Sporting Society; or, Sporting Chat and Sporting Memories, Vol. 2 (of 2)
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Title: Sporting Society; or, Sporting Chat and Sporting Memories, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Editor: Fox Russell
Illustrator: Randolph Caldecott
Release date: July 23, 2012 [eBook #40302]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPORTING SOCIETY; OR, SPORTING CHAT AND SPORTING MEMORIES, VOL. 2 (OF 2) ***
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SPORTING SOCIETY
[Illustration: IN FULL CRY. By R. CALDECOTT.]
SPORTING SOCIETY
OR
_SPORTING CHAT AND SPORTING MEMORIES_
STORIES HUMOROUS AND CURIOUS; WRINKLES OF THE FIELD
AND THE RACE-COURSE; ANECDOTES OF THE STABLE AND
THE KENNEL; WITH NUMEROUS PRACTICAL
NOTES ON SHOOTING AND FISHING
FROM THE PEN OF
VARIOUS SPORTING CELEBRITIES AND
WELL-KNOWN WRITERS ON THE TURF AND THE CHASE
EDITED BY
FOX RUSSELL
Illustrations by Randolph Caldecott.
_IN TWO VOLUMES--VOL. II._
LONDON
BELLAIRS & CO.
1897
CONTENTS
PAGE
SPORTING OF THE PAST AND THE PRESENT DAY 1
By "OLD CALABAR"
DOWN THE BECK 23
By G. CHRISTOPHER DAVIES
AN APOLOGY FOR FISHING 45
DOGS I HAVE KNOWN 58
By Captain R. BIRD THOMPSON
NOVEMBER SHOOTING 85
By "OLD CALABAR"
SPORTING ADVENTURES OF CHARLES CARRINGTON, ESQ. 94
By "OLD CALABAR"
MY FIRST DAY'S FOX-HUNTING 121
By the Owner of "Iron Duke"
MY FIRST AND LAST STEEPLE-CHASE 139
A Story of a "Dark" Horse
SALMON-SPEARING 165
CARPE DIEM 182
By the Author of "Mountain, Meadow and Mere"
NEWMARKET 192
By Captain R. BIRD THOMPSON
KATE'S DAY WITH THE OLD HORSE 207
By CLIVE PHILLIPS WOLLEY
SOME CURIOUS HORSES 235
By Captain R. BIRD THOMPSON
SPORTING FOR MEN OF MODERATE MEANS 259
By "OLD CALABAR"
PARTRIDGE MANORS AND ROUGH SHOOTING 285
By "OLD CALABAR"
WHO IS TO RIDE HIM? 302
By "OLD CALABAR"
A CUB-HUNTING INVITATION 331
By the EDITOR
TOLD AFTER MESS 336
By the EDITOR
SPORTING OF THE PAST AND THE PRESENT DAY
"O tempora! O mores!" how our grandsires would stare if they could
only see how differently sporting in all its branches is carried on
now-a-days; it would make their pigtails stand on end, and the brass
buttons fly off their blue coats in very fright.
There are few of the Squire Western school now left; but occasionally
you may still come across some jovial old sportsman of eighty years
or more, who, though his form is shrunken, and his snow-white head
proclaims that many winters have passed over it, yet carries a pair of
eyes as bright and keen as of yore, eyes that glisten again when he
launches forth on his favourite hobby.
I know several gentlemen nearer eighty than seventy who still shoot,
and keep a fine kennel of dogs. One of these gentlemen only last year
took a moor in Scotland for five years. May he live to enjoy it and
renew his lease.
I could name many close on, ay, over fourscore, who ride well yet to
hounds; and though they may not be such bruisers as they once were
across country, yet are difficult to choke off.
It is just forty-one years [this was written twenty years ago] since I
had my first mount to hounds. There is no _non mi ricordo_ with me. I
can recollect the day as well as yesterday, the pinks, the beaver-hats
of curious shape, the short-tailed horses, are too vividly impressed on
my memory ever to be effaced. Men went out in those days for hunting,
and not merely for a gallop. Time changes all things, and I suppose we
must change with the times; but are these changes for the better? Well,
I will not give an opinion, but leave others to decide.
The hounds of those days were not nearly so fast as those of the
present; and I am inclined to think that our hounds are now bred too
fine and speedy--for some countries they certainly are--and often flash
over and lose a scent which ought not to be lost.
Hunting, in the days I speak of, could be enjoyed by men of very
moderate means, for it was not necessary to have two or three horses
out. In some countries, especially woodland ones, one horse may still
do; but, as a rule, hounds are now so fast, and horses so lightly bred
to what they were, that no hunter, however good he may be, can live
with them from find to finish. If you wish to see a run out, you must
have your first and second horsemen riding to points. These men must
not only be light-weights, but steady, know the country, save their
animals, and be there when wanted.
You seldom, at least where I hunted, saw men driving up to the meet in
their well-appointed broughams, mail-phaetons, or what-not. A long
distance was done, in my early days, on a cover hack; and one hunter
did where three are now required.
In the present day you see men stepping from their close carriages with
the morning papers in their hands, beautifully got up--a choice regalia
between their lips, with holland overalls to keep their spotless
buckskins from speck of dirt or cigar ashes. Very different from the
hardy men you encountered years gone by, alas! never to return
again--cantering along on a corky tit, with _leather_ overalls. Now you
have all sorts of devices--waterproof aprons _before_ and _behind_--in
my idea it only wants some enterprising man to bring out a hunting-crop
with an umbrella, something similar to the ladies' driving-whips, whip
and parasol in one, to complete the picture. Fancy men hunting with
_waterproof aprons_--they should go out for _nurses_!
Perhaps, as years creep on, one is wont to look back on his youthful
days and fondly imagine nothing is done so well now as then. Understand,
I do not say hunting and shooting are not as good as they were. I do
both still, and enjoy them as much as ever; but there is not so much
_sport_ in them, to my mind, as formerly--men are not the _hardy_,
genuine sportsmen they were.
Horses are much dearer now than twenty, thirty, forty years
back--provender also. Where £1 would go thirty years ago, you require
now nearly £1, 10s.; this alone prevents many men from following their
favourite pursuits.
The time is not far distant when hunting will be given up in England;
railways, the price of land, and the high market prices which must
necessarily come with an increase of population, are doing their work
slowly but surely. The present generation are not likely to witness it:
so much the better, for it would break the hearts of some to see the
noble pastime of hunting on its "last legs." Waste land, too, is being
rapidly enclosed, and what are now wilds, fifty or sixty years hence
may be flourishing districts.
How many country villages are now huge towns! I remember, years ago,
when I used to meet the Queen's hounds, before the South-Western line
was made, there was only one old wayside inn at Woking, which was much
resorted to by "the fancy," for it was a noted spot for pugilists. Many
and many a prize-fight have I seen there. Now Woking is a little
town--I mean the new town, not the old town some four miles distant;
and the spots where I used to knock over the snipe and plover are now
built on and enclosed. And so it will go on to the end of all time;
bricks and mortar, iron and compo, will rise up, large and small
buildings, all over the face of the country, and those whose hearts are
still bent on sport will have to go farther afield for it.
But this is already done. France, Sweden, Norway, Hungary, Bohemia,
Bavaria, and other countries, have their English sportsmen. Railways
have made nearly all places within reach of those with means. Scotch
moors that you could rent thirty years ago for £50 a year, are now
£500; the rivers the same; and grouse that are killed one day in
Scotland are eaten the next in all parts of the United Kingdom.
Some men meet the hounds now thirty and forty miles away from home.
They breakfast comfortably at home, then step into the train, and are
whirled away with their horses and grooms; have a gallop, come home, or
perhaps go out to a grand luncheon; lounge down to their club, or do a
few calls, then dine, and go to one of the theatres to see the last new
thing; finish up with a supper or a ball, or perhaps both.
Old Squire Broadfurrow has ridden his stout, easy-going hack to cover,
has had a clinking day, and a fox run into, as the crow flies, about
eight-and-twenty miles from his home. The old man, nothing daunted,
jogs quietly along and pulls up at the first country inn, orders a chop
for himself and a bucket of gruel for his horse, gets home in good time
to entertain three or four choice souls at dinner, ride the run over
again, and talk of some shooting they are going to have on the morrow.
Reader, which is the pleasanter style of the two? which the most
healthy? Railways and hunting I cannot reconcile with my ideas of
sport; there is a sort of cockneyism about it that I do not like; it
seems to me poor "form."
Men change, too, in their ideas as well as their dress. I was talking
some time ago to an old friend of mine who had been an inveterate
fox-hunter, did his six days a week, and spent the seventh in the
kennel; if you asked him what Sunday it was, you always got the same
answer, "Infliction Sunday."
I asked him how he was getting on in the hunting line.
"Hunting, my dear fellow; why, I have given it up years ago--all
humbug! What on earth is the use of a man making a guy of himself,
putting on a pink coat, top-boots, and uncomfortable leather breeches,
and for what?--to gallop after a lot of yelping dogs, and to catch a
fox which is of no earthly use to any one when he is brought to hand;
endangering your neck, breaking fences, and destroying land and the
crops. Hunting is an idiotic fashion; half the men only hunt for the
sake of dress, and for mounting the pink. If they must hunt, why not
dress like reasonable beings, in comfortable cords, gaiters, and a
shooting-jacket? Ah! then you would not see half the men out you do
now. I am quite ashamed to think I ever hunted. Just come and look at
my shorthorns, will you?"
In sporting parlance, I was "knocked clean out of time;" this was the
inveterate six-days-a-week man.
"But you shoot?" I asked, seeing it was necessary to say something.
"Oh yes! I shoot, and fish occasionally, when the May-fly is
up--anything but hunting. There, what do you think of that bull?"
Shooting, too, is wonderfully changed. Where are the high stubbles we
so eagerly sought on the first of September?--gone, gone for ever. The
reaping-machine cuts it off now as close as the cloth on a billiard
table.
It has often been said the birds are wilder at present than they were:
admitting this to be the case, the cause probably is the high state of
cultivation, and nothing more. There is not the cover there was
formerly to hold them, and therefore they are more difficult to get at.
Turnips are now sown in drills, and not broadcast, as grain usually
was. If you work down the drills, the birds see you, and are off the
other end: the only way is to take them across. Yet there are thousands
of places where the cover is good and plentiful; and where this is the
case the birds lie as well as ever.
Game is scarcer than it was, except on manors that are highly
preserved: it must be remembered that where there was one shooter
formerly, there are twenty now. It is a difficult matter at present to
rent a shooting, for directly there is anything good in the market it
is snatched up at once.
The general style of shooting of the present day is odious--large bags
are "the go." In some countries it has done away with the noble pointer
and setter altogether; nothing but retrievers are used. The guns,
beaters, and keepers are all in a line: a gun, then a keeper with a
retriever, a beater, another gun, and so on. The word is given, and
away they go, taking a field in a beat. As you fire--possibly there are
two or three guns popping at the same bird--a keeper falls out, and
finds it with his retriever, whilst you are going on. Can this be
called sport? It is nothing more than pot-hunting, wholesale butchery.
Give me my brace of pointers and setters, and let me shoot my game to
points; there is some pleasure in that. What can be a more beautiful
sight to the shooting man than to see a brace of well-bred dogs,
ranging and quartering their ground like clockwork, backing and
standing like rocks, steady before and behind, and dropping to fur and
wing, as if they were shot? Working to hand, and obeying your slightest
word--beautiful, intelligent creatures--there is some pleasure in
shooting over such animals as these.
Then driving is another pot-hunting system, and does no end of harm;
and so those who practise it will find out before many years are over.
More game is wounded and left to pine away and die than many have an
idea of--a more cruel and unsportsmanlike system has never been thought
of, and I much regret it has its votaries. A heavy hot luncheon from a
Norwegian kitchener is now the correct thing--heavy eating and drinking
must form a prominent feature in the day's programme, otherwise it is
not sport.
A few men are still content with their sherry-flask and sandwich, and I
would back these to beat the others into fits in a day's sport. One
does not go out to eat, but to shoot, and a man that has laid in a
heavy luncheon can neither walk well up to his dogs nor shoot straight
after it.
Great improvements have been made in guns. The old flint that took half
an hour to load was a bore; the flint had every now and then to be
chipped and renewed, the pans fresh steeled, the touch-hole pricked,
powder put in the pan, and even then there were constant misfires and
disappointments. The flint in time gave way to the percussion, a great
improvement; but there are many inconveniences with this; unless the
nipples are kept clean, and the gun washed each time after using,
constant misfires are the consequence. Then, in cold weather it is no
end of trouble to get the caps on. With half-frozen fingers it is a
difficult job; but this has been remedied by a cap-holder, which sends
the caps up with a spring as you want them. With both flint and
percussion there were great inconveniences in loading; the spring of
your powder or shot flask might break, and then you had to judge your
charge till they were repaired. All this trouble was put an end to by
the introduction of the breech-loader, which has not half the danger,
is ten times quicker, and much more convenient in every way; the
ammunition more easily carried, and there are very few misfires. The
gun wants no washing, merely a rag passed through, and it is clean. But
I am not going into the subject of guns and all their improvements; I
have merely mentioned these to show the great stride that has been made
in the last fifty years in shot guns.
Steeplechasing and racing I must touch on, and the little I have to say
will not be in its favour.
The hateful passion of betting is slowly but surely ruining the turf;
for there are not the same class of men on it that there were thirty
years ago.
Where do you see fine old sportsmen like the late Sir Gilbert
Heathcote? He raced for the pleasure of racing, and so did many others
who never betted a shilling; but it is all altered now, and not for the
better.
Young men--ay, and old ones too--ruin themselves by betting; Government
and other clerks squander their salaries away, which might maintain
them, and perhaps a mother or a sister who is totally dependent upon
them; the butlers and footmen pawn the family plate _to meet their
engagements_; and the shop-boy is often detected _in flagrante
delicto_, with his hands in the till, purloining a half-crown or two to
enable him to go with Mary Hann to 'Ampton. You are pestered with
letters from tipsters--scoundrels who know just as much of a horse or
racing as they do of the man in the moon. The man from whom you can get
nothing else, is always ready with his advice on the momentous subject
of "what to back" for this race or that, quite ignoring the question of
whether he really does or does not "know anything," to use turf
parlance.
Betting will never be put down entirely, but much might be done. Were I
to commence racing again, I would hit the ring and the betting
fraternity as hard as I could to scare them from backing my horses for
the future. This cannot always be done, but after one or two such
lessons people would be shy of burning their fingers over my stable. I
daresay I should be called an "old curmudgeon," "selfish brute," and
"no sportsman;" but after all said and done, you race to please
yourself, not the public. You have to pay the hay and corn bill,
trainer's expenses, and, above all, entry fees, far the heaviest item
in the whole list; and surely, if any money is to be had over a race,
the owner should be allowed "first run" at it.
We see no Alice Hawthorns or Beeswings now-a-days; racing men cannot
afford to let their colts or fillies come to maturity: most are broken
down before they are three years old. Government ought to interfere and
put a veto on two-year-old races; this done, and the One and Two
Thousand, the Derby, Oaks, and Leger made for four-year-olds, then we
might hope to see our racehorses and hunters coming back to their
former stout form. But this we shall never see. John Bull, with his
proverbial stubbornness, will stick to his old line.
I was one and twenty years riding and racing in France, and was highly
amused when the French first began sending over horses to us; we
generously allowed them seven pounds--half a stone. How I laughed and
chuckled in my sleeve when I heard this! After a little time Mr Bull
found this would not do, so he came to even weights; but he received
such a lesson with Fille de l'Air and Gladiateur, that it made the old
gentleman stare considerably, and pull rather a long face.
Racing men, I will tell you what you probably already know, but will
not admit--the French could better give us seven pounds than we them:
their three-year-olds are nearly as forward as our four-year-olds.
The climate of France is warmer than ours, horses do better and furnish
quicker there, and the time is not far distant when they will beat us
as easily as we used to beat them. It is no use disguising it; it is a
fact, and a fact, too, that is being accomplished; for no one will deny
that the French already take a pretty good share of our best stakes.
They have a climate better suited for horses, they buy our best sires
and mares, have English trainers and riders, therefore what is to
prevent them from beating us? They have done it already, and will
continue doing so.
We have found out that when we take horses over there we are generally
beaten, and this alone ought to convince us that the French horses are
more forward than ours. Racing now-a-days is nothing more than a very
precarious speculation, and the practice of some on the turf to gain
their own ends is anything but (not to use a stronger word) creditable.
Within the last few years, gentleman after gentleman has left the turf
disgusted and disheartened; and well they might be, for if a man is not
very careful, there is no finer school than a racecourse to pick up
swindling, dishonesty, and blackguardism.
Your fashionable light-weight jocks of the present day have their
country houses, their valets, their broughams, hunters, and what-not.
The old riding fee of £3 for a losing race and £5 for a winning one is
seldom heard of except at little country meetings. Trainers and jockeys
are at present much bigger men than their masters; and why? because
they allow them to be so; they may owe them a long bill, or be
foolishly good-natured in putting their servants on the same footing as
themselves by undue familiarity--'Hail fellow well met' with them.
Racing will never be what it was again, for the reasons I have
mentioned. Speculation is too rife to allow it a healthy tone. Shortly
but few gentlemen will be left as racing men, and the turf will be
represented by the lower five, and men to whom the meaning of the words
honour, honesty, principle, and conscience, are unknown.
Coursing too, a healthy and fine amusement, even this cannot be enjoyed
without the presence of the betting fraternity, bawling and shouting. A
clean sweep should be made of them.
Pigeon-shooting as well. Although I am not an admirer of this pastime
(sport I will not call it), yet one cannot stroll down to Hurlingham or
the Bush, to look on, but what one must be pestered with odds offered
on the gun or bird. Your shady and doubtful betting men are nuisances.
Who on earth wants to lose a lot of money to moneyless scoundrels? But
there are fools who do so, and they deserve to be fleeced.
Many of our old sports have died out. The Ring is a thing of the past,
and so is the Cock-pit. I am savage enough to say I liked a prize-fight
and a cock-fight. When it was on the square, a prize-fight was a most
exciting scene. Yet both have very wisely been put down, and athletic
sports take their place.
I seldom see the fine old game of bowls played now. Le gras, too, has
gone out.
Polo, which I think nothing of, is the rage amongst gentlemen now. I
see nothing in it whatever; it is a wretched game for the _lookers-on_;
but then it is the fashion.
The fine old game of cricket is totally altered. I shall have the
cricketing world down on me, but I care not. I think the present style
of bowling has entirely ruined the game as a game of science. There are
not many Graces in the present day, nor were there many Wards of the
olden time. Cricketers of the present day look like so many hogs in
armour; and where one man bowls tolerably over-handed, fifty who
attempt it cannot bowl at all--they are never on the spot. Consequently
the balls break anywhere. I would ten times rather stand before the
fastest man in England who is true than I would to a middling fast one
who is not.
I remember, many, many years ago, at the Royal Clarence Cricket
Club--alas! defunct (I have the button still)--which had its ground on
Moulsey Hurst, taking old Ward's wicket the third ball with a
round-hander. It was a bit of practice we were having: I was a lad at
the time, and the old gentleman had stuck half-a-crown on the centre
stump for me to bowl at: he had no doubt played carelessly, wishing to
give me a chance. He looked surprised at seeing his wicket fall. He
coolly put them up again, and on the centre stump was a sovereign.
"There, young fellow," he said, "bowl at _that_." I did bowl at _that_,
till I was almost ready to drop, but _that_ never came into my pocket.
Yes it did, though, but not by taking his wicket. I shall never forget
the fine old gentleman, with his bat nearly black with oil and age.
Cricket still holds, and always will deservedly hold, a high place in
our English sports.
Boats and rowing have made immense strides for the better; the only
thing I am disposed to cavil at with regard to it is the training. I am
inclined to think the severe preparation they have to go through to get
fit, tells on the constitution of young men who are not full grown and
set. But training now is so carefully looked to, that after all there
may not be the danger one imagines. One thing is certain, that it is
much less dangerous to row or run a severe race _well prepared_: it is
inward fat that chokes men, causes apoplexy and what-not. Men in
training, if they are careful and do not catch cold, and are not too
severely taxed, have little to apprehend; and this is why an
experienced trainer is necessary.
