CONISTON FOXHOUNDS: GEORGE CHAPMAN, THE HUNTSMAN, WITH FOX, AFTER A KILL IN GREENBURN.
BLENCATHRA FOXHOUNDS: ERNEST PARKER, THE WHIPPER-IN.
That a promising day may finish in gloom, the following experience will prove. In the last week of October, 1910, the Coniston Hounds found a fox at Pinch Crags, in Scandale. After a short but fast hunt, they rolled him over in the open. The day being still young, hounds were taken to High Pike, where a second fox was soon unkennelled. After a fast hunt this fox took refuge on the face of Dove Crag, dropping from ledge to ledge, with three hounds, Crafty, Rally and Ringwood in pursuit. Eventually the fox, in attempting to cross an impassable ghyll, owing to pressure from the young hound, Crafty, slipped and fell several hundred feet, and met its death on the rocks far below. Unfortunately, the hound shared the same fate, whilst Rally and Ringwood became hopelessly crag-fast on one of the numerous ledges. A rope and willing assistants were brought from the quarry on Red Screes, and eventually the hounds were rescued from their precarious position. It was an exciting adventure, and one which, thank goodness, does not often happen.
It was a coincidence that another fell pack, the Eskdale and Ennerdale, should have got some of their hounds crag-fast on Scawfell during the same week. Charmer, one of the best hounds in the pack, was found lying dead at the foot of the crags, and another hound, Melody, was badly injured. Ropes were secured at Wastdale Head, and J. Gaspard, a French guide, with two others, roped themselves together, and went 180 feet down the crag face. They rescued the remaining hounds, despite a continuous downpour of rain and severe cold.
Occasionally a fox ends his life in one of the many lakes scattered about the fell country. On New Year’s day, 1912, the Mellbrake Hounds got on to a fox which had stolen away near Foulsyke. They had a screaming hunt, towards the end of which hounds raced through the shrubbery at Loweswater Hall, and forward across the Lamplugh road to the lake. At the edge of the water one of the hounds “clicked” the fox, but could not hold him, Reynard plunged in, but sank when a few yards out from shore.
On one occasion the Blencathra Hounds ran a fox from Wanthwaite Crag to Grasmere village, where he “benked” on the window-sill of a cottage. A woman rushed out of the latter, armed with a broom, and forbade either huntsman or hounds to enter the garden, which was well fenced in. Eventually, however, she was persuaded, and after fair law had been allowed the fox, the hunt continued.
At another time a certain pack ran a fox into a crag where it “benked” in rather a difficult place. Hounds could not get to it, so a man was lowered in on a rope. He succeeded in shifting Reynard “out of that,” and away went hounds in hot pursuit. Oblivious to all else but the hunt, the men on the top utterly forgot their mate dangling in mid-air below them, and not until his frantic yells reached their ears did they set about the business of hauling him up.
It is not often one has the chance of seeing the finish of a hunt from a motor-car, but on one occasion I remember doing so. Hounds were running hard on Gummershow, overlooking the lower end of Windermere Lake. I was heading towards the lake when a friend’s car overtook me. Jumping in, we careered down a side-lane, and turned sharp into the main road, just as hounds forced their fox across it, and killed him near the lake shore.