My acquaintance with Lord Gardner, to whom I have referred before, began in a way which illustrates one phase of that good sportsman’s character. One day, when still fresh from college, I was riding a five-year-old. Lord Gardner took my place at a fence and nearly gave me a fall. I passed him in the next field, out of which there was only one place, and that beside an elm. He came at it with a rush; I gave my horse his head, and jumping side by side with Gardner threw him heavily against the tree. He reported this to Mr. Little Gilmour, but got little sympathy, Gilmour telling him that if he meddled with me he would probably get himself killed. “Do you think so?” said Gardner. “Yes I do,” replied Gilmour. “Then please introduce me to him,” said Gardner. We became fast friends, and our friendship continued all the time he stayed in the country.
Rather a funny incident occurred with the Quorn one day in a scurry from Cream Lodge Gorse. A sporting captain’s horse fell over a large ant-hill, and the soldier came down rolled in a lump. I got down and stretched him out in a furrow. It was damp, and he soon changed his position; so, remarking that if he was able to look for a dry place I thought he could take care of himself, I jumped on my horse again and went on. The gallant soldier was grievously hurt by my remark, considering it implied that he was soft. His feelings suffered more injury than his body.
In a good run with the Quorn the fox crossed the canal. We most of us rode for the bridge and stood on it until the hounds were well over. Cardigan and Wilbraham Tollemache stuck to the hounds and crossed the canal with them, Cardigan exclaiming: “I am in first, Wilbraham!” In a minute his brother-in-law exclaimed, “I am out first, Cardigan,” and jumped on his horse, leaving Cardigan struggling in the water. A man on the bridge called out: “Paddle with your ’ands, my lord; paddle with your ’ands.” There were not many feet of water.
In those days there was scarcely any wire, and the now familiar warning to “ware wire,” was rarely heard. In a gallop from Masterton Oziers one large field was fenced with it, and we made for a gate. One man stuck to the hounds, and falling head over heels over the fence was a good deal hurt. We had called out “wire” repeatedly, and the more we did so the faster he rode. His reason for doing so, he said, was that he saw it was a big jump, and thought we were calling “fire, fire,” for him to fire away at it, with plenty of steam on! Mr. Haycock, a hard-riding yeoman, went head over heels in a bottom and could not get out. Lord Macdonald coming next pulled up. Haycock called out “Come on, my Lord, there is accommodation for you here as well as for me.” The Lord of the Isles declined the invitation. Haycock sold a nice horse to a Duke, who took him to task for selling him such a brute. “What’s the matter, your Grace?” “He has been running away with me all the morning.” “If that is all I don’t care; when he was mine I was always running away with him.” Sir James Musgrave, riding a nice horse, told him he was slovenly at timber. “Take him out on Sunday morning, Sir James, and give him a few heavy falls over timber,” was his advice.
No fence is as nice as timber if your horse knows his business, but do not take liberties with it with the sun in your horse’s eyes, or be heard to call out “ware horse”; it is always “ware hound.” Another hint—do not hunt in a cap, as it will not give way in a fall, but your neck may.
Gumley Wood was at one time unintentionally spoiled as a covert by the clergyman of Gumley. He was a mighty collector of moths; he so bedaubed with treacle the trees in the wood that the foxes would not lay in it; but we always found in the gorse close by. In the next parish lived one of Whyte Melville’s heroes, Parson Dove. Jogging home after hunting one evening, I asked him how he filled up his spare time in the summer; he said he gardened a good deal. Enquiry elicited that there was but one flower he cared for, and that was a cauliflower.
Robert Fellowes.
(To be continued.)