In ascertaining this amount of suffering, however, we must not commit the error of estimating a horse's sensation by what, under similar circumstances, we imagine would be our own, for the cases are quite different.
Throughout the frame or fabric of man, his blood, however proud it may be, circulates so feebly, that on being subjected to a low temperature it actually, like fluid in a pipe, freezes in his veins; whereas throughout the body of a horse it is propelled with such violence, that, like the deep water in the Canada lakes, it is beyond the power of cold, however intense, to stop it; and accordingly, when everything else around stands frozen, it triumphantly continues its fluent course. In fact, the relative power of the two animals to resist cold is fully proportionate to the difference between their muscular strength; and as the human being, notwithstanding its weakness, is strong enough to endure the sudden transition from a hot bath to a cold one, or, as is the custom in Russia, to a roll on the snow, so, à fortiori, is a hunter gifted by Nature with a circulation of blood powerful enough to enable him, without injury or suffering, to bear an apparently unnatural mode of treatment, which, although it makes us almost shiver to think of, is productive to his stouter frame of beneficial results, of inestimable value.
Meet of the Pytchley Hounds at Arthingworth.
Among hunting men there is nothing so unpopular as what is called by the rest of the world a most beautiful, clear, bright day. The gaudy thing is disagreeable to eyes because it is dangerous to the bodies to which they respectively belong; for when every twig glitters in the sunshine, and every drop of dew that hangs upon them looks like a diamond, the fences so dazzle the eyes of riders, and especially of horses, that a number of extra falls are very commonly the result. Soft ground, dull weather, an easterly wind, and a cloudy sky, form the compound that is most approved of. On such a day, and under such circumstances, we beg leave to invite our readers to sit with us patiently for a very few minutes in a balloon, as, like a hawk hovering above a partridge, it hangs over the quiet little village of Arthingworth, in Northamptonshire. Those hounds, headed by that whipper-in riding so lightly and neatly on his horse, and surrounding their huntsman Charles Payne, jogging along, seated in his saddle as if he had grown there, are on that portion of the Queen's highway which connects Northampton with Market Harborough. They are the Pytchley hounds, the hereditary property, not of the present master, but of the hunt. They are on their way from their kennel at Brixworth to a park at Arthingworth to draw "Waterloo Gorse," which means that every man who intends to come (and their name is legion) will send there, not his best-looking, but, what is infinitely better, that which he knows to be "his best horse," simply because the covert of Waterloo not only usually holds a good fox, but because it is encircled by very large grass-fields, enlivened in every direction by the severest fences in Northamptonshire. See how quietly along every high-road, bye-road, and footpath, horses and riders, of various sizes and sorts, walking, jogging, or gently trotting, are converging towards a central point! Schoolboys are coming to see the start on ponies; farmers on clever nags; others on young horses of great price; neatly-dressed grooms, some heavy and some light, are riding, or riding and leading, horses magnificent in shape and breeding, in the most beautiful condition, all as clean and well-appointed as if they had been prepared to do miserable penance in Rotten Row. And are all these noble and ignoble animals beneath us going to the hunt? Yes, and many more that we cannot see. Look at those straight streams of white steam that through green fields are concentrating from north, south, east, and west upon Market Harborough, from Leicester, from Northampton, from Stamford, and from Rugby—denoting trains that, at the rate of thirty or forty miles an hour, are hurrying boxes all containing hunters for the meet.
On the huntsman and hounds slowly entering and taking up their positions in the small park at Arthingworth, excepting two or three farmers, no one is there to receive or notice them. However, in a few minutes, through large gates and through smaller ones, grooms on and with their horses walk steadily in; while Charles Payne, occasionally chucking from his coat-pocket a few crumbs of bread to his hounds, most of whom are looking upwards at him, leaning over his horse, is holding confidential conversation with a keeper. "It's too bad!" whispers an old farmer, who had just been entrusted with the secret that another fox had last night been shot by poachers; "and, what's more, it's been a-going on IN MANY WAYS a long time." "Yes!" replies Charles Payne, looking as calmly and philosophically as Hamlet when he was moralising over Yorick's skull; "you may rely upon it that, what with greyhounds,—and poachers,—and traps,—and poison,—there are very few foxes now-a-days that die a natural death"—meaning that they were not eaten up alive by the Pytchley hounds.
But during all this precious time where are all the scarlet coats? Oh! here they come, trotting, riding, and galloping to the meet from every point of the compass, and apparently from every region of the habitable globe, some of the young ones—diverging as usual from their path of rectitude—to lark over a fence or two. Along the turnpike and country roads, drags with four horses, light dog-carts with two, post-chaises and gigs, each laden with men muffled up in heavy clothing, showing no pink, save a little bit peeping out at the collar, are all hurrying onwards to the same goal; and as these living bundles, with cigars in their mouths, are rapidly landing in the park, it will be advisable that we also should descend there to observe them.
By about a quarter before eleven the grass in front of the hospitable hunting-box of one of the late masters of the Pytchley—who, take him all in all, is one of the very best riders in the hunt—becomes as crowded as a fair with sportsmen of all classes, from the highest rank in the peerage down to—not exactly those who rent a 6l. house,—but who can afford money and time enough to "hoont," as they call it. While two or three well-appointed servants in livery are very quietly, from a large barrel, handing glasses of bright-looking ale to any farmer or groom who, after his long ride, may happen to feel a little thirsty, and while others from white wicker-baskets are distributing bits of bread and lumps of cheese to any man who may feel that beneath his waistcoat there is house-room to receive them, the honourable and gallant proprietor of the brown barrel and white baskets, lounging in his red coat, &c., on his exalted lawn, with sundry small scratches (from bull-finches) on his face, with something now and then smoking a little from his mouth, and with that placid and easy manner which in every situation of life distinguishes him, says to any friend in pink that happens to pass him, "Won't ye go IN for a moment?" But, without invitation, most of the aristocrats, leaving their horses with their grooms, to ascend a flight of ladder steps which raises them to the lawn, walk slowly and majestically across it, adjusting their hair, "just to make their bow." When that compliment has been paid, they pause for a second or two in the hall, and then recross the lawn, indolently munching, and with perfumed handkerchiefs carefully wiping lips or mustachios (as the case may be), which, if they were very closely approached, might possibly smell partly of cherries, to proceed to their respective grooms, and mount their horses.