Foxhounds.
THE SIRES OF THE DAY.
There will always be a certain amount of controversy in regard to the choice of sires. Some people are bigoted enough still in the belief that good looks and a level formation have nothing to do with the success of hound-breeding, and that attention only should be paid to abilities in the hunting field. If this had been the dictum of the Dukes of Rutland and Beaufort, or of Lord Henry Bentinck, or Mr. G. S. Foljambe, the breed would have well-nigh died out; but the great masters would have necks and shoulders, intelligent heads, deep ribs, straightness in fore-leg, and the round, cat-like foot. There is everything to charm one in the well-bred foxhound, and is there anything like him? The Peterborough Shows have done good in bringing the best-looking together, and in giving opportunities for seeing the best. There has been everything to prove that the best-looking are generally the greatest; they are so in nineteen cases out of twenty, and as they are picked for appearances as puppies, there should be nothing to offend the eye at all in any well-regulated pack. At Belvoir a moderate-looking one even cannot be seen. They are all beautiful hounds, and the difficulty is to find fault. This is the general high standard of the country, and with masters of hounds in great numbers who will have perfect hounds in and out of kennel, the conclusion must be arrived at that there is no other breed of animal so well looked after. The winners of the Champion Prizes at Peterborough during the last twenty years have been very great as sires. What a deal of good can be traced now to the Fitzwilliam Selim, and what a magnificent hound he was; and then there was the Warwickshire Hermit and Harper, the Oakley Rhymer, the Pytchley Paradox and Potentate, the Craven Vagabond, the Puckeridge Wellington, the Cleveland Galopin, and not to forget also the Quorn Alfred, the champion of his time, as did not Tom Firr lead him back a winner? There have been lots besides as either champions or winners in the couples of unentered ones, such as the Dumfriesshire Resolute, who has replenished half the Scotch kennels with good hounds, and the Pytchley Marquis, who stood in the ring with Resolute for the Single Puppy Cup, when the judges, Lord Enniskillen and Mr. Austin Mackenzie, eyed the couple for five minutes before they could decide that the Pytchley young one was a shade the better. Never have two young champions done more for the cause of sport, as to ask concerning all the good that has been done by Marquis is to set John Isaac on the pinnacle of excitement.
[PUCKERIDGE.]
Colonist (1903). Cardinal (1902).
[By Chancellor—Sarah.] [By Chancellor—Dauntless.]
Belvoir has never shown at Peterborough or any other show. Frank Gillard used graciously to say that it was charity to give other people a chance; but anyway, the ducal kennel has always had plenty of good mention at Peterborough, as a great many winners have been by its sires; and it has become a practice also amongst far distant masters of hounds to visit Belvoir on the day after the show, and thus to extend their insight amongst all exquisites of the foxhound family. It is just thirty years ago (1876) since Belvoir Weathergage was entered, and what an enormous amount of good has come from this single hound. At home he was the sire of Gambler and Gameboy, besides others of lesser note; and for other packs there was the Brocklesby Weathergage, the Fitzwilliam Weathergage, the Grafton Why Not, the Southwold Freeman, and the Warwickshire Why Not, all very noted hounds. One can scarcely say how many more famous sons of Weathergage there were, but just as he was spoken of by Frank Gillard as the best hound he ever hunted, Mr. Rawnsley, of the Southwold, says the same of his son Freeman, whilst very similar in character must have been the Grafton Why Not. In the next generation the excellence was again well continued; as where have better hounds been seen than the sons of Gambler, with Nominal and Gordon at home, and Lord Middleton’s Grimthorpe and Grasper, Mr. Austin Mackenzie’s Rallywood, Lord Galway’s Gambler, and the Grafton General and Gorgon. Gameboy, brother to Gambler, brought more kudos into the famous line, as he was the sire of the Holderness Gaffer, sire of their Steadfast, and the latter has been very useful in many packs. The line has apparently got stronger in years and generations, as from Watchman, son of Nominal, comes Dexter, a great sire certainly during the last six or seven years, and his son Stormer is the most fashionable, if not the greatest, of the day.