Bicycling, too, is a fine healthy amusement, develops the muscles and
keeps a man in wind and health: he may get all over the country and at
one-tenth the former expense of railway travelling. But bicycling, like
all other sports and exercises, has its abuses as well as its uses, and
when one sees men flying along a road (to the manifest danger of the
public) bent double over the handles of their machines, it gives one
pause, as to whether crooked backs, contracted chests, and knee trouble
are not in store for a future generation.
There are many lakes, large and small, in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland,
that cannot be either fished or shot for want of a boat. It is costly
to get a boat up the mountains, and very often, especially in Ireland,
there are no roads, or horses cannot traverse them. Therefore something
light but safe is necessary. The Rev. E. L. Berthon, of Romsey, Hants,
has invented a boat which is admirably suited for the purpose: it is a
folding canvas boat of two skins, _cannot be overset_, and is quite
buoyant if filled with water. The one I have is a fishing boat; it
carries four, but two can go with comfort; it is only 70 pounds in
weight, 9 feet long, and 4 feet broad. They are made any size, as will
be seen from the extract I give from the _Times_.
"Berthon's Collapsible Barge.--Among other scientific devices with
which the 'Faraday' is supplied, with the view of facilitating the
laying of the Direct United States cable, is a 'collapsible barge,' the
principle of which, the invention of the Reverend E. L. Berthon--a name
already well known in nautical circles in connection with his perpetual
log--was originally applied by Mr Berthon to life-boats, a number of
which, it is stated, are in course of construction. The barge was built
by Mr E. R. Berthon, the son of the inventor, and is to be used in
laying the shore ends of the cable, of which it will carry from 20 to
30 tons with a very light draught of water. The proportions of length
in the barge are very unusual, being nearly 2 to 1, the dimensions
being, length 31 feet, width 16 feet, and depth 4 feet; such, however,
is its collapsibility, that, stowed away on the deck of the
_Faraday_, it only measures 2 feet at its greatest width. The
barge is cellular in construction, and when a small confining rope is
cast off it extends automatically, inhaling into its ten cells about
500 cubic feet of air. During the process of expansion, the jointed
bottom boards, which are 14 feet wide, fall into their places, and,
lever staunchions being placed under the gunwales, the barge is ready
for lowering in a minute or two. When in the water a very substantial
platform is lowered into the barge, composed of beams 7-1/2 inches
thick and 1 inch planks; upon this deck the cable will be coiled, and
paid over a large iron sheave at the stern-post. The barge weighs about
23 cwt., and having great powers of flotation, with light draught, is
expected to be very serviceable in laying the shore ends of the new
cable; the principle, moreover, appears to be one which it might be
found desirable to introduce into the life-boat service."
Mine is the smallest size made, and when collapsed is only 7 inches
wide. To open and launch it takes less than one minute. It also sails
very well, and on lakes, with a small spritsail with brails, it is
exactly the thing. A prettier and more useful little boat I never had.
I have mentioned this boat because I have often been asked about such a
thing. If by any chance the outer skin should be injured--which is not
likely, for the canvas is immensely strong--it makes but little
difference to the boat, and the injury is easily repaired. I can
strongly recommend it to any one wanting such a thing.
But to "our mutton"--sporting of the past and the present day.
Returning to olden times, our fathers and forefathers were not ashamed
to run horses, greyhounds, etc., in their _own_ names; now men do so
more and more under _assumed_ ones. This is unfortunate, and opens the
door for many abuses; and the sooner it is put an end to the better.
I do not believe in the early hours at which our ancestors used to take
to the field. Game is not moving very early; therefore, in partridge
shooting, dogs have not such a chance of finding game as they have an
hour or two later. Nine o'clock is quite early enough for the partridge
or grouse shooter; about four in the afternoon is the most deadly time,
because scent then begins to ascend, and the dogs catch it much
quicker, and birds are then on the feed. The stubble, at this time, is
the place to find partridges.
It is a great mistake to walk too fast, shooting, because much game is
missed in this way; even very fast dogs require sufficient time to make
their ground good; in thick turnips you can hardly walk too slowly.
But I must hold, these notes are growing too long under my "grey goose
quill." (I am old-fashioned enough to prefer a quill pen to a steel
one.) Old fellow-sportsmen, and young ones, adieu. May you have a good
season, and good health and spirits to enjoy it!
DOWN THE BECK
AN ANGLING REVERIE
Like the dormouse, the approach of spring draws forth also the angler.
So early as February trout-fishing begins in the West of England, and
good sport may be had during March and April. May, however, is the
month of months for the trout fisher, certainly in the Midland
Counties, and wherever the May fly is found, and probably in the West
as well. With the first sunny gleams of February that herald the full
burst of spring, Halieus and Poietes may be seen rod in hand down their
streams, rejoicing that the many cold days, during which they have been
longingly fingering flies and tackle at home, are at length ended. So
many eulogies have been heaped upon fishing, which culminate in the
enthusiasm of gentle Isaak, the father of the craft, that the world
must indeed be tolerant if it can read any more.
But between his zeal on the one hand, and the venerable dictum of Dr
Johnson on the other, lies a truer appreciation of the art of angling
with a fly as being the busy man's most suitable recreation, in the
strictest sense of the word, in these feverish days of intellectual and
social bustle. Besides the love of sport for its own sake, fly-fishing
provides numerous secondary delights and occupations for thoughtful,
observant natures. Whatever be a man's hobby, he can ride it as hard as
he chooses down the banks of a trout stream. The rigour of the game is
all very well for whist; but fishing, with no other object than killing
fish, is altogether mean and ignoble. In this pursuit the fisherman may
be conchologist, ornithologist, or botanist as well--nay, he may be all
at once, and probably is so if he be a devoted student of nature. The
poet can throw off a sonnet while he flings his fly; the clergyman will
be taught by angling, as truly as by Shakespeare, how to find sermons
in stones, and books in the running brooks. Did not St Anthony convert
heretics by preaching to the fishes? Like Narcissus of old, the lover
may see his other self mirrored in the quiet waters. Whatever be his
profession, while the angler meditatively saunters on with a blade of
grass between his lips, his thoughts will sooner or later be certain to
find their own peculiar bent. Even the philosopher ought to be
attracted from his study to the brook. Plutarch tells how the
Pythagoreans abstained from eating fish, deeming them, on account of
their dumbness, creatures most kindred to the philosophic mind.
Theology itself has not scrupled to embalm the highest mysteries under
the symbol of a fish; and grave bishops at present do not disdain
exploits with the salmon-rod that are duly chronicled in the columns of
the _Field_. Thus, the true angler may well join Sir H. Wotton in
deeming the hours spent on his favourite sport "his idle time not idly
spent," even if he cannot echo his sentiment that "he would rather live
five May months than forty Decembers."[1] We have always regretted that
good Bishop Andrewes, the model of a saint, a scholar, and a divine,
did not angle. What additional zest would it not have lent to those
rambles of which his biographer speaks in such simple language! "His
ordinary exercise and recreation was walking, either alone by himself,
or with some other selected companion, with whom he might confer and
argue and recount their studies; and he would often profess that to
observe the grass, herbs, corn, trees, cattle, earth, waters, heavens,
any of the creatures, and to contemplate their natures, orders,
qualities, virtues, uses, &c., was ever to him the greatest mirth,
content, and recreation that could be; and this he held to his dying
day."[2]
[1] Walton's Life of Sir Hy. Wotton.
[2] Life of Bishop Andrewes by H. Isaacson, his amanuensis.
Andrewes' works, Anglo-Catholic Library.
"Wisdom's self
Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude;
Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation,
She plumes her feathers."
There is little doubt that had the writer of these well-known lines
been able to tear himself from his books for any diversion, it would
have been in order to angle. A great authority recommends a man weighed
down with overwhelming mental trouble to learn a new language by way of
diverting his thoughts from self; it would be far more efficacious for
him to sally out fishing, not, certainly, to stand for hours beside a
sullen pool angling with float and worm--this would be to invite
suicide--but to ramble down the bank of some winding stream, burdened
with nothing heavier than a clear conscience and a light fly-rod. Then
may St Nicholas speedily befriend his votary!
Now put on your flies--a green drake, by all means, if it be May--if
not, nothing can be better than the "red spinner," the "coachman," and,
above all, "the professor," from its taking qualities--fit namesake of
Christopher North. We have reached the Beck, and this warm south wind
"will blow the hook to the fishes' mouth." Without the abundance of
trout, which, according to Audubon, characterised the river Sehigh in
North America, where he "was made weary with pulling up the sparkling
fish allured by the struggles of the common grasshopper," the Beck
possesses--what is more grateful to the true angler--a fair amount of
fish, which it requires considerable skill to hook. The local name,
"beck," shows that it runs through a country which was overrun by the
Northmen, and its character is not dissimilar to theirs. It has none of
the abrupt headlong manner of a pure Keltic brook, overcoming all
obstacles by sheer persistent force, as seen in Wales, in the
Highlands, and in North Devon. Nor does it wind along in slow, deep
volume, like a Teutonic brook, or the offshoot of a Dutch canal, bereft
indeed of all the lighter graces which adorn a beautiful stream, but
irresistible withal, and beneficent. It rather unites the two
characters, meandering with crystal eddies and murmurous flow,
"Kissing the gentle sedges as it glides,"
now circumventing a hillock that could not well be sapped, and now, as
befits the length of its course, flowing silently, with full streams,
through a croft knee-deep in daisies and meadowsweet; lovingly cutting
its sinuous S's through the sward, as Izaak Walton carved his initials
on Casaubon's tablet in Westminster Abbey; and yet again, like the
Laureate's brook,
"Chattering over stony ways,
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,"--
happy combination of elements from the diverse nationalities that make
up the English nation. It distinguishes the names of the parishes
through which it passes in some places by the Norman addition to them
of "le beck," while they themselves frequently terminate, after the
Scandinavian fashion, in "by" (_i.e._, dwelling). However, as there are
in Lincolnshire alone two hundred and twelve places which have this
termination, the exact locality of this particular beck can only be
dimly guessed; and, sooth to say, if the angler has a failing, it
consists in a natural dislike to reveal the exact situation of his
favourite "stickles" to another.
Few objects in nature are so beautiful as running water; it soothes the
mind as well as the eye, and disposes to reflection, sobering the jar
of contending passions in the soul as it gleams along, always different
in its chequered eddies, and yet always the same. The vegetation that
springs on the brink of a stream very much heightens its charms to the
true angler, who is always more or less of an artist and poet. Round
this beck there are, indeed, no ferns tufting each projecting shelf,
and seizing upon every bare stone and decayed tree. East Anglian
scenery is wofully deficient in this element of the picturesque; but
wild flowers gem its banks,
"Thick set with agate and the azure sheen
Of turkis blue and emerald green
That in the channel strays."
At every turn the marsh marigold blazes in brilliant golden clumps,
while the water violet and bladderwort, most curious of our
water-weeds, find place round many of the deeper pools. Overhead, too,
hoary willows lend a great charm to the scenery, and patriarchal thorn
bushes, that glitter with snow-flowers every May, and wonder at
returning winter as they view their whiteness reflected below, while
abundance of forget-me-nots, "for happy lovers," seek the most retired
spots. Too often in the south of the county, as, for instance, round
Croyland Abbey, lines of melancholy poplars disfigure the prospect, as
they do (alas! _did_) round Metz, Avignon, and other French towns.
It is curious, by the way, that so vivacious a people as the French
should be fond of this, the most _triste_ of trees. Here, however,
willows are in exact keeping with the landscape; and as they turn the
glaucous under-surface of their leaves to the light in the shivering
breezes, instead of sadness, they speak of joy to the angler, for it is
just when these capfuls of wind blow that the lazy trout in the holes
under their shade rise eagerly at the fly. Once every year, in the city
church of St James, in accordance with a benefactor's will, a sermon on
flowers is preached from some floral text, to a congregation mainly
composed of young people, each of them careful to carry a nosegay with
them to the service. A walk down the beck, to one who knows anything of
botany, or, better still, who really loves our wild flowers, is in
itself a perpetual sermon. And how much are its exhortations
strengthened if the angler be somewhat of an ornithologist! What a
joyous melody proceeds from the ivy-covered fir, as Will Wimble[3]
makes his way to the beck!
[3] "He makes a May-fly to a miracle, and furnishes the whole
country with angle-rods."--_Spectator_, No. 108.
"That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never can recapture
The first fine careless rapture."
On this sunny bank, in the first gleam of spring sunshine, may be
noticed a sprightly little bird hopping along, glad to have completed
his migration to our shore--the wheatear, which Tennyson aptly terms
(if we read him aright) "the sea-blue bird of March." And later on, the
cuckoo is first heard down this glade, gleefully "telling her name to
all the hills," till June renders her hoarse, and the clear note
becomes "Cuck-cuckoo! Cuck-cuck-cuckoo!" and endless is the harsh
iteration if another of her family answer the challenge. Peering
carefully round a thicket, too, may be seen the waterhen, proudly
tempting her black brood to cross the stream for the first time; or
haply a wild duck, that has sat on her eggs till the angler's foot
almost touches her, flaps suddenly her wings, and skims under the
overhanging alders. If the fisherman be an observant lover of nature,
these and the like country sights and sounds will bring him great
contentment even though he take no fish. And so speaks Dame Juliana
Berners, in her "Treatyse of Fysshynge with an Angle"--one of the
quaintest productions of early English literature:--"Atte the best he
hath his holsom walk and merry at his ease, a swete ayre of the swete
savoure of the meede flowres: that makyth hym hungry. He hereth the
melodyous armony of fowles. He seeth the yonge swannes, heerons,
duckes, cotes, and many other foules wyth theyr brodes. And yf the
angler take fysshe, surely thenne is there noo man merier than he is in
his spyryte."
Down this beck an artistic eye will find many a feast of colour. The
keeper's cottage stands on a high bank; and a more charming domestic
subject was never painted, even by Millais, than one which may be
noticed there any day in August. His little girl, bare-headed and
rosy-cheeked with the merriest of light-blue eyes, stands under a
forest of sun-flowers, which spread their huge yellow discs above,
while sunbeams break through and leave their gold on the little
maiden's hair, and play round her, earnest, we will hope, of her
future, as she drops a courtesy to the passing angler. A little farther
on, the briony, with its brilliant berries, will festoon the grey trunk
of its cherishing oak with a glory, in autumn, that cannot but charm
the eye. The wild hyacinths of April are like a fold of blue sky that
has descended upon the wooded hollows. In the thatch of the labourer's
cottage is one deeply-set window, with a few tiles under it, on which
lichens and moss have established a footing. It has just rained, and
the contrast between their vivid greens and the brilliant red tiles is
delicious. It is thus that much of the monotony inseparable from a dull
country may be relieved, by judiciously educating the vision to find
beauties where ordinary eyes see nothing unusual. The pensiveness of an
angler's "sad pleasure" will be found agreeable leisure for this
purpose.
The various animals again to be found down the Beck, and the intimate
acquaintance which can be made with them in their native haunts, form
by no means the least of its charms. It is wonderful how tame all wild
creatures become, and how their characters expand to men, who, like
Waterton and Thoreau, the American naturalist, take pains to gain their
confidence. The water rats, timid enough when any other foot
approaches, look with fearless friendship on the gentle angler. At his
ease he may watch them perched on a raft of drifted sticks and weeds
nibbling the arrowhead with the utmost composure, or swimming about
like a miniature colony of beavers. It is cheering to reflect, when
they are seen under such circumstances, that although the miller may
owe them a grudge for undermining the banks of his dam, they are of all
animals the most harmless to the farmer. He is too often, however, apt
to confound them with the destructive pests of the granary, and (though
they are really voles and not rats) to lump all together as vermin, and
issue an edict of universal extermination accordingly. What a blessed
day will it be for the lower animals when farmers imbibe a taste for
natural history! At dusk may often be discerned down the Beck another
innocent creature, the hedgehog, long remorselessly hunted down because
vile calumnies had attached themselves to him of eating partridges'
eggs and being addicted to sucking milk from cows. The latter
accusation is simply an impossibility, while as to the former, we are
afraid it is too true that he has a sneaking liking for eggs; but the
damage he does is infinitesimally small, when not computed by
gamekeepers' arithmetic. A pair of hedgehogs making love in their
curiously awkward fashion, puffing and blowing like grampuses, is a
strange sight; while the piglings, before their spines have grown, form
the most amusing of pets. About the saddest spectacle that we ever
witnessed was an old hedgehog that had been cut asunder by a train, at
a railway crossing, while her brood of six or eight were still round
her, unharmed and wondering what had happened. We transported the poor
orphans to the nearest damp ditch and left them to the rough care of
Mother Nature. Not very far from the Beck is a colony of badgers, an
animal much persecuted where any linger in other parts of the country,
but in this East Anglian shire acquiring a decided commercial value.
Anything that will encourage foxes is here greatly in request,
consequently badgers are deemed useful creatures in a cover, as they
make earths which afterwards tempt Reynard to take possession. An
angler is a subject of perpetual wonder to cows; but too often as he
turns round from the water's edge in some rich meadow, he finds himself
the centre towards which the curved fronts of two or three oxen
converge uncomfortably close, literally placing him on the horns of a
dilemma. The sleek heifers, however, approach him without any signs of
attack or trepidation, and often run the risk of being caught as he
rapidly draws his flies back for a cast. Tame ducks and water rats are
frequently thus caught; but the most singular coincidence of this kind
happened to a friend who, on going down the Otter to fish, had to cross
a bridge. Whirling his flies over this as he passed, a swallow, darting
underneath, took one and was captured. On his return in the evening he
again whisked his flies over the bridge, and a bat, snapping at one
under the arches, was taken in the same ignominious manner.
All this time, as is not uncommon with lovers of nature, we have lost
sight of our main purpose in coming down the brook--fishing, to wit.
The art boasts a long descent, according to Walton, the highest
authority to whom a fisherman can bow. "Some say it is as ancient as
Deucalion's flood; others that Belus, who was the first inventor of
godly and virtuous recreations, was the first inventor of angling,"
with much more to the same purport. It is a curious commentary on the
aristocratic principles of the fifteenth century to find Dame Berners,
in the aforementioned "Treatyse," confining the sport to the well-born.
She could not imagine it a recreation of the multitude, or even of
"ydle persones." With her it is emphatically "one of the dysportes that
gentylmen use." Her enthusiasm for the sport knows no bounds, and must
have made many generations of Englishmen anglers. The treatise
evidently supplied the idea of "Walton's Angler," the book which next
to "White's Selborne," has gone through more editions than any other
secular work in the language. "It shall be to you a very pleasure to se
the fayr bryght shynynge scalyd fysshes dysceyved by your crafty
meanes, and drawen upon lande," she says; but, either fishermen have
become less skilful since her days, or trout more timorous, if we may
judge from her wonderful frontispiece of a man angling (and that
successfully) with a rod like a flail, and tackle resembling the trace
of a carriage.
Neither the salmon, monarch of the salmonidæ, nor the lovely grayling,
which is only found in midland and Welsh waters, is to be expected in
the Beck. Still the common river trout is no mean antagonist for an
angler's mettle. Of all fish trout are most vigilant and suspicious;
the least unwary movement, adventuring even a hand out of shelter or
into bright sunshine, incautiously thrusting his head over the bank, or
interfering in any way with the skyline, will certainly betray the
angler. He may gain a slight advantage over their craft, however, by
remembering that their habit is to feed with their heads to the stream.
A beginner may rest assured that the golden secret of success in
trout-fishing is to keep well out of the fishes' sight by availing
himself of every natural cover, a tree-trunk, bush, &c., or by
approaching the stream, if he is very much exposed, in a stooping
position. He must, for the most part, learn, by observation, the many
singular habits and characteristics of his quarry, and here it is that
the old fisherman excels the tyro. The remarkable manner in which the
fish's colours change with the nature of the stream in which it lives,
is one of these curiosities of the trout. There is all the difference
in the world between a fish taken from the chalky streams of Wilts and
one that inhabits the dark peaty burns of Devon or South Wales, while
both are inferior in beauty to the red-spotted lusty fish of a
Nottinghamshire river. Internally they are of two types, one with red
flaky flesh, like salmon, the other white; these variations, however,
frequently run into each other. The practical fisherman only can
appreciate the great diversity of activity which exists in fish of
different sizes and streams, and probably in the same fish in the prime
and end of the season. In one bickering rivulet the trout will all be
vigorous and bold, leaping out of the water when hooked and dying hard,
"game to the back-bone," in sporting phrase. In a sluggish brook the
fish seem often to participate in its idiosyncracy, the larger ones
tamely surrendering after a few monotonous struggles, the little trout
diving to the bottom, and, like tench, hiding their heads in the mud.
