The horses appealed to me much more strongly. Certainly I had never before seen together the same number of the same average excellence; and some of them were fit to drive one wild with envy. There was, on the whole, less of the “blood” look than would be expected by a man who had got his ideas of the hunting-field from Leech’s drawings, but there was a good deal of it, nevertheless, and in its perfection too; and where it was wanting there was plenty of bone to make up for it.
At eleven the hounds were led out to the cover, and the whole field followed slowly and irregularly and at some distance. There were about one hundred and fifty mounted for the hunt. Perhaps one third of these wore scarlet coats, white breeches, and top-boots; another third had black coats and some of them black boots; and the remainder of the field was made up of half a dozen ladies, a few stout old gentlemen of seventy or so on stout old cobs of discreet age, little boys on smart ponies, farmers and tradesmen and their clerks mounted on whatever they could get, and men of every intermediate grade, and with all sorts of horses. A certain amount of riff-raff, not mounted at all, but good on their pins and ready for a run, were hanging about for a chance to pick up a whip or a hat, or to catch a horse, or brush a muddy coat, or turn an honest shilling in any way that might offer in the chances of the day. Some of these fellows, rigged out with the cast-off clothing of their betters, sported red coats, black velvet caps, and leather leggings. One added to all this gorgeousness the refinement of bare feet.
The hounds were taken into the cover, a brambly, tangled wood near by, which had probably been planted and made a little wilderness to serve as a cover for foxes.
They soon found a fox, drove him to the open, and followed him out of the wood with a whimpering sort of cry which was disappointing after the notion that the “full cry” of the books had given, and which is heard in the very different fox-hunting of our Southern woods. The run lay up a steepish hill, several fields wide and across an open country. One bold rider (not a light one), mounted on a staving black horse, went to the right of the cover, and made a splendid leap up hill, over a stiff-looking hedge, and landed at the tail of the pack. The “master” and his assistants had got away with the hounds. The rest of the field went to the left, waiting their turns, through a farm-gate. Once through, some twenty of them dashed up the hill, cleared a clever hedge, and kept the pack in sight. The rest took an easier place, where a farm laborer had pulled away the stakes by which a gap had been filled. Here there was much very light jumping, and much more of waiting until predecessors had made it lighter. In the mean time other gaps were found, and it was not many minutes before all were through; but during these minutes the fox, the hounds, and the harder riding men were putting a wide space between themselves and us, who were at the tail of the field. Yet there were some in the party who did not look like laggards, and whose horses were good enough for any work such a country could give them.
Even when across the gap, these men went with the rest of us, by gates and lanes, toward a point to which it was thought by the knowing ones that the fox would double,—and the knowing ones were right. Gradually, as their judgment indicated, they left the roads and took to the fields. This course was taken by three well-mounted young ladies. I followed the gate-openers for about half an hour, when, coming out on a high-road, I concluded that, with seventeen miles to ride home, it was only just to my little mare to give the thing up and head for Leamington. The hounds were far away on my right and quite out of sight.
Having come to look on and learn, I had probably seen and heard all that day had in store for me,—surely enough for one’s first day at fox-hunting. When I had ridden for a few minutes I saw, far across the fields, that the hounds had turned to the left and were making for my road. Pressing forward, I came up in time to see them cross to the front, and go scurrying away over the grass, nosing out the scent as they ran. There had been a check, and “the field” was well up. The road was lower than the fields, and was bordered by a ditch at each side. From this the ground rose a little, and on each bank stood a three-and-a-half-foot thorn hedge. Neither leap was difficult, but the one out of the road was not easy. Here I sat and saw fully a hundred horsemen, dressed in the gay colors of the hunting-field and mounted as men rarely are mounted out of England, all, horses as well as men, eager and excited in the chase, flying over hedge and ditch into the carriage-way and over ditch and hedge into the higher field, beyond and away, headlong after the hounds, every man for himself, and every man for the front, and on they went over another hedge, and out of sight. In the thick of the flight were two ladies, riding as well and as boldly as the men, and two men were brushing their hats in the road, their empty saddles keeping well up with the run. More than satisfied with this climax of my first day’s experience, I trotted out for home. The result of the run I never heard, and I leave its description where I lost sight of it. A mile farther on I did see a fagged-looking fox making his rapid way across my road again, and sneaking off under the hedge toward a thicket, and I halted to listen to what sounded like the horn of a huntsman at check over the hill to the left; but possibly the conclusion I drew was not a correct one.