Belvoir Stormer (1899) is a very grand hound of the Gambler type, but a bit on the big side, good twenty-four inches, but there is all the quality in him of the Belvoir hound, and he has beautiful legs and feet. I make him out to have as much or more Osbaldeston Furrier blood in him than in any other to be found in the Stud-book. It came in through Weathergage, of course, back to Senator, and he got it through his dam Destitute, by Sir Richard Sutton’s Dryden, by Lord Henry Bentinck’s Contest. But then there was so much Senator blood in Gratitude, the dam of Gambler, and again in Needy, the dam of Nominal, as she was by Syntax, son of the Grafton Silence, son of Statesman by Senator, by the Oakley Sportsman, her dam Needless by Contest, out of Novelty, by Senator. The success of Stormer for other packs than his own has been almost extraordinary, and this can be seen in Baily’s Directory, giving the names and the pedigrees of the prize puppies at the various kennel puppy shows. They were first in the Quorn, Tynedale, Duke of Buccleuch’s (in bitches), Pytchley (in bitches), Lord Middleton’s (in bitches), and second in the North Staffordshire (dogs), the latter a remarkable puppy called General (a present as a whelp from Mr. R. Corbett, of the South Cheshire, as he would persistently join the pack when at walk, and hunt like an old one before he was entered).
It may be thought that there was more honour attached to Stormer in his earlier days, as the sire of the Atherstone Struggler and Streamer; of Lord Bathurst’s Stentor, unfortunately dead, when he promised to be one of the pillars of the family, as besides being the best puppy of his year at Peterborough, he got some very good stock, as seen by the puppy shows. Then there is Lord Yarborough’s Harbinger, exceedingly good looking, and so good in his work as to have been used in his second season; and some others in various kennels thought very highly of. Stormer, though, was in no degree more useful or popular than his sire Dexter, whose son, Daystar, was supposed to have been the best-looking hound bred at Belvoir since Gambler, but he was unfortunately killed by a kick in the hunting field. Dasher, another son of Dexter, met with a similar fate. Both these hounds got beautiful stock. But besides Stormer, there was another son of Dexter of the same age in Handel, almost more bloodlike in outline than the other, and as the sire of the Warwickshire Traveller to be held much in esteem. Both Stormer and Handel are still in orders at Belvoir. Lord Middleton has a great opinion of his own Dexter by the old Belvoir hound, and he has used him freely. Some very good sorts are brought in through the Birdsall Dexter, as his dam Woodbine was by the Grafton Woodman, so on both sides accounting for his excellence in the field. There is really a plentitude of the Belvoir Dexter and Stormer blood throughout the country, as through the former’s son, Dasher, again comes in the Rufford Furrier, with every promise to become a great sire; and there was a young hound in the Bicester kennels last year called Deemster, by Dasher, out of a beautiful bitch called Bravery, that looked like making a name if he has gone on all right.
If a breeder of hounds commenced his operations from the Belvoir Weathergage (1876), there are probably six distinct lines to work upon, or most certainly four, and he need hardly go further afield for blood, but cross from one to the other, just as old Mr. Parry used to do with his Pilgrims and Rummagers, and Mr. G. S. Foljambe did from the brothers Harbinger and Herald. The subsequent occupants of their kennel benches were not too nearly bred, five generations off was old Parry’s plan; but still, they were all blood relations. To speak with any certainty I should take the four lines from the brothers Gambler and Gameboy, and the two others from the Grafton Whynot (1882) and the Southwold Freeman (1885). The Gamblers I have pretty well referred to above, but his brother, Gameboy, was almost as important as the sire of the Holderness Gaffer, sire of their Steadfast, and of Mr. Austin Mackenzie’s Guider and Gambler. Of these Gaffer occupies an important page in the “Foxhound Kennel Stud Book,” as he was the sire of the Warwickshire Sailor, the sire of the Brocklesby Wrangler. Steadfast, again, was the sire of two very good stud-hounds of the present day, namely, Lord Harrington’s Sultan and Salisbury (brothers). The Grafton Whynot was in no degree less important than any of the above, as he was the sire of Workman, sire of Wonder, sire of Woodman, whose good ones throughout the country have been almost legion, to include the Craven or Old Berks Woodman, the Vale of White Horse Worcester, the Grafton Whynot (of 1897), the Puckeridge Chancellor (1898), and the Badminton Whipster (in orders five years). In my most recent travels I have heard of nothing but praise of the Grafton Woodman’s stock, splendid for nose, hard workers, demons on a dying fox, and always dependable for season after season. The old dog was thirteen years old before he was put away last spring, and I shall always regret not seeing him, as, to judge him from every point, he must have belonged to the very greatest. His son, Worcester, in Mr. Butt Miller’s kennels, enjoys the same reputation so closely associated with his sire, as there could be no better foxhound on the line of a fox, and he has got good ones right and left for Lord Bathurst’s, the Duke of Beaufort’s, the Craven, the Morpeth, and other packs all having representatives by him, besides a big following at home. The Craven regretted that their litter by him of three couples were all bitches, as they were so good, and a dog to have been a sire would have been all too acceptable. However, Lord Bathurst has got two very good sons of Worcester in Weathergage and Wellington, who trace back on their dam’s side also to some very telling blood from Mr. Austin Mackenzie’s Dexter, Belvoir Weathergage again, Warwickshire Harper, and Lord Coventry’s Rambler. Cooper thought last year that Weathergage might be the best foxhound in England. He should not be missed, therefore, by hound-breeders. Mr. Butt Miller has naturally several young Worcester sires, the brothers Bandit and Barrister striking me as about the best when I saw them. It is noticeable that the Morpeth’s second prize puppy, Whynot, was a son of Worcester’s.
