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THE ANALYSIS
OF

THE HUNTING FIELD

BEING A SERIES OF SKETCHES OF THE PRIN-
CIPAL CHARACTERS THAT COMPOSE
ONE. THE WHOLE FORMING .
A SLIGHT SOUVENIR OF
THE SEASON
1845-6

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS
BY H. ALKEN

A NEW EDITION

METHUEN & CO.

LONDON

1904

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NOTE

'-pHIS Issue is founded on the Original
Edition, published by Rudolph Acker-
mann in the year 1846

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PREFACE

'T^HE following papers appeared in " Bell's Life in
London," Sporting paper, during last season,
and, independently of their reference to foxhunting
generally, form a slight Souvenir of that extremely
favourable winter — the best hunting one in the
author's recollection ; as such, he respectfully dedi-
cates them to his brother sportsmen.

191, Regent Street, London,
October, 1846.

ivil51370

PREFACE

nPHE Author of the following work believes it will
be generally observed that the sporting mania
has greatly increased of late years, though the
followers of the chase have not increased in the same
proportion as the patrons of the "turf," the "leash,"
and other money-mixing amusements. This perhaps
may be attributed to an erroneous idea that hunting
cannot be enjoyed at other than serious cost, while
some few attempt to make "both ends meet" by
horse-dealing, steeple-chasing, and hurdle-racing.

To correct the idea relative to expense, to repress
the over-riding spirit engendered by steeple-chasing,
and to encourage a fair and generous spirit of sport-
ing enterprise and social intercourse, are the objects
mainly aimed at in the following examination of the
component parts of a hunting field.

The man with one horse will here be found as
welcome as the man with ten. The man with ten
will not be able to make a better fight than the man
with one ; while the mere tricky pretender is treated
as such gentry generally are. In short, the volume is
written with a view of upholding the great national

viii PREFACE

sport of hunting in its purest, most legitimate form,
and of decrying all attempts at money making, out of
what ought to be sheer pleasure.

The work opens with a meet of foxhounds, for
the purpose of introducing the characters as they
generally arrive; — master and servants first, black
coats next, reds after them, and so on; but in its
progress the season is supposed to advance until the
work ultimately forms a "souvenir" of that of 1845-6,
— one that all sportsmen will admit was eminently
deserving of the compliment.

It was, perhaps, the best hunting season of modern
times; and its lustre will be increased by the un-
favourable one that followed.

191, Regent Street, 1847.

CONTENTS

CHAP.

I. The Master — Month, October

II. Adjourned Debate — the Master at
Cottonwool's

III. The Master — Continued

IV. The Master — Concluded
V. The Huntsman

VI. The Huntsman — Continued .

VII. The Whipper-In
VIII. The Whipper-In — Concluded,

IX. The Earth-Stopper .
X. The Groom ....

XI. The Groom — Continued
XII. The Groom— Concluded

XIII. Peter Pigskin ....

XIV. The Farmer ....
XV. Elijah Bullwaist, the Blacksmith

XVI. The Squire ....

XVII. Lord Evergreen ; with some Thoughts
ON Tuft Hunting

14
21
27
39
53
66
81
99
115
129

143
154
168
185
203

221

X CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

XVIII. Captain Shabbyhounde, the Steeple-
Chaser ..... 239

XIX. Captain Shabbyuoxj ^de— Conc/uded . . 264

XX. Lady Foxhunters — Sir Rasper Smashgate

AND Miss Cottonwool . . . 287

XXI. Colonel Codshead ; or, the Close of

THE Season .... 307

LIST OF PLATES

Plate i. The Meet. (With bright

faces and merry hearts. ) . Illustrated Title-page

,, 2. Getting Away. (Let's take

the lead.) To face page 8i

,, 3. Full Cry, (Let's keep the

lead.) ..... ,, 154

„ 4. The Check. (What the

devil do you do here. ) . . , , 203

„ 5. The Leap. (That will shut
out many, and make the
thing select.) . . . . ,, 239

„ 6. Whoo-hoo-oop. (A chosen

few alone the death survey. ) . , , 287

THE ANALYSIS OF

THE HUNTING FIELD

CHAPTER I

THE MASTER — MONTH, OCTOBER

ITH a very slight touch of
summer/ here we are
again close upon hunt-
ing— nay, in some parts it
has commenced already.
In London the " sear and
yellow leaf" reminds us
of the old "red rag."
What can compensate for
the beauties of departing
summer, but the glories
of the chase ? Confound
it, we believe we'd almost compound for the absence
of summer altogether, if we could but enlarge the
operations of the pack. Well, however, " Here we are
again ! " as Mr. Merryman exclaims, as he bounds into
the circle. " Here we are again ! " Another month,
and the season will be in its pride. Let us indulge
the pleasures of anticipation by giving our mind's-eye
a canter round the hunting field.

^ The summer of 1845 was singularly wet and unseasonable ;
for further particulars, see Preface.
I

.'5r. THE HUNTING FIELD

First comes the Master — punctual as Masters
should be. His clever grey hack has scarce turned
a hair, though he has come no end of distance within
the hour, while the rider as he enters the field drops
the reins, and, raising his hat, wipes the slight per-
spiration from his brow with a stout bandana, showing
the thinning hair of his crown, and the slightly shot
grey of forty, or five-and-forty years. But look what
health is on his brow. Fine clear complexion, light
bright; eye, full lip, white teeth, steady unshaken hand
of early hours, strong exercise, and sobriety. We have
seen many older men at thirty.

Our Master looks the sportsman all over : neat, we
may almost say smart ; but not the smartness that is
afraid of dirt. No dandified satin or French polish
flimsy finery is here ; all is stout, warm, and weather-
defying. The good heavy hat (caps for gentlemen
we abhor) would resist a deluge, or one of 1845
summer's rains, the round-cut single-breasted red
coat, confined by one button, across the step-collared
toilanette striped waistcoat, is made of strong double-
milled cloth ; the roomy breeches are of broadish
striped cord, not exactly white, but what will scour
to white ; and the well put on boots are made of that
comfortable-looking leather that tells to the eye how
soft they sit to the wearer's foot. But mark; they
are not jacks — hang your jacks, say we ! ditto your
Napoleons ; ditto your cab-head leather fisherman's,
with mouths gaping like young rooks, and which
seem capable of carrying half the wearer's wardrobe,
along with his legs. Give us the good old top — the
top that neither degenerates into affectation by its
shallowness nor its depth; the top that looks as if
it cares not for bullfinch or briar, and whose soles
are of sufficient Strength to command the respect of
the kickable portion of the community. For any
one, save perhaps our late respected friend the living
skeleton, there is no costume equal to boots and

THE MASTER— MONTH, OCTOBER 3

breeches — boots and breeches well made, and well
put on, indispensable accompaniments for the well-
looking of both. We could write a chapter on boots,
but as we purpose passing the field in review, we will
glance at their various characters as the wearers come
before us. Spurs, too, are an eloquent subject for
dissertation. If any one would collect the hats,
gloves, whips, boots, and spurs of a field, placing

each set by themselves, we would undertake to
appropriate them to the station in life of the re-
spective parties. These, too, however, for the
present, we shall "pass," as the auctioneers say,
simply observing that our Master's gloves are doe-
skin, his whip a lapped whalebone one, with a hammer
head, his persuaders of the Jersey pattern, with silver
studs and buckles. The well polished strap-ends
come well over the buckles, and the boots altogether

V

4 THE HUNTING FIELD

wear a sort of air that says no common mud shall
stick to us.

A Master of Hounds is one of the most difficult
characters in life to fill; hence it is not surprising
that there are but two sorts — the best fellows under
the sun — and the nastiest brutes going. Fortunately
for society, the " nastiest brutes " going, are so select
and so self-convicting a set as not to require much
description from us ; they are generally waffling,
fretting, fussing, fuming, vapouring bodies, who soon
make way for one of the " best fellows under the sun."
Now the best fellows under the sun, like the "best
horse going," are a numerous breed, but, as applied
to masters of hounds, they must, to a certain extent,
have the same qualities, though they may have very
different ways of showing them. First and foremost
they must be keen. About this there must be "no
mistake," as the Duke of Wellington would say. It
would be not a bit more absurd for a man to punish
himself by keeping a yacht, who hates sailing and the
sight of the sea, than it is for a man to keep a pack
of foxhounds who has no ardent predilection for the
chase. A qualified liking will not do for a "best
fellow under the sun." He must be heart and soul
in the sport — a real out-and-outer. Keenness covers
a multitude of sins.

In addition to the sine qua non of keenness, he
should possess a host of other qualities. He should
have the boldness of a lion, the cunning of a fox,
the shrewdness of an exciseman, the calculation of a
general, the decision of a judge, the purse of Squire
Plutus, the regularity of a railway, the punctuality of
a time-piece, the liberality of a sailor, the patience of
Job, the tact of an M.P., the wiliness of a diplomatist,
the politeness of a lord, the strength of an Hercules,
the thirst of a Bacchus, the appetite of a Dando, the
digestion of an ostrich, the coolness of a crocodile,
the fire-enduring powers of a salamander or of Mons.

THE MASTER— MONTH, OCTOBER 5

Chabot, the Fire King, with a slight touch of the
eloquence of Cicero, and temper as even as the lines
in a copy-book. Lor bless us, what a combination
of qualities ! John Austin, the peripatetic showman's
happy united family in the body of a foxhunter !

Money ! money ! money ! like Mr. Wilberforce's
reiterated cry of Sugar ! sugar ! sugar ! is, however,
perhaps, the most important thing after keenness and
temper. City people, perhaps, would put money first,
but that shows they know nothing about foxhunting.
A real keen-un will generally get a country, even
though he has a soldier's thigh, before John Plutus,
who has only his money pots to recommend him.
Money, however, there must be, either from the
Master or the field; happy, therefore, is the country
possessing a Master in the enjoyment of the qualifica-
tions we have dotted down, and who is willing and
able to pay his " own shot " ; dearly should they prize
him, for were they to lose him we really don't know
where to recommend them another.

Having sent for our maid of all work to try the
foregoing upon her, we observed that she neither
smiled nor even relaxed a muscle of her rather pretty
countenance, till we repeated the word " sugar," and,
when we had concluded, she observed, with her usual
candid diffidence, that she did not understand what
all these qualities had to do with the " red coats," as
she calls them, conceiving, we rather suspect, that
foxhunters are a sort of off-shoots of soldiers.

As we may have other readers in a similar predica-
ment to Susannah, we will be our own "Boswell,"
and treat them to a running commentary on the
obscure portions of our text. This we may do in a
rambling sort of way, without reference to the order
in which they now stand.

A Member of Parliament is generally supposed to
have a ticklish up-hill sort of game to play, but it is
nothing compared to that of a Master of Foxhounds.

6 THE HUNTING FIELD

The Member has merely to bamboozle people once
in six or seven years out of something that really is
hardly worth giving or receiving, and to change his
coat at short notice, but the Master of the Hounds
/ has to keep his soft solder pot boiling all the year
round, healing real or imaginary wounds, trying to
make farmers believe something very much like " black
being white," coaxing them into a credence that it
benefits wheat and sown grass to ride over them, that
foxes never touch lambs, and abhor poultry, that it
benefits hedges for horses to dance hornpipes upon
them, with many other similar and singularly curious
articles of belief.

So much for the M.P. quality.

Time ! which assuredly has begun to go quicker
since railways were introduced, has even carried the
gastronomic feats of " Dando," into the oblivion of all
forgetfulness ; yet let it not be said — Dando, though
dead, yet lives in the recollection of oyster-shop
keepers and licensed wittier s — Dando, ^ who could eat
a peck of oysters, and pick his teeth with a shoulder
of mutton bone for luncheon — Dando, the nimble,
plausible, dexterous Dando, who, with all the luggage
aboard, could outstrip the most heron-gutted chop-
house waiter, or the swiftest and best winded of the
great " unboiled " — Dando can never die ! Die he
may, in the common every day dolly-mop world, but
die he never can in the recollection of those whom
he honoured with his large, though somewhat ex-
pensive patronage.

And how do we connect the feats of Dando with

I Dando, we may state for the benefit of the juvenile, was a
wandering sort of cormorant, much addicted to oysters, but
whose means being in no way proportionate to his appetite,
he used to be under the necessity of "bolting" after having
*' bolted" as many oysters as he could hold. He used to afford
**fine runs" to the police, and we believe it was in contempla-
tion at one time to engage him for the purpose of being hunted
, by the Queen's stag hounds.

THE MASTER— MONTH, OCTOBER 7

the necessary qualifications for a Master of Fox-
hounds? Why, thus — Dando was a great "feeder,"
and so should a Master. Next to drawing a gentle-
man's covers in a morning, drawing the ladies' covers
in an evening is of the last importance.

And here let us request our friend the printer to
have the kindness to print the word " cover " as we
have written it. We are aware that modern fashion
has tacked a " t " to the end, but Peter Beckford, who
is quite authority enough for us, wrote it as we have
done. Moreover, in this instance, adding a "t"
would spoil the point of the sentence.

Hark, back to dinner, and Dando !

Hunting and hospitality are almost synonymous,
and the man who hunts a country must calculate on
a good deal of knife-and-fork work. Dining out much
is hard work — dreadful where a man is " cock " guest
every time. Still a Master must undergo it, or the
ladies won't reckon him " a nice man." If the dress
uniform of the hunt is scarlet, or yellow, or orange
Vermillion, sky-blue, pea-green, or any other outlandish
colour, " the Master " must wear it, or Mrs. Cottonwool
will think herself slighted. Then, with an ostrich-
feathered red and gold-spangled turban nodding over
a well-oiled front, with cork-screw ringlets at the sides,
Mrs. Cottonwool after having waited past all patience
for the much-wished-for, but non-arriving guest, is at
length led from the furniture-uncovered drawing-room
by our " model of a sportsman," in all the lady-like
trepidation of unaccustomed party-making. All the
Bore'ems and Snore'ems, Tom Browns, and Jack
Smiths of the hunt, figged out like their chief, follow
in long-drawn file, whipped in to, by Cottonwool,
similarly attired.

The Miss Cottonwools will be scattered down the
table just as market gardeners scatter their flowers —
first a rose, then a lily, then another rose, then
another lily — first a foxhunter, then a lump of Cotton-

8 THE HUNTING FIELD

wool, then another foxhunter, then another lump of
Cottonwool, apparently "quite promiscuous," as the
servants say, but in reality with a good deal of hen
Cottonwool " management." Our Cottonwools, how-
ever, are not lumpy ; on the contrary, fine, full-grown,
full-limbed, ripe, luscious-looking, fair-haired girls,
radiant with all the accomplishments of ogling, worsted-
working, dancing, and flirting. But we are leaving
our Master, soup-ladle in hand, pinned on the right
of ringlets, who sits telegraphing her daughters into
their places, the order of march having been some-
what disconcerted by the stupidity of Sam Bore'em
not knowing that Robertina has been setting her cap
at him for many months, and who has consequently
endangered Juliana's being stuck between papa and
old Mr. Pigskin, the family stop-gap, by taking out
Henrietta instead of his intended, or rather, the lady
who intends him. At length they all get settled into
their places, with no other derangement than two of
the guests getting rush-bottomed chairs which were
meant for the daughters, and a room which would
accommodate eight comfortably, or ten on a pinch,
is now made to hold eighteen. Of course the curtains
are all drawn, the shutters are shut, and there is a
rousing fire. Oh, Hookey Walker ! Hookey Walker !
to what little purpose you wrote the " Original."

