excellent results. In one of the leading countries in the Shires clay-pigeon shooting contests have been held in various districts and parishes, different members of the Hunt acting as hosts and hostesses to the farmers and their wives. An apparatus similar to that in use at the various schools of shooting has been purchased by the Masters of the Hunt and is loaned for the occasion. The farmers bring their own guns, their host provides the cartridges, and the M.F.H. supplies the clay pigeons. The idea at all events has the charm of novelty and may be well worth a trial elsewhere.
A Master of Hounds with whom I have talked emphasises the desirability of going round the country directly the hunting season is over and of visiting in particular those farmers whose land adjoins a fox-covert. A man who has told you of the presence of a litter of cubs will be anxious to justify his word and show them when September comes round. Any little troubles moreover that have arisen during the season are best smoothed over now before they have crystallised into a hard-and-fast grievance.
Farmers have in recent years gone through lean times and it will be the endeavour of every Master of Hounds to avoid laying extra burdens upon them in the shape of unnecessary damage to their fences and crops. He will be anxious on the contrary to help them in such measure as he can by purchasing their hay, their oats, their straw and such-like, and by persuading the members of his Hunt to do likewise. Difficulties, though by no means insuperable, do exist as we all know. Farmers, like other people, sometimes over-appraise their own goods and often fail to realise that nothing unless of the very best quality is of any use for the consumption of hunters. Then the stud groom grumbles or perhaps refuses to accept delivery, and a grievance is started which leaves the last state of relationship worse than the first. It is not proposed to discuss the problem in detail at this stage but merely to advocate and emphasise the principle of local buying and to suggest the need for some organisation which will bring buyer and seller into touch.
Scarcely less difficult than the personal problem is the task of getting to know the country. Before cub-hunting starts the Master should have picked up a fairly comprehensive knowledge of the various coverts and should have some idea of what each one is likely to contain.
Appointments.
It will be the special aim of anyone who undertakes to hunt a country to do so fairly and impartially, not giving preference to one district over another because it is popular or the reverse, nor shunning certain coverts because he does not happen to like them. Nothing prejudices a Master more in the public eye than a suggestion of partiality or unfairness in such matters. It is surprising how quickly a bit of country becomes derelict, so to speak, if hounds neglect to visit it. Earth stoppers will not go out at night, farmers see no reason to remove their wire, and foxes if they are never hunted have a way of disappearing, possibly through some other agency. The fact that a covert has been drawn blank may constitute a very good reason for going there again when the covert owner, the farmer, and earth stopper, placed on their mettle, will be much concerned to atone for the earlier failure.
In drawing coverts a few simple principles hold good. Big woodlands are drawn up wind, much as one works a hillside with one’s dog. Coming down wind one is apt to draw over one’s quarry. Small coverts are, per contra, drawn down wind, or at any rate, the down-wind side must be kept clear. A fox may know of a drain or other refuge close at hand and decide to make for it regardless of the wind’s direction. Nine times out of ten it is probable that his first impulse is merely to get away from the immediate danger spot, and knowing by instinct, since Reynard is a hunter himself, the advantage he confers on his pursuers by starting up wind, his impulse will be to break covert on the opposite side. As he goes no doubt he will be thinking out his plan of campaign and will shape his course in accordance with the subsequent development of events. We are not dealing here with the Huntsman’s problems but are merely concerned to ensure that he and his hounds shall be given every advantage in starting and to see that the chase is launched with a maximum chance of success. It is surprising what tricks the wind can play and what influence it has for good or evil on the day’s sport; one may find oneself swept with the first fox of the morning through all the country and coverts allotted to the entire day, or, on the other hand, be blown completely out of one’s normal course into the very territory that it is most desired to reserve for another occasion.
The importance of trotting well back into your day’s draw after running down wind out of it in the morning cannot be emphasised too strongly. Failure to do this may land the M.F.H. in an awkward predicament about 2 p.m.
