The Rural Life of England

by William Howitt

On the 10th of August, 1836, we sailed up the Grand Caledonian Canal from Fort William to Inverness in the steam-packet with a large party of these gentlemen. Of their number, principally military men—

Captains, and colonels, and men at arms;

some notion may be formed from the fact that we had on board upwards of seventy dogs, mostly beautiful setters; a perfect pyramid of gun-cases was piled on the deck, and dog-carts and keepers completed the scene.

One of the singular features of English life at the present moment is the swarming of summer tourists in all interesting quarters. In these Highland regions the consequent effect is often truly ludicrous. Into one miserable village, or one poor solitary inn, pour, day after day, the summer through, from seventy to a hundred people. The impossibility of such a place accommodating such a company is the first thing which strikes every one. The moment, therefore, that the vessel touches the quay, out rushes the whole throng, and a race commences to the house or village to secure beds for the night. Such is the impetus of the rush that the first arrivers are frequently driven by the “pressure from without” up the stairs to the very roof. A scene of the most laughable confusion is exhibited. All are clamouring for beds; nobody can be heard or attended to; and generally all who can, burst into rooms which are not locked up, and take forcible possession. Such scenes, any one who has gone up this canal, or to the Western Isles must have seen,—at Oban, at Tobermory, and at Inverness, which last place boasts three inns, and where, on our arrival with a hundred fellow-passengers, we found three hundred others had just landed from a London steamer! Our sportsmen, however, who were well aware of the statistics of the north, had written beforehand, and secured bed-rooms at all the sleeping-places, which were duly locked up against their arrival, and they sate very composedly to witness the race of worse-informed mortals.

On this occasion a very characteristic contrast was presented between the sportsmen and a number of students who were on board at the time. These students, many of whom spend the college recess in pedestrianizing through the Highlands, have a character almost as peculiar to themselves as the German Bürschen. In twos and threes, with their knapsacks on their backs, they may be seen rambling on, wherever there is fine scenery or spots of note to be visited. They step on board a packet at one place, and go off at another, steering away into the hills; ready to take up their quarters at such abode as may offer—the road-side inn or the smoky hut of the Gael. Wherever you see them, they are all curiosity and enthusiasm; all on fire with the sublime and beautiful—athirst for knowledge; historical, antiquarian, traditionary, botanical, geological—anything in the shape of knowledge. They are the first to climb the hill, to reach the waterfall, to crowd round every spot of tragic interest; everywhere they go agog with imagination, and everywhere they lament that they do not feel adequately, the power, and beauty, and grandeur of the objects of their attention. Such a group we had on board. On the other hand, the sportsmen had but one object, which absorbed all their interests and faculties. They cared not at that moment for the Fall of Foyers, saw scarcely the splendid mountains and glens around. Their souls were in the brown hills of their shooting grounds—the fever of the 12th of August was upon them. They kept together, talking of guns, dogs, grouse, roebucks; all their conversation was larded and illustrated with the phraseology of their own favourite pursuit. They were, many of them, clad in a close jacket and trousers of shepherd’s tartan, with their telescope slung at their backs. They seemed to look on the students as so many hair-brained and romantic striplings—the students on them, as so many creatures of the chase. As we proceeded, the fiery Nimrods were, one after another, put out at the opening of beautiful glens, and at the foot of wild mountains where their huts lay, and the vessel received a considerable accession of silence by the departure of their keepers, who, having found a Highland piper on board, got up a dance in the steerage cabin, and kept that end of the vessel pretty well alive both day and night. Having thus brought them to their grounds, there can be no better narrator of what passes there than Thomas Oakleigh.