From eighteen take "one," says the Master in his
own mind, and seventeen remain. Seventeen glasses
of wine at dinner ! Awful ! Awful at any time, but
doubly so when supplied by a bumper-filling clown,
who will shut out the skylight, or give the objector
the balance over his hand or up his sleeve. Pigskin
is the only man our Master dare compound with by
clubbing with another ; but then comes the question
who is to be the other? and also the consideration
whether it is not better to go the "entire animal,"
and drink with the whole — Robertina, Juliana,
Henrietta, and all.

THE MASTER— MONTH, OCTOBER 9

Drinking, however, is only half his work. That is
a duty he owes his host. He must eat out of compli-
ment to the lady. Some ladies, too, are so uncon-
scionable. The more a man eats the more they
require him to eat. " Oh, you must let me send you
some of this. Oh, you must take a little of that. Oh,
yow must try some of t'other. You really eat nothing.
Dinner eater ! I never saw such a dinner eater !
Dinner's wasted on you, however."

Kind hostess, let us say a word on behalf of our
poor Master. Give what you give freely and heartily,
but give your guests credit for knowing their stomachs
better than you do.

What with good dinners, middling dinners, and
bad dinners — what with good wine, middling wine,
and bad wine — what with the room always at fever
heat, have we not made out our case that a Master
requires the propensities of Bacchus, with the appetite
of a Dando, the digestion of an ostrich, and the fire-
defying properties of a salamander, or of Monsieur
Chabot, the Fire King? We think we have, even
to the satisfaction of Susannah aforesaid.

Dining out is almost indispensable for a Master of
Foxhounds, for the English never fancy a friendship
fairly cemented until it has been riveted on the altar
of the mahogany. It is convenient too, in some
cases, such as hunting a distant part of the country ;
besides, it makes an agreeable change, especially
when the party is not composed entirely of the same
people as have been " hob-a-nobbing " it at " the club "
for weeks together. This is one of the mistakes non-
hunting people make. They fancy that none but
foxhunters will do to meet foxhunters. Our friend
Cottonwool's three fair, blooming, buxom daughters
make an agreeable variety ; but if " Wool " had not
had them, he would have filled their places with
three other "red or orange - vermillion coats," if,
indeed, he had the "Master" at all, which is more

lo THE HUNTING FIELD

than problematical, seeing he never had his predecessor,
and always abused the hounds and all belonging to
them, until his daughters were invited to the hunt
ball, and he saw Henrietta in the grasp of Sir Rasper
Smashgate, a hard-riding baronet, going the rounds
of a waltz with all the liveliness of a waggon-wheel.
" Wool " then began to mumble to himself something
about "more unlikely things," "fine estate," and Mrs.
Wool and he jumped to a conclusion that Wool ought
to be a " sleeping partner " in the hunt, and have the
Master to Fleecy Hall. The thing suited Wool's
purpose, and it suits our Master's ; at least it would
have done if they had not nearly roasted him alive.
And here let us have a word "a la Walker" to
Wool and all the sleeping partner tribe. Nay, some
managing partners even may be benefited by our
truisms, if they would but remember them. Have a
good fire in each guest's bedroom when they arrive.
People out of gigs, off coaches, out of railway trains
are apt to be chilly and cold. There let them warm
themselves — but remember, oh remember, that a lot
of people put into one room, with lamps, candles,
wittles, and waiters, will very soon cook up a devil of
an atmosphere. Shutting the shutters, drawing the
blinds, closing the curtains, is all very right and
meritorious when you are alone; but with such a
kettle of fish as we have got at " Wool's " you should
take every precaution to have the room cool at
starting, and to try to keep it so. A little wood fire
looks lively, and soon dies out; but if it has the
impudence to live, a pan of wet sand soon knocks
the vital spark out of it.

But we have it not in our hearts to keep our poor
Master in this atmosphere any longer. Let us suppose
the agony of dinner past. Let us suppose that all
has gone on smoothly and well — no soup dribbled
down any one's back, no poisonous lamp expired, no
tipsy cake alighted on any one's head, no squashed

THE MASTER— MONTH, OCTOBER ii

blanc-mange, no pyramid of jelly toppling to its fall
— nothing gone wrong, except the white jug of hot
water at the side -board end upset on the third
plunging of the forks and spoons, making a map of
Italy on the un-Turkey-carpeted part of the floor.
The Miss Wools have each plied a merry tongue,
though, between ourselves, it is not exactly the way
to a foxhunter's heart to interrupt him during his
dinner; but of that more anon. Mrs. Wool has
given the silent, significant hint — a hint more
potent than the strongest lunged sergeant ever
bellowed on parade — gloves, flowers, bags, handker-
chiefs, fans, have been gathered together, or brought
up from their respective collieries below, and our
Master gladly rushes to open the door to let the
well-bustled party pass.

Each man stands, and puffs and blows like a
stranded grampus.

It is now Wool's turn to take our Master through
his hands. One would think that Wool was Monsieur
Chabot in disguise, for the first thing he says as he
clutches his glass and decanter, preparatory to moving
his quarters to the top of the table is, " Would you
like a few more coals, Mr. Rattlecover ? " We need
not add that Mr. Rattlecover declines, observing that,
with Mr. Cottonwool's permission, he will change his
seat away from the fire, when, like many wise men
who know everything after they are told, old Wool
observes that he does think the room rather warm.
This brilliant discovery being universally confirmed,
they forthwith proceed to the other extreme, and
opening all the doors and windows, just give old
^olus the full swing of the apartment.

Something like a liveable atmosphere is at length
procured, and the business of the evening is begun

12 THE HUNTING FIELD

by the "sleeping partner" asking some absurd
questions about hunting.

Cottonwool does this from the same mistaken
notion that would have induced him to ask none
but foxhunters to meet a Master of Foxhounds, viz.
an idea that foxhunters can only talk about foxhunting.
Mistaken man ! Nine-tenths of them would rather
talk about anything else. Annoying, however, as it
is to hear a man talking nonsense for our accommoda-
tion, calling a pack of hounds a set of dogs, a hound's
stern a bushy tail, giving tongue, barking, and so on,
a Master must not break out and bid him "hold his
tongue for a d — d fool," as a sailor would. No, he
must humour him — " sugar his milk," as a huntsman
would say; for the best hounds in the world, with
the " best fellow under the sun " at the head of them,
are useless without foxes, and fox or no fox is the
caprice of such creatures as Cottonwool. Some
Cottonwools are apt to " keep the word of promise to
the ear and break it to the hope," giving their keepers
orders perhaps not to shoot foxes, but at the same
time not to let a vixen lie up on the estate. There
are many ways of preserving foxes — at all events of
salving a not troublesomely fastidious conscience.
If our " best fellow under the sun " suspects anything
like foul play, he will lead old Wool unto the ice,
get him to talk big about hunting, the pleasures of
the morning, the delights of a find, the certainty
of sport, the abundance of foxes — our Master slyly
exclaiming to old Pigskin or any one furthest off, so
that every one must hear, "Ah, Mr. Pigskin, I wish
all people were like our worthy host Mr. Cottonwool !
There would be no lack of foxes — no fear of sport
then." He may then observe, almost to "Wool"
himself, " I'm sure all here will bear me out in saying
that I always hold our excellent friend Mr. Cottonwool
up as a perfect specimen of what an English gentleman
ought to be." Now, that is good, wholesome, un-

THE MASTER— MONTH, OCTOBER 13

adulterated flattery — all Wool's own too, and the
odds are that thinking he has not committed himself,
he will retract the qualifying order about the vixens,
and show himself at the next cattle-show as a perfect
specimen of what an English gentleman ought to be.
More people are flattered into virtue than bullied out
of vice.

Toast drinking is almost exploded, but if ever it is
tolerated it will surely be allowed to wash down such
a pat of butter as Cottonwool has received. The
way to accomplish this, of course is, for Wool to
propose the Master's health — long life to him — with
such other novelties as a podgey old gentleman,
unaccustomed to public speaking, can accomplish;
and the Master (who we premised must have a touch
of Cicero), may just turn the remains of the dripping-
pan of flattery over Wool's head and shoulders any
way he likes. A glutton in flattery looks more to
quantity than quality.

With that performance we will let the chapter's
curtain drop.

CHAPTER II

adjourned debate — the master at
cottonwool's

^f >|^/;;' OR brevity's sake, we will
"""'" condense the proceed-

ings of the evening into
the potted-game sort of
style some ingenious
gentlemen about the
House of Commons
adopt towards the windy
proceedings therein, for
the accommodation of
political club lobbies.

We don't print ours
in columns, because it

is not convenient. We hope the omission will not be

considered a breach of privilege.

Eight o'clock. — Cottonwool returns thanks for
the honour they have done him in drinking his
health, etc. ; drinks all theirs ; port and claret
ordered. — Observations, Party quite sober. Pigskin
asleep.

Half-past Eight. — Host gives "Success to fox-
hunting." Bumper toast. Pigskin accused of taking
a back hand; Pig replies; division; 13 to i. Pigskin
voting; ordered, "song or salt and water;" song pre-

14

THE MASTER AT COTTONWOOL'S 15

ferred ; " We wonH go home till morning ; " more port
— two bottles this time. — Observations, Party merry ;
Pigskin half-cocked; Sam Bore'em nodding; host
speaking thick.

Nine o'clock. — " Chair ! chair ! " Host proposes
" Master's health " again, assuring him that Fleecy Hall
covers shall never be drawn blank ; amendment by
Pigskin, " That the toast be drunk with three times
three ; " carried nein, con. ; drunk ; moved by Tom
Lax, and "one cheer more" given; port and claret
— 2 and I. — Observations, Party noisy; room hot;
gentlemen's waistcoats loose.

Quarter-past Nine. — Master returns thanks
again ; proposes a bumper toast ; no heel-taps ;
" The Ladies ! " three times three, and one, etc. —
Observations, Very merry; Pigskin three parts
drunk; Master half-cocked; Sam Bore'em asleep.

Let us now suppose it half-past nine, and that
Mrs. Cottonwool and daughters, having got them-
selves cooled, have lit their " Brecknell and Turners',"
shaken out their feathers, and taken positions best
calculated for capturing their respective prey as they
enter the drawing-room. And here we may pay the
" deferred " annuity of information we promised our
fair friends, as they left the dining-room. It is this : —
A man is much easier come over when half-mellow,
than when half-fed. We observed, with sorrow, not
altogether unmingled with anger, that you pestered
your next door neighbours with your pleasantries
when they had their mouths full. Nay, we caught
Robertina interrupting hers in the middle of a glass
of champagne! All this is very wrong. Our
Master will tell you that he never speaks to his
hounds so long as they will hunt. So you, on your
parts, should never speak to a foxhunter so long as
he will feed. It is all very well for you ladies who
dine at luncheon time to trifle with the golden

i6 THE HUNTING FIELD

moments of dinner, but it is serious work with a
half-famished sportsman, especially with the pace
nervous servants of all work go on these occasions.
Besiege your men at tea. That is your time. You
may offer them a cup of coffee, but you can't ask
them to take wine. Of course you have a piano in
the room. Music is a great assistance in love-making.
Its noise keeps whispers where they should be, and
though you are all very jealous of the time lost in
playing, yet if you have a fine arm and tolerable
execution, we don't know but you may be doing
more business with your fingers than you would with
your tongue and eyes. At all events, sisters can
arrange to relieve each other, on the " now thou, now
me, now both together," principle. " Music," some
amiable gentleman writes, " has charms to soothe the
savage breast." God forbid that it should not have
the same influence upon sportsmen ! And here we
may observe that, though foxhunters may not be men
of many words, what they do say is generally to the
purpose. "Isn't this," as Beckford would say, "far
better than the eternal babbling of unsteady puppies ?
Puppies who merely babble to lead the ladies astray,
to

* Love again, and be again undone.'"

There's Henrietta's friend Smashgate, for instance
— ^we beg pardon. Sir Rasper Smashgate — we will
stake our literary reputation that a squeeze, a good
squeeze from the Smashgate hand at bed-time,
would mean more than an hour and a half s blather
from young Fribbleton Brown, about roses and lilies,
and love in a cottage, hearts, darts, Cupids, and the
whole mint of matrimonial small coin.

We would almost excuse Henrietta if she presented
herself to mamma as " Lady Smashgate," on reaching
the landing. "What, has he offered to you?" old
Turban would exclaim. " No, mar, but he squeezed

THE MASTER AT COTTONWOOL'S 17

my hand as he gave me the candle." "Silly girl,"
Mrs. Cottonwool would reply, in a pet — not knowing
the nature of the animal — "many squeezes go to an
offer." Were we a girl, however, matrimonially in-
clined— which they all are, unless bespoke — we would
rather have a squeeze of the hand from Smashgate
than a black and white offer from Fribbleton Brown.
Spite of what old mother Cottonwool says, we will
lay "copious odds" — as old Crockey used to say,
that she would give old Caudle Cottonwool a hint
that things were "going on right," and take all the
credit to herself too. Cruel Smashgate, however, has
not come.

While nibbing our pen, we have been casting about
to see if we could recollect any instance, among our
numerous acquaintance, of a bad foxhunter husband,
and we are happy to say we have drawn the cover
blank. We have, to be sure, fallen in with fellows
in red coats, who have been anything but what they
ought, but we can conscientiously say that we have
never known any man worthy the name of a sports-
man, who was not a good fellow. Indeed, were we
a young lady, we would pick a foxhunter for prefer-
ence. Their coats may not be quite so glittering
as the laced jacket of a soldier, nor may they be
quite such good hands at dancing the polka, but,
for the real steady comfort and enjoyment of life
they beat them by chalks. Besides, war's alarms
are trying, soldiers are very apt to shut up shop
when they get married ; and, if they don't, why
even a child tires of looking at the same dressed
doll.

A pleasant poet, whose name we forget — indeed
we are not quite sure that we ever had the pleasure
of his personal acquaintance — wrote something about
something, and

" Unclouded ray,

Making to-morrow pleasant as to-day."
2

»

i8 THE HUNTING FIELD

The compliment, we believe, was turned for the
ladies, but we are going to " diwide it," as the dentist
said, when he threw the bucket of dirty water over
the blind fiddlers.

We should say, that a foxhunter and his wife can
not only make to-morrow cheerful as to-day, but they
can make winter as pleasant as summer — that is to
say, if they go the right way to work.

