Part 8

The master, huntsman, and servants are, during the cub hunting-season, free from many of the annoyances that a large and mixed field too often brings in its train, but they have need of the liberty which a small following and early hours afford. Some M.F.H.’s do not make known their intentions as to when and where they hunt, and small blame to them, for at the very beginning of the season the fewer there are out the better, as thirty, forty, or more couple of hounds, including entering puppies, will require their undivided attention. Yet if they meet at 5.30 or 6 a.m. there is little to fear; for the men who hunt to ride, the men who follow the ladies rather than the hounds, the men who come out to display their attire, and even the horse-breakers who like to educate their young ones at the expense of the hounds, are all most likely still in their earths. A kindly Master who takes a pleasure in seeing the schoolboy on his pony, and a pride in seeing these youngsters enter well, will give them a chance to put in a day or two before the summer holidays end, and will let every regular and trusted member of the hunt have an opportunity of being present. It is to the genuine Nimrod a pleasant thing to get up in the dark, and, after a light breakfast, hastily swallowed, to mount in the dawn and once more find himself jogging beside the hounds along the road on an autumn morning. His mind is easy and his temper unruffled by struggles to get into leathers and top-boots, or by the memory of letters unanswered on his table; any clothes will do, and he will be home again in time to attend to pressing matters of business. There are no lurking fears as to whether his mount is equal to the task before him; there is no waiting at the meet, and hounds are busy in the covert as soon as it is reached. The sound of the horn, the opening pack, the view-halloo from the whipper-in, the crack of the men’s whips, and the rattling and rustling in the gorse, are pleasanter because of the interval that has passed since last they woke the woodlands, and for the stillness of the outside world at this early hour. Soon after the first brace of cubs have been killed, and hounds are being taken to the next cover, the labourer going to the field and the horses to the plough remind him how young the day still is; and a little later the sun on his back, and the “had enough” appearance of the five or six couple of hounds trailing behind the huntsman, tell him that it is still only cub-hunting, and time for all to be going home. There are, on these days, reminders that one year has gone and another begun, and you miss some of the old veterans with grizzled and scarred muzzles, and hear that a few of those you welcome, as you have welcomed them for half a dozen seasons, when work with cubs began, are there only till the young ’uns have been entered; and you see the new entry, with their as yet unfamiliar forms, answering to unfamiliar names. In October many a run takes place that would do credit to the open season, and these fast spins across the country, when the ground is hard and fences and ditches horribly blind, can test the mettle of horse and rider, and make any man feel very comfortably satisfied with his performance, if, by luck or good management, he negotiates the hidden dangers that lurk on one side or the other of most October fences. In a run at this time of the year, gates are as yet fastened up, the gaps of a past season are undiscoverable, the weak places and the strong blackthorn branches are covered with the leaf and bramble. The fastest twenty-five minutes I ever saw was run on a certain 14th October, hounds getting away together in a bunch from Seamer Whin, and killing their fox in ground now covered by the suburbs of smoky Middlesborough. It was not cub-hunting, yet one of those delightful “things” that is the well-earned reward of the constant follower, the envy of the absent one, and ten times more enjoyed for being unexpected.

Countries vary so much in the proportion of woodland they contain, and in the stock of foxes that may be depended upon, that the circumstances of each district influence the character of cub-hunting. Where coverts are extensive and numerous, and litters abound, cubbing may mean the deliberate killing down of a great number of cubs in the interests of the sport that is to follow, and far beyond what is required for blooding hounds. When foxes are well preserved, and in plenty, a Master does well to kill a large number, for there is this amount of truth in the saying, “The more foxes you kill, the more you will have,” that owners of game coverts and non-hunting proprietors are unwilling very often to encourage foxes or to have litters on their places if a fair proportion are not killed. In such a country as this, even when, owing to an early harvest or absence of arable land, a start is made in August, cub-hunting may be cub-hunting and cub-killing all the time up to the end of October. In other hunts, after a week or two’s cubbing, hunting may be very much the same as after the opening day, the scarlet coat and top-boot alone marking the transition. The conduct of the huntsman will not be so much actuated by blood-thirstiness, as by the wish to discover where there are foxes, to give the cubs a little instruction in going away, and hounds a few lessons of how to behave in the open. He will not, or need not, ask every time whether a fox is an old one or not, and many a run that would be considered good in the winter can be enjoyed in October in such a country as this. But for the great majority of hunting-men, these early days are but the time for getting their studs together, their horses and themselves into condition; and custom and tradition has consecrated the first hunting-day in November as the New Year for a follower of hounds.

