CHAPTER IV

A CHEERER

“A chosen few alone the sport enjoy!”

THE next day was so deuced overcast and bad that our friend didn’t venture further than the stable, or we really believe he would have ridden over to Snailswell, and ended a nine years’ courtship with an offer. As it was he lay at earth, watching the rows of drops stringing themselves together like illumination lamps on the window frames, the raw drizzling rain gliding down the panes, and the heavy spongy clouds rolling themselves like bed hangings round the opposite hills. A more ungenial day, perhaps, was never seen. Even in the country it was scarcely light, and what those poor benighted folks who live in towns must have suffered “baffles the comprehension.” The glass had run itself down to nothing, and everybody said they were in for “weather.” The wind rose towards night, and dashed the now swelling drops against the casement with redoubled fury.

Scott fully made up his mind, as he turned into bed, to be done with hunting, and to settle quietly down to matrimony. “It’s no use persevering in a sport when one hasn’t weather to enjoy it in,” argued he, considering what he should do with his horses. “She’s a nice little creature,” continued he, pulling the bed-clothes up to his snuffling nose, “and although she hasn’t much money, yet she’s so careful that her management would be quite as good as a fortune.” So saying, he dozed away to sleep, and dreamt of bells ringing, ribbons flaunting, beer flowing, fiddles scraping, girls dancing, farmers feasting, “three times three and one cheer more!”

How different everything looked the next morning. The dreary, foggy, water-charged clouds had cleared away, and been succeeded by bright, smiling, sunshiny weather.

The landscape was just like a newly cleaned picture. What yesterday was all blotch, mystery, and confusion, to-day stood forth most luminously distinct. Nay, beauties appeared that a stranger would have said had been added—Oakhope spire, the herd’s white cottage on the Compton Hills, and the sky line breaking fringe of beech, crowning the summit of Blackdown Moor. All nature seemed to rejoice in the change. The cattle grazed freely in the fields instead of sheltering behind trees and hedge-rows, the labourers doffed their jackets to their work, children played bareheaded about the cottages, and the horses in the stable had acquired a silky gloss on their late dull unkindly coats.

The hounds met at Hollyburn Green, twelve miles by the road, nine by the “crow.” Our friend certainly had no intention of hunting when he went to bed — none whatever; indeed he had fully determined, if his cold was well enough, to ride over to Snailswell; but we must add that he did not anticipate so fine a day.

“Saddle old Barbara,” said he to Will Sleekpow, who was preparing for exercise, “and you ride the colt on as far as Ratchburn Mill, and then take the fields for Hollyburn Green, till I overtake you”; with which directions Tom hurried back to dress and breakfast.

Will seemed rather surprised, but, like a sensible servant, he proceeded to do what he was told,—a very indispensable quality for a person calling himself a servant.

What a different sort of day it was to the last! Instead of a drying, pinching, hide-bound sort of feeling, it had all the soft, fresh, bland luxuriance of spring. Quite a day for taking the creases out of one’s face. The ground was well saturated with wet, and the old mare went snorting, and bounding, and trotting along as if in equal enjoyment with her rider.

The observation is as old as the hills, that we seldom appreciate anything till we lose it, and the truism holds good with hunting as well as with other things. The two previous days had been so wretchedly bad, and the glass had given such little indication of amendment, that few of the field had looked upon hunting this day with any sort of confidence. Indeed the boisterous night had well nigh quenched the hopes of even the most sanguine, and few had thought of giving any hunting orders on going to bed. Tarquinius Muff had turned in, at eleven, without a word on the subject; Blatheremskite had done the same at twelve, having taken an hour’s snooze in his arm-chair after his brother was gone, and all the “easy ones” had gone off in a similar way.

The consequence of all this was, that though they didn’t muster so strong as they would have done had the previous weather been fine, yet those who did come were mostly of the right sort, and all were in the high glee of joyous excitement and expectation. Perhaps a slight cause of exultation might arise at the circumstance of there being so many absentees; for though fox-hunters are all most desperately loving and sociable when together, yet there are very few who can’t put up with the absence of a cocktail— nay, there are some who even like to have a crow over a comrade. There was what might be called a good field; numerous enough to be pleasant, and not overcrowded. No fox-headers by profession, no linen-trousered young gentlemen, with yard wands for whip-sticks, no grooms on rearers, no horse-breakers on kickers, no young farmers on runaways: there might be fifteen scarlets and a dozen blacks. For the real pleasure of hunting we hold that to be quite enough. When you have just the cream of a hunt, people settle into places in a run quite naturally, without the jostling, sorting, and winnowing incident to a crowd. Old Mr. Neville came bustling along almost first, as if his absence on the last day had set the razor of his keenness on edge. Old Ben’s features as he trotted up the green, with the spicy, blooming, bitch-pack at his chestnut horse’s heels, had relaxed all the keen rigidity of muscle that contracted them on the Horndean day, and he was now swelled out to his natural size, looking like an elderly cherub on horseback.