Even in sweethearting a foxhunter is worth a dozen
such fellows as Fribbleton Brown — fellows who hang
about a drawing-room all the morning, fumbling in
women's workbags, stealing their thimbles, and stop-
ping their worsted work. Women like to have men
"in tow," no doubt, but they don't like to have
fellows lying "at them" all day, like terriers at fox-
earths. The foxhunter goes out to "fresh fields and
pastures new," hears all the news, the fun, the non-
sense, the gossip of the world. His mind's enlarged,
his spirits raised, his body refreshed, and he comes
back full of Hfe and animation. If he has had a
good run, and been carried to his liking, his harvest-
moon heart loves all the world. He'll do anything
short of accepting a bill of exchange. Our esteemed
friend, the author of the "Pleasures of Hope," albeit
no sportsman, or at least not a master of hounds,
shadowed out the feelings of a sportsman, and of a
sportsman's lady-love, when he sung

" Who that would ask a heart to dulness wed,
The waveless calm, the slumber of the dead?
No ; the wild bliss of nature needs alloy !
And falls and tumbles fan the fire of joy ! "

We are not quite sure that "falls and tumbles" are
the words he used; perhaps not. They savour of
tautology, but again that looks more like a non-sports-
man, as Campbell was. Be that as it may, they suit
our purpose. There is no doubt, however, that the
roughings, and scramblings, and wettings and rollings,

THE MASTER AT COTTONWOOL'S 19

and muddings of the morning, all tend to make a
man enjoy the comforts of home and the pleasure of
female society in the evening : —

"Domus et placens uxor."
** Thy home, and in the cup of life,
That honey-drop, thy pleasing wife,"

as those few Latin words have been skilfully rendered
by some talented linguist, with the skill of our friend,
Bob Chalkup, the milkman, who can make a quart
of milk out of a pint, but to make the foregoing
fine jingle of words run right for the foxhunter, the
^^ placens uxor^^ should always have breakfast ready
in good time, and plenty of lambs' wool and fleecy
hosiery before the fire, against her swain comes home.
Confound it, there are very few of those sort of
^^ uxors'''' now-a-days. Old Mrs. Pigskin is the only
one we know of, but she belongs to a generation far
removed in the distance. She can't work pheasants
in floss silk ! Some old sour grapers object to fox-
hunters, because they sometimes take a nap after
dinner. Suppose they do, what then? They most
likely have said their say, and surely it's far better for
a man to go to sleep than to talk nonsense, or say
the same thing over and over again. Take our
advice, fair ladies. If it should ever be your luck to
have to choose between a foxhunter and a fiddler —
which latter comprises all people who are not fox-
hunters — choose the foxhunter. Not one of your
pretty fellows, who come home clean and unspecked
by luncheon time, but a regular sport-loving cock,
who would rather lose his dinner than the end of a
run. Don't mind what spiteful old maids say about
their habits and propensities. If you wait till you
get a man whom all the world will praise, you'll
remain single to the end of the chapter.

The young lady of forty's reply, that a bad husband
was a deal better than none, was a very sensible

20 THE HUNTING FIELD

observation, though totally inapplicable to fox-
hunters.

But we are writing a chapter for chaperones rather
than an essay on a " Master of Hounds." Farewell
fair Miss Cottonwools ; ere spring returns, may we
read your names in the list of — you know what.

Good morning, Mrs. Cottonwool, and thanks for
your hospitality. Good morning, Mr. Cottonwool,
and thanks to you also.

Perhaps, however, having got so wide of the mark,
we had better let the curtain down again, and resume
" The Master " with a fresh chapter.

CHAPTER III

THE MASTER — Continued

^=* HE great Masters of an-
tiquity, if we may so call
them — Meynell, Beck-
ford, Corbet, Lee An-
thone, John Warde,
Ralph Lambton, and
so on — have been de-
scribed as paragons of
politeness as well as
models of keenness. We
doubt not they were,
but we have as good
gentlemen now-a-days,
though the Grandison style is somewhat relaxed.
The fact is, a man won't do for a Master of Hounds
unless he is a gentleman. Wealth, birth, keenness, all
combined, won't do unless he has that indescribable
quality which may be best defined as a sincere desire
to please, with a nervous dread of saying or doing
anything that may hurt the feelings of another. Some
men may go blundering and bullying on to be sure,
by mere dint of purse, but it is a weary up-hill game,
generally wearing them out at last, as it has worn out
their followers.

We cannot help thinking that one of the mistakes
of the day is that of making too much of a busi-
ness of hunting. Hence we have nervous, irritable
Masters, who are a nuisance to themselves and to

21

22 THE HUNTING FIELD

every one they come thwart of. If a shooter was to
make himself as unhappy about a bad day's sport
as some foxhunters do, what a booby we should think
him. "Better luck next time," is a fine consoling
axiom, cheering alike to the foxhunter, the gunner,
and the fisherman. Foxhunting is but a species of
game, and whether a fox is killed, or a fox is lost,
or a fox is mobbed, or a fox is earthed, makes no
difference in the balance at the banker's — that con-
verging point to which so many anxious earthly
hopes turn.

Gentlemen, when they begin to do a thing,- are
very apt to do too much. They think if they take
the Mastership of hounds that they must slave and
toil like servants. Then we have a lot of babblement
about "science," "condition," "generative economy,"
" ^thiop's mineral," and we don't know what. Can
science make a scent? "Kennel management," and
all that sort of thing, is very necessary ; but experi-
ence proves that a man may be a first-rate sports-
man without troubling himself about minutiae. Mr.
Masters, if we mistake not, was no great kennelman,
and we should like to have a look at any one with
the boldness to deny his prowess in the field. The
best gentleman-huntsman of the present day never
feeds his hounds. We have even known paid hunts-
men who never saw their's except in the hunting
field.

The well bred hound — the well bred sporting dog
of any sort — will always leave the man who feeds it
for the man who shows it sport.

All economists, political ones and all, agree in the
inexpediency of keeping a dog and barking one's-
self ; neither is it of any use a Master keeping servants
and doing their work. The more trouble a man
takes the more anxious he gets, and the more he
expects ; hence a great deal of that nervous irrita-
bility in the hunting field which is almost its only

THE MASTER 23

bane. Take it easy ! Take it easy ! " Better luck
next time," say we.

To suppose that a man can be Master of a pack
of hounds, and not feel differently when things go on
smoothly and well to what he does when they all
go crooked and wrong, is either to suppose that he is
ignorant of what he professes to direct, or has feelings
and passions different from other people. It is the
mode of conducting himself under the circumstances,
the language made use of, the manner, time, and style
of the reproof that constitutes the difference between
the "best fellow under the sun," and the "nastiest
brute going."

The old Masters, if history is to be credited, in-
dulged in the innuendo, or suaviter in modo style of
rebuke rather than in the " d — n your eyes " fortiter
in re one. Thus Mr. Meynell, in reply to a persecut-
ing over-rider, who would argue that he was right,
would bow and smilingly say, " You may be perfectly
right, sir, and I quite wrong, but there is gross
ignorance on one side or the other." Even this sort
of rebuke he did not care to repeat, generally the
telling the man a second time that he was incorrigible,
and it was no use admonishing him. Notwithstand-
ing all his politeness, however, we are told that Mr.
Meynell's indignation in the field was sometimes
excessive, frequently expressed by looks, sometimes
by deputies, but still, when by words, he never degene-
rated into rudeness. Mr. Corbet was a somewhat
similar character. A gentleman killed him a hound
one day. He saw who did it, but, instead of attack-
ing the delinquent point blank, he trotted past him,
saying, "They've killed me a favourite hound, sir;
you don't happe^i to know who did it, do you F " On
another occasion he just dropped into the delinquent's
ear, en passant, "Killed the best hound in the pack,
that's ^//." He caught a gentleman hunting the
hounds one day, " Thank you, sir," exclaimed Mr.

24 THE HUNTING FIELD

Corbet coming on him unawares ; " thank you, sir,"
repeated he, "but my hounds will do that quite as
well without you,''^

How different to the language of a certain duke
under similar circumstances ! " Who the hell are
you, sirV^ exclaimed his grace, coming on an un-
fortunate wight, hat in hand, capping' the hounds.

" And who the hell are you ? " replied the stranger,
a captain in the sea service.

"They commonly call me the Duke of ,"

rejoined his grace, adding, "Now, sir, there are the
hounds, hunt them, and be d — d to you."

Talking of sailors, reminds us of an amusing
account given by Nimrod of a certain nautical M.P.
and ex-master of foxhounds' mode of addressing a
constituent in the field. " Come here, you ten-pound
radical rascal and open this gate." Here is another.
A few years back an action was brought by a sailor
against a captain of a merchant-man, for ill-usage,
when it appearing to be but the second time of
"asking," the judge was curious to know Jack's
reasons for sailing again with so inhuman a captain.

"Why, please your honour," said Jack, hitching
up his trousers, " I war'nt for sailin with him again,
but I couldn't help it ; the captain has such winning
ways with him^

" Winning ways," observed his lordship, " what do
you mean by winning ways?" "Why, please my
Lord," resumed Jack, " the captain comes alongside
me, on the quay, slaps me on the back and says,
* What ! Jack, you ill-looking, blear-eyed, squinting
scoundrel, arn't you going to sail along with me ? ' "
Jack couldn't resist so touching an appeal.

Beckford gives an amusing account of a Master,
whose blowings up combined the " suaviter in mode "
with the ^^fortiter in re^

"An acquaintance of mine," writes he, "a good
sportsman, but a very warm one, when he sees the

THE MASTER 25

company pressing too close upon his hounds, begins
crying out, as loud as he can, hold hard I If any one
should persist after that, he begins moderately at first,
and says, " / beg^ sir, you will stop your horse : Fray,
sir, stop ; God bless you, sir, stop ; God d — n your
blood, sir, stop your horse / "

Mr. Vyner, in his very able work, "Notitia
Venatica," gives the following amusing account of
Mr. Nichol, better known as Sam Nichol, in the
blowing-up Hne.

When Mr. Nichol first took the New Forest, he
was desperately annoyed by some of the attendants
on his hounds, and after vainly begging and beseech-
ing several of the hard-riders, who were wantonly
pressing on the pack, to desist, he at length launched
out in no measured terms, to the utter astonishment
of one unfortunate wight, who claimed the privilege
of exhibiting himself, on the plea of being a committee
man. "The committee be d — d," replied Nichol,
" you are not worth d — ing singly, so I'll d — n you
all in a lump."

Mr. Smith in his " Diary of a Huntsman," recom-
mends the indirect or at them, rather than the to
them style of rating, such as "Hold hard; pray
black horse hold hard ! "

The renowned Mr. Jorrocks was doubtless a disciple
of Mr. Smith's, for he carried the advice out to the
letter, and a little beyond — ex : gra : " Old ard, you
air dresser, on the chesnut oss ! " " Hair dresser, sir !
I am an officer in the 91st Regiment." "Then you
hossifer in the 91st Regiment, wot looks like an air
dresser, old ard," rejoined Mr. Jorrocks, trotting on.

But enough of bullying, scolding, and riot act
reading, — ungracious work at best, and only to be
excused under the plea of the infirmities of poor
human nature. When the boiler of poor human
nature's indignation is insufficient to hold all her
steam, let us beseech the owner to get rid of his

26

THE HUNTING FIELD

superfluous stock all at once. Let the Master, in
fact, say his say and be done, but don't let him incur
the censure the nigger passed on his Master, who
having flogged him well, began to preach after. —
"Floggey, floggey, or preachey, preachey, massa; but
no both floggey and preachey." Blow up and be
done, but don't blow up, and keep "knagging" all
the rest of the day.

Remember, if the fault is a flagrant one the field
will go with the Master. Their sport is at stake as
well as his, but coarse language always disgusts, and
the edge of severity is blunted by repetition.

^^ OLD ARD, YOU AIR DRESSER ON THE CHESNUT OSS ! "

CHAPTER IV

THE MASTER — Concluded

N dealing with this scribble-
ment, we have treated
our "Master" more as
a Master than as one
of those " rare birds," a
Master and huntsman
combined. True it is,
that in our specifica-
tion of requirements we
lumped the offices, but
that was done to show
what a " monster of
perfection " a gentleman-huntsman ought to be.
Dis-Siamese the characters, and we have enough in
that of " Master " for all ordinary capacities. Doubt-
less, in our long life, we have seen many eminent
men in duplicate — Darlington, Ducie, Foljambe,
Lambton, Musters, Graham, Gifford, Sutton, Osbal-
deston, Elcho, Nicholl, Kintore, Newman, Templer,
Tatchel, and, though last not least, those mighty
fox foes, who have shed renown on the some-
what common name of Smith ; but placing the
question on its own comprehensive stern, we are very
much of the opinion of Beckford, who says, that it
is an undertaking which, in a general way, had better
be " let alone."

27

28 THE HUNTING FIELD

" It is your opinion, I find," writes Mr. Beckford,
and we trust all the foregoing great sportsmen will
excuse the freedom with which we have written their
names, " It is your opinion, I find," writes Mr. Beck-
ford, " that a gentleman might make the best hunts-
man; I have no doubt that he would, if he chose the
trouble of it."

It is just the " trouble " that chokes people off half
the projects and enterprizes of life. If it wasn't the
trouble, and perhaps a leetle the fear of Mr. Hardwick,
we would give that confounded organ-grinder, who
has just struck up under our window, for the third
time this morning, an uncommon good quilting, but
as it is, we will just sit still and let him grind himself
out.

Thank God, he's gone at last, though he has sorely
put us out. Let us see what was it we were writing
about. Oh, we have it — gentlemen-huntsmen and
paid-huntsmen. Well, our next sketch shall be that
of a paid " Huntsman," a jolly black-capped, red-
faced, purple-lapped huntsman ; meanwhile we will
glance at the other duties of a " Master," lest the non-
hunting portion of the community may suppose
"blowing out" and "blowing up" are the only
qualifications requisite for one.

For the benefit of embryo gentlemen-huntsmen, we
may, however, quote what Colonel Cook wrote on the
subject in his "Observations on Foxhunting" — an
able work written by a practical sportsman, and
published some twenty years ago — " Gentlemen,"
says he, "should recollect, let their situation in life
be ever so exalted, if they condescend to hunt their
own hounds, that when in the field they are huntsmen ;
a huntsman is a public character, and as such is liable
to have remarks and criticisms made by the field (who
it is always to be remembered are but lookers on, and
as such are apt to flatter themselves they know as much

THE MASTER 29

of the game as the actual player) and to be spoken to
by farmers and others on the occurrences which
commonly happen in the day's hunting; if things
go on well, and the sport is good, the Master of the
pack is no doubt the person most pleased, feeling
conscious that his exertions contribute much to the
amusement of the day; and there is certainly no
pleasure more gratifying to ourselves than that of
pleasing others. On the contrary, if everything
should go on untowardly, which will frequently
happen on a bad scenting day, he ought to be
mindful that the field likewise participates in his
disappointment."

Now for the other qualifications we dotted down in
our first paper : —

The generalship of a Master consists in making the
most of a country, and the greatest use of his friends.
We don't mean to say he is to borrow money or horses
of them, but he should urge each individual to put
his shoulder stoutly to the wheel to promote the
general interest in his particular locality. Thompson's
woodman can make up a gap in a cover without
trouble or expense; but if the Master has to send a
man half-a-dozen or a dozen miles to do it, why
there's a day's work. Wise Masters, however, will
have nothing to do with covers. They will leave
them to the management of those whom Mr. Nichol
d — d in the aggregate.

Diplomacy, a genteel term for "humbugging," is
an essential requisite for a Master of Foxhounds. A
Master, like ^sop's hare, has generally "many friends/'
some of whom will advise him diametrically the
reverse on the same point. Is it not diplomacy to
make each believe you intend doing as he advises^
and yet have your own way after all ? The necessity
for a Master combining the liberality of a sailor with
his other qualifications, is sufficiently illustrated in
the following observation of Lord Petre, then Master

30 THE HUNTING FIELD

of a first-rate establishment, to Mr. Delme RatclifFe,
when about to take the Hertfordshire hounds : —
"Remember, however," added his lordship, after
going through a recapitulation of the hundreds —
"Remember, however, that, after all this, you will
never have your hand out of your pocket, and must
always have a guinea in it."