We have had to stir such fish up with the landing net before it was
possible to do anything with them. Another curious fact is, that if a
fish be taken out of a favourite hole, another will almost always be
found to have replaced it the next day. Perhaps the most remarkable
theory which has been advanced concerning the intelligence of trout is
that of Sir H. Davy in "Salmonia," which he terms their "local memory."
A brief outline may furnish one more subject of observation to the
philosophic angler. Sir H. Davy asserts that if a trout be pricked with
a fly (say a blue upright), and then escape, he will never rise again
in the same pool to that particular fly while the surrounding
circumstances are the same. Drive him, however, down to another hole,
or wait till a flood has changed the aspect of his familiar haunt, and
he will take it as greedily as a fish that has never experienced the
deceit of an artificial fly. The associations of bank, stones,
tree-trunks, &c., in his hole, act like visible mentors, and remind
him, as the fly passes overhead, that it was when surrounded by their
associations he was simple enough to rise to its fascinations. Solving
such questions as these is one of the numerous secondary delights of
fly-fishing. Another speculation which may be pointed out to anglers of
an inquiring turn of mind, is to demonstrate why sluggish, muddy
streams invariably produce better fish than the sparkling Devon or
Welsh brooks. Thus in the Beck, down which our ideal fisherman is
wandering, the largest fish which has been taken of late years weighed
three pounds and a half, while trout of a pound and a half in weight
are by no means uncommon. Three-quarters of a pound is a fair size for
the fish of mountainous streams, while the majority of their trout do
not exceed half a pound. Doubtless, the greater abundance of worms and
ground bait in a muddy brook contributes to the larger size of its
fish, but it certainly is not the sole cause of their superiority.
The flies which the modern angler imitates in fur and feathers, belong
mostly to the families which entomology knows under the names of
_phrygancæ_ and _ephemeræ_. All anglers should know something of these
curious tribes; and nowhere is a better account of them to be found
than in that fascinating book, "Salmonia." The _phrygancæ_ (the
"stone-flies" of the angler) have long antennæ, with veined wings which
fold over each other when closed. The eggs of the adult flies are laid
on the leaves of willows or other trees which overhang the water. When
they are hatched, the larvæ fall into the stream, collect a panoply of
gravel, bits of stick, shell-fish, &c., to surround them, and after
feeding for a time on aquatic plants, rise to the surface, burst their
skins, and appear as perfect flies. The _ephemeræ_ (or "May-flies")
were noticed so long ago as Aristotle's time, in connection with the
brevity of their life. They may be known by carrying their wings
perpendicularly on their backs, and by several filaments or long
bristles protruding from their tails. Their aqueous existence, like the
stone-flies', sometimes lasts for two or three years; but as flies
their life is thought never to exceed a few days in length, often but a
few hours. In fact their life is, to all intents and purposes, over
when their eggs are laid, and this function takes place directly they
emerge into the winged state. Besides these, however, there are
multitudes of nondescript flies used by those anglers who commit
themselves to the persuasive powers of the fishing-tackle maker, and
fill their fly-books with his gorgeously-coloured creations; but with
the stone-flies, May-flies, and other simple flies previously
enumerated, most real anglers are contented.
The greatest nuisance to the fisherman on the banks of the Beck are the
hovering swarms of flies and gnats. Nature's profusion is almost
inexhaustible in this division of her kingdom. In hot, sunny weather,
they persecute the angler till he well-nigh gives up his sport, and
betakes himself to moralize how his situation, lonely though it be, is
no inapt type of a man's spiritual loneliness in the midst of that
crowd of his fellows called Society,
"Where each man walks with his head in a cloud of poisonous flies."
Yes, here is the whole winged legion avenging, as it were, the slight
the angler puts upon them by his grotesque imitations, in number and
description more fell than Walton ever imagined in the marvellous flies
he directs his disciples to dub--"the Prime Dun, Huzzard, Death Drake,
Yellow Miller, Light Blue, Blue Herl," and all the rest! It would
require a piscatorial entomologist to identify them; and when they buzz
around their victims, how well can these enter into Dante's grim fancy
of the wicked in hell being exposed naked to the stings of wasps and
flies! It is useful, however, to be thus reminded that even so innocent
a sport as angling has its drawbacks. Perhaps such small annoyances
should be received as part of the discipline of fishing; winged
blessings they then become, modes of teaching unpleasant, perchance, at
the time, but none the less fraught with profit to the true angler, who
is always more or less of a moralist.
It is time, though, to turn homewards. Our endeavour has been to depict
some of the charms connected with angling, and to recommend it as a
recreation specially adapted for the feverish agitation of modern
social life. Over and above its immediate end, it is a school for moral
virtues and the observing faculties which cannot be too highly
honoured. The fisherman, like the poet, must be born; but he owes his
success, even more than the poet, to perseverance and observation.
However long the sport may be intermitted, when a man has once tasted
its joys, and imbibed a thorough love of angling, he resumes it with
eagerness on the first favourable opportunity. Nay, the taste is one
which deserts not its votary in death. Few angling reminiscences are
more touching than the scene which his daughter has described so
pathetically, when poor Christopher North lay on his death-bed. In the
intervals of his malady, he had his fly-books brought to him, and
derived a melancholy pleasure from taking out his old favourites one by
one, and lovingly caressing their bright plumage and carefully tied
wings, as they were spread out on the sheets. It must be confessed that
angling is justly open to the charge of being a solitary, taciturn,
meditative sport, which shuts a man out from his kind. We are cynical
enough to fancy that if he be shut up with Nature instead, he will
suffer no great harm. Indeed, to admit the impeachment is only
tantamount to owning that fishing, after all, is but of this world, and
necessarily an imperfect energy. Herein lies its chief excellence in
the eyes of hard workers; so there is no need elaborately to refute the
objection. Let a man try it, and _solvitur ambulando_. So good is it
that the aforesaid Dame Juliana indulges in no exaggeration when she
says--pardon once more an angler's loquacity--"Ye shall not use this
forsayde crafty dysporte for no covetysenes to th'encreasynge and
sparynge of your money oonly, but pryncypally for your solace, and to
cause the helthe of your body and especyally of your soule." Though it
be to our own loss, we would nevertheless invite every reflective mind
to the Beck, to derive inspiration and satisfaction from communion with
the simple joys of nature. May skill and perseverance there bring the
angler the usual happy results, and--blessing of blessings where
fishing is concerned--may his shadow never be less!
M. G. W.
AN APOLOGY FOR FISHING
Ever since the time when the famous definition of angling as a
combination of "a stick and a string with a worm at one end and a fool
at the other" was first given to the world, it has been the custom of a
large section of society to disparage the particular sport, which has
for its object the catching of fish, very much more than any of the
other developments which the killing propensity takes among sportsmen.
When a man mentions that he is going off on a fishing expedition, the
announcement is not met with the respect which is accorded to him who
proclaims the fact that he has it in contemplation to spend a day in
beating the turnips for partridges, or riding across country in pursuit
of a fox. People have a provoking way of smiling when fishing is spoken
of; and when they meet you, armed with the necessary paraphernalia
which makes up an angler's equipment, their countenances directly
assume either an amused expression, indicating a state of feeling not
very remote from absolute pity, or a look of delicate forbearance which
is almost the more difficult to bear of the two.
There surely never was any pastime regarded with so little respect as
this of fishing. But one good quality (that of patience) is ever
identified with it; and even that, when connected with this particular
sport, is sometimes spoken of in a disparaging tone; so that it is by
no means an uncommon thing to hear a man brag of his deficiency in this
respect, saying, "I've not got patience enough for that sort of thing";
as if the fact redounded enormously to his credit.
"Going fishing?" says your hearty friend as he meets you in the hall,
equipped for the sport, "You must be hard up for some amusement--for of
all the deadly-lively proceedings----"
"Going fishing?" says another. "Well, it's certainly too early in the
season for anything else in the way of sport; but still----"
The very partisans of fishing, too, help, in a certain way, to bring it
into discredit. What a literature it has! The literature of all sport
is apt to be trying; but this of fishing is surely especially
disastrous. The facetious element always figures here in such grievous
force. Nor only that. Dreadful conventional forms of expression,
phrases in inverted commas, involved ways of expressing a simple thing,
abound--so that one meets continually with such expressions as the
"gentle craft" and the "finny tribe." The sportsman who devotes himself
to fishing is called a "member of the piscatorial fraternity," or a
"brother of the angle," or a "disciple of 'old Izaak,'" or by some
other roundabout and exasperating designation. Why it is that people
who write on this particular subject cannot express their ideas in
plain English and avoid such forms of speech as the above it is
difficult to say; but so it is.
These stereotyped phrases are to be ranked among the conventionalities
of "piscatorial" literature. Another of these is a perpetual insistence
upon the contemplativeness of character which this particular sport
tends to develop in those who engage in it. The fisherman is supposed
to be left by his pursuit at leisure to ponder and reflect on all sorts
of abstract questions wholly unconnected with what he is about. Fishing
is called the contemplative man's recreation, and seems, indeed, to be
looked upon by a very large section of society as a sort of excuse for
mooning. For my poor part I confess that it seems to me that the fact
is far otherwise. If there is one thing more than another necessary to
fishing, it is that the man who engages in it should have all his wits
about him, and be thoroughly absorbed in what he is doing. A fisherman
who took to being contemplative would, I fancy, stand but a poor chance
of catching anything, and would certainly find himself involved in many
difficulties connected with the management of his rod and line. While
he was contemplating, his fly would speedily get itself fastened to
some neighbouring tree, or fixed, may be, into some unattainable part
of the contemplative one's own costume; while, if the line were
suffered to remain in the water, the flies would certainly be carried
by the current into a bed of weeds, or get twisted round a stone at the
bottom of the river.
The study of the beauties of nature, again, is an occupation which
angling is supposed to lend itself to. Yet even this, as it seems to
me, is hardly likely to be carried very far by the really keen
sportsman. When walking briskly across the hill or on the moorland on
his way to the river he may, indeed, take note of the picturesque
outlines of a distant mountain or the rich colouring of a patch of
heather and fern, just as he is conscious of the freshness of the air
or the warmth of the sun; but he will hardly, when there is any fishing
to do, be likely to dwell on any of these delights, however much he may
revel in them at other times. When once he gets really to work he is
entirely absorbed in the sport, and will think of little or nothing
else till the time comes for putting up his traps and going home. And
it is just this which gives such value to every form of sport, and
makes them so essential an element in the troublous life of the
nineteenth century. They absorb the thoughts and confine the attention,
for the time being, to what--in a comparative sense--may fairly be
called trifles. You cannot occupy yourself with any deep abstract
speculation when it is a question of catching a trout or bringing down
a partridge.
The fact is that a prodigious amount of ignorance prevails in
connection with the sport of angling. People class all forms and modes
of fishing together, and include them every one under the definition
given at the commencement of this paper. The prevalent idea in the
minds of most people is that fishing consists of sitting in an
arm-chair in a punt watching a float bobbing up and down in the water,
and partaking at intervals of very flat beer served out of a stone jar
by the attendant boatman. Now this--the very lowest form of fishing
that exists, and, unhappily, the form under which it is the oftenest
and most conspicuously presented to view--so little really represents
this particular sport, that I think I am hardly speaking too strongly
in saying that no real fisherman would consent to hear such a
proceeding classed under the head of fishing at all. When a sportsman
speaks of fishing, he is thinking either of fly-fishing or spinning,
and most generally of the former.
For fly-fishing, rightly engaged in, it is not too much to claim a very
high position indeed among the sports of the field; many of the
qualities on which it makes demands being the same which are required
for the other forms of sport, while it also implies some which are not
called for in those others, except, perhaps, in that of deer-stalking.
To be a perfectly good fisherman a man requires strength, agility,
spirit, quickness and accuracy of eye, a neat hand, a nimble foot,
considerable ability as a tactician, presence of mind, and coolness,
coupled with the power of keeping his wits always about him. Nor is
this all; a fisherman must have, besides, certain moral qualifications
of an exalted nature. He must be possessed of patience, perseverance,
and good temper; and, in addition to all this, he must thoroughly well
understand his business in all its more intricate technicalities. Let
us proceed to consider some of the points here insisted on a little in
detail.
In fishing for trout with an artificial fly--a branch of sport to
which, with the reader's permission, we will in this 'Apology' entirely
confine ourselves--it is necessary, as it is in a great many other
things, that a man should thoroughly understand what it is that he is
doing--how, in short, the case stands. It stands thus. He sees before
him a sheet of water, containing, as he has reason to suppose, a
certain number of fish, some comparatively stationary, some darting
hither and thither, all very much alive, very watchful, constantly on
the look-out both for what may bring them advantage in the shape of
food of divers kinds, or for what may give them cause for apprehension,
in the shape of fish larger than themselves and of a predatory nature,
herons, otters and, above all, men. To these creatures, vigilant,
timorous, suspicious, it is the angler's business to present an object
which they are to suppose is an insect which has dropped into the water
and is floating down with the stream more or less near to the surface.
If the fisherman succeeds in conveying this impression; if his
counterfeit insect is a successful piece of imitation; if the fly which
it imitates is one for which the fish has a liking, and if the fish
itself happens at the particular moment to be "on the feed"--if all
these conditions are fulfilled, then it will happen that the trout will
rise swiftly through the water, will seize the bait, and the
fisherman's object will be gained. This desirable consummation is,
however, harder of attainment than might be supposed.
Very much is implied in the bringing that transaction which has just
been described to a successful issue. If the particular portion of the
stream into which you throw your fly is not the spot where a trout
lies, if your fly is not well imitated from nature, or does not
represent the kind of insect which the fish affects, if the hook is too
little concealed, or the line too coarse, above all, if you yourself
are conspicuous, standing on the bank, your chance of inducing a trout
to rise is slender in the extreme. The fact is that the fisherman ought
to look at this transaction from the trout's point of view and not from
his own. Of the fishing-rod and line, and of the person who manipulates
them, the trout must be kept wholly unconscious. This sounds a simple
statement enough; but it does, in fact, imply a great deal. In the
first place it implies that both the water and the atmosphere shall be
in a condition favourable to the mystifying and confusing of the fish
which we are bent on capturing. The atmosphere should not be bright and
clear to an excess, nor, by rights, the water either. The water, again,
should be, to a certain extent, troubled and agitated. This is effected
in a running stream by the current; but in lakes and calm, deep rivers,
especially in the former, it can only be brought about by a certain
amount of wind, and for lake-fishing it may therefore be confidently
asserted that a slight breeze is absolutely indispensable. A line
falling on perfectly smooth water, however fine and delicate such line
may be, or however skilfully cast, will make a certain amount of
splash, which would awaken the misgivings of any fish which happened to
be near.
One of the greatest of all the difficulties connected with the catching
of fish is that experienced by the sportsman in keeping himself out of
sight. At the first glimpse of a man moving by the side of the river,
every fish at once darts away as fast as his fins can carry him. To
this assertion there are few people who would venture to demur; and yet
how common it is to see a fisherman placed on a high bank, with his
whole figure in strong relief against the sky, and moving down the
water, with all the fish in the river facing him as they lie with their
heads up-stream. It can only be by some strange accident that he will
take a fish under such circumstances.
Almost the first thing which the fisherman should think of in setting
about his business is to conceal himself as much as possible. There are
several ways in which this may be effected. In the first place, if the
wind will at all allow of it, he should always fish up-stream, as he
will then have the backs of the fish turned towards him instead of
their faces. Fishing up-stream is more difficult and more laborious
than fishing down, the current bringing the line back almost as fast as
it is thrown in, so that the labour of casting it is almost incessant.
Still, for the reason given above, it is better. It is good again for
the angler to get behind some big rock or bush large enough to hide the
greater part of his figure, remaining there, with as little motion as
possible, till he has thoroughly fished every speck of water within his
reach. Or if there are no bushes or rocks to be had for purposes of
ambush, it behoves him to crawl along on the lowest part of the bank on
his knees, aiding himself with the hand which is not engaged with the
fishing-rod, and sometimes even to wriggle himself along after the
manner of a snake--anything to diminish his conspicuousness.
Now all this is not by any means easy of accomplishment. To creep along
in the manner just described, encountering some obstacle at almost
every step--huge stones which, unless he is very careful, he tumbles
over, small tributary streams which he plunges into--to get over and
through all these difficulties, in a doubled-up position, which renders
feats of agility very difficult indeed to accomplish, is not an easy
task, especially as all the time he has to wave his line round and
round in the air, to be ready for a long cast when he at last sees his
way to that consummation. This is arduous work, depend on it, and yet,
short of this, I don't know how, under some circumstances, his object
is to be obtained. For fly-fishing, to be attended with success, is not
a simple operation, but, on the contrary, a very complicated one, as
any proceeding involving so exceedingly intricate a _ruse_ as this one
does, inevitably must be. That it _is_ a _ruse_ there can be no sort of
doubt. Unless you succeed in taking this creature in, you will never
succeed in capturing him. This is no open onslaught, as is the case in
shooting and hunting. Strategy is your only chance, and the more deeply
laid your plot, the greater is your chance of succeeding.
There is one element in the construction of this deeply-laid scheme
which requires to be considered with an especial carefulness. The
structure of the fly which is to be set before the trout on whose
capture we are bent is an ingredient in the transaction the importance
of which must by no means be overlooked. It should of all things--and
this is a point not enough considered by the makers of these little
works of art--be one which looks well in the water. There are many
flies sold which appear perfectly right and natural while they remain
out of the water, but which, when once they are thoroughly wetted,
assume an entirely different and most inferior appearance. The loose
wool and feather strands, which form the body of the fly, get matted
together and the whole mass of them much reduced in size; the wings
cease to stand out away from the body and from each other, and the
hook, owing to the reduction of the size of the fly generally, which is
effected by the tightening influence of the water, is left much too
bare and prominent. The best way to obviate these difficulties is to
make the body of the fly somewhat fuller and more fluffy than it is
intended to be, and to dress it as far down towards the bend of the
hook as is compatible with symmetry of structure. The hook is sure to
be conspicuous enough at best, but every pains should be taken to make
it as little so as possible. We are particular about all sorts of
minute considerations of colour and form; we refuse to allow of the
deviation of the sixteenth of an inch from the right standard in the
length of a tail, or of the faintest false shade in the colouring of a
wing--in all these matters we are exact and scrupulous, and rightly so;
but is it quite consistent with such close attention to detail that we
should be indifferent to so remarkable a deviation from the right model
as is found in the immense and conspicuous hook which protrudes beyond
the body of our counterfeit insect, and which seems quite as much
calculated to attract attention as any other part of the fly? Of
course, to some extent, this cannot be helped, the hook being a
necessity of the fisher's case, but surely it might in many instances
be much more carefully concealed than it is. The fly might, for
instance, be dressed not actually on the shank of the hook, but on a
piece of gut or bristle attached to it and hanging loose on the hook so
as almost to hide it. In putting on a worm as a bait--the worm having
the advantage of being the real thing--we take the utmost pains to
conceal the hook; in putting on the fly--which has the disadvantage of
being not the real thing but a counterfeit--why should we not do
precisely the same thing?
It cannot be insisted on too strongly and too frequently that the whole
of this transaction, which we call fly-fishing, is, from beginning to
end, a most elaborately carried out piece of deception. But troublesome
and difficult and inseparably connected with all sorts of
disappointments as it is, yet is the game unquestionably well worth the
candle, fishing, when really successful, being beyond all question one
of the most delightful of occupations, while even when only moderately
successful, it is full of charm and interest to any one who takes it up
in earnest.