The Bicester have had reason to uphold the Grafton Woodman line, as some of their best are by Whynot, notably a grand third-season dog called Wrangler, who gave one the impression of becoming a stud-hound of note some day. There are two or three of Mr. Heywood Lonsdale’s worth taking a good journey to see, Conqueror being one, and he is quite one of Lord Chesham’s breeding, going back into the Blankney sorts. The second prize puppy of the kennel last year was by Conqueror.
To turn again, though, to the Grafton Whynot. I saw him last May, with nine seasons marked against him, and the rumour was that he had been promised to Squire Drake, who might breed a pack again for the Old Berks through this son of Woodman alone, if he could keep the old fellow in useful orders long enough. He got rare stock for the Grafton, and so did his son, Wiseacre, who died too prematurely; whilst another son called Waggoner—still available, I expect—had the reputation of being the hardest driver in the pack. Of the Grafton dogs, though, I liked President the best, and he was out of a Woodman bitch. The next share of usefulness to be credited to Woodman may come from the Puckeridge, as Mr. Edward Barclay bred from him in 1897 with a bitch that went back to old Mr. Parry’s sorts, through Lord Portsmouth’s Gainer, a very noted worker, as I well remember, and got by Mr. Parry’s Gulliver far back in the sixties. Gainer was so good that the late Lord Galway favoured him extensively, entering three couples by him from four litters in 1873. Mr. Lane Fox was one of his patrons, and also Belvoir; but for the latter great kennel he did not get them very good about the knees.
The result of Mr. Barclay’s patronage to the Grafton Wonder, was Chancellor, and he was like all the rest of them, quite A1 in his work, and going on into his eighth season, at any rate. He has been bred from for the last five years with bitches mostly of Belvoir extraction, and in the Puckeridge list of 1904 there were eight couples by him in different years; all very good, so Mr. Barclay and his late huntsman, Jem Cockayne, have stated; but the best of all was Cardinal, out of Dauntless, by Belvoir Watchman, son of Nominal, son of Gambler, son of Weathergage, her dam Dahlia by Shamrock, son of Dashwood by Founder, belonging to the Fallible family. A splendidly bred hound, therefore, is the Puckeridge Cardinal, entered in 1902, so now just in his prime. He is a fine big hound also, and so good in his work as to have left a very strong impression upon Jem Cockayne, who was never happy unless Mr. Barclay kept breeding from him heavily, and about the first thing he did when engaged for the North Warwickshire was to get Mr. Arkwright to do the same. He told me he should like to have a kennel full of Cardinals, and really the puppy boxes at Brent Pelham last year were full of them. Another by Chancellor in the Puckeridge Kennel is Colonist, a year younger than Cardinal, but with almost as great a reputation, and bred very like his companion, as he was out of Sarah, by Belvoir Dashwood. Colonist took second prize as a puppy at Peterborough.