Decision is an indispensable requisite both for
"Master" and huntsman. It should be quick as
thought; and when once taken, adhered to, unless
very cogent reasons appear to the contrary. On this
point, perhaps, we cannot do better than quote
Colonel Cook. "To hunt a country, and to make
the most of it, so as to give general satisfaction,
requires some consideration. Supposing you have a
thorough knowledge of it, use your own judgment,
and never be led by others, for you will find they
have most commonly some selfish motives, and will
often mislead you. It is a common case," says he,
"for a Master of hounds to be requested to draw
such and such a covert,^ merely because it may
happen to accommodate some of the gentlemen out,
by lying on their way home ; now if an acquiescence
in this should cause no inconvenience or material
alteration in the arrangements made for the day, it
may be all very well to do what you can to oblige
any particular person or set of men out ; but it should
nevertheless be remembered by all the field, that as
people are in the habit of coming great distances in
every direction^ to the point where the hounds meet
in the morning, by thus acceding to the wishes of a
few you are likely to inconvenience many, besides
the probability of occasioning yourself, servants,
hounds, and horses (should the draw be from home
instead of towards it) to remain out late in a wet
December night, without even the moon or stars
to guide you. Some men will mislead you to avoid
^ This chap puts in a '* t." — Printef^s Devil.

THE MASTER 31

having their coverts disturbed, fearing a tame pheasant
may fly away to his neighbour's preserves. After all,
it is best to be firm, and never change the plan of
drawing which you have fixed upon and considered
to be the most probable one for sport.

" A country ought to be regularly hunted, the good
and the bad alternately, to give general satisfaction,
and in the long run you will have a better chance of
sport. If you are continually disturbing your best
country you may have blank days, and the foxes will
be very shy ; where there are many earths they will
lay at ground. There can be no doubt but it must
be more agreeable to hunt a good country always, if
you have extent enough for an open season. Pro-
vided you cannot hunt the inferior one, so as to give
satisfaction, it is more liberal to give it up altogether
to some neighbouring pack, or even to some one
from a distance, who might be glad to hunt it
regularly. The keeping a country, or requiring
owners of covers to preserve, without hunting it, is
too much to expect, and gives people an oppor-
tunity of alluding to the story of the dog in the
manger."

Mr. Pryse Pryse, an old Master, summed up the
relative duties of himself and field very ably, in the
following words, at a dinner given him by the Gog-
gerdan Hunt, some years since : — " As a Master of
Hounds," said he, " I have many things to expect.
I have a right to expect a strict preservation of foxes
from every one. I have a right to expect old foxes,
and also a strict preservation of cubs ; for, without
young foxes, the stock cannot be kept up, and blank
days will be the result." [Mr. Pryse Pryse would
seem to have been hitting at some of the Cottonwool
tribe.]

" On the other hand,'' continues he, " you have a
right to expect from me the most polite attention in
the field, and out of the field, to expect a correct

32 THE HUNTING FIELD

announcement of all the meets ; in fact you have a
right to expect me to hunt the country, not for my
own convenience, but to the satisfaction and amuse-
ment of others."

Some people, we may observe, are very difficult to
please, and very unreasonable in their expectations
about hunting, especially on the point of hounds
going out without due notice. Nothing can be more
absurd, for any one who has watched the weather and
localities, must be aware that, during the ticklish part
of the season, hounds can often hunt in one part of
a country and not in another, and that "hunt" or
" no hunt " is sometimes the work of one capricious
hour. When the electric telegraph is established
throughout the country, out-lying gentlemen will have
a better chance of being communicated with, but
even then we question whether any of the grumblers
will come or not. As things stand, parties nearest
the kennel have the best chance, and properly so.
Some people are as difficult to please about their
hunting as the soldier was about his flogging.

Mr. Beckford appears to have been clear both of
subscribers, clubs, committees, and all the modern
paraphernalia of the chase, most likely paying every-
thing himself, and accommodating such sportsmen
as. chose to come to him on his own terms. At all
events his book is silent on the management of a
country, as it is called, though he makes a distinction
between managing a pack of hounds and hunting
them. On the former point he says : " Some art may
be necessary to make the most of the country that
you hunt. I would advise you not to draw the covers
near your house while you can find elsewhere ; it
will make them certain places to find in when you
go out late, or may otherwise be in want of them.
For the same reason, I would advise you not to hunt
those covers late in the season. They should not
be much disturbed after Christmas. Foxes will then

THE MASTER 33

resort to them, will breed there, and you can preserve
them with little trouble."

We have heard various opinions as to the best
man to hunt a country, some advocating native
Masters, others contending that strangers are the best.
It is a point on which much may be said on both
sides, though the great question hinges on the style of
man himself. Perhaps it may not be an unfair pro-
position to lay down, that a popular resident gentle-
man is most likely to be agreeable to the farmers,
while a sportsman of established reputation and
station may unite the whole foxhunting force, and
prevent the petty jealousies that sometimes arise when
a Master is drawn from the "body of the county," as
they say of a jury. Farmers will put up with a great
deal from a man they know. It is " stranger damage "
they object to — townsmen's particularly, not one in
ten knowing what they are riding over. " A lord," we
may add, is a trump card anywhere.

If we thought a Mastership and the duties of hunts-
man too much for one man, what shall we say to the
triplicate character of a Master supported by subscrip-
tion and hunting the hounds ? We think we may say
that a successful one is little short of a miracle, an
eighth wonder of the world, at all events. We all
know the ease and readiness with which people find
fault. Hunting critics, like Lord Byron's reviewing
ones, " are ready made ; " and some think it necessary
to censure, just as others think it right to halloo,
according to the amount of their subscriptions. Nay,
we have heard of men censuring to escape subscribing,
just as skinflint travellers used to pick holes with
guards and coachmen, to escape paying them. The
*4iallooing and hunting tariff" was thus laid down by
Nimrod some years ago, and as no mention has been
made of it in any of Sir Robert Peel's new ones, we
suppose it remains the same, viz., the man who sub-
scribes twenty-five pounds a-year may halloo once,
3

34 THE HUNTING FIELD

fifty twice ; but, if he give a hundred, he may halloo
all day long.

Hunt subscriptions are as difficult to realise as the
assets of a bankrupt tommy shopkeeper. Unless
there is a huge nest egg to start with, it is w^eary up-
hill work trying to keep a pack of hounds by what
the hospital people call "voluntary contributions."
Voluntary contributions, forsooth ! We read in the
" Old Sporting Magazine," that, at a fashionable Spa,
a poor laundress had been mulct of her few shillings
towards the keep of what brought the white breeches
to her tub. This is not as it should be. Much as we
desire to uphold hunting, yet we must advocate its
support on proper gentlemanly principles. Better
knock-off a day a-week than resort to such means. If
such expedients are had recourse to, at idle, money-
spending watering-places, what can we expect from
the hard money-getting penury of the country.

Some people may suppose that a Mastership of
Hounds is fulfilled with the mere home and field
management, but such is very far from being the case.
A Master of Hounds exercises no small influence on
the manners, we might almost say, the morals of a
country, as well by his own example as by the style
of people his management brings about him. Man-
kind are prone to imitation — young men, especially ;
and a Master of Hounds is of all others the most
likely for them to look up to.

** He who excels in what we prize,
Appears a hero in our eyes."

If the Master is what may be termed a show fox-
hunter — a dandified petit maitre — he will have every
chance of making the field the same, for many will be
glad to add what we may call the "impotence of
dress " to the general attractions of the red coat. If
the Master is a coarse, swearing, overbearing fellow,
his companions will be the same; for there is no

THE MASTER 35

truer saying, than that "birds of a feather flock
together," and none but blackguards will put up with
one; but if our Master is what a Master ought to
be — a high-minded, liberal, gentlemanly man, affable
with his equals, courteous to all, keen without pedantry,
neat without puppyism — he will not only raise the
character of foxhunting generally, but will exercise a
most wholesome influence on the minds and manners
of the rising generation within his own peculiar sphere.
And this leads us to observe, that there is not,
perhaps, in the whole range of the duties of a Master,
an act admitting of such graceful compliments as the
judicious presentation of the brush. It is in trifles
such as this that tact and gentlemanly feeling are shown.
If a lady, Henrietta Cottonwool, for instance, is out
looking after Smashgate, the flattering trophy, of course
will be hers. If not, the claims of the rising genera-
tion may be considered. The younger the recipient
the greater the charm. " My first brush " is a recol-
lection that will survive the more important features
of life. A stranger may be complimented. "That
brush was given me by the *best fellow under the
sun,' after a good hour and twenty minutes, finding
at Waterloo Gorse, in the Harborough country, and
running right up into the heart of Leicestershire," is a
fine speech for a Devonshire sportsman to make to
his provincial friends, as they sit sipping their port
and toasting their toes over the fire, on whose ancient
mantel-piece the proud trophy is stuck. The pads,
too, may be turned to account in the way of minor
compliments. Some men keep pad-deries.

Hunt dinners are nasty things, but upon the whole,
perhaps, they are advisable. If men ever have their
purses in their pockets — a problem that we almost
doubt with regard to some of the community — it will
most likely be at "a hand in the pocket" dinner,
as hunt ones invariably are, and an " insinivating "
secretary may cajole reluctant sovereigns from those

36 THE HUNTING FIELD

whom no penny postage efforts would move. Wonder-
ful world this ! Men talk of their thousands, from
whom it is easier to extract an eye-tooth than a sove-
reign.

In speaking of a " hunt dinner," we mean one of
those general hawls, that are meant to include "all
the world and his wife," every one friendly to fox-
hunting, and not the ordinary mess of sportsmen at
their own wine depot. The latter are generally very
pleasant meetings, especially when divested of form,
speechifying, health-drinking, and so on. Toasts
should never be resorted to so long as men can talk.
They are sure to bring conversation to a check. But
to business. We have had our Master in Cottonwool's
domestic circle, w^e must now transport him to a worse
scene — a hunt dinner at a country inn — " time being
called," as Nimrod says in the Quarterly — "say a
quarter to six — nearly our great-grandfather's supper-
hour," sundry boors in boots, and sundry boots in
shoes, are seen wending their ways in charge of sundry
buckets of soup, roasts and boils, sirloins, saddles,
rounds, geese, sucking pig, a haunch of venison, game,
tarts, celery, etc. By the time the odd quarter of an
hour has elapsed they have got them set square on the
table, and all having cooled alike, " the Master," who
sometimes plays the double part of "host" and
" cock guest," leads the way from the travellers' room,
where the company have been deposited in the enjoy-
ment of damp great coats and stale smoke, followed
by all the " train band bold," who forthwith commence
a desperate onslaught on the wittles.

But our humane disposition shrinks from describing
the horrors of the evening — the hot wine and cold
soup — the fatless venison and the gravy-congealed
mutton. Taking old Cottonwool's for the alternative,
we may truly say "the last state of this Master is
worse than the first." Wool's had the redeeming
quality of women — here it is all men. Instead of first

THE MASTER 37

a foxhunter, then a lump of Cottonwool, etc., it is
foxhunter and ^' preterea nihil.^'' The only variety is
here and there a stranger, or man in morning's black
coat dotted in among the orange vermillion ones of
the hunt. A wretched old hack song, sung by a man
with a spavin'd voice and a desperate running at the
nose, is all we have in lieu of the vigorous but not
unpleasant playing of the Miss Cottonwools. But we
are getting in advance of the evening ; for though we
spared the dinner we must have the speech. " Brief
let it be," as old Hamlet — not the jeweller — but the

ghost of that name said. Yarn spinning is only for
harehunters. The best speech we ever read, was one
of the late Lord Kintore's, delivered on the presenta-
tion of a piece of plate. A " Ciceronian Master " will
easily adapt it to a "health," returning one for himself.
" Gentlemen," said his lordship, " I hardly know how
to thank you for this totally uncalled for, and most
unmerited mark of your friendship towards me. If,
during the dull winter months, the foxhounds have
shown you any sport, it has been owing to your
individual exertions in having preserved the foxes, in

38 THE HUNTING FIELD

having cut rides, etc., in your covers, with, I trust and
hope I may add the goodwill of the tenantry to boot,
that has enabled me to show you sport. To you both
I return my hearty thanks. But to you, gentlemen,
here present, in particular, I cannot sufficiently
express how much I appreciate this kindness, and can
now only beg you to accept the humble but grateful
thanks of an individual whose soul from his cradle
has been rivetted to the chase, and who will ever hold
fast, until the earth receives him, this distinguished
token of your goodwill. Gentlemen, I have the
honour to drink your good healths, sincerely wishing
from my heart, that unanimity, good-fellowship, and
foxhunting, may long flourish, in this northern, but,
most hospitable ^ land of cakes.' "

That's a true sportsman's speech ! Woe with the
day that took so good a Master from among us !

CHAPTER V

THE HUNTSMAN
' A huntsman's fame rises and falls with the sport he shows."

F we take the whole range
of servitude, we shall
not find any more de-
serving of encourage-
ment than huntsmen
and kennel servants
generally. There are
none more respectable
in their conduct, none
more energetic in their
calling, none more faith-
ful to their employers,
and none more obliging to the world at large.

A huntsman occupies a somewhat middle station in
society, veering between equality and servitude. To
a certain extent a huntsman must be the companion
and confidant of the "Master," a feeling that
generally extends itself to the hunting field. Indeed,
it is impossible not to feel a more than ordinary
interest for men imbued with the same passion, trans-
ported by the same pleasures, and daily hazarding
life and limb in the furtherance of our enjoyments.
Doubly strong it is when the object is connected with
our earliest recollections and associations. Beckford,

39

40 THE HUNTING FIELD

that great sporting luminary, without whose book we
"little goes" would get badly on, thus "endeavours,"
as he says, to describe what a good Huntsman ought
to be. "He should," says he, "be young, strong,
active, bold, and enterprising ; fond of the diversion,
and indefatigable in the pursuit of it ; he should be
sensible and good-tempered ; he ought also to be
sober; he should be exact, civil, and cleanly; he
should be a good horseman and a good groom ; his
voice should be strong and clear ; and he should have
an eye so quick as to perceive which of the hounds
carries the scent, when all are running ; and should
have so excellent an ear as always to distinguish the
foremost hounds when he does not see them; he
should be quiet, patient, and without conceit. Such
are the excellencies which constitute a good hunts-
man : he should not, however, be too fond of display-
ing them, till necessity calls them forth. He should
let his hounds alone, whilst they can hunt, and he
should have genius to assist them when they cannot ^

We think Mr. Beckford has left but little unsaid in
his catalogue of qualifications, though many of them
hinge on the first one, that of "youth." Doubtless,
perpetual evergreenism is a most desirable thing, and
in engaging a Huntsman, perhaps a Master of Hounds
would hesitate ere he took one in the decline of life;
but, still, something 'should be allowed for experience,
and a Master should bear in mind the many remarkable
men we have seen, some of whom combatted not only
with age but with weight.

Who can forget jolly old Roffey, that Surrey trump,
or Stephen Goodall, in Oxfordshire, men who were
loads for dray horses ; or, in point of years, old Ben
Jennings, in Dorsetshire, with his silvery locks ; or
Will Neverd, Mr. Warde's old Huntsman, who took
a fresh place at seventy ; or old Tom Rose, the late
Duke of Grafton's Huntsman, who hunted the hounds
till near eighty; or Winter, with Mr. Lambton; or

THE HUNTSMAN 41

Dick Forster, Mr. Villebois's old Huntsman, reckoned
the best woodland one of the day ; or Oldacre, with
the Berkeley; or Lambert, with Lord Lonsdale; or
old Tom Leedham, with Mr. Meynell, or Mr. Meynell
Ingram, as he is now called ; and doubtless many
others, whose names do not occur at this moment to
our recollection ?

