OUND AND HOR

IN JEDFOREST

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HOUND AND HORN IN
JEDFOREST

A hill fox with his nose to the hills and hounds screaming close behind him.
Frontispiece

HOUND AND HORN
IN JEDFOREST

BEING SOME EXPERIENCES OF
A SCOTTISH M.F.H.

BY

T. SCOTT ANDERSON

AUTHOR OF "HOLLOAS FROM THE HILLS "

/
/

ILLUSTRATIONS BY G. DENHOLM ARMOUR

JEDBURGH : T. S. SMAIL

EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW: JOHN MENZIES & CO. Ltd.

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson «5^ Co.
At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh

TO MT TDAUGHTER

CONTENTS

CHAP.

I. HOW THE NEWS CAME
II. TAKING THEM OVER
III. A morning's EXERCISE

IV. A morning's cubbing

V. FIRST BLOOD .

VI. GETTING TO WORK .

VII. A DAY WITH THE DUKE

VIII. A TERRIER TALK .

IX. BY INVITATION

X. CUMMANSHEMENSLAIGE

XI. A HOUND HAVER

PAGE
I

12
23

35
44

53

65
76

86

95
IC7

XII. SOME BY-DAYS II 7

XIII. A HILL DAY 1 27

XIV. BLANK DAYS, ODD DAYS, AND A RECORD DAY 1 38
XV. billy's AMBITION -152

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

A Mil fox with his nose to the hills, and

hounds screami?Tg close behind him . . Frontispiece

" Let's have one more look at the Irish inare " To face page 9

'^ Forager " with the carcase of a hen hang-
ing from his jaws „ „ 16

She slid the astonished horse?nan not un-
gracefully over her tail. . . . „ „ 24

He faced round at them with open jaws . „ „ 47

Old '^Bedpost" scratching the affected leg . „ „ 54

Bobby bolted underneath it at the risk of

being scraped off ..... 3) » 67

" Scurry'''* lying curled up beside him growl-
ing savagely . . • • • 55 » 83

With a twist of his quarters flung himself

over with a foot and a half to spare . „ „ 89

Pat Murray sittifig complacently on a dog-
cart cushiofi alongside his trap . . „ ,,102

We gazed at the huddled-up forms on the

sleeping benches , . . . . ,, ,,108

Setting out on a fourteen-mile jog home . „ „ 122

^^ The tarrierJis oot close ahint ^im^' . . „ ,,132

He was pushed on to his head and balanced

there ....... )> jj 148

She could not stay beside the old horse . „ „ 160

vii

Hound and Horn in Jedforest

CHAPTER I

HOW THE NEWS CAME

'• Werry good indeed! most beautiful I! in fact, wot honour

I arrives at!"" — J. J.

TWO horses in summer condition, big all over,
were coming in from early morning exercise,
and though they had only had a short two
hours of slow walking, both were sweating, and the
ridden one was slightly lathered on the neck and under
the saddle.

It was rather more than midway between the hunt-
ing and the shooting seasons ; that period dull and
dead to the average hunting man, who, if he has
no other hobby to ride, finds he is then a weari-
ness to himself and a positive nuisance to his friends.
But to the man who delights in country sights and
sounds — and what true sportsman does not ? — no time
of the year in the country is dull or lifeless, and all
seasons, far from being flat or profitless, are big with
interest, and the days are often all too short for what
they bring.

I had strolled stablewards before breakfast, as was
my wont on most mornings at this time, for two new

A

2 HOUND AND HORN

purchases had recently been made, and some of the
old horses had just been taken up and were being
put into work. Of the two come in, the led one was
handed over to a strapper with the curt command,
issued like a sergeant-instructor's order, by Batters,
head stableman, '' Pit this yin inna the lowse box/'
while he himself tied the other one up to a ring in
a bare stall. I watched him run the stirrup irons
up to the top of the leathers, loosen the girths to the
first hole, raise the saddle up several times before
settling it on the mare's back, take off his coat, and
start to scrape her and wipe her over with a wisp
of rough straw.

*^ Good morning, Batters," said I ; " what do you
think of her ? "

Batters bit the straw in his mouth short before
replying.

" Gude mornin', sir. A think she micht grow intil
a beast some day; ony wey, A think A could mak'
a beast o' her throu' time," which, being interpreted,
meant, " In my opinion she'll do."

With this I was fain to be satisfied, and felt re-
lieved, for I had bought the mare, an Irish five-year-
old, without his opinion and advice, and dreaded the
consequences of his disapproval.

After a pause, Batters added, *' There's a telegraph
on the road up for ye, sir," by which I understood
that a telegraph message was in process of conveyance
by the usual medium, the village postmistress, a lady
of over thirty seasons' running, and broken to ride
her bicycle barely twelve months ago.

" Did you not take the message from her ? "

**A did note, becuz the mere was a wee feered

HOW THE NEWS CAME 3

for the machine, an' A couldna ha'e taen't binna 00
had baith gotten doon, an' the twa whulps hed folHt
mi i' the cuipples an' they micht ha'e rin amang
her legs, an' mair as that, the wumman said there
wuz a answer wantit till the telegraph."

Whereupon I returned to the house in search of
the wumman and the *' telegraph," whom I presently
found. From a sort of reverie I was roused by the
voice of Joanna saying, "The tele-girl is waiting to
take the reply, and the puppies have already eaten
the envelope and are attacking her bicycle. Is there
any reply ? "

Joanna knew there was, for, as she afterwards
explained, she saw me extract the prepaid form from
its cover, and she wondered what caused the wide
grin to spread over my countenance ; but she wished
to be enlightened and consulted in the matter.

" Yes, there is a reply — an answer obvious — a ques-
tion, in fact, as follows : ' Would I if offered accept
a first-class ticket to Elysium ? ' "

We watched the so-called tele-girl wending her way
down the drive on her solid-tyred bike, crawling
across the bridge as if on a tortoise race, and dis-
appearing round the bend of the road ; and we won-
dered if the message, carefully read out and spelled
over to her, had created any emotion other than that
of pity in her stolid breast.

Then Joanna said, " Well ? "

I spread the crumpled pink paper out on my knee.
" No, ' Playmate,' down, * Pastime,' you don't get this
document to eat." It read : " Would you if offered
take on the Forest fox-hounds as huntsman and master.
Reply," and this over the, name Gideon Dodd, one of

4 HOUND AND HORN

the grandest old sportsmen in the whole Borderland.
Again and again did I gaze at the electrifying message,
and each time it brought up new sensations of delight
in the attempt to realise what it meant. Fox-hounds,
Huntsman, Master, Forest ; each word costing one
halfpenny to transmit, yet worth untold gold to me.
I set out for a long stroll on the hillside to try and
picture something of what it conveyed. It meant
the acquiring one of the most sporting and useful
little packs of fox-hounds in Britain : sporting, because
it was hunted entirely without professional assistance,
the Master carr3dng the horn and being assisted
by two non-professional whips ; and useful, because
although only established some six years previously,
it was already doing good work and killing foxes,
and improving the sport obtained by neighbouring
packs. It meant the serious business of providing
and showing sport in a thoroughly sporting district ;
living in a community of sports men and women
who had all the fire and energy of the old moss-
troopers, and who, from childhood, were at home in
the saddle ; fond of a good horse and a good hound,
and eager to enjoy to the full the pleasure of a good
chase. It meant the interesting effort of breeding
hounds, and the engrossing anxiety of bringing them
forward ; the delight of taking hounds of one's own
breeding into the field ; the satisfaction of seeing them
take to hunting naturally as to the manner born ;
and the fascinating occupation of hunting hounds and
studying hound-work.

It entailed a heap of time, labour, forethought, and
craft, and the assuming all the heavy responsibility
and the multifarious duties connected with the office

HOW THE NEWS CAME 5

of Mastership. Well might a more qualified person
pause and hesitate; but in one thing I was not
deficient, and that was keenness ; and I knew I
should get every support from a ready and willing
staff, and from an enthusiastic field of followers.
In old Batters — not that he was old in years, but
in wisdom and experience — I had a tower of strength.
A better stableman never existed. Punctual as the
sun, and as early a riser, his knowledge of the con-
stitution and temperament of his horses was very
complete. For years he had turned out a small stud
to do, and do well, the work of twice its number.
Plenty of exercise, good strapping and dressing, very
regular and frequent feeding and not too much corn
at a time, was his practice. He hated " Vets," and
except for surgical operations resented their being
called in as a reflection on his own knowledge ; and
when this was proposed he used to mutter : ** If 00
sterve the horse an' pit a clean divot in his manger
for him ti worry at, he'll turn better far quicker
wantin' the Veet." A t3rrant, but a just one, over
the many stable lads that had passed through his
hands, he had turned out some first-rate men whose
recommendation was, they had been '* an 'ear wi'
auld Batters." He never quite forgave his master
for inadvertently entering him in some official return
as " Coachman." " A micht hae been putten doon
what A am shairly — Stud-gruim." This description
he would fairly earn now, for he was not slow in
acquainting me with the stipulation that ^* there wad
need ti be nae drievin' on huntin' days, an' that
Johnny, his son, wad need ti be putten inta leevery,
for he was lairnin' him ti drieve." The fact that

6 HOUND AND HORN

a move would be made back into his native district,
where he was a recognised authority and indeed
looked on as a sort of oracle, would, I knew, reconcile
him to any extra work and irregular hours which
his new duties might bring.

With the hounds went a Volunteer First Whip,
Tom Telfer; and no hunt possessed a more active
or harder working one, a quicker man in the field, or
more determined across a rough difficult country.
His incursions to the larger neighbouring hunts were
frequent and always brought fun of some kind, for
he had a posse of followers who frequently got into
difficulties in their attempts to follow him.

For the position of Second Whip I knew there
would be some competition. In fact, there was some
danger of the supply exceeding the demand. The
anxiety of the field to assist during the progress
of a fox chase was always superabundant, and on
one occasion so great had been this eagerness that
my predecessor is said to have declared that having
run a dead-beat fox into a small plantation clear of
rabbit-holes and all other refuges, he was the only
man who was not hunting the hounds. So it was
fixed that Jack Purdie, the head stable lad under
Batters, should be appointed Second Whip and
Second Horseman combined.

Over and over again that day did I enact in
anticipation the joy of waving hounds into cover,
and after a long chase, of course at a terrific pace
over a big country, I pictured myself standing in the
middle of the baying pack and throwing the dead
body of a stift fox to hounds. Coming in an hour
later for lunch, I was asked by the lady who presides

HOW THE NEWS CAME 7

at the end of my table what I had been doing, and
I repHed, " Why, huntin' hounds, of course." To
which she retorted, '' If you are going to drop your
*g's' about hke that I shan't play."

Later on in the day, Billy Kerr, a young relative,
arrived breathless with excitement, and gasped out :
"Is it true? For if it is, by the powers, I'll whip
to you if you have only a three-legged horse to
give me."

" Come away down to the stables, and I'll show
you a four-legged one."

When the linen sheet was stripped from the Irish
mare in obedience to Batters' command, *' Peel that
mere," and after her legs had been felt, and her
hocks examined, the Oracle remarked, " She wadna
mak' a bad wheep's horse, Maister Willyum."

As there had been no opportunity for an inter-
change of news between the two, it left it to be
surmised that the tele-girl had revealed to Batters
the momentous message of the morning.

'^ Let's have a look through what you've got here
before I go," said Billy.

So the horses were inspected in turn with a new
interest and a new importance, and much discussion
took place as to whether this one or that one was
suitable — fast enough, stout enough, and clever enough
for a huntsman's horse.

" What have you just now ? " asked Billy.

"At the moment there are five here and two at
grass, seven hunters all told ; all good of their kind,
and all to be depended upon ; but two of them are
shared with the family."

" Which are these ? "

8 HOUND AND HORN

^' Well, there's ' Pepperbox/ whom you know — the
^Powney,' as Batters calls her, though she is 15. if."

" Fifteen wan on her bare feet an' stannin'
streetched," corrected that worthy.

^^ She's fresh as ever, and will come up from the
grass firm and fat, and frisking like a filly."

*' Yes," replied Bill, '' she gives a very good imita-
tion of Australian buck-jumping when the saddle is
first laid on her, and a lot of fun to the man who
crosses it. I remember our friend here had a con-
venient turn of lumbago last year, and gave me the
privilege of 'first ride,'" he went on, seeing Batters
leave the stable for a moment ; *' but I did not see
much stiffness about him as he ran to catch her
after she had disposed of me."

''The other is this one, one of that rare sort,
anybody's horse, a very pleasant ride, an absolutely
safe conveyance, a perfect fencer, and never sick
or sorry ; but, as Batters says, ' sair afQickit wi'
want o' speed.' "

"This old arm-chair rather spoils the look of
these three blood-like chasers," said Billy to Batters,
who had come back.

" Mebbe she diz that, Captain Willyum, but she's
yin o' the kind ye whiles read aboot but dinna aften
see, an' she can mak' fules o' some o' the faster kind ;
an' what's mair," with a very steady and direct
glance at his master, " she's a yuisfu' kind for a
snawy day."

Thereupon I made a mental note that whether I
wished it or not, " Old Safety" would have to remain
in the Hunt stable.

" Ye'll never think o' pairtin' wi' the auld horse, sir,"

■t— <

-I— »

a

O

o

a

O

>

HOW THE NEWS CAME 9

continued Batters, after Bill had run his hand over
old " Royal's " tendons and pinched his suspensory
ligament, and had observed, *' He stands over a
bit more than I thought, and that flat foot doesn't
improve, and he is a bit impetuous in a cramped
country, is he not?"

'* Put him away ! Rather not. Bill. There's some
three or four years' genuine work in him yet, and he
and I will never part."

" The * Pearl ' here is another of the same, but faster,
and has the advantage of youth, though she's not so
careful where she puts her feet as I should like."

"What's this, Master?" as we came to a little
thick dark-brown mare, with well-turned quarters,
muscular thighs, and good straight hocks.

*' That's the ' Omega ' mare. Bill, only rising five
years old, active and clever as a kitten, but has
a litUe to learn yet, and has rather too much action
for a hunter."

" Shae'll never dae ti keep," muttered Batters, as
he unbuckled the roller ; " she can lift her legs high
eneuch, but she sets them doon in the verra same
bit again."

Billy could find no fault with the mare's shapes
when she was stripped ; but the evident anxiety of
Batters to cover her up again left little time for a
thorough examination, and when the rug and roller
were being adjusted I whispered to my companion
the explanation that the Oracle could not ride her,
and that she was not a favourite with him.

^' Let's have one more look at the Irish mare,"
said Billy. So we had her run out, and picked her
to pieces.

10 HOUND AND HORN

*^ How's she bred ? I suppose you got a pedigree
with her ? "

" Yes, a real Irish pedigree ; by * Royal Meath '
from ' Alanna,' and going back as long as your arm,
and a reputation even longer."

" Yes ; what was it the dealer said about her ? "

"Well, after I had bought the mare, and he had
pocketed his cheque, I said, ^ Now, Maloney, the
mare is mine and not returnable ; is there anything
about her that I should know ? Has she any trick
in or out of the stable ? ' ' Thrick is it ? ' he
replied, gulping down a glass of brown sherry
which he had selected to wet the bargain. ' In
the sthable she has a thrick av licking out her
manger clane, an' out av the sthable she has a
thrick av takin' ye to the front an' keepin' ye there.'
Then warming up, he went on, ^ Whei, the lasht
toime I rode her misilf wid the fox-hounds, we had
a twilve-moile point, an' she finished wan iv twilve
others in a field av siventy. On our way home we
met the sthag-hounds jist startin', so as she was
quite fresh, I tuk her on. We ran a twinty moile
point this toime — only foive of us finished out av
a field av a hundred,' and, raising his voice to a
high scream, 'an' wan av thim foive was your
mare.'"

When Bill had done laughing, he said, " Well, I
must mount my hireHng and tak' the road."

*' I suppose Brockie, of Kelso, has some useful
hack-hunters, eh. Batters ? "

" Him," said Batters, in a tone of inexpressible
contempt, '* him : no, he hez nae horse."

'' But I saw at least a dozen standing there to-day."

HOW THE NEWS CAME it

^' Weel, he hez twae'r three auld rungs aboot the
place that he thinks is horses ; but he hez nae horse."

*' But this one I'm riding to-day is not a bad old
screw."

" Weel," persisted Batters, '' there's a broon mare
he bocht at Bosills Fair. Ye micht get a canny
half-day's work oot o' her if ye didna pussh her
ower sair, and him, ye micht ca' him a beast ; but
forbye them twae, the feck o' them's auld rungs."

F

CHAPTER II

TAKING THEM OVER
" To rear^ feed^ hunt, and discipline the pack.''^

— SOMERVILE.

OLLOWING close upon this memorable morn-
\ ing, preliminaries were quickly arranged, and
it was agreed to take over the hounds at once,
and bring them to temporary summer quarters at a
hill farm, while the permanent premises were being
put ready for them.

After spending several days with the retiring
huntsman, drinking in the flow of his advice, hanging
upon his every utterance, and fearful of forgetting
the slightest tip imparted in the boiling-shed or
sleeping-house, where nearly every minute of the
time was passed, the move was made.

Tom the feeder in front, a new and proud hunts-
man next, Jack the second whip and Billy flanking,
and Jock the kennel terrier strutting at the head
of the pack, formed the light-hearted cavalcade as
we left at 6 A.M. one fine cool morning. The roads
were nicely damped for hounds' feet, a condition
which Tom took credit for obtaining by special
stipulation with the weather regulator. Tom had
no world outside and beyond the confines of his
kennel, and seemed to think that all things existed
for or against the well-being of his beloved hounds.

12

TAKING THEM OVER 13

An hour's jog brought us to a river, the boundary
of the Forest country proper, which we crossed at
a shallow ford, five or six miles below a manufac-
turing town. Horses would not drink the coloured
water ; but most of the hounds drank freely, and
some were sick immediately afterwards. Tom's
remark upon the occasion was characteristic of the
man : *' Stinkin' fellahs them malefacterers puttin'
all that dye-stuff into the water — might ha' known
it would sicken hounds."

Three hours later, of which half the time led over
a moorland track, we sighted a snug farmhouse in
the heart of the hills, and took possession of the
extemporised kennels. An old smearing-shed had
been converted into two sleeping-houses, with a
boiling-house and a small feeding-yard behind, and
a large grass yard with a stream of water run-
ning through it in front. We put hounds on to
their benches, and gazed at them for some time;
and one satisfied soul felt that a new era had
commenced.

What an interest life had during the next few
weeks, and how full the days were. Bustle and
activity reigned, and few idle moments were passed ;
and what enjoyment the novelty and excitement
brought. The early rising, the canter across the
moor in the crisp air to the kennels, the long trails
among the glorious hills to condition horse and
hound, the feeding of the hounds and calling them
over, and all the kennel work, the doctoring feet
and ears, the loafing on the green in the after-
noons, getting acquainted with the character and
disposition of individual hounds, the playing with the

14 HOUND AND HORN

puppies, all made the days pass like a midsummer
dream.

The puppies were soon made handy in the couples,
and shortly after this their ears were rounded. This
operation was performed by the huntsman of a
neighbouring pack, who, by special favour, rode over
to do it, and brought two couple of draft hounds
with him as an offering of goodwill, and to strengthen
our pack.

It was a noteworthy day, and every effort had
been made in the kennels to have things in apple-
pie order ; and the great man was pleased to express
his approval, and to say, " We looked a very useful
lot." His remark as to the new huntsman, afterwards
passed on to me, was : ** I daresay he'll hunt the
hounds well enough, quite as well as any amature."
He gave many valuable hints, one of the chief
being : ^' The first day you hunt be sure to choose
a place where you are certain of finding cubs, and
where there is no riot. Blood your young hounds
if possible ; but above all get them to smell him
and chase him. To run a hot blowing fox before
they kill him is more important for young hounds
than the actual killing ; the worry often frightens
them till they know what it is."

Episode the first was the eating of Peter Amos,
the shepherd's, favourite cat. Hounds would not
look at the cats about the farm steading, and indeed
two or three lived in the kennels and used to steal
meat out of the feeding troughs. But this one in-
vited its fate, for one early morning it pounced on a
young rabbit and carried it off, trotting along the
road in front of us for two or three hundred yards.

TAKING THEM OVER 15

as we returned from exercise. Old Peter guessed
what had happened, for his favourite was missed
from its daily custom of bringing in rabbits, leverets,
and young game birds to its ^'kittlins," so to clear
the atmosphere we introduced the subject on the
first opportunity.

" Peter, there's rather too many cats about the
place just now."

No reply.

'^ It's all very well to have a few to keep down
the vermin, but when they get beyond a few, they
are apt to get into trouble."

Still no reply.

" In fact, any cat seen a mile away from home
will have to be destroyed."

Then Peter, with a stern face and a hard voice:
" For ma pairt A wud raither keep caats az raats,"
and wheeled and strode away.

One of the old draft hounds was the principal
offender in this instance, and as he distinguished
himself soon after in a way calculated to bring
discredit on the pack, his death warrant was signed.
We had ridden over (with hounds) to a farm which
seemed a likely walk for a puppy. We had shut
hounds up in the straw-barn, and were interviewing
old Mr. Br3^don in his parlour. He had just said :
** I didna ken hoonds were sic bonny massy beasts,
and I wud like fine ti rear a whulp ; but the
mistress "

Billy was eloquently urging that Mrs. B. need
know no fear, two whelps were no trouble, that
one kept the other out of mischief, and so on ; when
we both saw passing the window that gluttonous

i6 HOUND AND HORN

fiend '^ Forager " with the carcase of a hen hanging
from his jaws, and pursued by another couple who
were grabbing at the dainty morsel, and strewing
feathers all over the lawn. Billy ran out, and I
did my best to hold the worthy couple in conversation,
and had to assent to a second glass of very fiery
whisky to accomplish this, touching on every topic
from the price and condition of ewes to the prospects
of harvest, and keeping one eye on the window and
the other on Mr. B.'s glass the while. Shortly
afterwards I made an escape, leaving the crime
unconfessed, and, as we believed, undetected. Mr.
Brydon's last words were : ^' I'll think aboot the
maitter o' the whulp."

Billy's account was that when he got to the straw-
barn he found the two lads throwing half-mangled
corpses of fowls down the pit of the mill-wheel, and
smothering clouds of feathers in the straw. Some
luckless hens had been roosting on the rafters ; and
when the door was closed on the pack, they had
flown down in the darkness, and courted certain
death.

No puppies were taken to walk by Mr. and Mrs.
Brydon that year.

About this time Billy went off rather suddenly and
with much mystery, as he only revealed " he was
going south." Two days later we received two in-
comprehensible wires from him, the first reading,
^^ Have bought her ;^' the second, though handed in
an hour before the first, received an hour later, and
reading, " Have seen A Clinker. Carrie is a lady."
Of course, Joanna instantly composed several replies
to the effect that we were interested to have his

•' — >

'S3

I-'

3

u

o

o

TAKING THEM OVER 17

opinion as to the gentle birth of Carrie, and pleased
that he had seen Mr. Clinker, and that if he contem-
plated bringing one or both back with him she had
only one spare room at present ; but dreading the
complications that mutilation of the message might
produce, and grudging the 4s. 6d. involved in sending,
none of them were sent. In the end of the week
Billy returned with the Clinker, a grey thorough-
bred, five-year-old mare ; but without the suggested
lady, at whose non-appearance, after having had her
explained away to our dull minds, Joanna professed
profound disappointment.

A DAY IN THE KENNELS

When Billy asked blandly, *' May I bring John
Elliot to see hounds fed to-morrow, and his sister
with him ? " I already knew from my usual source of
information that he had written asking the lady to
come with her brother to lunch, and to see hounds
fed, and had received a reply that she would be
charmed. So as we strolled along the footpath
leading to the kennels next afternoon, I contrived
to appropriate the young lady in spite of Billy's
manoeuvres, and found her delightfully naive and re-
freshing. Before reaching the kennels. Miss Florence
having heard that we had some cubs in captivity,
asked to see them. They were in a newly built pig-
house that had never been occupied, and the sur-
roundings were quite sanitary and wholesome. There
was a small quantity of hay in a corner of the inside
house, and the yard was covered over with wire
netting. Tom the feeder used to look after them,

B

i8 HOUND AND HORN

but beyond throwing in a rabbit or a crow occasionally,
he did not keep them as he kept his hounds' quarters.
Miss Florence was a very dainty 3^oung lady, and as
she tip-toed up wind to the courtyard she suddenly
came to a dead stop, holding her nose.

*' Shall I go in and stir them up ? " said Billy.

" Oh no, please don't ; I don't think I'd care to see
them."

As we walked away she said, *' Mr. Master, I used
to think it so clever of fox-hounds to smell a fox and
so far off, and wondered how they did it. I don't
wonder at all now."

Clad in linen coats, and taking an ash plant in our
hands, we entered the boiling-house, and at a crucial
moment. Tom was standing on a wooden stool over
a thirty-gallon boiler filled with hot bubbling porridge,
and stirring with a wooden weapon like a canoe
paddle, as if his life depended on his labour, and
he barely noticed us. He then jumped down and
raked out the glowing coals from the fire-box of
the furnace, and was joined by Jack, who had
been mincing up junks of boiled horse-flesh with a
chopper.

*' Keep the puddin' movin' for a bit yet, Jack. The
copper is nearly red hot."

Florence looked on with great interest, and had
many questions to ask.

" Do they eat all that to-day ? Do you give it them
hot like that ? Does that last them for a week ? "

She was instructed that this was the feed for
to-morrow and next day, and we watched the men
ladle it out with big scoops into wooden coolers,
from which the boiling of two days previous had been

TAKING THEM OVER 19

cut out with a spade in solid cubes, which looked
most appetising in the troughs in the feeding-house
next door.

" Let's take hounds out on the green while the
pudding is being prepared," suggested Bill.

As hounds climbed round one, and scrambled and
raced for a little bit of broken biscuit thrown to them,
my volunteer whip got the ear of the young lady for
a time, and had evidently been impressing her with
his knowledge of hounds' names, for she said to me,
*' Do you know that Mr. Kerr knows all the hounds'
names," and added shyly, '* Do you ? "

I was obliged to confess I did, and disclaiming any
supernatural talent for the accomplishment, continued,
" There is a shepherd here who knows at a glance
every one of the 640 sheep he has to look after."
But this did not seem to impress Miss Florence as
much as might have been expected.

'^ Feeding-time, Tom ? " as that individual appeared
at the kennel door. '* Very wxll, now let's see you
separate the puppies first."

** Right, sir. Stand back, hounds : steady there
now: then, puppies, little puppies, puppies only;
here, little boys ; here, little dearies : " and in no
time he had six couple of young hounds forward
wriggling with delight ; and while the old hounds
all remained standing dejected in the background,
they were allowed to pick out the tit-bits. Then
a little more flesh and biscuits was added, and
the old hounds called over singly, the shy feeders
first — Dainty, Lavender, Beeswing, Rosalind, Pilgrim,
Woodman, Ringwood, Gossamer, Gambol, Dexter,
Sportsman, Ranter, Dalesman, Driver, Newsman.