Tom Scott overtook Sleekpow between Ratchburn Mill and the meet, and got the young horse in a very cool and collected state; nor was his equanimity disturbed by the sight of Scott’s red coat, nor yet by the cantering and splashing past of Tom Muffinmouth and his cousin, Bill Bullfinch, on their cover hacks. When Scott mounted he felt wiry and strong under him, light and pleasant in hand, and altogether as if he would go. It is a great thing for rider and horse to start pleasantly together. Another great advantage is not having time to quarrel between the start and the meet. This is one of the great advantages of a cover hack. When a man rides his own horse “on,” a difference of opinion is very apt to arise on the road, particularly on that most important of all points, whether he shall walk or trot; and as it is painfully true that a man may see too much of his best friend, so it is equally so that he may have too much of his best horse. Though quite a man for the morning, and always at cover as soon as the groom, Scott likes sending on, not only as a great saving of valuable temper, but also as a certain means of getting two horses well exercised.

But to the sport, for the field are on fire, and eager for the fray.

The eager hounds would scarcely wait for the dismissing cheer and wave of Old Ben’s hand, as they approached the accustomed corner of Heatherside Plantation, and disdaining all make-believe drawing, dashed on to the thick of the lying on the projecting banks, from whence they had so often unkennelled the “varmint.” Old Columbine’s deep tongue, which no rate or whip crack ever followed, infused joy into the field, and hats were fastened down and pressed firmly on the brow, and reins gathered up, ere three whimpers had escaped her. “Hoic! Hoic!” cheered old Ben, kicking and jagging the chestnut through the brushwood of the cover; but the pack needed no monition—the old bitch’s tongue was quite enough to draw them to her like lightning. Master Reynard was on the alert, and had left his sheltered couch at the cheer following the second note, being strongly of opinion that the noise he heard was very like what had disturbed him about three weeks before, when he had deemed it prudent to visit the distant cover of Neverbreak Forest, whence, indeed, he had only lately returned, finding, greatly to his discomfort, that his earth had been usurped by a badger in his absence.

Tremendous was the outburst of melody as the pack reached the now vacated kennel, and powerful the scent that its late occupant left, as he brushed through the faded fern and browning heather of his dry warm quarters. If he had any doubts at all as to what was going on, they were speedily dispelled by a loud, clear, full “Tally-ho! gone away” from the far end of the cover, proclaiming that, having run its utmost limits, he had taken his departure.

“It’s the old boy!” exclaimed Tom Bowles, the first whip, whose halloo had just been heard—he broke at the very same place he did before, and crossed the field at the same spot.

“Yonder he goes!” added he, viewing the fox travelling evenly away over the opposite hill.

The pack tied on the scent, and went away in a style that would have funked the directors of an insurance office, if they had done a policy on Reynard’s life. There was mischief in the cry. “Hold hard, gentlemen! for one minute,” exclaimed Ben, pulling up short to get the hounds well away; and that minute being freely accorded, he started off at a canter, and all did the same.

There wasn’t a fence worth speaking of for the first five or six fields, so that the riders had time to get their horses well in hand and settled in their stride before business began.

A fallow field brought Tom Scott’s five-year-old to his bit, and having once dropped upon it, he went as steadily and collectedly as possible.

“He’s a hundred guineas’ worth,” exclaimed Scott, as he shot over a flight of hurdles like an arrow; and that was putting sixty pounds on at once, for the only time he had ridden him before he was so crazy and “tail first” at his leaps, that he would have taken forty for him—forty! even though he had bred him, and no one ever breeds a horse that isn’t occasionally worth a hundred. Hundreds are easily talked of, but difficult to realise out of a dealer’s yard. But this is no time for a dissertation on dealing; for the hounds, after racing past Dewlish, and over the large open fields of Risborough Lordship, are now making the wooded banks of the Brentwater echo with their melody.

“Hold hard, gentlemen!” halloos Mr. Neville from behind, adding, as the obedient field pulled to the summons, “I’ve seen more foxes headed at that point than at almost any other in the country.”

“Tallyho! Yonder he goes!” added he, viewing him from the rising ground on which he had stationed himself.

Another minute, and the hounds were out also, the scent not being quite so good in cover as it was in the open.

“Now he’s away for Neverbreak Forest!” screamed Mr. Neville, shortening his reins, “and let those catch ’em who can!”

So fair an invitation, so sportingly given, caused every man to settle himself in his saddle, and to hug his horse by the head as though he were bent on destruction.

The bitch-pack are terribly fast, and take a deal of catching at most times. This day seemed likely to put something extra to their pace.

A cloud that had overcast the sky cleared away at the moment the fox broke from the end of the belt of wood at the water-side, shedding a halo o’er the scene, and disclosing to those who had time to look ahead the dreaded Neverbreak Forest in the extreme distance. It could not be less than six miles in a straight line—a mere trifle to stag-hunters, who know nothing under twenty, but a space admitting of many pleasing variations in the up and down life of matter-of-fact fox-hunters. To heighten the interest of the scene, the line to the forest seemed to lie up the broad green valley of Grassmere, a valley as famous for fattening oxen as it is favourable to scent. The pollard willows through the centre indicated the “presence” of water, as the chemists say, even if the sun had not lit up the broad patches of it here and there, and shown the white bridges at the foot crossings. The mere mention of the forest acted as a stopper on some of the field, so famous is it in the fox-hunting history of the country for tremendous runs, heavy fencing, deep galloping, desperate swimming, confounded cramming—all the funking fireside attributes of hunting—as if there were not big places in all countries, if people only look out for them. If the forest had been such a regular “kill bull,” Old Ben must have died of it long ago, for he’s been riding towards it and from it once a month at the least during the season, for the last thirty years; and when Scott saw him slide down a steep bank, and turn the corner of a flight of rails, that appeared to him impassable, he thought, as he followed him, that he was very likely to ride a good many more.

