Whip and Spur

by George E. Waring

There is in all our hearts an inherited chord that thrills in the presence of this dear old home of our race. Not this spot and not these scenes, but the air, the tone, the spirit of it all,—these are as familiar to our instincts as water to the hen-brooded duckling.

Brinklow Station has the modern hideousness and newness of railroad stations everywhere in country neighborhoods, and it was pleasant to leave it behind and follow the gay crowd down a sloping and winding road into the real country again, and into a handsome and well-kept park, beyond which there stood a fine old house of some pretension, and well set about with terraced lawn and shrubbery,—a charming English country-seat.

Here my eyes were greeted with the glory of my first “meet,” and a glory it was indeed! Pictures and descriptions had suggested it, but they had only suggested it. This was the reality, and it far exceeded my anticipation. The grounds were fairly alive with a brilliant company of men and women,—happy and hearty, and just gathered for the day’s sport. Red coats, white breeches, and top-boots were plenty, and the neat holiday air of the whole company was refreshing and delightful. Scattered about singly and in groups, mounted, on foot, and in carriages, were a couple of hundred people of all ages and of all conditions. Chatting from the saddle and over carriage-doors, lounging up and down the Drive, or looking over the hounds, the company were leisurely awaiting the opening of the ball. They had come from a circuit of twenty miles around, and they appeared to be mainly people who habitually congregate at the cover-side throughout the hunting-season, and to be generally more or less acquainted with each other. The element of coquetry was not absent; but coquetry is apparently not a natural product of the English soil, and that sort of intercourse was not conspicuous. The same number of handsome young men and women would be more demonstrative at a similar gathering in America. A similar gathering, however, would not be possible in America. We have no occasion on which people of all sorts come so freely and so naturally together, interested in a traditional and national sport, which is alike open to rich and poor, and meeting, not for the single occasion only, but several times a week, winter after winter, often for many years. Noblemen, gentlemen, farmers, manufacturers, professional men, snobs, cads, errand-boys,—everybody, in short, who cared to come seemed to have the right to come, and, so far as the hunt was concerned, seemed to be on an equal footing. Of course the poorer element was comparatively small, and mainly from the immediate neighborhood. The habitués of a hunt are seldom below the grade of well-to-do farmers. Servants from the house were distributing refreshments, riders were mounting their hunters, grooms were adjusting saddle-girths, too fiery animals were being quieted, and there was generally an air of preparation about the whole assemblage.

A little at one side, kept well together by the huntsman and a couple of whippers-in, were the hounds (the Atherstone pack), about forty of them, or, technically, “twenty couples,” strong-limbed, large-eared, party-colored, wholesome-looking fellows. They attracted much attention and elicited frequent commendation, for they were said to be the very finest pack in England,—as was also each of the three other packs that I saw. To the unskilled eye, and simply viewed as dogs, they were not remarkable; but it was a case in which the judgment of an unskilled person could have no value.

The horses appealed to me much more strongly. Certainly I had never before seen together the same number of the same average excellence; and some of them were fit to drive one wild with envy. There was, on the whole, less of the “blood” look than would be expected by a man who had got his ideas of the hunting-field from Leech’s drawings, but there was a good deal of it, nevertheless, and in its perfection too; and where it was wanting there was plenty of bone to make up for it.

At eleven the hounds were led out to the cover, and the whole field followed slowly and irregularly and at some distance. There were about one hundred and fifty mounted for the hunt. Perhaps one third of these wore scarlet coats, white breeches, and top-boots; another third had black coats and some of them black boots; and the remainder of the field was made up of half a dozen ladies, a few stout old gentlemen of seventy or so on stout old cobs of discreet age, little boys on smart ponies, farmers and tradesmen and their clerks mounted on whatever they could get, and men of every intermediate grade, and with all sorts of horses. A certain amount of riff-raff, not mounted at all, but good on their pins and ready for a run, were hanging about for a chance to pick up a whip or a hat, or to catch a horse, or brush a muddy coat, or turn an honest shilling in any way that might offer in the chances of the day. Some of these fellows, rigged out with the cast-off clothing of their betters, sported red coats, black velvet caps, and leather leggings. One added to all this gorgeousness the refinement of bare feet.

The hounds were taken into the cover, a brambly, tangled wood near by, which had probably been planted and made a little wilderness to serve as a cover for foxes.

They soon found a fox, drove him to the open, and followed him out of the wood with a whimpering sort of cry which was disappointing after the notion that the “full cry” of the books had given, and which is heard in the very different fox-hunting of our Southern woods. The run lay up a steepish hill, several fields wide and across an open country. One bold rider (not a light one), mounted on a staving black horse, went to the right of the cover, and made a splendid leap up hill, over a stiff-looking hedge, and landed at the tail of the pack. The “master” and his assistants had got away with the hounds. The rest of the field went to the left, waiting their turns, through a farm-gate. Once through, some twenty of them dashed up the hill, cleared a clever hedge, and kept the pack in sight. The rest took an easier place, where a farm laborer had pulled away the stakes by which a gap had been filled. Here there was much very light jumping, and much more of waiting until predecessors had made it lighter. In the mean time other gaps were found, and it was not many minutes before all were through; but during these minutes the fox, the hounds, and the harder riding men were putting a wide space between themselves and us, who were at the tail of the field. Yet there were some in the party who did not look like laggards, and whose horses were good enough for any work such a country could give them.

Even when across the gap, these men went with the rest of us, by gates and lanes, toward a point to which it was thought by the knowing ones that the fox would double,—and the knowing ones were right. Gradually, as their judgment indicated, they left the roads and took to the fields. This course was taken by three well-mounted young ladies. I followed the gate-openers for about half an hour, when, coming out on a high-road, I concluded that, with seventeen miles to ride home, it was only just to my little mare to give the thing up and head for Leamington. The hounds were far away on my right and quite out of sight.

Having come to look on and learn, I had probably seen and heard all that day had in store for me,—surely enough for one’s first day at fox-hunting. When I had ridden for a few minutes I saw, far across the fields, that the hounds had turned to the left and were making for my road. Pressing forward, I came up in time to see them cross to the front, and go scurrying away over the grass, nosing out the scent as they ran. There had been a check, and “the field” was well up. The road was lower than the fields, and was bordered by a ditch at each side. From this the ground rose a little, and on each bank stood a three-and-a-half-foot thorn hedge. Neither leap was difficult, but the one out of the road was not easy. Here I sat and saw fully a hundred horsemen, dressed in the gay colors of the hunting-field and mounted as men rarely are mounted out of England, all, horses as well as men, eager and excited in the chase, flying over hedge and ditch into the carriage-way and over ditch and hedge into the higher field, beyond and away, headlong after the hounds, every man for himself, and every man for the front, and on they went over another hedge, and out of sight. In the thick of the flight were two ladies, riding as well and as boldly as the men, and two men were brushing their hats in the road, their empty saddles keeping well up with the run. More than satisfied with this climax of my first day’s experience, I trotted out for home. The result of the run I never heard, and I leave its description where I lost sight of it. A mile farther on I did see a fagged-looking fox making his rapid way across my road again, and sneaking off under the hedge toward a thicket, and I halted to listen to what sounded like the horn of a huntsman at check over the hill to the left; but possibly the conclusion I drew was not a correct one.