VIII

THE GREATEST RUN I EVER SAW

VIII

IF anyone were to ask me which was the best run I ever saw, I should say the great run with the Cleveland hounds on Monday, January 9, 1882. Probably many, if not most, hunting-men would turn up their noses at it if they saw the country over which the most extraordinary fox in my experience took us, for I admit that nothing but the fact of having been bred in such a wild hunting country would make it in the widest sense a rideable one. I must further confess that the fact of being sole survivor of it makes its memory all the dearer, though I regret to this day that I had no companion during the last twenty-five minutes to support my evidence, or to discuss with me in after years its wonders. I trust that in attempting to describe it, if I seem to be utterly devoid of modesty and to be blowing loud blasts on my own horn, it will be remembered that every man has some day in a long life, in which he is conscious that he has had the best of it. This was my day, and I certainly felt at the end of it that it would have been worth risking one’s life for; it gave me the sensation that comes now and again in every life, of not having lived in vain. The following account is for the most part from my diary, written while I was still stiff from the previous day’s exertions.

Monday, 9th January 1882.--Hounds met at Ayton, where there was breakfast at the Buck. This was the most extraordinary day I ever had. I rode Queen Mab in the morning till she got an overreach, when I changed on to Faraway, on which horse I finished the first, and was there when Bob Brunton took the fox from the hounds in Hell Gill. I state this to correct the press accounts, which describe my getting my second horse in the great run--not to save my own credit, but to preserve the record of my horse’s marvellous performance. The first was a ringing run, fairly fast, on the hills between Roseberry Topping and Guisborough Banks, and for forty minutes I rode Faraway up and down the hills, over the moors, and in and out of the gills before we found the second and ever-memorable fox. My brother Jack did not have a second horse, but rode his mount (a blood Irish hunter called Sligo, that cost two hundred and fifty guineas, and was worth every sixpence of the money) all day, and “let him have it” in the first run. If we had both started from scratch, he might have taken first honours; as it was, he took the second place in a numerous field, as the sequel will show. I have no doubt that the competition between us ministered to my success, for we generally rode a trifle jealous, but were always best pleased when we could share the honours.

I must for a moment depart from my diary, and say a word about Faraway. He was an Irish thoroughbred, by Fairyland, purchased at Tattersall’s in 1880, from the stud of chestnuts sent up by Captain Amcotts, of the 5th Dragoon Guards. He was knocked down to me for fifty guineas. I followed him back to his box, and when I asked the groom why he had only two old shoes on, and what was wrong with the brute, he said, “Sure, he’s a grand hunter, and nothing wrong wid him; but ye can’t shoe him, clip him, or physic him.” Some years after I found that he had killed a blacksmith just before I bought him; he was quite capable of killing any number of that profession or any other--yet it was not temper, but fear and nerves, that made him dangerous. Fast as the wind, hard as nails, wild as a hawk, are all expressions that fitted him. His little failings were discourtesy--for he met strangers visiting his box on his hind-legs and sparred at them--and buck-jumping, at which he could beat anything I ever saw at the Wild West Show, refusing to let anyone hold his bridle or to stand still while being mounted. One great fault he had--he would not, when hounds ran, allow you to open a gate, always managing, if you did succeed in getting your hand out to reach the catch, to dive under your arm and whip round; while, if anyone opened the gate for you, he went through it like a bullet. But when once I had become familiar with his eccentricities, and abandoned all attempts to differ with his methods and manners, I found him one of the most delightful mounts I ever got across--all life, liberty, and whalebone, and impossible to tire. I counted him among the most precious of my possessions, till after a bad fall he nearly killed me, breaking a few of my bones, and making me literally sit up and spit blood. I then yielded to the solicitations of my friends, and sold him to Mr. James Darrell, who told me he had gone well in Leicestershire in other hands.