Even when the chase is launched the M.F.H. cannot, unfortunately, regard himself as relieved of further anxiety. A host of annoying contretemps can intervene when everything seems to shape for the best. Commonest of all, an open earth or drain may swallow up his fox and nip the most promising effort in the bud. If this should happen it is better, when once the regular season has begun, not to embark upon lengthy digging operations. The best plan is to accept disappointment and try again elsewhere. While the Hunt servants are plying their spades the field will take consolation in grumbling, and what is much more important daylight will be slipping away and valuable time be wasted.
Control of the Field.
Many a promising gallop is spoiled and the life of many a fox saved as we all know by the pressure of a field of horsemen at the moment when hounds most require time and room. “Gentlemen,” says Mr. Beckford (and doubtless he would have added “ladies” had his Thoughts on Hunting been committed to paper at the present time), “when hounds are at fault are too apt themselves to prolong it. They should always stop their horses some distance behind the hounds and if it be possible to remain silent” (the italics are my own) “this is the time to do so.” The art of controlling a large field with the minimum of effort is not given to many. Fortunately in the majority of countries the company is not sufficiently large to give much trouble and the problem in its most acute form is reserved for those who hold office in the Shires and certain other favoured countries. The late Lord Annaly was a pastmaster in this particular branch of the M.F.H.’s art and could control a great and hard-riding Pytchley field with the precision of a cavalry leader. What to others is often an uphill and difficult task, to him appeared simplicity itself. That he was always in the right place counted for much, since exhortations addressed to a rider’s back are merely waste of breath. If the company of horsemen were all gathered together in the same field control of their movement would be comparatively simple, but the main difficulty arises from the great width of the front on which they ride and from the forward pressure of the “horns” on either flank.
The tendency of the field to trickle round on either side is more noticeable where a Master of Hounds makes a practice of holding them up in gateways, their behaviour resembling that of a stream of water, which is dammed in the middle. The M.F.H. who is endowed with the gifts of leadership and command will probably succeed best by manœuvring his legions in the open and reserving the aid of gateways and such-like for special emergency.
It is very necessary that the Master should enjoy the confidence of his field, and if he is to do so he must never let them down. Nor should they ever find themselves placed at a disadvantage through obedience to his orders.
Foxes do not always run straight ahead and when they turn short and a score of thoughtless people are found to have overridden the line it is then that tempers and foxes too are lost. Comic pen pictures have often been drawn depicting the Master of Hounds as a choleric, excitable individual with an inexhaustible flow of strong language, something like the red-faced irascible colonel of popular fiction. “I did not come out here to be d—d, sir!” was the complaint addressed to the M.F.H. by an individual smarting under the telling-off he had just received. “Then go home and be d—d!” was the answer, and that was that. Perhaps we have all become a little more polished since those days. The methods of Lord Scamperdale and his lieutenant would hardly go down in these times. He and Jack would be likely to have the field to themselves. After all, bad language and abuse are unhelpful and usually uncalled-for, and seeing that the modern hunting field, like the present electorate, shows a feminine preponderance, the question of good and bad taste looms large.
However numerous be the company of those who follow his hounds, the Master will recognise the offenders in this matter of overriding as almost invariably the same people, and it would seem that admonition might be just as well addressed to them soberly and calmly, through the medium of cold print if preferred, as hurled at them with invective in the heat of the moment.
Weather.