“On the 11th of August the sportsman arrives at his shooting quarters; probably some isolated tavern, ‘old as the hills,’—if such a house as the grouse-shooter occasionally locates himself in, in the northern or midland counties of England, or in Scotland, where oatcake and peat supply the place of bread and fuel, can be called a tavern. The place, humble in character, has been the immemorial resort of sportsmen in August, although during the rest of the year, sometimes many months elapse ere a customer, save some itinerant salesman calling for his mug of beer, ‘darkens the door.’ * * * At the house will be found all the keepers, and tenters, and poachers, and young men from the country round, assembled, amounting in the whole to not more than some eight or ten persons, all knowing ones, each anxious to display his knowledge of the number and locality of the broods, but each differing, wide as the poles asunder, in his statement, except on four points, in which all are agreed, viz.—That the hatching season has been finer than was ever known before! That the broods are larger and more numerous than were ever counted before! That the birds are heavier and stronger than were ever seen before! and that they will, on the following day, lie better than they ever did on any previous opening day in the recollection of the oldest person present! Each successive season being, in their idea, more propitious than its precursor! Anxiety and expectation are now arrived at a climax. At night, the blithe and jocund peasantry mingle with their superiors: their pursuits are for once something akin. In the field-sports they can sympathize together: the peasant and the peer associate; the plough-boy and the squire talk familiarly together; it is the privilege of the former, his prescriptive right. The circling cup, and lighthearted and hilarious laugh promiscuously go round! This night distinctions are unknown—and would that it were oftener so! * * * Long before midnight, all who can obtain beds retire, though not an eye is drowsy. The retainers lie on sofas, elbow-chairs, or whatever else presents itself; but sleep is almost a stranger during the night. The soldier before battle, is not more anxious as to the result of the morrow, than is the sportsman on the night of the 11th of August! Morning dawns, ‘and heavily with mists comes on the day.’ The occupiers of benches and chairs are first on the alert: the landlady is called; breakfast is prepared—the dogs are looked at; all is tumult, noise, and confusion. Reckless must he be that can rest longer in bed—‘the cootie moor-cocks crowsely crow;’ breakfast is hastily dispatched—next is heard the howling and yelping of dogs, the cracking of whips, the snapping of locks, the charging, and flashing, and firing of guns, and every other note of preparation. The march is sounded, and away they wind for the heather and hills, true peep-o’-day boys, far, far from the busy, money-getting world, to breathe empyreal air; to enjoy a sport that should be monopolized by princes—if, indeed, princes could be found deserving of such a monopoly! Every person the shooter meets with seems this day to have thrown off his sordid cloak, and to be divested of those meaner passions which render life miserable: all are now warm, open-hearted, frank, sincere, and obliging. The sportsman’s shooting-dress is a sibboleth, which introduces him alike to his superiors, to his fellows, and his inferiors: an acquaintance is formed at first sight: there are no distant looks, no coldness, no outpouring of arrogance, or avarice, or pride; but a happy rivalry exists, to eclipse each other in the number and size of birds killed—the chief object of emulation being to kill the finest old cock. Let us be understood to express that this happy state of things subsists only so long as the shooter’s peregrinations are circumscribed by the limits of his own or friend’s manor. The moment he becomes a borderer, a very different reception awaits him! To the sportsman in training, full of health and strength, and well appointed, it is of little consequence whether there be game or not. The inspiriting character of the sport, and the wild beauty of the scenery, so different from what he is elsewhere in the habit of contemplating, hold out a charm that dispels fatigue! He feels not the drudgery. To him the hills are lovely in every aspect; whether beneath a hot, autumnal sun, with not a cloud to intercept the torrid beam, or beneath the dark canopy of thunder-clouds; whether in the frosty morn or in the dewy eve—whether, when through the clear atmosphere he surveys, as it were in a map, the countries that lie stretched around and beneath him, or when he wanders darkly on, amidst eternal mists that roll continuously past him—still a charm pervades the hills. The sun shines brighter, and the storm rages more furiously than in the valleys! The very sterility pleases: and to him who has been brought thither by the rapid means of travelling now adopted, from some bustling mart of trade or vortex of fashion, the novelty of loneliness is agreeably exciting! The stillness that reigns around is as wonderful to him as the solidity of land to the stranded sailor! Scarcely is there a change of scene—stillness and solitude, hill and ravine, sky and heather, everywhere magnificent, the outline everywhere bold, and where the view terminates amid rocks and crags, frequently sublime! At noonday, near some rocky summit, perchance on the shepherd’s stone, the shooter seats himself, and shares his last sandwich with his panting dogs. We will suppose him to be on the boundary of the muir-lands: on one hand he sees an unbounded expanse of heathery hills, by no means monotonous if he will look upon them with the eye of a painter, for there is every shade of yellow, green, brown, and purple,—the last is the prevailing colour at this season, the heather being in bloom: nor are the hills monotonous, if he looks at them with the eye of a sportsman, for by this time (we suppose him to have been shooting all the morning) he will have performed many feats, or at any rate will have met with several adventures, and the ground before him is the field of his fame. He now looks with interest on many a rock, and cliff, and hill, which lately appeared but as one of so many ‘crags, knolls, and mounds confusedly hurled!’ He contemplates the site of his achievements, as a general surveys a field of battle during an interval of strife; the experience of the morning has taught him a lesson, and he plans a fresh campaign for the afternoon, or the morrow, or probably the next season, should the same hills be again destined to be the scene of his exploits. The shooter looks down on the other hand from his rocky summit, and, in the bright relief, through the white rents in the clouds, sees the far-off meadows and hamlets, the woods, the rivers, and the lake. He rises, and renews his task. The invigorating influence of the bracing wind on the heights, lends the sportsman additional strength—he puts forth every effort, every nerve is strained—he feels an artificial glow after nature is exhausted, and returns to the cot where he had previously spent a sleepless night, to enjoy his glass of grog, and such a snooze as the citizen never knew!”

