The master, huntsman, and servants are, during the cub hunting-season, free from many of the annoyances that a large and mixed field too often brings in its train, but they have need of the liberty which a small following and early hours afford. Some M.F.H.’s do not make known their intentions as to when and where they hunt, and small blame to them, for at the very beginning of the season the fewer there are out the better, as thirty, forty, or more couple of hounds, including entering puppies, will require their undivided attention. Yet if they meet at 5.30 or 6 a.m. there is little to fear; for the men who hunt to ride, the men who follow the ladies rather than the hounds, the men who come out to display their attire, and even the horse-breakers who like to educate their young ones at the expense of the hounds, are all most likely still in their earths. A kindly Master who takes a pleasure in seeing the schoolboy on his pony, and a pride in seeing these youngsters enter well, will give them a chance to put in a day or two before the summer holidays end, and will let every regular and trusted member of the hunt have an opportunity of being present. It is to the genuine Nimrod a pleasant thing to get up in the dark, and, after a light breakfast, hastily swallowed, to mount in the dawn and once more find himself jogging beside the hounds along the road on an autumn morning. His mind is easy and his temper unruffled by struggles to get into leathers and top-boots, or by the memory of letters unanswered on his table; any clothes will do, and he will be home again in time to attend to pressing matters of business. There are no lurking fears as to whether his mount is equal to the task before him; there is no waiting at the meet, and hounds are busy in the covert as soon as it is reached. The sound of the horn, the opening pack, the view-halloo from the whipper-in, the crack of the men’s whips, and the rattling and rustling in the gorse, are pleasanter because of the interval that has passed since last they woke the woodlands, and for the stillness of the outside world at this early hour. Soon after the first brace of cubs have been killed, and hounds are being taken to the next cover, the labourer going to the field and the horses to the plough remind him how young the day still is; and a little later the sun on his back, and the “had enough” appearance of the five or six couple of hounds trailing behind the huntsman, tell him that it is still only cub-hunting, and time for all to be going home. There are, on these days, reminders that one year has gone and another begun, and you miss some of the old veterans with grizzled and scarred muzzles, and hear that a few of those you welcome, as you have welcomed them for half a dozen seasons, when work with cubs began, are there only till the young ’uns have been entered; and you see the new entry, with their as yet unfamiliar forms, answering to unfamiliar names. In October many a run takes place that would do credit to the open season, and these fast spins across the country, when the ground is hard and fences and ditches horribly blind, can test the mettle of horse and rider, and make any man feel very comfortably satisfied with his performance, if, by luck or good management, he negotiates the hidden dangers that lurk on one side or the other of most October fences. In a run at this time of the year, gates are as yet fastened up, the gaps of a past season are undiscoverable, the weak places and the strong blackthorn branches are covered with the leaf and bramble. The fastest twenty-five minutes I ever saw was run on a certain 14th October, hounds getting away together in a bunch from Seamer Whin, and killing their fox in ground now covered by the suburbs of smoky Middlesborough. It was not cub-hunting, yet one of those delightful “things” that is the well-earned reward of the constant follower, the envy of the absent one, and ten times more enjoyed for being unexpected.
Countries vary so much in the proportion of woodland they contain, and in the stock of foxes that may be depended upon, that the circumstances of each district influence the character of cub-hunting. Where coverts are extensive and numerous, and litters abound, cubbing may mean the deliberate killing down of a great number of cubs in the interests of the sport that is to follow, and far beyond what is required for blooding hounds. When foxes are well preserved, and in plenty, a Master does well to kill a large number, for there is this amount of truth in the saying, “The more foxes you kill, the more you will have,” that owners of game coverts and non-hunting proprietors are unwilling very often to encourage foxes or to have litters on their places if a fair proportion are not killed. In such a country as this, even when, owing to an early harvest or absence of arable land, a start is made in August, cub-hunting may be cub-hunting and cub-killing all the time up to the end of October. In other hunts, after a week or two’s cubbing, hunting may be very much the same as after the opening day, the scarlet coat and top-boot alone marking the transition. The conduct of the huntsman will not be so much actuated by blood-thirstiness, as by the wish to discover where there are foxes, to give the cubs a little instruction in going away, and hounds a few lessons of how to behave in the open. He will not, or need not, ask every time whether a fox is an old one or not, and many a run that would be considered good in the winter can be enjoyed in October in such a country as this. But for the great majority of hunting-men, these early days are but the time for getting their studs together, their horses and themselves into condition; and custom and tradition has consecrated the first hunting-day in November as the New Year for a follower of hounds.