I wish that words could give an idea of the life and action of the headlong flight I had just seen; but the inadequacy of all I had read to convey it to me makes it seem useless to try. Photography and description may, in a measure, supply the place of travel; but he who would realize the most thrilling intensity of eager horsemanship must stand in a hedge-bound English lane, and see with his own eyes, and for the first time in his life, a hundred gayly dressed and splendidly mounted fox-hunters flashing at full speed across his path; and it is worth the while to see.
Rain never fell on a more lovely country than that part of Warwickshire through which my wet way lay. For ten miles of the seventeen it rained, gently as it rains with us in April; nor is our grass more green in April than this was in Christmas week. The all-prevailing ivy was filled with berries, and the laurustinus was already in bloom.
No born Englishman could have cared less for the soaking rain; and, wet to the skin, tired to the bone, and stiff to the marrow, I have rarely been more exuberant than when I gradually regained the use of my legs in the half-mile walk to the hotel, resolving that not even the glories of American citizenship should ever keep me away from England in winter were I only able to afford the luxury of regular hunting. But the exuberance was moral rather than physical. I had not been so tired for years,—stiff as an old horse, after over thirty miles of really hard riding (the last seventeen miles in two hours). The cure was a hot bath and a dish of hot soup, followed by a log-like sleep of two hours on a sofa before a blazing hot fire, a sharp half-hour’s walk, a very plain dinner, and a couple of hours’ chat with my interested East-Indiaman in the smoking-room: the cure was complete; and all that was left of the day’s sport was its brilliant recollection.
My second day was near Stratford-on-Avon,—on Ay-von, the misguided English call it. The meet was to be at Goldicote House, one of the “fixtures” of the Warwickshire Hunt. There were about a hundred persons, including a few ladies, and one little bareheaded “blue-coat” school-boy (from Charles Lamb’s school), who, with his folded umbrella, long skirt, low shoes, and yellow hose, was in for as much sport as his Christmas holiday could give him. As a farther penalty for want of forethought, I was reduced to riding a friend’s coach-horse. However, the reduction was not great, for whether by early instruction or by inheritance, he was more than half a hunter, and gave me a capital look at the whole day’s chase; while his owner, on a most charming black blood mare, being out of condition for hard riding, kindly applied himself to urging me to severer work than one likes to do with a borrowed horse. He introduced me to a venerable old gentleman in a time-and-weather-stained red coat, velvet cap, and well-used nether gear, mounted on a knowing-looking old gray, and attended by his granddaughter. He could not have been less than eighty years old, and his days of hard riding were over; but constant hunting exercise every winter for over sixty years had protected him wonderfully well against the ravages of time, and it is rare to see an American of sixty so hale and hearty, and so cheerful and jolly. I was told that if I would take him for my leader, I would see more of the run than I could in any other way with such a mount as I had. He seemed to know the habits of the foxes of South Warwickshire as thoroughly as he did every foot-path and gate of the country, and he led us by cross-cuts to the various points to which Reynard circled, so that we often had the whole field in sight. It was not an especially interesting day, and the fox got away at last, among a tangle of railway lines that blocked our passage. My old mentor, who had given me much valuable instruction in the details of hunting, was vastly disgusted at the result, and broke out with, “Ah! it’s all up with old England, I doubt; these confounded railways have killed sport. There’s no hunting to be had any longer, for their infernal cutting up the country in this way. I’ve hunted with these hounds under fifteen different masters, but I’ve about done, and I sha’n’t lose much,—it’s all up. However, I suppose we could never pay the interest on the national debt without the railways; but it’s all up with hunting.” At that, he called away the young lady, bade me a melancholy “good-by,” and rode half sadly home. I galloped back to Stratford with my handsome old host,—a little more knowing in the ways of the field, but without yet having had a fair taste of the sport.