To return to my diary. After the first fox had been broken up, and the brush presented to the Hon. A. Sidney, of Ingleby, the head being attached to my own saddle, we went to Highcliff, where we found the real old Cæsar, a great grey-hound fox. He broke over the moor at once, and we raced across to Bethel Slack. They drove down Wiley Gill, making the ravine ring again, as far as Slapewath, and then he again took the open for a short time, till he got level with Cass Rock. He then took along Guisborough Banks to where we found him, hounds running hard all the way. He now tried a change of tactics, and took a line that was to astonish all and to make most cry “capevi!” breaking on to Guisborough Moor. Hounds followed at a terrific pace, leaving all but the blood horses far behind. By Sleddale he turned west and crossed the great bog. My brother (who was level with, or in front of me here) and I went straight at it, our only chance of getting near the now flying pack being to take everything as it came. In we went, both together, he getting to the other side with a frantic struggle; Faraway, mad with being thus checked, rolled, plunged, and kicked, so that I could not recover the reins after I had got on to my feet. After a minute’s delay, that seemed an eternity, we bucketed up the hill, while below us were others in the bog, looking in vain for a crossing. When I reached the sky-line, nothing could I see or hear. One moment of agonising anxiety, and I caught a glimpse of my brother’s hat, bobbing up as he rose a distant hill. As hard as I could take my horse, I made for this ever-blessed top-hat, and came up with him near the Piggeries, as he rode at the tail of the now almost silent pack, streaming in a file along the moor road. They ran as if it were a drag; it was real business. A mile like this on the straight, and then a swift, sure swing over the wall to the right, and they were flying over the Kildale Valley--my brother and I, in our glory, taking every wall and fence as it met us. A left turn, and in a minute we were going up the valley to the moors above Baysdale. Here were sheep pastures enclosed with hideous walls, wire on most, and all uphill. Sligo takes a line of barricaded gaps; Faraway goes slap-bang through the first gate, and then takes the timber decently and in order. Another bog, another stream, a few more fences, and then the open moor. How much longer can a horse go this pace? It is too serious a business to speak to each other as we pound down into Baysdale, the hounds getting the better of us. As we cross the enclosures by Baysdale Abbey, the one solitary ploughman in the out-of-the-world valley stops in his work to look at the rare spectacle.

“Have you seen him?” I shout.

“Ay! a gurt grey-hound fox.”

“How long since?”

“Seven minutes.”

Seven minutes, and hounds racing like this! Will they never check?--no, they never will, and some will never return to the kennel again. The Abbey is passed in one hour and twenty minutes from the find, with only one momentary check, and the mountain beyond looks impossible to negotiate. I cross the stream, and begin the ascent with a few tail hounds. They have shot their bolt, and are struggling on with bloodshot eyes, dropping into my wake as I pass them.

“Come on, Jack! You must do it.”

“I can’t. Look at Sligo.”

Sligo was standing rocking at the foot of the hill, with his back up and staring eye--he was completely done. Could I get up to that sky-line where the last trailing hounds were disappearing? It looked desperate, but Faraway did it, and now I must give him a minute. I had dismounted the last twenty yards to pull him up the top edge of the scar. I could see about eleven couple filing away along the ridge of the moor half a mile ahead. Absolutely nothing but range after range of barren moors was now in sight! Where was this strange fox bound for? I was astonished to find my horse still full of going, as I got on to the ridge and on to sound ground, and in a few minutes I was alongside the leading seven couple. Hounds now bore along for the Farndale head moors, and one by one the stragglers gave up the chase. Now and then one of these would pull up all at once. I saw the veteran Hermit roll into the heather, where he was found cold and dead next day. Still the leading bunch held on, and Wrangle (from the Oakley) is driving away first, followed closely by Statesman, Bajazet, Rascal, and Ringwood. As they crossed a boggy slack, I strained my eyes to see this terrible fox; it was impossible he could stand up many minutes more. I felt for my knife--but the end is not to be yet. The thought uppermost in my mind is, what a wonder my horse is! Is it possible for any animal to survive this? and yet he is going strong. The moors look endless; I can see, even in the fast-deepening dusk, miles of desolation in front.

A turn to the right, and we reach the edge of the hillside above Ingleby. Down the rocks and the cliff-side dash the now only seven couple, and once more open into cry. The pace on the moor was too great for much speaking. I cannot get down there. I make a despairing effort to cross a bog at the top--I cannot do it. The north wind is blowing a cloud of spray from the dripping bog at the edge of the cliff, and the stars are coming out. I see beyond me an abandoned workman’s shanty, and my mind is made up. The door is locked; a good kick and it is open. In the inside there is just room for my horse. The ceiling is low, but so is now his head. I shut the door and run as fast as top-boots will allow along the edge of the cliff to the top of Midnight Crags. Here I hear the hounds still running some hundred of feet below me in the darkness. I labour on, till, exhausted, I sit down above the pass into Bilsdale. I can still hear them occasionally, in spite of the wind howling up the gully, and then all is still. I wait some minutes, then halloo with all my might. They have either killed or run to ground, but wherever it is, I cannot reach them.