Some of the best men of recent times are on the
wrong side of fifty — Goosey, Sebright, Shirley,
Williamson, Walker, Burton, and, if we mistake not,
Will Long. Davis, too, the Queen's huntsman, is
advancing, and Tom Hill must be getting on, both
in beef and age, but no one can do the trick like
Tom on the Surrey hills. He ought to be called
Lord Hill.

Mr. Smith, late Master of the Pytchley and Craven
Hunts, thus sums up his list of requisites for a
Huntsman in his "Diary of a Huntsman." "To be
perfect," says he, "a Huntsman should possess the
following qualifications : — Health, memory, decision,
temper and patience, voice and sight, courage and
spirits, perseverance, activity ; and with these he
will soon make a bad pack a good one. If quick,
he will make a slow pack quick ; if slow, he will make
a quick pack slow."

The following capital advice cannot perhaps be
more seasonably introduced than at the present
moment : —

" But first, to become a good one he must have
a fair chance," says Mr. Smith, "and should not be
interfered with by any one after he leaves the place
of meeting; previous to which, on all occasions, it
would be best if the Master of hounds was to arrange
with him which covers should be drawn first, etc. It
rarely happens that two men think exactly alike, and
unless he is capable of judging for himself after the
above arrangement (which had much better be done
over night) the Master is to blame in keeping him ; but

42 THE HUNTING FIELD

if he is capable, the Master is to blame by interfering ;
for, consequently, the man will be ever thinking —
what does Master think? and will not gain that
independence of thought and action so necessary to
be a match for a fox on most occasions ; for instance,
at a check there are many apparently trifling ideas
and thoughts in a Huntsman's head, which he cannot
explain to his Master, if asked why he does this or
that; but, instead of answering, drops his bridle
hand and listens to his Master, although he has made
observations of trifles which are often all he has for
his guidance, and frequently are sufficient to recover
his fox ; but probably no other person noticed them
— such as this : The pack is running best pace ; he
sees one hound turn his head, and fling to the right
or left a pace or two. Shortly after there is a check
(say 500 yards) ; when he has made the usual casts
he recollects the hound turning his head, and then
goes back so far, and hits off the scent ; but he could
or could not tell any one why he was going back. It
is such like trifling observations that Huntsmen profit
by, though unnoticed by others.

It is the want of decision that makes committees
such deplorable things. There is so much hesitation,
so much stopping, so much debating, so much
chopping and changing, that the indecision of the
Masters communicates itself to the field. We never
see a lot of committee-men clubbing heads with the
Huntsman without being tempted to ask for the
*' ballot-box." Give us a good absolute monarchy !
None of your three or four Kings of Brentford, all
smelling at the same nosegay ! Gentlemen who
navigate the Thames cannot fail to have observed a
notice " not to speak to the man at the wheel," and
in addition to the excellent hint Mr. Smith gives to
" Masters," it would be very desirable to inculcate
some such precept as the steam-boat one upon the
field at large. A Huntsman, at all events, after he

THE HUNTSMAN 43

leaves the meet, has something else to do than
receive and exchange the compUments of the
morning, talk of the weather, the state of the country,
or the filth of the roads. He should be running
over the day's work in his mind's eye, thinking what
he did when he was last at the cover he is now going
to draw, considering what is the difference in the day,
and a hundred other things, " too numerous to insert
in a handbill," as the auctioneers say. Young
gentlemen in jackets, and, indeed, middle-aged ones
in new scarlet coats, must not, therefore, take it amiss
if Huntsmen become strangely monosyllabic after
leaving the meet, nor must they set them down as
grumpey and ill-natured if they don't laugh at their
wit.

With the reader's permission we will take another
slice of Smith — rather fatter, too, than the last.
" That a Huntsman should be a good rider," says he,
"is proved by every check the hounds come to when
he is away ; for even when he is present he will have
enough to do to prevent over-riding ; but unless he
can ride at head, and see the very spot on which they
throw up, he will be puzzled to know who of those
up to apply to, and must often use his own judgment ;
in short, the greatest use he can be of, when on a
good scent, is to prevent men doing mischief;
therefore he must have nerve to ride well up, and
equal to any man in the kingdom ; for, unless he
can be forward enough to look men in the face and
request them to hold hard, he may ride behind and
call after them till he is hoarse, and they will not
turn their heads, probably believing that jealousy
alone is the cause, and they go the faster for it ; but,
if he is in his place, none but a madman will do
mischief if requested to pull up : even the hard
riders from the universities (that is, if they can stop
their horses) will do so."

Some Huntsmen are far greater fidgets about their

44 THE HUNTING FIELD

hounds than others, both on the road and in the
field. It is doubtless advisable always to keep
hounds clear of horses ; but as there is generally
some gentleman who will "talk to the man at the
wheel," and as no one likes to be last, even on
the road, the consequence is the field will crowd to
the head. Some Huntsmen have their hounds all
huddled round their horse's heels, others will give
them as much line as a regiment of guards, but
perhaps the best course is to keep them together in a
crowd, and give them room when alone.

We are not, however, going to set up to teach
Huntsmen their business, fearing we might get the
rebuke Naylor, the York and Ainsty Huntsman,
administered to Nimrod, when he said "he had
forgotten more than Nimrod ever knew ; " but there
are a few observations of Mr. Smith, himself a
gentleman-huntsman of no small celebrity, that may
be administered like a cordial ball without ruffling
the coat. Here is one. "There is nothing more
disheartening to a field of sportsmen than for a
Huntsman, or Master of Hounds, to trifle with them
by pretending to draw for a fox, w^hen it is evident
they do not intend to let the hounds find one if they
can help it, by taking them through the parts of a
cover quickly where there is no laying, although
there is good on the other side, which they avoid,
and it would be a certain find if they would let
the hounds draw it; or probably missing other sure
places, and drawing unHkely ones, until their time is
spun out that they may go home."

Of course there are days — windy ones, for instance
— or days when few sportsmen are out, on which it is
desirable to shut up as soon as possible; but in
these cases it is always well to give the "regulars"
the hint, by doing which Huntsmen will not only
save censure, but the retirement of the forces will
materially aid their retreat with the hounds. There

THE HUNTSMAN 45

is a discretion, however, in all this, which shows the
man with the head from the man without. Tom
Babbleton would tell all the country that they merely
took the hounds out for show, while Sir Rasper
Smashgate, or old Peter Pigskin, would acknowledge
the propriety of the step and go home at once. Few
sportsmen like to leave hounds while a chance of
sport remains. Here is another hint. "When a
Huntsman is requested to draw for a second fox late
in the day, it would be fair to say, ' Gentlemen, we
have had work lately, and have some distance home ;
but if I do find, will you promise not to leave me till
it is finished ? ' " Some men are very inconsiderate
and unreasonable, never thinking hounds, horses, or
men can do too much when they happen to be out,
especially if the draw they recommend is in their way
home.

But to the qualifications of a Huntsman : —
Beckford said "he was not very ambitious of having
a famous Huntsman, unless it necessarily followed
that he must have fatuous hounds; a conclusion,"
writes he, "I cannot admit as long as these so
famous gentlemen will be continually attempting
themselves to do what would be much better done
if left to their hounds; besides, they seldom are
good servants, are always conceited, and sometimes
impertinent. I am very well satisfied if my Hunts-
man be acquainted with his country and his hounds,
if he ride well up to them, and if he have some
knowledge of the nature of the animal which he is
in pursuit of; but so far am I from wishing him to
be famous, that I hope he will continue to think his
hounds know best how to hunt a fox."

If we were hiring a Huntsman, we should like him
to be bred in the hunting Hne. We cannot fancy a
house-painter's or cobbler's son assuming the saddle
and horn, and setting up as Huntsman. Doubtless
there are fellows who have impudence enough to set

46 THE HUNTING FIELD

up for anything — archbishops, if they saw an opening
— and we think they would almost as soon fulfil the
duties of one as the other. It is not every wide-
throated fellow with "nought to do, and who likes
hontin vastly," as they say in Yorkshire, that will
make a Huntsman — not a Huntsman to foxhounds,
though we are not sure but a good bow-backed
pedestrian, with his head well down to the ground
for "pricking," would not make as good a harrier
Huntsman as the best. The two offices are as
different as horse-riding and donkey-riding. They
both " go," certainly, but the " stop " of the business
is the thing. And yet we have seen fellows who,
because they have been able to circumvent a hare,
have thought themselves qualified for foxhounds.
The simile of the horse and the ass may be
carried still further. Turn a horse loose and you
don't know where he will go ; but give a donkey his
head, and see if he won't stop. It is just the same
with a fox and a hare. You never know where a
fox is bound, but a hare is almost invariably within
the circle of the " magic ring." The fox is travel-
ling, the hare perhaps squatting under your horse's
feet. So far from having hunted harriers being a
qualification for hunting foxhounds, we should say
it w^as a downright objection. You have to unteach
the harrier man all he knows, before you begin to
teach. Better have a fresh horn and begin a new
spoon. We would rather have a fellow from the
roughest pack going, whose constant pursuit had
been " fox," than one of these psalm-singing gentry.
Not that we decry harehunting as a sport;
legitimately followed it is capital amusement, but we
should never take a Huntsman for foxhounds from
a pack of harriers. Instead of thinking which way
the fox had gone, he would be always thinking which
way he had come.

We once heard of a harrier genius who, on the

THE HUNTSMAN 47

strength of having successfully manoeuvred some ten
or twelve couple of waffling beggars, undertook the
situation of Huntsman to a scratch pack of foxhounds.
A scratch pack of foxhounds, especially a newly set
up one, is always a dangerous thing. You have all
the wild, resolute, vigorous power of the animal
without the discipline ; added to this, they are
generally composed of the wild, vicious, savage
hounds of other packs ; things that escape hanging
by going to scratch ones. Having, however,
subdued the merry mettle of the harriers, generally
with a rate, at all events with a cut of a whip, our
hero thinking foxhounds were to be similarly kept
down, " broke kennel " the morning after his some-
what sudden installation, with a very riotous crew at
his horse's heels. He got to the place of meeting
with his own and the noisy efforts of a young clown
in boots, and the field began to assemble. The
meet was in a valley, and unfortunately on the
opposite hill were some newly stubbed, but faded
gorse bushes. A slight breeze caught one of these,
and set it a going on the brow of the hill. The
hounds caught view and dashed away full cry. Soup
and Chaw riding, rating, and rioting, which the
hounds were just as hkely to take for encouragement
as not. On they went full cry, at a most determined
pace, when, w^onderful to relate. Chaw instead of
riding at their sterns, got round them, and with
uplifted whip was about commencing operations,
when the horse, unused to such a charge, suddenly
stopped short; Chaw pitched over its head; away
went the horse with the hounds full cry after it,
for two miles, when fortunately or unfortunately,
according to the value of the respective animals, a
flock of sheep interposed, or as Soup deposed, he
verily believed they would have eaten horse saddle
and all. As it was, they compounded by taking
several saddles of mutton. This, it may be said,

48 THE HUNTING FIELD

might have happened to any pack ; indeed Beckford
relates a somewhat similar accident with his hounds,
owing to the falling off of a whipper-in at exercise ;
but it is nevertheless perfectly true, that an acquaint-
ance with harriers unfits a man for appreciating the
discipline requisite for foxhounds. They think too
lightly of it. They are like a friend of ours, who
being asked if he thought he could edit a Newspaper,
replied "he thought any old woman in their work-
house could do that."

Huntsmen are well aware of the feeling of harrier
huntsmen, and some of them seem to take a pleasure
in selling an innocent a bargain. We once overheard
a dialogue between a young scratch pack gentleman
Huntsman and a top-sawyer, which concluded by the
young one, after sundry sporting and pertinent
questions about a draft he had recently got, saying,
he " supposed they had never worried sheep." " Oh^
no^ sir^^ replied the Huntsman with a shake of his
head and touch of his cap, adding, sotto voce, to a
friend at his side, ''but they d — d soon wilW

A " real tool," or " cake," of a Huntsman is a thing
one rarely meets with, at least not in a civilized
country. We once saw a fellow arrive in a greasy
hat, and an old drab great coat over an older
red one, on a visit of inspection to another pack,
who was pointed out as Huntsman to the Scamping-
ton hounds, and very like the thing he looked.
They said he was the cleverest hand at drawing on
a public house that ever was seen ; no matter
whether he had ever been in the country before or
not, he could always find them, and his nose did
credit to the Hquor. As to hunting a pack of hounds
he had not the slightest idea. When at length he
got straggled up at a check, instead of making a cast
at once with promptitude and decision, he would sit
on his horse exclaiming, " Ah, dear ! whichiver way
can he have gone ? W^hich way do you think he's

THE HUNTSMAN 49

gone, Mr. Brown ? Which way do you^ Mr.
Green?"

Huntsmen — hounds, servants in general — have one
charming quality ; they look down upon every other
species of amusement with the most superlative con-
tempt. We like this. It shows genuine enthusiasm,
without which there is little chance for anything in
this world. We never heard or read of but one
servant who followed hunting merely as a livelihood,
without reference to the enjoyment, and without
having any natural inclination that way, or indeed
any pleasure in the chase, and that was a man of the
name of Filer, formerly Huntsman to the Craven
hounds, who used candidly to say, "he never liked
foxhunting, but having been bred up with hounds he
would stick to them." We have heard of men being
brought up to the bar, the sea, or the church, and
not liking their professions, but sticking to them ; but
really, for a man to stick to hunting merely because
he had been brought up with hounds, does seem a
piece of pure self-devotion. He had better have
turned policeman. How different to some of the
stories that Beckford and Cook tell! Old Luke
Freeman, who hunted Lord Egremont's hounds, used
to say to his lordship's sons, when he caught them
reading, " Stoody, stoody, stoody 1 aye studying they
books ! take, I say, my advice, sir, and stoody fox-
hunting." Luke, Colonel Cook says, gave his whole
body and mind to it, and famously he succeeded, as
all the country around could testify. A wag, for
amusement, and to annoy a musical friend that was
present, asked the old Huntsman " how he employed
his time out of the hunting season ? " The veteran
disdained a reply to a question that showed so little
knowledge of the duties and cares of a Huntsman,
and the querist proceeded with, "What think you
of music for an amusement ? " " Music ! " con-
temptuously echoed Luke. "Ay, fiddling, Mr.
4

50 THE HUNTING FIELD

Freeman." " Fiddling, fiddling," replied Luke; "it's
all very well for cripples, poor things ! I always give
them a halfpenny when I sees them at the fairs."
Beckford has a cut at the musicians also. "Louis
the Fifteenth," writes he, " was so passionately fond
of hunting that it occupied him entirely. The then
King of Prussia, who never hunted, gave up a great
deal of his time to music, and himself played on the
flute. A German meeting a Frenchman, asked him,
very impertinently, * Si son maitre chassoit toujours ? '
* Oui^ oui^ replied the other, *// ne joue jamais de la
flute: "

A Huntsman's head generally runs upon hunting.
If he rides, or rails through a country, he looks at it
with reference to riding over it. If he examines the
crops, it is merely to see when they will be ripe.
Woodland scenery draws forth observations upon cub-
hunting. Hills are looked at with an eye to the
easiest way up. When Williamson, the Duke of
Buccleuch's Huntsman, visited London, his Grace
told him he must see the sights. " But," replied Wool,
as they call him, though he is no relation of our friend
Cottonwool, " I don't know the country, and shall be
lost." His Grace then sent him out on horseback,
with a groom after him, and Nimrod says Wool was
taken for a newly-made lord. Talking of countries
reminds us of a story they used to tell of the late
Lord Spencer, when Lord Althorp, and Dick Knight,
his Huntsman. His lordship had been talking at
the meet to some gentlemen about political matters,
and had made use of the old hack observation that
the "country was ruined"

" Ah," said Dick Knight, with a sigh, " they ruined
the country when they made the Oxford Canal."