20 HOUND AND HORN

Then, after a pause, as fast as they could be named —
Warrior, Tr3rwell, Trojan, Templar, Truthful, Dew-
drop, Ringlet, Ruffian, Regent, Proctor, Rallywood,
Royal, Talisman, Rustic, Challenger, Marmion, Pirate,
Lapwing, Tyrant.

In a very short time the troughs were cleared
out and polished clean, and hounds started to lick
each other all over.

" What are these poor things, Tom ? " inquired
Miss Florence, as three hounds — Forager, Chorister,
Wisdom — were let out of a small shed to join the
others.

'' Them three. Missus, is to have ile to-night "
(** Because they've been naughty," ejaculated Billy,
bursting with laughter), '* and I'm preparing them
for it. Besides, old Forager will lick about a full
feed off the muzzles and backs to the others."

As we were leaving, some little kittens appeared
from below the meal-chest on the concrete floor.

*' They wxre kittened underneath there/' explained
Tom.

" You'd better put an old sack or something for
them to lie on."

^' Oh, sir, when they feel cold they lie on the
porridge," retorted Tom ; and sure enough I fre-
quently saw them after this extended flat on their
little stomachs, their hind feet pushed out behind them,
evidently enjo3dng the comfort of the heat-retaining
pudding.

Old Batters was a man of moods. He was either
tiresomely taciturn or abundantly voluble ; and we
could never decide in which he showed to the greater
advantage. He had often to be consulted on matters

TAKING THEM OVER 21

outside and not pertaining to the stables, and indeed
was never slow to give his opinion or present a
theory when asked. He was in his loquacious mood
as he drove me back from the last train one evening
about this time, and introduced the subject of a pro-
jected servants' dance.

^' Na, na," he emphatically declared, '' A wadna hev
nae drink — drink disna dae whan there's females
aboot."

He was equally firm as to the undesirability
of including a certain youth in the list of invited
guests. This individual was a musician and a step-
dancer, and had been in great request till his habits
drove people to be rather shy of him.

*' It wad never dae to hev Yeddy Da'gleish," said
the Oracle. ^*Ye see the warst o' him is whan he
gets on, he strikes ; no like Donal' Purdie, for he
juist roars when he gets drink, and Sandy Blyth
he juist glowers an' grumphs. Yedd got on at
Talla sports a week past on Setterday an' strak.
Oo was kinda coaxin' him awa', an' 00 had gotten 'im
as fer as the brig, when he brak awa' frae us an' made
straicht for the tent and strak. The sairgent tell't mi
the poliss wasna for lifting onybody frae the sports ;
but Yedd he strak that sair an' that wicked they
couldna evite it, so they juist liftit um."

After a very brief silence, which he broke only
by an abortive hiccup. Batters went off at a tangent.

" Hev they gotten thae Boors oot o' the camp on
yon river yet ? Hes Sir Buller won ower yet, sir ? "

" No, not yet ; but Sir Redvers is getting up his
guns to shell them out."

"Weel, I'll tell ye what should be dune — what A

22 HOUND AND HORN

wad dae if they askit me — what A think they shood
dae : they shood juist keep blatterin' on at them nicht
an' day."

After several more oracular utterances, and before
the house-lights appeared, I began to think I pre-
ferred Batters' taciturn mood.

When he had received the instructions for next day,
and before driving off to the stables, he whispered
mysteriously that he had seen '' the best shapit horse "
in the countryside that evening at Brockie's livery
stables while waiting for the train.

'' He's a graund tappit yin, an' a graund middle't
yin, an' the finest leggit yin, wi' the best per o'
fower legs — the best set o' fower legs — A ever clappit
een on. Short cannon banes, an' hocks ner the
grund, nerrer as ony A ever saw ; in fack his hocks
is on the grundy He then blew into my ear: ''He
micht be bocht for a hunder." Almost in the same
breath he groaned : " Dinna buy that mere o' Maister
Willyum's."

Expressing a desire to have an opportunity of
inspecting the phenomenal horse, and disclaiming
all desire to possess the grey mare, I for the third
and last time wished him good-night.

CHAPTER III

A MORNING'S EXERCISE

" Then on the sunny bank they roll and stretch
Their dripping limbs, or else in wanton rings
Coursing around, pursuers and ptir sued ;
The merry multitudes disporting play. '^

— SOMERVILE.

THE grey mare was turning out fairly well,
but she had much to learn. She was being
schooled to stand the whip, and was also being
regularly ridden on the moor to train her to avoid
putting her feet in sheep drains, of which she knew
nothing when she first came. She had one very
bad fault, which was to run back directly she felt
the toe in the stirrup. Billy was very patient with
her, and gentled her up to a certain point, and if
this failed he adopted a stronger method. His
endearing epithets were numerous. He would begin
by '' Gently then, my little lady ; " " Gently now, my
bonnie sweetheart ; " *' Woe ho, my pet beauty, woe
ho." Then, as the mare moved backwards, he
would tap her behind the fore-legs and say, '' Stand
still, will you ; " '* Stand still, you wild wench ; " '' Stand
still, you lanky jade ; " " Stand still, you long-legged
besom." Being a man of resource, he tied up a fore-
foot, and used to spend hours swinging his own long
leg up and down, and practising mounting from the

off side, at which he soon became an adept. Lastly,

23

24 HOUND AND HORN

he formed a sort of crush — a narrow pen of two palings
ended by a stiff prickly holly bush — inside of which
enclosure he pushed her, and swung confidently into
the saddle. This first experiment was more than suc-
cessful, for the mare backed against the bush and
then shot forward so suddenly and with such force,
that she jerked her rider behind the saddle, and then
getting a slight chuck in the mouth she got up on
end and slid the astonished horseman not ungrace-
fully over her tail, to the unconcealed delight of
the few privileged onlookers. The ^'jade" got clear,
and after cutting up the tennis lawn, was only cap-
tured at the stable door. The gentling method was
taken up again, and proved successful, for she was
soon pronounced *^ whip quiet," and ^^ steady to
mount."

It was about this time that Billy made a half-
hearted approach to pass on the '^ Clinker " to the
Hunt stable, at a profit of course.

*^Are you sure you have plenty horses to start
with, old man ? " he began. '* These hill fellows are
terrible keen, and even two days a week, with an
occasional five days a fortnight, will take some
doin' in that country. I hear they are accustomed
to hounds drawing on till dark, whatever they may
have done in the mornin'. 'Twould never do to
start with too few."

I explained that I was in the enviable position
of only being required to horse myself, that my first
whip found his own horses, and that the second
whip really did second horseman's work only, as
there was never any trouble with hounds not
coming on or being left out ; that five horses

J=> A , ^f

7-^ 1

She slid the astonished horseman not ungracefully over her tail.

A MORNING'S EXERCISE 25

keeping sound would easily do the work, and re-
minded him that I had five, not counting the little
mare that old Batters called the *^ Powney," and
which had never been known to tire or fall. Then
came a feeler.

" My mare is going awfully nicely with Jack (second
horseman) just now ; she'll make a clinking hunter."

'' I thought she was that already," said I.

Then after a pause, as if speaking to himself: " I've
a mind to do a swop with Jack Elliot ; he's half a
stone lighter than I am, and his mare, though not
so fast as mine, is up to a stone more weight ; " and
continued, ^^ I think you'd like her if you once rode
her, and I'm only asking a tenner more than I paid
for her."

To which I answered, " No, no. Bill, I don't buy
unmade ones, and never one made or unmade from a
pal. Swop with Jack Elliot if you like, but don't try
to shunt her on to me."

Next morning he said, after our return from exer-
cise, " I say, old man, I'm awfully glad you didn't buy
my mare off me last night," than which nothing had
been more remote from my intention.

This abortive deal partly but not wholly prepared
me for Jack Elliot's question a few days later.

"Are you really trying to buy Bill Kerr's mare?"
I looked encouragingly at him, and he went on.
" For if you are, I'll stand out till the deal is done or
off. He says you are awfully sweet on her."

I was petrified to hear this, though I managed to
conceal my amazement, and more than amused when
it came round to me later that the young ruffian had
added, " She takes a little bit of riding, and between

26 HOUND AND HORN

ourselves, I don't think that she is exactly his
mare."

That morning's exercise had been productive of
several small incidents. Billy had returned to the
slumbering house, under the pretext of getting his
pipe, after we started, and had taken off his hat to a
lightly draped figure at an upper window, which he
did with so much action as to make the mare shy off,
and he dropped his pipe on the gravel. He got down
to pick it up, and found that the lesson of the holly
bush had been, temporarily at least, forgotten, for
directly he put his foot into the stirrup, and before he
could swing up, the ^^ Clinker " began her old trick of
running backwards and spinning round. No man
looks his best in the difficult and humiliating position
of hopping on a straightened leg after a gyrating
horse, the other foot being wedged firmly home in
the stirrup three feet or more from the ground. Bill
was aware of this, but kept his head admirably,
though a chuckle of laughter came from behind the
curtain of the open window. He was mindful of his
experience of the slide over the tail, and let the reins
lie perfectly loose, and waiting his chance till the
moment of a slight lull in the top-like movement, he
took a big handful of mane and swung into the saddle.
The mare darted off like a released bird, and before
he caught his stirrup she had done a good half-mile
at racing speed.

Not long after leaving kennels we came across the
stale drag of a night-wandering fox, for some of the
old hounds, after feeling about with noses on the
ground, darted out, and stooping to it, would soon
have carried it on. But the vigilant Jack was round

A MORNING'S EXERCISE 27

them in an instant, and swinging his whip with
" Warrior, leave it there ; get over and leave it, Pil-
grim," while Billy chimed in, the two soon had the
pack clustering round the old mare's heels. So on
we went for a couple of hours, now walking, now
jogging, till we came to a knoll covered with short
heather. There we got down and spent half-an-hour
letting hounds roll and push and draw themselves
along on their backs and sides to their full content,
and tossing bits of biscuit to the puppies.

''Let's have a practice at the horn. Master," said
Billy. Whereupon he blew a blast with more vehe-
mence than harmony. Old " Safety " ran backward
with fright, the Irish mare wheeled round with the
whip, the old hounds raised their ears and looked
puzzled, and the young hounds dropped their sterns
and prepared for flight ; in fact. Playmate made off,
dragging old Marmion, to whom he was coupled, for
some distance before he stopped. The sheep on the
opposite hillside drew together in alarm, and I now
knew what old Peter the shepherd meant this morning.
He had told me: ''A couldna' jaloose what had
gliflfed the sheep off the hicht yestreen. A faund
the hill-end cut a' hotted thigether in a batt when
A cam' roun' the hill." My volunteer whip had stolen
out to the hilltop to have a '' practice on the horn."

And some of the morning's incidents were of an
amusing nature. A little way beyond our halting
place we suddenly came upon a most patriarchal-
looking billy-goat tethered by a long rope to a stout
stake. Some of the young hounds were scared, and
seemed inclined to bolt, but most of them appeared to
wish a closer inspection. Two or three had fallen

28 HOUND AND HORN

behind. Jack went back to put them on, cracking his
whip as I called encouragingly to them. This had
the effect of starting the goat off at a fast canter,
which he kept up round and round in ever-lessening
circles till he had wound himself up close to his post,
where, stamping and butting, he looked most formi-
dable, with Ruffian, Pilgrim, and Pirate baying at
him. It took several smart cuts with the whip to
drive them oh, and my laughter did not diminish when
Billy said, '' By Jove, I do believe they would not have
been long in breaking up old Nebuchadnezzar. Tell
ye what, if we don't find a fox first day out we
might enlarge the patriarch on the top of Blue Cairn ;
believe they'd run the high old boy with half a day's
start."

These exercising ^' trails," as Batters called them,
were a great delight at the time, and a most pleasant
recollection to recall — the whole surroundings were
so attractive and picturesque, and it was all so satis-
fying. At the same time we looked forward with
an eagerness that almost amounted to impatience to
the rapidly approaching time when we should start
work.

'^ When do you intend to begin business. Master ? "
was the question frequently put by my supernumerary
whip, and repeated this morning as we turned our
horses' heads homewards. It was explained to him
that the hill country would only stand three or four
days' hunting at most, that though cubs had been seen
we could not be sure they had not moved on, and
that in our own country proper, where we proposed
to move shortly, corn would not be cut for two or
three weeks yet.

A MORNING'S EXERCISE 29

On one of the first days of September the usual
question was put, supplemented by the observation,
"Look at the muscles on hounds' backs and thighs,
and see how fit horses are."

*' Yes ; but we must have a few more days on the
roads to harden hounds' feet, and one or two more of
these long trails on the hill tracks will be of great
benefit to horses' legs."

'' Horses' legs are hard and clean, and old ' Safety '
is getting quite conceited" (referring to an unex-
pected wallop the old mare had given some mornings
ago, and which had put me on to her neck).

I took no notice of Bill's last remark, and replied,
" Yes, legs are good ; that's the cool wet grass knee-
high acting as a cold-water bandage, and the absence
of concussion in these soft hill tracks. They must
have some more of it, and get on to faster work and
have a pipe opener or two before they are fit to begin
business, as you put it ; but perhaps the week after
next, if it comes rain."

I saw Billy's suction get a little stronger, and great
volumes of smoke came from his half-extinguished
pipe, and he vented his feelings by putting his heels
into his mare's sides, which caused her to jump
forward almost on the top of some coupled hounds.

At late breakfast he said, through a mouthful of
cold grouse pie, '^ I don't know which part of it I
like best, it's all so splendid and wholesome."

Joanna and I exchanged glances, for this was the
exact description given of Billy himself lately, and it
fitted him precisely.

" I think I know," said the lady, as she drew the
oatcakes and honey from his reach ; " but really, you

30 HOUND AND HORN

must put on the muzzle if you wish to get anywhere
near the hounds when they run by-and-by."

^^A man can't work for nothing; you surely don't
grudge me two light meals a day, with a snack
between times ? "

^' It's the snacks I do grudge/' replied the house-
keeper, wistfully eyeing about half a pound of honey-
comb being transferred to his plate.

As I was looking through my letters, Billy, who
had been down to the stables to see how much of her
oats the grey mare had left, for amongst other faults
she was a shy feeder, reported, '' There's a character
in the saddle-room ; you'd better go down and see
him."

'' Who is he. Bill ? "

^' Oh, go and see for yourself; I think he'll amuse
you."

After finishing my correspondence, I went down,
and was surprised to see a figure which I took to be
Batters, in an unimpeachable Sunday suit of clothes,
sitting on a stool silently smoking. He never moved,
and scarcely appeared to breathe, so somewhat mysti-
fied, I said in a half whisper, *' Batters."

" Coming, sir," said that worthy from the adjoining
stable, and when he appeared the resemblance to the
motionless figure was still more apparent. " A was
stertin' to rasp that grey mare's teeth ; that's ma
faither, sir."

Batters looked any age between thirty and sixt}^,
but was much nearer the latter age, and the figure on
the stool looked considerably younger as it sat ; but
on being spoken to it solemnly dropped from the stool
on to the shortest and handiest pair of legs that ever

A MORNING'S EXERCISE 31

curled round a saddle flap, removed the pipe from its
mouth, and sticking it behind its ear, stood at
attention.

'^ He's just ridden a colt over from Sir William
Miller's to see the Irish mare," went on Batters,
junior, ^^and he'll be starting back directly."

" You've had a long ride," I said.

*' Parteeklar, sir," was the reply.

*' How do you like the mare ? "

" Parteeklar, parteeklar, sir."

" Come up to the house before you go."

'^Parteeklar, parteeklar, parteeklar, sir."

The old fellow soon after appeared, part and parcel
of his horse, at the door. Billy had offered him
cherry brandy, saying to me, *' Perhaps it may make
him diversify his dialogue," and the old chap with
a brightening eye assented, believing he was being
offered brandy. He eyed the ruby liquid very sus-
piciously, and would have smelled it had he been un-
observed. Then taking a very small sip, he said, " Par-
teeklar ; " another sip — ** No bad ; " sip — ** Gey guid ; "
sip — '* Dode, that's better nor whusky ; " a large sip —
" A body wad never sta' onna that ; " a final gulp —
" Yin could juist drink that till yin fell aneth the
table."

** True," laughed Billy, ^' that will set you up for
the ride home. How far is it."

^' Parteeklar, sir, thirty mile," the old boy responded,
as he started at a hound's jog pace down the avenue.

" Well, that beats anything I ever heard in the
Forest country last week," roared Bill ; and after
dinner that night he related some of his experiences
on that occasion. He had repaired thither with his

32 HOUND AND HORN

mare, partly on his own business, and partly on that
of the Hunt. I had deputed him to see how the
work at the new kennels was progressing, to call
on prospective puppy walkers, to see some of the
farmers and learn when harvest was likely to be over,
and to carry out many such, to him, congenial errands.
His projected two nights away had been extended to
a week. He had had two days' grouse-shooting, two
days' trout-fishing, one lazy day (Sunday of course),
and two days at business, staying most of the time
with the Elliots, and he came home wearing one of
Jack Elliot's shirts and carrying one of Miss Flo's
pocket-handkerchiefs. He had deferred meeting some
of the hunting men till his last day (market day),
and had a heavy time, and on his return complained
of headache.

*' Look here. Master," he said, '' if you want to
drink even with some of those old Johnnies over in
the Forest country, you'll have to begin to harden
a bit. I was boxed up yesterday with three or four
old topers ; one a coursing man, one a famous curler,
and one a gamekeeper, and all keen fox-hunters.
The last was hale and hearty, and took his liquor
straight, while the others were gulping and shirk-
ing and spilling it, while I was sitting tight scarcely
daring to move. Old Cherry-trees asked M'Alister
the keeper, seventy-five if a day, ' George, how have
ye kept yer health so well ? What kind of rule did
ye make about drink ? ' ^ Weel, Jims,' old M'Alister
returned, ^ I made this rule early in life, an' I follit
it a' thro' : I drank whusky and naething but whusky
every day up ti' sunset ; then ' (sinking his voice to
a whisper) * efter sunset — brandy.'

> 7)

A MORNING'S EXERCISE 33

Old Dykes the coursing farmer told that so far
as he knew only one of the young hounds at walk
had come to grief, and that by being run over by
a loaded cart, about which the guid-wife was heart-
broken, and had that very day written me a letter
imploring me to send her another whelp. Dykes also
told, through many hiccups, how his own puppy, in
fighting with a young greyhound bitch for the coveted
honour of sleeping across the foot of his cook's
bed, had bitten her (" the sapling, not the wummin,"
Dykes interjected) through the eye to the loss of its
sight. When sympathised with, and asked by Billy
if he would not like to send the puppy in, the old
fellow replied, ^^ Oh, never heed, I wadna like to want
the whulp or lambing comes in, an' he'll mebbe no
dae't again."

All these quaint characters he had met, and the
evidences of the sportsmanlike tendencies of the people
had made a great impression on Billy, who kept going
over his experiences again and again, and deploring
the fact that he had not made earlier acquaintance
with them. He had seen Tom Telfer, our official
first whip, itching for the appearance of the pack
in the field, and had met for the first time Sandy
Oliver, master of a south side of the Border Hunt,
a man for whom cleuchs and sykes and bogs,
and mosses, and well-eyes, and hidden sheep drains,
and swollen burns, and treacherous fords had no
terrors, and who was at home amongst the hills on
the blackest night and in the wildest snow-drift.

He also came across a daft soul. Will Phaup o' the
Wisp. In a rough prolonged hill chase this indi-
vidual, a great breeder of rams and of a few horses

C

34 HOUND AND HORN

as well, was undefeated. He had pulled out a well-
shaped but rather backward three-year-old for in-
spection, and was told it looked short of condition.

^' I never like them rolling fat to start the season,"
he stated.

'' But you're never going to hunt that beast ; I was
going to ask if he was broken to lead," Billy had said.

*' Broken to lead," shrieked Will Phaup ; *' man,
I hunted him last season three days in the same
week in the foremost flight."

^' But, Will, that's no way to treat a young one."

" I ken, lad, but the auld mare was lame, and when
the hoonds come whoopin' and hollerin' round yer
verra door, what's a man to dae ? "

We smoked and talked, and talked and smoked
again till far past midnight, and Billy was knocking
the ashes from his pipe preparatory to telling of
Andrew Waugh, " the very finest old boy of the lot,"
when a summons from the bed-room overhead was
rapped out through the ceiling with such precision and
vigour as to leave no doubt of its meaning, and the
sitting was adjourned.

When I retired, a voice from the pillows asked,
'* Have you fixed upon a name for the grey mare yet ? "

*' Well, no, we didn't touch on the subject at all.
Why ? "

" Because he's been at me to suggest a name for
his mare, and I've given him some most suitable ones
— ' Quicksilver,' * Grey Nun,' and others ; and I'm
determined not to propose the one he wants, and you
must not do so either."

" What does he want, and how do you know ? "

^^ Why, stupid, ^ Lady Florence ' of course."

CHAPTER IV

A MORNING'S CUBBING

" With nostrils opening wide, o'er hill, o'er dale
The vigorous hounds pursue, with evWy breath

Inhale the grateful steam, quick pleasures sting

Their tingling jterves, while they their thanks repay,

A7id in triu7nphant melody confess
The titillating Joy" — Somervile.

ti

c

OME on, Maister ! this is no time of day
to lie sweltering in bed," said Billy's cheery
voice.

It was 4.10 A.M. on the morning of our first
cubbing, and swelter could barely be called an
accurate description of my condition. For when
I woke up half-an-hour previously, in time to stop
the alarum clock from going off, I had looked out and
had seen in the grey light a distinct rime on the
grass, and felt the atmosphere more than chilly. But
passing over this, I replied, " Thanks for waking me,
Bill ; please don't disturb the house, but slip down-
stairs and light up the coffee, like a good chap,
and I'll be with you in two twos." When, half-an-
hour later, I joined him at the stable door, he was
stamping his feet, thumping his hands, and sucking
impatiently at a black briar pipe.

When the horses, old ** Safe Conveyance " and the
grey mare, wxre led out, their thin summer coats

35

36 HOUND AND HORN

stood up, their tails were tucked tight in, and their
ears laid back ; and when we got up and moved away
they put their backs up and were ready to wriggle
out from below us on the smallest excuse. We were
soon all aglow with the canter across the moor to the
farm, which we accomplished without incident, except
the dropping of Billy's pipe.

The sight of hounds rushing out of kennel further
quickened the circulation, and though old *' Safety "
usually stood their onset very steadily, she wheeled
with such amazing rapidity that we nearly parted
company, and I saw an ill-suppressed smile on Tom
the feeder's face. Then reinforced by the two lads,
we moved away.

Full of eager expectation, we jogged along towards
the hills, not holding hounds up too closely. We
first tried an old plantation of about six acres, not
thoroughly well fenced off and rather bare of under
cover, and got indications of a cold line here and
there. The old hounds had feathered and tried hard
to own it from time to time, and were desperately
keen ; they had tried every yard of it and came out
readily to the voice, a little bit inclined to flash,
but we soon had them in hand and proceeded to
our next draw.

Imagine a thirty-year-old plantation, about sixteen
acres in extent, of spruce and Scotch fir, with some
unhealthy larches and a few hardwoods, chiefly ash
and mountain-ash, all lichen-covered and wind-waved,
some lying over and some laid flat by gales, of quad-
rangular shape, with sharp-pointed corners and slightly
mcurved sides, surrounded by an old fail dyke two
and a half feet high, riddled with rabbit holes on two

A MORNING'S CUBBING 37

sheltered sides, and surmounted by two bars of rotten
paling. Through it were patches where the trees
were thick and bushy but stunted, and here the
heather grew close and high, overhanging and cover-
ing the open drains that had been made to dry the
mossy soil, and providing dry snug lying in all
weathers. From one corner stretched a thick bed
of reeds and dwarf willows, running out into a
small moss, where water stood several feet deep
during most of the year. This was the starting-
point, which we approached with feelings not easily
described.

Billy and Tom slipped forward to watch their
respective corners as arranged, with repeated orders
to hold the fox or foxes up in cover as long as they
could, on no account to holloa the first fox awa}'',
and not to cheer to an old fox on pain of a double
thonging.

Assisted by Jack and two young farmers, on fat
sweating horses, who had turned up, we followed
on, keeping hounds together. When within two or
three hundred yards of cover, hounds broke away
on a drag, and opened before they got to the wood,
into which they hurled themselves.

In less time than it took to get forward, and before
the young hounds had squeezed through the fence,
Billy was screaming on the other side as if to burst
his lungs, and hounds were crushing through the
undergrowth in full chorus and pouring out at the
far side. Billy made a faint attempt to ride across
them in response to my yells of " Stop them, for pity's
sake, stop them 1 " Then catching hold of his bridle
and kicking his long-legged grey mare in the ribs.

38 HOUND AND HORN

he humped his shoulders and sent her pounding away
in pursuit.

'* Why did you holler them away ? Why didn't
you stop them ? " I shouted, when I got within ear-
shot ; " it can't be a cub."

^' Don't know/' replied he, in the tone of don't-want-
to-know ; " only saw his back as he crept along the
bottom of the sheep drain."

Here was an unexpected start, and an undesired
one : a hill fox with his nose to the hills, and hounds
screaming close behind him on a hot scent, having
had no work to draw for him, and no trouble to
find him themselves, and the young hounds hanging
back wondering what it was all about.

But see the sheep drawing together only a quarter
of a mile in front ; and " Jupiter ! there he goes cross-
ing back over the white moss and coming in ; perhaps
it's a cub after all." By riding inside of hounds as
they swung left-handed we got nearer them, and
to our joy saw them turn sharp back towards the
cover we had just left. But to our dismay we heard
them run right through without dwelling, saw them
carry the line out on the far side, and things began
to look serious as they streamed away a second time,
with an increased cry and no slackening of speed,
most of the puppies joining in this time.

Divided between a desperate desire to get forward
to see which hounds were running at head, and to
hang back and curse Billy, I galloped along towards
the hills, the chorus getting fainter as hounds tailed
out and sunk the wind. At first I kept in touch
by riding the ridges, where the going was sound,
and by keeping to some bridle tracks which I knew,

A MORNING'S CUBBING 39

and saw hounds crossing to the right front towards
Billy, who was riding cunning on the off-side, and
who now seemed likely to cut in. On looking round
again, I saw the grey mare loose, floundering in
soft ground, with her rider on his hands and knees,
with a crumpled hat. He got up and ran helplessly
after her as she gained sounder ground, and made
for a corner in a cross-wire fence. To my horror
she rose deliberately at it, and though ringing the
top wire hard all round, she got over it and cantered
off in a direction opposite to that in which the pack
were vanishing.

Luckily I hit upon a gate, and then having little else
as a guide than the terriers showing now and again like
white specks on the heather, and sheep occasionally
bunched together on the hillsides, I held on my way.
I was making for a deep glen or linn in the heart of
the hills, which ran at right angles to the line of the
chase, for, knowing it to have at least two strong
breeding earths besides numerous kennels and lying
places on the rocky ledges and loose stones on both
sides of the stream, I fully expected to find hounds
here. Half-an-hour of bad going, during which there
was no indication of them except the overtaking of
two very tired and blown puppies, whose delight to
see me was touching, brought me within hail of a
shepherd. He shouted back in a high-pitched key
that he had ^' seen hoonds rinnin' like mad oot by
ayont the bunemaist scaur in the fore day." In
the next half-mile occurred not the least catastrophe
of the day, for in scrambling over a gap in the stone
wall ^' Old Safety " cut herself badly. After washing
and binding it up, the wound continued to bleed

40 HOUND AND HORN

considerably, so there was nothing for it but to go
back home with her. Seven miles took an hour and
a half to do, when at eleven o'clock I again set out
on a fresh horse to look for the pack.

