Of all our relations with the dumb creation, there is none in which man has so entirely the best of it as the one-sided partnership that exists between the horse and his rider.
CHAPTER XII.
RIDING AT STAG-HOUNDS.
I have purposely altered the preposition at the heading of this, because it treats of a method so entirely different from that which I have tried to describe in the preceding chapter. At the risk of rousing animadversion from an experienced and scientific majority, I am prepared to affirm that there is nearly as much intelligence and knowledge of the animal required to hunt a deer as a fox, but in following the chase of the larger and higher-scented quadruped there are no fixed rules to guide a rider in his course, so that if he allows the hounds to get out of sight he may gallop over any extent of country till dark, and never hear tidings of them again. Therefore it has been said, one should ride to fox-hounds, but at stag-hounds, meaning that with the latter, skill and science are of little avail to retrieve a mistake.
Deer, both wild and tame, so long as they are fresh, seem perfectly indifferent whether they run up wind or down, although when exhausted they turn their heads to the cold air that serves to breathe new life into their nostrils. Perhaps, if anything, they prefer to feel the breeze blowing against their sides, but as to this there is no more certainty than in their choice of ground. Other wild animals go to the hill; deer will constantly leave it for the vale. I have seen them fly, straight as an arrow, across a strongly enclosed country, and circle like hares on an open down. Sometimes they will not run a yard till the hounds are at their very haunches; sometimes, when closely pressed, they become stupid with fear, or turn fiercely at bay. “Have we got a good deer to-day?” is a question usually answered with the utmost confidence, yet how often the result is disappointment and disgust. Nor is this the case only in that phase of the sport which may be termed artificial. A wild stag proudly carrying his “brow, bay, and tray” over Exmoor seems no less capricious than an astonished hind, enlarged amongst the brickfields of Hounslow, or the rich pastures that lie outstretched below Harrow-on-the-Hill. One creature, familiar with every inch of its native wastes, will often wander aimlessly in a circle before making its point; the other, not knowing the least where it is bound, will as often run perfectly straight for miles.
My own experience of “the calf,” as it has been ignominiously termed, is limited to three packs—Mr. Bissett’s, who hunts the perfectly wild animal over the moorlands of Somerset and North Devon; Baron Rothschild’s, in the Vale of Aylesbury; and Lord Wolverton’s blood-hounds, amongst the combes of Dorsetshire and “doubles” of the Blackmoor Vale. With her Majesty’s hounds I have not been out more than three or four times in my life.
Let us take the noble chase of the West country first, as it is followed in glorious autumn weather through the fairest scenes that ever haunted a painter’s dream; in Horner woods and Cloutsham Ball, over the grassy slopes of Exmoor, and across the broad expanse of Brendon, spreading its rich mantle of purple under skies of gold. We could dwell for pages on the associations connected with such classical names as Badgeworthy-water, New-Invention, Mountsey Gate, or wooded Glenthorne, rearing its garlanded brows above the Severn sea. But we are now concerned in the practical question, how to keep a place with Mr. Bissett’s six-and-twenty-inch hounds running a “warrantable deer” over the finest scenting country in the world?
You may ride at them as like a tailor as you please. The ups and downs of a Devonshire coombe will soon put you in your right place, and you will be grateful for the most trifling hint that helps you to spare your horse, and remain on any kind of terms with them, on ground no less trying to his temper and intelligence than to his wind and muscular powers.
Till you attempt to gallop alongside you will hardly believe how hard the hounds are running. They neither carry such a head, nor dash so eagerly, I might almost say jealously, for the scent as if they were hunting their natural quarry, the fox. This difference I attribute to the larger size, and consequently stronger odour, of a deer. Every hound enjoying his full share, none are tempted to rob their comrades of the mysterious pleasure, and we therefore miss the quick, sharp turns and the drive that we are accustomed to consider so characteristic of the fox-hound. They string, too, in long-drawn line, because of the tall, bushy heather, necessitating great size and power, through which they must make their way; but, nevertheless, they keep swinging steadily on, without a check or hover for many a mile of moorland, showing something of that fierce indomitable perseverance attributed by Byron to the wolf—