Seven miles from Peterborough, in the dismal little village of Wansford, near the borders of Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire, is, perhaps, the only remaining old posting-inn in England that is kept up in the unchanged style of the ante-railroad days. The post-horses are gone, but the posting-stables are filled with hunters; the travelling public have fled to the swifter lines, and Wansford is forever deserted of them; but the old Haycock keeps up its old cheer, and Tom Percival, who boasts that he has had the Princess Victoria for a guest, and has slept five dukes in one night, has little occasion to complain of neglect. The good wine that needs no bush still makes his cellar known, and no one should criticise English cooking until he has dined once at the Haycock. Nowhere is the inn-maid of whom we have read so much to be found in such simple, tidy, and courtesying perfection; and nowhere, in short, can one find so completely the solid comfort of hostelry life. Half old farm-house and half wayside-inn; with a marvellous larder, through whose glass-closed side the guest sees visions of joints and jams and pastry in lavish profusion; backed by a stable-yard where boys are always exercising good horses; and flanked by a yardful of quaint clipped yews,—the old house at Wansford (in spite of its dull-looking road front) is worth a visit from those who would get out of the sight and sound of steam, and see the old, old country life of England. The visitor is not numbered and billeted and pigeon-holed, as in the modern hotel; but the old fiction of host and guest is well kept up. Your coming should be announced in advance; and you are received as in some sort a member of the family, whose ways are made to conform more or less to the wishes of yourself and your convives, mainly young swells from London, who are few, and who are there, as you are, not for business, but for rest, good living, and regular sport. Three packs of hounds are within reach; and on the days when none of the meets is near, there is always the “larking”—the training of young horses—to supply a good substitute, so far as the riding goes. One who cares for hunting pure and simple, rather than for the gayer life of Leamington and Cheltenham, cannot do better than to make the season, or a part of it, at the Haycock, with regularly engaged horses for as many days in the week as he may choose to ride. It costs,—but it pays. One is none the less welcome among the guests for being an American.
I there had a day with the George Fitz William hounds. Not being, as yet, quite at home in the field, I took a wise old horse, “Cock Robin,” who was well up to my weight, and who, as Percival told me, would teach me more than I could teach him. He was sent on early with the other hunters, and I took a “hack” to ride to cover. We were a party of four, and we went through the fields and the lawns and the rain, to where the meet was fixed for eleven o’clock, at Barnwell Castle, a fine old Norman ruin,—square and low, with four large corner towers draped in magnificent ivy. It was a dreary morning, and not more than sixty were out; but among these, as always, there were ladies, and there was more than the usual proportion of fine horses. One cover was drawn blank, and we moved to another, where a fox was found, and whence the run was sharp and too straight for a prudent novice to see very much of it; and it was some minutes before Cock Robin and his rider came up with the hounds, who had come to a check in a large wood. Throughout the day there was a good deal of waiting about different covers, between which the fox ran back and forth. Finally he broke away for a long, quick burst over the fields, which lay to the left of a farm-road down which we were riding, and which was flanked by a high and solid-looking hedge. Near the head of the party was a well-mounted blonde of seventeen, who had hitherto seemed to avoid the open country and to keep prudently near to her mother and her groom. The sight of the splendid run, fast leaving us behind, was too much for her, and she turned straight for the hedge, clearing it with a grander leap than I had seen taken that day, and flying on over hedges and ditches in the direct wake of the hounds. A young German who followed her said, as we rode back to the Haycock, “It is vort to come from America or from Owstria to see zat lofely Lady – go over ze cowntry”; and it was.
Luck often favors the timid; Cock Robin and I were quite alone—he disgusted, and I half ashamed with my prudence—when the fox, who had found straight running of no avail, came swerving to the right over the crest of a distant hill, closely followed by the hounds, and, in splendid style, by the first flight of the field. Soon he crossed a brook which was fenced in with rails, and the horsemen all had to make a long détour, so that I, who had been last, now became first. I had the fox and the hounds all to myself; my horse was fresh, and the way was easy. My monopoly lasted only a moment, but it was not a moment of tranquillity. Finding an open gate and bridge, I followed the pack into a large low field, surrounded on three sides by the wide brook. The fox was turned by this and ran to the right along the bank; at the corner of the field he turned again to the right, still keeping by the edge of the stream; this gave the hounds an immense advantage, and cutting off the angle, they came so closely upon him that with still another turn of the brook ahead of him, he had but one chance for his life, and that was a desperate one for a tired fox to consider. He did not consider, but went slap at the brook, and cleared it with a leap of nearly twenty feet. The foremost hounds whimpered for a moment on the bank before they took to the water, and when they were across Reynard was well out of sight, and they had to nose out his trail afresh. He brought them again to a check, and finally, after half an hour’s skirmishing, he ran down a railway cutting in the wake of a train, and got away.