I found one hound near where I had turned back,
evidently working homewards on the back trail, which
confirmed the shepherd lad's information, and jogging
along for another six miles towards a large wood-
land in enclosed country, a gamekeeper gave the
news that a certain young farmer had got hold of
the hounds, had taken them on to his farm and
shut them up in his straw barn. There I found
them a little footsore, and one couple only short, and
heard Paton's story.

At about 10.30 A.M. he was riding in to the market
town. While off his horse to open a gate on the
edge of the moor, he saw a fox crossing a grass
field. Not dreaming of hounds, and seeing the
fox was very tired, he kept perfectly still and
watched. The animal made three attempts to jump
a wall before succeeding, and then he saw him
creep towards the mouth of a stone drain, slowly
and deliberately walk past it to a manure heap.
On this he rolled, after which he came back by a
series of jumps down wind and disappeared into
the drain just as leading hounds crossed the wall
sixty yards behind him. The drain, which was
usually protected by an iron grating, was fully
half a mile long, and led to a threshing-mill pond,
and had many side branches ; and though large
enough to admit a terrier, it was considered by
the Duke's people, in whose country it was, too
strong to allow of bolting.

A MORNING'S CUBBING 41

After refreshing man and horse, we started with
Jack, who had opportunely turned up, picked up
the two missing hounds on the way, and reached
kennels at 8 P.M.

Billy emerged from the stables, where he had
been watching his mare being dressed over, looking
very much injured. He had come home early in
the afternoon in the nearest approach to bad temper
possible to him, and had received scant sympathy
from the household. He was not improved by the
remark of a young girl, who innocently inquired
if he had had a nice run ; and as he had been
engaged in chasing his horse for the best part of
three hours, he could not reciprocate the smile that
flitted over Joanna's face ; nor, had he known she
had prompted the question to the young lady, could
he have immediately forgiven her.

At nine-o'clock dinner, after hearing my tale, he
told his.

He declared he had ridden out to stop tail hounds
from running a hare that had jumped up from her
form in front of their noses, when his mare blundered
elbow deep into a soft spot, and shot him over her
head. He was up as soon as the mare, but could
not catch her. Just as he had cornered the *'jade"
between two wire fences, *^ the long-legged besom
that she is " hoisted herself over with a buck and
made off.

^' How and where did you catch her ? "

'^ Caught her in a stackyard two hours later in the
middle of the next parish ; must have jumped about
six fences to get there, and after a wide forward
cast round, brought her home ; spoiled a hat and

42 HOUND AND HORN

lost a spur — made good use of the remaining one,
though," he added viciously.

Later on, from the room adjoining the smoke-room,
scraps of conversation came drifting. Billy was evi-
dently telling his oft-told tale, and from the tone of
his voice, seeking s^^mpathy.

"Are you still thinking of selling 'Quicksilver'?"
asked Joan.

" I would willingly have presented her to my
dearest foe this morning," he replied. *' What's
the use of keeping a beast that won't jump when
asked, and jumps like a wallaby when not wanted ? "
Then raising his voice, *' I wonder if the Master has
written up his journal ? "

''Just done so."

" What have you said ? "

" Hounds ran a cracker with an old fox from
Dodhead cover by Whiterope Moss, Glenlude Linn,
and Blaw-wearie Moor to Burnfoot with no help,
and without checking, and marked the fox to ground
in the Park Mill pond drain — a fourteen-mile point —
all up except old Lapwing and one and a half couple
of puppies."

" Did you say all the staff was up at the drain,
or up the drain ? Because "

"And lost hounds for a time, and Whipper-in
altogether," suggested Joanna.

" I am adding. Second Whip lost his horse, one of
his spurs, and part of his temper."

" Never cub unless you're sure of finding cubs,"
growled Billy.

" Never holler hounds on to an old fox. Good
night," was the retort.

A MORNING'S CUBBING 43

On the smoke-room table next morning we found
this draft advertisement : —

For Sale (along with the Forest Hunt Cub Hunters),
the Property of W. G. Kerr, Esq.,

Grey Mare ''Quicksilver,"

(16 hands, 5 years old)

By *' Loadstone" from a "Grey leg" mare.

Undocked, good hunter, a fine free fencer, and fast; very

good in a Hill Country.

^'And long-tailed, long-pedigreed, long-winded, and
long-suffering ; warranted not to refuse wire," was
added in a feminine hand.

CHAPTER V

FIRST BLOOD

** With silence lead thy many -coloured hounds

In all their beauty's pride. See how they range

Dispersed, how busily this way and that
They cross, examining with curious nose

Each likely haunt.'''' — Somervile.

OUR next venture was more successful. There
I had been a week of warm dewy nights and
sunny days ; just the sort of weather to
make foxes lie out ; and we were at work at day-
break with eighteen and a half couple drawing the
open. We had tried through some bracken beds
and dry mosses before going on to run hounds
through the peat hags on higher ground, when Jack
pointed upwards with his whip. Old Peter Amos
stood on a hilltop, one arm swinging like a flail in
full action, his cap held high on the point of his
stick with the other, but quite silent — he knew more
than to shout. We climbed up towards him, and
seemingly before we were within hailing distance he
shouted down the hillside with a voice that would
have pierced a snowdrift: "Auld Tweed cam til a
deid sett at a heather buss and begood t' girn, an'
whan A gaed forrit a muckle foax lap up an' made
for the heichts by the Blue Cairn. That was off
an' on toonty meenits sin'," he bellowed. We took

44

FIRST BLOOD 45

hounds round to the other side of the Blue Cairn height,
and they spread out nicely through some rushy ground
feeling for the line, then touching it they darted away
and ran heel up wind back over the height.

" Dod, man, that's the back fit they're rinnin',"
roared old Peter, who had strode round in surprisingly
quick time as the hounds ran right back to the kennel
in his *^ heather buss," then threw up their heads,
wheeling round and round. Then he continued in
an agony of distress : '' Get awa yont, ye rash-heided,
donnert deevils ; auld Tweed wad made better wark,"
he added, as I slithered past him blowing the horn,
Jack cantering round them to turn them back. In a
few minutes we had them put right, and were riding
down an easy slope, hounds running along the edge
of a long dry moss which ended in a deep water-
course. Crossing this, we had about two miles of
rough benty ground, where hounds made away from
us, but we got to them again very busy in a large fir
plantation. After two or three turns round it, when we
cracked our whips and showed ourselves as much as
possible, the chorus growing louder and louder, there
was a sudden lull, and then Jack's whoop came from
the other side. I found him standing by a rabbit
burrow, at the mouth of which hounds were baying
and tearing the turf and digging like demons.

" Shall we give him any law, sir ? " asked Jack.

" Not a bit, sir," replied a perspiring young farmer
for me. ^' There's fer owre mony o' them here-away ;
they've taen the maist feck o' ma wife's chickens, an'
noo they've yokit on the auld dockers."

** Very well ; get a paling stob, and we'll soon have
him out."

46 HOUND AND HORN

A few minutes' digging disclosed our cub.

" Whoop — whoo-oop — whoo-oo-oop ! " screamed
Billy.

*' Worry — worry — worry — too-too-too — too-too-too
— too-too-too-too-oo ! " went the horn.

*' Must have a pad in memory of first blood."

" Dead, dead, dead ; leave it, hounds," said my
amateur first whip.

" Very good ; but don't lay your whip about you
so ; don't frighten young hounds ; let them break him
up outside the cover and eat him."

Jack whipped off the brush and one pad, and
holding the carcase up high before tossing it to the
hounds, we screamed to our hearts' content.

" All up, sir," said Jack, as Lawless, a rather timid
puppy, came in.

We saved a few scraps, pads and tit-bits, for the
young hounds, and were coaxing them to taste them,
when the boy riding my second horse came with the
information that he had seen a fox leave the lower
end of the plantation two minutes ago. So, before
hounds had recovered their wind, we were cantering
round, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing them
dash away and settle down to run as if they meant
business. A nice wide ring over sound lea heather
ground brought us in a quarter of an hour, with one
slight check where sheep had crossed the line, to
a fair-sized stream, down the bed of which hounds
hunted very closely, and where I saw two of the
puppies very keen, as they were led to cross and
recross the stream. Half a mile lower down were the
buildings of a hill farm, a dwelling-house with out-
houses behind, standing in an angle formed by the

V ''

V

?s.%.

^%^^

a,

O

a;

- — ^'^'

o

FIRST BLOOD 47

junction of a smaller stream with this one. A woman
and two girls were at the kitchen door gesticulating
excitedly.

Billy popped over a fair-sized rail into a sheep-
yard, only to pop out again the same way, for the
other side was an impossible w^all — a most unnecessary
performance ; but he was always bold with a gallery.

"Please don't scream, Missus," said Billy, as
hounds cast all round the outhouses, and the good
lady's apron waved, and her stout arm pointed.

'^ The foax cam by the end o' the hen-hoose an'
gaed up the burn."

*^ Thank you, Missus."

" Pilgrim has it ; hark to Pilgrim ; huic together,
huic ! " as the old hound ran up the bed of the burn
baying like a bloodhound, the others hastening to
him. Up they hunted very prettily to a deep ravine,
above which they paused a minute on bare ground,
and struck off across the open moor again. They
were now running very fast, only a tail hound or two
speaking, the leading hounds almost silent, and one
or two drawing out from the others.

" There he goes, the poor beggar, he's doomed."

Walking up a bank sparsely covered with hazel-
nut bushes was our luckless cub — doubtless brother
to the one that met his fate earlier in the morning.
He lay down behind a bush, then made a spurt
to reach the stream again ; but Dexter and Regent
getting a view of him, raced up and turned him
to Warrior, Pilgrim, and Trojan, who simultaneously
grabbed him as he faced round at them with wide-
open jaws.

'* Here's the brush of a good stout cub for you,

48 HOUND AND HORN

Mr. Grieve," said I to our hen-raising farmer, as that
gentleman came panting up.

'' Thank ye, sir ; that was not his first veesit to my
hen-hoose, but it will be his last, the thief. Come
roond my way an' I'll gie ye a taste o' butter-milk an'
whuskey — a graund drink for a hot mornin'."

" Many thanks, but it's a little out of our way,"
repHed I, glancing at my second whip, who would
fain have gone back. '* Good morning."

"A satisfactory morning. Master," said Billy, as
we sauntered homewards.

^' Yes, Bill ; all but for one thing. I would have
liked it better had hounds found these two foxes
entirely by themselves. They hunted them well
enough, but they had none of the fun or trouble of
hunting /or them ; and if they always have them
found for them like this, they may become impatient
and careless in drawing."

On that homeward ride, as on many subsequent
occasions, we went over minutely every small inci-
dent of the morning, discussing the individual per-
formances of each hound ; how the old hounds ran
in turn at head without jealousy ; how one or two
of the young ones would dart forward as if to snatch
it away from their elders, but when they were in
difficulties, how they had to fall back and allow the
more experienced to show them how to keep to
the line; how this hound was best on the sheep
tracks and that across the burnt heather: agreeing
that there was a great deal of delight to be had
from watching all this, even though the riding part
of it was not up to what it is in enclosed country
over fences.

FIRST BLOOD 49

Billy devoted a good deal of soliloquy as to what he
would have done had he been the fox, and why.

^' Now that first beggar, if he had only gone on
past Huntly wood, he might have run us out of scent
with his twenty minutes' start, instead of trying to
push his brother up " (we had decided they were
brothers) '^ and then going and trying to hide. Silly
ass ! I'd rather have gone till I dropped than stuff my
head into a rabbit hole and be half dead with suffo-
cation first, before being dragged out like a con-
demned criminal. These two cubs showed all the
difference between how to die like a soldier, face to
the foe, and how to die like a convict."

" Why convict. Bill ? "

" Because, don't you see, in his last moments, all
his past evil life would come up before him, and he
felt so jolly mean-spirited that he didn't care, and
convicted himself and hid for very shame."

" After all, I suppose that both the two of them did
what they thought to be their duty ; and anyhow,
they served a purpose. Well, at least, they only
obeyed the first instinct of all animals, which is that
of self-preservation ; and whether their actions were
directed by any other motive or not, we cannot tell."

After a pause, the talk took a more serious turn.

Our philosopher remarked : '* I suppose we run
a certain amount of risk ourselves in galloping over
these rough moors ; though I take it, and we all take
it, as only part of the fun, and we would not ask for
less of it."

" Do you know that the Arabs have a proverb —
* The horseman's grave is always open ' ? "

" No ; but I rather like it. I don't call myself a

D

50 HOUND AND HORN

horseman, but when my time comes I'd hke — well,
what I do funk, reall}^ would funk, is a long slow
ending, a real bad trouble, or worse still being
crippled — ugh ! No ; anything but that — I'd like it
to be short ; just the sudden topple into the grave
of the Arab."

For many a day did the recollection of that ride
home remain in my mind ; and, indeed, I rarely think
of our *' first blood " without recalling every word of
our talk as we drank in the delight of that splendid
autumn morning.

'^ I wish we could stop and hunt in these grand
hills for all time, eh ? "

At first this seemed a strange announcement coming
from Billy, whose appreciation of a hunt was in pro-
portion to the number and nature of the fences he
met and crossed ; who rarely noticed natural scenery ;
who generally devoted less attention to hounds and
hound work than to his own horse's performance,
and to that of his friends and rivals ; and who
hitherto had often spoken slightingly of hunting in
the hills.

We had risen gently to the top of some high
ground, and were riding through a nick between two
hills — a '* swire " as it is locally called, with the
ground falling awa}^ before us — and we looked down
upon and across a wide upland valle}^ lit up b}^ an
early September sun.

We saw a sea of round-topped hills rolling on
ever3^ side, the prevailing colour green, but that ot
an infinite variety of shades, the brown bent grass
in the foreground relieved in patches by the gold
of the frost-tinted bracken, and in larger stretches

FIRST BLOOD 51

by the dull purple of the slow-fading heather ; the
colouring now contrasting sharply, and now blending
harmoniously, as a shaft of the sun rested on it,
or a shadow from a drifting cloud dimmed it for a
moment. Here and there a spot of grey indicated
an out-by shepherd's cottage, with byre and potato
ground attached, sometimes poorly protected by a
stell of battered Scotch firs, looking in the distance
like a bunch of broom bushes, but more often placed
in a howe of natural shelter. Black dots were the
peats fresh cut and loose stacked, to dry, but not yet
led in.

Stone cairns stood silent sentinels on the tops of
the more prominent heights ; while away to the west
blue-grey mists rolled slowly up to the summits and
clung to them before joining the clouds floating, like
masses of newly-shorn fleece wool, above them.

On either side of the valley, the foot of each long
limb stretching down from the higher ground was
clothed with a fringe of birk and hazel ; the bosoms
of the hills were divided by hanging hopes ; their
shoulders were cleft by sike and cleuch ; and their
heads were fitted with caps of light veil-like vapour
which, from time to time, passed from one to the
other.

*' Isn't this perfectly heavenly, Billy ? "

We gazed spellbound, then glanced at each other,
and Bill}^, in a half whisper, said, '^ Man, don't speak.
O God ! these grand green hills ! " which was, per-
haps, the best expressed prayer he had breathed
for years.

We rode in silence for some time, till m}^ companion
said, ^^ You don't want me to help you home with the

52 HOUND AND HORN

hounds, do you ? For I think, if you don't mind, old
chap, I'll go round by the Ford." And as I made no
reply, he continued, " It's not so far out of the way "
(it was a trifle of nine miles or so), " and the day's
young yet ; and besides, John Elliot has a colt I
rather want to see. He's been handling him, and
was to back him this week," he continued, talking
hurriedly, and looking earnestly across to the other
side of the valley.

It was such an unusual custom for Billy to give so
many and so minute reasons for his contemplated
movements that my curiosity was roused ; but with-
out displaying it, I gazed hard into space and waited
for more. It came.

'^ Do you think that bird-skinning, fox-stuffing
barber at Midhope Village could give me a decent
shave, for I feel rather a nigger ? "

'^ Yes, I think he could ; but that's two miles more
out of the way."

" Is it so much as that ? Then I must saunter on.
By-the-by, John said he'd perhaps ride out by the
swire on the chance of picking me up."

As soon as he had forced the unwilling grey mare
to turn off down the bridle-path and proceed a little
way, the saunter was quickened to an easy canter,
and before he passed out of sight I saw, not the stout
form of John Elliot, but a slim figure in a skirt, on a
white pony, appearing from the opposite direction.
The two converged, met, and then rode away together
through the shining hills.

CHAPTER VI

GETTING TO WORK

' ' When autumn is flaunting her banner of pride
For glory that summer has fled.
Arrayed in the robes of his royalty, dyed

In tawny and orange and red ;
When the oak is yet rife with the vigour of life

Thd his acorns are dropping below,
Thrd bramble and brake shall the echoes awake
To the ring of a clear ' Tally-ho ! ' "

— Whyte-Melville.

ONE of the closing days of September saw
I us, about 6 A.M., turn our horses' heads
away from our summer quarters and point
towards the lower country, to take possession of the
kennels made ready for us in the so-called Forest
country proper, to make acquaintance with the people
and the country, and to begin the serious business
of regular hunting.

Not without regret did we leave behind the scene
of our first efforts and get off the moorland track on
to macadamised roads, between hedgerows, through
cultivated land.

About half-way, to our anxiety, we heard hounds
in chase in the distance, and realised we were in
danger of joining in with the '' Duke's." Trotting back
for half a mile, we held hounds up till the cry ceased.

We would fain have shut our own hounds up and

53

54 HOUND AND HORN

followed, but we were encumbered with headstalls,
and couples, and muzzles, and small stable impedi-
menta, so we refrained, and moved cautiously forward.
No hounds broke away, but we shortly afterwards
missed two terriers. The keen little creatures had
made oft and followed the fun, coupled together, till
they were caught hung up on a wire fence quite
exhausted and showing marks of a severe battle.

We made out the rest of the journey without further
incident, and found all in readiness for us. Hounds
signalised their entry into their new quarters by burst-
ing open an unbolted door into the feeding-house,
while Tom was attending to his horse, and feeding
themselves.

The preparations for our reception included, besides
a well-stocked larder, an old beef horse which, from
the size and shape of one of his hind-legs, we named
** Bedpost." He was afQicted with grease, and was
fond of leaning up against a support and scratching
the affected leg with his sound one.

On the way to the kennels next morning we found
that old '^Bedpost" had, during the night, been support-
ing himself against a rail fence surrounding the tennis
lawn. He had begun at one end, and carrying away
a rood at a time, had worked his way along, levelling
the whole to the ground. He then got his rump
comfortably wedged against an old arbour, which,
though he did not raze, he canted considerably off
the straight. That day he was turned into the cow-
field, which was surrounded by a strong iron fence,
in which apparently secure barrier he found a weak
spot ; for about 3 A.M. I was wakened by a stamping
noise outside the front door, continued at regular

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as

72

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GETTING TO WORK 55

intervals, and kept up so long that I went down.
There I found old " Bedpost " leaning on the iron
railing at the foot of the stone steps, indulging in his
practice of scratching his big leg. The poor beast
was soon afterwards converted into soup.

Hounds were received with symptoms of great
enthusiasm by all dwellers in the Forest country ;
not only by those who followed them, but by many
who never had been, and could never hope to be,
out with them. During the early days of cubbing
in the first season, many indications were shown of
a strong interest in the hunt, and a keen appreciation
of the sport.

An old farmer occupying land adjoining the kennels
never missed seeing hounds go out in the morning ;
no matter how early they left the kennels, old Wight
was at his gate to see us pass ; and though rather a
solemn-looking individual at ordinary times, he always
had a wide grin to give us and a salute much more
marked and ceremonious than on other occasions. A
hand raised half-way up to his hat and a sort of back-
ward jerk of his head was his market-day recognition ;
but a low bow and a downward sweep of his hat was
always given to the hounds. He was equally anxious
for our safe return ; and if he had not seen us come in
before dark, he used to make his wife and son take turns
to watch and listen. The latter, one night, got tired
of his cold vigil, and reported our return to his father,
who, unfortunately for Tom's veracity, heard the horn
sounding to acquaint the stablemen of our approach
an hour later. The old man suspecting Tom's error,
asked me at what hour we got back, and on being
told 7-30, he said, ''An' Tammas had ye hame an oor

56 HOUND AND HORN

suner, the leein' thief; he's a guid pleughman, but he
wad never dae for a hunter, him."

The old man used to supply the stable with straw
and oats, and was with difficulty coaxed into the
house one day to get a settlement of his account for
provender. Only the bribe of a promised dram, and
the assurance that there were no women- folk about,
overcame his shyness and reluctance ; but once in,
the trouble was to get him to leave. At parting he
said : ^* It wad been a positeeve calamity if ye hadna
come forrit to cairry on the hoonds. I think ye'U
dae ; aye, I think ye'll dae. I wasna share aboot ye
at first, 1 thocht ye was owre prood."

The same old gentleman was not without a sense of
humour. Meeting him one market day, he accosted
me as follows : —

*' A saw a graun fox hunt last week. The fox cam
doon the furr juist twae feerins affwhaur Tam was
plewin', an' the whole o' the hoonds sune efter, doon
the verra same furr, gein' mooth graund, a bonnie
sicht a' thegither, fox an' hoonds, an' a' ; but," with a
dig in my ribs, " nae riders, nae riders."

His farm was intersected, as much of the country
is, by a long deep glen, with only one or two crossing-
places ; and if the chase leads over such a place,
unless you hit upon a crossing it is often a case of
*^ nae riders."

The hill men were especially keen, real sportsmen,
with an inborn love of horse and hound, and an
intimate knowledge of the science and craft of hunt-
ing. They knew the likely lie of a fox in all weathers,
and his probable line when hunted, and were most
appreciative of hound work, and quick to observe it.

GETTING TO WORK 57

Good stockmen and breeders, most of them had the
trained eye of the natural judge of form, and could tell
at a glance a true-shaped horse. They generally pos-
sessed a good one or two of their own breeding, and,
while careful to ease them when occasion demanded,
got the most possible out of them when required.

I used to admire the way they slipped off their
horse, then threw the reins over his head, and ran
at top speed down the steepest hillside, the sensible
beast neither hanging back nor rushing on, but ad-
justing his pace to that of his master, and following
like a trained dog, the pair arriving at the bottom
and being away again together before a less active
and less practised man had made up his mind whether
to get down and lead or not.

It was a pretty sight to see them lift their terrier
on to the saddle in front of them, as they often did,
by getting him on to the top side of the slope, taking
a foot out of their stirrup, and stretching it out
towards him. The eager little beggar would half
jump, half scramble till he was grabbed hold of and
planted down on the thigh of his master, who would
then canter off in no way inconvenienced by his
awkward burden.

The way they get over their own country, without
getting ifiy is remarkable, for much of it is almost
unrideable, except to the man and horse who know
how to do it. It is their pride to boast they have
hunted a whole season, or several seasons, as may
be the case, and without ever having been ^' laired."
Many a good chase have I enjoyed assisted by the
observations and example of one or other of these
hard hill lads.

58 HOUND AND HORN

Not one whit behind their masters in keenness and
in fondness of fox-hunting are the hill shepherds.
From their point of vantage on a hilltop, behind a
stone cairn perhaps, they often see more of the in-
cidents of the chase than a regular follower. With
an eye like a hawk's, they can view a fox as soon
as ever he stirs a mile off. They can pick him up
as he crawls along the loose stones of the slithers
on a bare hillside, as he creeps the bottom of a
sheep drain, or as he slinks through the bracken
beds, taking advantage of the formation and colour
of every bit of ground to conceal himself till he has
selected, his point ; and then they can mark him
streaking away like a yellow flash to the heights ;
and even long after he is beyond their sight, they
see his course by the movement of the sheep, and
the swooping of the curlews and the plovers.

Their delight is to see the hounds run the line
out of sight and hearing, and to wait and watch
for them coming back again with a tired fox close
before them.

Their dogs are shut up at home on hunting days,
and they rarely shout, but communicate their in-
telligence by waving their handkerchiefs on the end
of a stick.

I remember a young lad running the best part of
two miles to tell me my hunted fox had lain down
on a heap of loose stones, and that hounds were
running the line of one that had been disturbed by
the cry, and had slunk away before we had come
into sight.

But all over the same interest existed. The farm
labourers and roadmen were alike pleased to see

GETTING TO WORK 59

hounds, and were delighted to report any incident
they had observed.

They seldom spoke of the fox as such by his
name. An old road-mender, bent double with rheu-
matism and leaning on two sticks, said one day :
^' Oo had a veesit frae yin o' yer freen's last nicht,
sir. He liftit twae duicks till us. The wife's kinda
compleenin', but A'm no sayin' a word masel." Or :
" A saw him the nicht afore last i' the grey derk ;
he was a yalla yin ! eh, he was a muckle yalla yin !
no' the little reed yin A tell't ye o' afore."

Great was the disappointment of the folk if a fox
was not found on their own farm.

'' Hae ye no raised him yet, sir ? " said a jolly-
looking farm steward, as I was blowing hounds out
after a blank draw.

'^ Not yet, Sandy."

" Did ye try Braeside whin, an' no raise him
there ? "

'' No, Sandy."

*' Dod, that bates a', an' me saw twae there the
other Sunday. A dander oot maist every Sunday
efternuin to see if A can see him."

A good type of hill farmer was Tom Telfer, by
his own inclination and desire, endorsed by common
consent and unanimous selection, official First Whip
to the Hunt. Born and brought up in the hills, he
knew every yard of ground on both sides of the
Border line in a twenty-mile radius from home, had
early developed a liking for field sports, and soon
acquired a faculty for crossing a rough country that
was remarkable even in a community of hard riders.
He was always well mounted ; but, indeed, what-

6o HOUND AND HORN

ever he rode had got to go where and how he
wanted, and whether it Hked it or not, although it
generally seemed to like it. His horses never pulled
or fought with him. He had one infallible cure for
a rash or impetuous one. " The first time out let
the beggar stretch his neck well and tire him out
proper, he'll never forget it or want to pull again."
It was a treat to see him on a young or half-broken
horse, for before the end of the day he had him with
the manners of an old one.

But where he shone most was in a long fast chase
over a difficult country. He was generally seen
sailing away in front with the greatest apparent ease,
picking his place in the fences, riding straight at
them, and turning away from nothing, when sud-
denly we would see him shoot out right or left and
gallop for all he was worth. He had seen leading
hounds swing round one way or the other, and
quick as thought he was cutting across to get to
them. Of course, he at one time took many falls,
but being light, wiry, and supple, he thought little
of them.

Having whipped in to my predecessor for six years
intermittently since the foundation of the pack, he
was no tyro, and knew the game well. Some
laughable occurrences had taken place in the em-
bryonic days before the Hunt had developed and
blossomed into the stage of advertising.