DOGS I HAVE KNOWN
I was always very fond of dogs, but it was a long time before I was
allowed to have one of my own, my parents apparently considering that
dogs were composed of two equal portions of hydrophobia and fleas. My
first dog was a large brown and white spaniel with a very curious
temper. Sometimes he would lie on things in his kennel nearly all day,
for no apparent reason. If you tried to pet or coax him it did no good,
but if no attention were paid to him he would get out of the sulks and
be all right in a short time. He could never be induced to go into the
water to swim. I often attempted it by keeping him tied up without food
and then loosing him and throwing bits of biscuit into the moat near
the house. He would then pick out and eat all the bits that were within
his reach by wading, but would not make the least attempt to go for a
piece which was out of his depth. I once thought that I had devised a
plan by which he must swim, but it failed. It was this. There was a
high paling along one side of the moat with a strip of grass about a
foot wide between it and the water, and here I put the dog, thinking he
would be compelled to swim out, but no! after spending half the day
whining and crouching down as if he meant to jump in, he set to work
and scratched at the turf and tore at the palings with his teeth until
he made a hole big enough to get through. After this I gave up trying
to get him to swim. His temper was decidedly peculiar. When I called
him to go for a walk, if he approved of the direction taken he would
go--if not he would stand and look at me and then go straight home.
Once, however, he shewed a very remarkable and amiable trait. I left
home and went abroad for a considerable time, and in my absence my
father died. The dog at this time had not shewn any sign of attachment
to my mother, but immediately after my father's funeral, whenever he
was loose, he used to run straight to the drawing-room windows, and, if
my mother was there, would remain standing for hours looking in at her;
or, if the front door happened to be open, he would go in and walk
quietly into the drawing-room. If his mistress were there he would lie
down by her chair; up to this time he had never tried to get into the
house, and directly I returned he never attempted it again, nor even
appeared to notice my mother more than any other friend of his. Poor
old Jehou, with all his eccentricities of temper I was very fond of
him, and sorry when he disappeared. He went out with the carriage one
day, and nothing more was ever heard of him, though rewards were
offered everywhere. We were making a call and left him outside, and
when we came out he was gone. However, we thought nothing of this,
believing he would come home, but from that day forward the old Jehou
was never seen by us.
My second dog was magnificent fellow--I never knew or heard of one
with such wonderful sagacity and apparent power of reasoning. It was a
huge black and white Newfoundlander, of the colour they now call the
"Landseer Newfoundland." I got him from an old keeper, to whom he had
been left by his late master. The man did not want him, and knowing
that I was very fond of dogs, he sold him to me, saying at the time "He
was _a'most_ a Christian"; and so he really was. Our introduction
was curious. I went off to see him, taking some food in my pocket to
make friends with him; but the man told me that was no good--that if
the dog liked the look of me he would be friends at once. When we
reached the cottage, going round to the back, I saw a most
noble-looking dog, who when we approached sat up and looked very
gravely at us. The keeper said, "I've brought a gentleman to see you,
old man," and I then spoke to him. The dog turned and looked at me
steadily for some seconds, then rising and walking slowly to me, reared
up on his hind legs, and, putting one huge paw on each shoulder, began
to lick my face. That was the introduction, and from that day until
"Wallace's" death we were the firmest of friends. The man told me he
had been broken for a keeper's night-dog, and was a first-rate
guard--would never touch a child or bite a woman, but that he would
bite any man or beast he was set at; and looking at his size and power
I did not disbelieve him. He also warned me that no one must go near
him when he was feeding. After having a full account of the dog, I went
home, Wallace following me as if we had known each other for years.
Soon after I had him, I went on a visit to a cousin who lived in a town
in the north of England, and Wallace, who went with me, distinguished
himself greatly whilst there. One evening I was to meet my cousin at
his counting-house, and at the time fixed went there, my dog, of
course, accompanying me. On reaching the office, finding that my cousin
had gone out, I sat down and waited, and as he did not make his
appearance so soon as was expected, the office-keeper came and asked me
if I would mind waiting by myself, as everything was locked up and my
cousin could fasten the outer door himself (as in fact he often did). I
had no objection, so all the gas but one small jet was turned out. Very
shortly after the office-keeper left, the door was opened very softly,
and soon a man put in his head, and not discovering me in the gloom, as
I purposely made no noise, came in; and a very ill-looking customer he
was. Discovering me, he started, and said something about an
appointment, advancing as he spoke. Directly the man got near, with one
bound Wallace was on him and had him down on his back on the floor. He
tried to draw something out of his sleeve, but Wallace instantly seized
his throat--gently, it is true, but enough to give him a foretaste of
what he could do. I shouted to the man to lie still or the dog would
kill him, and rising up and going to him found he had an iron jemmy in
his hand, which I took--warning him that if he moved the dog would
throttle him. I went and called the police; they came and secured the
fellow, who turned out to be the head of one of the most daring set of
burglars in the north. Besides the jemmy he had a brace of loaded
pistols in his pocket, and would most undoubtedly have murdered me, if
it had not been for Wallace. The man had been "wanted" by the police
for a long time, but they had never been able to get him, and there
were great rejoicings at his capture.
Whenever I went out by day Wallace always followed me, but at night, or
in the dusk, kept close to my side, with his head almost touching my
leg. If he saw anyone coming towards me that he thought suspicious he
would go on in front, and turning with them as they came up follow them
by me, and in the same manner if anyone was overtaking me, he dropped
back, and then followed them until they had quite passed. He did one
other very clever thing whilst he was with me in the north. One morning
I had been to the club to look at the papers, etc., and on my return
home found that I had lost one of my gloves. More for the sake of
experiment than really thinking the dog would ever find the missing
glove, I took off the other, and holding it to him, made a motion like
throwing it away, saying, at the same time, "lost, Wallace, go seek."
The dog at once started off, and was away for some time--in fact, so
long, that becoming uneasy, I started off towards the club. I had gone
but a very little way when I saw Wallace coming along, and to my great
surprise, with the missing glove in his mouth. A policeman was
following him at a respectful distance, so I went up to him and asked
if he could tell me where the dog found the glove. He told me he saw
Wallace running along evidently looking for something, as he
occasionally stopped, and seemed to make sure of his direction;
following him, he saw him enter the club, and remain there a short
time. He then came out, began sniffing about on the steps, and suddenly
started off briskly. The man followed, and the dog, after going along
one of the main streets for some way, turned down a side street, and
soon overtaking an old beggar woman, made a snatch at something in her
hand, and returned at full speed. The old woman had picked up the glove
on the steps of the club, and had gone off with it, and if it had not
been for Wallace's extraordinary intelligence I should have lost my
glove.
One day, after my return home, Wallace gave me a specimen of the
education he had received from the keeper. There was a very pretty wood
in part of our grounds with walks laid out in it. I was walking there
with Wallace, as I thought, when suddenly I heard someone roaring out,
most lustily, that the dog was killing him. I called out to know where
the man that was being killed, and he told me in the field outside, so
I went out and found him on the ground and Wallace over him--not biting
or molesting him in any way, but merely looking down at the man,
evidently very much puzzled as to why he made such a noise. Calling
Wallace off, I asked how it happened, and the man told me that he was
walking in the wood, and just stepped over the fence into the field
when the dog jumped at him, and knocked him over. The fact was, that
Wallace had been trained to go outside any cover when the keeper went
through it, and to seize any poacher that might come out. He had been
taught, too, to jump at the man and knock him down by his weight, but
not to bite or injure him in any way if he made no resistance; and I
expect few would have been so foolish as to do so when they saw his
size and appearance.
Wallace was a most inveterate cat killer. This had been clearly part of
his early education; he killed almost every cat that he could get at.
Many were the unfortunate tabbies that he suddenly snapped up as they
were comfortably dozing on the steps of a cottage. He would go quietly
along, apparently taking very little notice of anything,
when--snap--and tabby was no more, but there was one most remarkable
exception, and this was our stable cat. I discovered it in this
way:--One day I went into the stable yard and saw the cat walking
across to where Wallace was lying by his kennel half asleep, fully
expecting to see her killed in a moment. I waited, and, to my great
astonishment, saw her walk up to him, put up her tail, and rub all
round him in the most affectionate manner, and as she passed his head,
Wallace just looked up and gave her a lick with his tongue. Seeing me,
the old dog jumped up, and, in so doing, trod on pussy's foot, who
immediately turned round and bit and scratched. Wallace took no sort of
notice of it, clearly thinking that such an exhibition of temper on her
part was beneath his attention. We lived about twenty-five miles from
town, in a very fashionable and wealthy part of the country, which made
it quite a "happy hunting-ground" for the London burglars, regular
gangs of whom used to come down and "work" the district, in fact, ours
was almost the only house that was not broken into, and this was
entirely owing to Wallace,--his sonorous bark effectually rousing
everyone, and he never used it without occasion. We caught three men
with a most beautiful set of burglars' tools. They had intended to try
the house; Wallace roused us by barking, and as he seemed nearly
frantic, we felt sure that the men were near, so, turning out the
men-servants, we loosed the dog in the garden. He soon picked up the
scent of the men, and quickly ran into them in an outhouse about two
miles off. Numberless were the attempts made to poison him, but he
would never touch the stuff, however cunningly prepared. We constantly
found poisoned liver, and things of that kind, but it was of no
use--Wallace would sniff at the stuff, give it a scratch with his paw,
and pass on. There was one very amusing trait in his character, and
that was his determination that no one should bathe if he could help
it. This came, I think, from his having, on one occasion, brought a
child out of a pond into which it had fallen. By the way, he did not do
it at all in the graceful way dogs are represented in goody-books, but
by a firm nip in a very unromantic part of the child's body, making it
roar out lustily, thereby preventing the bystanders from being at all
uneasy on its account.
An amusing instance of this occurred one day. A young cousin of mine
was staying with us and said he should go down to the river and
bathe--asking at the same time to take Wallace with him. I consented,
quite forgetting his habit. The two were away some time, but at length
I saw them returning, the lad evidently in a very bad temper about
something. When he came up he said "that abominable old fool Wallace
won't let me bathe;" I asked about it and heard that Wallace sat down
and watched him undress, in a very grave sort of way, but when he
wanted to get into the river would not let him; walking in front of him
whenever he got near the edge and completely preventing him from
getting in. The boy tried all sorts of dodges to make the dog allow
him, but it was of no use. He tried to run and jump in several times,
but on each attempt Wallace coolly sat down in front of him just as he
thought all was clear, so that he was obliged either to stop short or
tumble over the dog. When he gave it up and began to dress again,
Wallace lay down and watched him, and finally trotted back with him,
with an expression on his countenance that showed he clearly thought he
had done his duty.
I had been warned by the man I bought Wallace from, as previously
noted, that I must never go near him when he was feeding, for he would
not allow anyone to approach him then, and this I found to be true; but
this habit of his caused me great alarm once. A little girl was staying
in our house, and, of course, wanted to see my big dog, so I took her
out to the stable yard to show him to her. Wallace was feeding when we
got there, and I told her we must not go near him then, and took her
into the stables to see the horses. Whilst I was talking to the
coachman, she slipped out, and on going to look for her, to my horror I
saw her just going up to the dog who was still feeding. I called out to
her to come back, but the coachman said, "He won't hurt her, sir; he
will let a child do anything almost to him." True enough--the child
went up and patted him, and the dog first looked up, gave a wag with
his tail and went on feeding. When he was loosed afterwards, he came to
where the child and myself were sitting, licked her hands, and then
came and put his great head on my knee and looked up at me, as much as
to say, "Could not you trust me with a child." I then remembered I had
been told he would never touch a child, but there was one very curious
point connected with this, which was that he would _never_ touch food
of any sort, however fond he was of it, from the hands of a child. This
he had doubtless been taught, so that poisoned or prepared food might
not be given him by their means.
I hardly ever saw a dog who had such very expressive eyes. Once when
out with me he was attacked and bitten in the leg by a mastiff; an
ill-conditioned brute that was always flying at him. Now Wallace was
most good-tempered and hardly ever fought, so I spoke to him and told
him to come along, thinking the mastiff would leave him. Instead of
this it seized him by the ear, and Wallace's ears were always very
tender and painful in the summer; but he never retaliated--only looked
at me in a sort of reproachful way, as much as to say "see what pain
you have caused me." I could not stand it, and said, "Kill him,
Wallace." Shaking the dog off as if he was nothing, he gave him a grip
between the forelegs and the dog was dead in an instant. Wallace left
him at once and came on after me as if nothing had happened. He
certainly was one of the most intelligent dogs I ever met with; I kept
him until he was very old, and when he was almost entirely blind, it
used to be very curious to see the old fellow hunting me. When loosed,
he would put down his nose and work till he got on my trail, and then,
however I might have gone about and turned, he was sure to hunt up to
me, and the pleased look which came into his old face when he found me
and moved round my legs was very touching. However, poor old fellow, he
got quite deaf as well as blind, and then to my grief I had to sign his
death-warrant.
Long after this, I possessed a wonderfully intelligent dog, a pure-bred
Skye terrier, one of the real sort, with soft coat of wavy
mustard-coloured hair tipped with black; sharp, prick ears, just turned
over at the top; such taper paws; tail carried over the back and
parting like an ostrich plume; she had dark eyes. I had her directly
she could be taken from her mother, and in my bachelor days she hardly
ever left me, often going in my pocket when I was riding--her head and
forepaws outside. I once left her for six months with some friends
whilst I went abroad, and on my return a most curious thing occurred. I
drove from the station, distant about six miles from my friends' house,
arriving there past nine in the evening. Fanny (that was her name) was
shut up in the harness-room, but about four o'clock the next morning I
was awakened by scratching and whining at my door, and on getting up
and opening it, there was Fanny, who was exceptionally delighted to see
me, and jumped on my bed and went to sleep. On getting up I noticed her
paws were very sore and bleeding, and on going down, asked where she
had been and how she had found me. It turned out thus: she had been
locked up in the harness-room as usual, and this was quite 200 yards
from the house; but had set to work, and scratched her way out, tearing
a hole through the weather boarding close to the doorpost; she then
came round to a court at the back of the house, where there was a
drain-pipe in one corner through the wall, to carry off the water when
it was wasted; this she had torn at until she made the hole big enough
to force her little body through, and getting into the house by an
unfastened side door, made her way up to my room. But how on earth
could she possibly have known that I was there? She had not seen me for
six months, and I had not been near the stable, so she could not have
heard my voice, and there was not any coat or wrap of mine left in the
carriage. That she had got into the house by the way I have stated was
quite clear from the state of her paws, and the marks on the stable and
outer court.
Fanny amused me very much on another occasion. She had been taught to
beg, and I went to the kennel, a paled-in one with benches round it,
and opening the door, began to talk and play with the dogs,
occasionally throwing them some pieces of biscuit. I threw a bit which
one of the spaniels picked up, and jumping on to the bench, began to
eat it. I suppose Fanny fancied the piece very much, for she ran after
the dog, jumped up on the bench in front of him and sat up and begged
for it, just as she would have done had I had it. However, the spaniel
did not pay any attention, but quietly munched up the biscuit. Her
jealousy of my wife, when we were first married, was most amusing. She
could not bear to see us sitting together, and if I sat by my wife on a
sofa, would get upon it, scramble on to my shoulders, walk round the
back of my neck, and try to squeeze herself down between us. She was,
too, a capital sporting dog, though for a long time I was afraid to
take her out, as she was so like a rabbit or hare when moving through
long grass or corn that I feared I might perhaps shoot her
accidentally. However, she was always so very anxious to come with me
that at length I took her, and she was quite invaluable. Birds that
would rise and be off at once, if you had a pointer or setter with you,
appeared either not to notice her or be fascinated by her. I knew
directly I entered a field with her whether there were birds or not,
and she would take me straight to them. She also retrieved beautifully.
The first time I found out her powers in this way I had shot two
partridges, right and left, and to my great disgust both were runners
and got into some standing corn. Fanny seemed very anxious to go after
them, so I let her go after one that I had marked down, and off she
scampered, and to my great delight and surprise soon came back with it.
On my taking it from her, she darted off again and in a little while
returned with the other. After this, of course, I always used her for
retrieving, and scarcely ever lost a wounded head of game. She could
bring partridges and pheasants in open ground, but if they fell in
thick cover, or if I sent her after a wounded hare, she could not bring
them back, but used to make a short, sharp bark to let me know she had
found them. Poor little thing, she met, I fear, the fate of too many
pets. We went from home leaving strict injunctions that every care
should be taken of her; but, unfortunately, she sickened and died, I
fear, of neglect.
And now I must tell a most wonderful piece of kindness and compassion
on the part of another dog. At the time Fanny and her brothers and
sisters were born, I had a fine black and white pointer dog. When Fanny
and the rest were a few weeks old, their mother died, and they had to
be brought up by hand, and though every care was taken of them, and
they had warm sheepskin rugs on their bench, they seemed very miserable
and were always crying. Whenever I went round their kennel I usually
found this pointer dog sitting there looking at them through the
palings, and I said one day to the keeper, "I suppose Don would like to
kill them all for making such a noise." "Oh no, sir," said the man; "he
pities them quite Christian-like." "Well," I replied, "if he does, just
open the kennel door and see what he will do." It was opened and the
dog ran in and began licking the puppies, who crowded round him. He
then jumped up on the bench, followed by them, and lay down; the
puppies crawled all over him, biting his ears and tail, evidently
greatly delighted to have him, and finally settled to sleep in all
positions on him, the dog never moving, and seemed almost afraid to
breathe for fear of disturbing them--in fact, he took them entirely
under his protection, and the contorted attitudes the dog would lie in
rather than disturb the puppies were wonderful. I used to think he must
hurt himself; but he would never leave them, and if I got him out for a
little while, thinking he must want rest, he would always run back to
them, never seeming happy until he had got in with them again. This
continued until they were all grown big enough to take care of
themselves. It has always struck me as being the most wonderful piece
of pure benevolence I ever knew of.
I once knew a very eccentric dog. He was a real old English spaniel,
one of that kind you so rarely see, with long body, short legs, with
great bone, grand head, jaws and teeth like a wolf's almost, and long
ears that would meet round his nose. Poor fellow, his temper was
certainly unamiable, but I think this was caused by the state of his
health. When he was a puppy he was troubled with insects, and a stupid
groom, to show, I suppose, that he had some brains, declared he could
cure him with some nostrum of his own; the effect of it being that the
poor puppy's hair nearly all came off. His skin was burned in several
places, and he was made so ill that for several weeks a veterinary
surgeon did not think he could recover. He did though, at length, but
his constitution had received such a shock that he was always subject
to skin disease, and yet he could not stand the least medicine. He was
a very curious animal, never showing much attachment to anyone; he
would bite his best friends on the least provocation. Nothing, though,
offended him so much as being laughed at,--that was an insult he never
forgave. If you began to laugh at him, he would growl in a very ominous
manner, and, if you persisted in it, would snap at you and give you
such a bite, that you would not care to try again. If you wished to
please him, you had to get a lot of old birds' nests, and give them to
him one by one; he would carry them about for some time, and then he
would sit down and tear them to pieces. He was not particularly fond of
going for a walk with anyone; but if you got some nests and gave him
one occasionally, he would trot along with you as happily as possible.
Another curious habit of his was, that he would never get out of the
way for anyone. When he was trotting along he never moved from his line
if he saw anyone coming; but if he saw they did not intend to move,
would begin to growl and look so savage that people usually made haste
out of his way. When he happened to be running down a hill, he did not
growl, but merely ran against people if they did not clear out--his
great weight usually upsetting them, of which he took not the slightest
notice. A great friendship arose between this dog and a fine cat we
had, and it was very amusing to see them together. He would walk up to
the cat and begin to lick her all over, and then she would rub all
round him, purring, and seeming to be very fond of him--when all of a
sudden she would stop, look up in his face and spit at him, at the same
time giving him two or three sharp scratches, the only notice of which
that he took was to close his eyes, so that they might not be hurt.
Poor dog, as I said before, he suffered from skin disease, and the
medicine that you could give another dog with impunity would nearly
kill him, and it was the same with any outward application. At length
when, on one occasion, he was suffering very much, I took him to the
huntsman of a pack of foxhounds, and asked if he could recommend
anything, and he told me of some stuff he dressed the puppies with,
that never hurt them, and gave me some. I had it applied to some other
dogs, and it did not do them the least harm, so I ordered this dog to
be dressed with it. It did not seem to affect him at first, but on the
next morning he was found dead in his kennel. In spite of his unamiable
character, which I put down to his bad health, I was very sorry to lose
him, for he had more regard for me, I think, than almost anyone, and
was a first-class dog for cover shooting, with me at least, for he
would not pay any attention out shooting to anyone else.