Incidentally, here was an opportunity for an English gentleman to show more good temper and breeding than it is one’s daily lot to see. He was one of a bridgeful of horsemen watching the hounds as they vainly tried to unravel the fox’s scent from the bituminous trail of the locomotive, when, full of eager curiosity, one of the ladies, middle-aged and not “native and to the manner born,” but not an American, rode directly on to his horse’s heels. To the confusion of my lady, the horse, like a sensible horse as he was, resented the attack with both his feet. His rider got him at once out of the way, and then returned, bowing his venerable head in regretful apology, and trusting that no serious harm had been done. “How can you ride such a kicking brute!” was the gracious acknowledgment of his forbearance.
In this storied little island one is never for long out of the presence of places on the traditions of which our life-long fancies have been fed. Our road home lay past the indistinct mass of rubbish, clustered round with ivy and with the saddest associations, which was once Fotheringay Castle; and as we turned into the village my companions pointed out the still serviceable but long-unused “stocks” where the minor malefactors of the olden time expiated their offences.
We reached the Haycock at three, a moist but far from unpleasant body of tired and dirty men, having ridden, since nine in the morning, over fifty-five miles, mostly in the rain, and often in a shower of mud splashed by galloping hoofs. By six o’clock we were in good trim for dinner, and after dinner for a long, cosey talk over the events of the day, and horses and fox-hunting in general. My own interest in the sport is confined mainly to its equestrian side, and I am not able to give much information as to its details. Any stranger must be impressed with the firm hold it has on the affections of the people, and with the little public sympathy that is shown for the rare attempts that are made to restrict its rights.
It would seem natural that the farmers should be its bitter opponents. It can hardly be a cheerful sight, in March, for a thrifty man to see a crowd of mad horsemen tearing through his twenty acres of well-wintered wheat, filling the air with a spray of soil and uprooted plants. But let a non-riding reformer get up after the annual dinner of the local Agricultural Association and suggest that the rights of tenant-farmers have long enough lain at the mercy of their landlord and his fox-hunting friends, with the rabble of idle sports and ruthless ne’er-do-weels who follow at their heels, and that it is time for them to assert themselves and try to secure the prohibition of a costly pastime, which leads to no good practical result, and the burdens of which fall so heavily on the producing classes,—and then see how his brother farmers will second his efforts. The very man whose wheat was apparently ruined will tell him that in March one would have said the whole crop was destroyed, but that the stirring up seemed to do it good, for he had never before seen such an even stand on that field. Another will argue that while hunting does give him some extra work in the repair of hedges and gates, and while he sometimes has his fields torn up more than he likes, yet the hounds are the best neighbors he has; they bring a good market for hay and oats, and, for his part, he likes to get a day with them himself now and then. Another raises a young horse when he can, and if he turns out a clever fencer, he gets a much larger price for him than he could if there were no hunting in the country. Another has now and then lost poultry by the depredations of foxes, but he never knew the master to refuse a fair claim for damages; for his part, he would scorn to ask compensation; he likes to see the noble sport, which is the glory of England, flourishing, in spite of modern improvements. At this point, and at this stage of the convivial cheer, they bring in the charge at Balaklava, and other evidences that the noble sport, which is the glory of old England, breeds a race of men whose invincible daring always has won and always shall win her honor in the field;—and Long live the Queen, and Here’s a health to the Handley Cross Hunt, and Confusion to the mean and niggardly spirit that is filling the country with wire fences and that would do away with the noble sport which is the glory of old England! Hear! hear!! And so it ends, and half the company, in velvet caps, scarlet coats, leathers and top-boots, will be early on the ground at the first meet of the next autumn, glad to see their old cover-side friends once more, and hoping for a jolly winter of such healthful amusements and pleasant intercourse as shall put into their heads and their hearts and into their hearty frames and ruddy faces a tenfold compensation for the trifling loss they may sustain in the way of broken gates and trampled fields.
