T. Bennett and Sons. Worcester and Malvern
LADY DOROTHY COVENTRY ON SIXPENNY.
But to return to the meet. When you get to the place of meeting there will be three courses open to you as a rule. You can either see the stag un-carted and the hounds laid on, or you can omit the first ceremony and come on the scene with the hounds, which in well regulated establishments will not have been allowed to catch a view of the cart, or you can adopt another course, and wait till the stag has completed his first circle, which he is almost sure to run before leaving. If you incline to the last, and there is much to be said in its favour, you will look out for some point, such as the crossing of a road by the stag, and trotting quietly down to it, you will wait for the hounds to come up. By the time they reach you, they will have got over the first flurry with which staghounds always make for the line, and will come chiming down as prettily as a pack of harriers.
[I think the best plan is to come into the field with the hounds, if possible, pick your own place at the first fence—of course riding wide of the hounds—and do your level best to get a good start. If staghounds really run, a good start is every bit as important with them as in the Shires, and that is one reason I think they are such good training for judgment, decision and nerve. She who hesitates is sure to be lost sooner or later, and when you have been out of a good thing two or three times, because you did not push along at first, it does make you keen.—C.F.C.C.]
Then you should ride to the hounds and watch them working. You will observe that they string more than foxhounds—though they are foxhounds in everything but the use to which they are put—but such packs as Lord Rothschild's or the Queen's, will drive forward on a hot scent and work out a cold one, in a way that will delight any lover of hound work. Now you may, nay you must, ride somewhat closer to the pack than would be quite orthodox with foxhounds, and if there should be anything like a scent you will find that in spite of being a light weight, it may be, and riding one of the best, it will take you all your time to live with them. Nor will you be in any danger of overriding hounds. With a good deer you will find you need all your judgment, horsemanship, coolness and pluck to live to the end.
After you have been going some twenty or twenty-five minutes, perhaps, hounds will run up to their deer. But the sport will not be over. If possible at this point you should notice whether the deer has his mouth open or shut, for this will tell you whether you may still look for a long gallop or not. A deer, be it remembered, closes his mouth when he is beaten, but as long as he has it open, you may be sure he has not the smallest intention of being captured. You will find that with the consideration for the feelings of the quarry which marks all the proceedings, hounds will not be allowed to go on till ample time has been given for the deer to get a good start. He may not unlikely be encouraged by the friendly crack of a hunting crop by one of the field, but otherwise his Lordship will be left to himself, and the hounds meanwhile will stand with their sterns waving in eager impatience to be off, and their eyes fixed on the face of the huntsman. It was a grand sight to see poor Mark Howcutt at such a moment, in the vale of Aylesbury. The loose thong of his whip, as he sat motionless in front of hounds was enough to keep them in check, and when he quietly gathered the thong up, they knew the moment had come, and casting themselves on the line, they would break into a chorus of rejoicing, and race eagerly away.
It is not till you see the stag soil, that you may begin to take things easily, for this is generally a sign of the beginning of the end. It is, however (and here I recall the words of Whyte Melville), an act of courtesy to those who supply our sport, to stay and see the deer taken before we leave. If you are up at the end of a good gallop over the Vale, you may be pretty sure you will be able to hold your own wherever fortune may lead you, even if the Quorn hounds should be running their best from the Ashby Pastures, over the Twyford Vale to Burrough Hill, or the Cottesmore lady-pack be racing in front of you from Ranksboro' Gorse to Woodwell Head.
As stag-hunting begins later in the day than the pursuit of the fox, so does it leave off earlier, and the sportswoman who shares in it will generally find herself at home in time to get into a comfortable tea-gown, and give what our neighbours call "five o'clock" to her friends. There will then be the chance of a rest before dinner, and to those who are not over-strong, or who have heavy social duties before them, I would recommend the plan of a well-known rider to hounds in Leicestershire, who goes quietly to bed and gets perhaps a couple of hours sleep before her maid rouses her to dress for dinner. As many women undoubtedly suffer from the strain entailed by the great demands on their strength during the hunting season, the plan may help them to keep both good looks and health, and will thus give them a keener enjoyment in their favourite sport.
And now a word as to equipment, though this will be brief indeed, as what applies to the follower of the fox applies in almost every particular to her who rides after the stag. I would only suggest in the latter case that the habit worn should be plain, and that the distinctive collar of any Foxhunt of which you may be a member, is not quite in place when you are following another form of sport. As to the vexed question of the tall and the round hat, in the hunting-field, some will declare in favour of comfort as represented by the latter, while others will prefer the undeniable smartness of the ugliest product of modern civilization.
[My advice to everyone is to take a change in a Gladstone, and leave it either at the Inn where the meet is, or better still with the clothing and horse-box, for it is a serious matter to get ducked in a brook and then perhaps have a long train journey home, without the possibility of dry clothes. I say this feelingly, as this year after the Stag in Kent, I fell at a brook about 2.15—my watch stopped, so I know the hour—and after finishing the run, I had to ride seven miles to Paddock Wood, before training home. Of course I ought to have died of pneumonia after this, but happily was none the worse.—C.F.C.C.]