CHAPTER X

Sports

Then began

A stop i' th' chaser, a retire; anon
A rout, confusion thick.

SHAKESPEARE.

FROM games to sports. For fifty years, boy and man, I followed the fox, and I have known personally many of our most famous masters of hounds, beginning with Squire Musters, and their huntsmen. I have not mounted a horse for twenty years, but I have read and heard of the chase, and have attended now and then a meet of the hunt on wheels, although I resolved on the first occasion never again to undergo the sinking of spirit, the sense of desolation, the chill, the gloom, which oppress the excited lover of the chase when the fox is found, and he is left in his open carriage in the lane to be covered with mud by a long line of "duffers " who are afraid of the fences, and ought to be picking oakum.

I note but few alterations from Then to Now. Although there is a deplorable absence of the farmers who were sportsmen, but can no longer afford the

diversion, the assembly seems to be larger; there are more ladies and more townspeople; there is an increase of the "pop and porter brigade," making frequent detours from the line of chase in favour of the publichouse; and then there is that "unkindest cut of all," that detestable cruelty to man and beast, barbed wire in our hedgerows.

As to the first addition, the presence of ladies is always precious, but human delight is always mixed, and the charm of their society is somewhat impaired when they set their minds on a process which they are pleased to designate as "riding to hounds." Only one or two in a score, accomplished horsewomen on perfect hunters, can do it, and these are in far more peril, from their position in the saddle and from their dress, than men. I speak from painful facts, because in the last hunting season two of my nieces, good riders on good horses, were badly hurt-one rendered for some hours insensible-and both were for some time in bed under the doctor's care. In these instances the same catastrophe might have happened to any horseman, and I would not oppose their return to the sport; but what I should like to see would be this-any amount of ladies at the meet, but only the experts to whom the master has sent the collar or button of the hunt attempting to follow where the scent was strong and the country was stiff.

The programme generally is much the same: the usual cavalcade on the park side of the haha before an old Elizabethan house; the hounds arrive, and their master,

in his cap of velvet and snow-white neckerchief, red coat,
and glittering spurs, enters the hall to pay his respects to
my lady." No man is under a more severe necessity
to practise a policy of politeness than the master who
desires to preserve his friendships and his foxes. He
may be a master of hounds, but he is too often the slave
of the landed gentry, of those especially who desire
more pleasure from their aviaries than from their
stables, and prefer the pheasant which they can shoot
and sell to the horse which they cannot ride. By
these he is criticised, snubbed, disappointed, and is
expected to make all his arrangements in strict sub-
servience to theirs. Now and then he may receive
encouragement. One of his brotherhood, who hunted
his own hounds, and of course wore the costume and
carried the horn of a huntsman, told me that after an
excellent run a stranger who had seen it came and said
to him, "You have given us a grand day's sport,"
slipped a sovereign into his hand, and rode away.
met him," he added, "the same day at dinner in the
house, and when I noticed his embarrassment, I took
him by the hand and begged him not to think of an
apology, or to flatter himself for a moment that I
should return his sovereign. He had paid me one of
the most welcome compliments which I had ever
received. No schoolboy could be more pleased with a
tip, and when next we met, which I hoped would be
soon, it would be attached, as a trophy, to the chain of
my watch."

"I

The procession moves to the gorse on the hill, the

1

hounds move in, the fox moves out, and then follows a magnificent display of reckless riding, so long as the fences do not exceed three or four feet in altitude, and the first performers make gaps for those in their rear. Then a strong "stake and bound," a broad dike, or a stile acts upon the company like a break upon a motor car. Half a dozen men do not hesitate and are over; several make an approach with a faint heart (the punster would say that the whole affair was a feint) and their benevolent steeds "refuse" in sympathy; then there is a fall, and the sight of the prostration of man and horse dispels all doubt in the wavering mind and secures a general obedience to the natural law of self-preservation. There is an immediate stampede to the gate. Finally, if the scent is good and the obstacles are difficult, the huntsmen, with three or four others, who might have been named before the chase began, are present at its close, a dozen or a score arrive at intervals, and the rest are ubiquitous-gone in the forest, lost on the mountain, or homeward bound; but all are pleased with the excitement, the country air, the social greetings-satisfied with excuses which nobody believes, and fully prepared to entertain their friends with imaginary descriptions of the run.

And now I venture, as an old soldier (has not Mr. Jorrocks described the chase as "the image of war without its cruelty, and only five and twenty per cent. of its danger"?), to offer a few suggestions to the young recruit. He must have a horse well up to his weight, or he may experience the most miserable

catastrophe which can befall the sportsman, and which will be a sorrow to him for the rest of his life-he may break a horse's back. To a heavy man a good start is indispensable-c'est le premier pas qui coûte; dimidium facti, qui bene cepit, habet-but to all it is most advantageous. When hounds are in covert, you won't see the true sportsman loafing afar off, or hear him chaffing with the "loud laugh that tells the vacant mind." He seems like the jolly young waterman, to be "thinking of nothing at all," but his eye and his ear are intent upon every sight and sound, and on the very first intimation of a "find," he is off towards the place from whence it came. You take twice as much out of your horse when you are galloping in search of hounds as when you are riding in sight of them and in a run, while the skirter is always on the move to make up for lost ground. You will have those opportunities of rest and a slower pace which generally occur from checks and other stoppages, and which are beneficial, though they may be brief. Make the most of them. If the pace begins to tell on your horse, dismount awhile when you may.

Having obtained a good place, you must keep it. Yes, "It's a nasty one," but you must have it, and having made up your mind to do it, do it with your might. You must not let your horse refuse, or he will acquire the habit. There are exceptions-very few-when he knows more than you do, and evades a danger which you do not see. In a good run near my Nottinghamshire home, we came to the Caunton brook