Eventually five and a half couples came to me, and I floundered and blundered over the moor to my horse. I had not a match, so as to examine the mouths of the hounds, but, as far as I could judge, they had not killed. I could find no blood--perhaps if they had run into him they had not managed to do more than just kill. I drained my flask, and led my horse down the Ingleby incline, reaching at length Ingleby village.

When I got to the inn, to my surprise, there was Bob Brunton, who, having lost all trace of us in Kildale, whither he had tracked us, had ridden on here with Richard Spink of the Bilsdale, where, night overtaking them, they had sought shelter and refreshment. Bob, on seeing me, literally hugged me, and swore I ought to be knighted. We got the hounds bedded in a barn and fed, and my horse gruelled, and then I jogged home--but sleep was banished by aching limbs, and the excitement of the day. All night I saw the whole scene enacted over again. The streaming ten couple always tearing and racing on as if for ever over valley and lonely moor. I felt my horse floundering through the bogs again; myself clambering up and down those gills under the stars--each wall and stream, gate and stile were jumped a dozen times. I could see again the straggling hounds, run out, sitting in the heather, and hear their dismal howling as they realised they were “done” and “lost.”

Now this run was an extraordinarily long one; it cannot be made less than 19 miles, and is more like 21. It was 11 miles from point of find to Ingleby Landslip; but where I think it tops the record is the pace. I believe the whole run to have occupied 1 hour and 45 minutes--1 hour and 20 minutes to Baysdale, and 25 on to the landslip. I know that it will not be credited by most hunting-men, but it must be remembered that it was mostly over open moorland, with few obstacles to check hounds, and, except the solitary ploughman in Baysdale, no sign of humanity all the way. Three hounds died of exhaustion, and the other lost ones were only got back by degrees during the week following.

In connection with this run I think the following performance of Bob Brunton’s worth recording. He had hunted all day, being at the meet at Ayton some miles from his home, and I found him at Ingleby at night. He remounted after he had attended to the hounds, and rode to Guisborough, say 8 miles, where he looked in at a political meeting which was being held; he rode on the same night to the Kennels at Warrenby, 8 miles more, and found the huntsman sitting up disconsolate and refusing to go to bed without his hounds. He started before daybreak (3 a.m.), and, riding the same horse, accompanied the huntsman, Will Nicoll, to Ingleby (12 miles); hence he helped to collect the lost hounds on the moor and in Bilsdale; and the following afternoon I met him, still on the same horse, now more like a gigantic grey-hound than anything else, escorting the hounds back to Warrenby from Ingleby (16 miles); and when this was accomplished, he rode home to Marton (7 miles); so that if we put down 40 miles for the long hard day’s hunting, we have

To the meet and two long runs, and to Ingleby 40 Ingleby to Guisborough 8 Guisborough to Warrenby 8 Warrenby to Ingleby 16 Collecting hounds 10 Ingleby to Warrenby 16 Warrenby to Marton 7 ――― 105 ―――

a total of 105 miles, 65 of which were undoubtedly ridden after the day’s hunting by Mr. Brunton on the same horse that he had ridden hard (for he was among the hardest riders ever seen in Cleveland) during the longest and severest day the Cleveland hounds have had in my lifetime.

As for the horses, Faraway was at covert side again within three weeks. Sligo, with whom it appeared to be a case for an anxious hour or so, came up to time as well.

Finally, a few words about the hounds that led the van. Two couple were to the front the whole time, and Wrangle led throughout.

1. Wrangle was a powerful bitch that Mr. Wharton, now master of the Cleveland, brought from the Oakley. She was by the Milton Wrangler, out of Oakley Flora. She was 5 years old at the time of this run, and was on the list of the running hounds till 1885, and at the great age of 9, for a hunting-hound, could still hold her place. From this bitch are descended many of the best hounds in the Cleveland kennel.

2. Ringwood, by Lord Fitzwilliam’s Champion, out of his Roguish, was 7 years old.