It is singular that such a narrow strip of water
as the British Channel should make such a perfect
division between the tastes, the feelings, and inclina-
tions of the people. What would be prized and

THE HUNTSMAN 5!

followed at Dover would be scouted and laughed at
at Calais or Boulogne. We are alluding, of course,
to hounds, for which the French have not the
slightest feeling, inclination, or sympathy. Children
in England all rush with delight to see them pass —
French ones stare and wonder if the " soldiers " are
going to kill and eat them up with the dogs. Hunt-
ing is quite the peculiar taste of Britons, and let
people say what they will, it must exercise a most
beneficial influence on the national character. Let
any one look at a field of foxhunters in full chase,
and say whether such men are likely to be stopped
at a trifle or not. Above all, let them look at the
Huntsmen and Whip, and fancy them with swords in
their hands instead of whips. Why, they would
charge a regiment of devils in complete armour 1
The Duke of Wellington, himself a foxhunter, and a
real friend to the sport, used to say that for daring,
dashing deeds, there were none like the foxhunting
officers. We believe he generally selected them to
carry despatches and other difficult duties on the
battle-field.

A Frenchman looks at the " Chasse^' a term they
apply equally to sparrow-shooting and stag-hunting,
as a mere means of achieving an end with the smallest
possible trouble. They can't understand the wit of
giving ourselves the trouble of pursuing an animal
over hill and dale, that we can exterminate at first
sight. They are all for lead. Colonel Cook, who
resided many years in France, relates how that having
some ten couple of hounds consigned to him, he took
them into the Duke de Albufera (Suchet's) covers at
Tankerville, and after a long draw found a fox in a
piece of gorse in an open country, which being im-
mediately headed into the mouth of the hounds, a
French gentleman rode up, and taking off his hat,
exclaimed, " Sir, I congratulate you on catching him
so soon, and with so little trouble ! " Frenchmen

52

THE HUNTING FIELD

have a mortal horror of the idea of a pack of hounds,
imagining that if they once get into a cover they will
destroy every living thing in it. On this occasion,
however, those that were out found great fault with
the chiens A?iglats, asserting they were good for
nothing, for they would neither hunt hares, rabbits,
nor rats.

CHAPTER VI

THE HUNTSMAN — conti?iued

' ' I have always thought a Huntsman a happy man ; his office
is pleasing, and at the same time flattering ; we pay him for
that which diverts him, and he is enriched by his greatest
pleasure ; nor is a general after a victory more proud than is a
Huntsman who returns with his fox's head." — Beckford.

N our last we glanced at
the character and some
of the duties of the
Huntsmen, and ran over
the names of several who
have distinguished them-
selves in their callijig.
The list was composed
more of by-gone or fad-
ing flowers than of the
rising geniuses of the present day, because it creates
no jealousy to award praise where all allow it, and
our object in writing these sketches is to encourage
a wholesome spirit of hunting, and not to flatter
this man or that at the expense of his neighbours.
Comparisons are always odious to some one, and
there is no truer saying than that a Huntsman's fame
rises and falls with the sport he shows. At the same
time it is but justice to add, that there are many
Huntsmen at work in our different counties whose
fame will bear comparison with the best of those gone

54 THE HUNTING FIELD

by. When their waning day arrives, may some abler
pen portray their merits.

The Huntsman of our Analysis is one of the old
school; his father was Huntsman before him, his
sons now whip in to him. He has neither read Beck-
ford "On Hunting," nor Nimrod on "Condition of
Hunters," but he can kill a fox with any man going,
and turn out his horse in as good condition as the
best. He carries his library in his head — experience.
Look at the old boy as he sits astride his glossy,
well-conditioned black, his venerable gray locks pro-
truding beneath his new black cap, his spic and span
coat, his fortieth scarlet, with the stout drab breeches
and mahogany tops. He sits on his horse as if he
were a part of him. Old Will is our Huntsman's
name. He most likely has another, but we never
heard him called by anything else, and possibly he
may have forgotten his surname himself. Old Will
and young Will and Will junior (or sweet Will, as the
girls call the young one, who is a bachelor), are the
trio now moving the hounds about on the bright green
sward, for Will, though no painter, knows that there
is nothing like a dark background for setting off
colours to advantage. How quiet he is with the
hounds ! He gives them their fling, too, instead of
having them cowering under his horse's legs to avoid
the sting of the Whipper-in's lash, but a gentle " here
again,'^ with a slight wave of the hand, brings the
outsiders frolicking back to his call. How much
better than the noisy, bullying clamour of idiot boys,
showing off, by the loudness of their rates, the
severity of their cuts, and the thrashing of their
horses.

There isn't a gap, or a gate, or a hole in the wall
in the country, that Old Will does not know, and
that he hasn't been over or through a hundred times.
Time has slackened his leaping powers, but he is a
capital hand at screwing through awkward places,

THE HUNTSMAN 55

and he always saves his horse in anticipation of a long
day. He never seems in a hurry, and yet he is always
near his hounds ; he never gallops when he can trot,
or takes a leap when he can go through a gap. Old
Will is sixty-seven, but he is not older than most men
at fifty. He has not an ounce of superfluous flesh
upon him, and is as equal to four days a week as he
was at twenty.

Will and his Whips are turned out as they should
be. They look as if they were going to ride across
country instead of to canter up and down Rotten
Row after my lord or my lady. We don't like to
see dandified Huntsmen and whips. Over-dressed
gentlemen are bad enough in the field, let us have no
over-dressed servants. Shooters always put on their
stoutest and worst things, wet or dry, wood or open ;
but some foxhunters seem to think that only the best
of everything will do for hunting. Then, if they get
to the meet in apple-pie order, they don't care how
soon after they spoil themselves, save and except,
and always reserved, the Muffs and Fribbleton
Browns who are going to lunch with the Miss Cotton-
wools. They don't care how soon they get away after
the pride of the meet is over.

Huntsmen and Whips should all wear caps.
Nothing looks so ugly as servants in hats. Strange
that Lord Darlington, who was painted by Marshall
in the cap and spare stirrup-leather of the Huntsman,
should, in his ducal days, have put his men in hats.
Lord Lonsdale, too, had his in them latterly, and
very slow they looked. Hats should only be worn
at exercise. Modern times have introduced some
frightful projections at the back of some hunting caps,
like sheds thrown out at the backs of lodges. On
inquiry, we found they were meant to turn the wet
off the wearer's back. The same purpose would
be answered by turning the cap peak backwards in
wet weather, as Tom Rounding used to do at a wet

56 THE HUNTING FIELD

Epping hunt. This would save the wearer's neck,
and also the disfigurement of an otherwise sporting
and seemly article of dress. The projections make
caps look like barbers' basons. Gentlemen never
look well in caps. A cap and a frock coat should
always go together. A gentleman in a cutaway coat
and a cap looks as absurd as a courtier would in a
round hat.

Leather breeches are stupid things for field servants.
If the breeches are good, they are heavy, and require
a deal of cleaning to keep them in order, and nothing
can be more unsightly than thin, dingy, parchment-
looking, ill-kept ones. Hunting servants have plenty
to do without cleaning leather breeches. Lord Yar-
borough's men, we believe, wear them ; but it is not
every Master that has his lordship's purse. His
lordship's men are the only ones we ever saw really
well turned out in leathers. The Warwickshire men
used to wear them in Boxall's time, but they would
have looked better in cords. The Atherstone men,
in Mr. Apple waite's time, were as well turned out as
any men of the day, in neat cords, all the same colour
and pattern.

Servants' dress should be stout, warm, and weather
defying. They have many a weary, trashing, cold
ride, both of a morning and an evening, that the
generality of hound followers know nothing about.
If the generality of men find the hounds at the meet
at half-past ten or eleven, they neither care to know
whence they came, nor whither they go. They look
at them, much as people look at a play ; at a certain
hour they expect to find the doors open, and " nosey "
scraping his fiddle in the orchestra, after which all is
looked upon as a mere matter of course; they are
but spectators, free to stay or go as the humour seizes
them. The Huntsmen and whips, however, must
stay till the close of the entertainment, sometimes
longer, unless, indeed, the Huntsman is content to

THE HUNTSMAN 57

go away, leaving lost hounds to "follow on," as a
treasure of a man we knew used to say. We spoke
in the past tense, but we know him still, only he
carries a horn with letters on a mule, instead of pre-
tending to hunt hounds, and he seems quite in his
right place now.

The Huntsman is the main spring in the machinery
of a hunting establishment, and upon his good con-
duct greatly depends the comfort and pleasure of the
Master. If the Huntsman is — what we must do them
the justice of saying the generality of them are — a
steady, honest, careful, accurate, economical, intelli-
gent, painstaking man, holding the money scales fairly
between his master and the public, neither cheating
himself, nor suffering others to cheat, soothing asperi-
ties, rather than creating them, demolishing difficulties
rather than raising them ; he will be a credit to him-
self, a comfort to his master, and the ornament of
a circle composed of men not only well capable of
appreciating, but also in the habit of substantially
rewarding respectability of character and keenness
displayed in their service. But if a Huntsman is a
low-lived, careless, gossiping, drinking, grinding fellow,
seeking only to feather his own nest, and that in the
shortest possible time, he will be a torment to him-
self and everybody about him ; and when he loses
his place, which he most likely very soon will,
he will find his character so blown, that the mere
mention of his name to any other master will insure
him a polite answer that he has no occasion for
his services. A pack of hounds without a good
Huntsman are very much like a fiddle without a
stick.

Despite, however, what we have said about the
liberality of sportsmen to huntsmen and hound
servants, we cannot but feel that, considering what
they do, the risks they run, and the zeal they show,
they are sometimes rather under than over paid.

58 THE HUNTING FIELD

Compare them, for instance, with jockeys, who
occupy a somewhat similar position in the racing, to
what hound servants do in the hunting world. A
jockey gets his two or three guineas a race, winning
or losing, but if he wins a good stake for his employer,
there is no saying to what extent the delightful
delirium of the moment may induce a victorious
master to go. We have heard that Jem Robinson
got a thousand guineas for winning the Leger once,
but suppose it was only a hundred, what Huntsman
ever got a tithe of that for killing a fox ? A race is
but a momentary spasm compared to a hard run over
a difficult country, and the dangers of the one are
nothing compared to those of the other, but the
produce is oftentimes very different. It is not, how-
ever, for the purpose of making servants dissatisfied
with their places that we have made these observa-
tions; on the contrary, we will remind them that
hunting, unlike racing, does not admit of money
making, consequently they must put down as no
small part of their perquisites the enjoyment they
themselves derive from the pleasures of the chase,
and remember that though some jockeys may get
large presents, yet their employment is precarious, and
that it is better to have the certainty of a Huntsman's
wages than the capricious windfalls of the uncertain
goddess, Fortune ; but we alluded to their pecuniary
position for the purpose of encouraging the custom
that has now almost entirely superseded the old one
of capping — namely, that of gentlemen making hunts-
men and hound servants presents apart from their
wages. Capping certainly had its advantages, but
perhaps its disadvantages preponderated. It added
interest to energy, and perhaps spurred what might
have been otherwise indolent men into activity, but it
encouraged mobbing and bag foxhunting, which are
both highly inimical to the chase. It is not killing
the animal that constitutes the charm of foxhunting,

THE HUNTSMAN 59

but it is matching the vigour, boldness, and cunning
of a wily animal with the faculties and sagacities of
others; putting them on fair terms as it were, and
trying which has the best of it. Mr. Smith says, in
his " Diary of a Huntsman," that there are foxes that
can beat any hounds if they have time to prepare
themselves, and have a fair start.

Another recommendation that capping on the
death had, was, that it was done at a time when
men's hearts were open to the generous impulses —
they had just partaken of the highest enjoyment they
know, and, when an Englishman's heart is fairly
moved, it always finds vent through his pocket-hole.
The sportsman was carried away by the enthusiasm
of the moment, and the hand went in almost naturally.
Let him cool, let the cap be next week, and it will be
very like paying a heavy doctor's bill a year after a
recovery, though we would gladly have discharged it
at the end of the illness. Some people cannot resist
capping as it is. Old Pigskin's hand, for instance,
dives into his drabs as naturally as can be at the end
of a good run, and Piggy's liberality leads us to say a
few words on the tax-gathering style of collecting. In
some hunts, busy men, or men who like to take the
credit of others' liberality, institute a sort of com-
pulsory subscription, levying an equal rate on the
man who hunts his half-a-dozen days a season, as
upon the man who hunts his four or five days a week,
dividing what they get with due importance and
perhaps some favouritism. This is as bad, or perhaps
worse, than the old half-crown system. It takes a
guinea from the man who perhaps would give five,
and makes a man pay a guinea to whom five shillings
is an object. It puts Piggy and Sir Rasper Smash-
gate on an equality as to means. When lecturing
Mrs. Forcemeat Cottonwool on her treatment of our
Master at dinner, we advised her to give him credit
for knowing his stomach better than she did, and so

6o THE HUNTING FIELD

in this case we advise gentlemen to let others be the
judges of their own means. Let every man give what
is convenient to him, and give at his own time.
Never mind if a few dirty scamps do escape. Hunts-
men and Whips have too much spirit to wish to take
money from such beggars. Let them ride over them
the first time they get them down, or give their loose
horses a cut instead of catching them.

Capping has been going out of fashion ever since
the present century came in. Mr. Corbet, we believe,
was the last great Master who allowed it, and with the
large fields that attended his hounds, and the many
killing runs they had, "Will Barrow and Co." as
Nimrod called them, made a good thing of it. Will
was a provident man, and when he died ;^i4oo in
money was found in old stockings and all sorts of odd
places, in boxes where he kept his clothes, besides
suits that had never been on, sufificient for a union
workhouse. They still pursue the system for the
benefit of Lord Hill with the Surrey hounds, and if it
is allowable anywhere, it perhaps is in the neighbour-
hood of London, where chance gentlemen may be out
every day, that they may never have the pleasure of
seeing again.

The reader will observe that the motto to this
paper, taken from Mr. Beckford's "Thoughts upon
Hunting," speaks of the Huntsman being "enriched
by his greatest pleasure," which in a note he explains
to be the field money, collected at the death of a fox.
But he goes on to show that capping even then was
not universally approved of. " I have heard that a
certain duke," writes he, " who allowed no vails to his
servants, asked his Huntsman what he generally made
of his field money, and gave him what he asked
instead of it ; this went on very well for some time,
till at last the Huntsman desired an audience. ' Your
grace,' said he, *is very generous, and gives me more
than ever I got from field money in my life ; yet

THE HUNTSMAN 6i

I come to beg a favour of your grace, that you
would let me take field money again ; for I have
not half the pleasure now in killing a fox that I had
before.' "

After all is said and done, however, we come
back to the old opinion that hunting servants
are well worthy the consideration of the field, and
whether they are remembered in public or private
must just remain matter of taste. No master would
ever object either way, because it is the best testi-
mony of the field to the adequacy of their servants'
services.

