A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses Part 14

Tempted to stay another day, I went the next morning six miles through Rottingdean to Tels...o...b.. Tye, to meet the Brookside; and, after seeing them, have no hesitation in saying that every one who cares to look at a first-rate pack of harriers would find it worth his while to travel a hundred miles to meet the Brookside, for the whole turnout is perfection. Royalty cannot excel it.

A delicious ride over turf all the way, after pa.s.sing Rottingdean, under a blue sky and a June-like sun, in sight of the sea, calm as a lake, brought us to the top of a hill of rich close turf, enveloped in a cloud of mist, which rendered horses and hors.e.m.e.n alike invisible at the distance of a few yards; and when we came upon three tall shepherds, leaning on their iron-_hooked_ crooks, in the midst of a gorse covert, it was almost impossible to believe that we were not in some remote Highland district instead of within half an hour of a town of 70,000 inhabitants.

The costumes of the field, more exact than the previous day, showed that the master was considered worthy of the compliment; and when, the mist clearing, the beautiful black-and-tan pack, all of a size, and as like as peas, came cl.u.s.tering up with Mr. Saxby, a white-haired, healthy, fresh-coloured, neat-figured, upright squire, riding in the midst on a rare black horse, it was a picture that, taking in the wild heathland scenery, the deep valleys below, bright in sun, the dark hills beyond it, was indeed a bright page in the poetry of field sports.

The Brookside are as good and honest as they are handsome; hunting, all together, almost entirely without a.s.sistance. If they have a fault they are a little too fast for hare-hounds. After killing the second hare, we were able to leave Brighton by the 3.30 P.M. train. Thus, under modern advantages, a man troubled with indigestion has only to order a horse by post the previous day, leave town at eight in the morning, have a day's gallop, with excitement more valuable than gallons of physic, and be back in town by half-past five o'clock. Can eight hours be pa.s.sed more pleasantly or profitably?

PRINCE ALBERT'S HARRIERS.

The South-Western Rail made a very good hack up to the Castle station.

That Prince Albert should never have taken to the Royal stag-hounds is not at all surprising. It requires to be "to the manner born" to endure the vast jostling, shouting, thrusting mob of gentlemen and horse dealers, "legs" and horse-breakers, that whirl away after the uncarted deer. Without the revival of the old Court etiquette, which forbade any one to ride before royalty, his Royal Highness might have been ridden down by some ambitious butcher or experimental c.o.c.kney horseman on a runaway. If the etiquette of the time of George III had been revived, then only Leech could have done justice to the appearance of the field, following impatiently at a respectful distance--not the stag, as they do now very often, or the hounds, as they ought to do--but the Prince's horse's tail.

Prince Albert's harriers are in the strictest sense of the term a private pack, kept by his Royal Highness for his own amus.e.m.e.nt, under the management of Colonel Hood. The meets are not advertised. The fields consist, in addition to the Royal and official party from the Castle, of a few neighbouring gentlemen and farmers, the hunting establishment of a huntsman and one whip, both splendidly mounted, and a boy on foot. The costume of the hunt is a very dark green cloth double-breasted coat, with the Prince's gilt b.u.t.ton, brown cords, and velvet cap.

The hounds were about fifteen couple, of medium size, with considerable variety of true colours, inclining to the fox-hound stamp, yet very honest hunters. In each run the lead was taken by a hound of peculiar and uncommon marking--black and tan, but the tan so far spreading that the black was reduced to merely a saddle.

The day was rather too bright, perhaps, for the scent to lie well; but there was the better opportunity for seeing the hounds work, which they did most admirably, without any a.s.sistance. It is one of the advantages of a pack like this that no one presumes to interfere and do the business of either the huntsman or hounds. The first hare was found on land apparently recently inclosed near Eton; but, after two hours'

perseverance, it was impossible to make anything of the scent over ploughed land.

We then crossed the railway into some fields, partly in gra.s.s, divided by broad ditches full of water, with plenty of willow stumps on the banks, and partly arable on higher, sloping ground, divided by fair growing fences into large square inclosures. Here we soon found a stout hare that gave us an opportunity of seeing and admiring the qualities of the pack. After the first short burst there was a quarter of an hour of slow hunting, when the hounds, left entirely to themselves, did their work beautifully. At length, as the sun went behind clouds, the scent improved; the hounds got on good terms with puss, and rattled away at a pace, and over a line of big fields and undeniable fences, that soon found out the slows and the nags that dared not face s.h.i.+ning water.

Short checks of a few minutes gave puss a short respite; then followed a full cry, and soon a view. Over a score of big fields the pack raced within a dozen yards of p.u.s.s.y's scent, without gaining a yard, the black-tanned leading hound almost coursing his game; but this was too fast to last, and, just as we were squaring our shoulders and settling down to take a very uncompromising hedge with evident signs of a broad ditch of running water on the other side, the hounds threw up their heads; poor puss had shuffled through the fence into the brook, and sunk like a stone.

There is something painful about the helpless finish with a hare. A fox dies snarling and fighting.

FOOTNOTES:

[176-*] This sketch was written in 1857.

CHAPTER XII.

HUNTING TERMS.

Hunting terms are difficult to write, because they are often rather sung than said. I shall take as my authority one of the best sportsmen of his day, Mr. Thomas Smith, author of the "Diary of a Huntsman," a book which has only one fault, it is too short; and give some explanations of my own.

HUNTSMAN'S LANGUAGE.

On throwing off.--_Cover hoick!_ i. e. _Hark into cover!_

Also--_Eloo in!_

Over the fence.--_Yoi over!_

To make hounds draw.--_Edawick!_

Also--_Yoi, wind him! Yoi, rouse him, my boys!_

And to a particular hound--_Hoick, Rector! Hoick, Bonny La.s.s!_

The variety of Tally-ho's I have given in another place.

To call the rest when some hounds have gone away.--_Elope forward, aw-ay-woy!_

If they have hit off the scent.--_Forrid, hoick!_

When hounds have overrun the scent, or he wants them to come back to him.--_Yo-geote!_

When the hounds are near their fox.--_Eloo, at him!_

HUNTING TERMS

_Billet._--The excrement of a fox.

_Burst._--The first part of a run.

_Burning scent._--When hounds go so fast, from the goodness of the scent, they have no breath to spare, and run almost mute.

_Breast high._--When hounds do not stoop their heads, but go a racing pace.

_Capping._--To wave your cap to bring on the hounds. Also to subscribe for the huntsman, by dropping into a cap after a good run with fox-hounds. At watering places, before a run with harriers.

_Carry a good head._--When hounds run well together, owing to the scent being good, and spreading so wide that the whole pack can feel it. But it usually happens that the scent is good only on the line for one hound to get it, so that the rest follow him; hence the necessity of keeping your eyes on the leading hounds, if you wish to be forward.

_Challenge._--When drawing a fox, the first hound that gives tongue, "challenges."

_Changed._--When the pack changed from the hunted fox to a fresh one.

_Check._--When hounds stop for want of scent in running, or over-run it.

_Chopped a fox._--When a fox is killed in cover without running.

_Crash._--When in cover, every hound seems giving tongue at the same moment: that is a crash of hounds.

_Cub._--Until November, a young fox is a cub.

_Drawing._--The act of hunting to find a fox in a cover, or covert, as some term it.

_Drag._--The scent left by the footsteps of the fox on his way from his rural rambles to his earth, or kennel. Our forefathers rose early; and instead of drawing, hunted the fox by "dragging" up to him.

_Dwelling._--When hounds do not come up to the huntsman's halloo till moved by the whipper-in, they are said to dwell.