Katerfelto: A Story of Exmoor

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

"He's forward!" exclaimed John Garnet, plunging through briar and brushwood, with the rein on Katerfelto's neck. "Hold up, old man! we shall soon be in the open again; and, by George, this is the best run you or I ever saw in our lives."

These words of encouragement were addressed by the rider to his horse, as the latter scrambled sideways up a bank that would have taxed the agility of a goat. Gaining the top they were rewarded by a spectacle that seemed equally to the taste of each. Through an open wood of grand old oaks, standing wide apart, ran twenty couple of powerful stag-hounds, majestic in shape, gigantic in stature, deep and rich in colour, stringing somewhat, it may be, as they passed in and out the gnarled substantial stems, but shaking the very acorns from the autumn boughs above, as that leafy canopy trembled to the music of their full sonorous cry. Katerfelto's neck swelled with delight, while he reached at his bridle for liberty to go faster still. The sunbeams broke and sparkled overhead amongst the flickering green, the waving ferns lowered their banners in graceful homage as they bent and yielded underfoot, the dark moor, visible here and there through the trees, stretched to the horizon in front. The whole pageant seemed too beautiful for reality, and John Garnet felt as if he were hunting in a dream.

Emerging once more on the open, he found he was no longer alone with the hounds. "That must be a good black horse," he said to himself, and thought no more about it; for although, as a stranger in the county, he believed the run to have been perfectly straight, he was no ungenerous rival, and felt rather gratified that his pleasure should be shared by one who could appreciate its charm. He might want assistance too, he reflected, at the finish; for to kill a stag at bay, and rescue his carcase from the fangs of a pack of hounds, however tired, that had "set him up," was no pleasant job to undertake single-handed in the wilds of Devon. Therefore he greeted the appearance of Parson Gale, galloping steadily towards him, with an encouraging wave of the arm, and a jolly cheer.

The Parson's knowledge of wood-craft had served him at last. Of the few turns the deer made out of its direct line, this at least had been in his favour. It was in a strange tumult of mingled exultation and malignity, that he now found himself almost within speaking distance of his rival, well within hearing of the hounds. "It must soon be over," thought the Parson, "and he shall not boast he rode clean away from Abner Gale after all! Anyhow, Master Garnet, the deer cannot surely travel much farther, and then comes the reckoning between you and me."

But one notable peculiarity of this wild stag-hunting in the West, is the impossibility of calculating on the endurance of a red-deer. A light young hart, four or five years old, unencumbered by flesh, and with the elasticity of youth in every limb, can naturally skim the surface of his native wastes like a creature with wings; but it is strange, that on occasion, though rarely, a stag should be found with branching antlers to prove his maturity, and broad well-furnished back to denote his weight, that can yet stand before a pack of hounds, toiling after him at steady three-quarter speed, over every kind of ground, for twenty, and even thirty miles on end. We can gauge to a nicety the lasting qualities of our horse—we have a shrewd guess at about what stage of the proceedings even such staunch hounds as Tancred and Tarquin must begin to flag; but the powers of a hunted stag defy speculation, or as old Rube observed, in his more sober and reflective moments, "'Tis a creatur three parts con-trairiness and only a quarter venison. Why, even I can't always tell ye where to vind 'un, nor which road he'll think well to travel, nor how fur he'll go. Them as made 'un knows, I'll warrant; but there's many a deer lies in the forest, as is one too many for Red Rube!"

It may be that the breeze was from the north, bringing with it the keen salt savour of the sea; it may be that the deer, reckoning up its remaining strength, felt unable to traverse all that width of broken country which must intervene, ere it could reach the sheltering heights of Seven Ash, or the dark gorge that shuts in Combe-Martin Cove, between the cliffs; for turning short to the right, it set its head resolutely upward, and the pace became more severe with every stride. The line too was exceedingly trying to hounds and horses, from the undulating nature of the ground, intersected at every mile with deep and narrow coombes—unseen, till it was too late, by judicious coasting, to avoid their laborious steeps. Up and down these the deer travelled obliquely, using the broken sheep-tracks that afforded but little foothold to a hound, and none whatever to a horse. Katerfelto began to lean on his bridle, and Cassock, following at a respectful distance, relapsed into a trot. Their riders also wished from their hearts that the thing would come to an end. There is but little satisfaction in the finest run on record if, spite of troubles, triumphs, pains, and perils, we never get to the finish after all.

But to one individual the turn thus taken at so critical a period of the chase was welcomed with exceeding gratitude and delight. Red Rube, on the broken-kneed pony, had hung perseveringly on the line instinct rather than experience prompted him to adopt. Steadily adhering to his western course, and keeping the high ground, he was fortunate enough to hit on the chord of the arc, and travelled less than a mile for every two covered by the chase. Therefore, halting above the green slopes of Paracombe to listen, his ears tingled, and his heart thrilled while he caught the dear familiar cry. "They do run ov 'un still!" exclaimed the old man, his grey eye sparkling, and the colour rising in his wrinkled cheek; "and they do come nigher momently, for sure. He do mean 'soilin' in the Lynn, I'll warrant, but they'll set him up this side Waters-meet, I'll wager a gallon!" Then he consulted that elaborate map of the country he carried in his head, and admonished the broken-kneed pony with a touch of his single spur.

Now, Red Rube's proficiency in stag-hunting and Parson Gale's only differed in degree, nor was the divine very far behind the harbourer in knowledge of their favourite pursuit. He too, could make his guess at the probable termination of the run, and husbanded Cassock's powers to the utmost, with shrewd misgivings, lest his horse should prove unable to outlast the deer.

Yes, the good stag must falter and fail ere long. His russet hide is blackened now with sweat and mire, his eye starts wild and blood-shot from his reeking head; he stops more than once to take breath and listen, but toiling on again labours heavily in his gait, and sways from side to side. Facing a steep hill, he breasts it gallantly, and for the first time since he left his harbour, scales the ascent in a direct line for the top. Parson Gale, a mile behind, catches a glimpse of him in the act, and plies his spurs freely, for he knows that now the game is played out.