Hunt “Runners.”
IV.
Butler of the North Cotswold.
There are few more picturesque hunting scenes than the country around the Cotswold Hills in the fair county of Worcestershire, which is hunted by Mr. Charles McNeill and his famous pack of Belvoir-bred bitches. This Eden of foxhunting is a much sought after possession, wild and rugged with variety of scene on hill and dale, pasture and woodland. It has often been said that farmers are the backbone of foxhunting, and these Worcestershire sportsmen, bred and born to it, are a community whose fame for staunchness to sport is known far and wide. The majority of them, or their sons, ride to hounds, and wire is practically unknown in their country, whilst foxes are preserved as they ought to be, the best of good feeling prevailing between sport and agriculture. All the same, we did not expect to find a farmer in the capacity of runner to the hunt.
Many countries are going begging for a master, but not so the North Cotswold, which has been so successfully presided over by Mr. Charles McNeill for the past five seasons, the announcement of whose retirement was received with universal regret. When it became known there was a vacancy for next season, twenty-two applicants for the mastership came before the Hunt Committee; showing how hunting men appreciated a community of farmers who plump solid for sport. Sir John Hume Campbell is to be congratulated that he has been chosen to succeed Mr. McNeill.
Butler, the runner to the Hunt, wearing the cap and scarlet coat of office, is a typical Worcestershire dairy farmer. Born in the Heythrop country close by, he has followed the hounds on foot for the past twenty years, which occupies the reign of three masterships—Mr. Algernon Rushout, Captain Cyril Stacey and Mr. Charles McNeill. Before that time he had five years in the saddle making young horses, “hunting oftener than his master did,” as he put it, and a coachman’s place for six months in the heart of Birmingham was the last straw that compelled him to give up domestic service, and take to the wild, free life of a runner, with farming as a mainstay. On a hunting morning Butler is up before daybreak to get his cows milked, pigs and poultry attended to, so that the institution of a bicycle to ride the long distances to and from covert has been a great saving of time and exertion.
Our first sight of the North Cotswold Hunt in the field was at a picturesque fixture, Cheevering Green, in the hill district, and there we made Butler’s acquaintance when he stood holding open the gate as horsemen drew up from far and near. A middle-aged man, with a dash of grey in his side whiskers, and keen, penetrating brown eyes, foxhunting is written in every line of a face evidently intended by Nature for a hunting cap. Sporting the primrose collar of the Hunt, and the coronet on his button dating back to Lord Coventry’s mastership, Butler, with his sturdy black and white terrier, makes a pleasing adjunct to a Hunt which is appointed in Leicestershire style. There is no gainsaying the fact that the countryside appreciates a Hunt that is well found in all departments, and a scarlet coat is still a passport which will admit its wearer where others would be less welcome. It was the late Duke of Beaufort who used to say that every man who goes hunting ought to pay the chase the compliment by putting on his best clothes, even if it be his Sunday suit. Though the North Cotswold is a Hunt far distant from Leicestershire, yet Mr. McNeill has aimed at perfection in every department, and by doing so won everybody’s gratitude; for, after all, the pomp and pageantry of the chase tends to its popularity in a marked degree, which more sterling qualities can hardly boast. When the Master-huntsman rode up in the middle of his pack of seventeen and a half couple of bitches there was a cheery word all round, and expectancy which preludes a good day’s sport. As usual, the Hunt runner had a quiet word for the ear of the Master, news of an outlying fox which a neighbouring farmer had viewed every morning for the last week. These North Cotswold bitches, for Mr. McNeill has no doghounds in his pack, have done well this season, killing seventy-two foxes up to the middle of January, in a country that is fourteen miles long and eight miles wide in the middle, being a good deal less top and bottom. All Belvoir in colour and type, they are triumphs of breeding, proving their worth by winning prizes on the flags at Peterborough, and golden opinions in the field, where they are remarkable for tongue and drive, a pack that mean catching their fox at the end of a gallop. Mr. McNeill is a Leicestershire man, who acquired the greater part of his skill as a huntsman studying the methods of Tom Firr, and he is as quick as lightning, inspiring hounds and followers with confidence.
For the first draw we commenced hill-climbing to the larch plantations up above, an experience that made one appreciate the sagacity of a well-trained hunter.
These hill districts must require a considerable amount of stopping before a day’s hunting, but it is not a duty now performed by the runner. Butler’s mission is to bolt the foxes when they get to ground, and for this he receives half-a-crown on every successful occasion. Years ago he carried a big, white buck-ferret, and worked him on a line when foxes sought the shelter of stone drains. Unfortunately, the ferret came to an untimely end; making a hole in the bag in which he was being conveyed home one wet night, he escaped and, perishing of cold, was found dead next morning.
From the hill-top we were rewarded with a beautiful view of a far-stretching panorama of country in the vale beneath, and quickly the sonorous music of the big-framed bitches lent enchantment to the scene. A second or two later the whipper-in’s silver whistle was ringing out the glad “Gone away,” and Butler, with a smile of satisfaction on his face, was holding up his cap; there were no confusing halloas. Though the North Cotswold country is anything but a good scenting one, except when there is a bite of east in the wind, the bitches rattled their fox out of covert, and keeping his head up wind as they slipped down into the vale, spread-eagled their field in a hunt of thirty minutes to the Croome country on the opposite hillside. It was a ride full of new experiences, giving us, alas, but a distant view of the Master and hounds as they skimmed over the stone walls that divide the seventy-acre pastures. A rain-cloud blotted us out at the finish, enveloping the hillside in a dense wall of fog, robbing the pack at a critical moment of well-earned blood.