Many of the pasture fences are big enough to keep out a bullock; the ditches wide and full of water; bulfinches are to be met with, stiff rails, gates not always unlocked; so, although a Pytchley flyer is not indispensable, on a going day, nothing less than a hunter can get along.
Tom Sebright, as a huntsman and breeder of hounds, has been a celebrity ever since he hunted the Quorn, under Squire Osbaldeston, six-and-thirty years ago. Sebright looks the huntsman, and the huntsman of an hereditary pack, to perfection; rather under than over the middle height; stout without being unwieldy; with a fine, full, intelligent, and fresh-complexioned oval countenance; keen gray eyes; and the decided nose of a Cromwellian Ironside. A fringe of white hair below his cap, and a broad bald forehead, when he lifts his cap to cheer his hounds, tell the tale of Time on this accomplished veteran of the chase.
“The field,” with the Fitzwilliam, is more aristocratic than fashionable; it includes a few peers and their friends from neighbouring noble mansions, a good many squires, now and then undergraduates from Cambridge, a very few strangers by rail, and a great many first-class yeoman farmers and graziers. Thus it is equally unlike the fashionable “cut-me-down” multitude to be met at coverside in the “Shires” par excellence, and the scarlet mob who rush, and race, and lark from and back to Leamington and Cheltenham. For seeing a good deal of sport in a short time, the Fitzwilliam is certainly the best, within a hundred miles of London. You have a first-rate pack, first-rate huntsman, a good scenting country, plenty of foxes, fair fences to ride over, and though last not least, very courteous reception, if you know how to ride and when to hold your tongue and your horse.
My fortunate day with the Fitzwilliam was in their open pasture, Huntingdon country. My head-quarters were at the celebrated “Haycock,” which is known, or ought to be known, to every wandering fox-hunter, standing as it does in the middle of the Fitzwilliam Hunt, within reach of some of the best meets of the Pytchley and the Warwickshire, and not out of reach of the Cottesmore and Belvoir. It is much more like a Lincolnshire Wolds farmhouse than an inn. The guests are regular habitués; you find yourself in a sort of fox-hunting clubhouse, in a large, snug dining-room; not the least like Albert Smith’s favourite aversion, a coffee-room; you have a first-rate English dinner, undeniable wine, real cream with your tea, in a word, all the comforts and most of the luxuries of town and country life combined. If needful, Tom Percival will provide you with a flyer for every day in the week, and you will be sure to meet with one or two guests, able and willing, ready to canter with you to cover, explain the chart of the country, and, if you are in the first year of boots and breeches, show you as Squire Warburton sings, how “To sit down in your saddle and put his head straight.”
The meet, within four miles of the inn, was in a park by the side of a small firwood plantation. Punctual to a minute, up trotted Sebright on a compact, well-bred chestnut in blooming condition, the whips equally well mounted on thoroughbreds, all dressed in ample scarlet coats and dark cord breeches—a style of dress in much better taste than the tight, short dandified costume of the fashionable hunt, where the huntsman can scarcely be distinguished from the “swell.”
Of the Earl’s family there were present a son and daughter, and three grandsons, beautiful boys, in Lincoln green loose jackets, brown cord breeches, black boots, and caps; of these, the youngest, a fair, rosy child of about eight or nine years old, on a thorough-bred chestnut pony, was all day the admiration of the field; he dashed along full of genuine enthusiasm, stopping at nothing practicable.
Amongst others present was a tall, lithe, white-haired, white-moustached, dignified old gentleman, in scarlet and velvet cap, riding forward on a magnificent gray horse, who realised completely the poetical idea of a nobleman. This was the Marquess of H——, known well forty years ago in fashionable circles, when George IV. was Prince, now popular and much esteemed as a country gentleman and improving landlord. There was also Mr. H——, an M.P., celebrated, before he settled into place and “ceased his hum,” as a hunter of bishops—a handsome, dark man, in leathers and patent Napoleons; with his wife on a fine bay horse, who rode boldly throughout the day.
In strange countries I usually pick out a leader in some well-knowing farmer; but this day I made a grand mistake, by selecting for my guide a slim, quiet-looking, young fellow, in a black hat and coat, white cords, and boots, on a young chestnut—never dreaming that my quiet man was Alec ——, a farmer truly, but also a provincial celebrity as a steeplechaser.
The day was mild, cloudy, with a gentle wind. We drew several covers blank, and found a fox, about one o’clock, in a small spinney, from which he bolted at the first summons. A beautiful picture it was to see gallant old Sebright get his hounds away, the ladies racing down a convenient green lane, and the little Fitzwilliam, in Lincoln green, charging a double flight of hurdles. In half-an-hour’s strong running I had good reason to rejoice that Percival had, with due respect for the fourth estate, put me on an unmistakable hunter. Our line took us over big undulating fields (almost hills), with, on the flats or valleys, a large share of willow-bordered ditches (they would call them brooks in some counties), with thick undeniable hedges between the pollards. At the beginning of the run, my black-coated friend led me—much as a dog in a string leads a blind man—at a great pace, into a farm-yard, thus artfully cutting off a great angle, over a most respectable stone wall into a home paddock, over a stile into a deep lane, and then up a bank as steep as a gothic roof, and almost as long; into a fifty-acre pasture, where, racing at best pace, we got close to the hounds just before they checked, between a broad unjumpable drain and a willow bed—two fine resources for a cunning fox. There I thought it well, having so far escaped grief, to look out for a leader who was less of a bruiser, while I took breath. In the meantime Sebright, well up, hit our friend off with a short cast forward, and after five minutes’ slow hunting, we began to race again over a flat country of grass, with a few big ploughed fields, fences easier, ladies and ponies well up again. After brushing through two small coverts without hanging, we came out on a series of very large level grass fields, where I could see the gray horse of the marquis, and the black hat of my first leader sailing in front; a couple of stiff hedges and ditches were got over comfortably; the third was a regular bulfinch, six or seven feet high, with a gate so far away to the right that to make for it was to lose too much time, as the hounds were running breast high. Ten yards ahead of me was Mr. Frank G——, on a Stormer colt, evidently with no notion of turning; so I hardened my heart, felt my bay nag full of going, and kept my eye on Mr. Frank, who made for the only practicable place beside an oak-tree with low branches, and, stooping his head, popped through a place where the hedge showed daylight, with his hand over his eyes, in the neatest possible style. Without hesitating a moment I followed, rather too fast and too much afraid of the tree, and pulled too much into the hedge. In an instant I found myself torn out of the saddle, balanced on a blackthorn bough (fortunately I wore leathers), and deposited on the right side of the hedge on my back; whence I rose just in time to see Bay Middleton disappear over the next fence. So there I was alone in a big grass field, with strong notions that I should have to walk an unknown number of miles home. Judge of my delight as I paced slowly along—running was of no use—at seeing Frank G—— returning with my truant in hand. Such an action in the middle of a run deserves a Humane Society’s medal. To struggle breathless into my seat; to go off at score, to find a lucky string of open gates, to come upon the hounds at a check, was my good fortune. But our fox was doomed—in another quarter of an hour at a hand gallop we hunted him into a shrubbery, across a home field into an ornamental clump of laurels, back again to the plantation, where a couple and a half of leading hounds pulled him down, and he was brought out by the first whip dead and almost stiff, without a mark—regularly run down by an hour and twenty minutes with two very short checks. Had the latter part of the run been as fast as the first, there would have been very few of us there to see the finish.