Yet another line from the ever-telling Belvoir Weathergage may be traced from the Southwold Freeman, who was thought by Mr. Rawnsley to have been the best hound he ever hunted in his life, and for the last twenty years this gentleman has shown a strong determination to hold the line. He had five and a half couples by him before the good hound was a five-year-old, and six couples and a half were entered afterwards from numerous litters. The same line can be traced through several channels at the present time, and to Frantic, sister to Freeman. Much of his has been crossed again to the Grafton Woodman, as Workable, a well-known Southwold bitch, has been a great treasure in the field and as a breeder of good ones; and Valliant, possibly Mr. Rawnsley’s best sire, is by the Brocklesby Wrangler, one of the sorts, as I have mentioned in this paper, out of a Freeman-bred bitch. To trace the branches from the Belvoir Weathergage, there is everything, then, to show that the merit has been almost inexhaustible, and that, if anything, it has increased in intensity by intercrossing: the Grafton Wonder, with the Gambler line, as instanced in the case of the Puckeridge Cardinal, and the Freemans, as shown by the Brocklesby Wrangler and Vanity, in their production of the Southwold Valliant; and again in the case of Worcester breeding his best from Nominal- or Gambler-bred bitches. It is a problem of breeding, and all compassed in thirty years. I can hardly believe it to be so long ago, looking back to 1873, when chatting to Frank Gillard, on the old flags at Belvoir, we admired Warrior, the crack of the kennel, as I then opined, and how Gillard told me that the beautiful blood-like hound before us was rather the result of an experiment. He hardly dared to breed from Wonder, on account of his swine chap, but he was tempted by his beautiful voice, and his union with Susan produced a perfect litter, to comprise Woodman, Warrior, Woeful, Welcome and Whimsey, all good-looking enough to be put on, and useful in producing subsequent Belvoir beauties; but the star of all was Warrior, the sire of Weathergage. Nearly all the best foxhound sires of the day trace to the latter, and it would be no very bad policy to breed from the older ones of their generation as long as they can be found—Belvoir Stormer, Handel, Grafton Why Not, Cricklade Worcester, Brocklesby Wrangler and Badminton Dexter—but still to remember that there is a younger generation, or even two, that is quite as good, and maybe safer, when enumerating the sires of the day, as the Warwickshire Traveller, the Belvoir Vaulter and Royal, the Atherstone Struggler and Streamer, the Grafton Waggoner and President, the Birdsall Dexter, the Puckeridge Cardinal, the Bicester Wrangler, the Fitzwilliam Harper, the Southwold Valliant, the Cricklade Bandit and the Cirencester Weathergage.
G. S. Lowe.
Hunt “Runners.”
III.
“Harry” and Sellars.
No better tribute to the scope of the runner’s usefulness could be put forth than the fact that he is running with us to-day. As might be expected, quite a little band of scarlet-coated runners live within easy reach of Melton and Oakham, a privileged area in which sport with one or other of the four Leicestershire packs may be seen on six days of the week. Theirs is a hard life at best, and were they not thoroughly endued with the spirit for sport, they could not for long follow their calling; but the runner of the rising generation has not the enthusiasm of a former generation. As for reminiscences, his begin and end with the week’s sport; as for the future, he hopes the going will not be any heavier in the coming week.
LEICESTERSHIRE RUNNERS.
The journey to covert through the characteristic Leicestershire gates, across grass fields and cow pastures, is the runner’s opportunity to be useful; at the meet the possession by the great majority of hunting men of second horsemen render his services less in demand than they used to be. The hunt runner is not the character he was in our forefathers’ day; but there are still uses for him in certain districts. At the present time both the Quorn and the Cottesmore have recognised men to lead their terriers, and perform other functions. With the Belvoir a runner may be seen joining the hunt on a Leicestershire day, but he is more or less “on his own”; for if a terrier is out it is running with the pack or led by a second horseman. So far as the Lincolnshire side of the Belvoir country is concerned, it is no country for runners; the area traversed is very wide, and the going is much too heavy to let a man on foot keep in touch with a well-mounted hunt. The same applies to the Blankney country, where we never remember seeing a runner on any occasion; the Blankney Hunt terrier is always carried by one of the second horsemen, slung in a game-bag so that he can be brought on the scene at the shortest notice.
When Lord Lonsdale instituted his memorable reign as master of the Quorn in 1893, he organised every detail of his staff, from Tom Firr in leathers and swan-necked spurs, to the hunt runners carrying the very latest pattern of bolting apparatus. No commander-in-chief of an army ever entered on a plan of campaign better found in every department, and the result was entirely satisfactory for sport, good runs, with a fox at the finish, being the order of things. On the opening day of that season at Kirby Gate, we had the good fortune to be one of the field mounted by Mr. James Hornsby, who then lived at Stapleford Park. Amongst the crowd at the meet, the figure of Harry the runner came in for general observation. He turned out in scarlet coat of a texture not too heavy; white flannel knickerbockers, black stockings, and a well-groomed hunting cap. He led a couple of varminty wire-haired terriers of the celebrated Lonsdale breed, and strapped to his back was a patent sapper’s spade with pick, made of the best steel. Thus equipped, Harry appears in one of the Quorn series of hunt pictures by Major Giles, which depicts hounds marking to ground in one of the characteristic hills typical of the woodland side of Leicestershire. With Harry was another runner, a strong athletic young fellow with a heavy moustache, who carried a bolting apparatus in the shape of thirty-five feet of piping with a brush at the end of it, not unlike that used by chimney-sweeps. Known to the hunt department as Sunny Marlow, he has always worked with Harry.
