CONISTON FOXHOUNDS: HOUNDS AND THEIR HUNTSMAN IN THE SCANDALE VALLEY.
CONISTON FOXHOUNDS: AFTER A KILL NEAR CONISTON.
CONISTON FOXHOUNDS: AFTER A KILL IN WOUNDALE.
CONISTON FOXHOUNDS: AFTER A KILL ON NAB SCAR, RYDAL.
In a previous chapter I have mentioned the fact that occasionally some fell hound hunts, and finally kills or runs his fox to ground “on his own.” I remember the Ullswater Hounds threw off on one occasion at the quarry above Troutbeck Park, on the steep side of Ill Bell. Hounds struck a line which took them over the summit of the fell into the Kentmere valley. I was talking to Joe Bowman the huntsman, when we heard a single hound running very fast in our direction. It proved to be one of the lady members of the pack, a very fast bitch, and she was driving her fox at a tremendous pace. In a short time she ran him to ground on the Tongue, where Reynard crept in beneath a huge boulder on the fell side. A terrier was put in, and immediately got to the fox, but without tools it was impossible to reach them. Some quarrymen eventually came across with the necessary articles, including a fuse, and a charge of powder. It was found necessary to crack the boulder with the powder, after which the broken rock was removed, and terrier and fox were drawn out, fast locked together, from a very narrow and wet earth-hole. It was almost impossible to distinguish between them, so plastered were they with wet mud. The terrier was pried loose and the fox thrown down, when rather to our surprise he got on to his legs and made a bid for liberty. His race was soon run, however, as the bitch and some young hounds the huntsman had with him, soon rolled him over. The terrier which had been nearly smothered in the earth, died the day after, despite all that could be done for it.
In December, 1919, the Coniston Hounds had a very fast hunt from a covert above Staveley village. Hounds finally drove their fox to the head of the Longsleddale valley, where it “benked” on a ledge on Goatscar. It had been a late find, and when the huntsman arrived on the scene, darkness was fast drawing in. The fox was at last made to vacate his dangerous resting-place, and he scrambled down a precipitous chimney on the face of the towering crag. Then ensued a wild and exciting scene, such as can only be experienced on the fells. The chimney was a dangerous place for hounds, with a fox dodging his way through them. Twice they had hold of him, but he wrenched free, and got clear at the chimney’s foot, where he soon outdistanced them across the rough scree-bed. One of the hounds fell a matter of fifty feet, but beyond being temporarily shaken appeared little the worse, and quickly resumed the chase. Snow was lying thickly on the tops, and it was just sufficiently light to see the fox climbing out for the summit of the crag again, where he ran through the roughest of the ground near the fell head, and finally disappeared on the wide top of Harter Fell. Hounds followed him, and we saw them no more that night.