The absurdity of entering young hounds just in from walks, and with all their troubles before them, is obvious to any one who has ever been within measurable distance of a kennel. And as for no cubhunting ground, what was wrong with Charnwood Forest, the best cubhunting district in the world, and even better then than now, in the days preceding the Enclosure Act? Then, also, foxes were not much outnumbered by pheasants. Another victim of misstatement is Mr. (“Flying”) Childe, of Kinlet. I lately read that he hunted the Ludlow country after he left Leicestershire. It was the other way about. He and the first Lord Forester went to Loughborough for the Quorn together, Melton not being invented when he gave up the Ludlow country, and set the fashion of pressing on hounds. In fact, Mr. Meynell describes Mr. Cecil Forester as coming out of cover between the fox and the pack! Again, the name of Mr. Childe’s Arab was not “Skim,” as we are told, but Selim, corrupted into Slim. His tail (grey) is still at Kinlet. He left some good hunting stock behind him, and I know where a portrait of a chestnut son of his is to be seen. Of Mr. Meynell “Nimrod” says, “In chase no man rode harder.” But he gave his hounds room, which from all accounts the immigrants from Salop did not. Yet I have read that he and his field merely crawled over a country. Also quite lately I have seen Mr. Edge, the welter weight Nottingham Squire, who refused a thousand guineas for his two horses, Banker and Remus, described as the “humble, silent friend” of Mr. Assheton Smith! Why on earth will people write on subjects of which they are ignorant? An outsider, writing on sport, or soldiering, is sure to make a spectacle of himself. Though this is a hunting subject, I cannot but call attention to a masterpiece of this kind in “Charles O’Malley,” by the late Mr. Charles Lever. In one of the Peninsula battles, he tells us that a general officer galloped up and gave the word, “14th, threes about, charge!” As this involved their charging tail foremost, no wonder that the French fled precipitately!
I am often asked whether hunting has altered during my time. I answer, “In the Shires little, if at all, but provincial sport has, I fancy, deteriorated. In bad scenting countries nose should be more thought of than looks, but is it so? We hear a lot more about bad scenting weather than we used to do. No one would keep a throaty hound, though no less an authority than “the other Tom Smith,” uncle, by-the-by, of my dear friend “Doggie,” of that ilk, has said that he never knew a throaty hound without a good nose. The greatest enemy to hunting, in these days, is the shooting tenant. He destroys the breed of good wild foxes, and can only be disposed of by the hunt renting shootings. But for the railways, the Quorn country would be more easily crossed now than when I first knew it. “Oxers” have nearly all vanished, hand-gates and bridges have replaced yawning sepulchres—notably so at John O’Gaunt, the bottom below Wartnaby Pond, and at Sherbroke’s covert, over the Smite, which is the “march” ’twixt Quorn and Belvoir. Also the Twyford brook need no longer be ridden at, unless one chooses. The Whissendine brook, however, retains its old fame. “Lady Stamford’s Bridge,” over the South Croxton and Queniboro’ brook, was just made in the earliest of the sixties. As regards dress, we are not very different from the heroes depicted by old H. Alken, in Nimrod’s “The Chase.” “Snob, the tip-top provincial,” appeared then in a frock coat, and so he would now. But I have always wondered why the artist should have made the fence which stopped “the little bay horse” a high bank, suggestive of Shropshire, or Essex, but of a pattern non-existent in any part of the county of Leicester, and especially as the letterpress so carefully describes the obstacle—ditch from you, but the lower part of the fence bristling towards you after the fashion of the old “Prepare to receive cavalry” of an infantry square. In the old days the master was dressed like other people. He often wore a hat, and so did many more. Mr. Tailby always wore a cap. Lord Gifford dressed like a hunt servant, ditto Captain Percy Williams and Colonel Thomson; but they did not spoil the effect with a moustache. One very dear friend of mine, who dressed the character, though “with a beard on him like Robinson Crusoe,” was tipped a sovereign by a stranger, who had been impressed by the masterly way in which he hunted and killed his fox. I regret to say that it did not profit him, as, on his return, the predominant partner nailed it, to keep as a curiosity, as (she said) the only money that “Charlie” had ever in his life honestly earned! A master’s, as indeed a huntsman’s and first whip’s second horseman, used to be dressed like yours or mine. Now most hunts have, in servants alone, six “scarlet and leathers” men. This hardly makes for economy, and we hear too much of expense. Up to the end of the late Duke of Rutland’s reign, the hunt servants wore brown cords, “drab shags,” as Mr. Jorrocks called them. I think white cords look better, but looks are not everything. No men ever went better to hounds than his late Grace’s servants, and what do the breeks matter if their wearer can, and will, give you a lead over the Smite?”
As regards horses, I think, speaking under correction, that we have got them too high on the leg; the result is that “boots” form a predominant item in the saddler’s bill. I have before remarked that, in my young days, there was about one roarer in a hunt. Now, if there be only one in a stud the owner is lucky. As we breed our racehorses from roarers, and as they are the sires of our hunters, this is not wonderful.
In talking of dress, I ought to have mentioned that, as a small boy, visiting a schoolfellow in Cornwall, I saw a pack of harriers belonging to the last Lord Vivian but one, with which every one was in red coats, officials and all. A similarly attired Yorkshire huntsman of harriers told me that he and his whip wore pink, as being more easily distinguished on the moors. This is a good reason. I have omitted to mention a pack of staghounds which, for some seasons, showed excellent sport—I mean the Collinedale. Mr. George Nourse was master, and hunted them himself. A better staghound huntsman I never saw. This was lucky, as he was not well whipped in to.
The first time I ever saw these hounds is worthy of mention. A friend of mine asked me at the club whether I should like a mount with staghounds next day. I gratefully accepted the offer, and asked at what station I should meet him. “Oh,” said he, “come to my house to breakfast and we’ll ride on to the meet.” I asked no questions, but duly appeared at my friend’s very charming house; a little beyond the Swiss Cottage station, and then nearly in the country. We rode on to the meet, which was at the Welsh Harp, Hendon. We had two stags, but they had hardly got over their autumn dissipation. One turned round and charged the hounds, and the other went over a fine country, the Harrow Weald, but not far enough for me to get on terms with my mount, a hard-pulling four-year-old, with a very light bridle. And the Berkhamsted, which are still going, deserve a word of chronicle. I only saw them once, but thought them a marvellously clever pack, and not too big. Any possible deficiency of size was made up for in the person of their master, the late Mr. R. Rawle. He was a keen sportsman, a capital huntsman, and as polite and kind as any man could be. I was never impertinent enough to ask him his weight, but, crushing though it was, he got wonderfully to his hounds. He rode the right sort to carry weight. None of your seventeen-hand prize-winners in a show ring, but steeds more on the lines of the baby hippopotamus, with well-bred heads; hence these triumphs.
An old Suffolk M.F.H. told me, in my youth, that Mr. R. Gurney’s famous “Sober Robin” was only 15.2. He also remembered the moonlight steeplechase from Ipswich Barracks. Another fine old sportsman told me that he recollected the “orange” coats worn with the Atherstone in Lord Vernon’s time. He described them as looking much like ordinary “pink,” until you saw one of each together, then the difference was clearly marked.
F. J. King King.
(To be continued.)