Although not sufficiently Spartan in my habits to do without a covert-hack for long distances, I have found out, in common with most men, I believe, that one’s horse never carries one so pleasantly as when one has ridden him to covert oneself. Apple-Jack is a calm and deliberate animal enough, with none of the crotchets and fancies peculiar to so many superior hunters; and yet even he seems always a little less staid and careful than usual when he has carried my groom a dozen miles or so along the road. Few sensations are more enjoyable than to jog quietly to the meet, after a leisurely breakfast, with a good cigar in one’s mouth, a horse that feels like a hunter under one, and the satisfactory conviction that one is in plenty of time.
It is not my province nor my intention to describe minutely the Castle-Cropper hounds. All the world knows that the Earl of Castle-Cropper is a thorough sportsman; that you might hunt with him from year’s end to year’s end, and, except to beg you civilly to “hold hard,” never hear him open his lips; and that he is supposed to be as facetious and agreeable in private life as he is reserved and silent in his public capacity. The same world knows, too, that Will Hawk, who was with his father, the old Earl, in the famous days of Musters and Tom Smith, a sort of heroic period “ante Agamemnona” is the prince of huntsmen, and the flower of veterans; that the horses are undeniable, the servants respectable, well dressed, and trustworthy, though scarcely so quick as they might be; the whole thing goes like clockwork, and the hounds are beyond all praise. Well they may be; they have had that advantage which is so indispensable to the perfection of a pack, and, in these days of change, so often denied it, viz., time. In the best part of a century, a uniform height, an equal excellence, and a family likeness are to be attained, with constant perseverance and unlimited expense. From generation to generation the Earls of Castle-Cropper have devoted their leisure, their money, and their attention, to this favourite hobby. The present successor may well be satisfied with the result.
They are rather large, solemn-looking hounds, extremely rich in colour; the dark and tan, both in dogs and bitches, predominating. They have a strong family likeness in the depth of their girth, the width of their loins, and the quality of the timber on which they stand. You might seek through the kennels at the Castle for a summer’s day without finding a pair of legs that were not as straight and square as a dray-horse’s, with feet as round as a cat’s. In hunting they run well together, without flashing to the front; and although other hounds may seem to make their way quicker across a field, the Castle-Croppers keep continuously on, over a country, seldom hovering, as it is called, for a moment, and carrying the scent with them, as it were, in defiance of all obstacles. Old Hawk assists them but little, and holloas to them not at all. These hounds are never seen with ears erect and heads up, waiting for information. If they want to know where their fox is gone, they put their noses down, and find out for themselves. Also, they come home with their sterns waving over their backs; and finally, I cannot describe their uniformity of appearance and general strength and efficiency better than by saying, that the bitches are so like the dogs, you can hardly tell the one pack from the other, but by the shriller music of its tones.
A dozen sportsmen, including the master, constituted our field at Claybridge. There were half-a-dozen red-coats, one belonging to an undergraduate, on for the first time; two or three farmers; a horse-breaker, who kept at a most respectful distance from the pack, and a nondescript. The latter might have been anything you please. I believe he was a grocer. He wore a pair of low shoes, a grey frieze shooting-jacket, a black satin waistcoat, and a hunting-cap! His horse, a mealy bay, had a long coat, a long tail, a long pedigree, and long legs. The man rode with one spur, an ash stick, and a snaffle bridle. Nevertheless, I saw him jump a locked gate just after they found, with considerable address and determination.
Although I arrived at half-past ten to a minute, ere I could look about me, a nod from the silent Earl motioned Will Hawk to begin. Eagerly, yet under perfect control, twenty couple of dog-hounds dashed into a wood of some seventy or eighty acres, the noble master and his huntsman accompanying them down a ride, that seemed to take them up to their girths at every stride. The first whip galloped off in another direction without a word; and the second, before plunging into the obscurity of the forest, posted the small and obedient field in a corner by a hand-gate, from which we were forbidden to stir upon any provocation whatsoever.
Though you often wait several anxious minutes by the side of a patch of gorse the size of a flower-garden, in these large woods, you almost always find instantaneously; and we had not occupied our station for many seconds ere the note of a hound brought our hearts into our mouths. Another and another certified the truth of the declaration, and presently a grand crash and peal of deep-mouthed music proclaimed that there was a capital scent. Twice they forced their fox to the very gate at which we were standing. Twice huntsmen and master came splashing and floundering up the deep ride, to go away with them; but the third time the fox made his point good, as these game woodland gentlemen will, and whisking his brush gallantly, put his head straight for the open within twenty yards of us.
I had just turned to holloa; nay, was opening my mouth for the purpose, when a low, quiet voice in my ear whispered, “Don’t make a noise;” and the Earl was close to me. How he got there I never knew; but he seemed to have an instinctive perception of my intention, and a morbid fear lest I should “get their heads up.”
In another moment the music, increasing in volume, reached the edge of the wood, and then the whole pack (not one missing, for I heard the Earl say so to the second whip) came pouring out over the fence, and proceeded to run in a steady, business-like stream over the adjacent field.
“Give them a moment!” said the master; and away he went alongside of them—best pace.
There was none of the usual hurry and confusion that may be witnessed in most fields, when a fox goes away. The red-coats dropped at once into their places, the undergraduate taking the lead gallantly, in a line of his own. The farmers caught hold of their horses, and proceeded as if they meant business. The nondescript charged the gate I have mentioned, in preference to a straggling hedge with an awkward bank, and seemed determined to see all the fun while he could; and I followed his Lordship hoping to take advantage of his experience, although contrary to my usual principle. It was only the third time I had ridden Apple-Jack, and I had not yet acquired thorough confidence in my horse. Alas! my amusement was doomed to meet with an early termination. The first fence I negotiated most successfully; the second I avoided by making use of a friendly gate; the third landed me in a rushy pasture, over which the hounds were streaming, and whence I obtained an extensive view of the surrounding country, and the line we were likely to run. A black belt of wood crowned the horizon, and towards it the fox was obviously pointing. In the interval lay a fair, flat country—green and pastoral; but a foot-bridge, a quarter of a mile to the right, and a stunted willow or two in the next field, denoted the vicinity of the omnipresent Sludge. I dreaded it even then. But I might have spared myself my apprehensions. Before I arrived at it, a low hedge and ditch were to be crossed, which I saw his Lordship accomplish with ease, and rode at myself in perfect confidence. Apple-Jack did it beautifully. Alas! he landed in a covered drain (I believe the only one in the country), and I remember nothing more, except a confused sensation of jolting in a post-chaise, till I felt the doctor’s finger on my pulse, as I lay on my back in my own bed at the Haycock.