I have met with two cases of decided idiocy in dogs--one occurred fully
thirty years ago. It was just about the time that Pomeranian dogs were
first brought into England. An old lady saw several of them abroad,
and, admiring them very much, brought several home and gave them away
as presents to her friends. She gave one to an uncle of mine; it was a
white one, with a splendid coat, and altogether looked a model of the
breed, and everyone who saw it remarked on its beauty; it had, however,
very curious-looking blue eyes, and its habits were very strange. It
would lie curled up on the hearth-rug in the dining-room the whole day,
taking no notice of anyone or anything, except twice a day, when
regularly, about half-past eleven in the morning and at four in the
afternoon, it would get up, and, if the French windows were open, would
go out on to the lawn. If they were closed, it waited till the door was
opened, and then going out, went each day to the same exact spot, and
commenced running round and round in a circle from right to left.
Having done this for some minutes, he would stop, rear up on his hind
legs, and giving his head a most peculiar twist, much like the way
parrots and owls twist their necks, he would then drop down again, and
run the circle from left to right. Having done this, he came indoors,
and lay down on the rug. He never showed the least affection for
anyone, or appeared to know them. If you called out to him, he would
sometimes look up in a vague sort of way, as if he wondered what the
noise was; and the foot-man had to lead him out to meals each day, as
the dog never made the least attempt to stir in search of food. The man
used to say he had more trouble to make this dog feed than to keep any
others from devouring whatever they could get at. Altogether, the dog
did not seem to have the least sense in the world, and was, I think, an
undoubted idiot.
The second case of the sort I met with was in a large sort of retriever
that a friend of mine had. He asked me to come and see a dog that had
been given him, as it was a "very odd sort of beast," and so it was. It
had the most curious coat I ever saw on a dog--very long and iron-grey,
with black markings, a huge bushy tail, so big and so long that it gave
one the idea that the dog's hind legs were in the wrong place, and,
instead of being at the extremity of its body, were put on somewhere
about the middle of its stomach. To add to everything, the dog
squinted, a thing I never heard of or saw in any other dog before or
since. It was not that one of the eyes was blind and did not move
properly, but the eyes actually crossed one another; his head, too, was
the shape of a solid parallelogram, and very narrow between the ears.
The dog was fastened to a kennel, and was walking backwards and
forwards in front of it, very much in the way a caged hyena does. On
being loosed, it bundled off in a clumsy gallop, and soon ran right
into a barrow that had been left on one of the paths. On being brought
up by this obstacle, instead of jumping over it, as any other dog would
have done, he moved round it, and when he found his head clear,
galloped off again on the same straight line, which this time landed
him in a laurel bush, through which he scrambled, and again went on in
the same direction, and this I heard was his regular habit. He had
another very awkward trick, and that was, if he was walking behind you,
he would come up and lay hold of your leg, not apparently with any
vicious design, for if you stopped and looked down at him, there he was
with his eyes half shut, holding on to your leg with his teeth, as if
it was necessary to support himself by such means. After a time he
would drop his jaws off your leg and go maundering along as he had done
before; but it was not altogether a pleasant trick. My last interview
with the brute was not an agreeable one. We were to go out duck
shooting on the river, and my friend proposed taking the dog with us in
the punt to retrieve the ducks. This I decidedly objected to, as a wet
dog in a boat is an unpleasant companion, so he was left on the bank to
follow as best he might. The dog trotted along quietly for some way,
until at length we fired at some ducks, when he jumped into the river
to get them, as we thought; instead of which he swam up to the punt and
seizing the pole in his mouth began to bite and tear at it in the most
furious way. He then tried to scramble into the boat, and getting his
fore-paws on the gunwale, began to tear at the sides in the most
determined manner, snapping furiously at anyone who went near him. The
only thing we could do was to try and duck him by means of the punt
pole, but directly he came up again he attacked the boat afresh, so
that my friend thought the best thing to do was to shoot him, which
accordingly was done. I shall never forget the expression of ferocity
in the dog's face or the mad way in which he tore at the sides of the
boat and the punt pole.
The dog I am now about to mention was, I consider, an instance of the
action of over-instruction working on naturally weak powers. When out
shooting at the Cape, in the Swehamsdam district, something in the bush
attracted my notice, and on riding up I found it was a pointer in the
last stage of starvation. Pitying the poor deserted animal, I told one
of my attendants to take it up and bring it to the waggon, which he
did, and after forcing some broth down its throat, the dog seemed to
revive, and with care it ultimately recovered, and turned out a very
handsome animal. When it had got up its strength again, I took it out
to try it. The dog ranged fairly and soon got on the scent of game, as
I imagined. Seeing him drawing on very fast, I though he had got a
Korhoram in front of him, and as these birds run tremendously, I made a
circle to head the supposed game; but on looking back at the dog, saw
he was standing dead at a small bush. I went back to him and tried all
round it in every direction, but in vain. I then looked on the ground
to see if there was one of the small land tortoises, which abound
there, and which dogs will always point, but found there was not; so
dismounting, I went up to the bush and then found he was standing at a
small striped mouse, so I scolded him and made him come off. His next
exploit was to make a splendid point at a pair of cast-off Hottentot
"crackers" which were lying in the bush, bringing up in his gallop in
really magnificent style. On rating him for this, he fixed all his
attention on me, and though he ranged well, kept his eye whenever
possible on me, and if I stopped pointed at once, or even if I held out
my arm. His last grand feat was a dead point at something that I
thought was a piece of dead stick lying on the ground, and I was just
on the point of taking it up to give him a cut with it for being such a
fool when I discovered that it was a puff adder; so calling the dog
off, I blew it to pieces with a shot, but my escape was a narrow one.
After this, I gave the dog away to a lady who took a fancy to him, as
he was so handsome, and it was most ludicrous to see him in her
drawing-room pointing steadily at footstools or work-boxes, or anything
that was shewn him. The dog had evidently been well broken, but its
brain could not take the impression that he was only to point at game.
He had a confused idea that he ought to point at anything with a scent
to it, or anything he imagined his master wished him to.
NOVEMBER SHOOTING
Nearly three months have already passed away since the shooting season
began. I won't say the three best months, because snipe and woodcock
are coming in, and the cream of the pheasant shooting is yet to come.
For myself, much as I like knocking over grouse and partridges, give me
snipe shooting before all. It is the _fox-hunting of shooting_.
I know of nothing more exciting than getting on to a good snipe bog,
when they lay well and there are plenty of them. When they rise in
_whisps_, that is, several at a time, you may make up your mind they
are wild and difficult to approach. In snipe shooting always have the
_wind on your back_.
The snipe ever flies against the wind; therefore you have a much better
shot than you would have if he were to dart away down wind.
If you take a dog, let it be a cautious, knowing old pointer or setter;
the latter is the animal for this sport, because he stands the cold and
water better than the thin-skinned pointer; but I rarely take any dog
but my retriever.
As regards your dress, you are almost sure to get wet; therefore I
never think of putting on long waterproof boots; they are heavy and
tiring to walk in; and if you do get in over them, you are obliged to
turn yourself up to let the water out; but your misery does not end
here, the wet generally brings your worsted stockings down at heel, and
your heavy saturated boots rub the skin of your heels, or ankle bones,
which cripples you for days.
Put on a pair of thick worsted stockings, and a pair of your oldest and
easiest lace-up boots; if there is a hole or two in them so much the
better, they will let the water out all the quicker.
I never use gaiters, they only get wet and make you cold and
uncomfortable. I wear a pair of old trousers; but generally shoot in
nothing but knickerbockers and stockings.
If you have a long way to drive home, a change of stockings and
trousers is advisable, and instead of shoes or slippers, I put on a
pair of sabots and chaussettes: these can be procured at any French
depôt. They are most comfortable and warm, and no trouble to put on.
If you are shooting on heath, brown should be the colour of your dress;
this, indeed, is the best colour for all work.
Many places that were famous for snipe when I was a lad, are now
drained or built on. And a few years hence the snipe and woodcock will
be rare birds with us. There is still a land within easy reach where
they are to be found--Ireland--and there I go every year for a couple
of months, to a very wild part of the country, certainly, and where you
must rough it; but still I enjoy it intensely: and when I am sitting by
my turf fire, with my glass of potheen beside me, my old black clay
between my lips, and my tired setters stretched at their ease by my
feet, I feel thoroughly happy.
There is one thing I always take with me on these Irish excursions, and
that is a comfortable arm-chair. I have had it carried eleven miles
over the mountains for me, to the cabin or farm, or wherever I may be.
This is the only luxury I allow myself.
If you go farther afield than Ireland, and are in for nothing but snipe
shooting, then be off to America; South Carolina is your mark, and
where you may blaze away to your heart's content.
The woodcock flies exactly the same as the snipe; but it is not
necessary to be particular about the wind in his case. In beating large
covers or forests, never go far in, but try the edges. These birds are
also getting much scarcer, for they now take the eggs in Norway and
Sweden, and eat them as we do plovers' eggs.
In looking for woodcock in cold, wet weather, if you do not find them
in their usual haunts, try the _sunny_ side of the wood or hill, where
it is sheltered from the wind; they are remarkably fond of being where
there are holly bushes.
In shooting forests or large covers use spaniels; but these dogs must
be _perfectly_ broken and never go out of gun range. It is a very
common practice in France to have bells round their dogs' necks, so
that you may know where they are; but I do not like it, it frightens
the birds; and there is danger attached to it. The dogs are sometimes
hung up by the collars. I once remember a very good dog, belonging to a
friend of mine, being killed in this way--he was hung up in some thick
underwood, and when we found him, he was dead. No hunting dog should
ever wear a collar when out, under any circumstances.
November shooting is good shooting, and coverts should not, as a rule,
be beaten before then, as the leaves are not off enough; a quantity of
game is wounded and never found, and is left to linger and die. In
November, too, the walking is much better; it is cooler and the scent
lies stronger; birds may be wilder but they are in finer condition, and
remain so till the frosts come; but even then, unless it is very hard,
they keep their condition. It is snow that destroys all birds'
condition. A few days' snow, and birds not only fall miserably away,
but they get much tamer, and immense numbers are killed by poachers, as
well as rabbits and hares, which are easily tracked; and as they are
not able to go at any pace, a dog with a very moderate turn of speed
will run into them.
The best bit of shooting I ever had was a forest in France which I
hired; it was five thousand acres, famous bottom covert in it, and
noted for woodcock; there was a capital shooting lodge, furnished, four
large bed-rooms, two sitting-rooms, kitchen, back-kitchen, wood-houses,
&c.; cow-house, piggery, stable for fourteen or fifteen horses, orchard
of three acres, kitchen-garden, and small field, a gamekeeper's house,
and dog-kennel; in fact, as a shooting-box it was complete; for all
this I paid four hundred francs a year (£16).
The house stood in the centre of the forest; there was a good road to
it, and there was a village a mile off at which you could get anything.
I had it for some years, and I never enjoyed covert shooting so much;
there was fine partridge ground all round the forest, which I had leave
to go over; part of it was mine. There were a few roebuck in the
forest, foxes, and plenty of badgers; with these last we occasionally
had great fun. There was some very fair trout fishing, as well as duck
shooting, any quantity of rabbits; and I never went out without
bringing home a hare or two; there were quail in the season, and snipe
too, and the woodcock shooting was capital.
For a few days in November, thousands and thousands of wood pigeons
made their appearance, and were very tame from a long flight; these
were killed in great numbers. When they first arrived they were
miserably poor, but after a few days they picked up, and were difficult
to get at. I never enjoyed anything more than this bit of rough
shooting; everything was so convenient and comfortable; by the bright
wood fire of an evening we used to smoke, tell our stories, and spin
our yarns.
The game I killed, even at the small price it fetched, paid the rent
and my English keeper. I do not mean to say I sold it, but I exchanged
it away for other things wanted in the house.
November, although one of the dreariest months of the year, is one of
the best shooting months--certainly for general rough shooting.
I have had capital sport in Ireland in this month, especially with the
woodcock on the mountains, as well as with duck and snipe. I always
carried there a ten-bore gun, because I never knew what would get up,
as most of my shooting lay on the borders of Lough Corrib; sometimes a
duck or a goose would give me a shot, so I found a large gun better.
The golden plover are capital fun in November. I once killed twenty-one
at one shot. I was coming down Lough Corrib in my yacht, and discovered
an immense number of plover on one of the small stony flat islands. I
got the dingy out, and was sculled quietly down by one of the men. I
got within forty yards of them, when they rose, and I gave them both
barrels of No. 6 shot. I picked up one-and-twenty, but I think there
were one or two more I could not find. I have had very good
duck-shooting on the lake, in November, which is twenty-eight miles
long, and in one place ten miles wide. My shooting yacht was one of the
most comfortable ones I ever saw, only ten tons; but there was every
convenience in it and plenty of room. I used to go away for a week, and
the quantities of snipe, cock, and wild fowl I brought back astonished
the natives. I would run up some little creek or river of an evening
and anchor occasionally; we cooked on shore when the weather was fine;
we set the night lines, and had always plenty of pike, trout, and eels,
and in summer any quantity of perch, from three-quarters to three
pounds weight each.
I am very fond of wild pheasant shooting in November; the birds are
then strong, in good plumage, and worth killing.
Rabbiting, either shooting or ferreting, is capital sport; by November
the fern and under cover are generally dead, and you can see the little
grey rascals scudding along.
For some years I, in cover shooting,--in fact, all my shooting, have
used nothing but Schultze's wood powder; perhaps it may not be quite so
strong as the ordinary powder, but I am by no means assured of that; it
is quite strong enough for any purpose, and has these advantages over
the ordinary powder:
There is not nearly so much recoil, and in a heavy day's shooting you
do not give up with your head spinning and your shoulder tender.
The report is not so loud either.
The company say, "It shoots with greater force and precision;" this may
or may not be; but I am satisfied of this that it shoots _well_, and
certainly does not soil the gun nearly so much as other powders.
But there is one thing that alone recommends it to me; that is, the
smoke never hangs, and you can always use your second barrel. How often
in covert shooting, or in the open, on a mild or foggy day, when there
has been no breeze, has the smoke hung, and prevented you putting in
your second barrel? Hundreds of times to me! But with Schultze's powder
there is only a thin white smoke, which is no detriment or blind to the
shooter. And there is also another great advantage it possesses, if it
gets damp it can be dried without losing any of its strength. It suits
all guns and climates.
SPORTING ADVENTURES OF CHARLES CARRINGTON, ESQ.
RECORDED BY "OLD CALABAR"
Reader, must I confess it? I am a Cockney, born and bred in the "little
village." Though I passed some eight or ten years in a Government
office, yet my heart was not in the work. I had frequent illnesses,
which kept me away; those days--must I own it?--were generally spent in
a punt at Weybridge with one of the Keens. At Walton or Halliford I was
great in a Thames punt; and I then imagined few could hold a candle to
me in a gudgeon or roach swim; that I was _the_ fisherman of England,
_par excellence_. I am wiser now.
At last my absences from office were so frequent that I had quiet
intimation to go; but, having friends who were pretty high in office, I
got an annuity in the shape of ninety pounds a year. A fresh berth was
procured for me at four hundred per annum, where I had a good deal of
running about. This suited me much better, as it enabled me to indulge
in my proclivities. I now took to shooting, and rather gave fishing the
go-by.
I believe I tormented every gunmaker in the West End to death. I was
continually chopping and changing, inventing fresh heel-plates to the
"stocks." I would have a thick one of horn for a thin coat, and a thin
one of metal for a thick coat. Then I had them made with springs to
diminish the recoil. I was laughed at by every one who knew anything
about the matter; but I was so eaten up by self-conceit that I imagined
no one was _au fait_ at guns but myself, and would take no advice. My
shooting was not what a sportsman would call "good form"; but this I
did not believe.
"Dash it, Muster Carrington," said an old Somersetshire farmer to me
one day; "always a-firing into the brown on 'em, and mizzing the lot.
It can't be the gun, or because you wear gig-lamps. You're no shot,
zur, and never will be;" but I laughed at the old fellow's ignorance.
Rather rich that. I, with one of Grant's best guns, not a
shot--rubbish! But I determined I would make myself a shot; so I went
over to Ireland to an old friend of mine, who lived in a wild, remote
part of Galway. He was a first-class sportsman in every way; took great
pains with me, and taught me a good deal. I learnt to ride to hounds
with him, not well certainly, but in my vanity I soon imagined I not
only rode, but shot better than my instructor. One day, after shooting
at twenty-three snipes, and only killing one, and the next missing
thirteen rabbits turned out from the keeper's pockets, I was fain to
admit I was not the shot I thought myself; so I betook myself back to
London--a sadder, but not a wiser man. I then entered one of the pigeon
clubs. Pigeon club? it was one. I won't say anything about that. If I
had gone on with it I should soon have had pockets to let. I was
terribly laughed at by every one, for I could neither shoot nor make
anything by betting.
I then determined to try hunting, and wrote to my old friend in Ireland
to procure me a couple of horses. This he did, and sent me a couple of
good ones. I enjoyed the hunting more than I did the shooting, because
I could ride a little, and got on better.
Sending my horses down to the country one fine morning, the next I
followed them to ----, where I had taken a little box for the season.
Many were my mishaps during the few months I was there, which was not
to be wondered at.
I was in the famous run I am about to relate, and one of the
unfortunate victims who came to grief on that occasion.
In the county of Croppershire, and not far from the little post town of
Craneford, a pack of fox-hounds was kennelled: they were under the
joint mastership of two gentlemen, Samuel Head, Esq., commonly called
Soft Head, and Henry Over, Esq., who was usually designated Hi Over;
the secretary was George Heels: he went by the name of Greasy Heels.
A local wag had nicknamed it the "Head-over-heels Hunt;" but another
aristocratic gentleman and a public-school man said that a much more
_distingué_ and appropriate title would be the classical one of the
_Sternum-super-caput_ Hunt. This it was ever afterwards called; and
certainly no hunt deserved the name better, for hardly a man amongst
the whole lot could ride; they were ever being _grassed_, or "coming to
grief."
Men from the next county used to say to each other, "Old fellow, I am
in for a lark to-morrow. I'm going to see the 'Sternum' dogs;" or, "I
am going to drive the ladies over next week, when the Sternum hounds
meet at the cross-roads; they want a laugh, and to see a few falls."
The huntsman to these hounds was John Slowman. He was not a brilliant
huntsman, but he could ride; he had no voice; could not blow the horn
well, which was, perhaps, a lucky thing.
Somehow or other the Sternum hounds generally killed, and had a great
many more noses nailed to their kennel-door than most of the
neighbouring packs. The great secret of their success was that the
hounds were _let alone_; they never looked for halloas or lifting,
and if they did they very seldom got it. They were great lumbering,
throaty, slack-loined, flat-sided animals; but they could hunt if let
alone, and often carried a good head, and went along at a pretty good
bat too; and as they had but few men who rode up to them, they were not
as a rule pressed or over-ridden.
The Sternum gentlemen were great at roads, though now and then they
would take it into their heads to ride like mad, especially when there
was anyone from a neighbouring hunt to watch their proceedings. Then
there were riderless horses in all directions, for the country was a
stiff one, and took a deal of doing.
"Ah, gentlemen," Slowman would exclaim, as the field came thundering up
ten minutes after a fox had been broken up, "you should have been here
a little sooner; you should indeed. Mag--nificent from find to finish.
Don't talk to me of the Dook's, or the Belvoir, or the Pytchley either,
nor none of them hunts as have three packs to keep 'em agoing. Give me
two days a week, and such a lot of dogs as these. I dessay the Markis
will make a huntsman in time. Frank Gillard ain't a bad man, and
Captain Anstruther is pretty tidy; but there's too much hollerin', too
much horn, too much lifting and flashing over the line. They mobs their
foxes to death; I kills mine."
Slowman was magnificent at these times, and felt more than gratified
when compliments were showered on him on all sides.
"Right you are, Slowman." "You know how to do the trick, old fellow."
"Best huntsman in Europe." "There's half-a-sovereign to drink my
health."
Then Slowman would collect his hounds, nod to the whips, and return
home a proud and happy man.
The Sternum hounds hunted a week later than their neighbours, and at
the two meets that took place during that period they generally had
large fields, and always on the last day of the season, because Messrs.