It is told of him that he had a heated alterca-
tion with the huntsman on the occasion of the two
worthies donning pink for the first time. What
made the scene all the more ludicrous was, that
the huntsman, to complete his costume, had to

GETTING TO WORK 6i

wear a top-hat, his cap not having come forward,
and his bowler being battered and green with age.
A gale of wind made the hounds, hurriedly snatched
together from the drafts of three or four kennels, wild
and unhandy after being off work for a fortnight
during an early frost. They had been half coaxed,
half threatened, into a plantation which generally held
a fox, and immediately ran riot, for unfortunately the
wood was full of hares, and a good deal of rating
had been heard, more professional than amateur.
Tom Telfer had seen a fox leave, and galloped round
to the huntsman, choking with excitement.

*' What the — why the — where the deuce are you ?
Blow your horn, man, blow, the fox is away ! "

Resenting being told in this fashion, the huntsman
retaliated : *' Crack your whip, man, crack ! "
" Man alive ! you blow your horn ! "
'* Snakes alive ! you crack your whip ! "
This was the beginning of the colloquy, and then
Tom roared to his superior : ^' It's your business to
gallop on and blow in front of the hounds to get them

out ! "

*' It's your place to go back behind hounds and
crack them out to me ! "

^' Blow, blow, you blockhead, blow ! "

'' Now, Tom, if you're going to sit there and sing
hymns to me we'll never get on. Crack ! crack ! you
crazy critter, crack ! Which way did you say he had
gone :

But meanwhile two fast, jealous, and mute
hounds — Driver and Duster — had slipped away, not
unperceived by Tom Telfer, who straightway went
after them like a sky rocket, and the rest of the

62 HOUND AND HORN

day was spent in following the somewhat mixed line
of scent of the fox, Tom Telfer, and one couple
of hounds, which caused the pack, and consequently
the field, to string out considerably. When, as the
dusk was drawing in, huntsman and whip next met
— it was at a cavernous-looking earth among the
peat hags on the top of Windburgh — there were
no listeners within earshot to hear what were the
complimentary words that passed between them.

One of the keenest of the keen was Andrew Waugh,
a contracting mason, who did a fair amount of trade
for most of the country houses round, building and
renewing farm offices, and such work. One of his
specialties was kitchen ranges and ovens, and the
cure of smoky chimneys. One day, after taking
down a kitchen range, and being on the house-top
repairing a chimney-can, he spied hounds trotting off
to draw a very likely plantation. He promptly
slid down the ladder, and dragging his pony from its
feed of corn, joined in with his working apron on, and
with all the ardour of a school-boy released from
school. Needless to say, his contract knew him no
more that day, and the mansion had to cook its
dinner on the scullery stove till the pony, cut during
that day's hunt, had sufficiently recovered to carry its
master to his job.

My introduction to him was on an Abbotvale day,
when hounds were in full cry with a very blown
cub brought in from the hills which they had been
running hard, with short respite, for half-an-hour, and
which they were driving from one clump of shrubbery
to another, till he lay down and momentarily baffled
them. I remember being particularly anxious that

GETTING TO WORK 63

there should be no noise, and that hounds should
work up to him, and pusi him up. Suddenly there
rose yells and shouts — '^ \ onder he is ; he's intae the
gairden ; shut the door an' they'll hev 'im," and a
group of pedestrian onlookers swept e?i masse to the
garden door as hounds poured through it. At the
head of this detachment rode an old man, wildly
waving his cap, and spurring his rough horse with his
one' spur, attached, to be more effective, upside down.
His face was beaming with delight, and he thundered
down a gravel path to the bottom of the garden
just in time to see the wretched fox scramble over
the high upright picket fence in front of a yelling
pack. On he clattered out at the avenue gate, up to
the hounds, through them, and away in front of them.
A high stiff gate across a narrow lane will surely
check him ; not a bit ; for flailing his willing horse he
rushed it, and with a terrible rattle landed clear on
the other side, just as hounds turned suddenly back
in pursuit of the doubling fox.

A minute or two later they were in full chorus
through the policies again, our friend at the head
of affairs. I thought it was time to interfere, so
riding up, I began, " Hold hard ; hold hard, please.
Hi there, will you hold hard, please ? " Then get-
ting alongside I, nearly choking with rage, said,
" Can't you hear hounds are behind 3^ou ? "

^' He hears nothing, sir," explained Jack. '* He's
stone deaf."

The honest fellow turned round and showed a
face glowing with enjoyment and triumph, and as
I pulled the Omega mare back he shouted, ''They
were terrible near him at the gairden fit. Come on,

64 HOUND AND HORN

sir," and gesticulating as if inviting me to a trial
of speed. When the fox was killed behind us, and
a pad was presented to this fearless old fellow, he
said, "A wadna wonder if ma beast grows inta a
hunter yet ; an' what a graund hunt we've hed ;
an' a nice bit loup that neabody taen bit me an'
the Maister.*'

This was my first acquaintance with this grand
old sportsman.

On the way home we passed by the side of the
road a spring cart with a wheel in the ditch, and
harness thrown down or scattered about anyhow.

^' Has there been an accident ? " said some one.

" Oh no," was the explanation, '^ this is old Andrew.
He was driving away to mend the roofs at Nether-
houses when he got sight of hounds, and thereupon
converted his carriage horse into a hunter."

It was after about ten days' experience of these
first days that Billy said to me : " I sa}^, Master, if
anything was to happen to you (or to me) there'ud
be no lack of material for a huntsman. The way
some of these boys get to hounds and know what
they are doing is astonishing — a bit too noisy though,
some of them."

*^ Perhaps, Bill, but it's only their keenness, and
they know not to do it when hounds are on their
noses and casting round to recover a line."

CHAPTER VII

A DAY WITH THE DUKE

" Pleasure that the most enchants us
SeeT?ts the soonest done ;
What is life, with all it grants us,

But a hunting- run!" — Whyte-Melville.

IT had been arranged that we should take a
day with the Duke's hounds, and a special
effort was being made by every one of the
house party to put in a creditable appearance, both
as to horse and kit. I was unable to go, having
business to attend to at home ; but was mounting
Captain Richards, an old friend and fine horseman,
on my best ; and our numbers were increased by a
lady. Miss Anstruther, and a gallant soldier. Major
Thurston, who had come to hunt and stay, bring-
ing their own horses. Both were very good in their
own way, but a little jealous. Billy, Florence Elliot,
and a schoolboy completed the party.

Breakfast was to be half-an-hour earlier than
usual, and Billy and Miss Florence were a quarter
of an hour late, owing to the extra time each had
devoted in the morning-room to the adjusting of
the other's scarf, which seemed to be models of
neatness and whiteness ; though the young lady's
required more protracted manipulation from the deft
fingers of the gentleman than appeared requisite.

65 E

66 HOUND AND HORN

" How's my stock, Mr. Kerr ? " she had asked.

After the most searching examination, the verdict
was — '* Beautifully folded, but the pin is a trifle high,
and might be a leetle more sloped. May I put it
right for you ? " and so on.

This operation had been witnessed through the
open window by Bobby, to his great joy, and he
stored up what he had seen and heard for further
use.

" Aunt Jane is late," said Joanna from behind the
urn, as the tramp of horses' feet was heard on the
gravel.

*' I don't think Aunt Jane will appear till she
knows I am well away," exclaimed Captain Richards.
" I fear I am the innocent cause of her absence," he
went on. ^^ I met her as I was coming along the
passage with my white apron on, and I believe she
thought it was another sort of garment, and that
I was on my way to the bath-room, for in spite
of my most agreeable smiles and greeting, she cut
me dead and ran off with half-suppressed sobs."

The first incident of note, after the cavalcade started,
was that Bobby's Shetland pony made a rush to a
watering-trough b}^ the roadside, and plunging his
muzzle in over the nostrils, drank deep and long.
His rider tugged, and flogged, and kicked, and
Captain Richards flicked clouds of dust out of his
shaggy coat with his whip, all to no purpose, until
his thirst was slaked.

" I told Batters to keep the water off him last
night," said Bobb}^ ** Never mind, I don't need
to draw up my girths now ; they're quite tight
enough."

Bobby bolted itiidcrncath it at the risk of being scraped off.

A DAY WITH THE DUKE 67

They came home in the evening in detachments.
Bobby was an easy first, bringing in his still panting
pony with one shoe, and bearing the incredible in-
telligence that he had stopped most of the field.
Whether he was more proud of this last accomplish-
ment or of losing three shoes it is not easy to decide.
The main body returning later confirmed the news.
The facts were, that a tall untrimmed hedge had
temporarily checked part of the field, who were
craning and looking for a weak outlet, and Lord
Charles' horse had shied off the formidable obstacle,
when Bobby spied a gap with a long tree or spar
fixed across it, about four feet six inches from
the ground, and crouching along the side of his
iij-hand hunter, had bolted underneath it at the
risk of being scraped off. It is only fair to say
that Lord Charles, following him, flew the uninviting
leap without a fault.

Loud were the praises of the hounds, the hunts-
man, and the country by all gathered round the
tea-table, and the field's gallantry was specially
sung by Miss Florence.

On the last point Billy was more silent than was
his wont. It transpired that during a very fast
scurry in the afternoon, Billy had not been as
much in evidence as usual.

But to Master Bobby belonged the honours of the
day. He had ridden through the hounds, and was
chatting quite at his ease with the huntsman, when
the Duke rode up. Just before moving off, His
Grace had asked who the schoolboy was in the
cricket cap, and Bobby was duly presented. He
was eating his sandwiches at the moment, or rather

68 HOUND AND HORN

sharing them with an old hound who was hiding
behind his pony, but snatched off his cap in salu-
tation, which, as he could not replace, he crammed
into his pocket, and then extended a very rough
woolly and not overclean gloved hand in the Duke's
direction. The sixteen-hand hunter edged away from
the rough doormat of a pony ; but Bobby was not to
be bafQed, and urged his mount alongside, the Duke
good-naturedly bending forward and nearly over-
balancing himself as he stretched out his arm to
the persistent bo3^ Still the nervous horse shied
back and snorted.

*' So ho, don't be afraid, old man," said Bobby,
as he succeeded in obtaining a firm grasp of the
hand, and wrung it with the fervour of an old com-
rade, and to an extent that nearly pulled the noble
Master out of his saddle.

I have always experienced some difficulty in obtain-
ing a clear and connected account of a day's hunting
from those engaged in it — a difficulty amounting, at
times, to despair. If the questioned party belongs
to the gentle sex, the trouble is most acute, and
there is only slight hope of collecting a coherent
report, especially if there should happen to be
present another fair participator in the day's pro-
ceedings all too eager to recount her experiences.

I am frequently forcibly reminded of the saying
of an old huntsman on this point, who was very
shrewd and observant, and who had a very terse
and direct way of putting things. It was as fol-
lows : " The merit of a run greatly depends upon
the position held in it by the narrator." Bearing
this in mind, I looked forward with something more

A DAY WITH THE DUKE 69

than ordinary interest to the versions I was to
hear, knowing they would be varied. The ladies
had already thrashed out every minute of the day
at the tea-table, in their bed-rooms, and at dinner,
but were delighted to be invited into the smoke-
room at ten o'clock for a further palaver.

My initial question of where the fox was found
was completely ignored, and the line of talk taken
and followed consisted mostly of interjections as to
what each had seen the other do.

'' Did you have a very awkward post and rail in
a corner ? "

" Did you see me jump the drop ? "

*' How did my mare do the double ? "

" Didn't Mrs. Black's horse peck badly there ? "

These were questions fired off by Miss Anstruther
to Florence with such startling rapidity as almost to
preclude reply.

" Where was the double ? " I ventured to ask.

" Oh, just after we crossed a muddy lane, and
through a gate, along a grass field, over a horrid
little trappy fence into a sticky plough, not far from
the donkey," was the enlightening reply, reeled off,
amid laughter, without a pause, by the eager lady.

This one feature of the donkey seemed to be promi-
nent in the recollection of all, and served as a basis
comparative for time and locality.

It seemed hounds had checked for a minute or
two behind some farm buildings, and on recovering
the line and throwing their tongues, a donkey in
an orchard adjoining had lifted up his voice and
brayed loudly.

So it was, " Captain Stone fell before the donkey."

70 HOUND AND HORN

^' I didn't have my lunch till after the donkey." And,
" The double was just about the same time as the
donkey."

" But where was the tremendous double ? " again
I asked, while various items of information, relevant
or otherwise, were rapidly volunteered. '' Was it in
the afternoon, or in the morning hunt ? "

" The afternoon, I think," replied Miss Anstruther ;
" at least, Lord Charles had his second horse, and
he and Major Thurston were at it first, and I came
next, the first woman, except that Mrs. Black, who
had it lower down at a much easier place, Mr. Kerr
told me. I saw her in trouble soon after, and I
don't think she can go much without a pilot. Yes
it was just about the donkey."

Florence, who had been waiting for an opportunity,
now chimed in, '* It was on the line between Cotley
and Brownmoor, and on old Moffat's farm," she said
triumphantly, after a whispered consultation with
Billy, who may have prompted her. Miss Florence
had followed hounds on a pony as a schoolgirl ;
but this was only her second season on a grown
horse. She was quite inexperienced in a crowd,
and a little over-anxious not to be in the way ;
but had a decided knack of getting along without
being conspicuous or seeming to be in a hurry.
She had a good eye for a country, and an unfailing
memory ; a wrong turn once taken was always re-
membered and never again repeated. She never
" cofFee-housed," and at a check always stood still
outside the crowd, watching, so usually got a good
start. Her great desire was to become a thorough
sportswoman, to learn the country well, to get to

A DAY WITH THE DUKE 71

hounds, to know and see what they were doing,
and to save her horse as much as possible. All
she knew she had learnt with the Forest fox-hounds,
and I was distinctly disappointed to hear that though
she had held her own well in the morning, she had
not been quite *' in it " in the afternoon.

"It was a real nice day's sport, my Uncle," she
said. " Hounds did not get a good start from Cotley
gorse. They hunted the best part of two hours,
and were kept busy all the time; it was a ringing
hunt, but they took us over some nice country ; never
fast, but always kept moving on. They ran by
Catshawhill, Friarshaw Moor, and the Fans, and
crossed the river twice, at the Lowlynn ford and
again higher up. Anyhow, ^Nugget' and I had enough
to do, and I was not sorry when they ran into the fox
at Sandymill, five miles from where they found him."

The gallant Major must be catalogued in the class
along with those who hunt to ride. An undeniably
fine horseman, with good nerve and judgment, he
was generally well mounted, and prominently in front.
But he was handicapped with short sight that pre-
vented him from seeing hounds cutting out the work
in a close country, and with shorter temper that came
to the front when he lost his place and fell back.
In fact, he liked to be first or nowhere. I anticipated
his reply to my " Now, Major Thurston ? "

'' Well, it was very slow in the mornin', with time
to pick your place twice over, and lots of time to
get out of the way of the boys and girls. Not much
leppin' ; a nice fence or two now and again, but
nothin' that a pony couldn't jump, and hounds kept
checkin', and ringin', and dwellin'.'

> >>

72 HOUND AND HORN

'^ Not much 'dwell' from Harestanes, Major," put
in Richards.

" No, it was certainly better in the afternoon ; a
fastish ten minutes over a fairish country that took
some doin' ; if they had only gone on there wouldn't
have been many in it."

" Fastish ! " screamed several voices; '^it's four miles
on the map, and I swear we did not take more than
fifteen minutes to it. Why, it's racing. It's * Grand
National ' form."

" I would sum it up," persisted the Major, '^ by
saying it was an indifferent day, relieved by a smart
dash in the afternoon."

'* Well, Master," said Richards, " I call it a very
first-rate day's sport " (he had ridden in many point
to point races, and between the flags). '' Hounds ran
quite fast enough over a stiffish enclosed country,
with a twisting fox headed back once or twice, and
on an uncertain scent. They stuck well to the line,
and put in some very pretty work. The huntsman
was very patient and persevering ; let them alone at
the critical time, and encouraged them at the right
moment ; and worked hard all through the show sport.
As to the afternoon gallop, you wanted a steeplechase
horse to be near it, and, thanks to you, I had one."

Billy's chief contribution to the discussion was
grunted out between clouds of smoke from his pipe :
" Some of these fellows ride big bang blood horses up
to two stone over their weight, and know the country
like their pockets ; " and added, *' I wasn't in the
afternoon spurt."

Bobby's shrill treble now piped up from a dark
corner of the sofa, where he had been sleeping un-

A DAY WITH THE DUKE 73

noticed : " The old Duke's a brick, but Freddy Elliot's
a prig. He does swagger so about a brush he's got
at home, some poor cub's likely, or a mangy vixen's,"
he continued, as an afterthought. " By-the-bye, Mr.
Kerr, it was jolly decent of you to wait and girth up
cousin Florence, and tie her tie, as I saw you doing
in the stackyard at Harestanes, just as the hounds
were going away."

This interjection threw some light on Billy's absence
from the afternoon spurt.

" Be off to bed with you, you young whelp," said
Billy, taking him by the shoulder and hustling him
out of the room.

After the ladies had retired, the talk was prolonged
till past midnight. It sometimes passed away tem-
porarily from horses and hounds, but always drifted
back to this oft-travelled channel, and from all sides
reminiscences came ready and rife. The Duke's
huntsman came in for a full share of the discussion.

^' How did you like him ? " said I to Captain
Richards.

" I think it would be well worth riding fifty miles
on a rough horse if only to have a look at him, the
way he sits his horse, and the way he winds his
scarf round his neck. He's a hard-bitten purpose-
like old man ; looks a workman and a bit of a char-
acter too."

" He's all that," came from several voices ; and
then some recollections of him were given.

'* I remember," said the Major, *' coming upon him
standing at the edge of the big wood at Bailliestane
on a very windy day, when, for the time being, we
were out of sight and hearing of hounds. He was

74 HOUND AND HORN

watching a fox going right away, well out across a
good country, before he touched his horn. Hounds
soon came streaming out, and apparently ran the
line so far, then turned at right angles back towards
the wood. He blew till he was purple ; then laying
down the horn, said, 'Look at that. What in
wonder is taking them down there? Isn't that most
excruciating ? '

''Again, when hounds had divided for the moment,
and we were hesitating which to follow, and an ardent
young sportsman rode up to him saying, ' There are
some hounds on.' ' Fm aware of that, sir; but don't
you hear the major portion of the pack running back
like distraction ? ' "

On another occasion, a wild stormy day in the
end of March, we had drawn a large tract of country
blank till late in the afternoon, when we found a
fox in a long strip of plantation, from end to end
of which and then across some fields to another
plantation, hounds ran. It was then found to be
a vixen they were running, so they were stopped,
not without some difficulty. Meanwhile one or two
of the field had viewed, or thought they had viewed,
a dog fox away from some scattered whin bushes
outside the first strip, and the news spread. Hounds
had crossed the supposed line and had not indicated
it. Then one after another, down to the youngest, no
less than three members of the Ducal family came
to the huntsman with the intelligence.

"You know a fox went away from the end of
the strip when hounds were running the other,"
said No. I.

" Indeed, my lud ? "

A DAY WITH THE DUKE 75

Now No. 2 waiting his opportunity', '' Perhaps you
didn't hear that a fox went away, and it "

'' Did he, my lud ? "

Lastly No. 3, a schoolboy full of importance, bustled
up, '' I say, I don't suppose you heard " (our friend
was fairly tired of hearing by this time) '' that a fox,
a dog fox too, went away, &c. Oh yes, there's no
doubt about it, for Mr. A. saw him, and some others
saw him."

'^ Did they, indeed, my lud ? Privileged persons ! "

A bold rider himself, he was merciless to a shirker
or a funker. A high strong rail had stopped a bevy
of these one day, till one enterprising spirit charged
and broke the top rail. A confirmed funker asked,
" Who is the culprit ? "

'^ What do you say ? " said the huntsman.

^' Who is the malefactor ? "

'* Surely you mean, who is the benefactor."

One time, in a crowd of over-anxious horsemen,
who had headed a not very adventurous fox back, as
he turned his horse round, hemmed in for the moment,
he whispered to me, *' There's nothing more injurious
to fox-hunting than mad haste. Where is the sense
of pressing on when the fox is back ? "

On these lines conversation flowed on till the small
hours.

C(

CHAPTER VIII

A TERRIER TALK

They may wind him and find him and hustU him rounds
They may race him and chase him and put him to ground^
But he7'e in the heart of the hill countt-ee
How seldom thefd ea^ him, without help from meV^

—"Scamp."

n

I

F you wish to find Bill you had better look
the stables," had often been said to me by
the Lady President of the establishment ; and
the same reliable person now stated that she had that
morning instructed the servant to say to a Lady
Collector who had called at the door, that if she
wished to find the Master she had better look the
kennels. " Be sure you say the fox-hound kennels,
Parker ! " was added as an afterthought, to be more
impressive, and possibly in hope of inspiring terror.

The Lady Collector, who was described as of a patient
and persistent type, did not try for m.e in the kennels ;
at least her advent was not reported, although she
had been seen in the vicinity.

I did not draw the stables blank for Bill, whom
I found standing behind the grey mare's stall talking
so earnestly and confidentially to Batters that my
approach on the straw was not heard, and I caught

the latter muttering : ^' Weel, sir, ye'll mebbe tak

76

A TERRIER TALK 77

the rue if ye dinna folia ma advice an' get quitten
o' — " The remainder was merged in a prolonged
*' Hiss-s-s-ss ! ''

^' I wonder if you would ever tire of talking horse,
Bill ? "

'* Don't know. Perhaps not until you tired of talk-
ing hounds and hunting, or got bored with listening
to my drivel, eh ? "

As this was the third day of a frost, and as it
looked like lasting, we agreed that the latter question
might be put to the test, and that in the evening we
would try it.

It may have been the enforced idleness that put
mischief into my companion's head, and he took
advantage of a rare opportunity of playing a practical
joke upon his hostess. He had seen or heard of the
Lady Collector, and had obtained a minute descrip-
tion of her attire, which was something between that
of the Salvation Army and a hospital nurse. He
was at great pains to collect sundry articles, which
he deposited in a scattered heap by the side of the
path leading to the garden. They included half of
a w^ell-chewed golosh, pieces of an old straw poke
bonnet, shreds of blue serge, red ribbon, whalebone
stays, &c. After some hesitation he added a rib
or two and the thigh-bone of an old horse ; but
mercifully these had been removed by old Lapwing,
who at that time was allowed her liberty for the
benefit of her health. He enticed his '* Grandma,"
as he often called her, out for a walk, and suddenly
remarked in a very solemn tone of voice as they
neared the heap, ** O Granny, look what I found
on the floor of the kennels a little while ago ! "

78 HOUND AND HORN

For two seconds, but two seconds only, did the
terrified lady blanch and tremble; and had not Billy
himself exhibited a sudden change from a triumphant
attitude to one of dismay at the effect of his ruse, the
results might have been more decided.

Then, *' Oh ! you horror ! " screamed Joanna, " you
don't for a moment imagine I am taken in by your
horrid trick ? You don't suppose I thought there had
been an accident ? I confess that I thought at first
they might have torn her cloak perhaps."

" I believe you thought they had eaten her,
Granny."

" Poof! not a bit ! " Then, as her colour returned,
** Tell me exactly what did happen, and don't ever
try such a trick again."

" Well now, Gran'ma," said the penitent Bill,
" I'll tell you what I'll do. If the lady comes round
here again to-morrow, as she said she'd do, I'll give
my subscription vice tlie Master."

And he was as good as his word, and was
mulcted of ten shillings for the S.P.C.A.

Billy was a good talker, and he was also, what
made him so chummable, a good listener ; and he
was now in his best listening mood. He began
the evening by singing the praises of the Border
terriers, a comparativel}'^ modern breed, very sharp
and game, but one of which I had little actual
experience.

" Then what sort do you like best ? " said he.

** You want for this country a terrier that can
run with hounds, or, better still, that can follow
up and run behind hounds — the sort that hunts a
cover or darts away on a fox's line is useless. If

A TERRIER TALK 79

he can be taught and trained to keep back with
the second horseman so much the better. You
want one that won't tire, but is forward to come
up handy when he's wanted, and will ' go in ' right
up to the fox below ground and will speak to
him before he tries to tackle him. Jock here is
great at this ; he goes in like a bolt from a bow,
and squeezes right up to the beggar without loss
of time, and gives him notice to quit. If he can't
get right up to him he will lie up and bark till he
is hoarse, and this always lets one know where
he is, and saves time if digging is required. He
has the valuable habit of coming out then, and
waiting and watching to see if his orders are going
to be obeyed, for nothing makes a fox more likel3''
and more anxious to bolt, if he has anything left
in him at all, than, after having been well sworn
at, to find his attacking enemy retire in silence.
Then, if his orders are not obeyed, Jock goes in
again with even more determination. How he
manages I don't know. I think he only says and
looks, ^ Cut along out of this or I'll murder you ! '
Anyhow, his threats are nearly always promptly
acted on, and the fox, feeling far safer above
ground though pursued by the pack, than being
niggled at and tormented by a little demon in the
darkness below ground, once more faces the day-
light and often gives a good chase, thanks to
dauntless little Jock."

" Yes," said Bill, '* I think it's the most tremendous
piece of pluck ever exhibited or possible to dream of.
Think of it. To crawl up a long pitch dark tight
hole leading into the earth's bowels, and often filled

8o HOUND AND HORN

with ice-cold water, and to boldly attack his unseen
foe ; a foe his equal in weight, possibly superior
in power of punishment, equally savage, and most
probably occupying a better position for repelling
attack than he does. Ton my word, it's equal to
a man stalking a wounded tiger on foot ! How's he
bred ? And which do you consider the best kind
of breed ? "

" Jock came from a Yorkshire Hunt kennel, and
is three parts smooth fox and one part bull terrier.
I don't think the breed matters much, so long as
the game is there. I like the first cross between
the rough and smooth fox, and a medium size and
weight. Coat is all-important ; the smooth coats
are too thin, and the all rough when thoroughly
wetted through don't dry. This cross often pro-
duces a thick close coat like a doormat, which is
the best of all. And you must have them a little
on the leg, not only for running, but to keep them
off the slush and wet ; length of leg don't matter so
long as they are not too thick round the heart."

" How long has he been below ground at a
stretch ? "

'^ Once, at Timpendean Castle breeding earth, he
got in on Saturday afternoon, and we dug him out
on Monday, forty-five hours later. He was fairly
wedged in like a wad in a cartridge case, and,
though a bit hoarse and feeble in his bark, quite
comfortable and unpunished. He was lying on his
side, his fore-legs pushed back like a seal's flappers,
trying to push himself on with his hind-legs."

" My word ! " was the commentary : ^* any more ? "

*' Well, most of them have been in for about

A TERRIER TALK 8i

twenty-four hours, and Mack there was forty-two hours
below and very nearly died of suffocation. He went
in with a hunted fox at the large earth at Howden
Burn, opposite Wild-Cat Gate, and though we waited
till after dark hearing the fighting and struggling
shifting from one end to the other, the fox would
not bolt, so we left them. On Sunday the keeper
reported he could occasionally hear some deep
growling ; and though some digging was done, the
only efTect was to drive them deeper in. Mack is
too silent and very savage ; and all Monda}^ morning
we dug. It was one of those dangerous earths in
a stratum of fine dr}^ yellow sand, where sides and
roof are apt to tumble in and block up the whole
passage. About one o'clock we located a faint
thumping and drove a shaft down to it, and came
right upon the fox. He was only recently dead,
not stiff, and still quite warm, and deeply bitten
all round the neck. The terrier was lying facing
him, completely exhausted and badly punished. He
got dreadfully cold when taken out, and shivered
so that he could not lap the warm milk we had
brought, and we had to feed him. After this, and
a shake, and a roll, he so far recovered as to walk
home. I remember the fox, a fine old dog, weighed
19J lbs., and the terrier only 17 lbs."