Among the least enviable of the prerogatives appertaining to the M.F.H. is that of deciding whether or no hounds shall hunt when weather conditions are doubtful. He will probably send his pack to the Meet in any case, provided the state of the roads permit it, for even if they have to return to kennel without hunting, the exercise will have done them good. The actual decision must, in general, be deferred till the time and place of meeting are reached and for the edict, when issued, the Master alone is responsible. The Huntsman, if he is a wise man, will decline to express any opinion, and it would obviously be unfair to put the onus upon him. Members of the field, once they have arrived at the Meet, will be unanimous in favour of hunting, mentally reserving to themselves the right to go home at once if conditions do not prove to their liking. In case of fog there is of course the danger of losing hounds, so that the proximity or otherwise of railways will need to be taken into consideration. The risk of injury to hounds’ feet will be weighed anxiously when frost is the trouble and likewise that of accident to the Hunt staff (who cannot pick their way about the country with the discretion of a free-lance) and to the horses they ride. A Master of Hounds has told me that once when persuaded by his field to hunt against his own better judgment an hour elapsed before he was able to stop hounds. He estimated the damage suffered in that time, measured in terms of cash, at £500, two of his best horses being permanently disabled. He would be a poor Master of Hounds who cannot take some risk from time to time, but when under similar conditions, three packs decline their appointment and one Master decides to hunt, the presumption is not, necessarily, that the latter is a keener sportsman than his fellows.
When hounds are not proceeding to the Meet, a considerate M.F.H. will, if any sort of doubt exists, send word by a messenger for the benefit of anyone who may be waiting there in suspense.
Foot-and-mouth Disease.
This bugbear of the modern hunting field, has in some countries jeopardised the very existence of hunting, and it has certainly spelled a new anxiety for, and laid a heavy responsibility upon, every Master of Hounds. The profusion of literature, moreover, which issues from the Ministry of Agriculture in the forms of Orders, Regulations, and such-like, though dear to the official mind, imposes upon him and his secretary a vast amount of additional work. His duty is surely clear. He must obey, and see that his followers obey, the injunctions implicitly. He may, and probably will, deem the restrictions both futile and irksome, but the interests of fox-hunting as a whole demand absolute compliance with a decree that bears the stamp of Government authority, and nothing but harm can result from anything that savours of defiance or elusion.
Forgetting all such annoyances great or small, let us turn to the “Noble science” and glance at the author’s picture of the happy M.F.H. at his best. After mentioning the Duke of Wellington’s preparedness for every contingency in war, he says: “So in like manner should a Master of Fox-hounds upon joining at the covert side a host of followers, all ‘with souls in arms and eager for the fray’ when contemplating the responsibility which rests with him, when reviewing the numbers looking up to him as arbiter of what that day shall bring forth, be enabled to say to himself: ‘I have done my duty to the best of my judgment: I have fixed to draw the covert which of all others it is most expedient to draw: I have ascertained the more than probability of finding here or in the neighbourhood: I am not at variance with any farmer or land holder who might have been propitiated: I have brought an effective establishment into the field: in short, I have done and shall do all within my power towards the sport which all must know will very much depend on the elements and a variety of circumstances over which I have no control, and which, whether favourable or otherwise, will affect me at least as much as, if not more than, anyone else.’ ”
With so much for the M.F.H. to plume himself upon the author may well add that “Should all go right and ‘merry as a marriage bell,’ who in the whole of that well-pleased field will have half the excitement, the exultation, the delight which he will find in this joyous result of all his hopes and endeavours.”
“No one,” wrote the late Lord Willoughby de Broke, “is too good to be a Master of Fox-hounds. If he be gifted with the average endowment of tact, administrative talent, power of penetrating character, and all other attributes that form the essential equipment of a successful public man, so much the better; but he should at least be reared in the atmosphere and tradition of country life, fond of sport for its own sake, a good judge of horses and hounds, and a possessor of a remarkably thick skin. For in addition to directing the sport in the field the M.F.H. is indeed a public man who should have some faculty for the art of government, being ultimately responsible for the welfare of the country over which he presides. The character and ability of the Hunt Committee and Secretary and the disposition of the owners and occupiers of land may make his task proportionately easy or difficult as the case may be. But there is no limit to the influence of the M.F.H. if he has the power and the will to use it wisely and well, fortified by the resolve to leave his country when he lays down his office in at least as good a state as he found it, and as much better as he can possibly make it.”
So will he earn the thanks of every sportsman, and maybe some share in the high compliment that Nimrod paid to Mr. Warde when he wrote that “He did great honour to fox-hunting.”
