Altogether it was a day of which one could remark that anyone who rode the line faithfully would have a fair idea of what hunting with the Quorn meant.
On Saturday, February 3rd, Tom Bishopp once more carried the horn after being laid by with influenza. The Normanton Hill coverts held a traveller. For an hour and forty minutes hounds drove their fox over a country which is for Leicestershire rather given over to arable. But scent and a fairly straight line helped them, and when the end came at Broughton Station they were nearly eleven miles from their starting point, and had been going for an hour and three quarters. Thus the pace must have been good. This was the straightest run of the whole week if we except the Duke of Beaufort’s two gallops after meeting at Cherrington on February 2nd in the Tetbury country. Hounds dashed away for four miles. They were stopped and brought back. A third fox proved equally good, for he led them right away into the choicest of the V.W.H., the followers enjoying a variety of fencing, beginning with stone walls, and including the rough hedges sometimes set on banks, and the wide ditches of the vale country. The Duke’s country and the V.W.H. ride deep in wet weather, but they also carry a scent under such conditions. Hounds had come some nine miles in a direct line before they turned and came back by Charlton Park. But in point of distance the run of the month was in the remote district of East Cornwall, where hounds are hunted by Mr. Connock Marshall, and Mr. Philpotts Williams controls the field. It was in Torr Brake the fox was found, and a ring was worked out without any extraordinary promise. On leaving the covert again the scent improved, and from that point onwards hounds were well served. Even supposing, of which there is no certainty, that they came away from Torr the second time with a fresh fox, it was a marvellous run and a wonderful instance of endurance for fox and hounds. It was not till two hours and a half were over that hounds began to run for blood, and near Berry Tor the leaders caught a view, and ran into a most gallant fox that struggled to the very last. It is said that twenty-five miles was covered as hounds ran, and if this is correct the pace was fast, as the run lasted under two hours and three-quarters from find to finish.
The Woodland Pytchley had what may be described rather as a very excellent day’s hunting (on Feb. 5th) than as a great run. They were stopped at the end of five hours, having been hunting all the time. But there were several changes, how many it would be difficult to say, since such fox-haunted coverts as Rushton, Pipewell, Brampton, and Dingley Warren, were some of the coverts visited during the day. It was a remarkable performance for the hounds, and, like the run last mentioned, speaks volumes for the kennel management of the pack.
Staghounds have, like the foxhounds, had a capital month. Mr. Stanley brought off a notable performance on the Brendon Hills. He found a hind, and hunted her for four hours with a moderate scent. The hounds worked well, and their admirable condition carried them through. But we know, of course, that much in these cases depends on the combination of patience and promptness in the man who hunts them. The point was that there was no change in spite of the danger of this on the moorland at this time of year. That the chase of the carted deer has some points of resemblance with that of their wild kindred, is shown by the experience of the Surrey Staghounds when visiting the Kentish side of their country. They had two admirable runs, and in both the quarry ran into herds of park deer, the second one having to be left in Knole Park after a fine chase of two and a half hours. It seems as if there was no limit to the powers of a red deer hind in the winter, so that as the old huntsman used to say, “She can run so long as she have a mind to.”
The changes among masters which January brings are not very numerous. None of the leading hunts are vacant, and some of those which were in want of new masters have succeeded in finding them. The latest resignations are from Hampshire, where Mr. F. L. Swindell and Mr. Yorke Scarlett are resigning the Hursley and the Tedworth. In no county are shooting and hunting more likely to clash than in Hampshire. Moreover, the county is a difficult one to hunt, yet the various packs, including the Hambledon, the H.H., and the Vine have had a good season on the whole. No doubt the plentiful rain has helped to bring about this result. But good masters and huntsmen such as Hampshire has throughout its hunting history had quite its share of having helped this result greatly. Mr. Long, the grandson of a former master of the Hambledon, will, it is said, take the Hursley. In the north Mr. J. B. Pease succeeds Mr. Alec Browne with the Percy. In the Midlands, Sir J. Hume Campbell buys Mr. McNeill’s famous bitch pack with which to hunt North Cotswold, to the great satisfaction of the country. Among huntsmen the changes are neither few nor unimportant. It is said that Gosden will leave the Meynell; it is certain that John Isaac retires from the Pytchley after twenty-six years of faithful and efficient service with that pack. He will be succeeded by Frank Freeman, a son of the Will Freeman whom I recollect with the South and West Wilts. Gillson, a son of George Gillson of the Cottesmore, who has been hunting the last-named pack with great success, is to follow Freeman in the Bedale country. I can recollect him a mere lad as second whipper-in to Shepherd, so long with the South Oxfordshire. Gillson has not forgotten, I dare say, the queer-tempered horse he used to ride, and the kicking matches which, though unpleasant when he wanted to turn hounds, no doubt helped to make him the horseman he is.
The death of Charles Littleworth, formerly huntsman to the fifth Earl of Portsmouth, removes from hunting circles one of the best judges of foxhounds and terriers, and a most admirable woodland huntsman. Of those I have known in a lengthening experience none were better than the late Lord Macclesfield and Charles Littleworth at hunting a fox in strong woodlands. Both, I think, liked a big dog-hound for the work. The blood of the Eggesford kennels, as it was in Lord Portsmouth’s time, runs in the veins of many of the best packs of the present day, the Badminton and the Four Burrow each owing something to the Eggesford kennel. Then the famous pack with which Sir Richard Glyn and John Press hunted the Blackmore Vale owed much to the lucky cross of the Portsmouth Commodore with Mr. Villebois’ Matchless. But this is too large a subject for such notes as these. As a breeder of working terriers Charles Littleworth had no superior and few equals, as those who have had the luck to own one of his strain will bear witness.
The death of Lady Howe removes one who as a sportswoman stood among the first. It is only as a rider to hounds that I have to write of her in these columns. It has been my good fortune to see all the leading riders to hounds of the last twenty years, and among them there was none better than Lady Georgiana Curzon. It used to be said that there were five ladies who stood out as riders to hounds, and the late Lady Howe was one of the best of these.
HUNTING IN YORKSHIRE.
We have had an open January, hounds having only missed an odd day here and there, and it is not till the day that these notes are written that we have had any real wintry weather, though for a few days previous keen northeasterly winds and flying showers of hail and sleet have shown that there was frost and snow coming. Should the stoppage be a short one, sport will undoubtedly benefit, and there will be a good tale to tell in the April number of Baily. Sport, on the whole, has not been great since I last wrote, though there have been a few runs which stand out, notably a moorland run with the Cleveland, in which a good point was made and a lot of difficult country covered. Before proceeding, however, with a record of the sport, some coming changes should be referred to. Fred Freeman, who leaves the Bedale, will hunt the Pytchley next season, and I am told that his uncle, Dick Freeman, who has shown such excellent sport in the North Durham country for so many years, will retire at the end of the season. An item of news which will please all his many friends is that Tom Smith, of the Bramham Moor, has returned from his short visit to Blackpool fully restored to health.