We are sorry to say that faithfulness among servants
is becoming a rare quality. By faithfulness we mean
not only that honesty which forbids their robbing us
themselves, but that integrity — that loyalty we may
almost call it — which ought to prevent their allowing
others to do it without telling. Strange as it may
seem, it is no less true, that their consciences seem
satisfied with the negative virtue of abstinence them-
selves. Dangerous virtue ! The next step to looking
on, is participating, and then comes robbing itself.
" Winking " at robbery is the true school of training
for New South Wales.

Whether this indifference to their master's interests
is to be attributed to the gad-about habits of the day,
or the spread of education and facility of communica-
tion by post, or arises from the distance now main-
tained between masters and servants, is immaterial to
the present inquiry. Hunting servants, at all events,
have not the latter excuse for their delinquencies ;
and it certainly does favour the supposition that
masters and mistresses are not sufficiently attentive
and considerate to their servants, when we find that
those who are in constant contact with their masters,
enjoying their pleasures and sharing their dangers,
imbibe a certain interest and anxiety for them that
the mere payment of wages fails to produce. Hunts-

62 THE HUNTING FIELD

men are generally intrusted with large sums of money,
much of it frequently to be expended in the way of
" secret service," and yet we never hear of misappro-
priation or squandering lavishment. On the contrary,
if they do err, it is generally on the side of keenness
for their employer. Many excellent stories are told of
Williamson, the Duke of Buccleuch's Huntsman, in
the way of bargain-driving for his grace. Williamson
is a great economist, but such is his dense Scotch
stupidity that he cannot understand, because his
master is a rich duke, that he ought to pay double
for everything he buys. Most servants would think
it a self-evident proposition, but Wool can't see it.
He drives and screws, and screws and drives, just as
if he was bargaining for himself. He had a bad fall
a few years since, and, riding about shortly after with
his arm in a sling, he encountered a bargain-driving
opponent. The man asked him how he was : " Wall,"
said Will, " Tm batter, thank ye ; but I can no get
my hand i' my pouch yet." " Gad ! ye never could
do that," replied the man,

The following is shrewd and characteristic : — " I
was paying a bill to a farmer for hay," said Williamson
to Nimrod, when that gentleman visited the duke's
establishment during his Scotch tour, "nearly fifty
pounds, and the farmer insisted upon the odd four-
pence halfpenny. I gave him it," said he, with
pleasure, ^^ because it showed I had bought the hay
worth the tnoneyJ^ Williamson farmed the Lothian
lands during the Duke of Buccleuch's minority,
publishing an annual statement of the disbursements,
and he is considered a great authority on all points of
useful economy. Going to market with ready money
and attention to trifles, is, he says, where the great
savings are effected. Talking of meal, " I know a
gentleman," said he to Nimrod, " who never returns
the empty sacks. Was there ever such a thing heard
of," continued he, with a strong emphasis on his

THE HUNTSMAN 63

words, ^^was there ever such a thing heard 0/ 2ls Si
person not returning the empty sacks ? " An amusing
circumstance occurred connected with Williamson's
ideas of practical economy. Being a true promoter
of hunting, and consequently anxious to enlist
followers by making it as cheap as possible, he
wrote a paper, showing where great savings might
be effected in many of the indispensable articles of
stable use — clothes, saddles, bridles, physic, etc. and
sent it to a London periodical. The cockney sub-
editor got hold of it, and most unceremoniously con-
demned it, recommending the author, in his notice to
correspondents, "to forward a copy of it to the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, headed 'Hints for a
Budget.'" He doubtless thought his correspondent
was some puffing tradesman, instead of the " King of
Scotch servants," as Lord Kintore christened William-
son. So much for people deciding upon what they
don't understand.

Williamson's situation, perhaps, can hardly be
called servitude, but his example is not the less
valuable on that account. He receives the duke's
money, and every man who accepts the wages of hire
enters into an implied contract that he will protect
and do the best he can for his employer. Williamson's
view of the matter was pithily expressed in the follow-
ing observation : — " I found the duke rich," said he>
" and I wish to leave him so."

Scotch servants, we are almost inclined to think^
are more faithful in a general way than English ones*
Whether there is something about mountainous
countries that draws the affections and binds parties
in stronger union we know not ; but the same may
be observed of the Swiss. Spite of all the contamina-
tion of English manners, and the corruption of
English gold, the Swiss, as a nation, are eminently
faithful. The Scotch, we believe, are kinder — more
attentive, at least — to their servants than the English.

64

THE HUNTING FIELD

They treat them more as friends and companions.
There is one thing to be said, that the Scotch do
not often encumber themselves with the useless,
overgrown, establishments that; some English think
necessary for maintaining their dignity, as they call
it, consequently the attention that would cut up very
small among many, makes a handsome dividend to
those servants that are really wanted. Another thing
is, that in large establishments notice or attention to
one more than another only makes jealousy and

mischief among those who are omitted. These
points, however, bear more upon the general question
of "servants" than the particular class under con-
sideration.

We commenced this sketch by placing Huntsmen
and kennel servants at the head of all others, and as
Huntsmen ride first, we presume they would walk
first in a procession. If, for instance, Williamson
was to be crowned King of Scotch servants, the Earl
Marshal would most likely arrange them someway
thus : —

THE HUNTSMAN 65

His Majesty King William the Fifth.

Huntsmen.

Butlers.

Valets (and such like cattle).

Eldest sons of Huntsmen.

Whips.

Jeams Plush's.

Fat Coachmen.

Stud Grooms in cut-aways.

Younger sons of Huntsmen.

Eldest sons of Whips.

Grooms, &c. &c.

CHAPTER VII

THE WHIPPER-IN
"High o'er thy head wave thy resounding whip."

SOMERVILLE.

VERACIOUS French
gentleman, writing on
England, observed that
we were a cruel, melan-
choly nation, for in all
parts of London he saw
written up, '' Horses taken
in to bait" and ^^ Funerals
performed here, ^"^ Doubt-
less the same observing
traveller would assert
that people keep hounds,
and servants to do nothing but whip them. The
name, "Whipper-in," certainly favours the supposition,
at all events as much as the sign-boards did the con-
clusions Johnny Crapaud drew from them. Indeed
others than Frenchmen might be of that opinion,
especially if they heard the noisy, clamorous ratings
that sometimes attend a half civilized scratch pack.
There is nothing, perhaps, so distinguishing as the
silent quiet manner of the well-appointed, well-
disciplined establishment, and the roaring, cut-them-
into-ribbons style of the omnium gatherum, refuse,
tear away, tear-'em up town pack.

66

THE WHIPPER-IN 67

Before railway advertisements increased and multi-
plied our advertising sheets, newspaper editors used
generally, in the dulness of autumnal times, to enlarge
a leopard or tiger from the caravan of some travelling
showman, which, while it afforded a fine crop of
paragraphs, as long as it was at liberty, produced a
good stout contradiction at the end, and really we
don't think w^e are going much beyond the mark in
saying that a bona fide tiger or leopard would not be
much more dangerous than some of these enlarged
canine bedlams, called scratch packs.

Beckford relates how a kennelled pack once ate up
their Huntsman — nothing but the unfortunate man's
buttons being found to account for him — and we have
seen animals scouring the country that seemed equal
to anything — anything, from a " helephant down to a
hearwig," as the dancing-master Huntsman, to the
short-lived Fulham harriers, said of his. A man that
has never tried his hand with foxhounds has not the
slightest conception of the undertaking. He sees
forty or fifty couple of great strapping, high-con-
ditioned animals, all as docile and obedient as lap-
dogs — apparently rather inert than otherwise — and he
very likely fancies that listlessness is their character-
istic, that they are a sort of canine calves, and that
anybody can manage them. Little as hounds are
attended to in the field, it must have struck even the
most casual observer what totally different animals
they are in kennel and out. In kennel they are easy,
indolent, devil-may-care sort of creatures, checked by
a word, almost a look, but when their mettle is roused
by the scent, what dash, what energy, what life, what
determination is called forth. The Huntsman's horn
and the Whipper-in's rate are equally disregarded, and
"getting at them" is the only chance of stopping
them. How small a man feels in a kennel with some
fifty or sixty couple, looking and smelling at him, as
much as to say, " Pray, what business have you here ? '

68 THE HUNTING FIELD

How pleasant to stand calculating what proportion of
a mouthful a-piece one's carcase would make for the
company. A man who has whipped-in to harriers,
labours under much the same disadvantage that the
man does who has hunted them ; he is ignorant of
the discipline indispensable for foxhounds. Instead
of giving a hound one of those hearty good hidings
and ratings that makes him tremble at his voice, he
is always flopping and skutching, sometimes hitting,
sometimes missing, but never making an impression.
A foxhound requires a tremendous hiding. Let not
the French historian, or the Society for the Sup-
pression of Cruelty to Animals, jump at the assertion.
It is mercy in the end, most likely saving the animal
from the halter. We have seen a sheep worrier so
licked, that he could hardly crawl out of his kennel,
and instead of attacking sheep again, he was afraid
to look one in the face. After one of these sound
flagellations, a hound running riot will stop as if shot,
at the sound of the voice that accompanied the
administration of the medicine. Of course these
hearty hidings are only for flagrant faults — sheep-
worrying, deer-hunting, poultry-killing, obstinacy, and
so on. All young hounds will riot occasionally — a
great thumping hare starting up under their noses
is enough to lead any one astray, and it is in the
checking and stopping that the discipline or non-
discipline of an establishment is shown. Some
fellows will set to, roaring and riding, and cracking
their whips, making confusion worse confounded,
while others just trot quietly on till they near the
delinquent, when dropping his name heartily into his
ear, followed by a crack of the whip, if the receipt of
the halloo is not acknowledged, they will check his
unlicensed career, and bring him skulking back to
the pack. Some let them have their riot out,
especially when the old hounds are steady, and then
shame the young ones on their return. Beckford

THE WHIPPER-IN 69

thought it as well, provided they did not get
blood.

Some hounds are desperately headstrong, and
know the advantage of having a high wall, coped
with mortar and dashed with broken bottles, between
them and the man that is rating them. For them,
Beckford says, " My general orders to my Whippers-
in are, if, when he rate a hound, the hound does not
mind him, to take him up immediately and give him
a severe flogging. Whippers-in are too apt to con-
tinue rating, even when they find that rating will not
avail. There is but one way to stop such hounds,
which is to get to the heads of them. I also tell him
never on any account to strike a hound, unless the
hound be at the same time sensible what it is for.
What think you of the Whipper-in," asks he, "who
struck the hound as he was going to cover, because
he was likely to be noisy afterwards, saying, ' You
will be noisy enough by and by, I warrant you ' ? "

When discussing the " Huntsman " we related a
misfortune attending a scratch pack Huntsman, or
more properly "horn-blower," with a furze bush and
a flock of sheep, and in looking into Mr. Vyner's
book we find a similar case recorded of young hounds
at home : —

" I once knew an instance," says he, " of a lot of
wild young hounds being moved into a field adjoining
the kennel where they were kept, and where a long-
tailed black pony was grazing, attended by the feeder
alone ; from wantonness one of the hounds bayed at
the pony, which induced another to do the same, and
the pony to declare his approbation or disapprobation
by repeated snorting and caprioles ; the main body
concluded it was a signal for a rush, when away went
the little horse over a fence into the adjoining lane,
and away went the hounds full cry, to the dismay of
the feeder and the rest of the establishment, who
were so suddenly summoned by the music of the

70 THE HUNTING FIELD

pack ; however, to conclude my story, they were not
stopped until they ran the pony five miles, but without
any further damage to any of the party excepting
sowing the seeds of irrevocable wildness whenever an
opportunity might offer itself."

All packs, however, must have a beginning, and
the following may afford consolation to Masters of
newly set up ones : —

" There is an old story told," says Mr. Vyner, " of
the Beaufort hounds, when that pack was being first
formed many years ago. A new draft of hounds
which had arrived on the previous day were let out
into the paddock to be inspected, when they com-
menced running the crows, which frequently fly skim-
ming along close to the ground in windy weather;
and, as the old kennelman who had the care of them
declared, that he believed they would have never been
stopped, if they had not, by the blessing of God,
changed for a jackass."

But to the Whip—

We oftener find a "tool" of a Whip than a "tool"
of a Huntsman — perhaps because they have not so
many opportunities of exposing themselves as Hunts-
men, or perhaps because Whip " tools " are blighted
in the flower of whipper-in-hood, and never have a
chance of blooming into Huntsmen. We have had a
letter from a friend, informing us that the "cake" of
a Huntsman is described, who used to exclaim in
bewilderment on coming up at a check, "Ah dear,
whichiver w2iY can he have gone?" — "which way do
you think he has gone, Mr. Brown?" — "which way
do you, Mr. Green ? " — had an ornament of a Whip,
who never by any chance rode over a fence, and the
genius having chased a hound to the confines of a
field would sit craning and cracking his whip, halloo-
ing, "(9^/ away, hound! get away!'''' the hound, of
course, pursuing the same vagaries in the next field
as he had done in the one from which he had been

THE WHIPPER-IN 71

chased, until interrupted by our friend again cutting
round, full grin, at the gate, and repeating the same
farce over again. We have seen non-riding Hunts-
men do not amiss, but a non-riding Whip will never
do. Indeed, we know a gentleman, an ex-Master of
Hounds, who says that " riding in a Huntsman " and
"being a good shot in a Gamekeeper" are of the
least consequence. If the keeper can hit a hawk
sitting, he says it is enough for him, and that
"brains, a cool judgment, a good temper, and a
good constitution " are the indispensable ingredients
for a Huntsman. Riding, he adds, is his least
recommendation.

But to the Whip again. Here is Mr. Beckford's
opinion of what a Whipper-in ought to be : —

"With regard to the Whipper-in," writes he, "as
you keep two of them (and no pack of fox hounds is
complete without) the first may be considered as a
second Huntsman, and should have nearly the same
qualities. It is necessary besides, that he should be
attentive and obedient to the Huntsman ; and as his
horse will probably have most to do, the lighter he is
the better; though, if he be a good horseman, the
objection of his weight will be sufficiently over-
balanced. He must not be conceited. I had one
formerly, who, instead of stopping hounds as he
ought, would try to kill a fox by himself. This fault
is unpardonable; he should always maintain to the
Huntsman's holloo, and stop such hounds as divide
from it. When stopped, he should get forward with
them after the Huntsman."

It is ludicrous, but lamentable to sport, to wit-
ness a contest between a Huntsman and Whip
for supremacy. We remember travelling through
Leicestershire some years ago, when the guard and
coachman of the mail got to loggerheads on that
point, and it ended in the stoppage of the vehicle
until the passengers interfered. The coachman found

72 THE HUNTING FIELD

fault with the guard about something — perhaps having
been too long over his changing drop — when the
guard repudiated his interference, desiring him to "go
on and make up lost time — for that the coachman
was his servant." ^^Your j^^^^;^/ /" exclaimed Jehu,
pulling his horses up into a walk ; " whose servant am
I now, think you ? " added he, grinning over his
shoulder. So they went on for a mile or more, the
coachman pulling up as often as the guard gave his
"his servant" orders to go on. Much such a scene
occurs in the hunting field, when Whips and Hunts-
men have not settled that point any better than our
coachman and guard had.