The bruisers and would-be bruisers, of course, kept up the bottom with the hounds, and when great Captain Rasher, with a mouthful of moustache, came to the first sedgy watercut dividing the meadows,and saw the valley was not the smooth-sailing race-course he expected, he would have had no objection to turn back, if Tom Muffinmouth hadn’t come up full tilt, causing his second charger hunter to blob right in, where he was immediately joined by Muffinmouth and his horse, the whole stirring up the black bog earth like a gigantic mash.

“It’s very odd,” said Old Ben, who was now careering along the sound bank through the familiar line of gaps, “that gentlemen always will ride into those bogs. I dare say I’ve seen a hundred horses floundering in them, first and last, and yet we never come this way without some one trying them. Forrard! forrard!” continued he, cheering on his hounds, notwithstanding they were beating him as it was. “Forrarding” with huntsmen, and “hissing” with grooms, are things they get so into the way of that many of them can’t help themselves.

If extreme pace lasts a run can’t last. That is a truism worth remembering by pullers-up and people fancying themselves about to be beat by the pace. Up the Grassmere Water Meadows the pace certainly was extremely good—so good that the hounds ran nearly mute; but, as they neared the neck where the meadows run up into a ravine, some few found time and wind to throw their tongues; and most welcome were the notes, borne back on the soft light breeze. A momentary check at the top let in the successful followers on either side of the valley, while a mixed tail of blacks and reds dotted the line of country over which they had come. The lathered horses now stood panting and blowing, and shaking their tails, after their exertions, whilst the red-faced, perspiring sportsmen durst not dismount to ease them. “Bless us, what a pace!” “Did you see Muffinmouth in the bog?” “Who was t’other chap?” “Where’s my groom?” “You’ve lost a shoe.” “Have I, by Jove? It’s all dickey with me, then!” were the exclamations that burst forth, while Ben bustled away to the well-accustomed point, to get the pack on with their game.

Up the steep dean-side then they scrambled, and after squeezing through a stiff and very scratch-my-face fence, they found themselves in a large fallow, with the hounds lob, lob, lobbing across, now mute, now dropping a note, but pointing for the forest, now a conspicuous object in the rising foreground.

Old Ben began kicking the chestnut into a canter to get the hounds across the fallow as quickly as possible, well knowing the importance of killing the fox in the open. Not that he ever expresses a doubt of catching him in cover, but he prefers the publicity of the plain. He is all for fair play, especially when there’s burning scent.

The rivalry of riding was now about over, all being satisfied that if their horses got into the deep rides of the forest, they would want all the “go” they could save for them, and trotting, and holding, and easing, and furrow-seeking, and headland-riding, became the order of the day.

Mr. Swillbut, the brewer’s, great gaunt brown horse Molasses, who had given indications of a stiff neck down below, had been so fairly pumped out by clambering up the rough brushwoody dean, that he lay down on the fallow just outside the stiff fence, and so awkwardly did he repose himself that the few horses behind had to leap over him, or force a fresh breach through the lofty, newly swiched, almost impenetrable fence.

Still the desire to save their horses was outweighed by anxiety to kill the fox in the open, and nobody regretted to hear the light musical notes of the bitches again swelling to cry as they got upon a large, rushy, old pasture, causing the field to get their horses by the head, and urge them again into a canter.

The thing had now got so select that there would be honour and glory enough for them all, consequently, those who “never open gates,” and never “pull down fences,” now began to do both, and those who always open and pull down now did so the more.

So what with one, and what with another, they about dispensed with leaping altogether. It was, “I’ll get off if you’ll hold my horse! that’s a good fellow; I’ll do it next time,” or “You’d better get off and lift it,” as Tom Bowles was fumbling at a chained gate.

This, however, is all under the rose, the stiffest fencing and the hardest riding being always, by courtesy, supposed to come last.

So they went on from field to field rejoicing.

After skirting Birkshaw coppice, and taking a look at Cranfield farm buildings, Reynard did not find such accommodation as induced him to desert his original point for the forest; but a collie dog chasing him pumped out the little balance of wind he had left; to recruit which he shortly after lay up in a hedge-row, from whence, after the usual flash forward and feathering flourish of the pack, he was soon elevated in the arms of Old Ben before the admiring eyes of “glorious seven,” each trying who could WHO-HOOP loudest.

The following may be taken as a sample of the usual varied accounts that attend a good run:—

The result of our friend Tom’s ride was, that he repriced the young-un at £150.