On the occasion before us, contrary to custom, the first draw was Welby Fishponds, instead of Gartree Hill, and we were marshalled by the field master, Mr. Lancelot Lowther, a field away whilst hounds drew covert. At last the silver whistles proclaimed hounds away on the back of a fox, and the cavalcade swept down the hillside. After a hunt of about an hour, with a somewhat catchy scent, and a blind line of country that laid the field out like ninepins, hounds marked to ground over a drain between Old Dalby Wood and Sixhills. Before we had been there five minutes, Harry was on the scene with his apparatus and terriers. Unstrapping the spade, he took off his coat, and putting his back into the work, he cut the sods out in double quick time. It was a characteristic shallow Leicestershire drain, running across a grass field, and crowning down into it, a terrier was put in at the far end. This moved the fox, and Alfred Earp, the whipper-in, was ready to seize him by the brush as he tried to slip further up. Wriggling like an eel at arm’s length, he was flung adrift, and the pack coursing the length of a field, rolled him over—the first fox of the season.
An official Quorn runner must be a good hand with the spade, for he gets many a rough day’s work in the off season digging out badgers, which abound in high Leicestershire. As most people know, badgers are very untidy neighbours for a fox covert, working out the earths so that stopping out becomes an increased difficulty. Very often digging out a badger earth may mean a week or two of solid work, for badgers go very deep, often among the roots of trees. As a rule the soil is light and sandy, working well; where badgers have been imported into clay soil districts to work out earths for foxes, they have at first opportunity migrated to districts where the digging suited them better. This last autumn one of the hunt runners told us that after some very hard digging they got hold of three badgers whose combined weight turned the scale at a hundredweight, the largest measuring 3 ft. 10 in. in length. The badgers are killed, and their skins sent in to the Master of the Hunt as trophies.
Since Captain Forester undertook the mastership last season, Harry has again, we understand, become a paid member of the staff as in Lord Lonsdale’s time. If the two men are not seen running with the Hunt on the same day, the one is pretty sure to be stopping earths in another district for next day.
A runner with the Cottesmore has to put a great deal of travelling into a day’s hunting when the fixture is wide of Oakham; on Mondays and Thursdays an average journey to the meet is from twelve to fifteen miles, with no chance of a lift by rail. Sellars, who has been runner for the best part of twenty seasons, tells us that he frequently starts from Oakham, with his terriers, at eight o’clock in the morning, to reach such fixtures as Castle Bytham, Holywell Hall, Stocken-Hall, or Clipsham, by eleven. Fortunately at the end of the day, hounds work back towards Oakham, so that when they whip off the runner is nearer his well-earned supper. Sellars is a well-set-up, active fellow, who relies on his own energies to carry him through, and where the heart is keen for sport it is astonishing what a man can accomplish. A younger runner to-day of shorter build lessens his labours by using a bicycle, which certainly gives him an advantage in districts where the roads serve. But Sellars has ridden to hounds in his time second horseman, as far back as when William Neil carried the horn, and he is hardly likely to adopt the “wheel.” In his cap, scarlet coat and leggings, he is the typical, sharp-featured runner, in hard condition to go all day, perfectly at home in the country, which he knows by heart.
With the respectful manner of one who has been in touch with hunting all his life, Sellars is not a great talker; he is a silent admirer of all connected with the Cottesmore Hunt, in which his sun rises and sets. During the hunting season there is plenty of work to be had between times in the shape of badger digging and earth stopping, besides taking a turn as beater when there is shooting going on in the district. The hay and corn harvest gives every available hand the chance of a fair day’s work for good pay, the farmers then finding the Hunt runners employment.
Sellars calls to mind the memories of a long succession of brilliant Cottesmore Hunt servants: mentioning William Neil and his famous first whip, Jimmy Goddard, who was the beau ideal of a horseman, and hung a boot better than most. The long service of George Gillson, as huntsman for the best part of twenty years, was remarkable for consistent and good sport, very popular with the countryside. A whipper-in who had a long tenure of service at that time was George Jull, who remained on for a season or two under Arthur Thatcher, and then went to Ireland. Amongst the many occasions that Sellars has helped to extricate horse and rider after a fall, he calls to mind an incident when Jull came such a crumpler, that he had to be conveyed by the Hunt runner to the nearest farmhouse.
Sellars was one of those who rendered first aid when Colonel Little took a bad fall this season, his horse rolling over him with serious consequences. A runner, if he is worth his salt, must be ready for any emergency, from rendering “first aid” to handling a fox or leading an unwilling hound. Very often his duties are in the track of the hunt, shutting gates and collecting strayed stock, so that he must be included amongst those who further sport by repairing mistakes of the careless.