CHAPTER XXXII

A FOX-HUNTER’S BOOKSHELF

By Sir Charles Frederick, baronet

I BELIEVE that a learned divine has recently deprecated the existence of what he terms a “beefy” fox-hunter who never reads a book. Passing over the epithet which lacks something in politeness, I should imagine we are all in agreement with our critic. But never, I suppose, did the fly of fisherman provoke a finer rise. Fishes great and small came greedily to the surface and jostled each other in their eagerness to protest that in their own circles the very idea of such ignorance was laughable. A somewhat belated follower of their example, I am glancing at the books which lie on the tables of my friends, and I find them engrossed in pretty much the same volumes as serve at the moment to fill the leisure hours of other people of our generation. Biographies seem much in demand, and the lives of Abraham Lincoln, of Henry the Eighth, of Byron, seem to be examples of popular favour. In the realms of fiction Galsworthy, Mason, Locke (how we shall miss his fascinating pen!), Edgar Wallace, I need hardly add, and all the younger novelists commend themselves no less to hunting folks than to the rest of the public. But do they, and now I am coming to my point, do they, the young entry, read anything that has been written about the science of Hunting or its many-sided humour and charm? How many present aspirants to the title of M.F.H. have ever troubled to read the letters of Beckford, that scholarly writer of whom it was said that “he would bag a fox in Greek, find a hare in Latin, inspect his kennels in Italian, and direct the economy of his stables in excellent French”? While hounds are not now subjected to the same temptation to run riot, and several of his chapters consequently lose much of their meaning, there is surely a great deal between the covers of Beckford that everyone who keeps a pack of hounds should read and mark. He thought that “What Lord Chatham once said of a battle is particularly applicable to a fox chase: it should be short, sharp, and decisive.”

Surtees. In popularity Surtees undoubtedly takes first place still, though whether his humour is as much appreciated by the younger generation as it was by their fathers is certainly open to doubt. If he is not the same constant companion as as he was to their forbears the loss is a big one, for there is something about him of which one never seems to tire. No character in fiction has been more quoted or misquoted. A friend of mine, now dead, alas! and a very fluent writer on fox-hunting and kindred topics, was a dreadful offender in the last respect, and the protests of his indignant readers left him quite unmoved. Handley Cross, it is generally admitted, deteriorates somewhat towards the end of the book, and I daresay many of us prefer to turn back ere we get thus far and meet our hero when he arrives to take over the hounds. Whether he is dallying with Sir Archie Depecarde’s good-looking housekeeper, ruffling it with the county aristocracy at Ongar Castle arrayed in Captain Widowfield’s evening clothes (blue coat with Conservative buttons), or, mounted on Artaxerxes, pounding down the road in pursuit of Pigg and his hounds, we find and I hope always shall find the old rascal irresistible.

“Ask Mamma,” “Plain or Ringlets,” Mr. Romford’s hounds are all good at any rate in parts, but surely Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour is the best of all. The character of this plausible cadger is delightfully drawn, and who has not chuckled over the occasion, the only one perhaps when he met his match and came up against no less an adversary than Mr. Facey Romford, a tough customer, if ever there was one. To find on arrival that his groom and his horses had been sent at his expense to the “Rose and Crown,” and that his host lived in lodgings over a saddler’s shop was bad enough, but there was worse to come. After a vile dinner consisting of roast pork and a choice of “gin, rum or Hollands—Hollands, rum or gin,” he was faced with the alternative of listening to Facey play “Jump Jim Crow” on the flute or of playing cards with him. Driven at length to the latter in sheer distraction and against his better judgment, he loses £7 10s., and is compelled under threats of force to give an I.O.U. before he is permitted to go to bed. After a sleepless night the whole was summed up by the victim as follows: “Fed on pork, fluted deaf, bit with bugs, and robbed at cards.”

Who shall say that it did not serve “Soapey” right?