Head and Over gave a grand breakfast.
On the occasion I am about to speak of, the last day of the season, a
breakfast was to be given of more than usual magnificence. The hounds
had had a good season, and the masters determined that they would be
even more lavish than usual.
Great were the preparations made when it was known that the
neighbouring hunts were coming in force to see them, and have one more
gallop before they put their beloved pinks away in lavender.
Slowman, the huntsman, the evening before the eventful day, had gone
through the kennels, made his draft for the following morning, looked
to the stables, and given orders about the horses and other little
matters pertaining to his craft.
He was seated by his cosy fire, and in a cosy arm-chair, puffing
meditatively at a churchwarden, and now and then taking a sip from a
glass of hot gin-and-water that stood at his elbow. "Bell's Life" was
at his feet, and before the fire lay a couple of varmint-looking
fox-terriers. Slowman was thoroughly enjoying himself, and wondering if
the six-acred oak spinny which they were to draw first the next morning
would hold a good stout fox.
"John," said his wife, bustling into the room, "Captain Martaingail
wishes to know if he can see you an instant: he is on his horse at the
door."
"Lord bless me, Mary! surely," sticking his feet into his slippers and
rushing to the front door. The Captain was a favourite of his. The gin
he was drinking was a present to him from the Captain; the "Bell's
Life" was the Captain's. The Captain always came of a Sunday for a chat
and look through the kennels; and the Captain was one of the very few
of the hunt who could ride. He always gave Slowman a fiver at the end
of the season, and many good tips besides; so he was a prime favourite
with the huntsman.
"Good evening, good evening, Captain," said Slowman, going to the door.
"Come in, sir. Here, Thumas--Bill--Jim--some of you come here and take
the Captain's horse. Throw a couple of rugs over him and put him in the
four-stall stable, take his bridle off, and give him a feed of corn."
"Now, sir, come in," as the Captain descended from his hack and gave it
to one of the lads. "I was just having a smoke, sir, and a glass of
gin-and-water--your gin, sir; and good it is, too."
"That's right, Slowman. And I don't care if I take one with you. It's
devilish cold, but no frost. I want to have a talk with you about
to-morrow."
Taking the arm-chair, he mixed himself a glass of liquor, and lit a
cigar.
"Slowman," he commenced, "there's the devil's own lot of people coming
to-morrow. There's Jack Spraggon, from Lord Scamperdale's hunt. He's
sent on Daddy Longlegs, his Lordship's best horse, and another; so _he_
means going. Jealous devil he is, too. Soapy Sponge will be here with
Hercules and Multum in Parvo; old Jawleyford, and a host of others of
that lot. Then there's Lord Wildrace, Sir Harry Clearall, and God knows
who besides. There's more than forty horses in Craneford now--every
stall and stable engaged; and there will be twice as many in the
morning.
"Ah! sir, it's the breakfast as brings 'em--at least, a great many of
'em."
"Well, I daresay that has something to do with it," replied the
Captain; "but a great many come to have a laugh at us. The fact is,
most of our men can't ride a d----. Then look at Head and Over, they
are always coming to grief and falling off. No wonder they get laughed
at. And most of the others, too. There will be no end of ladies out,
too, and all to have a grin at us. Oh! by-the-way, Slowman, here is
your tip. I may just as well give it to you to-night as later. I've
made it ten instead of five this year, because you've shewn us such
prime sport."
"Very much obliged to you, Captain, indeed," thrusting the note into
his pocket; "and for your kind opinion too. I try to show what sport I
can, and always will. So they're coming to have a laugh at us, are
they! I wish we may find a good stout fox, and choke all the jealous
beggars off. I'd give this ten-pound note to do it," slapping his
pocket.
"It may be done, Slowman," replied the Captain cautiously; "in fact, I
may say I have done it. But you must back me up; and, mind, never a
word."
"I'm mum, sir. Mum as a gravestone."
"Well, you see, Slowman, having found out what they are coming for,
I've a pill for them. You draw the six-acre oak spinny first. Well,
there will be a _drag_ from that over the stiffest country to Bolton
Mill. That's eight miles as the crow flies. There, under the lee of a
hedge, will be old Towler with a fresh-caught fox from their own
country. As he hears the hounds coming up he will let him loose. He's
not one of your three-legged ones, but a fresh one, caught only this
afternoon. I've seen him--such a trimmer! He'll lead them straight away
for their own country. And if the strangers, and old Spraggon, and
Jawleyford, and all the rest of them can see it through, they are
better men than I take them to be. I shall have my second horse ready
for me at the mill. And so had you better. I'll take the conceit out of
the beggars."
"By the living Harry!" exclaimed the huntsman, "a grand idea. I must
draft Conqueror, Madcap, and Rasselas. They are dead on drags. But,
Captain, if the governors twig it?"
"Not a bit, Slowman. They, as you know, won't go four miles."
"Yes, sir, yes. I know all that. But if they should twig? They have the
coin, you know." The huntsman had his eye to the main chance.
"But they will not, Slowman. Now, I will tell you a secret; but, mind,
it's between ourselves. Honour, you know."
"Honour bright, Captain," replied the huntsman, laying his hand on his
heart.
"Well, then, to-morrow at breakfast, Head and Over will announce their
intention of resigning."
"No, sir; you don't mean it?" said the huntsman hastily.
"I do," replied the Captain, "And I am going to take them on, and you
too. I am to be your M.F.H. It's all cut and dried. So you see you
should run no risk. But not a word of this."
The huntsman sat with his mouth open, and at last uttered, "Dash my
boots and tops, Captain, but you are a trimmer! But," he continued, "if
we find a fox before we come on the drag?"
"But you will not, Slowman. The cover is mine, and has been well hunted
through to-day, and will be to-morrow morning again. No fox will be
found there."
The two sat for an hour and more talking and arranging matters, so that
there might be no failure on the morrow. And all having been
satisfactorily arranged, the Captain mounted his horse and rode home.
The following morning--the last of the season--was all that could be
desired. A grey day with a southerly breeze. It was mild for the time
of year. Great were the preparations at Mr Head's house. He gave the
breakfast one year, Over the next. It was turn and turn about.
As it was the last breakfast he was to give as an M.F.H., Head
determined it should be a good one. Mrs Head was great before her
massive silver tea set; and she had her daughter on her right to assist
her.
At the time appointed Lord Wildrace, who had driven over in his mail
phaeton, put in an appearance in his No. 1 pink, closely followed by
Spraggon, who determined to have ample time for his breakfast. Then old
Jawleyford entered, and rushing up to the lady, declared it was too bad
of her not to have come over and seen them. At any rate, they would
come and spend a week with them soon at Jawleyford Court, would they
not? Then Soapy Sponge turned up, looking as smart and spruce as ever.
We cannot go through the breakfast--or the speech of Mr Head, and the
other by Mr Over, or the regrets of the company on their resigning the
joint mastership, or the cheers on the announcement that Captain
Martaingail had consented to keep them on.
"Devilish good feed," growled Jack Spraggon to Sponge, who was drawing
on his buckskin gloves. Jack was a little elevated; for he had not
spared the cherry-brandy or the milk punch.
"It was that," replied his friend. "Feel as if you could ride this
morning, don't you?"
"Yes, I can--always do; but no chance of it with such dogs as these."
"Don't know about that," returned Sponge. "They generally find, and
kill too."
Such a field had been rarely seen with the Sternum hounds--horsemen,
carriages, mounted ladies, all eager.
"Let the whips be with you, or rather at the outside of the cover, to
keep the people back," whispered Captain Martaingail to the huntsman.
"I will go to the top of the cover when I give the view halloa. You
know what to do."
"Certain of a fox, I suppose, Martaingail?" asked Lord Wildrace, as
they were smoking their cigars close to the hounds, who were drawn up
on a bit of greensward, giving the ten minutes' law for the late
comers.
"It has never yet been drawn blank," returned the Captain. "Ah! there
goes Slowman with the hounds. Time's up."
Cigar ends were now thrown away, girths tightened, stirrup-leathers
shortened or let down.
The Captain stole into cover, and then galloped away to the far end.
Presently a ringing tally-ho was heard.
"Found quickly," growled Jack Spraggon, as he bustled along on Daddy
Longlegs to get a good place.
"That's your sort, old cock!" ejaculated Sponge, as he dashed past him
on Hercules, throwing a lot of mud on Jack's spectacles from his
horse's hoofs.
"Oh, you unrighteous snob!--you rusty-booted Cockney!" exclaimed
Spraggon, rubbing at his spectacles with the back of his gloved hand,
thereby daubing the mud all over the glasses, and making it worse.
"Just like you, you docked-tail humbug!"
Too-too went Slowman's horn. "Give 'em time, gentlemen--give 'em time!"
he screamed, as he took the wattled fence from the spinny into the
fallow beyond. The hounds took up the drag at once, and raced away.
"Yonder he goes!" exclaimed the captain, pointing with his whip to some
imaginary object, and, digging the latchfords into his horse, was away.
The first fence was a flight of sheep-hurdles, stretching the whole way
across a large turnip field. Here Jawleyford on his old cob came to
grief, being sent flying right through his ears.
"Sarve you right!" muttered Spraggon, as Daddy Longlegs took it in his
stride. "You would not do a bit of paper for me last week. May you lie
there for a month!"
"Pick up the bits," roared Sponge to him as he galloped past, "and lay
in a fresh stock of that famous port of yours."
But the hounds were carrying too good a head for much chaff. The
gentlemen of the Sternum hunt were riding like mad. Already horses
began to sob; for the pace was a rattler, and the country heavy. The
celebrated Rushpool brook was before them--that brook that so many have
plumbed the depth of. It wants a deal of doing.
Lord Wildrace charged it, so did Spraggon; but both were in. Sponge, on
Hercules flew over. Slowman and the Captain did it a little lower down.
Head, Over, and a host of others galloped for a ford half a mile away.
Out of a large field only eight or ten cleared the Rushpool brook. His
lordship and Spraggon were soon out and going; and their horses having
a fine turn of speed enabled them to come up with the hounds again; and
their checking for a few minutes, in consequence of some sheep having
stained the ground, let up the rest of the field on their now nearly
beaten horses.
"Fastish thing, my Lord, is it not?" said Over to Lord Wildrace, who
was mopping his head with a scarlet silk pocket-handkerchief.
"Yes," said the nobleman, turning his horse's head to the wind,
"devilish sharp. I'm cold, too. I wish I could see my second horse. I'm
pumped out."
"Have a nip of brandy, Wildrace," said Captain Martaingail, offering
his silver flask. "Been in the water, I see--and a good many more,
too," casting his eyes on half a score of dripping objects. "It's a
very distressing jump to a horse, is that Rushpool brook. By gad, they
have hit off again!"
Slowman knew well the line to cast his hounds, and they soon hit it
off, and went racing away again, heads up and sterns down.
At last Bolton Mill was in sight, and here many got their second
horses, the head grooms from the other hunt having followed the
Captain's, and the joint masters' servants were there already.
Spraggon was quickly on the back of The Dandy; but he was hardly up
before a view halloa was given in a field below them, and a hat held up
proclaimed their fox was ahead of them.
"It's all right, Slowman," said Captain Martaingail, as the hounds
feathered on the line and took it up.
"He's right away across the Tornops," shouted a keeper-looking man
(this was Towler, who had shaken the fox out) as the field came up,
"an' a-going like blue murder."
The hunting was now not quite so fast, but they got on better terms
with their fox after a little, and settled well to him.
A good stout fox he was too, and deserved a better fate. He led them
right into his own country, but before he could reach a friendly earth,
seven or eight miles from where he was shook out, the hounds ran into
him in the open.
Some eight or ten of the field were in at the finish, and others came
up at intervals.
"Here, gentlemen," exclaimed Slowman triumphantly, to the strangers
from a distance, "this is one of your foxes. I guess we sent him back
to you faster a precious deal than ever you sent him to us. Sorry we've
killed him, though, your dogs want blood, poor things. You've seen what
the Sternum hounds can do now! We're not to be laughed at, are we?"
This impudent speech had not much effect generally, but several
gentlemen turned away disgusted.
The run was quoted in every sporting paper; and it was years and years
before people forgot the great Rushpool Brook run, the last of the
season.
The hounds had achieved a reputation, and Captain Martaingail took care
they should not lose it. He carried the horn himself after he took to
them, Slowman acting as first whip; he drafted most of the hounds, and
got together a fresh pack, that were not only good-looking, but could
go too. But the dogs never lost the name of the "_Sternum-super-caput_"
hounds.
Whilst I am on the subject of hunting, I may as well tell you a funny
story which happened to a friend of mine; this took place near London,
and although I did not come so badly off as my friend, yet I was
nowhere at the finish.
It is of a thorough cockney that I am about to write; of one who made
the City his home; did a little in Stocks and on 'Change: he had done
so well on it that he had four hunters standing not a hundred miles
from the Angel at Islington. Thither he used to go of an evening on the
'bus to his snug little chambers, to which was attached a capital
stable with four loose boxes, and in these four boxes stood four
decentish nags. I don't know that they were reliable fencers, but they
could gallop; they were bang up to the mark--well done, well groomed,
and well clothed.
Frank Cropper was proud of his horses, and his stud-groom, Dick, was
his right hand in all matters. Dick, though he professed to have a
profound knowledge of horses, in reality knew nothing about them, and
had to thank his strappers for the condition and fettle they were in.
But Dick was great at getting up leathers and top boots, was extremely
fond of dress, turned out well, and though he could not ride a yard,
led every one to believe he was invincible in the saddle.
He was grand when he used to dodge about in the lanes after the
Puddleton currant-jelly dogs, riding his master's second horse. Cropper
thought it the correct thing to have out a second horse with the
harriers. No one ever saw Cropper or his man take a fence; they used to
gallop through places or fences that had been smashed by some one
before them, or creep through gaps made in hedges.
Occasionally he used to honour the Queen's with his presence; there he
did it in grand style, sent his horses down by rail, or drove down in
his cart, with his brown-holland overalls on, covering his boots and
spotless buckskins from the smallest particle of dust or dirt; the
overalls he would have taken off with a grand flourish just before the
hounds moved away, and mounted his horse with the grandest possible
air, telling Dick to ride to points, and to be sure to be handy with
his second horse; but, somehow or other, he never got his second horse;
Dick always mistook the line of country.
Once or twice Cropper had been known to grace the Epping Forest Hunt on
an Easter Monday; but, somehow or other, Frank did not speak much of
this: why, I know not.
"Dick," said his master one morning as he sat at breakfast, "the day
after to-morrow is the last of the season--at least, the last day of
any hounds I can get to; so I mean to have a turn with the ----
staghounds."
"Do you, sir? I wouldn't if I were you, sir; hate that calf-hunting.
The Queen's ain't up to my ideas of huntin'; no staghounds are; but
these hounds are duffers; the master's a duffer, the huntsman is a
duffer, the whips are duffers, and so are the hounds. No, sir, be
Cardinal Wiseman, and go with the ---- pack."
"No, Dick, I have made up my mind to see these hounds; it's a certain
find; open the door of the cart and out pops your stag. It's the last
day of the season, and I mean to have a good gallop."
"Very well, sir. You will go down by rail, I suppose?"
"Yes, Dick, yes; by rail. You will go on by the eight o'clock train. I
shall follow by the ten."
"All right, sir." And they separated, the man to look to his stable and
things, the master to do a little on 'Change.
Frank Cropper went in for a good breakfast on the morning of the last
of the season, took plenty of jumping powder in the shape of Kentish
cherry brandy, and topped it up with some curaçoa.
"I feel," says Cropper, as he got into the train, and was talking to
some City friends who were bound on the same errand as myself; "I feel,
my boys, that I shall take the lead to-day, and keep it, too. Ha, ha!
What do you think of that? A church would not stop me. Temple Bar I
should take in my stride, if my horse could jump it. I'm chockful of go
this morning; I shall distinguish myself."
"Or extinguish yourself," remarked one.
Cigars and an occasional nip at their pocket pistols whiled away the
time till the train arrived at its destination; there, Cropper and
another took a fly, and drove the three miles they had to go. They were
quite determined they would not dirt their boots or spotless leathers
by a three miles' ride; they would appear at the meet as bright as
their No. 1 pinks, Day & Martin, and Probert's paste could make them.
"There they are!" exclaimed Cropper's friend, as he caught sight of the
hounds drawn up on a small common. "By Jupiter, but there's a lot out!
it's the last day of the season."
Cropper descended from the fly in all the glories of his ulster coat
and overalls; his horses were there under the charge of spicy-looking
Master Dick.
The overalls were slipped off, and, with the ulster, consigned to the
driver to leave at the station; and our hero mounted his horse and was
ready for the fray.
Now, this meet not being far from town, and a large number of the
London division being present, the worthy master, having a proper
regard for his hounds, thought a few jumps might choke off a good many
who would press upon the hounds. So he had the deer uncarted some
three-quarters of a mile from where they were, the van containing him
was backed not very far from a flight of sheep-hurdles, and a double
line of foot people being formed, the door of the cart opened and out
leapt the stag. Looking around him for an instant, he started away at a
quick trot, and then, as the shouting became louder, commenced to
canter, cleared the hurdles, and was away.
"Lot of these London cads down here to-day," remarked young Lord
Reckless to his friend Sir Henry Careful. "Don't know, 'pon my soul,
what they come here for."
"For about the same reason you do--to see the hounds, and get a fall or
two."
"Ah, that's all very fine," retorted his Lordship, "for you to say so.
You never ride at anything, therefore you are pretty safe. I ride at
everything."
"But never by any chance get over," interrupted the baronet, "except
through your horse's ears."
What more they said was cut short by the hounds coming up on the line
of the stag, and racing away.
I got over the hurdles all right, and so did most of the field; but at
the second fence I was down. And I saw Cropper unseated at the same
instant, and his horse galloping wildly away at the third fence. Dick
was shot through his horse's ears into the next field.
I was rushing about for mine, over my ankles in mud, when I encountered
Frank Cropper and his man Dick in the middle of the slough.
"Where the deuce is my second horse?" roared Cropper to his servant. "I
thought I told you to ride him to the points."
"So I was going to, sir; but he stumbled, and unshipped me."
"Good heavens! what is to be done?" exclaimed Cropper. "I shall lose
the run. Here, you fellows," to a lot of countrymen about, "catch the
horses--half-a-crown each for them."
But the nags were not so easily caught, and it was half an hour before
they were secured. Both I and Cropper were wet and cold; so, leaving
Dick to go on with the horses by train to London, and get the coats at
the station, Cropper and I started on foot to walk there. He was too
bruised and cold to ride; so was I.
You may suppose that the remarks we heard going along were not
complimentary: "Two gents in scarlet as has been throwed from their
'orses, and a-stumping of it home," etc.
At last I was getting nearly beat, and so was my friend, when we espied
a fly coming along the road. In it was seated Warner of the Welsh Harp
at Hendon. Taking pity on us, he gave us a lift, and drove us to the
nearest station, and we reached London in due time.
This was the last of my hunting experiences. I got disgusted with it,
and sold my horses. Having read flaming accounts from Cook's tourists,
some of whom had been round the world in ninety days, I packed up my
guns and some clothes, and started for America.
I did not remain long in New York, as I was anxious to commence
shooting. So I was not long in getting to the small town of ----, and,
putting up at the best hotel the place afforded, which was not a very
good one, sent for the landlord.
"Wall, Britisher, I'm glad to see yeu," commenced the American
Boniface, coolly seating himself on the table, and commencing spitting
at a bluebottle fly on the floor. "So yeu've come here to see our
glorious American Constitootion. Wall, I guess yeu'll be pretty
considerable surprised--tarnation surprised, doggoned if you won't.
We're an almighty nation, we air. Going a-shooting, air yeu? Wall, I
calkerlate we've got more game hereabouts than would fill all London,
and enough ships in our little river the Mississi-pi to tow your little
island across the broad Atlantic--we hev, indeed, stranger. There's
lots of grouse; but nary a buffeler, bar, nor alligater about here. But
I s'pose yeu means to take up yer fixins here in this feather-bed bully
hotel afore yeu makes tracks?"
I assured him such was my intention.
"Wall, then, stranger, what will yeu like?--cocktail, mint julip,
brandy smash, or cobbler? I've a few festive cusses in the bar as will
tell yeu all about the shooting. Let's hev a licker-up with them."
