Nothing is quite perfect under the sun, not your own best hunter, nor your wife’s last baby, and the river Stour, winding through them in every direction, somewhat detracts from the merit of these happiest of hunting-grounds. A good friend to the deer, and a sad hindrance to its pursuers, it has spoilt many a fine run; but even with this drawback there are few districts in any part of England so naturally adapted to the pleasures of the chase. The population is scanty, the countrymen are enthusiasts, the farmers the best fellows on earth, the climate seems unusually favourable; from the kindness and courtesy of Sir Richard Glynn and Mr. Portman, who pursue the legitimate sport over the same locality, and his own personal popularity, the normal difficulties of his undertaking are got over in favour of the noble master, and everybody seems equally pleased to welcome the green plush coats and the good grey horses in the midst of the black-and-tans.
If I were sure of a fine morning and a safe mount, I would ask for no keener pleasure than an hour’s gallop with Lord Wolverton’s blood-hounds over the Blackmoor Vale.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE PROVINCES.
A distinguished soldier of the present day, formerly as daring and enthusiastic a rider as ever charged his “oxers” with the certainty of a fall, was once asked in my hearing by a mild stranger, “Whether he had been out with the Crawley and Horsham?” if I remember right.
“No, sir!” was the answer, delivered in a tone that somewhat startled the querist, “I have never hunted with any hounds in my life but the Quorn and the Pytchley, and I’ll take d——d good care I never do!”
Now I fancy that not a few of our “golden youth,” who are either born to it, or have contrived in their own way to get the “silver spoon” into their mouths, are under the impression that all hunting must necessarily be dead slow if conducted out of Leicestershire, and that little sport, with less excitement, is to be obtained in those remote regions which they contemptuously term the provinces.
There never was a greater fallacy. If we calculate the number of hours hounds are out of kennel (for we must remember that the Quorn and Belvoir put two days into one), we shall find, I think, that they run hard for fewer minutes, in proportion, across the fashionable countries than in apparently less-favoured districts concealed at sundry out-of-the-way corners of the kingdom.
Nor is this disparity difficult to understand. Fox-hunting at its best is a wild sport; the wilder the better. Where coverts are many miles apart, where the animal must travel for its food, where agriculture is conducted on primitive principles that do not necessitate the huntsman’s horror, “a man in every field,” the fox retains all his savage nature, and is prepared to run any distance, face every obstacle, rather than succumb to his relentless enemy, the hound. He has need, and he seems to know it, of all his courage and all his sagacity, as compelled to fight alone on his own behalf, without assistance from that invaluable ally, the crowd.