Whyte-Melville. A military correspondent recently wrote to his editor saying that the young officers in his mess had never heard of Whyte-Melville. To those of us who were nurtured on the works of this delightful writer such ignorance comes as something of a shock. While it is conceivable that a superior age, if such it is, may not think it worth while to read him, it is hard to seek an excuse for the young people interested in fox-hunting to whom such a name is unknown. George Whyte-Melville, poet, novelist, soldier, and sportsman, was born in 1821 and died, killed instantly through his horse falling on the flat when out hunting, in 1878. He seems to have been a man who was everywhere well liked. “There was nothing in him,” wrote “Brooksby” in an appreciation penned a few days after that fatal accident, “that was antagonistic. He never, with all his acknowledged genius, sought to pit himself or his opinions in combat. He never came roughly against the susceptibilities of his comrades even to indulge his vivid sense of humour. To meet him in the morning was a warming gleam of sunshine. To ride home with him at night was a cheery sunset. He was not generally deemed a surpassing horseman. He went out to amuse himself and did it thoroughly, seeing a great deal of hounds and picking his way where he and his horse could best learn to adjust themselves to each other’s taste.” The summing-up of Brooksby, who, incidentally, modelled his writings on the lines of that master pen, is borne out by such of his friends and contemporaries as it has been my own fortune to meet. “A charming fellow, the most kind hearted of men, so devoted to hunting, so badly mounted.” Such is the commentary more or less, so far as it has been passed on to me. He wrote a great many novels and some attractive verse. Holmby House, possibly his best book, commences with an inimitable account of a run with the Pytchley Hounds, but it is concerned with the Roundheads and Cavaliers and has, beyond this, nothing to do with Hunting. Riding Recollections contains a wealth of good advice on horsemanship and riding to hounds, and the writer has such an engaging way that he impels one to read every word. Market Harborough is doubtless the best known of his sporting works. The hero of it is one Mr. Sawyer who, tired of the provincial country where he has been fated to hunt, becomes of a sudden adventurous and resolves upon a season in the Shires.

It is all delightfully done, and had he not been quoted so often and at such length the temptation to dwell on the fascinating subject here could hardly be resisted.

“Brooksby” was the pen-name of Captain Pennell Elmhirst, that most fascinating writer who was to follow in the footsteps of Whyte-Melville. He could describe a run and portray the incidents of a day’s hunting as well as, or perhaps better than, anyone who has ever attempted the task. A few sentences from his pen and the whole picture stands before one’s eyes with a vividness that is quite extraordinary. His pen-name was taken from Brooksby Hall, in Leicestershire, where, in his earlier days, he stayed with a cousin. The major portion of his writings, which appeared over a long period of years in the Field newspaper, deal with the Leicestershire packs, but in later years he migrated to Northamptonshire. Fox-hound, Forest, and Prairie was, I think, his first book, but the two best known, which consisted of his collected letters on Hunting, are The Cream of Leicestershire and The Best Season on Record. The latter described the wonderful sport he had enjoyed, mainly with the Quorn Hounds during the winter of 1883—84. The Best of the Fun was written some years later, and a good deal more variety is to be found in this volume, which relates his hunting experiences in quite a number of countries from Northamptonshire to Ireland, the New Forest to New York. I knew him well when he lived at Blisworth and received much kindness from him. Hunting was the absorbing passion of his life. Although Blisworth is situated some miles from the boundary of the Pytchley country he hunted mainly with these hounds, and motor cars, not to mention motor horseboxes, being then unavailable, he used to set himself a very arduous programme. He and his horses went everywhere by train, and though, as he used to say, it saved the animals’ legs, the long late hours must have taxed their constitution in other respects. Frequently on Wednesdays he travelled along with a party of officers from Weedon Barracks in a special train to Welford or some other convenient station for the meet of the Pytchley, and I seem to see him now shepherding his flock on the Hemploe Hills when he thought it was time for them to go home. By his keenness he set us all an admirable example. Fond as he was of a good story and joke and of the social side of the hunting field, when once hounds were thrown into covert all such distractions were dismissed and his mind became entirely concentrated on one problem and one problem only —that of getting a start. He was a gallant rider to hounds and saw everything that was going on. No incident ever escaped him. In his latter years he had a series of nasty falls and on more than one occasion was badly crippled. His vivid account of a day’s hunting was written the same evening while all was fresh in memory. After dinner he would light a cigar (did he not somewhere confess his inability to recall the happenings of the day “until my nose is wreathed in smoke”) and carrying the remainder of his bottle of champagne into his study, settle himself to work. How many of us would fall asleep in similar circumstances? No one will deny that the sparkle of the golden wine was imparted into his delightful writings. Speaking of champagne, he told me once that never in his life, so far as he could remember, had he opened a bottle of it without drinking the toast of Fox-hunting. What would we give, every one of us, if we could make the same boast! He died in 1916 at the age of seventy-one. Infirmity kept him from the hunting field at the last, and when he could not go out hunting life for him held nothing more.