" I suppose they are nearly always * in grips ' when
3^ou get at them ? "

" Not always. For sometimes the fox gets so far
back, or into some side tunnel, where the terrier can't
get at him, that he is apt to come away if he thinks he
is being left alone."

*' What is the best grip when the jaws are locked ? "

F

82 HOUND AND HORN

*' Well, it is not easy to say. The terrier in most
cases has the fox by the nose, but this of course
leaves the fox's under jaw free to bite. This, I fancy,
is what every inexperienced terrier does, and why he
gets so punished himself in the lower jaw. Of course,
the most killing grip is when the terrier gets nose
and lower jaw together, and this is what an old
experienced dog will fight for. But once pinned, I
don't think a fox can punish much ; when he does the
mischief is when he is free and can give those long
slashing cuts at his attacker."

" Do you like one, or two, out ? "

** Only one, unless they are coupled together ; for,
if loose, they are very apt to get into the same earth
or drain. No. i is looking in or sniffing at the
entrance ; No. 2 comes up, and rather than let him
in, No. I proceeds to explore, though he has already
determined there is no fox there. No. 2 follows up
till his progress is arrested by No. i, and out of pure
devilment he bites him if they are not good friends,
and a battle starts. If they are good friends, No. 2
will start to scrape and dig, and is apt to throw the
earth back and so stop egress. I had two gallant
little two-season terriers suffocated in this way."

^' Jock seems more scarred than before. Have you
been taking him out oftener than usual lately?"

"Jocky comes out when^ and as often as, he
pleases. Often do we want to leave him in when
his old face is barely healed from wounds of the
previous week, and have shut him up, but it is
useless ; he will eat, climb, or burst his way out
of any enclosure. Once he climbed over a nine
foot wire netting yard turned over at the top.

a
to

p

(D

U

u

C/3

A TERRIER TALK 83

Another time he ate through the thick door of a
stable and burst through a pane of glass ; and once
he climbed up through the chimney of the boiling-
house, and joined hounds."

" Well done, Jock. The only thing that would
hold him would be a fire and burglar proof safe !
Which is the gamest terrier you've ever known,
Master?"

" Well ! Jock, Mack, Scamp, and Scurry, I put
in that order; but with very little difference between
them. Scurry once bolted a fox from a three hundred
yard long stone conduit only to drive him into an-
other one running underneath the main Hawick road.
This was in a hollow, but the road had been mounded
up four or five feet, and the tackling took place
right under the centre of the road, and we had to
leave them. Next morning the roadman found the
dead fox at the mouth of the conduit, and Scurry
lying curled up beside him growling savagely. Poor
Scurry was badly bitten about the throat, and died
from loss of blood a week later; the only terrier I
have lost so ; though, as I told you, Pompey and
Tuppence died together of suffocation. I've had
them mauled rather badly at times by badgers,
which punish terribly. Jock has frequently drawn
a badger after bolting or drawing the hunted fox
from the same earth. Scamp once bolted the fox
from the Cleithaugh * cundy ' into the jaws of the
pack, then dived in again and bolted a badger."

" Good little Scamp ; he knows we are talking of
his exploits."

" Of course he does, and he loves to hear us.
He's the most intelligent, next to Jock. Jock is

84 HOUND AND HORN

getting old now, and only comes out on ^near-hand'
days, and often takes half a day only. Tom the
feeder told me that last month, at Wolfelee, he had
a fast run that blew and distressed him greatly,
followed by a subterranean battle of ten minutes.
When hounds were moving off for the afternoon
draw, Jock repaired to the hilltop, sat down and
watched the direction in which they were going, and
seeing them pointing away from home, he turned
tail and trotted away off to kennel. Intelligent !
Why, they are wiser than most men. Jock knows
every earth, drain, and hole in the country-side,
and the shortest way to them, and often in a chase
guesses where it is to lead to and is waiting there
to receive us. It is a fact that on one occasion
the hunted fox went into a drain just in front of
hounds and was immediately ejected by Jock, who
had got there before him ; and more than once, on
our arrival at an earth, we have heard the mufQed
yap-yapping coming from it that told us he was
at work. He does not seem to feel punishment,
and the more he is mauled the prouder he seems
when taken notice of. Scamp has a custom of
going home with hounds after hunting unless he
has been punished. If this is so, he comes down
to the house of his own accord to have his face
bathed and sponged. This is done by one of the
maids who is very fond of him, and Scamp remains
for one, two, or three days till his wounds are healed,
then returns to the kennels. He has been known
to do a cute thing more than once. If he wishes
to find me or a particular member of the family,
or a special horse, he soon gets tired of running

A TERRIER TALK 85

from one to the other, sniffing at each, so he
watches his opportunity till the field is filing through
a hunting gate or a narrow lane, when he stations
himself at the head and looks at and smells each
one as he passes."

'' Now, old man, if we sit up later and have any
more of this terrier talk, I'll be hearing from you
that you have been holding conversation with the
little beggars. Come away and roost."

'' But I have had frequent talks with them ! "

CHAPTER IX

BY INVITATION

" Von sound's neither sheep-bell nor bark ;
They're running! they're running! go hark!^^

— KiNGSLEY.

THE pernicious practice of exchanging letters
with each other at the breakfast table, or of
reading aloud extracts therefrom, was not
usually followed in the family ; but on this morning,
in the fall of the year, I handed a note to Joanna
with some elation, and its contents were instantly pro-
claimed in a tone of triumph from behind the tea-urn.

*' The Duke has granted us a day in his country.
His Grace says " — pause for effect — '' or rather the
note from the Field-master says : ' If you are short
of country and would care to have a day in the
Crossford side of ours, you might arrange to go
early next month, meeting, say, at Marchfield. You
can let me know at once, and write to Jimmy Fair-
bairn so that he may have the earths stopped.' "

The news produced various comments.

** Hooroosh ! " came from one end of the table.

" What luck ! Very civil of them ; must keep my
best fresh for that day," from the other ; and the boy
Bobby, through a mouthful of scrambled eggs, splut-
tered, " Hope you'll find a fox. Hope there'll be a

scent."

86

BY INVITATION S7

Meanwhile I was mentally running over the
phraseology of my letter of gratitude accepting the
good offer, and considering which horses and hounds
I would take, with a determination to present the best
available appearance.

The announcement duly appeared : —

THE FOREST FOX-HOUNDS WILL MEET AT IO.3O A.M.

ON SATURDAY, DEC. 6, MARCHFIELD

(By Invitation)

All the followers of our little pack looked forward
with intense eagerness to the day.

Fortune did not favour the Hunt during the inter-
vening time, for in the last days of November a run
of calamities had occurred in rapid succession. Tom
Telfer was down with influenza, which scourge had
also prostrated the Second Whip and another stable
lad ; two of the horses were off, and three couple
of good working hounds were unfit from various
causes.

The eventful morning dawned, and an inauspicious
start was made, most unlike what I had pictured and
hoped for. Instead of two natty well-turned-out
whips and a full pack, old Batters, in rat-catching
attire, and a callow stable boy, mustered a diminished
pack of twelve and a half couples round a dejected
huntsman ; old " Royal " was going short, and the
^' Omega " mare was coughing. Hounds seemed to
be sharing the despondency, and things looked far
from rosy. But Batters said, ^'Yin canna ken
what's afore yin ; 00 micht happen on a richt

88 HOUND AND HORN

guid day," and the sequel will show that the oracular
utterance had in it the spirit of prophecy.

I had been taking my own way with Batters on
several points lately, so gave in to him when, on
nearing the place of meeting, he suggested a well-
known bridle-path as a short cut, saving a mile. It
was only across some four or five large open fields,
then down alongside a small clump of plantation ; so
as we were ten minutes behind time, we followed
it. A hare got up under our noses and lobbed
slowly along into the above-mentioned clump, and
though the two terriers cocked their ears and made
a dart out, hounds never looked at her, and were
as steady as the proverbial rock, and I dreamt no
evil. There was a hunting gate close to the corner
of the plantation, and the catch-chain was low,
necessitating bending well over to reach down to
it. I was fumbling with it when, my back being
turned to the pack, first the terriers, then one or
two young hounds leapt over the wall, and mistaking
old Batters' hoarse rate for a cheer of encouragement,
one or two more, till, in a surprisingly short time, all
had disappeared and were running in chase with a
cry that was full enough to have come from the
throats of twenty-five couples, and strong enough
to bring down the trees about their heads. Gal-
loping down the side of the wall to the low corner,
I was just in time to see a scared-looking fox jump
on the top of the wall, and with a twist of his
brush, as quickly jump back again. He must have
done this almost into the jaws of his pursuers, and
from the redoubled chorus I judged they had got
a view of him. One turn round and he broke

With a twist of bis quarters flung himself over with a
foot and a half to spare.

BY INVITATION 89

at the bottom with eight and a half couple close
at him ; and the complexity of the situation was
apparent when I realised that the smaller portion
of the pack left behind were also in chase, and
running backward in the opposite direction. Shout-
ing to old Batters to go on with these and stop them,
hearing his fervent " Heeven help us, this is a queer
beginnin','' and catching a glimpse of the ^' Omega "
mare dancing on her hind-legs, her petrified rider
clasping her round the neck, I went off in pursuit.
The first fence was a high unswitched hedge with
a low rail in the corner under a tree — a place for
any hunter to pop over leisurely and temperately.
Not so my old '^chaser." He went at it full tilt,
and with a twist of his quarters flung himself over
with about a foot and a half to spare, crashing my
head into the branches, scratching my face, and
hooking my scarf round under my ear. Two more
fences, and then a big 120 acre park, across the
middle of which the little pack sped, revelling in a
scent that enabled them to carry a high head, and
race along screaming with joy, to my consternation
apparently making straight for the front door of
the mansion-house. A little mob of Highland bul-
locks, with wild looks, joined in the chase, carrying
their tails erect and galloping like thoroughbreds, and
momentarily checking hounds ; and whoops and yells
from the assembled field testified that the fox was in
view.

Close under the stackyard and hinds' houses
hounds ran, a dogcart wheeling on the road and
some grooms with led horses being swept into the
chase, while the laird of Marchfield was heard shouting

90 HOUND AND HORN

lustily, " My horse ! my horse ! or any horse ; let's
have some sort of horse ! " and was soon thundering
along.

What a plight for an anxious recently fledged
Master of Hounds to find himself in. Instead of the
dignified and conventional entry so often rehearsed,
to appear on the scene in this headlong fashion. Yet
I could not help enjoying the humour of the thing,
though I saw with some dismay that we were
following hounds that appeared to be tied to their
fox, running in a direction away from the country
where we were expected, and where some important
members of the field would be waiting; and I also
thought with apprehension of Batters and the boy
away with one-third of the already too small pack
making for the hills.

The laird came up, cutting a comic figure, hatless,
breathless, with stirrups six holes too short, and
crouching like an American jockey in his saddle, and
shining with excitement.

^' They're running down by the river side and are
like crossing, and they're going to kill him," he gasped.

But when we jumped the next fence and got down
to the banks we found the panting pack marking
at the mouth of a stone conduit. Asking the laird
where the other opening was, he said, ^' It leads
into a tile pipe which, I believe, comes away from
my laundry. Anyhow, I lost a ferret here lately,
and it was found there after the terrified laundry-
maid had run screaming to the gardener that there
was a serpent poking its nose out of a grating behind
the tubs."

"Then, of course, we'll have to leave him and

BY INVITATION 91

get back and see where the rest of the hounds have
run to."

"You've got another fox on foot, and a chase
going on, have you ? Well, you are a greedy chap ;
won't one at a time satisfy you ? How, when, and
where did you find this one ? "

It was only civil to go through the form of apolo-
gising for an appearance so sudden and precipitate,
and for the dishevelled state of the huntsman ; but
this was not listened to.

" I wouldn't have missed it for the world," said
the laird ; " I never had such a piece of fun ; you
certainly let us know you were coming, and when I
heard you I ran to get a horse. I would have been
at their tails, but the first horse I got at had a
lady's saddle, and the next I seized was this — a
fine fencer and a bold one, but I don't know whose
he is — how do you like my seat, eh ? But how did
you do it ? "

''Well, laird," I explained, ''if you will plant a
brace of foxes right in the path, you can't blame
hounds for chasing them."

"Now, Master, don't try to make me believe you
were not drawing for him."

And it was useless to contradict.

During our short jog back to the house, we were
amused to find various ardent sportsmen aimlessly
scouring across the country towards all points of the
compass, in much anxiety and uncertainty, which
was increased by the fact that wild blasts of the
horn were being wafted down wind from a direction
contrary to that in which we had so unexpectedly
flashed. Old Batters was evidently doing his best.

92 HOUND AND HORN

When ultimately we got cooled" down and re-
adjusted, and, having appointed two whips for the
day, were proceeding to the pre-arranged draw, we
met him coming back with his four couples. I could
see him glancing at my saddle as if expecting to
find a mask there, and from his triumphant expression
I half expected to see one dangling from his. He
reported having run over a tremendous big country,
and having made a five to six mile point (extended
in the saddle-room that night, for the benefit of the
convalescing grooms, to ten miles, but in reality proved
to be one and a half), and implying the exercise of
great cunning and desperate racing — (on old '' Safety")
he cut in before them and stopped them.

Subsequent proceedings kept us on the go all day
till darkness overtook us, for we were fortunate in
being blessed with a good scent that lasted, and
enabled the hounds to run, if not as fast, at least
as unerringly at 3 P.M. as they did at 10.30 A.M.

After trying a considerable extent of country, we
got on to a fox who, with a ten minutes' start, took
us to the hills and down the adjoining valley for
a short distance, and attempting to climb the hill
on the return journey, failed, and was pulled down
in the open in twenty-five minutes.

The shooting tenant of the ground then piloted
us to a thick bracken bed where he had often seen
a fox that used to lie close to his puzzled setters,
and sure enough he was there to-day, and gave a
pretty find as he jumped up in the middle of and
twisted through the hounds, one or two actually
snapping at him. This fox gave a good deal of
trouble, for being blown in the first ten minutes'

BY INVITATION 93

burst, he did not go straight, but took to running
short, and attempted every known ruse to bafQe
hounds, and if scent had not held well he might
have succeeded.

He first tried creeping the tops of the stone walls
and lying down on the shingles. He then went back
to his kennel and pushed up another fox not a quarter
of a mile from where he was found ; but hounds
did not change, and hunted him down into the low
country, where he went into a cover and ran his
foil. At last he made a quick and curious turn, and
ran the road for three-quarters of a mile, bringing
hounds to a check. Altogether they hunted him hard
for nearly two hours, being very close at him more
than once. His fate was an unusual one. Two
collies and a greyhound broke away from their master,
watching from a hilltop, and killed him stiff and
draggled on a bare hillside, just short of a large
whin cover generally holding one or two of his kind,
and not three minutes in front of a disappointed and
eager pack, and a hot and sulphurous huntsman.

But in reality the incidents of this notable day,
satisfactory as the authorised programme was, do
not obliterate the recollections of the unexpected fun
of the morning which is always uppermost.

Old Batters seemed to think the part he pla3'ed
was of the most supreme importance, and on the
long jog home repeated it again and again.

*' They ran terrible fast, an' the mere gaed like
stoor an' lap like a deer. A wud stoppet them suinner,
but 00 cam till a stane dyke five feet high or mair,
vera near, an' the saucy auld bezzom refused it the
first time. The callant, puir body, was for pushin'

94 HOUND AND HORN

the stane aff the cope, bit A telt him there was
nae time for that ; then oo crossed the Cessburn
road in-an'-oot " (through gates), " an' A watched ma
chance an' rammed the auld mere forrit owre a stiff
railin' an' raced her in afore them, an' whuppit them
aff. Aj^e, they wad killed him in anither quarter
mile if A hadna hindered them."

And the genial laird seldom fails to remind me
how I came to Marchfield " by invitation."

CHAPTER X

CUMMANSHEMENSLAIGE

" Shottld not his care
Improve his growing stock, their kinds might fail ;
Man ynight once ?nore ojt roots and acorns feed. "

— SOMERVILK.

IT was the jubilee of the Talladale Farmers' Club,
and the occasion was being celebrated in a char-
acteristic fashion. There had been a 4 P.M.
heavy dinner of broth, joints, and plum pudding, to
which I and a friend had been invited. It was a
somewhat solemn and silent function, and ominously
temperate. Then the tablecloths were swept away,
and rummers and glasses, with basins of lump sugar,
were placed on the table, and bottles of whisky in
profusion, apparently in the ratio of one bottle to
three men, were set down, while large black kettles
of boiling water were handed round by waiting-maids
before being placed by the fire.

The loyal toasts were given and received with great
heartiness ; after which pipes were stuffed and kindled,
and a loud hammering and applauding accompanied
the rising of the Chairman to propose the toast of
the evening — '' Prosperity to the Farmers' Club." He
spoke with a voice clear as a cornet, and began by
addressing his expectant hearers as ** Brother farmers

all, high and low, that is, hill men and low country

95

96 HOUND AND HORN

men ; few if any of you have seen the span of years,
or experienced the variety of seasons, or weathered
the severity of storms, that I have during the period
of my occupancy of the farm of Buccleuch ; and few
can make the boast which I can, viz. that for two long
leases, or rather for thirty-nine years, I have never
missed paying my rent punctually and in person.

** I can only touch on some few of the changed con-
ditions during that period. First of all, the system
and practice of husbandry is kept up to a high
standard, and the most is got out of the land that
it will yield ; but this only with the expenditure of
much capital, with the exercise of much skill, and
through the results of oft-repeated experience. But
there has been a marked decrease in value of pro-
duce of all kinds, the returns from all classes of farms
showing a decided falling off from the average of pre-
ceding years. This decrease has been in greater con-
trast in the case of secondary and inferior produce
(good articles, whether grain or live stock, never feel
the fall so much as inferior articles), and this would
seem to point to the importance of keeping our land
in good heart so as to grow the best possible crops,
and to breed and feed only the best possible animals.

''Accompanying the fall in prices, we have had to
pay more for our working expenses, and for nothing
so much as labour. The introduction of machines
has done away with some of the extra labour formerly
employed for harvesting and at odd times, and that
has to some extent caused people to move into the
towns ; but one of the real and main causes of rural
depopulation lies in the restless spirit of the age, and
the desire of the people themselves. I would counsel

CUMMANSHEMENSLAIGE 97

the ploughman to pause before he gives up a house
rent free, which is kept up for him, his cow, his
pig, his hens, and his money wage, paid regularly
rain or shine, and moves into the town, where,
though wages for himself and his family may be
better, the expense of living is out of all proportion
higher.

'*A new feature of rural life is the invasion of
even the remotest districts by so-called grocers' vans.
These are very detrimental to farming life, bringing as
they do tinned meats, patent medicines, and cheap
literature ; none of which are so wholesome as the
oatmeal and milk or the old books and papers. One
class does not change a great deal, and that is the
shepherds, more notably the hill shepherds. A good
man who can mow, cast peats, and cut sheep drains is
always sought for.

'* If, then, we breed good stock we shall yet for
a while hold our own ; and if we are left freedom
of contract, and if the transfer of land is made easy
and cheap, even under the many adverse conditions
we suffer from, we shall be able to keep up the
good repute of Border farming, and maintain the high
standard of Border live stock."

He gave some most interesting reminiscences of his
youth, and of the habits and customs of the hill far-
mers, and told some very droll stories of sayings and
doings at the annual kirns, and wound up by again
charging us to be pointed in stock-breeding, and
punctual in payment of rent.

Toast and song followed in quick succession. Pat

Murray, a jovial-looking young fellow, sang a pathetic

song in a way that nearly made us all weep ; and his

G

98 HOUND AND HORN

pal, John Fraser, a sad-looking soul, sang one of
the most comic of comic songs with the drollest
pantomimic gestures.

Then the Croupier rose to propose a toast, and
my neighbour whispered that this person had three
or four long words which he dragged into every
speech he made, and offered to lay me five to four that
he would use them all to-night. '' Ventilate " and
** obfuscate" had at one time been prime favourites,
but had long been discarded as being no longer
impressive ; and the others, which I was soon to hear,
were of a similar nature. He was a preternaturally
solemn-looking old gentleman, wise as he looked, and
very outspoken ; and it was with some trepidation
that I gathered he was proposing the toast of Fox-
hunting, and addressing his remarks to me, as if
challenging contradiction. He was sure the present
Master was not one to desire to connect, still less
amalgamate, the sport of fox-hunting with that of
horse-racing and its concomitant gambling, for the
two were diametrically dissimilar and ran counter the
one to the other; the first being a wholesome and
natural recreation, and the last being an unhealthy
and artificial method of producing excitement. He
wished to promulgate his opinion far and wide that
he loved the one and abominated the other — in fact,
he looked upon the gambling element of the latter as
the "incarceration" of the devil. (Loud applause.)
He wound up by hoping his hearers would homologate
his sentiments and drink to "Fox-hunting." He
apparently added something more, but his closing
remarks were drowned in a wave of applause that
swept round the table, gathering increased force as

CUMMANSHEMENSLAIGE 99

it reached my neighbourhood, and carrying several
glasses off the table.

Two excited lads sprang to their feet, then
upon their chairs, and lastly in emulation upon the
table, to second the Croupier's toast. The more
likely-looking competitor was hauled down, along
with several bottles and decanters ; and the other,
a rather shy, awkward-looking youth, was held in
position and charged to " spit it out." A half tumbler
of raw whisky was handed up to him, and this he
swallowed at a gulp without winking, and then
declared the one thing that induced him to offer for
his farm, lying in the forsaken and remote locality
it did, was the fact that a pack of fox-hounds hunted
within reach. He worked hard all summer, sta3ang
at home, while he sent his wife to Spittal-on-Tweed.
Here his intimates jeered derisively, for the lady
in question was known to do exactly as she pleased.
He took his holidays in winter, on the Saturdays with
the hounds ; and this relieved the monotony, en-
livened the existence, and brightened the dark days
between Martinmas and Whitsunday. He met his
friends, compared notes with them as to the condition
of their stock, the stage of their farm work, and some-
times galloped over their young grass and knocked
down their fences in return for similar compliments
paid to him. He was always pleased to see hounds
and a good field, for whom he always had a fox in
his whin cover, and a cut of mutton ham and some
mountain dew to wash it down. He was applauded
to the roof.

My repl}^ was much interrupted by " Hear, hears "
— the audience was in a mood to cheer, and cheer they

100 HOUND AND HORN

did ; so that if there was a fox within three miles of
the Cross Keys that night, he must have shivered in
his kennel.

The company then broke into knots of three and
four, and conversation was very animated, being
carried on by some in confidential whispers, and
by others in loud declamation that might have been
mistaken for quarrelling, but was only meant to
emphasise the various propositions laid down.

The fun was at its height when I noted a hard-
featured hill farmer, whom I only knew by sight,
trying to fix me with his eye. When he had
caught mine, he pushed a gigantic tortoise-shell
snuff-mull into my hand. After accepting this form
of hospitality, and returning the mull, I found him
alongside of me, and was puzzled by his repeating
again and again — " Will ye cummanshemenslaige,
cummanshemenslaige ? "

A mutual friend translated the mystic utterance,
which turned out to be ^' Come and see my ensilage,"
an invitation to inspect the contents of a silo which
he had recently established to his own satisfaction
and his neighbours' wonder and contempt. He was
very old-fashioned and conservative in most respects ;
but occasionally made an outbreak into modern ex-
periments, and this was his latest departure.

Promising to *' cummanshemenslaige " on Saturday,
and being adjured to be in good time in a manner
so earnest as to draw up a picture of the possibility
of the silo going off in spontaneous combustion
before then, and being reminded that *' Saturday
was to-morrow, and that to-morrow was Saturday,"
we made our escape about i A.M.

CUMMANSHEMENSLAIGE loi

Friday was spent in kennels, which were visited
by several belated sportsmen, one or two of whom
let out the fact that the jubilee celebrations were
still in progress.

The puddles were covered with a thin coating of
ice as we left the courtyard on Saturday morning,
and they crackled sharply under *^ Merrylass' " feet
as she stepped briskly away; and where the sun
had touched the road, the mud flew in thick flakes
from the wheels of the dog-cart ; and all human
and horse foot-marks were clear and distinct on
the slight peppering of snow that had dusted the
country overnight. My companion was a young
Australian, just home from the back blocks of
Queensland, and much interested in all the signs
and symptoms of rural life, and an experienced
tracker.

After leaving the village we came suddenly upon
the youth, John Fraser, one of the most hilarious
of the revellers ot two nights ago. He was leading
a cob without a strap of harness on him by the
simple expedient of a muffler round its neck, and
was carrying a driving whip. He explained that
the cob's forelock had come away in his hand, and
he exhibited the tuft in confirmation, but offered
no explanation why he happened to be leading it
by so frail a medium. He evaded answering all
questions as to how he came to be reduced to this
pass, merely stating that he was returning to the
town. He was grateful to the Australian for show-
ing him a way of leading an unwilling horse by
a noose of whip-cord passed round the lip and
lower jaw under the tongue, and known to bush-

102 HOUND AND HORN

men as the " humane twitch." He inquired, rather
anxiously, what road we were taking, and refused
all offers of assistance.

About a mile further out, on rounding a corner,
we saw John's boon companion, Pat Murray, sit-
ting complacently on a dog-cart cushion, alongside
his trap, with the harness piled on the ground,
and a horse-rug wrapped round his knees, smoking
his pipe. Pat was as communicative as his pal
had been reticent, and cried out, in answer to
our query what was wrong, that he and John had
cast out badly over the questionable soundness of
a cob that John had almost sold to him ; that they
had agreed that a continued journey in each other's
company would be deteriorating to both ; that this
being decided, John had taken out his cob and
proceeded to lead him off, when Pat reminded him
that the harness was his, and he would rather it
was left with the cart. John had demurred to this,
but Pat had insisted, so there was nothing for it
but to comply, and march off with as much dignity
as could be put into the action of dragging a
snorting unwilling beast along by the nose and
the forelock. John had returned to claim his whip,
giving an opening for a reconciliation, but Pat had
been obdurate, and had laughed loud when " the
Mugger," drawing back from the whip, had left his
forelock in John's hand and trotted off, nose and
tail in the air ; nor did he assist in the capture of
the animal, but shouted out, '' We'll see who'll be
home first." He, too, declined all offers of help,
saying he was all right and would soon be picked
up by a passing chance.

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CUMMANSHEiMENSLAIGE 103

So we continued our journey, and the Australian
exclaimed : ^* I have been studying the tracks on
the road, and there has been some loose driving
here, and not so long ago, for they are quite
fresh ; " and as we proceeded he said, " Will you
go slowly here, and let me examine them ? "

Our road now branched off to the left from the
main valley, and lay across an unfenced moor, and
the powdering of snow showed every mark con-
spicuously, which my friend read like a book.