I saw too little to be able to form a fair opinion as to the harm done; but when once the run commences no more account is made of wheat, which is carefully avoided when going at a slow pace, than if it were so much sawdust; fences are torn down, and there is no time to replace them; if gates are locked, they are taken off the hinges or broken; if sheep join the crowd in an enclosure and follow them into the road, no one stops to see that they are returned: we are after the hounds, and sheep must take care of themselves. I saw one farmer, in an excited manner, open the gates of his kitchen-garden and turn the hounds and twenty horsemen through it as the shortest way to where he had seen the fox go; his womenfolk eagerly calling “Tally-ho!” to others who were going wrong. I have never seen a railroad train stopped because of the conductor’s interest in a passing hunt, but I fancy that is the only thing in England that does not stop when the all-absorbing interest is once awakened.
Whatever may be the effect on material interests, the benefit of this eager, vigorous, outdoor life on the health and morals of the people is most unmistakable. Such a race of handsome, hale, straight-limbed, honest, and simple-hearted men can nowhere else be found as in the wide class that passes as much of every winter as is possible in regular fox-hunting; and to make an application of their example, we could well afford to give over many of our fertile fields to ruthless destruction, and many of our fertile hours to the most senseless sport, if it would only replace our dyspeptic stomachs, sallow cheeks, stooping shoulders, and restless eagerness with the hale and hearty and easy-going life and energy of our English cousins. Hardly enough women hunt in England to constitute an example; but those who do are such models of health and freshness as to make one wish that more women had the benefit of such amusement both there and here. It is very common to see men of over sixty following the hounds in the very élite of the field; they seem still in the vigor of youth. At seventy many are yet regular at their work; and it is hardly remarkable when one finally hangs up his red coat only at the age of eighty. Considering all this, it almost becomes a question whether, patriotism to the contrary notwithstanding, it would not be a good thing for a prosperous American, instead of settling down at the age of forty-five to a special partnership and a painful digestion, to take a smaller income where it would bring more comfort, and by a judicious application of the pig-skin to rehabilitate his enfeebled alimentation.
Fox-hunting is a costly luxury if one goes well mounted and well appointed. It can hardly be made cheap, even when one lives in his own house and rides his own horses. With hotel bills and horse-hire, it costs still more. As an occasional indulgence it is always a good investment. My own score at the Haycock was as follows,—by way of illustration, and because actual figures are worth more than estimates. (I was there from Thursday afternoon until Sunday morning, went out with a shooting-party on Friday, dined out on Friday night, and hunted on Saturday.)
* The run of the house.
† We are apt to consider this a petty swindle, but it has the advantage that you get what you pay for.
Eight pounds, twelve shillings, and sixpence; which being interpreted means $47.30 in the lawful currency of the United States. The hunter and hack for one day cost $23.52.
An American friend living with his family in Leamington (much more cheaply than he could live at home), kept two hunters and a hack, and hunted them twice a week for the whole season (nearly six months) at a cost, including the loss on his horses, which he sold in the spring, of less than $1,500. I think this is below the average expense.
The cost of keeping up a pack of hounds is very heavy. The hounds themselves, a well-paid huntsman, two or three whippers-in, two horses a day for each of these attendants (hunting four days a week, this would probably require four horses for each man), and no end of incidental expenses, bring the cost to fully $20,000 per annum. This is sometimes paid wholly or in part by subscription and sometimes entirely by the Master of the Hounds. One item of my friend’s expenses at Leamington was a subscription of ten guineas each to the Warwickshire, North Warwickshire, Atherstone, and Pytchley hunts. Something of this sort would be necessary if one hunted for any considerable time with any subscription pack, but an occasional visitor is not expected to contribute.
A stranger participating in the sport need only be guided by common modesty and common-sense. However good a horseman he may be, he cannot make a sensation among the old stagers of the hunting-field. Probably he will get no commendation of any sort. If he does, it will be for keeping out of the way of others,—taking always the easiest and safest road that will bring him well up with the hounds, not flinching when a desperate leap must be taken, and following (at a respectful distance) a good leader, rather than trying to take the lead himself. However promising the prospect may be, he had better not do anything on his own hook; if he makes a conspicuous mistake, he will probably be corrected for it in plainer English than it is pleasant to hear.
