“I had a view of him, crossing Parker’s Piece, the long strip of waste land, you know, under Craven Clump; and he seemed as fresh as you are now—I sat as mute as a mouse, for six-and-thirty noses knew better where he’d gone than I did, and six-and-thirty-tongues were at work that never told a lie. The Vicar gave them plenty of room by this time, and all our horses seemed to have had about enough!
“‘I wish we mayn’t have changed in the Hanger,’ said Matthew, refreshing the old grey with a side-binder, as they blundered into the lane, but I knew better—he had run the rides, every yard, and that made me hope we should have him in hand before long.
“It began to get very interesting, I was near enough to watch each hound doing his work, eighteen couple, all dogs, three and four season hunters, for I hadn’t a single puppy out. I wish you had been there, my boy. It was a real lesson in hunting, and I’ll tell you what I thought of them, one by ——. Hulloh! Yes. You’d better ring for coffee—Hanged if I don’t believe you’ve been fast asleep all the time!”
But such runs as these, though wearisome to a listener, are most enjoyable for those who can appreciate the steadiness and sagacity of the hound, no less than the craft and courage of the animal it pursues. There is an indescribable charm too, in what I may call the romance of hunting,—the remote scenes we should perhaps never visit for their own sake, the broken sunlight glinting through copse and gleaming on fern, the woodland sights, the woodland sounds, the balmy odours of nature, and all the treats she provides for her votaries, tasted and enjoyed, with every faculty roused, every sense sharpened in the excitement of our pursuit. These delights are better known in the provinces than the shires, and to descend from flights of fancy to practical matters of £ s. d., we can hunt in the former at comparatively trifling expense.
In the first place, particularly if good horsemen, we need not be nearly so well-mounted. There are few provincial countries in which a man who knows how to ride, cannot get from one field to another, by hook or by crook, with a little creeping and scrambling and blundering, that come far short of the casualty we deprecate as “a rattling fall!” His horse must be in good condition of course, and able to gallop; also if temperate, the more willing at his fences the better, but it is not indispensable that he should possess the stride and power necessary to cover some twenty feet of distance, and four or five of height, at every leap, nor the blood that can alone enable him to repeat the exertion, over and over again, at three-quarter speed in deep ground. To jump, as it is called, “from field to field,” tries a horse’s stamina no less severely than his courage, while, as I have already observed, there is no such economy of effort, and even danger, as to make two small fences out of a large one.
I do not mean to say that there are any parts of England where, if hounds run hard, a hunter, with a workman on his back, has not enough to do to live with them, but I do consider that, cæteris paribus, a good rider may smuggle a moderate horse over most of our provincial countries, whereas he would be helpless on the same animal in Leicestershire or Northamptonshire. There, on the other hand, an inferior horseman, bold enough to place implicit confidence in the first-class hunter he rides, may see a run, from end to end, with considerable credit and enjoyment, by the simple process of keeping a good hold of his bridle, while he leaves everything to the horse. But he must not have learned a single letter of the noble word “Funk.” Directly his heart fails, and he interferes, down they both come, an imperial crowner, and the game is lost!
Many of our provincial districts are also calculated, from their very nature, to turn out experienced sportsmen no less than accomplished riders. In large woods, amongst secluded hills, or wild tracts of moor intersected by impracticable ravines, a lover of the chase is compelled by force of circumstances to depend on his own eyes, ears, and general intelligence for his amusement.
He finds no young Rapid to pilot him over the large places, if he means going; no crafty band of second-horsemen to guide him in safety to the finish, if his ambition is satisfied with a distant and occasional view of the stirring pageant; no convenient hand-gate in the corner, no friendly bridge across the stream; above all, no hurrying cavalcade drawn out for miles, amongst which to hide, and with whom pleasantly to compare notes hereafter in those self-deceiving moments, when
“Dined, o’er our claret, we talk of the merit,
Of every choice spirit that rode in the run.
But here the crowd, Sir, can talk just as loud, Sir,
As those who were forward enjoying the fun!”
No. In the provinces our young sportsman must make up his mind to take his own part, to study the coverts drawn, and find out for himself the points where he can see, hear, and, so to speak, command hounds till they go away; must learn how to rise the hill with least labour, and descend it with greatest dispatch, how to thread glen, combe, or dale, wind in and out of the rugged ravine, plunge through a morass, and make his way home at night across trackless moor, or open storm-swept down. By the time he has acquired these accomplishments, the horsemanship will have come of itself. He will know how to bore where he cannot jump, to creep where he must not fly, and so manage his horse that the animal seems to share the intentions and intelligence of its rider.