To this I assented, and walked into another room with him, where there
were Yankees of all descriptions.
I determined to make myself popular, and stood drinks to any amount.
"Bust my gizzard, but yeu air a ripper!" exclaimed my tall friend. "He
air, ain't he, bully boys?"
What more they said was drowned in a terrific row which took place at
the other end of the apartment.
"Hillo!" shouted my tall friend. "Come on, stranger, if yeu want to see
our pertikelur customs of this hemisphere. Bet my boots it's Bully
Larkins and that old 'oss from Calerforney. Go it, my cockeys!" he
screamed out as he mounted on a table, "go it, old coon!" alluding to
one of the combatants; "go it! Billy's a-gaining on yeu, and if yeu
don't look out he'll riz yer har with his bowie knife, gouge yer eye,
and fetch yeu out of yer boots--he will, by----!"
Such a fearful row I never heard. All were in a state of frenzied
excitement--knives glittered in the hands of many. Whilst all this was
going on I made my way out of the apartment, and locked and bolted
myself in my own.
In half an hour my landlord came to the door, and knocked for
admission.
"It's all over, stranger," he said as he entered. "Old Calerforney
carved two of Bully Larkins' fingers off with his bowie, and Larkins
bit off half t'other's nose. I guess he ain't beautiful. They're
festive cusses here, and air always at it. Nary a day passes without a
free fight."
I need hardly say the next day I took my departure for New York, and
was off to England by the first boat. I had had quite enough of my
American friends and their notions.
I have given up sporting, as I found I could make no hand at it. I
shoot occasionally for amusement, and fish occasionally, but never lay
down the law as an authority.
MY FIRST DAY'S FOX-HUNTING
But that was six or seven years ago, and I frankly admit that then I
was a very indifferent horseman, although I was in happy ignorance of
the fact--in its integrity. I was quite conscious that I did not ride
very gracefully or over-comfortably, but I always discovered that the
fault was my horse's and not mine. My cousins used to think otherwise,
and I have spent hours at a time in trying to induce them to give up
their opinions on the subject and to adopt mine. I should explain that
my cousins being orphans, and my father being their guardian, they
lived with us as part of our family, and that whenever they rode out
they seemed to think they had a right to insist upon my accompanying
them. I at length got tired of riding out with my fair cousins, and of
hearing them titter as, at their suggestion, we went down steep hills
at full trot (I confess I was never great at trotting down hill), and
so I resolved to take to _hunting_. I had heard that some horses,
though the worst of hacks, made the best of hunters; and I thought that
something of that kind might apply to horsemen also, and that I myself
might shine more in the field than I did on the road. It was the end of
February, and the Coverbury pack were meeting three times a week at
places within easy reach of the Stonington Station. That was jolly! I
could buy a hunter, keep him at Philley's livery-stables, and on
hunting-days send him by train to Stonington, meet him, have a day's
hunting unknown to my cousins, and thus enjoy myself with perfect
freedom. I at once drew a cheque for £50, with which I determined to
buy the best hunter in all Blankshire! I called at Philley's and told
him of my intention, and asked him how much a week he would require to
"board and lodge" my steed when purchased. The man smiled--he seemed to
have a habit of smiling; but seeing from the seriousness of my manner
that I was in earnest, he replied that his charge for keeping the horse
would be thirty shillings a week; and he added that if I wished to buy
a "slapping" hunter he'd got just the horse for my money. "Of course,"
said he, "you don't want a pony, but a good tall horse as'll keep you
out of the dirt; and," he added, scanning my figure from top to toe,
"you don't want no cart-horse to carry your weight neither." I admitted
that my ideas on the subject coincided with his exactly, and he at once
called to a stable-boy to bring out Iron Duke.
"There," said Philley, as the horse was trotted into the yard, "you
might go a day's march and not come across such a hunter as
that--extraordinary animal, I assure you, sir." Not understanding the
points of a horse, I deemed it prudent to indorse all that Iron Duke's
owner chose to say in his praise; and I was thus compelled to
acknowledge that his superior height (over sixteen hands), long legs,
and slender build, gave him an advantage over every other horse I had
seen in my life, as regards carrying a light-weight over a
high-stone-wall country.
As we stood discussing the merits of the horse I happened to turn
round, and there I saw the stable-boy grinning and "tipping the wink"
to a companion. This aroused my suspicions that all mightn't be right;
so instead of at once buying and paying for the horse, I mustered up
courage to say, "Well, Mr Philley, I like the horse's appearance, but
are his paces as good as his looks? Will you let me try him with the
Coverbury pack to-morrow?" Mr Philley paused, thought a few moments,
and then observed somewhat solemnly, "Iron Duke, you see, sir, is a
very valuable horse, dirt cheap at fifty pounds; in fact, it's giving
him away, it is really, and I shouldn't like anything to happen to a
horse like that whilst he's mine. We don't generally let him out for
hunting; he's too good for most of our customers. But I'll tell yer
what we'll do; we'll let you have him to-morrow for two guineas, and
then (if you have no accident with him, as of course a gentleman like
you won't) you can please yourself whether you have him or not. But if
you _should_ have an accident--of course accidents _will_ happen
sometimes--why, then the horse will be yours and the fifty pounds
mine." These terms seemed fair, and I accepted them, though not before
they had banished my suspicions, and almost induced me to buy and pay
for the horse there and then.
In the morning I called at Philley's for my hunter, and the boy brought
him out bridled and saddled. As he stood straight in front of me his
tall slim-built figure looked as sharp as a knife. I ventured to
express this idea, but being doubtful as to whether sharpness was a
good point or a bad one, I did so in a manner which might be taken as
in earnest or in jest. The dealer chose to take it in the latter sense,
and after laughing heartily at my "good joke," assured me that I should
find my horse "as clever as a cat." I then attempted to mount, and
after some time (during which the ostler gave me a "leg up" _and over
the other side_) I was successful. The stirrup-straps having been
adjusted, I set out for the station; and in my journey thither I was
conscious that the commanding presence of my horse and the easy
graceful attitude of his rider were fully appreciated by the numerous
passers-by who stopped to stare at us--doubtless in admiration. One
thing, though, nettled me a bit. Just as I got opposite the club, and
was waving my whip to Fitz-Jones, De Brown, and some other fellows who
were standing in the portico, my horse shied at a wheelbarrow, and I
had some difficulty in getting comfortable in the saddle again. I
gently remonstrated with the boy who was wheeling the barrow for not
getting out of my way, when the impudent little scoundrel turned round
and shouted, "Oh, crikey! yer ain't very safe up there! Get inside;
safer inside!" Whereupon the whole of the bystanders, including my
friends of the club, burst out laughing. I, of course, could not
descend from my high horse to chastise the young urchin, and as I
couldn't think of anything smart to say to him, I treated him with the
silent contempt he deserved, and rode on. But still, as I said before,
this nettled me.
With the exception of this trifling _contretemps_, I arrived safely at
Stonington Wood, the place appointed for the meet. There was a good
muster of ladies and gentlemen on horseback (some ten or fourteen of
the gentlemen in scarlet coats), and a condescending old gentleman with
grey hair, neatly trimmed whiskers, and rosy cheeks, remarked that
there was a "good field," but I couldn't see it. All that I could see
in the shape of a field was a small patch of turnips enclosed with a
stone wall, the remainder of the surrounding country being common and
wood, or, as I afterwards learned to call it, "cover." I soon began to
appreciate my Iron Duke, for I found that he was the tallest horse
there, and his legs seemed as light as an antelope's in comparison with
the legs of the other animals, some of which seemed almost as heavy as
cart-horses'.
The clock of the village church struck eleven, and three or four of the
men in scarlet began to whip the dogs to make them go into the wood. I
thought it was the proper thing to imitate their example, and seeing
one of the dogs scrambling up the wall I instantly rode up and gave him
what I thought a "lift up behind" with my whip. To my astonishment the
animal, instead of going over into the wood, tumbled down at my feet
and yelped most piteously. Iron Duke, not liking the noise, turned
round suddenly and kicked out, and the hound had an almost miraculous
escape of having his skull cracked. All this happened in less than a
minute, and seemed to cause a "great sensation," for two or three of
the roughest of the men in scarlet were instantly attacked with a fit
of cursing and swearing, of which I took no notice, believing it to be
lavished on the head of the unfortunate hound. But I soon had my
doubts; for one of the gentlemen in scarlet rode up to me, and with
much severity informed me that he could not have his hounds "served in
that way." I protested that it was an accident, and that I thought
"there could be no harm in doing what the others did." With this
explanation he seemed quite satisfied, for he at once left me, and even
smiled as he did so. The dog must have been a young one, for as I
passed two gentlemen who were doubtless discussing puppies in general,
and I suppose him in particular, I overheard one of them say, "He's
evidently green." The dogs having got safely into cover, the ladies and
gentlemen began to ride along the outside of the wood--cover, I
mean--and I did the same, taking care, though, to keep well in the
rear, that I might see what the others did. I kept clear of every one I
could possibly avoid, as I found that the people who hunted at
Stonington indulged in a peculiar kind of slang which I could not well
understand. I had not gone far before I heard a loud laughing in my
rear. I seemed to be familiar with the sound. I turned "about" in the
saddle, and who should I see but my cousins, not twenty yards behind
me! I was inclined to go home, and I should have done so only I saw
that my cousins, besides being attended by Evans in livery, were
accompanied by their old schoolfellow, Miss Trafford, a young lady to
whom I had been introduced at our last county ball. To enjoy her
presence I determined to brave all. I turned my horse round and raised
my hat as much as the tight guard would let me, and in another moment I
was at the mercy of my tormentors. "Ha! ha! ha!" laughed my cousin
Emily; "we saw you stealing out of the garden gate at six o'clock this
morning." "Yes," chimed in Julia, "and with those splendid top-boots
on! You thought to avoid us, did you?" "I say, Adolphus," continued
Emily, "when you hire a horse-box again, and don't want anyone to know,
don't let your name and destination be labelled on it like an
advertisement! Ha! ha! ha!" I was completely sold, and I was obliged to
acknowledge it; and when I heard that my cousins had actually ridden
ten miles to the meet, whilst I had come by train, I felt that I must
do something to retrieve my reputation in the eyes of Miss Trafford.
The cover was a very large one, and whilst we had been talking all the
people had disappeared. I told the ladies where the dogs were; and
Emily at once came to the conclusion that, if we went round the other
way, which was shorter, we should meet the "field" at "Keeper's Clump."
Acting on this suggestion, we turned back and cantered round to the
other side of the cover. As we did so I felt that field-riding was my
_forte_; it was so much more comfortable than hard road-riding, and I
at once resolved to make hunting my study and only amusement. My
cousins continued to tease me as we went along; but to my delight Miss
Trafford sided with me, thus giving me confirmation of the hope I had
cherished at the ball, that she was not indifferent to the attentions I
then paid her, slight as those attentions necessarily were.
Our passage of arms was suspended by our arrival at the far end of the
cover, where the field were awaiting, as I was informed, the decision
of the master as to what cover to "draw" next. I wondered whether they
had any artists with them, and what good could come of _drawing_ a
cover with which nearly every one seemed familiar. But this is
parenthetical. A stone wall, about four feet high, separated us from
the rest of the field.
"What have you lost?" said Emily to me, as my eyes wandered up and down
the wall.
"Nothing," I replied; "I am looking for the gate."
"Then you are looking for something you won't find this side a mile and
a half; that's the road--over the wall. Come! give us a lead."
Here was a pretty state of things! I, who had never in my life been
over anything higher than a mushroom or wider than a gutter, and who
had in my charge three ladies, suddenly required to give them a lead
over a four-feet wall, in presence of the whole field! The perspiration
stood in great drops on my brow, and I would have given any amount if I
could but have sunk into my boots. But I couldn't; and all eyes being
on me (including _her's_) I had no time to say my prayers. I had to
choose at once between disgrace and the chance of being "sent to my
account with all my imperfections on my head." One glance at Miss
Trafford decided me; and I put my horse's head towards the wall and
then my spurs into his sides. When I was within three feet my courage
failed me, and I pulled up; but it was _too late_. Iron Duke had
already risen; and in doing so had nearly rolled me off, first over the
cantle and then the pommel. Ten thousand years rolled over my devoted
head in these few moments, and then all was still--_i.e._, as regards
motion; but my ears were assailed by a deafening cheer--mixed, I must
candidly admit, with some laughter. When I "came to," I discovered that
I was still alive, and still in the saddle, and that my horse was, in
the most matter-of-fact way possible, spanning the wall like a bridge,
fore-legs on one side, hind-legs on the other. I hastily congratulated
myself that things were no worse, and then began to consider what was
the proper step to be taken by a man in my situation. "Pull him back!"
"Job him over!" "Stick to him!" "Get off!" and similar advice came to
me from every quarter. I resolved to act on the "get off" principle;
and with some difficulty I _did_ get off, taking care to be on the
right side. I then endeavoured to pull the horse over with the reins;
but he resisted with all the obstinacy of a costermonger's
donkey--which circumstance seemed to add to the amusement of the field,
for their laughter increased. Growing desperate, I slashed my whip
several times over the animal's neck; at which treatment he kicked and
plunged until, to my great delight, he kicked the wall down!
"Thank you for your easy lead, my dear cousin Adolphus!" said Emily, as
she and the two other ladies came through the breach in the wall.
"You're quite welcome," I was about to reply, when I was interrupted by
a coarse-looking lad, whose spindle-like legs were covered with
breeches and gaiters.
"I say, guv'nur," said he, "you rode your horse over that there wall
about as well as I'd a-rode my mother's clothes-horse over!--do it
again, do!"
The ladies could not refrain from laughter, in which I made a miserable
attempt at joining them; and then I tried to remount. But this was a
difficult task; for my legs were short, my horse's were long, and his
recent adventure had made him fidgety, and I was at last reduced to the
necessity of accepting an offer from the lad with the spindle legs to
give me a "leg-up." With his assistance (for which I gave him sixpence,
and I have no doubt he threw his bad joke into the bargain) I managed
to scramble into the saddle again. As we rode to the next cover I felt
exceedingly sheepish, and the unfeeling laughter of my cousins, added
to the now cool manner of Miss Trafford, and the quiet grimaces of old
Evans, the groom (who of course kept pretty close to us), made me
desperate, and I was determined to do something to recover my lost
prestige, even if the next day's _Times_ had to record a "Fatal
accident in the hunting-field at Stonington." Emily asked me tauntingly
whether I had "done leaping for to-day?"
"Not exactly," I replied; "I intend----"
"Will you take a lead from me?" she interrupted.
"I'll take any lead that _you_ dare give me," I replied haughtily.
"Done!"
And she had no sooner said the word than the fox broke from the cover,
about two hundred yards in front of us, followed in a few moments by
the hounds, so close together that (as I afterwards heard one gentleman
remark to another) you might have covered them with a blanket. Away
they went, and away went we after them. My enthusiasm was raised to the
utmost pitch, and I was determined to stop at nothing. Emily and Julia
kept on my left, a few yards in advance, whilst Miss Trafford, on my
right, kept about the same distance in my rear. The fox, luckily, had
taken the open, and the ladies prophesied a half-hour's run with no
checks. But before ten minutes of it were over, I perceived, about a
hundred yards in front of us, a thick, well-laid quickset hedge, about
four feet high, and as we neared it I thought I saw water glistening on
the other side. There was no escape; my time had come; I was led in
front, and driven in rear; and leap I must.
"Now for your lead!" cried Emily, waving her whip in the air as she
cleared the fence and the brook beyond it. My horse followed
bravely--and so should I, if I hadn't, by some unfortunate mishap or
other, rolled out of the saddle, and in the midst of my victory fallen
into the brook! As I lay sprawling on my back, and before I had time to
think where I was, I saw the belly of Miss Trafford's horse as he
carried her over the fence, the brook, and me!
"Stop my horse! stop my horse!" I roared, as I came dripping wet out of
the brook. "Stop my horse!" But I earnestly hoped that no one would
stop him, for this last _contretemps_ had considerably damped my ardour
and cooled my courage; and I thought that if nobody _did_ "stop my
horse," he would eventually find his way to the pound; and his absence
would afford me a decent pretext for going home. To my horror, though,
Iron Duke was brought back by the wretched lad of the spindle legs. "Be
the saddle greased, sir?" said he, wiping it with his nasty dirty
pocket handkerchief. I could have kicked him, and should have done so,
only I thought he might have kicked back, and so I swallowed his
affront, and actually gave him another sixpence. Having learned from
him the road to the station, I was just stealing off when I heard in my
rear the cry of "Tally-ho back!" The fox had come back--doubled, I
mean--and I was forced to join the others and run after him again. But,
fortunately for me, he did not run far before the dogs caught him and
killed him, and then one of the men in scarlet cut off his nice long
tail and gave it to Emily. She actually accepted it, although I am
nearly sure she had never seen the man before in her life! I thought
young ladies ought to accept presents from no gentlemen but their
relatives and accepted suitors; and, besides, I don't believe that this
man _was_ a gentleman, for when I whipped the hound to make him get
over the wall (which, as I have before stated, he most unreasonably
declined to do), this fellow was the loudest in his oaths and curses,
which he showered broadcast on the hound, or my horse, or something--I
have never ascertained what--and in the presence of ladies! Emily said
something about making a hair-brush of the fox's tail (what an absurd
idea! but she always was queer); and as the man cut off the fox's head,
she gave me to understand that that would be mine if I asked for it. I
_did_ ask for it; but for some unaccountable reason or other, I _didn't
get it_. The remainder of the poor fox was thrown to the dogs, who soon
tore him to pieces and ate him. It occurred to my philosophic mind, as
I witnessed this spectacle, that the fox, like me, was a hero; but,
also like me, an unsuccessful one. What a number of men, women, horses,
and dogs to conquer one little fox! These and similar reflections were
soon cut short, for the dogs having finished their lunch, the men and
women began to think about theirs; in fact, Sir John Hausie had invited
them all, including me, to lunch with him at the Manor House, about
half a mile distant. As we journeyed thither I began to feel very
uncomfortable, for my coat, waistcoat, and shirt, although not dirty
(for the water in the brook was clean), were wet through, and, the
warmth of exercise and enthusiasm having subsided, I felt very cold.
When we arrived at Sir John's, I was so stiff with cold that I could
scarcely dismount, which Sir John observing, he came and very kindly
accosted me. He also inquired as to the cause of my fall--spill, he
called it--and offered me the loan of a coat whilst mine was hastily
dried at the kitchen fire. Sir John was an exceedingly pleasant man,
and had a jolly, cheerful, laughing face, and we soon understood each
other. I accepted his proferred loan with many thanks, and then took
Miss Trafford in to lunch. As I sat by her side in the baronet's coat,
and gracefully helped her to sherry, the frost of her manner gradually
thawed; and when we returned to remount we were as jolly as
topers--sand-boys, I mean. I of course assisted her to get into the
saddle; but I was so stiff and so giddy (from the excitement of the
morning) that I very nearly let her down. We were some time without
finding another fox; and as my cousins had gone off with old Evans and
Captain De la Grace, and as Miss Trafford seemed so amiable, I
determined to improve the occasion. We were on the common just outside
Sir John's park, the beauties of which I was very particular in
admiring; and having thus got Miss Trafford to lag behind, I took the
opportunity of unbosoming my heart to her. I got very excited, and my
voice trembled with emotion (or something of that sort), as I made her
a pathetic offer of my heart and hand. I paused (as well as my
excitement would allow me, for it had brought on the hiccups), and she
replied. I can't remember exactly what she said, but it was something
about sparing me the pain of a refusal, and about not marrying a man
who couldn't take a fence. I offered to jump the park wall if she would
only listen to my suit. She agreed; and bracing up all my spirits, I
rode full tilt at the wall; and over I went, leaving my horse on the
wrong side! And as I turned an involuntary somersault I thought I heard
sounds like "the receding foot-steps of a cantering horse." (_Note._--This
is a quotation from some lines I afterwards wrote to Miss Trafford.)