The poem entitled “The Galloping Whip,” though officially anonymous, was, I have always understood, written by him. The hero of it, of course, is Charles Isaac, who with his brother John, whipped in to Will Goodall (Whitecollar Will) in the Pytchley country.

Since it is not so well known as some others I venture to give it here:

Nimrod (Mr. C. I. Apperley), 1777–1843, was famous inter alia as the writer of Nimrod Hunting Tours, in which he has given us an admirably complete record of fox-hunting and its leading exponents in his day. Did space permit I would wish to quote from his masterly works, but in a single chapter such as this much is perforce omitted. Nimrod is ably and fully dealt with in The Sport of our Ancestors, by the late Lord Willoughby de Broke, who has earned for himself in turn a place in every fox-hunter’s library.

In addition to the book referred to, Lord Willoughby is the author of Hunting the Fox, a little book not only of great interest but of real value to the fox-hunter. He also wrote The Passing Years, a graceful and illuminating record of the times in which he lived. There is much about fox-hounds and fox-hunting and a great deal more that everyone who is interested in preserving what is best in the country life of England would be the better for reading.

Mr. Tom Smith, Master of the Pytchley from 1840 to 1844, and previous to that of the Craven hounds, is a writer who will assuredly find a place in our library. His Life of a Fox shows a rich imagination coupled with an intimate knowledge of the animal and his Diary of a Huntsman is a classic. His famous cast must have brought credit to countless huntsmen and thousands of masks to the kennel door. For practical knowledge of the science of fox-hunting he is surely not far behind Mr. Beckford himself, and no huntsman can afford to neglect him.

Poets of the Chase. Were we hunting hare as well as fox my pen would run beyond the bounds of any chapter, for we should need to hark back even to Shakespeare. Somerville, too, would need all my available space to himself if we were to appreciate him at his worth. I dare only mention two or three of those who followed him.

Whyte-Melville we have already referred to. His “Songs and Verses” never fail to delight, but somehow I am not persuaded that those which relate to hunting reach the level of his best.

For some of the best hunting verse that has been written surely we must look to Egerton Warburton, the Cheshire poet. He was born in 1804 and died in 1891. It is sad to think that in his latter years he was entirely blind. A favourite is the song beginning

“Stags in the forest lie, hares in the valley, O!”

whilst “Quœsitum Meritis,” “Tarwood,” “A Word ere we Start,” are others well known and liked.

Mr. William Bromley Davenport, 1821–1884, has given us two fine examples in the “Dream of the Old Meltonian” and “Lowesby Hall.” Of the former Lord Willoughby de Broke said that “it is not too much to say that this is the best imaginary run which the fox-hunting verse of the last century has given us.” The latter beginning:

has, in turn, been pronounced the best parody in the English language.

I had not intended to speak of present-day writers, but it will be permissible to voice the fox-hunter’s pride that the author of such a masterpiece as “Reynard the Fox” should be the Poet Laureate of to-day. If there be anyone, though indeed I doubt it, who has not read and enjoyed the delightful studies of Irish Life and Sport by A. E. Somerville and “Martin Ross,” or those scarcely less diverting works by Dorothea Conyers, they should remedy the omission without delay.

I would pay my tribute, too, to the charming verse of Will Ogilvie, and venturing upon one more quotation in closing my chapter shall give his touching lines on Whyte-Melville:

Fox-hunting in the past (its consideration filled an earlier chapter) may have been a better sport than it is to-day. Hounds may have been better, foxes stouter, and conditions more favourable. But what of the writers? Could any one of the Old Brigade have written anything more delightful than Mr. Ogilvie’s poem? The answer is for a reader to supply.