One of the memorable days of my life was the day before New-Year’s. Ford had secured me a capital hunter, a well-clipped gelding, over sixteen hands high, glossy, lean, and wiry as a racer. “You’ve got a rare mount to-day, sir,” said the groom as he held him for me to get up; and a rare dismount I came near having in the little measure of capacity with which Master Dick and I commenced our acquaintance, before we left the Regent. He was one of those horses whose spirits are just a little too much for their skins, and all the way out he kept up a restless questioning of his prospect of having his own way. Still he was in all this, as in his manner of doing his work when he got into the open country, such a perfect counterpart of old Max, who had carried me for two years in the Southwest, that I was at home at once. If I had had a hunter made to order, I could not have been more perfectly suited.
The meet (North Warwickshire) was at Cubbington Gate, only two miles from Leamington, and a very gay meet it was. The road was filled with carriages, and there was a goodly rabble on foot. About three hundred, in every variety of dress, were mounted for the hunt, a dozen or so of ladies among them. Three of these kept well up all day, and one of them rode very straight. The hounds were taken to a wood about a mile to the eastward of Cubbington, where they soon found a fox, which led us a very straight course to Princethorpe, about three miles to the northeast.
I had done little fencing for seven or eight years, and the sort of propulsion one gets in being carried over a hedge is sufficiently different from the ordinary impulses of civil life to suggest at first the element of surprise. Consequently, though our initial leap was a modest one, I landed with only one foot in the stirrup and with one hand in the mane; but I now saw that Dick was but another name for Max, and this one moderate failure was enough to recall the old tricks of the craft. As the opportunity would perhaps never come again, this one was not to be neglected, and I resolved to have one fair inside view of real fox-hunting. Dick was clearly as good a horse as was out that day; the leaping was less than that to which we were used among the worm-fences, fallen timber, and gullies of Arkansas and Tennessee; and there was but a plain Anglo-Saxon name for the only motive that could deter me from making the most of the occasion. Mr. Lant, the Master of the Hounds, was not better mounted for his lighter weight than was I for my fourteen stone; and his position as well as his look indicated that he would probably go by the nearest practicable route to where the fox might lead, so we kept at a safe distance behind him and well in his wake. The hesitation and uncertainty which had at first confused my bridle-hand being removed, my horse, recognizing the changed position of affairs, settled down to his work like a well-trained and sensible but eager beast as he was. From the covert to Princethorpe we took seven fences and some small ditches, and we got there with the first half-dozen of the field, both of us in higher spirits than horse and rider ever get except by dint of hard going and successful fencing.
Here there was a short check, but the fox was soon routed out again and made for Waveley Wood, a couple of miles to the northwest.
Waveley Wood is what is called in England a “biggish bit of timber,” and the check here was long enough to allow the whole field to come up. As we sat chatting and lighting our cigars, “Tally-ho!” was called from the other side of the cover, and we splashed through a muddy cart-road and out into the open just as the hounds were well away. Now was a ride for dear life. Every one had on all the speed the heavy ground would allow. In front of us was a “bullfinch” (a neglected hedge, out of which strong thorny shoots of several years’ growth have run up ten or twelve feet above it). I had often heard of bullfinches, and no hunting experience could be complete without taking one. It was some distance around by the gate, the pace was strong, and the spiny fringe had just closed behind Mr. Lant’s red coat as he dropped into the field beyond. “Follow my leader” is a game that must be boldly played; so, settling my hat well down, holding my bridle-hand low, and covering my closed eyes with my right elbow, with the whip-hand over the left shoulder, I put my heart in my pocket and went at it, and through it with a crash! An ugly scratch on the fleshy part of the right hand was the only damage done, and I was one of the very few near the pack. Dick and I were now up to anything; we made very light of a thick tall hedge that came next in order, and we cleared it like a bird; but we landed in a pool of standing water, covering deeply ploughed ground, the horse’s forefeet sinking so deeply that he could not get them out in time, and our headway rolled us both over in the mud, I flat on my back. Dick got up just in time for his pastern to strike me in the face as I was rising, giving me a cut lip, a mouthful of blood, and a black and blue nose-bridge. My appearance has, on occasions, been more respectable and my temper more serene than as I ran, soiled and bleeding, over the ploughed ground, calling to some workmen to “catch my horse.”