At five o'clock P.M., after witnessing some sport, S——r gave the word to mount, and off we set for Mr. Oliver's. An hour's ride brought us within his domain, where lofty deer-fences, blackthorn hedge-rows, well-made drives, and carefully cultivated land, formed a striking change from the wild but beautiful forest-country through which we had ridden.
We first came upon the farm-yard and offices of the estate, all well-arranged and in good order: here we left our horses, and walked on to the house,—a plain sporting-lodge, without any outward appearance or pretension. It is well situated upon a gentle eminence overlooking a couple of fine reaches of the Gunpowder river; on the land side the deer-park spreads away to the forest, being divided from the lawn by an invisible fence.
Himself an ardent lover of the sports of the field, Mr. Oliver, for a time, took infinite pains to cultivate a legitimate taste for it; but, I believe, without much success, although he pursued his plans on a scale and at a cost not often imitated in this country. Indeed, to say truth, men of fortune have little encouragement here to be liberal in this way; since, when a gentleman has surrounded himself with all the appliances to sporting, it is next to impossible to bring them fairly into play; or, however social his own spirit may be, yet harder to find persons possessing the time and taste for their enjoyment.
The worthy old sportsman gave me a grievous list of difficulties which he had encountered from a desire to promote on this fine estate the breed of certain animals and birds. Keepers were provided from Europe with first-rate characters; but they found all their ancient habits were to be unlearned here, and were soon completely at fault.
The foxes killed his pheasants; the neighbouring farmers, or boatmen from the rivers, had decoyed his dogs and shot down his deer; and, after a hopeless struggle, he had given up his hounds: the deer alone he managed to domesticate and increase, his stock at present amounting to four hundred head.
No spot could have been better chosen for an experiment of this kind, as the whole estate lies within a natural ring-fence, bounded by deep waters on two sides, and cut off from all neighbours on the other by a belt of close forest. Under other laws, time would be afforded for the regular improvement of this domain, and the plans of the founder might be carried out by his successors; but, as it is, the present worthy possessor once laid beneath the turf, the object of all his pains-taking and labour will, in all probability, be cut up into small farms, or be allowed once more to degenerate into forest, as may appear most profitable to his heirs.
This plan may be decidedly the most advantageous for the community at large, and I have no doubt is, since it works well here; but it has a chilly and depressing effect on the mind when viewed by one who would desire—and who does not?—to live in the creations which owe their existence to his labour or his taste, and who would revisit in the spirit the pleasant place enjoyed by his children, for whose dear sakes it was first projected.
After supper our spirited old host gave the hour of muster for five o'clock A.M., and we severally sought our beds in order to make the most of the brief time left for sleep. Much as I love a fox-hunt, I freely confess that this early rising did seem a mighty hard bargain.
28th.—Not choosing to be laggard, as the thing was to be done, I was first afoot for the honour of Britain;—the whole party, indeed, were exceedingly punctual;—and after a hearty breakfast, away we rode for cover, with a slight crisping of frost under hoof, and a warm-looking sky just opening over head, heralding a sun that gave promise of making woodland and meadow smoke again within the next hour or two; at present, however, the air was nippingly shrewd, to say the least of it, and set me to blowing my fingers like a trumpeter. At the end of about an hour's ride the dogs were laid on, and almost immediately hit off the scent, and went away merrily through the wood at a slashing rate. The rider is here kept wide awake by the vicinity of the trees, many of which are spreading and low-branched, requiring a quick eye and some suppleness to keep one's hat from getting hurt when going "the pace," and, by St. Hubert! these hounds in woodland appear anything but slow.
Many dark dells and lovely open glades did we thus hurrah by, and across, with barely a glimpse in passing. In one place the path was completely blocked up by two forest-trees, apparently but recently rooted up; they had been rent from the earth, and flung here from opposite sides, as though a mere stack of rushes, in the pride of their vigour and in the full bloom of their beauty; and here they lay to wither boll, and branch, and leaf.