" Look here," he said, " this chap has been gallop-
ing hard and swaying from one side of the road
to the other," as he pointed out tracks now running
close to the shallow ditch close to the bank, and
now perilously near the edge, where a row of stones
was all the parapet to guard a wheel from going
over the ten foot drop into a watercourse on the
other side. ^^It's a broad flat-tyred trap, probably
a grocer's van, and there is another lighter trap,
with narrow round tyres. And, by Jove, the fellow
has been racing — at any rate the rear trap has been
flogging and trying to pass."

Sure enough, a whip broken through the whale-
bone, and marked as if it had been run over, lay
across the road, and Moncriefif's surmise appeared
to be correct, for the tracks now showed a less rapid
pace and straighter going. At the foot of a hill the
sharp eyes of the tracker picked up a cap by the
side of the road, and shortly after this the two traps
seemed to have pulled up, for the road was paddled
with footmarks, and strewn with countless spent
matches.

At the end of the road leading through the ford

104 HOUND AND HORN

to the snug farmhouse of Nether, or Under, Fawhope,
stood Jim Peebles waiting for us. We had barely
pulled up when, anticipating the question, he at once
said : " We only got home from the dinner this
morning just before daylight, and what a job I had
with my cousin, William Peebles. We left the Cross
Keys at closing time last night, but we put in at
the Doctor's for an hour or two, leaving there about
three or four o'clock. William maintained that his
pony could out-trot my mare, giving me half a mile
start, and I set off before him, and about the cross-
roads he came galloping and barging behind me like
at a bumping boat race, and I had to gallop to save
my dog-cart from being crashed into. He was for
coming in here, and his pony would hardl}^ pass the
road end, and set my mare on jibbing at the ford,
and when I hit her she flung up to the dash-board, a
thing I never knew her do before. But come away,
Upper Fawhope is only three-quarters of a mile on,
and we'll just be in time for lunch."

He strode after us with the long swinging stride
of a hill shepherd, and kept up to " Merrylass' " quick
walk without effort. We found William Peebles
sitting on a stone at the turn off of his road,
watching a young lad who was appl3ang a liberal
wash of whitening to a row of large stones marking
the turn.

'^ Good morning, gentlemen," said he. " These
stones are not easy seen on a black night. The last
time Jim Peebles was in here he drove over most
of them ; I see his tracks." And he added half hesi-
tatingly, ''They might be useful to you going out
to-night."

CUMMANSHEMENSLAIGE 105

** Here is your whip, William," said his cousin,
coming up. " Mr. Moncrieff found it below the cross
roads."

'* I must have dropped it when I got out to look
for my cap."

We remembered there had been an interval of
about a mile between the whip and the cap, but
we said nothing.

'' I couldn't find the second step of my trap," he
continued, '' and slipped and cut my head a bit."

'' Mr. Moncrieff here sa3^s there is a very wobbly
driver in the valle}^, William — a man who drives a
flat- tyred broad wheel."

^' Ah, ah, Jim, that's you ; ye mind ye had your
wheels new ringed by Robbie Tamson just a fort-
night since. Mine has a narrow round tyre, and
makes a track like a velocipede. But open the gig-
house and we'll see it."

The gig-house doors were opened, and there stood
Jim Peebles' cart, and in the stable an unconcerned-
looking boy was wiping down Jim Peebles' mare.
William gasped and looked as if he might have
explained away the cart, but the two together, cart
and mare, were too weighty evidence against him ;
so producing his snuff-box, removing his cap, and
displaying a bandaged head, he said, '^ Well, that
accounts for the bezzom reisting on the hill and
cutting across the grass at the corner. But," he
added, with confidence, ^' I'll take my davy that I
started in my own trap. We must have changed
them when I was looking for my whip, for I mind
kindling a match there and sheltering it from the
wind with my cap."

io6 HOUND AND HORN

We lunched lavishly ; and two more hill farmers
having stepped in, we listened attentively to the
characteristics of hoggs and gimmers and t'winters
and dinmonts till it was discovered to be too dark
to inspect the silo ; but Jim, the lad, was instructed
to put a cut in the dog-cart for us to carry home.
This we did as far as the first ravine, into which
Moncrieff tossed it with his ungloved hands, declaring
he would never be able to taste Gorgonzola cheese
for the rest of his life.

CHAPTER XI

A HOUND HAVER

^^ He guides thou in covert, he leads them in chase,
Tho' the young and the jealous try hard for his place,
^Tis * Bachelor^ always is first in the race ;
He beats them for nose and he beats them for pace ;
Hark forward to ' Bachelor.' "

— Whyte-Melville.

THE frost was holding and getting keener,
and it was difficult to get horses exercised,
for there was not much snow ; so hounds
were physicked and their coats dusted with sulphur ;
and we took to curling. Billy did not care much for
the game, but rode out to the pond and came home
with me. Our horses had frost nails in their shoes,
and we were able to jog slowly along the crackling
roads, making as much noise as would an artillery
waggon. As we approached the out-buildings behind
the stable we heard a scrimmage of some sort going
on, and Billy said, ** My word, those tom-cats are
having a battle royal ! "

*' Chut, Bill, it's two foxes fighting."

And sure enough, as we came round the corner
we saw two long forms separate and pop over into
the deep glen behind the kennels.

There was more frost and snow during the night,

and the morning was spent in the kennels. To Tom

the feeder we related the incident of the night before,

107

io8 HOUND AND HORN

and that worthy's reply was, " Oh ! that's nothing,
sir. The foxes were barking and fighting at the
gallows over the bones so loud two nights ago that
they wouldn't let the hounds get to sleep, and I had
to get up twice with the lantern to them ! "

We gazed at the huddled-up forms on the sleeping
benches, and they were heaped closer than usual
during this cold weather. I tested Bill's knowledge
by asking him to tell which hound the smallest
portion of exposed surface belonged to, and this we
did by spelling ; for if we had named them, it would
have made the hound named uncurl himself and
disturb at least two or three of his fellows ; so
it was —

'^ What's that lying with his head on R-a-m-b-l-e-r-'s
flank ? "

" That's P-i-1-g-r-i-m— no ? Then it's P-i-r-a-t-e."
'* That's right. Now find D-e-x-t-e-r, and so on."
Tom told how some hounds ^'bossed the benches"
and always had their own favourite to make a pillow or
a footstool of; how some were liked and some dis-
liked by all the others ; how much space was needed
before feeding, and how much more after feeding ;
and many other items of supreme importance in his
own eyes.

'' I like to see them best when they are tired and
fed after a long day's hunting; how they do snuggle
up and snore ; and when I look in last thing at them
not one of them looks up but Regent, and he only
opens one eye. Except on the night after a hunt,
he's the restlessest beggar ever was, and as he will
lie at the back of the bed, and must get up at the
least outside noise, he often disturbs the lot. And

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A HOUND HAVER 109

then they disturb me/' he added half shame-
facedly.

" I daresay you dream of hounds," said Billy to
Tom, as the latter was going off to dinner.

** Well, very often, sir. The other night I dreamt
they were all hunting me, and I couldn't run a yard
and broke into a cold sweat as Forager drew close
up to me."

When the kennel-man had gone I had a score of
questions to answer.

" Which is the best all-round hound ? "

" Well, Bill, I don't think there's any best of all ;
there's three or four couple best of all, and each good
in a different way. There's Woodman, who will draw
find, challenge ; then hunt, speak, and drive ; and
is patient and untiring at a check : not so brilliant,
perhaps, as Regent, but more reliable. Regent of
course is grand for dash and drive and tongue ;
but sometimes he is too free, and again is some-
times too fast and gets away by himself. We
have more than once come upon him, having run
up to the fox, sitting and keeping him at bay till
the others came up ; for, curiously enough, the poor
chap has no teeth at all, and though he is plucky
enough, he cannot tackle the fox to any purpose.
He is very quick at a check, and always makes a bold
wide forward cast down wind first, and then a similar
up wind one, and he is nearly always the first to
recover it. Of course, he is the best-known hound
in the pack, being so prominent and * kenspeckle ' with
his rough coat and his white colour, a colour that
is most useful, as you can often pick him up against
the dark heather at a distance when the others are

no HOUND AND HORN

invisible. Some of the shepherds have said to me :
' A see ye ha' gotten a " beardie " amang them ; he'll
be mair gleg as the feck o' them.' I wish I had a
few more like him."
'' Pirate, is that ? "

" Yes ; alongside of Dexter. Those two are at
their best in a straight-out chase ; don't try very
well sometimes, and are too eager for a start — that
is, they don't work a fox close in a big thick cover
to push him out ; but they, along with Challenger,
are always first out ; demons to drive a straight-going
fox ; run consistently at head and keep there until
the finish. They are not the least jealous of each
other — in fact, seem to work to each other ; but I
fancy I have seen them a little jealous of the rest."
'* A little light of tongue. Challenger, isn't he ? "
" He has plenty, but it's soft and very high-pitched,
and although he's always using it, on a windy day
you don't always hear him at a distance ; but as he
is generally with those other two and Regent, who all
speak freely, it's not felt as a fault."

" A bad point in a pack is a mute hound, eh ? "
" The worst sort of all, and not to be tolerated for
a day, however good he may be in all other respects."
" But you can't complain of this now, for the last
time they ran down the glen, and only twelve and a
half couple out, every hound was speaking freely. It
positively made me tingle all over, and the cry might
have been from twenty couple of throats."
" Yes ; they're all right for tongue."
*^ Sometimes a little slack in drawing, eh ? "
** Well, if they are, I put that down to the fact that
the country is so well stocked with foxes (in the early

A HOUND HAVER in

season, anyhow) ; every bit of cover seems to hold him,
and they have no trouble to find him. It's mostly
a case of ' Hooi in there ! ' and the fox goes off at the
farther end, so that the careful drawers and triers
don't get a good start. Ruffian and Royal, for in-
stance, on some days, if they think there is a fox in
a strip of plantation say, I've seen them put their
noses up and race through it in a straight line."

'' Do you like to get away with a few hounds close
behind a fox ? "

'' Yes ; I generally go. Though I don't like it, least
of all from a close thick whin, because the honest hard-
working hounds that have shoved into the thickest
parts are at a disadvantage in the matter of a start,
and the skirting hounds get away on better terms.
But I don't believe in waiting for hounds to come
out. If you wait for them, they expect to be w^aited
for, and become apt to dwell ; whereas once left
behind out of the fun and having to gallop hard to
catch up, they take jolly good care not to hang back
and be left behind again."

** But don't it disgust them and make them lose
interest in trying to find ? "

^' No ; I don't believe it. They are all mad keen
to find him and run in chase, and the sooner it comes
to that the better. Then, in this countr}^, foxes find
themselves so often, and often lie out and rise from
the plough or the rough ground."

*' I suppose some are better finders than others ? "

'* Yes. There's gallant little Woodman, my favourite
if I have one, he has the knack and has found more
foxes by himself than any other. He seems to know
where they are lying and goes straight to the spot.

112 HOUND AND HORN

He is most careful, and tries every yard of the ground.
I'm sure he has never missed one. He was once
or twice left with a bad start ; but now he's away like
a dart with the best of them."

^' I see you let them alone at a check ? "

*' Yes ; most decidedly, unless they have tried wide
all round and are completely at fault, and then only
do I help them if I have positively correct knowledge
of his line ; for if they are helped too often they will
expect to be helped. Besides that, in this country
you can't always get to them on account of wire, or
those deep glens, and you must leave them alone ;
and in my humble opinion this is what makes these
hounds work so hard at a check and hunt so close
and determinedly. Each wants to be first to recover
the lost line, and acts independently on that account.
All I like to do is to turn my horse's head in the
direction I wish them to try, and move quietly along.
It's no use having them shouted at or rated when
they are all doing their level best."

" Then, what about a mixed pack ? "

" Well, we've always hunted a mixed pack ; twelve
couple at least of dog hounds and five or six of bitches
seems to be a useful proportion. Of course, in an
open and flying country I'd like an all-bitch pack ;
but here the first essential is tongue — without it you'd
be looking for hounds all day ; for dog hounds are
freer and stronger in this respect. They may not be
so quick and handy as their sisters, and you may
get a stubborn or ' dour ' one occasionally, but on a
cold scenting day, with a twisting, short-running fox,
I think they are more reliable ; for their sisters on a
cold line might be apt to flash and be more impatient.

A HOUND HAVER 113

But a few couple hunting and running with them
sharpens up the dog hounds, I think, and perhaps the
spirit of emulation is roused more by their presence.
Of course, one has to keep a few more to take the
place of those that are laid up in spring, and in the
closing weeks we often have an all-dog pack of
fourteen couple."

" I see my little friend, Rosebud ; she is surely out
of condition ? "

*' Well, you see, she was left behind at the hill farm
to have her whelps ; then she was brought back to
kennels on a cart in a large crate, with her five
puppies six weeks old. They were soon afterwards
weaned, and a week or so later Rosebud was taken
out for exercise with the hunting pack, and shut up
at the place of meet to be let out in the afternoon
to find her way back to kennel. On getting home
later I found a wire from Peter Amos saying Rose-
bud had come on there — to the hill farm — about six
o'clock P.M. — a distance of nineteen and a half miles
on the map from where she had been let out."

" Poor old lady," said Bill ; " I suppose she was
looking for her whelps, and expected to find them
there. S'pose she's good in her work like her
mother, eh ? "

'* Yes ; but not quite so good. She inherits most of
Rosamund's good qualities, and she and her brother
Rambler both inherit many of their mother's little
tricks and habits. They both on the roads like to
be a sort of vanguard about twenty-five yards in
advance and on the off-side, and to jump into
every water-trough they come to, as Rosamund
did. As they are rather handsome, and have a

H

114 HOUND AND HORN

fine carriage, and are as alike as two peas, I don't
insist on their being kept in the cluster. Then
Rambler invariably carries the mask or nose home ;
and if he can't get that, a pad ; just as his mother
used to do."

^* Funny how hounds sometimes miss seeing the
hunted fox when they have run up to him and he
has lain down ? "

*' Well, I think they are so intent on their noses,
as it were, that the other senses suffer to some
extent. You've seen, I daresay, hound after hound
so bent upon carrying on the line as to run full tilt
into wire netting which the}^ would have jumped or
avoided had they not been so engrossed ; and you've
seen them run a line up through a wood while the
fox ran back parallel to them quite openly and
within a very short distance ; and I've seen the
whole pack actually run right over the top of a
crouching fox without being aware of it. I some-
times think that once the olfactory power is excited
and stimulated to full operation the scent pene-
trates through the eye, through what anatomists
would call the lachrymal duct, to the smelling
nerve, as well as through the nostrils. Anyhow,
it is believed by naturalists that some deer possess
this faculty. If you hold any object to them they
feel it not only with their noses but with the
corner of their eyes where the lachrymal duct
opens. Anyhow, hounds don't see so well when
they are carrying a head and in full chase on a
hot holding scent, as they do when their smell
nerves are not stimulated and excited. And it is
as well they don't get taken off the line, for the

A HOUND HAVER ii

3

whole essence of hunting is to get hounds to find
a Hne, carry it, and never leave it."

Said Bill : '' I once saw a curious instance of this
intentness with the Duke's. Hounds had brought
their fox very blown into a small whin cover where
they were pressing him hard and he was crawling
along the top of a low bank alongside a patch ot
thin whins, when a big powerful hound coming to
the cry met him and grabbed him and proceeded
to shake and worry him. While this operation was
going on the whole pack swept past, paying no
attention to it, but racing along on the line which
the fox had travelled about three minutes previously.

Pause for a few minutes. Then a question —

" What is the principal cause of the hounds
missing a fox after having run him hard and
being close at him ? "

*^ Well, I suppose it's more often a failing scent
or owing to the fox lying down and keeping per-
fectly still ; so long as he doesn't move he is quite
safe, unless a hound happens to blunder against
him and shift him. But a very frequent cause with
us is the changing to a fresh fox. This would not
happen so often if onlookers or others would keep
quiet, but so often a run fox is seen to enter a
cover and a fox is seen to leave it. This last is
at once taken for the hunted one and holloaed away
by some one who ought to know better. My expe-
rience is that the sore-pressed and hunted fox gets
to a stage when he does not show himself; his
only hope of escape is to hide, which he can do,
and does do, in the most unexpected place, and
in the most complete manner. It's the fresh fox

ii6 HOUND AND HORN

that shows himself in most cases of this sort. He
has digested his night's supper and had a sleep,
and now feels fresh enough and bold enough to
risk a game of romps, and goes off with no attempt
to conceal himself." .

"Is there any way of telling from the hounds if *
they have changed ? "

''Well, I sometimes think that if, say, three or
four couple have been running steadily at head
during a chase, backing each other and without
jealousy and with a regular cry, and when they
run through a holding place, and all at once these
hounds stop speaking and a fresh lot join in with
a nois3^ cry, this may be sign of a changing scent
with a change of fox." '

A shrill whistle from outside the yard and a
voice piped up —

''Whatever have you been doing? It's 2.30, and
lunch is cold. Fie, fie — wasting time ! "

" Don't say we've been wasting time ; we've been
having a grand ' hound haver.'

y )>

CHAPTER XII

SOME BY-DAYS

* * See that old hound ^
How busily he inorks, but dares not trust
His doubtful sense, draw yet a wider ring ;
Hark now again the chortis Jills.'^

— SOMERVILE.

MANY of our best gallops and finest hunts
have taken place on by-days or days
snatched unexpectedly in the middle of a
frost, when it had given sufficiently to be safe for
horses' legs and hounds' feet, and very often on
the day before it settled down again with more
than its former severity. And after a carefully
kept record of the weather conditions in relation
to scent, I can only learn this, that we've had an
unfailing good scent just before the oncoming of a
hard frost, and generally on a light east wind day
with a rising but not too high barometer. Upon the
month depends a good deal ; and perhaps during
February, when the ground is drying not too fast,
more straight-out fast gallops occur than in any
other ; but scent may be good in any month pro-
vided the weather is not too unsettled and change-
able.

The most notable of days snatched from the arms
of the frost was that on which " the grey fox of

ii8 HOUND AND HORN

Ruberslaw" gave such a fast and straight chase,
over an unusual line, if not a very long one.

It was on the 25th January, the beginning of the
period when good hunts are expected, and a good
scent is assured. Hounds had found in the rocks,
and luckily were above the fox when he ran down
west of the seedlings by West Lees and crossed
the river above the keeper's house, hounds follow-
ing slowly till they crossed. The Bedrule shepherd
viewed and holloaed him there ; and after that
hounds drove hard every yard of the way. They
ran up Fulton Hill to west of Bedrule pond, down the
old toll strip, across Swinnie to west of Gilliestongues
and crossed Bairnkin strip and Bairnkin road in and
out, east of the entry, up the Kersheugh and Ford
strip to the Flat, without a waver and with a full cry
all the time, down to Scraesburgh Moss, then sharp
right-handed past the Ford cottages to Mossburnford
Bank, where the cry ceased suddenly. Hounds
came pouring down to the Ford and started to
drink and bathe, and George Dod, who had joined
in, began to whoop from the bank, and I saw him
lift the fox over the fence out of the wood. He
had found him crouching as if in life — in fact, at
first he thought he was still alive — with old Marmion
lying facing him and growling savagely. He was
the finest specimen of a fox I ever saw ; in his
prime, probably second or third season — long, lean,
and limber, with the pointed muzzle of the Cheviot
foxes, grey back and magnificent brush. It almost
seemed a shame to tear him ; and by the time we
were ready for it, he was so stiff that when we
propped him up on his legs he stood there, and

SOME BY-DAYS ti^

after brush and mask were removed, hounds took
a long time to break him up. Though only five
miles from point of finding to point of killing, this
was a very fast and hard gallop for horses ; only
Tom Telfer and I were in it ; and the features of it
were the pace and line, this last being right across
the usual country at right angles to the valleys,
right across the Rule, right across the Black Burn,
and right across the Jed, never swerving or turning
up or down the watercourses.

Another day snatched out of the frost's fingers
was Monday, 9th December. We had been stopped
on the Saturday. Sunday was soft, a little frost on
Sunday night, but all gone by mid-day on Monday,
when I sallied up the water blowing the horn as
I went. This only produced two followers, Miss
Douglas and Frank Turnbull. We found a fox in
Birkenside, and hounds drove out at the west end ;
and when we got to Dolphinston we heard and saw
them racing beyond Earlsheugh towards the Belling.
For forty minutes they hustled him round by Wood-
house, Belling, and Old Jeddart in two big figures
of eight, and then killed him in the garden of the
latter place. On my coming up I found two couple
of hounds only had got in before the gate was
shut, and the rest were clamouring and springing
at the high fence. As I came in sight I saw an
excited farm youth seize the fox, whip out his knife,
and with his left hand whack off the brush, bone
and all, and flourishing it above his head he yelled
like one demented ; then, horrible to relate, the fox
at his feet gave a last expiring gasp.

After the worthy farmer had refreshed us, and as we

120 HOUND AND HORN

were riding away, I looked back and saw a tall figure
in white night-clothes and cap look from an upper
window and draw back behind a curtain. To Miss
Douglas I said, *' Did you see that ? Was it a
ghost ? "

" Well, it must be old Mrs. Shaw ; only she's bed-
ridden and not allowed to move, being at the point
of death."

The poor lady's death actually occurred a few days
after ; and meeting her husband later on, I apologised
for the disturbance we had created, and expressed
a hope that the unusual commotion and excitement
had not hastened. the end.

*' Oh, it disna signify, sir," was his reply ; ** she
was lying and forbidden to rise ; but she wad ha*
dee'd ony wey ! "

On one of these by-days we had the longest and
latest ride home I had had up till then. After run-
ning hard all day and putting two foxes to ground
in unassailable strongholds in the Newton-Denholm
country, late in the afternoon we moved away towards
Cavers to collect the three couples of hounds short.
We came on them running a fairly good line outside
the big Dene, and of course our pack of eleven
couple joined in and went away westwards. This
was nearer four than three o'clock, and we could
not keep with them owing to the bad riding. There
were snow-wreaths at the back of all the fences,
with some hard spots, and many of the gates were
still blocked. We crossed the Hawick and New-
castle road at High Tofts, and on by Kirkton Hill,
Adderstonlee, Adderstonshiels, and Cogsmill, then by
Berryfell to Stobs Bank, where we completely lost

SOME BY-DAYS 121

hounds. My horse was utterly done, reduced to a
walk, and Billy and Jack were not much better. They
had gone on, and I was wandering slowly up the
road by the riverside. My horse was so exhausted
that I had to put him into the stable, when a chilled
drink and some old bog hay revived him a little.
Some boys came to say they thought the fox was
" holed " in the bank about a mile higher up the river.
I went on and found two young hounds marking in
a half-hearted way at the opening of a stone conduit
which I knew and feared, because we had never been
able to bolt from it. The terrier came up and showed
us that there could be no access as, a few yards
from the mouth, the roof had fallen in and was
blocking it. I kept blowing at intervals, this bringing
in two or three couples, all of which were panting
and had the appearance of having been recently
in chase. By this time it was quite dark, and I
was on the point of returning to get my horse,
when I heard a faint cry in the distance. This
gradually came nearer and nearer, till I realised that
hounds were running down the wooded bank of the
river and very near their fox. Enjoining the boys to
keep perfectly quiet, we held our breath and listened
to the approaching chorus. Something glided past on
the loose stones above me, followed by the dash of
a couple of hounds close behind it ; those we were
endeavouring to hold broke away and darted after
them, then there was a splashing in the river, and
a '^ skirling " as of cats fighting, a hound which had
been nipped calling out, then a rush of more hounds
almost to my very feet as they flung themselves into
the stream and grabbed and tore savagely at the

122 HOUND AND HORN

body of the fox that had carried them so far from
kennels, and bafQed them so completely for a while.
It was now 7.15, and, though Jack and Billy turned
up very soon, swelling with pride at the part they
had played in keeping hounds together, their horses
had to be made comfortable before we could start for
home. From the keeper's wife we got some real oat-
cakes or girdle cakes and half a tumblerful of whisky
and water before setting out on a fourteen or fifteen
mile jog home — twelve and a half miles on the map —
and it was fully three hours later before we sighted
the stable lantern.

" I see ye've killed him, sir," said Tom.

^^ How can you tell in this light, Tom ? "

'' Well, sir, from the way some o' the hounds is
swaggerin', an' I think I saw old Rambler carrying
the nose as he went past."

Curious finishes to outstanding hunts sometimes
take place, and once or twice we were like losing
our fox altogether, after having killed him fairly.

On one of the Harwood days we ran a fox out
by Wauchope to Cribb's hole, by the Flush to Dyke-
raw, and in very fast to Tythehouse, where I viewed
him one field before hounds, crawling in front of
them. When we got up to them at the mill cauld
we found hounds were walking round on the tips
of their toes, some bloody, some scraping at the
apron of the cauld, all with their hackles up and
signs of battle, one tuft of fox fur but no fox.
Now what to do ? Could we put the fox into the
count, no one having seen him killed or having
handled him ? Whipping off some of the boards to
let the terrier in disclosed nothing ; and only after

o

p
o

bo
o

o
bo

CO

SOME BY-DAYS 123

half-an-hour*s fishing and groping with hay forks
and rakes in the deep pool below was the body
fished out, and hounds, which had been taken away,
were brought back to eat it. Jack the whip's elation
was so marked that Billy sought and obtained an
explanation of it. He had laid odds that before
the end of the month (February) we should have
killed fifteen brace, and this made it, though it was
only the nineteenth day of the month.

This part of the country was well stocked with
stout straight-running foxes, so when it was possible
to put in an extra day, I was tempted to do it.

On a day following very closely on the last, a
likely-looking beggar, as Tom Telfer described him,
found himself in the heather outside Lurgiescleuch,
and made for the heights, the hounds soon stream-
ing in a long string after him, and very soon run-
ning out of sight. The terrier, and one or two
tailed-ofif hounds, were our guides by Wauchope
Common, Hemlaw, Fanna Rig, Note-o'-the-Gate, to
Singden, where, in a blown-down plantation of
spruce trees, we found hounds hard at work. We
obtained the comforting news that the Liddesdale
hounds had been through it that morning, so there
could only be our fox in it. Very soon after we
viewed him steal away on the backward journey,
a five and half mile straight point. But this time
he kept more to the south, down the bank of the
stream, and by Wauchope House they were pressing
him closely. On by the Forking and Hawkshaw
March they drove with an enlivening chorus, making
the whole valley resound, past Hobkirk between
the church and the river, then crossing the latter

124 HOUND AND HORN

just below the village. Surely he is doomed now !
But it was not till an hour later that I took off his
brush and threw him to the pack. 'Twas this way.
After he had lain down in a ploughed field and
hounds overrun him, Pirate and Dexter pushed
him up and he made a spurt for the river. Two
hounds rushed at him and simultaneously pinned
him on the top of a high bank and rolled down
into the deep pool, below a sort of fall, where they
throttled him and then left him. We could not
discover him in the failing light till the pool got
smoothed and was free from hounds swimming in
it, and until the discoloured water had cleared.
Then we got sight of him in about eight or nine
feet of water poised on the point of his nose and
two fore pads, his brush stretched stifQy out be-
hind him, about six feet below the surface. The
pool was enclosed by a shelving bank of gravel
which sloped suddenly down into at least twelve
feet of depth, and as the fox was, so to speak,
suspended exactly in the centre of the pool, he
could not be reached from the side with paling
bars, and to attempt him from below only meant
pushing him into deeper water. My bribe to the
assembled boys to strip and dive for him was not
responded to, so in the end I waded the " powney "
in as far as she would go, and with a crooked
wire hooked him ; but for some time it looked as if
hounds were going to lose the satisfaction of tearing
and eating their fox.

