Riding Recollections, 5th ed.

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

“The King,” his owner thinks, is well worth the £350 that has not been paid. The horse has caught his second wind, and keeps striding on, strong and full of running, though temperate enough now, and, in such a country as this, a truly delightful mount.

There is no denying that our friend is a capital horseman, and bold as need be. “The King of the Golden Mines,” with a workman on his back, can hardly be defeated by any obstacle that the power and spring of a quadruped ought to surmount. He has tremendous stride, and no less courage than his master, so fence after fence is thrown behind the happy pair with a sensation like flying that seems equally gratifying to both. The ground is soft but sound enough; the leaps, though large, are fair and clean. One by one they are covered in light, elastic bounds, of eighteen or twenty feet, and for a mile, at least, the King scarcely alters his action, and never changes his leg. Young Rapid would ask no better fun than to go on like this for a week.

Once he has a narrow escape. The fox having turned short up a hedgerow after crossing it, the hounds, though running to kill, turn as short, for which they deserve the praise there is nobody present to bestow, and Rapid, charging the fence with considerable freedom, just misses landing in the middle of the pack. I know it, because he acknowledged it after dinner, professing, at the same time, devout thankfulness that master and huntsman were too far off to see. Just such another turn is made at the next fence, but this time on the near side. The hounds disappear suddenly, tumbling over each other into the ditch like a cascade. Peering between his horse’s ears, the successful rider can distinguish only a confused whirl of muddy backs, and legs, and sterns, seen through a cloud of steam; but smothered growls, with a certain vibration of the busy cluster, announce that they have got him, and Rapid so far forgets himself as to venture on a feeble “Who—whoop!”

Before he can leap from the saddle the huntsman comes up followed by two others, one of whom, pulling out his watch, with a delighted face repeats frantically, “Seven-and-twenty minutes, and a kill in the open! What a good gallop! Not the ghost of a check from end to end. Seven-and-twenty minutes,” and so on, over and over again.

While the field straggle in, and the obsequies of this good fox are properly celebrated, a little enthusiasm would be justifiable enough on the part of a young gentleman who has “had the best of it” unquestionably through the whole of so brilliant a scurry. He might be expected to enlarge volubly, and with excusable self-consciousness, on the pace, the country, the straight running of the fox, the speed and gallantry of the hounds; nor could we blame him for praising by implication his own determined riding in a tribute to “The King of the Golden Mines.”

But such extravagancies are studiously repudiated and repressed by the school to which young Rapid belongs. All he does say is this—

“I wonder when the second horses will come up? I want some luncheon before we go and find another fox.”

I have already observed that in the shires we put two days into one. Where seventy or eighty couple of hounds are kept and thirty horses, to hunt four times a week, with plenty of country, in which you may find a fox every five minutes, there can be no reason for going home while light serves; and really good scenting days occur so rarely that we may well be tempted to make the most of one even with jaded servants and a half-tired pack of hounds. The field, too, are considerably diminished by three or four o’clock. One has no second horse, another must get home to write his letters, and, if within distance of Melton, some hurry back to play whist. Everything is comparative. With forty or fifty horsemen left, a huntsman breathes more freely, and these, who are probably enthusiasts, begin to congratulate themselves that the best of the day is yet to come. “Let us go and draw Melton Spinney,” is a suggestion that brightens every eye; and the Duke will always draw Melton Spinney so long as he can see. It is no unusual thing for his hounds to kill, and, I have been told, they once found their fox by moonlight, so that it is proverbial all over his country, if you only stop out late enough, you are sure of a run with the Belvoir at last. And then, whether you belong to the school of young Rapid or his father, you will equally have a treat. Are you fond of hounds? Here is a pack that cannot be surpassed, to delight the most fastidious eye, satisfy the most critical taste. Do you like to see them hunt? Watch how these put their noses down, tempering energy with patience, yet so bustling and resolute as to work a bad scent into a good one. Are you an admirer of make-and-shape? Mark this perfect symmetry of form, bigger, stronger, and tougher than it looks. Do you understand kennel management and condition? Ask Gillard why his hounds are never known to tire, and get from him what hints you can.