THE DALESMEN’S SPORT
Mountain Fox-hunting
Despite the difficulties presented by the rough surfaces and the peculiar weather associated with such elevations, fox-hunting is carried on to a large extent among the fells. The natives are sportsmen from their wild environment and the opportunities it gives for the chase. Foxes are too plentiful, their depredations being bewailed by every farmer, shepherd, and poultry-raiser within the area mentioned. The farm hands have comparatively little to do in winter, for the sheep are brought from the distant uplands on the approach of hard weather, and their attention, therefore, only takes up a few hours of each day. As the shepherd seldom, even on the darkest mornings, turns out later than five a.m., it will be readily understood that there is plenty of daylight left for hunting.
Four packs of hounds hunt the Lake Country, and, circumscribed though the area is, there is no difficulty in arranging meets. Appointments seldom clash, for each mountain group has its own foxes and earths, and it is only when they cannot get to earth near home that they rush away over miles of crag and grass, in the usually vain hope of outstripping their pursuers. Many years ago a fox made a circuitous route about the moors at the foot of Kentmere, then ran over into Longsleddale, giving a good forty-five minutes round that valley before the kill. Two packs having joined in the chase, some discussion arose as to which should claim the fox. Two veteran dalesmen were therefore appointed arbitrators, and arrived at a satisfactory decision by selecting the hounds which, in their opinion, had most distinguished themselves in the later stages of the chase.
The hounds most adapted to this class of hunting are big, strong animals; in no pack is uniformity a craze, either in colour or size. Most huntsmen keep a couple of small but exceedingly fast hounds, as they can help the terriers in some of the wider tunnels in the earths, where occasionally a fox will lie at bay on a rock-shelf out of reach of its smaller pursuers. These terriers are very small, hard animals, pugnacious in their excitement but wonderfully docile both before and after. They cannot, of course, pass the rough country at the speed of hounds—barely can they keep up with the humans; therefore the huntsman frequently gives them a lift in his capacious side-pockets. The memories of some of the terriers are phenomenal; only let the pack drive their fox into a particular hole, and its location and interior arrangements are indelibly fixed in the little dogs’ minds.
The life of a fells fox does not present many new features; from birth he has to exert all his marvellous instincts for self-preservation. In spring and summer he lies out for days on the open moors, where the huntsmen dare not come, for fear of injuring the ewes and lambs. All summer Reynard is the scourge of the fells, but when wintry days cover his usual haunts with snow, he is forced to leave for the valleys. ‘Circling round the top of Bowfell were twelve ravens, uttering their hoarse cries, and diving persistently towards some object among the rocks. The safety of their carrion breakfast was at stake, for a prowling fox was evidently the butt at which they were worrying. As we neared the summit, a deep gully on the Langdale side, full of snow and with a considerable cornice at the top, showed where Reynard had escaped his tormentors. The white mantle of snow was covered with the footmarks of the birds, and backwards and forwards along the very edge of the precipice the fox had passed and repassed, evidently afraid to make the plunge. An overhanging rock upon the left, where the snow lay at a severe angle, had given the chance he sought, and he had jumped over, going up to the hips in the fluffy drift beneath.’
By this season the packs are again on the alert, and only occasionally are the foxes given a rest. At a swinging trot the fox gets about a dozen miles from his earth during the night, and, returning at daybreak, finds hounds between him and his strongholds. It is easy work outflanking them, but sooner or later a hum in the rear proclaims that some wanderer has struck his line. Half an hour’s hard racing finds him exhausted—his night’s work has already sapped his strength; then on to the view sweeps the pack. A sharp race forward, a desperate snap at the foremost hound, a momentary check in the parti-coloured stream, a loud, rattling chorus, and bold Reynard’s carcass lies still among the bracken.
The earths whence the red vermin make their journeys, it may be here remarked, might be whole districts from their extent. On Buckbarrow, for instance, standing at the heads of Kentmere, Mardale, and Longsleddale, the ground is tunnelled for the area of almost a square mile, one set of holes communicating with another. The miles of passages generally baffle the ‘cutest of terriers, and the great caverns have heard the death-shriek of many a fighting dog. If hunting is being carried on within the valleys mentioned, the escape of the fox has always to be prevented by blocking the chief entrances to this earth.
The following record of a day’s hunt may show more clearly how the sport is carried on under the circumstances:
As I came round the corner of Kirkstone Fell from Woundale Moss, distinct sounds came from hounds from the side of Red Screes, and a few seconds later my eye was attracted by the huntsman’s red coat crossing the skyline. The pack had therefore started three-quarters of an hour ago; but as there might be a delay before a huntable scent was discovered, I followed at my best pace. Fourteen hundred feet of grassy slack, crag, and scree had to be ascended, to the point where hounds had gone out of sight. In my eagerness, when threading the tortuous way among the crags, I made a wrong turn, leaving the grass benks for a more direct but steeper route. At one point I was climbing a rough ironstone gully, with screes shelving precipitously below, and succeeding this were loose stones. Twenty minutes after leaving the road, however, I passed the caërn on the summit. Windermere, Coniston, Esthwaite, and Ullswater were all visible as I glanced around for the hounds. A faint bay came up the wind, then another; then straight over Scandale I detected figures moving among the boulders. They were, as the crow flies, about a mile and a half distant, but a deep valley lay between. I was not long in getting down the sixteen hundred feet into the dalehead, and then, for the first time, I saw a number of actively moving white dots among the crags. When within a quarter of a mile, the knot of men, who had not moved far during my approach, struck up the fell, leaving me struggling across the boulders at the foot of the crags. Gradually the yards separating us shrank down; then they turned round a crag-end and I lost view. The horn pealed again and again, and each time there was quite a chorus. Game was obviously afoot, and my first was likely to be my last glimpse of the hunting. In a few moments, however, a single hound came into view against the skyline; then I was standing among an inquisitive, sniffing crowd. The rousing signals which had so disconcerted me were those calling the pack from a hopeless scent. Four men followed, and we were heading leisurely back at a fair elevation above the dale, when one of the leading hounds gave the unmistakable triumphant ‘find,’ and the whole, dogs and men, rushed at top speed over very rough ground. Two hundred and fifty yards further on we recovered the pack around a storm-rent outcrop. Two terriers were slipped into the entrance to this ‘hold,’ and very shortly a series of fierce yaps and yells proclaimed that the tenant was giving fight. Bowman ordered hounds and followers to retire, hoping that the fox would make a dash into the open. Looking down a crack in the crags, our huntsman now espied Reynard, and asked us to help clear a passage. Accordingly, a good many pieces of rock were dislodged; but the venue of battle rapidly moving, our work was useless. At this time one of the terriers came out for fresh air, and was immediately seized. He had been at grips with Reynard. What a moan of delight that little draggled white creature gave as he was released! He instantly dashed into the dark opening and rejoined the fray.