This is a graphic and true picture of the outset of grouse-shooting; but it is but one amongst many of the exciting situations and picturesque positions which this fine sport presents. There is a wide difference, too, between the grouse-shooting of the north of England and of the Highlands. On the English moors, the majority of shooters who assemble there, are the friends or acquaintances of the proprietors, or of their friends and acquaintances, who have received invitations, or procured the favour to shoot for a day or two at the opening of the season. The outbreak on the morning of the 12th, is therefore proportionably multitudinous and bustling. The throng of the people on the preceding evening, crowded into the inns and cottages in the neighbourhood where the best shooting lies, is often amazing. Many sportsmen, who on other occasions would think scorn to enter such a hovel, or jostle in such a crowd, may be seen waiting in patient endurance, in a situation in which a beggar would not envy them. Others will be seen stretched on their cloaks on the floor, while their dogs are occupying their beds, or the soft bottom of a huge old chair; their great anxiety being, to have their dogs fresh and able for the coming day. At the faintest peep of dawn, which is about three o’clock at that season, loud is the sound of guns on all sides, going off farther and farther in the distance. At noon, on some picturesque and breezy hill, you may see a large party congregated to luncheon, where provisions and drink have been conveyed by appointment. There, ten or a dozen sportsmen seated on the ground, all warm in body and mind—their dogs watching eagerly for their share of the feast, which is thrown them with liberal hand—their guns reared against some rock—their game thrown picturesquely on the moorland turf—Flibbertigibbets, with their asses who have brought up the baskets of provisions, the keg of beer, and bottles of porter, are running about and acting the waiters in a style of genuine originality; while keepers and markers are at once lunching and keeping an eye on the dogs, lest they are too troublesome to their masters; who are all talking together with inconceivable ardour of their individual achievements. The situation, the mixture of men and animals, of personages and costumes, all go to make up a striking picture. On the English moorlands, however, grouse-shooting is but as it were a brilliant and passing flash. As the enjoyment of the sport is generally a matter of grace and friendship, and is sought by numbers who can only devote to the excursion, at the best, a few days, it is a scene of animation and havoc for a week or ten days, and then its glory is over. During this time, however, the keepers on many estates make a rich harvest, by presents from gentlemen for attendance and guidance to the best haunts of the game—by the loan of dogs at good interest to such as have not come well provided, or have met with accidents, or whose dogs, as is sometimes the case, unused to this kind of sport and scenery, have bolted and disappeared at the first general discharge of guns; and by furnishing, sub rosâ, grouse at a guinea a brace to certain luckless braggadocios, who have boastingly promised to various friends at home plenty of game from the moors; and have not been able to ruffle a single feather! In the Highlands the scene is different. The grounds are more generally rented by individuals or parties; they are wider and wilder, and both from their extent and distance from the populous districts of England are more thinly scattered with shooters. There, some of the sportsmen take their families to their cottages on their shooting-ground, and on which they have probably bestowed some trouble and expense, to render them sufficiently comfortable and convenient for a few months’ occasional summer sojourn, and what in nature can afford a more delicious change from the ordinary course and place of life? Up far amongst the wild mountains and moorlands, amid every fresh and magnificent object—amid fairyland glens of birch and hills of pine, the sight of crystal, rapid, sunny streams, and the sound of waterfalls, in the lands of strange and startling traditions. To intelligent children full of the enjoyment of life and healthful curiosity, in such scenery every thing is wonderful and delightful; to ladies of taste, such a life for a brief season must be equally pleasant. There are some ladies, indeed, of the highest rank, who are in the regular habit of spending a certain portion of every year in the Highlands; and one in particular, of ducal rank, who at that season rambles far and wide amongst the cottages and the beautiful scenery of her native hills, telling her daughters, that if they there indulge in English luxuries, they must prepare them themselves,—such is the simplicity of her mountain residence and establishment; and they take their Cook’s Oracle, and wonderfully enjoy the change. The language and costume of the inhabitants are those of a foreign country; every object has its novelty, and the little elegancies of books, music, and furniture, which can be conveyed to such an abode, strike all the more from the stern nature without. Then there is the finest fishing in the lochs and mountain-streams, the most delightful sailing in many places, and in the woods there are the shy roebuck and sometimes the red-deer to be pursued. The grouse and black-cock shooting season is, therefore, longer and steadier there; but the full perfection of its enjoyment is to be found, perhaps, after all, only by the happy mortal who makes one of the select party collected at one of the great Highland houses of the aristocracy, where the best shooting, every requisite of horses, dogs, attendants, etc., are furnished—and where, after the fatigues of the day, the sportsman returns to his own clean room, to an excellent dinner, music, and refined society. But, amid all these seductions, nothing will make the thorough English sportsman forget the first of September. Back he comes, and enters on that regular succession of partridge, pheasant, woodcock, snipe, and wild-fowl shooting, of hunting and coursing, which diversify and fill up the autumn and winter of English rural life. To these pleasures then we leave him.