Another very satisfactory by-day was a Monday
after a very hard Saturday, which had lamed half
the pack. I had not the most remote notion of

SOME BY-DAYS 125

going out — in fact, had fixed on having a day with
the Duke's ; but from my dressing-room window at
8.15 I saw a brace of foxes walk down a furrow
in the plough on the opposite side of the glen
and lie down together in a hollow. I saw they
could be approached from above by making a big
detour ; this I did on the pony with only Jack as
follower and eight couple of selected sound hounds.
It took half-an-hour to get round, and being directed
by signal from the bath-room window of the house,
I trotted quickly down along the very furrow in
which the unsuspecting pair were lying, and the
hounds were on the top of them before they knew
it. They diverged right and left, the vixen going
straight down into the glen, and the dog, to his
credit be it said, taking straight across the plough,
drawing six couple away from his mate. These
six couple hunted him well, sticking closely to him
round the Dunion and Bedrule Hill, bringing him
back to the glen, where they continued to press him
for another half-hour, and being reinforced by all
the loose terriers belonging to the establishment,
they hunted him from one hiding-place to another
until they killed him, about two hours after he had
first been viewed. Few of those friends whom I
met in the Duke's field about midday, to whom
I related my story, seemed to think I was not
romancing.

Pleasant as were these by-days, often providing
the most unexpected sport and satisfactory finishes,
they were seldom so enjoyable as the regular hunting
days. Many of the one-horse followers used to go
home after a morning's hunt, leaving a few keen

126 HOUND AND HORN

spirits to have another try for him. Tom Telfer,
Frank Turnbull, Dick Davidson, George Heriot, Tom
Smith, poor Archie Rutherfurd, Robert Laing, George
Davidson, and others, never left so long as there was
light to draw ; and being all good horsemen and
anxious to go one better than the other, the pace
of these afternoon hunts was never slow, and some
prodigious deeds of valour were performed.

Not so often did we kill our fox on these occasions,
but nearly always hounds ran hard and pressed their
fox, very often putting him to ground at too late an
hour to admit of bolting or digging.

i

CHAPTER XIII

A HILL DAY

*^Hes away for the moors in the teeth of the windy

— KiNGSLEY.

THE interest had not slackened, but the season
was waning ; hounds were light in condition,
some of the four and five season hunters
showing signs of loosening of toes and wearing of
feet ; earths had been opened for some time and
drawn out by the vixens who were now lying up
dog foxes were getting scarce and not easy to find ;
lambs (the huntsman's bane) were a full crop and
two or three weeks old on the lower farms ; scent was
uncertain ; the country was hard, dry, and dusty ;
and the weather was of the barren and boisterous
character common to the period.

The beginning of the day was unpropitious, for we
had I^st a quarter of an hour at the start, and none of
it had been wiped off by the time we passed the half-
way milestone. Old '' Safety's " jog was rougher
than usual ; if there was a loose stone she found it
and kept dribbling it in front of her like a footballer
till she made her last effort to kick it away, accom-
panying this with a grunt and a stumble.

The last half of the twelve-mile jog was on a high

moorland road, open to the full force of the blast

rushing down from the heights ; and as we bent our

127

128 HOUND AND HORN

heads to the wind and quickened the pace, I cursed
myself for having agreed to give this extra day in
this wild waste district on the very outskirts of our
country. It had been thought desirable to kill or
scare away one or two foxes here before the hill lamb-
ing commenced, and though hounds were to hunt the
next day on the same side of the country, the fix-
tures having been duly advertised, this unadvertised
by-day had been planned as an auxiliary to it. An
amazing number of the keenest of keen sportsmen
had assembled at the place of meeting, an exposed
farmhouse on a wind-swept hillside, where they were
trying to obtain such shelter as was afforded by the
walls of a dry-stone sheep-fold. The horses had their
tails tucked in and their ears laid back ; but their
masters' faces, already glowing from exposure, beamed
with pleasure at the sight of hounds, and we had a
cheery greeting.

The two joint masters of a trencher-fed hill pack
rode up from the opposite direction, and I hailed
them with satisfaction, for I deemed that their pilotage
might be useful before the day was ended. I was
relieved to notice they had not brought any of their
hounds ; but several sharp-looking, hard-coated ter-
riers ran with them.

For nearly three hours we tried all sorts of likely
lying places, exhausting all the hitherto known kennels
above ground.

'* Ye shood ha' been here at seven o'clock in the
mornin' an' ye might ha' got a drag," Sandy Oliver
kept reiterating. " We'll have to risk disturbing
a vixen, and run the terriers through the big earth at
Todholes now."

A HILL DAY 129

I was loath to do this, but there seemed no other
way of getting sport ; so blowing the disappointed
hounds together, we moved on for the famous earths
on the opposite side of the valley.

In passing a patch of heather that had escaped
the previous spring's burning, and that was mixed
with rough boulders and battered bracken, one or
two of the rear hounds hung back, and old Warrior
stood still for a moment, feeling the air with his nose
before dashing forward, when suddenly, and as if the
earth had opened and shot him out, a big supple-
looking dog fox projected himself and stretched away
like a greyhound, the whole pack screaming after him
like distracted beings as he increased his distance
from them along the side of the hill.

*^ That's right, keep out above them," shouted
Sandy Oliver, as he cantered past me tying a new
cracker on to his thong as he went. " By the
Lord, they are scolding him along proper. That
beats a blooming kirk organ," he added.

For full forty minutes we galloped, or rather
scrambled, slithered, or floundered over as rough
a piece of country as ever tried the mettle of the
stoutest horse. No sooner had we surmounted one
hilltop than we saw another before us, higher and
farther off than the last, and as we breathed our
blowing horses before we set them going again, I
heard the shout of one or more of the hill-men,
*^ There they go ! Yonder they go ! Right forward
away ! " as they pointed to the expanding sky-line.

I freely confess I was no more anxious to keep
in sight of hounds than of the active form of the
Master of the Talladale and his pony's rat tail, as

I

130 HOUND AND HORN

he sailed along with little apparent effort. Once I
thought I had lost him ; but he came skating down
a steep face, his pony sitting on its haunches with
its forefeet pushed out before it, and shouted,
^'They're right on, and we'll have to cross the bog.
We'll lose them if we go round. Keep close in to
the edge of the haggs between the wet and the
dry ; you'll do fine if your mare knows them." And
with that he disappeared between two overhanging
haggs into what looked like the bed of a stream.

Old '' Safety " had many opportunities of '^ knowing
them" and learning them in the next few minutes,
and it was not without several struggles that we
emerged on to harder ground.

Three or four more hill-men were now showing
in front, and I rode in their tracks, watching them
pointing forward with their whips to where 3^ou
could just see the hounds fading away over the
farthest ridge.

Pounding on for another mile or more, I heard
loud whoops, and came upon a small knot of ex-
cited men, who threw themselves off their horses,
leaving them to stand without hobbling or tying
up in any way, and rushed down into the hollow
where hounds were baying loudly and digging
furiously.

" It's only a water-crack," said Dave Oliver, after
we had taken hounds off to some distance. '^ We'll
soon bolt him out of there if my brother Sandy's
terrier would come up."

*' Why not try my whulp ? " said Geordie Davidson,
producing the said creature from a game bag which
he carried.

A HILL DAY 131

" It's too big and wet, Geordie ; he'd never go in."

^' Never go in ! " 3^elled Geordie, and a heated argu-
ment began, which was only ended by the appearance
of Sandy's terrier, who decided the dispute by diving
into the crack lower down the hollow, Sandy himself
lying prostrate on his stomach on the ground with
his ear closely pressed to the earth, while the rest
of them drew back and watched with the most intense
interest. Sandy's hand went up to indicate he had
located the spot from which the yaps and grunts
accompanying the subterranean battle proceeded, and
he crept softly on all fours down the hollow. Five,
ten, fifteen minutes of cold suspense followed, during
which a few straggling men and horses arrived, all
to take up a position well back and above the centre
of attraction. Then Sandy, crawling quietly away,
came up to say he could hear nothing, and thought
they must be in grips.

" If we had only a spade, we could shift him,"
he said ; " but it's too far to send in to Skaith-
hill. But what's this ? Here come two lads carrying
something very like the instrument."

Two wiry shepherds were not long in setting doubts
at rest.

*' We keep an old draining spade on the heights,"
they explained ; ^* it often comes in handy."

An opening was soon made, and Sandy's terrier
dragged out slightly punished, and at his urgent
request Geordie Davidson's young Piper was put
in. He wriggled out of sight in a second, and soon
after his delighted master was screaming in enjoy-
ment : '' Hooi at him, Piper lad, good Piper lad, hooi
at him. He's driving him doon the hill is Piper."

132 HOUND AND HORN

'* Whist, Geordie ; if ye mak as much noise, nae
fox will bolt."

A few minutes of expectation, and then I saw
Geordie staring as if his eyeballs would burst, and
thought I caught sight of a black object slinking
down the bed of a small watercourse.

*' Ta-a-a-aly-ho ! " screamed Geordie, unable to con-
tain himself any longer, and hounds poured away like
a cataract.

*' Bi ghor, that's a ghrand tarrierh ! " said the shep-
herd ; " look yhonderh, he's oot close ahint him ! "

What sliding and skating ; some going straight
down, some at a slant ; but all arriving at the
bottom somehow.

Old " Safety " sprawled into an innocent-looking
green spot ; I flung myself off to ease her, and landing
half-way up to the knee, left my boot stuck fast in
the ground, clean sucked off. The amusement of
several of the boys was undisguised, though I did
not altogether appreciate the chaff to which I had to
submit.

"Using Todshawhope as a boot-jack, Master?"
" Suffering from hot feet, sir ? " '^ Boots too tight ? "
and such-like poor witticisms.

But they were sufficiently Samaritan to catch the
old mare, and I pulled the boot out and worked the
foot into it, and continued the chase, grudging very
much the lost minutes.

I was not above being guided by Sandy Oliver
again, who to my surprise turned back towards us
with a set expression on his face : " We can't get
through the Red Cleugh ; we're far better on this
side of the hill."

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A HILL DAY 133

" He'll never make the heights ; they're bound to
turn in. Come on."

'^ Lord preserve us," he cried in his excitement,
'^ they must be running in view, and here's that
blasted wire fence — the march between Todlaw and
Softhope — tightened up and renewed. We'll have to
get through it ; there's not a gate for miles."

He brought his pony alongside the fence, stepped
off and stood on the top wire, balancing himself
with his hands on the saddle, dancing and swinging
and stamping till a staple flew ; then moved along
to the next post, and the next one or two, repeating
the operation. Then jumping down, he bound the
loosened wires tight together with his stirrup leather,
and laying his coat on them, he led his pony over,
the sensible beast quietly lifting one leg at a time.

" Safety " played the fool, hanging back and planting
her toes in the ground, breasting the fence anywhere
but the right where, and at last leaping so suddenly
and so high in the air as almost to land on the top
of me.

Sounder ground enabled us to canter round the
base of the hill to a point overlooking the whole
of the wide hope below, which we eagerly scanned,
but without seeing a sign of the chase.

" They can't be down into Softhope burn below us,
or we would hear them, and they haven't had time
to get over Red Cleugh heights ; they must have
put him to ground again," said Sandy.

Emerging from the bed of the stream higher up
we now saw Davie Oliver on his white pony, with
a few followers, moving in an uncertain way, and
apparently as much at a loss as we were ourselves.

134 HOUND AND HORN

But a note on the horn brought several dark forms
out of a side cleuch directly below us, and on going
down we found the pack at the edge of the stream,
most of them lying in it drinking and panting ; and
a little way off, after some search, a mangled object
stretched and flattened and so plastered with black
peat as to be more like a fox that had been dead
for a week than the limber animal that had just
stood up so well in front of hounds.

'^ They never do break up a fox when they kill him
in a peat-hole like that," explained Sandy.

Davie was urged by his elder brother to thrust
a finger down the creature's throat, which he did
very gingerly, and reported not only that it was
blood-hot, but declared he felt an expiring twitch
and quiver, with an attempt to close the long jaws,
which made him retract his finger with more decision
than he had inserted it.

After washing in the stream and removing brush,
mask, and all the pads, amid the whoops and yells of
their followers, the body was thrown to the hounds,
who soon tore him and ate him, being assisted in
the operation by such of the terriers as had come
up. These determined little creatures held on to
and fought for every scrap of skin, and we had a
good laugh to see Geordie Davidson's Piper pounce
upon a small portion and bear it off while the
brothers Oliver's terriers were locked in mortal
combat over the same prize.

Estimating distance and time and comparing notes
occupied us till we followed down stream to the shep-
herd's house.

'' Where got ye that saddle, Dave ? " inquired Sandy.

A HILL DAY 135

"It's the Master's. I lent mine to Jack the whip
to use to get his horse out of Lairhope bog," said
Dave ; " he was in firm up to the withers and had
done strugghng ; so, as my saddle was a very old
one, I whipped it off, and we turned it up before
him and drew the horse's fore-feet out and put
them on the panels, and flicked him with our whips,
and at the first try he got out. But I bargained
that Jack was to ride home on my dirty saddle, and
I was to get his."

" And how did you get off Softhope ? " pursued
Sandy.

''We took down the water-gate, and Hfted the
hanging rail off," replied Davie ; '' but you came a
quicker road. Where did you get a gate in the march
fence ? "

" Oh, about half-way down the rig on the other
side of the hill," replied his brother, winking at me.

At the parting of the ways we were only one couple
of hounds short ; but of their followers only nine out
of about thirty starters survived, and of these six
were hill-bred men on hill-bred horses.

Fourteen miles from our sleeping place, and eight
from the point where we were to meet the fresh
horses and some four couple of fresh hounds, and it
was dusk, and every minute of daylight was precious.

" You'll save nearly a mile and a quarter if you cut
across behind Dryslade woods," shouted Sandy Oliver,
as he waved back '' Good-night."

How I repented of taking this road may be imagined
when, five minutes later, hounds, without any warn-
ing, dashed off into the sombre woods on a red-hot
scent, screaming as if to waken the dead. Blowing

136 HOUND AND HORN

till I was blue, my two companions cracking their
whips, rating till they were hoarse, and riding their
tired horses for all they were worth, produced seven
and a half couple of surprised hounds, while the rest
pursued with a vigour and a vehemence worthy of a
better time and occasion.

" It's no use, Ben ; Mr. Stewart and you will have
to go back and try to stop them and bring them on to
Dr3^slade farm."

Only those who have tried it can know what an
exasperatingly slow process it is to coax tired-out fox-
hounds with a leg-weary horse along a strange road,
especially when their heads are turned away from
home, and when you have no one putting them on
from behind. Stiff, chilled, and dispirited, I crept
along by slow yards, blowing a dejected note on the
horn at intervals, musing on the alternating joys
and misfortunes of the day, attempting to realise the
predicament in which I was placed, and picturing the
sort of appearance I would cut next day with only
half a pack of hounds.

A faint '* Hi, woa ! " came from the distance ; a
figure showed in the dusk running across the fields ;
then a friendly voice shouted : '' Stop, Maister. A've
been watchin' ye a' day," it panted, '' an' A've seen the
feck o' the hunt ; ye've hed a lang sair day, an' ye
maun bei gey hungery an' awfullies droi, and me an' the
wife's socht ye a basket." It was dear old Andrew
Waugh, and the basket was a generous supply of
scones, and oatcakes, and cheese, and currant loaf,
and butter, and a decanter of whisky, and glasses.

** Dod ! bit er ye a' yersel ? What hae ye dune
wi' the rest o' them ? " said the honest fellow, as he

A HILL DAY 137

poured out a generous supply from the decanter.
'^ Michty, what a gran' hunt. A aim gled ye catched
him," he went on ejaculating, as his questions were
answered by degrees.

Sitting on the bank by a roadside spring of water,
when one of the most delicious meals was in progress,
the rap rap of horses' feet was heard, and Stewart
and the boy jogged up with the missing hounds.
Sandy and the rest of the hill-boys had heard the cry
approaching them, and by a liberal use of whip-cord
and voice had stopped the hounds. So the feast was
prolonged, and with the dews falling and the stars
coming out we demolished ''the basket" and drained
the decanter to the toast of "Andrew Waugh and
fox-hunting."

CHAPTER XIV

BLANK DAYS, ODD DAYS, AND A RECORD DAY

" Who -w hoop ! they have hi?n, they're round him, how
They worry and tear when he s down !
^Twas a stout hill fox when they found him, now
' Tis a hundred tatters of brown ! "

— Whyte-Melville.

IT was an infinite satisfaction, and it had begun to
be my boast, that we seldom had a blank day.
Often did we draw a good big tract of country in
the spring months, when vixens were below ground
and dog foxes were lying out in the open, without
finding, and often when things were looking hopeless,
a fox would discover himself in the most unlikely and
unusual spot and provide a good hunt or a fast gallop
as the case might be. And even if we had only a
short scurry with an ^^ interesting " vixen, whom we
speedily put to ground and as speedily left, or if we
slowly followed the short turnings of an anxious
and crafty old dog fox, till, under cover of night and
failing scent, he beat us, there was always some
fun to enjoy and some amusing incident on which
to look back. Though it was in the first days that
the most droll occurrences happened and the most
novel situations arose.

One day, an alert-looking little man was seen
to dismount and hold open the gate from a turnip-
field to allow a somewhat strung out line of riders

138

A RECORD DAY 139

to filter through, with the intention of shutting it when
the last had passed. A voice from one of the field
well in the rearguard was heard to call out to him —
'* Go on, go on, don't wait for me."

** I think I'll wait and shut the gate."

'' Oh, nevah mind waiting for me."

Still the obdurate person stood at the gate.

'* We nevah shut gates when hounds are out,"
as he approached.

'^Well, sir," said the gatekeeper, "as the turnips
are mine, and these sheep coming to us are mine,

and I believe the gate is half mine and half

the Yerl o' Whum's, I think I'll wait back and shut
it after I get you through, so bustle up, please."

One morning, during a fast gallop over an estate
where the fences were well looked after, where
jumping places of stout larch rails were put up in
what wire there was, and where gaps were few and
instantly repaired when they existed, an amusing
dialogue took place. We crossed the march or
boundary fence, consisting of a fairly high bank with
a rail on the top, and as horses were rather blown,
most of us were glad to have it at a spot where
the fencers were at work renewing the rail, of which
they had taken down a rood or two. In the after-
noon the homeward way lay back over the same line
of country. The foreman fencer, the village joiner,
was just about to fix up the last bar, and one of
the field seeing this, rode up in advance.

" Hi, Sandy, let's through there before you nail it up."

No reply from Sandy except a roar to a young
apprentice to watch what he was doing, and a little
more vicious wielding of the hammer.

140 HOUND AND HORN

" Sandy, man, pull that down."

Then Sandy's opportunity came.

*' Pull this doon/' said he, without removing his
pipe ; ^' I'll dae naething o' the kind ; we've juist
bin sent oot here ti pit it up."

But I once drew blank for Tom Telfer, and of this
Joanna was frequently pleased to remind me.

It was in this wise. Tom was staying in the house
preparatory to making a very early start by train
to hunt next day. I got up in the darkness, and
had not proceeded far with my dressing, and was in
very scant attire, when I thought I would see if my
whip was stirring. So, groping along the passage, at
the farther end of which were two doors, I opened the
right-hand one, struck a match, and walked across to
the dressing-table to light the candles, saying, '^ Time
to get up, Tom." Then suddenly a feminine voice
from the pillows said quite calmly and with appalling
distinctness, ^^ HuUoa, Master, whatever do you want
in my room ? " Looking round, I beheld a frizzled-up
head, which I only half recognised, and in my agita-
tion shouted, ^' Where the devil is Tom Telfer ? "
To which the young lady chillingly replied, " Well,
you didn't expect to find him here, did you ? " I
could only gasp and stare helplessly in the direction
of the small crib in the corner of the room, and my
dilemma was the worse when the match burned my
fingers, and being hastily dropped, left me in black
darkness.

There was one part of the country which was
getting short of foxes, and which we had drawn blank
on two successive days' hunting, and here it was that
we had two odd and unexpected hunts on one day.

A RECORD DAY 141

It was with many misgivings that I proceeded
thither in response to the urgent request of the
shooting tenant for a third time round. As we passed
the door of the keeper's house, that worthy imparted
the startHng information that ''the Talladale dogues
had bin rinnin* yammerin' aboot sin grey dayhcht."
This was the description given of a small trencher-
fed pack that occasionally made incursions into our
territory on days when we were at the other side, so
mischievous persons said.

But there was nothing for it than to go on,
which we did at the very moment when a tired
and draggled-looking fox crossed the avenue in
front of us, of course taking hounds along with
him, and with a burst of music that fairly made
the tree-tops tremble. They chased him through
the rhododendron bushes and once round the garden,
and caught him behind the house by the river-side.
In the midst of the struggling mass were two
couple of strange hounds all peat-stained and travel-
soiled, and with long unrounded ears ; and after
the trophies were saved and the fox was eaten, a
heated youth on a panting pony arrived shouting
excitedly, '' Where's my fox ? " and was not over-
pleased when it was explained to him that his fox
had been accidentally killed and devoured.

Two futile hours were spent in drawing every
bit of holding on this and the adjoining estate all
blank, when Tom Telfer's hawk eye caught sight
of two horsemen on the sky-line apparently coming
in. Holding hounds together, and waiting and
watching, we were not long in making out the
white form of a light-coloured hound in the distance

142 HOUND AND HORN

coming towards us, and making fair progress on
the line alone. Our Talladale friends were at work
again, and we heard their shouts faintly in the
distance as they cheered on the rest of the baying
pack. To our undisguised delight we viewed the
fox, a rakish-looking hill customer, coming inwards,
and we saw him actually pass up wind of us and
about a quarter of a mile off. Hounds, if they did
not view him also, knew he was there, and were
soon screaming in the wake of the astonished
animal. He took them at a great pace about three
miles straight, and was killed on the steps of the
Parish Church Manse. So, for the second time on
one and the same day, we ran and killed a fox
found by another pack, and on this latter occasion
we saved the carcase for the neighbouring Master,
who, soon coming up with his lot, had the satis-
faction of seeing it eaten by the combined packs.

A RECORD RUN

Far from anticipating a blank day, we felt the
full assurance of coming sport, as we started one
morning early in the year with the low temperature
of 38°, a minimum of 28° during the night, and a
light east wind and a rising barometer. For we
had received gracious permission to hunt an envi-
able portion of the Duke's country, well stocked
with stout running foxes, and consisting of sound old
pastures strongly fenced, and good moorland of un-
limited extent, over which we had recollections of
many good gallops with his Grace's famous pack.

" I like the feel of things to-day," Billy had said,

A RECORD DAY 143

sniffing the air as we left the stableyard ; and, " I
like the look o' things," he added, as we came into
sight of about thirty as keen sportsmen as one
would wish to join, assembled at the place of meet —
a number augmented to about sixty as we moved
off to draw Tofts Dene. Hounds had dashed out
of kennel that morning and behaved as if they
already felt a scent, and now showed indications
of wishing to be put into a small strip of plantation
on the way to the Dene ; and barely waiting for
Tom Telfer to slip on to a cross ride or for the
wave of my arm, they hurled into it and instantly
threw their tongues. I saw Tom's cap go up, and
as I got nearer him, noticed the remains of the
strangled scream that was half choking him as he
galloped forward with set teeth, spurring all he knew
and cracking his whip, as he raced for a point
where he wished to head the fox off from going
back into our own country. This he succeeded
in accomplishing, so much to his own satisfaction
that his ^^ gone away " holloa was unnecessarily
loud and prolonged, and his excitement led him
to whip out his horn and blow till his breath was
spent.

Tom claimed an intimate acquaintance with every
fox in the country-side, and he was wont at times
to declare he knew them all by head mark.

'' That's the beggar the Duke's chivied on Thurs-
day when they had to be stopped in the darkness at
four o'clock, and he's stiff as a board, and stale as
cold porridge," he yelled, as I got alongside of him.
Then reading disapproval in my eye, he added,
" Nothing like giving him a ' gliff ' to go away with ;

144 HOUND AND HORN

makes him scoot along ; nothing like bursting him
up at the start."

But Tom was not invariably right in his recogni-
tion of foxes, for five minutes later we saw hounds
coursing a wretched creature along the river's bank
and pull him down in mid-stream as he was trying
to cross a shallow, making for a rough scaur in
which there were caves large enough to hold a
whole pack. When I waded in, half-way up to
the tops of my boots, I found a poor beast, un-
sound on both forelegs — one being snare-marked,
and the other carrying a wire that was cutting in
to the bone — yet fat as a seal withal, and quite
incapable of standing up before hounds, so Tom
had to confess himself mistaken.

Before this fox was well broken up we heard a
far-off holloa from the top of the Dene, and as we
moved off to it, information was conveyed by signal
and otherwise that a fox had gone away, and we
learned that he had a good six or seven minutes'
start.

Hounds, who were keen enough to begin with,
were now desperately eager ; but we held them
together till we got round above the Dene, where
they felt for and soon found the line, and went off
with a good cry and at a fair pace.

A bunch of so-called '^ knowing ones," mostly from
neighbouring hunts, had ridden cunning for a start,
and had the advantage of being above us and on
the right side of the stream, and seemed likely to
hustle hounds before they had properly established
a scent and settled down to run it. But the line
was over a nicely fenced country that required a

A RECORD DAY 145

little doing, and one hedge and rail with a ditch to
us took toll of two or three impetuous spirits and
steadied the rash ones, so that after fifteen glorious
minutes we were on good terms with the hounds,
and on the best with each other and our horses,
and I was able to see which hounds were cutting
out the work.

Tom Telfer and Billy Kerr and two hard-riding
farmers, brothers, on young horses, were prominent
in front, and close in our wake thundered and crashed
a score or more of the best and boldest of Border
sportsmen. The pace was kept for another twenty
minutes or so, over larger enclosures with fewer
fences and an occasional gate to open, which was
usually done by the brothers alternately ; though
Tom, and a hill-man on a grey pony, seemed to be
going out of their way to jump stone walls.

There was no perceptible change of scent, though
hounds were slightly more packed than at first,
and were pointing towards a hill rising straight in
front of us and standing outside the range of higher
hills behind it. As they got on to the base of it,
we could hear there were few, if any, silent throats
among them, and we realised that they had been
going faster than was apparent, and we felt we
might have to take from our horses all that they
had to give us.

I watched the pack swarming up the slope straight

for the summit, too steep for horses to climb. Which

way round ? Will the fox sink the wind, or will he

keep on up wind ? Having had a good start, and

having had time and opportunity to make his point,

and not being unduly pressed, he will likely do the

K

146 HOUND AND HORN

latter. This was the answer to the question mentally
put, and was acted upon. Six or eight of us turned
round the right shoulder, while nearly all the rest of
the field in sight swung to the left.