There was then a slight break in the thread of my thoughts, and after
that I found myself lying in the midst of some young fir-trees, whilst
Iron Duke was quietly browsing on the leafless twigs of a tree on the
other side of the wall. Gentle reader! I am sure you must feel for my
unfortunate position. I will not torture you further by relating the
painful particulars of how I scrambled over the wall; how I got on Iron
Duke, only to tumble off again; how I nearly broke my neck before I got
home; how Philley declared I had broken the horse's knees; how he made
me pay £50 for the animal; how I sold him the next week for £10 (less
£2 for carriage); and, worst of all, how Miss Trafford jilted me, and
my cousins--cruel girls--laughed at my misfortunes and made sport of my
troubles. Indeed, with all these we have nothing to do, for they
happened after "My First Day's Fox-hunting."
MY FIRST AND LAST STEEPLE-CHASE
In the year 1859, the Irish militia regiment in which I had the honour
to hold a commission was disembodied; but, as a reward for our
distinguished services at Portsmouth, where we mounted guard daily on
the dockyards for more than twelve months, each subaltern was presented
with a gratuity of six months' pay--a boon that must have been highly
appreciated at the time by our much-enduring and long-suffering
tailors, into whose pockets most of the money, in the end, found its
way.
Dick Maunsel, the senior lieutenant, and myself were cousins, and (as
the old chief never lost a chance of telling us when we got into
trouble) "always hunted in couples." Our fathers' allowance had been
liberal. We were free from debt--that "Old Man of the Sea," which too
often hangs like a millstone about the British subaltern's neck--and,
finding ourselves at liberty, as a matter of course determined to go
off somewhere and get rid of our pay together. Much beer and tobacco
were consumed in the various "corobberys" held to talk the matter over;
and at length it was decided that we should take a lodge at a small
watering-place, well known to both, on the south-west coast of Ireland,
and there abide until something better turned up.
I don't think, under the circumstances, we could have made a much
better choice. The salmon and sea-fishing were excellent; when the
shooting season came round, most of the moors in the neighbourhood were
free to us. The summer had been unusually hot; we were tired of town
life, and longing to divest ourselves of the "war paint," "bury the
hatchet," and get away to some quiet bay by the Atlantic, where we
could do what seemed right in our own eyes, free from the eternal
pipeclay and conventionalities with which we had been hampered. "Last,
not least," at a ball given before the regiment left Ireland, we had
met two girls, sisters, who usually spent the season there, and, if the
truth must be told, I believe they had hit us so hard we were
"crippled" from flying very far. So, after an impartial distribution of
the regimental plate, and a rather severe night at mess, to finish the
remains of the cellar, we bade farewell to our companions in arms, and
found ourselves once more in "dear old dirty Dublin," _en route_ for
the south.
One evening, about six weeks after our arrival at Aunaghmore, we were
lying on the cliffs, watching the trawlers as they drifted slowly up
with the tide. The day had been dark and misty, with some thunder far
out at sea; but it cleared up as the sun went down, and I was pointing
out to Dick, who had been unusually silent, the remarkable likeness
between the scene before us and one of Turner's best-known pictures,
when he interrupted me suddenly, saying--
"I'll tell you a story, Frank. When a boy, I remember starting one
morning with poor Ferguson (the owner of Harkaway) to ride one of his
horses in a private match. We took a short cut across an old mountain
road, and coming out on the brow of the hill which commanded one of the
finest views in Ireland, I pulled up my horse to call Ferguson's
attention to it. 'For heaven's sake, sir,' he said impatiently, 'think
on something that will do you good.' And just at this moment, old man,
I feel half inclined to agree with him. How much money have you left?"
Without speaking, I handed him my purse, the contents of which he
counted slowly over, saying, "I think we shall have enough."
"Enough for what?" I asked.
"For a ball," he replied coolly. "The people here have been very civil
to us, and we owe them some return. There are plenty of girls in the
neighbourhood to make a very good one; men are scarce; but we can ask
the "Plungers" over from ---- Barracks. Besides, I promised Emily last
night, and there's no getting out of it."
I ventured mildly to suggest that the regiment didn't get out of the
last under a couple of hundred, and that we had not half that between
us.
"My dear fellow," he replied, "this is quite another affair altogether.
We can borrow the club archery tent for a ballroom. There are many
things, game, &c., to be had for nothing here. My sisters are coming
over on a visit; they will look after the details. It will be a great
success, and we shall only have wine and lights to pay for."
"And how far," I asked, with a slight sneer, "will the money left go in
getting those, not to speak of other essentials that must be provided?"
"I have arranged all that as well," answered Dick, with the air of a
man who had thoroughly mastered the subject. "The races here come off
the end of August. There is a £50 Plate to be run for on the flat, and
a steeple-chase as well. I know all the horses likely to start. With
one exception (Father B.'s) ours can give them a stone for either
event. The priest can't run his horse; the new bishop has been down on
him. We can send for ours: plenty of time for a rough preparation.
Thanks to the hot weather, and that confounded drill, you can still
ride eleven stone. There now, what more do you want? Come along to the
lodge, and we will talk the matter over comfortably."
I certainly had my misgivings as to the practicability of Dick's
scheme, but knew him too long and well to doubt his attempting it at
all events. I could, of course, refuse to join, and leave him to his
own devices; but we had pulled through too many scrapes together for
that. To do him justice, he generally succeeded in whatever he
undertook; and whether it was owing to his eloquence, some of his
father's old claret, or both combined, before we separated that night I
had entered heart and soul into his plans.
We lost no time in commencing our preparations. Within a week the
horses had arrived; then Dick's sisters--two fine light-hearted girls,
full of fun and mischief--came over. After that there was no rest for
me. No unhappy adjutant of a newly-embodied militia or volunteer
regiment ever had more or a greater variety of work on hand. Sunrise
generally found me in the saddle, giving the horses a gallop on the
sands--a performance which had to be repeated twice during the day,
Dick's weight, some sixteen stone, preventing him from giving me any
assistance. I was overhead in love, besides, and four hours at least
had to be devoted to the object of my affections. We kept open house;
game and fish had to be provided for the larder, and the girls were
always wanting something or other from the neighbouring town, which
they declared only I could get; so between all, my time was fully
occupied, and seemed to fly.
If Mr Mill's bill for giving ladies the franchise had been in force
then, I think Dick and myself would have had a fair chance of
representing the county. So soon as our intention to give a race ball
was known, we became the most popular men in it. Offers of supplies and
assistance came pouring in from all quarters. Plate, china, and glass
arrived so fast, and in such quantities, the lodge could not contain
them, and we were obliged to pitch the tent. As the time drew near, the
preparation and bustle increased tenfold. Our life was one continual
picnic. From early morning until late at night, the house was crowded
with girls laughing, flirting, trying on ball-dresses, and assisting in
the decorating of the tent. We never thought of sitting down to dinner,
but took it where, when, and how we could. _Ay de mi!_ I have been in
some hospitable houses since, where the owners kept _chefs_, and prided
themselves, not unjustly, on the quality of their cellars; but I never
enjoyed myself so much, and, I fear, never shall, as those scrambling
dinners, though the bill of fare often consisted of cold grouse, washed
down by a tankard of beer--taken, too, standing in the corner of a
pantry, surrounded by a host of pretty girls, all of them engaged in
teasing and administering to my wants.
Early one morning, about a week before the races were to come off, I
was engaged as usual, exercising Dick's hunter on the course, when, at
a little distance, I saw a horse in body-clothes cantering along with
that easy stride peculiar to thorough-breds. For some time the rider
appeared anxious to avoid me, increasing the pace as I came near, until
the animal I rode, always headstrong, broke away and soon ranged
alongside.
"Whose horse is that?" I inquired of the groom.
"My master's, yer honour," he replied, without a smile, slackening his
pace at the same time, as mine raced past.
When I succeeded in pulling up again, the fellow was galloping away in
another direction. I had seen enough, however: there was no mistaking
those flat sinewy legs. So, setting the horse's head straight for the
lodge, I went up to Dick's room. He was in bed, but awake; and though
his face slightly lengthened when I told him I was certain the priest's
horse had arrived, he answered coolly enough--
"You need not look so serious, Frank; at the worst, it is only a case
of selling Madman, and I have had a good offer for him. It is too bad
of the priest, though, to spoil our little game. They told me the
bishop had sat on him; but of course he will run in another name. I
should have known an old fox like that would have more than one earth.
He won't be able to go in for the double event, that is certain. His
horse can't jump. The steeplechase is ours; so come and have a swim.
After breakfast we will see what can be done."
Unfortunately there was no help for it. The priest's horse had carried
off a Queen's Plate at the Curragh, and, safe and well at the post,
could win as he pleased. It was too late for us to draw back, however,
even if we were disposed that way. The invitations for the ball (which
was to come off the night of the races) were out. So, consoling
ourselves as well as it was possible under the circumstances, we
continued our preparations, looking well after the horses, determined
not to throw away a chance.
Misfortunes seldom come alone. The day before the race, so ardently
looked forward to, arrived at last. I had been engaged in unpacking the
flowers that were arriving all the afternoon from the neighbouring
conservatories, while Dick was amusing himself brewing cold punch in
the lodge. The girls were out walking; and, when my work was over, I
took a stroll along the beach to meet them. Up to this time the weather
had been glorious; such a summer and autumn as few could remember: but
now I saw, with some anxiety, there was every appearance of an
unfavourable change. Although not a breath of wind stirred, the
ground-swell broke heavily on the bar, and there was a greenish look in
the sky where the sun was setting, that boded no good. The curlews were
unusually noisy, their clear, shrill whistle resounding on all sides,
and large flocks of sea-birds were flying in towards the land. A
fishing-boat had just made fast to the pier, and the owner came forward
to meet me.
"What luck this evening, Barney?" I inquired.
"Just middlin', yer honour. There's a dozen of lobsters, a John Dory,
and a turbot. I'll send them to the lodge. The oysters went up this
morning--iligant ones, they wor; raal jewels."
"All right, Barney--what do you think of the weather?"
"Sorra one of me likes it, at all. Them thieves of seals are rollin'
about like _purposes_, and it isn't for nothin' they do that same.
It'll be a Ballintogher wind, too, before long, I'm thinkin'."
"A what?" I exclaimed.
"The very question the captain axed my brother. It was the first time
iver he went to say, and they wor lyin' somewhere off Afrikay. The
captin was walkin' the quarter-deck when my brother comes up to him,
and says, 'Captain Leslie, you had better shorten sail.'
"'Why so?' ses the captin, very sharp.
"'Bekase it's a Ballintogher wind.'
"'And what the d----l wind may that be?'
"'Oh murther!' ses my brother. 'There you are, wandherin' about the
world all yer life, and didn't hear of a Ballintogher wind, when there
isn't a gossoon in my counthry doesn't know the village it comes from,
and that it niver brought anything but cowld storm and misforthin'
along with it.'
"Well, with that, they all tuk to laughin' like to split their sides at
my brother, an' the captin, he towld him to go forrid and mind his
work; but faith, they worn't laughin' two hours afther, when the ship
rowled the masts out of her, and they wor wracked among the haythens.
But wind or no wind, yer honour, I suppose the races will come off?"
"So I hear, Barney."
"I'm towld there's to be a fight between the Flahertys and the
O'Donnells; but shure av the priest's there it's no use for them to
try."
"Why not, Barney?"
"He's mighty handy with a hunting-whip, an' has got a bad curse
besides. He hot Mickey Devine over the head, for trying to rise a row
at the fair of Dingle, and left a hole in it you might put your fist
in. It was no great things of a head at the best of times, but faith,
he's quare in it at the full of the moon iver since. He cursed Paddy
Keolaghan, too, last Easter, an' the luck left him. His nets wor
carried away, the boat stove in, and the pig died. I don't give in to
the pig myself, for they let him get at the long lines afther they wor
baited; and sure enough when the craythur died, there was fifteen hooks
in his inside, enough to kill any baste. Besides, his reverence is very
partikler, an' wouldn't curse a Christian out of his own parish; but
it's not lucky to cross him anyhow; an' if he's there to-morrow, sorra
bit of fun we'll have. They say yer honours are for givin' a ball
afther the races."
"So we are, Barney; and that reminds me--tell the girls to come up the
next night, and we'll give them a dance before the tent is taken down."
"Long life to yer honour! It's proud and happy they will be to go.
Here's the young ladies comin'. Good evenin', sir! We'll be on the
coorse to-morrow, an' see you get fair play, anyhow."
The tent-ropes flapped ominously that night as we turned in, and before
morning a storm came on which increased to a hurricane, when our party
assembled for breakfast, and looked out disconsolately enough at the
boiling sea, dimly visible through the driving rain and spray that
dashed in sheets of water against the glass. Already numbers of the
peasantry, on their way to the course, were staggering along the road,
vainly trying to shelter themselves from the furious blast which made
the very walls of the lodge shake. Taking advantage of a slight lull,
we managed to get a young fir-tree propped up against the pole of the
tent, and had just returned to the house when a well-appointed
four-in-hand came at a sharp trot up the avenue.
"Here come the Plungers," said Dick. "Plucky fellows to drive over
fourteen miles such a morning."
While he was speaking, a dozen bearded men got down and stalked
solemnly into the room. In a few minutes the ladies of our party made
their appearance, and before long the new comers were busily engaged in
some fashion or another. I have often admired the way in which Irish
ladies contrive to make the "lords of the creation" useful, but never
saw it more strongly exemplified than on the present occasion. Here you
might see a grave colonel employed in the composition of a lobster
salad; there a V.C. opening oysters as industriously as an old woman at
a stall; while in a snug corner, a couple of cornets were filling
custard cups and arranging flowers. To do the gallant fellows justice
they accepted the situation frankly, and set to work like men, while at
every fresh blast the girls' spirits seemed to rise higher; and before
long a merrier party could hardly be found anywhere. Twelve o'clock had
now come round, at which time, it was unanimously agreed, the day must
clear up; and a slight gleam of watery sunshine appearing, we all
started to carry the things over to the supper-room of the tent. As we
mustered a tolerably strong party, in less than an hour this was
effected, not, however, without sundry mishaps; one poor cornet being
blown right over a fence, into a wet ditch, with his burden.
We were all so much engaged laying out the tables, that the increasing
darkness of the day was scarcely remarked until a vivid flash of
lightning, followed by a loud peal of thunder which broke directly
overhead, made the boldest pause for a moment in his occupation. The
storm, which had gone down considerably, burst forth again worse than
ever, the tent-pole swayed to and fro like a fishing-rod, and the
fir-tree we had lashed alongside for additional security threatened
every moment to come down by the run. Matters were beginning to look
serious, when Dick, snatching a carving-knife from the table, cut an
opening in the wall of the tent, through which we all bolted into the
open air. Hardly had we got clear of the ropes, when the tent-pole
snapped, the pegs gave way, the roof flew off down the wind, and with a
crash of broken glass, heard distinctly above the howling of the wind
and sea, the whole fabric came to the ground, burying all our materials
and the greater part of the supper in the ruins.
All was over now,--"the stars in their courses" had fought against us.
There was no use in contending against fate and the elements; so, after
seeing the girls safe in shelter, and leaving the dragoons to test the
merits of Dick's cold punch, I filled my largest pipe with the
strongest cavendish, and had walked round to the lee of the house, to
blow a cloud in peace, and think over what was best to be done, when a
window opened above, and looking up, I saw a bright sunny face framed
against the dark scowling sky, and heard a voice call out, "Wait there
one moment, Frank; I am coming down."
Without giving me time to reply, the face disappeared, but immediately
afterwards a small slight figure, closely muffled up, glided round the
corner, and put its arm in mine, while a pair of blue eyes looked up
appealingly in my face.
"Don't look so down-hearted, Frank, or you will make me cry. I could
hardly keep from it, when I saw the tent in ruins, and heard that
dreadful crash. All Lady ----'s old china, I promised to take such care
of, and the flowers, and Mrs ----'s dinner service, that has been in
the family for four generations. It is a downright calamity; but we are
determined, happen what will, to have the ball, and I want you to come
to look at a barn we saw the other day."
"But you cannot think of going out in such weather!"
"Not by the road--the sea is all across it. But we can go by the
fields. Come now, and take great care of me."
We did reach the barn, though with great difficulty; and, at first
sight, a more unlikely or unpromising place could hardly be found. In
one corner stood a heap of straw and a winnowing machine, under which
half a dozen rats scampered as we came in. The roof was thatched, and
in several places we could see the sky through it. Long strings of
floating cobwebs hung from the rafters, and the rough walls were
thickly coated with dust. There were two storeys to it, however; the
floor of the upper one was boarded and seemed sound. Taking out a
note-book, my companion seated herself on an old garden-roller,
saying--
"Go down-stairs, Frank, and finish your smoke; I want to think for five
minutes; or you may stay here, if you promise not to speak until I give
you leave."
I gave the required pledge, and, lighting my pipe, lay down in a
corner, watching the rats peering out with their sharp, black, beady
eyes at the strange visitors, and rather enjoying the confusion of the
spiders, who, not relishing the smoke, were making off out of reach as
fast as they could. Before long my companion called me over, to give
her directions, which were, to go back to the lodge, and bring all the
volunteers I could get, as well as some materials, of which she gave me
a list.
On my way I met one of the stewards, who told me the races had been
postponed until four o'clock in the afternoon, and on reaching the
lodge found Dick and the officers engaged in recovering "salvage" from
the tent. Getting out a wagonette, I soon had it filled with
volunteers, and drove them over to the barn, where we once more set to
work, and for the next few hours the rats and spiders had a bad time of
it.
I was hard at work converting some rough deal boards into a
supper-table, when a little boy handed me a note, saying--
"They are clearin' the coorse, yer honour; you haven't a minit to lose;
I brought down a 'baste' for you."
The note was from Dick, telling me the first race would be run off at
once. There was a dressing-room provided on the ground, so, jumping on
the horse, I rode down.
The storm, after doing all the harm it well could to us, had now
cleared off, and the scene on the course was lively and animated
enough. A dozen frieze-coated farmers, headed by an old huntsman in
scarlet, were galloping wildly about to clear the ground, the usual
"dog" being represented, on this occasion, by a legion of curs, barking
at the heels of stray donkeys, sheep, cows, and goats, as they doubled
in and out, to avoid the merciless whips of their pursuers; and when at
last they were driven off, the people broke in on the line, and the
whole place appeared one mass of inextricable confusion, until the
priest, accompanied by the stewards, was found. The fisherman certainly
had not belied his reverence. More than once I saw his whip descend
with a vigour that made itself felt even through the thick greatcoats
worn by the peasantry, causing the recipient to shrink back, shaking
his shoulders, and never feeling himself safe until he had put the
nearest fence between him and the giver. Soon his stalwart figure,
mounted on a stout cob, was the signal for a general _suave qui peut_,
and the mob gradually settled into something like order, leaving the
course tolerably free.
Six horses came to the post for the first race, which was about three
miles on the flat, the priest's of course being the favourite, and with
reason. It was a magnificent dark chestnut, with great power and
symmetry, showing the "Ishmael" blood in every part of its beautiful
frame, Dick's hunter, although thorough-bred, and with a fair turn of
speed, looking like a coach-horse beside it. The only other competitor
entered worth notice was a light bay, high-bred, but a great, staring,
weedy-looking brute, evidently a cast-off from some racing stable.
At the word "Off!" a fair start was effected. The bay, however, had
hardly taken a dozen strides, when it came down, giving the rider an
ugly fall. After rolling over, it sat up like a dog, and stared wildly
about; then, jumping up suddenly, galloped into the sea, where it lay
down, apparently with the intention of committing suicide. Before we
had gone a mile, all the other horses were shaken off, and the priest's
jockey and myself had it all to ourselves. He was a knowing old fellow,
and evidently did not wish to distress his horse, keeping only a few
lengths ahead, until within the distance-post, when he let him go,
cantering in a winner by about twenty yards, and receiving a perfect
ovation from the people.
In half an hour the bugle sounded for the horses to fall in for _the_
race. A steeple-chase being always the great event on an Irish course,
we were about to take our places, when Dick came up with rather a long
face, and whispered--
"I am afraid the luck is against us still, Frank. Look at that gray. He
has been kept dark until now. Before seeing him I backed you rather
heavily with the priest. It was our only chance to get out."
The more I looked the less I liked the appearance of either horse or
man. To a casual observer the first was a plain animal, cross-built,
rough in the coat, and with remarkably drooping quarters; but, on
closer inspection, a hunter all over, if not a steeple-chaser, although
an attempt had evide
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