A WORD WITH THE TOO SENSITIVE.

I have not attempted to defend the hunter, the courser, or even the shooter, in the preceding chapter, from the charge of cruelty which is perpetually directed against them—they are a sturdy, and now a very intelligent people; often numbering amongst them many of our principal senators, authors, and men of taste, and very capable of vindicating themselves; but I must enact the shield-bearer for a moment, for that very worthy and much-abused old man, Izaak Walton, and the craft which he has made so fashionable. Spite even of Lord Byron’s jingle about the hook and gullet, and a stout fish to pull it, they may say what they will of the old man’s cruelty and inconsistency—the death of a worm, a frog, or a fish, is the height of his infliction, and what is that to the ten thousand deaths of cattle, sheep, lambs, fish, and fowl of all kinds, that are daily perpetrated for the sustenance of these same squeamish cavillers! They remind me of a delicate lady, at whose house I was one day, and on passing the kitchen door at ten in the morning, saw a turkey suspended by its heels, and bleeding from its bill, drop by drop. Supposing it was just in its last struggles from a recent death-wound, I passed on, and found the lady lying on her sofa overwhelmed in tears over a most touching story. I was charmed with her sensibility; and the very delightful conversation which I held with her, only heightened my opinion of the goodness of her heart. On accidentally passing by the same kitchen door in the afternoon, six hours afterwards, I beheld, to my astonishment, the same turkey suspended from the same nail, still bleeding, drop by drop, and still giving an occasional flutter with its wings! Hastening to the kitchen, I inquired of the cook, if she knew that the turkey was not dead. “O yes, sir,” she replied, “it won’t be dead, may-happen, these two hours. We always kill turkeys that way, it so improves their colour; they have a vein opened under the tongue, and only bleed a drop at a time!” “And does your mistress know of this your mode of killing turkeys?” “O yes, bless you sir, it’s our regular way; missis often sees ’em as she goes to the gardens—and she says sometimes, ‘Poor things! I don’t like to see ’em, Betty; I wish you would hang them where I should not see ’em!’” I was sick! I was dizzy! It was the hour of dinner, but I walked quietly away,

And ne’er repassed that bloody threshold more!