It was a period of great suspense that we went
through, losing sight of the pack altogether for five
or ten minutes at least, and it seemed twice as long
and I was beginning to sicken when I saw, barely
half a mile in front of us, some sheep on a hillside
run together, and shortly afterwards hounds moving
up wind right-handed and rather across us, not so
packed as before, yet not strung out, and all hunting
closely.

We were now completely in the hill countr}^ with
not a cover or earth for miles round, and as the
cool air rushed into my lungs I could not resist the
temptation to cheer on the hounds, an effort which
was emulated by half-a-dozen of the leading riders.

The next obstacle, on a rather steep slope, was a
wall which we jumped. Tom Telfer, first at it, had
pushed off the cope with his foot without getting
down. Then came another which was lower and on
sound ground, and which we had without waste of
time.

Here hounds checked for some minutes but cast
themselves well forward, and hit it off just as we
got up to them, and raced away, turning backwards
and running very fast through a nick between two
hills and out of sight again. Only those who have
hunted in a hill country can realise how suddenly
and completely hounds will disappear. Here were
we not three hundred yards behind them when they
went over the crest, and when we reached it, though

A RECORD DAY 147

we could see all round for two miles apparentl}^, not
a hound could we pick up ; they seemed to have
vanished out of sight and hearing into space. A
shepherd on a hilltop above us with his cap on his
stick gave us the direction, and we pushed on.
Some grouse, coming down wind with the speed
of an express train, confirmed the shepherd, and
soon we saw far below us once more the flying
pack, sweeping along like a flock of pigeons before
a tempest.

The line was now more or less parallel to the
outward one, and about three-quarters of a mile
from that, and it was not without very hard riding
that we got in touch with hounds, who had gone
very fast away from us over the hill. By the time
we got into enclosed country again our numbers
were reduced, and horses had had nearl3^ enough-
The two young farmers who had consistently led
most of the way were there, one with a lathered
horse and a mud-stained back, and Billy Kerr had
vanished altogether.

'Twas here that I saw the last of Tom Telfer
for a while. With legs and arms working, he
rode at an awkward double with a strong hedge
on the farther side. His horse jumped on to the
bank rather free, and got too close under the
second fence, and though he made a big effort to
clear it, he blundered through the top of it on to
his nose, and Tom temporarily disappeared from the
chase.

One of the brothers, in jumping a low drop wall
into a plough, found his horse get his fore-legs
so deep into the ground that he was unable to

148 HOUND AND HORN

get them out in time before his hind-quarters
followed, and he was pushed on to his head and
balanced there for a while before rolling over and
lying still as if dead. But man and horse were up
and going later on. The Irish mare had chanced
a piece of timber and rapped her shins badly, and
needed some persuasion to keep going.

We had some very pretty hunting here ; hounds
were desperately keen and unmistakably near their
fox, but scent was not so good, and one after
another would carry it for a short while, then fall
back and allow a slower hunter to take it on and
follow the short turns the fox was making. It was
an anxious time as they almost walked over a bare
fallow and on to the public road but not across it.
After a short cast round in front, one hound, old
Welfare, feathered and spoke on the road going along
for about a hundred yards, then through the hedge
and up a ditch on the inside for a short distance
till she too gave up. For five or ten minutes every
hound tried his best, all being very busy moving round
with nose on the ground and stern high, but to no
purpose. The field kept coming up, and several dis-
mounted, got down, and loosened the girths of their
steaming horses, believing all was over.

We were on some flat haugh lands, close to the
river bounding our country, which was in full
flood, and I was about to try down the river bank,
when I saw old Rambler deliberately walk into the
stream and push off to swim across the torrent.
He was carried down a long way, and had some
difficulty in getting out. Barely waiting to shake
himself dry, the true old fellow worked along for

He was pushed on to his head and balanced there.

i

i

1

A RECORD DAY 149

a few yards, then his stern began to go till it
fairly lashed his ribs, and he proclaimed his find
with an electrifying roar. Never was a note of
music sweeter or more welcome, never did a hunts-
man tingle more, never did hounds respond quicker
as they dashed into the boiling stream. Immediately
half-a-dozen eager souls had plunged in, with the
water curling up to the saddle flaps, and were
struggling across the swollen river. Fortunately
the foothold was good, and all got across but one,
who got mid-way over, when his faint-hearted horse
turned and took him back, while right and left the
remainder galloped for the bridges.

Hounds were taking the line steadily across the
furrows of a ploughed field, not making fast progress,
but all in it ; then wavering on the next field, an
old grass one, until half-way across, they ran on
at an improved pace. The next fence stopped two
of us, and the Irish mare blundered badly, and I
made the unpleasant discovery that she had had
enough. Tom Telfer appeared on a second horse,
which seemed as much distressed as his first one,
and pointed towards a gate at which stood a boy
waving hurriedly and holding a fresh horse. Who
should this turn out to be but Ben with my good
old friend '' Royal " — a friend indeed, cleverly arriving
at the most opportune moment. I blessed the boy
profusely, and scrambled up with a feeling of exulta-
tion as the gallant old horse stretched himself out
and flicked over a couple of fences as if they were
brush hurdles. Tom Telfer and another were scram-
bling through a rough hedge as the old fellow had it
faultlessly higher up.

I50 HOUND AND HORN

Getting alongside of hounds, I saw Rambler, Pirate,
Marmion, Woodman, and Regent running mute and
with their hackles up, and as they crashed through
the next hedge and turned sharp at right angles down
behind it, I viewed, to my intense delight, the fox
a short way in front, going very slowly with trailing
brush and humped-up back. Hounds, too, got a view
of him, and what a thrill they gave one as they opened
their throats and threw their tongues with all their
might, as they hurled themselves at him and pulled
him down in the open, as he wheeled round to face
them.

" Whoo-oo-oo-oop. Worry -worry- worry — whoo-
oop," from half-a-dozen excited throats. '' Well done,
hounds." *^ What a good do, Master, eh ? " from Tom
Telfer. ^' Leave it, hounds — dead, dead — leave it."

" Well done, lads." *' One, two, three, five, seven
a half, nine, ten a half, eleven, twelve a half, fifteen a
half; only one hound short; what a fizzer, what a
cracker!" ^' How the devils drove ahead when they
turned in ! " '' See me take that toss in B.'s farm ? "
'* Thought we were going to lose him at Eckford."
*' What a rare fine cast of Rambler's."

'^ Brush to Mrs. Edgerston, I s'pose ; only girl up.
Would like that fine sharp-pointed muzzle myself.
Just give me a moment to whang off" all the pads ;
there will be bids for every one of them, by gum.
Now then, tear him and eat him, boys. Whoo-oop
— whoop. Too-too-too-t-oo-too — whoo-oop. Here's
Billy Kerr coming up, and without his hat too, by
gum."

'' How far did you say ? "

*' Don't know ; but it's seven miles on the map,

A RECORD DAY i^t

I know, from where we turned in, and we had been
going for forty-five minutes before that."

'' Here comes the Provost. Must try him for a
drink. He generally carries a big glass bottle. My
throat's Hke a lime-kiln. Eh, Provost?"

'^ Let's have one more whoo-oo-oop ! "

CHAPTER XV

BILLY'S AMBITION

^^ Happy the man who with unrivalled speed
Can pass his felloivsP — Somervile.

DURING the usual walk out with hounds one
I afternoon, in the declining days of the season,
Billy remarked : " I suppose you have just
about got up to the top hole of your ambition. Master ? "

Joanna, appearing at the moment, asked, as she
kept Lavender and Beeswing back with a dainty
little riding-whip : '' Which ambition, and how do
you suppose ? "

'^ Well, only his ordinary week-day desire, I mean,
something quite likely to be gratified, not anything
outside the possible. I guess what it is, and that now,
at the end of a successful season, he has pretty well
touched it."

'' Perhaps," I put in ; ^^ and if you will tell me your
ambition, Bill, I may make a small confession."

^' Right ; you go ahead first."

** I'll tell you one of his pet desires," said Joanna,
continuing to ignore my presence. *' He wishes to
make a record in sport, but is not over-confident of
accomplishing it."

'' What sort of a record ? "

Her ladyship's permission to me to speak for myself

152

BILLY'S AMBITION 153

being conveyed in a glance, I blurted out, *' Well,
I'd rather like to catch a fox, shoot a grouse, and
land a salmon in one day on my own place."

" Ho ! ho ! not so terribly immodest, and tolerably
certain as regards the first two ; but the combination
is rather hyperambitious and touches on the extremely
doubtful," laughed Billy.

*' But he kas done the two once," said Joanna, with
an amount of pride she rarely displayed in her partner,
again going on as if he was not present ; " and he had
a try for the third, and came home very much elated
about it, though it was unsuccessful."

*' Well done, my own uncle," said Miss Flo, who
had been an interested listener ; ^' go on and win. I
know which is the hardest feat of the three, and I'll
tell you how I'll help you. On some selected October
morning when you are cubbing, I shall get old Geordie
Mathieson as gillie, and I shall thrash the water all
day till I hook a fish. If I can't hook him legiti-
mately, I shall rake and sniggle until I do get him,
and we'll have him ready for you to land after you
have killed your cub and shot your grouse."

*' Capital ! " exclaimed Billy, who had been gazing
at her with rapt admiration during all the time the
girl was speaking ; '^ that would almost make a cer-
tainty of it ; and I don't mind coming with you ;
but to ' mak siccar,' when we hook him we'll just
land him, and then put a line through his gills and
hitch him up to a tree till the great man comes to
land him, eh ? "

*^And this is the hero who only last night dis-
puted the sentiment that all was fair in love and
sport, and held that all sport should be played

154 HOUND AND HORN

square," said Joanna, raising her voice and throwing
it over Billy's head.

'' I think Vd as lief have old Geordie for a fisher-
man as any one else," Flo continued. '^ Now tell us
your little ambition, Mr. Kerr, though I have a fair
surmise of the direction in which it lies," she added,
little dreaming how near the mark she had hit.

*' Don't give me away, dear lady," Billy had
whispered, on seeing a mischievous sparkle in the
eyes of the Mistress of the Forest fox-hounds.

In a mood of confidence he had recently confided
to that trustworthy person that his ambition was
to win the girl he loved best, and added with a
heartrending sigh, '* and to prove worthy of her " ;
a declaration which caused his hearer to howl with
laughter.

'^ Seriously, I'd like to have a mount in the Grand
National ; best of all to ride the winner ; but of
course that is beyond my loftiest dreams ; so I'd
be content to get the course and nearly win on an
outside chance. I'd really like to be one of that
band of brave gallant men who set their face to
ride out over these big fences at that terrific pace,
and never grumble if they are knocked out, and the
greatest ambition of their life denied them."

To which speech we all replied with one voice and
equal fervour that we hoped he might have the chance
some day.

Joanna took an early opportunity in private to tell
me that Miss Flo, then several years younger and
a very engaging school-girl, had confessed to her
that she had no desire or intention to marry till
she had had a real good time; that her ambition

BILLY'S AMBITION 155

was to make heaps of friends — men friends — then
marry the man of her heart ; and that her boy
should grow into a M.F.H. — a consummation which
all who knew her saw no reason for not being
realised.

*^ Now, Mistress," said both the young people ;
but Joanna adhered to her already pronounced
declaration that " wild horses wouldn't drag from
her what was her ambition, or whether it had been
attained."

As we turned hounds over to Tom and the boy,
I asked my super whipper-in, ^' If, preparatory to
the ride in the Grand National which he coveted,
he would ride old * Royal ' in the * point to point,' "
adding, '^and if 3^ou win, you may ride him in the
^ open hunt ' 'chase the following week." His look
of gratitude, and the vigour with which he sucked
his pipe, were answer enough without words spoken.

'Twas well that the remaining hunting days could
be numbered by units, for two of my horses were
straightway taken possession of by my self-appointed
trainer, and with some occult design, a third, the
*^ Pearl," was appropriated by old Batters, from whom
nothing more could be extracted than that he was
going to '^ wund her up ti opera pitch." This was
a favourite expression of his. "I have an opera
gawin' on in here," he had once mysteriously said,
unlocking the door of a shed in the back-yard used
as a sick-box, and disclosing the resigned face of old
'' Safety," trussed up with a twitch and a tight-bearing
rein, her fore-legs immersed in a tub of cold water.

So I had to submit, and had only the old lady and
the " Omega " mare for the closing days.

156 HOUND AND HORN

On the former, on the last day but one, during
a long gallop which took us to the heart of the
hill-country, I was completely out-paced, coming up
at the end to find a stout hill fox had been pulled
down half a mile short of a strong open earth, amid
the unrestrained yells of Tom Telfer and a score of
ardent followers of the over-the-Border hounds.

And on the last day the Omega mare cut herself
in kicking back at a wall of sharp stones, this being
the only blood obtained, as Bill, with unnecessary
frequency and doubtful humour, kept reiterating to
me and to himself.

This last day was featureless, a fox not being
found till late on in the day, and scent being faint
and catchy, till by a turn of good fortune old Regent
worked out a stale line which led up to a kennel
in a small patch of whins, close behind a lambing
shed, and pushed up a fat old dog fox, which was
killed after a short scurry. With a fine grey mask
and handsome brush, we found he was almost
toothless.

This made up to the average number of foxes
killed in previous years, so the last day of all,
and the very last day of all which we had been
contemplating, were reluctantly abandoned, and the
entire energies of the staff were turned upon the
'' winding up " of the three 'chasers.

Of course the jockeys had to be wound up also ;
and much strange and spasmodic training was entered
upon, more heroic and jerky than judicious and
methodical.

The method of " Royal's " rider was, as he ex-
pressed it, to do a bit of fastin' and wastin', and

BILLY'S AMBITION 157

after he had starved himself to his satisfaction, he
found he could ride five pounds under weight ; so,
going to the other extreme, he rapidly made it up,
and three days before the races a mean between
the two systems was adopted. A private trial at
catch-weights was carried out with the secrecy of
a conspiracy, and it was hinted that some touting
had been perpetrated.

The momentous morning came, and men and
horses were on the field of action, the locality of
which had only been disclosed by advertisement
the previous day. The heavy-weight race and a
yeomanry race had been run, and sixteen of the
twenty-two entered for the twelve-stone race were
starters, and their jockeys were weighing out. To
the great disappointment of every one, Tom Telfer
was among those who had not put in an appear-
ance, and we heard he was suffering from a bad
chill likely to keep him in bed for some days. Billy,
I knew, secretly feared him, but on the other hand
had been counting on him as a pilot to show the
way by '' taking the nearest road," as he himself
put it.

Of course, *' Royal's " jockey came in for a fair
share of scrutiny, and he was surrounded by a
small ring of criticising spectators as he was hoisted
into the saddle by old Batters. He had a few words
with Miss Florence before leaving the paddock, when
he said : " I hope you won't behave like Mrs. Freddy
Browne. She tells me she has driven twenty-two
miles to see the race, and dare not cast an eye over
the country, for her man is riding, and she cannot
suffer to look on, but will sit with her back to the

158 HOUND AND HORN

fun all the time lest she should see ' dear Freddy
fall.' And what do you think she added ? " con-
tinued Billy. ^^ She said she couldn't bear the ex-
citement of seeing ^ Freddy ride a close finish.' I
bet he'll finish long before the turning flag."

It so turned out that the gallant Fred finished
in the second field, for, losing a stirrup at the first
fence, he pulled up and trotted on to the knoll
amongst the onlookers.

'^ No fear, I'll look out for the white blaze and
the bang tail popping over the last fence into the
winning field at the top of the crowd," said Flo
encouragingly.

/' There won't be much of a crowd by that time,
I suspect ; the open ditch at the bottom will take
toll of a few; but I'll do my best for the Hunt
and for the stable."

" I'm sure you will. The best of luck to you."

I had been more or less neglected by the Oracle,
who, having instructed me in a laconic fashion, '' I
wad advize ye ti mak the rinnin' an' never heed
whether ye feenish or no'," left me to scramble up
unaided, as if my winning, or even getting the course,
were matters of extreme improbability, and went over
to Maister Willyum. To him the Oracle's parting
injunction had been, ** Keep him gawin' on, an' for
ony favour dinna loss sicht o' the leeders, an'
aboot a mile frae hame set him awa for a' ye're
worth."

As we moved away to the starting field a covered
fly drove up at a fast trot, a limp figure tumbled
out of it and dived into the weighing tent, where
a steaming chestnut horse was standing, and two

BILLY'S AMBITION 159

minutes later a thoroughly transformed and mani-
festly workmanlike pair — thorough-bred horse and
finished horseman — cantered down to the assembled
group of aspirants to fame, where the roll-call
was in progress, and as the starter called it,
a husky voice answered to the name of Tom
Telfer.

Acting on Batters' advice to set the pace, I allowed
the " Pearl " to sail away, which she did pretty near
the head of affairs for two miles or so, and without
misadventure, to the turning flag. About this time
I saw a chestnut horse putting on the steam, and
with a mighty spring out and a twist of his quarters
fly a mean-looking hedge, and I realised that the
big ditch was behind it. The '* Pearl " went boldly at
it, but did not jump out quite enough, and landed in
it, but without coming down, though she remained
there for some time before scrambling out, dwelling
long enough for me to see three or four others have it.
Billy was one who got over without mishap, then
two got in and went down, before the ^* Pearl " started
again. There was now a mile and a half or so
of good grass country, with stiff but fair fences,
during which we heard crashing behind us and saw
two loose horses going off in different directions.
Two diverging Hues were now available, one slightly
longer, taken to avoid some heavy ploughed land,
between us and the end of the course. As the
*^ Pearl " drew up to her stable companion, the latter's
rider hissed, ^' By gad, old man, I believe we are
alone. Jack Elliot's and Bobby St. Clair's horses
are both off on a line of their own. Dick Waldie
is out of it."

i6o HOUND AND HORN

" Steady, Billy, I'm going to try and beat you/'
I shouted.

As we could hear the crowd cheering and see the
flag floating in the winning field, I asked the mare
to go, but she could not stay beside the old horse,
and after pecking at the last fence she dropped
behind, and I had the satisfaction of seeing Billy's
humped shoulders and squared elbows ten lengths
in front, as he sailed between the flags.

'^ Bravo, Master ! " shouted John Elliot's younger
brother. " Well done, the Forest Hunt ! "

'* One, two, three, hip, hooray ! " screamed Florence.

'' Why, who's three ? " I gasped, looking back at
the string of riders coming into view.

" You are."

^' How's that ? I know Billy has beat me ; but "

^' Yes ; but Tommy Telfer has been in for some
time, and is now at the weighing tent ! "

And sure enough when I got there I found him
surrounded by a cheering cluster of admirers. He
was holding in his hand two pounds of loose lead
which, as he had not had time to put into his saddle-
cloth, he had carried in his pocket throughout the
race. The Clerk of the Scales was saying, ''You
want half a pound yet ; but there is your breastplate
and your bridle allowance. All right."

When they came to examine the bridle of Tom's
reeking horse they found it all mud-plastered and
scraped, with the bridoon bit loose below the chin like
a curb chain and the browband over one ear, in fact
just dropping off. When told of this, Tom said, '* Of
course that was at the drop into the plough behind
Borthwick's farm ; the beggar stood tail end upper-

-%s-

^.P'*^"

She could not stay beside the old horse.

BILLY'S AMBITION i6i

most for half a minute and then ploughed along for
about a whole feering on his head, and dashed nearly
rubbed the bridle off — I hadn't time to put it on right
again."

Incredible it may seem that any one should take
a fall within a mile of home and be able to land
a winner by the length of a street — yet so it was ;
and feeling it was no disgrace to be beaten by such
a marvellous horseman, I said : *' Congratulations,
Tom ; but what a ghost you look. Come up to the
waggonette and we'll christen the cup."

'' All right, thanks ; but I must dodge the doctor,
and then leather away home and get into bed before
the wife misses me. I passed her on the stair on
my way out, and said I was going for an airing,
and might not be back for lunch. See you at Kelso
on Monday next."

" But, Tom," said Billy, " how did you come in
from Borthwick's ? You must have come fairly
straight. I didn't think you'd have had these two
hundred-acre ploughs ? "

" No more I did ; for I got a fine bit of going
along the headriggs, which you two blind buffers did
not see were not ploughed. When I last saw you.
Master, you were sampling the ditch. What ? Here
comes the doctor, by gum, I'm off. See you at the
'Chases next week, eh ? "

Billy won the open hunt 'chase the following week,
or, as old Batters mercilessly put it, " The auld horse
wan the race in spite o' Maister Willyum." As a
matter of fact, he was nearly caught napping in the
straight, after jumping the last fence with a lead
of eight or ten lengths ; and he was so fired by a

i62 HOUND AND HORN

desire for further fame that he accepted an invitation
to stay with friends in the end of the week for a
two-day west country meeting, where he had the
promise of one mount, with the prospect of more.

On the Saturday evening, on my return from town
by the last train, a hieroglyphic scribble from Joanna
was handed to me. It took some time to decipher,
and made the startling announcement that the writer
was 'Agoing right through at once to nurse" — a
decision which was painfully explained by the accom-
panying telegram, which read, ^' Mr. Kerr has had a
heavy fall ; rather seriously crushed ; everything is
being done."

A sleepless night of great anxiety followed, and
Sunday morning brought a telegram : '' Still uncon-
scious ; come." Now, Joanna was not an alarmist,
so it was with sore forebodings that I started for
the twelve-mile drive necessary to get the only
Sunday train at the main line station. Two hours of
a slow train, then a long wait, and a distressful cross-
country journey on a branch line, did not hearten one
up. Sick with suspense and misery, I got to the end
of the railway journey, obtaining some slight relief
by finding a dog-cart waiting. This had been sent
to meet a nurse who had come on by the same train.

From the driver, an eye-witness of, and only too
willing to recount the grisly details, I obtained these
particulars.

The course was rather hard, and the stewards
had put down tanned bark on both sides of some of
the fences, a proceeding of rather doubtful benefit,
as it caused some of the horses to overjump the

BILLY'S AMBITION 163

obstacle. Billy had ridden twice on the first day
and had got the course. On the second day he
had a mount in a three-mile selling steeplechase on
the second favourite, and had been forcing the run-
ning, his horse jumping rather wildly. In the
second round he was leading by six lengths, when
the favourite came up alongside and challenged him.
His horse rushed the open ditch fence and over-
jumped it. The narrator said, '^ I declare to guidness
the mere stuid back toonty feet an' flang hersel'
at the fence." She crashed into it, and turning
over, hurled Billy with great force beyond it and
fell on him, rolling over him.

The doctors were in attendance at once, and he was
carried to a comfortable farmhouse close to the course.

On my arrival things looked pretty black. Joanna,
with a scared face, was flitting about noiselessly,
carrying out the surgeon's instructions as promptly
as if she had anticipated them, and said authorita-
tively, ** Before the nurse comes in you may come
on your stocking-soles and look at him for a minute
if you like."

The sight of poor Bill, breathing heavily, and with
half-closed eyes that saw nothing, was most up-
setting, and his restlessness was distressing.

Before Joanna went to take her turn at the night's
watch, we passed a doleful hour together.

'' Oh, the pity of it ! the pity of it ! " she moaned ;
" this can never be his doom, to be maimed for the
rest of his life ! " Then with a groan and half to her-
self: "Poor, poor Flo; who is to tell her, and how?
You know she's off yachting with the Douglases, and
may see it in the newspapers."

i64 HOUND AND HORN

Sitting up till the small hours for a report of
any change in his condition, all the bright days that
Bill and I had had together ran in review through
my mind, and I saw him always good-natured, always
cheery, always unselfish ; proud of any small achieve-
ment of our little pack and jealous of its good name ;
with a keen appreciation of all the wholesome and
natural joys that rational sport brings, and a power
of enjoyment, and a love of life, and a hold on it
exhibited by few : while oftener than all the other
pictures that passed, was the one of that glorious
September morning when we killed our first fox, and
rode home through the shimmering hills, and when
the talk turned upon the risks of hunting and he
had said, " Anything but that ! "

The morning report was *' No change," and the con-
sulting surgeon had diagnosed concussion of the brain
and of the spinal cord, with a fractured pelvis, and he
nearly made us all break down by saying, " It won't
be immediate."

On Monday afternoon I went home. The telegram
of Wednesday morning said : '' Conscious now, but
not out of danger ; asking for you." I went through
late on Wednesday night and found him very low,
very restless with his arms, but not able to move his
legs, and I was not allowed to see him.

On Thursday, the local doctor, a hearty man and a
thorough sportsman, declared his opinion that ^' with
the help of your good lady's nursing and his own
constitution and pluck, there is a faint chance of my
pulling him through."

Next morning I was allowed to see him, but he only
pressed my hand slightly, and his smile ended in a

BILLY'S AMBITION 165

deep-drawn sigh, as he closed his eyes. Two days
later the evening report was '' A good two hours' sleep,
and wishes to see you." I sat up with him for a
quarter of an hour, speaking what words I could to
soothe him and cheer him, and on leaving said, " I'll
come early to-morrow and sit with you for a long
time." Glancing back before leaving the room, I saw
a question in his eye, so, going back and bending
over him, he whispered, '* Do you mind — telling — me —
what was — wrong — with that — brown filly — you — sold
to — my brother — last year ? — It won't matter — now."

• •••••

Nearly twelve months later, that is, in the first week
of the following April, Tom Telfer was holding up the
stiff" body of a brushless and headless hill fox prepara-
tory to tossing it to the clamouring hounds, when he
said, '* I wish Billy Kerr was here ; " and then, '' By
gum, here he comes, and his missus with him. Let's
wait till they come up."

A radiant girl rode up in close attendance upon a
man whose clothes hung loose on him, and they were
received with undisguised joy.

'' How are you, Billy, old man ? Mrs. Kerr, here's
to you ; real glad to see you," came from all in the
little group ; and from Tom Telfer, ^' Just nicked in
in time to see them tear him and eat him. Well
done, you ! "

After the hundred tatters of brown were disposed
of, Billy said : " Right glad I am to be here, I can
assure you all, and right glad to see the end of
this good hunt. I shall now be able to say I have
not missed the season. I did not see much of the
hunt. Master, but I heard some of it. My word.

i66 HOUND AND HORN

what a power of good it does one to hear the full
cry of a pack of fox-hounds running hard in chase
of a sinking fox that they have fairly and squarely
hunted and run down ; and I declare I easily recog-
nised old Regent's and Pirate's deep notes, with
Woodman and Pilgrim chiming in, when the leaders
had for a moment overrun it, and Vanity and Bees-
wing squeaking in the rear. 'Pon my word, it beats
cathedral bells."

'' Yes ; doesn't it ? " echoed Mrs. Bill.

" Did it beat the Wedding March as you led her
out of church the other day, Billy, eh, by gum?"
said Tom Telfer ; to which the two had no reply other
than to smile rapturously in each other's faces.

Then, as hounds moved off for the last draw of
the season, I said, ** Are you coming on, Billy ? "

" No, sir, certainly not," spoke out Mrs. Kerr, with
decision. " He has done quite enough for a first day
out. You are coming home with me, goodman."

*^A11 right, pet; but let's just go to the top of
Windburgh hill to watch them drawing the Hass.
I like looking on from a hilltop."

** Yes ; it seems nearer heaven always, does it
not ? "

" I'm quite near when I'm here beside yourself, old
girl ; but all the same, we'll go and watch them from
the hilltop."

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson &= Co.
Edinburgh £r= London

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