Ladies in the Field: Sketches of Sport

by Unknown

This needs some explanation.

The Cottesmore is the most beautiful hound country in England. It is wild and undisturbed: all grass, and carrying a good scent. No huntsman can interfere with his hounds, and no field over-ride them, for the simple reason that they cannot reach them easily. The drawbacks of this from a horseman's point of view are as obvious as the advantages to a houndman's. The country is very hilly in parts, and a good deal divided by unjumpable "bottoms," which the experienced do not meddle with, and which are only worth risking if you get away on good terms with the pack, "while they stream across the first field with a dash that brings the mettle to your heart and the blood to your brain," and your instinct tells you that you are in for a good thing! You gain nothing by chancing one of these bottoms in an average hunting run. The scientific subscriber who knows every inch of the country will be in front of you, and you are fortunate if you get your horse out before dark. Brookesby thus describes the Cottesmore:—"A wide-spread region, scarcely inhabited; ground that carries a scent in all weathers; woodlands which breed a travelling race; and mile upon mile of untracked grass, where a fox will meet nothing more terrifying than a bullock."

If hounds really race over the hilly part of the Cottesmore, no horse or rider can follow them straight. He must use his head and eyes, not merely test his pluck and quickness.

He need never lose sight of the pack if he is clever, and he will see a vision of grass landscape stretching away below him, and all around him, that will not fade with the magic of the moment.

There are people who predict the abolition of fox-hunting in England. These think themselves the penetrating observers of life; they are really the ignorant spectators, who take more trouble to avoid barbed wire than to prevent it being put up; people who join in the groan of the times, without energy or insight. Prophecies of this kind should have no value, unless it be to make hunting people more consciously careful. Since there are larger subscriptions than ever, and more people hunt, we can only trust that compensation will be given liberally, but not lavishly, and upon principles of good sense and justice. I have thus digressed merely to say that if such a day should arrive, hunting is likely to survive longer in the Cottesmore than in most countries.

The Burton (Lincolnshire) presents a striking contrast to the Cottesmore. It is as flat as Holland, and you must be on the back of hounds if you wish to see them work. Most of the country is ploughed, and, by a time-honoured custom which brought both credit and money to the Lincolnshire farmers, many of the fields are double ploughed. This latter, to ride over, is only a little better than steam plough. As the price of wheat in England has fallen by 30 per cent. the farmers are ruined, and they are laying down more grass every year. The characteristic fence of the county is a wide drain set a little away from the hedge and cut very deep. The upstanding fences, although lower than those in the shires, are pretty high if you look at the depth of the ground from which you take off.

The gorse covers are splendidly thick and overgrown and take a long time to draw; a good many of the fashionable packs, I know, would hesitate to expose themselves to such rough work as drawing Toff Newton or Torrington gorse. The foxes are more like Scotch foxes, large and grey. They are wild, and take some killing, sometimes running for two hours. There are not enough inhabitants to head them or cheer the discouraged huntsman by occasional information.

In Cheshire I saw five foxes killed on one day, but a huntsman in Lincolnshire will be lucky if he kills two in a week.

I hunted two winters with the Burton hounds, and I am sure the largest field I ever saw was twenty people. The master, huntsman and two whips included. Hunting in a big country with a small field and wild foxes is the best way of learning to be independent. If, as was my experience, you have a hard-riding huntsman, who gets down early in the run; one whip who takes the wrong turn out of cover, and the other who hangs back after a refractory couple of hounds, a few poorly-mounted farmers and unlucky gentlemen, you can realise with moderate difficulty the possibility of the proud position of being alone with hounds; although this distinction may be capable of the same explanation as was the position of the Scotch boy who, when boasting of being second in his class, was compelled to admit that it consisted of "Me and a lassie."

I said the Holdernesse for horses, and I certainly never saw a better mounted field or a finer lot of riding farmers—all of them sportsmen and gentlemen. They ask long prices for their young horses, if they will sell them to you at all, but the chances are they have already promised them to some London dealer. Yorkshire horses are, perhaps, after Irish, the most famous. They are mostly thorough-bred, and can gallop and stay. I shall never forget a horse I held for a young farmer which would not allow him to mount. I can see it now. A long, loose-limbed bay, with a small, keen, bony face, and an eye that looked through you. I have a great weakness for a horse's face, and think in a general way it shows as much character as a man's. His back was perhaps a trifle too long, but his girth was deep, and he moved like an athlete. He was as wild as a hawk, and could hardly keep still for love of life, dancing at every shadow, and springing feet into the air when anyone passed too near him. He was beautifully ridden and humoured and ultimately settled into the discouraging trot known as "hounds pace." I asked his owner what he wanted for him, and how old he was. The man said that he was rising six, that he wanted £300, and had often refused £250. We had a long talk, as we trotted down the road to draw the next cover, about horses in general and his bay in particular. I fancy his feats lost nothing by being repeated, but I shall not relate them, as what they gained by tradition they would lose by print.