Beckford lays down the law on the point very ably : —
"The Whip," writes he, "must always be contented
to act an under-part, except when circumstances may
require that he should act otherwise ; and the moment
they cease, he must not fail to resume his former
station ; you have heard me say, that when there is
much riot, I prefer an excellent Whipper-in to an
excellent Huntsman. The opinion, I believe, is new ;
I must therefore endeavour to explain it. My mean-
ing is this — that I think I should have better sport,
and kill more foxes with a moderate Huntsman, and
an excellent Whipper-in, than with the best of Hunts-
men without such an assistant. You will say, perhaps,
that a good Huntsman will make a good Whipper-in ;
not such, however, as I mean; his talent must be
born with him. My reasons are, that good hounds
(and bad ones I would not keep) oftener need the
one than the other ; and genius, which if in a Whipper-
in, is attended by obedience, his first requisite, can do
no hurt; in a Huntsman is a dangerous, though a
desirable, quality ; and if not accompanied by a large
share of prudence, and I may say humility, will often-
times spoil your sport, and hurt your hounds."

Mr. Beckford, it should be remembered, was
speaking of the requirements of his own country,

THE WHIPPER-IN 73

Dorsetshire — a country abounding in riot of all
sorts, where the covers are large, and there is a
chase full of deer and game. True, as Mr. Vyner
observes, in a note to this te;ct, that almost all
countries now labour under a similar disadvantage
from the unhealthy increase of game preserves ; but
Dorsetshire, perhaps, is still worse than any, owing
to the rather plentiful existence of the Httle roebuck,
which is a sad temptation to hounds at all periods of
the chase. Beckford, by no means meant to under-
value abilities in a Huntsman ; what he meant to
say was, that, situated as he was, he could do better
with mediocrity in the Huntsman than in the Whip.
Hunting talent was scarce in his day.

He then gives the following instance of how much
more a Whip is at liberty to give play to his genius
than the Huntsman, who must necessarily follow his
hounds : —

*^A gentleman told me," writes he, "that he heard
the famous Will Dean, when his hounds were running
hard in a line with Daventry, from whence they were
at that time many miles distant, swear exceedingly
at the Whipper-in, saying, * What business have you
hereV The man was amazed at the question;
' Why^ don^t you know^ said he, ^ and be d — d to you,
that the great earth at Daventry is open ? ' The man
got forward, and reached the earth just time enough to
see the fox in."

Will Dean, or Deane as some spell it, was originally
Huntsman to Mr. Childe, who hunted part of Oxford-
shire, and doubtless this scene occurred during that
time. Dean was afterwards Huntsman with the late
Lord Fitzwilliam, who bought Mr. Childe's hounds
in 1769, and Dean has the credit of introducing the
present dashing style of riding to hounds. He was
considered a great authority in former times.

Mr. Beckford thus recapitulates his qualification for
a Whipper-in : —

74 THE HUNTING FIELD

"If," says he, "your Whipper-in be bold and
active, be a good and careful horseman, have a good
ear and a clear voice — if, as I said, he be a very
Mungo, here there and everywhere^ having at the
same time judgment to distinguish where he can be
of most use ; if, joined to these, he be above the
foolish conceit of killing a fox without the Huntsman,
but, on the contrary, be disposed to assist him all he
can, he then is a perfect Whipper-in."

Some people fancy because a man is a first-rate
Whipper-in, that he must necessarily make a good
Huntsman; such is far from the case, at least far
from being a necessary consequence. Indeed, on
this point, none are more sensible than servants
themselves. We have known several first-rate Whips
who have declined Huntsmen's places, fearing they
might not succeed, and have to retrograde in life, a
proceeding that is always disagreeable. The observa-
tion of most sportsmen will supply them with instances
of first-rate Whips making first-rate failures as Hunts-
men ; again they will be able to point to Whippers-in,
who have shone far more with the horn than they did
with the couples.

Still it is a good principle of Mr. Beckford's, who
says : —

"Your first Whipper-in being able to hunt the
hounds occasionally, will answer a good purpose; it
will keep your Huntsman in order : they are very apt
to be impertinent when they think you cannot do
without them."

A Whip may come up on an emergency, and do a
brilliant thing; but as one swallow does not make
a summer, so does not one dashing act make a
Huntsman. Some men, doubtless, are born to be
Whips, others to be Huntsmen. Upon this point we
may vouch the authority of Mr. Delme Radcliffe, an
ex-Master of Foxhounds, and an author to boot : —

"No one," says he, "could ever have seen old

THE WHIPPER-IN 75

Tom Ball, formerly Whipper-in to Lord Tavistock,
without feeling that he must have been born a
Whipper-in. George Mountford would readily admit
that, but for Tom, many and many a fox might have
escaped his skill, which fell a victim to Old BalFs
sagacity, his knowlege of the animal and his line.
Patiently he would sit by a covert side, where, by
his own line, he had arrived about as soon as the
sinking fox; there would he view, perhaps, a brace
or more away, without the motion of a muscle, till his
practised eye would recognise the hunted fox, and
then would blithe Echo and other wood nymphs be
startled by the scream which would resound his knell,
and, like the war-cry of the ancients, would reanimate
his pursuers with certainty of conquest."

x\nother very able writer — indeed we think about
the best we know on the real essence of hunting,
scent and trusting to hounds — who used to write in
the "New Sporting Magazine" under the signature
of " Thistlewhipper," also bears testimony to the
importance of a good Whipper-in, and to the
superiority of Tom Ball in that line : —

" I am decidedly of opinion," writes he, " that the
success of a pack of foxhounds is more dependant
on the exertions of a good Whipper-in than on the
Huntsman, and that a North American Indian would
be excellent materiel to form one. How often have
I witnessed Wells, the Oakley Huntsman, when his
hounds were approaching a cover in which they were
likely to change, take off his cap, and turn his ear to
catch Tom Ball's holloa on the other side, and when
he heard it, dash to the head of his hounds, catch
hold of them, and gallop round to it."

This gentleman "Thistlewhipper," if we mistake
not, was the author of the " Life of a Foxhound,"
published in the "Old Sporting Magazine."

No one can read his papers without feeling that
they are the productions of a real sportsman, a real

76 THE HUNTING FIELD

hunter^ which is, perhaps, a more determining
appellation than that of "sportsman," which, with
" sporting man," may be assumed alike by the fox-
hunter and the thimble-rigger. Being an observing
man himself, " Thistlewhipper " noted observation in
others. Take the following as an instance : —

"To show how much more observant of little
things some men are than others," writes he, " I was
standing with about twenty men in a riding, while the
hounds were drawing and had drawn a great part of
the wood. *No fox here to-day,' said one. *Yes,
there is a fox moving in that young plantation,' said
another, * and you will see him cross,' and two minutes
after he did. There was a universal exclamation,
' How did you know a fox was there ? ' ' While you
were talking,' said he, ' I heard a cock pheasant
"ceck up" three or four times, evidently alarmed.'"

How beautifully that fact corroborates Beckford's
observation, that when you see two men in conversa-
tion at the cover side, you may safely infer that one
at least knows nothing of what he is out for.

All practical men agree in the necessity of a
Huntsman being efficiently supported by his Whippers-
in. Mr. Vyner, in his " Notitia Venatica," says : —

" Nothing will be found to be of greater importance
in the well-conducting of operations than steadiness
and persevering exertions on the part of the Whippers-
in ; servants of that description are quite as difficult
to meet with as a first-rate Huntsman ; a Master, who
' puts up ' a booby of a groom, merely because he
can ride young horses and scream like a fish-woman,
must never expect to see his hounds anything else
than wild and vicious in their drawing, and heedless
and unhandy in their attention to the Huntsman
when casting."

Mr. Smith, in his " Diary of a Huntsman," says : —

"To be a Whipper-in requires both a good eye
and a good ear; but the greatest qualification for

THE WHIPPER-IN 77

one is, that he should be free from conceit, so that
he will consider it right to obey the Huntsman most
implicitly, whether he thinks him right or wrong, and
not hesitate, but at once instantly do what is required ;
then he does his duty, but not till then."

Mr. Smith is of the same opinion as Mr. Beckford
as to the im.portance of a clever Whipper-in, and says
that men who have hunted their own hounds have
often felt a wish to become Whippers-in, knowing, as
they do, that it is possible for a good Whipper-in to do
more towards the sport most days than the Huntsman.
The thing, he says, is to find a man who does not
wish to save himself, and he adds, if the Whip is
really fond of the sport he never will.

Upon this point, however, we may observe that
the greatest keenness may be subdued by work, and
that the difference between a gentleman's keenness
and a servant's keenness is, that the gentleman's
work is voluntary, but the servant's w^ork is com-
pulsory; gentlemen can go or stay at home, as the
humour seizes them, but servants cannot. Even on
the wildest and most unlikely days, some people will
turn up at the appointed meet.

Mr. Smith says, " A Whipper-in should not ride as
if he was riding for amusement or credit, but should
have his eye to the hounds without distressing his
horse, which is a great recommendation to every
Master of Hounds. The greatest fools ride the
hardest generally ; the proof of their being so, is,
that they forget they must go on till night, but men
who hunt with hounds can go home when they
please. A proof of a clever Whipper-in is, that he
is always up at a check, without ever being seen in
front, except by accident, and no one else there ; but
it is his duty to hold in, and by that means he has
always something left in his horse, when others are
beaten. There are Whippers-in now going who are
never seen in a quick thing, and yet are never missed,

78 . THE HUNTING FIELD

because they are always up when wanted. Who looks
for a Whipper-in except then? He does not hunt
the fox."

It has always appeared to us, in our casual observa-
tion of hounds and different establishments, that
servants — W^hippers-in in particular — do not give
that delightful animal, the hound, due credit for the
extraordinary sagacity it possesses. They treat them
too much like cattle or flocks of sheep. There is no
animal so grateful for kindness, so sensible of injury
or reproach as the dog. We often think a London
dray-horse possesses far more sense than the great
two-legged, plush-breeched buffer on the flags, whose
whip point dangles in our eyes. We should be sorry
to say the same of hounds and their attendants ; but
we should like to see a little more reasoning power,
and a little less whip-cord used in some hunting
establishments — to hear men talking to their hounds
instead of rating them.

It has been well said that no animals take their
character from their master so much as hounds do
from their Huntsman. If the Huntsman is wild,
noisy, or nervous, so will his hounds be ; if steady,
quick, and quiet, he may rely upon it that his pack
will be the same.

The same gentleman ^ who made that observation
gives the following judicious advice to Whippers-in : —

" In going through riot, let not the hounds be
driven in a heap under their Huntsman's horse, and
indiscriminately rated without reason, as is too often
the case; but, on the contrary, let the Huntsman
seem carelessly to trust them, at a certain distance
from him, to take their own way, with the simple
precaution of having his men a little wide on either
flank ; he will then see which hound is to be trusted
and which not, and if riot is begun, his men are

^ " Skim," in the " New Sporting Magazine," describing the
Hon. Grantley Berkeley's system of management.

THE WHIPPER-IN

79

rightly placed to check it, with the further advantage
of knowing and rating the hound that offends, instead
of chiding indiscriminately. If hounds are driven
under their Huntsman's horse when approaching riot,
they will pass it by without looking it in the face,
noticing it no more than they would if a hare were
turned down in their kennel while the men stood by
with their whips. Such treatment cannot make
hounds steady; on the contrary, they have sense
enough to know when they are out of your reach,

and, like boys from school, on the sudden removal
of unnatural restraint, they are the more inclined to
join in any riot that may offer. A rate when given
at an improper time does more harm than good ; it
disgusts your honest hound — it shies and prevents
from hunting your timid one ; and it is treated with
contempt by those of another character, who may at
some future time deserve it."

Mr. Beckford gives an admirable illustration of the
absurdity of supposing that because hounds refrain
from mischief when their attendants are by, that
they are necessarily steady in their absence. A friend

So THE HUNTING FIELD

of his whose hounds were troubled with the unfortunate
propensity of killing their own mutton, bethought
him of turning a ram into the kennel among the
hounds. Vigorously the old gentleman laid about
him with his horns, and patiently the hounds bore it,
and after witnessing a good deal of the fun the master
and servants retired, leaving the ram apparently master
of the kennel. Returning in about an hour's time
to show a friend what an admirable receipt he had
discovered for sheep-worriers, the master found that
the hounds had eaten the old ram up in his absence,
and having filled their bellies had retired to their
benches.

CHAPTER VIII

THE WHIPPER-IN — concluded

HIPPERS-IN, like rail-
way passengers, may be
divided into three
classes ; first, the Hunts-
man Whipper-in;
secondly, the regular
Whipper-in; thirdly, the
', second Whipper-in.
\ The Huntsman Whip-

per-in is to be found
in the establishments of
gentlemen hunting their own hounds, as Shirley was
with Mr. Assheton. Smith and afterwards with Sir
Richard Sutton, Jack Stevens with Mr. Osbaldeston,
Charles Treadwell with Mr. Smith, Hogg with Lord
Elcho, and so on.

Huntsmen Whippers-in have difficult cards to play,
having to change from Whips to Huntsmen at as
short notice as the harlequin in a pantomime, and
the worst of it is, they are expected to change the
feelings of the hounds as quickly, and to draw animals
to them in the security of enthusiastic confidence
that for weeks and months, perhaps, they have been
chasing and driving away. In this respect they have
a worse chance than the Gentleman-Huntsman who
6

82 THE HUNTING FIELD

never feeds his hounds, for he at all events does not
lick them, and an animal remembers a blow much
longer than he does a bellyful of meat.

In addition to this, the Huntsman Whipper-in
generally has the pack pawned off upon him, under
disadvantageous circumstances — during a hurricane
perhaps — or at some out of the way, or interminable
woodland meet, or during doubtful, changing, frost
catching weather. Of all trials, however, that of
wind is the worst. "Take not out your hounds
in a very windy or bad day," says Beckford, and
hundreds of Masters and servants must have echoed
the sentiment.

A Huntsman Whipper-in has not a fair chance
under such circumstances, and if we were a Gentle-
man-Huntsman, and thought the day too windy to
go out ourself, we would keep the hounds at home
rather than risk an accident by sending them out in
such critical times, different to what they usually go.
Wind is the very deuce and all in hunting. Fancy
being pinned, as we have been, horse and all, on
the top of a hill, coat flaps flying out, one hand
grasping the hat, the other the reins, with the horse
snorting and sticking his feet into the ground for fear
of being blown over, and then let a man ask himself
if that is pleasure. Pleasure ! We would rather pick
oakum or work the treadmill under cover.

" On windy days, or such as are not likely to afford
any scent for hounds, it is better, I think," says
Beckford, "to send the hounds to be exercised on
the turnpike-road; it will do them less harm than
hunting with them might do, and more good than if
they were to remain confined in their kennel ; for
though nothing makes hounds so handy as taking
them out often, nothing inclines them so much to
riot as taking them out to hunt when there is little or
no scent, and particularly on windy days, when they
cannot hear one another."

THE WHIPPER-IN 83

Yet these are the sort of days on which Hunts-
men Whippers-in have to exercise their talent, and
upon which hasty and thoughtless men ground
their opinions. Many people prefer finding fault to
praising. They think it shows acuteness on their
part.

Again, another disadvantage some Huntsmen
Whippers-in labour under, is having the pack assigned
under difficult circumstances. Many Gentlemen -
Huntsmen can manoeuvre a pack about Salisbury
Plain, who would yet be uncommonly glad to get rid
of them if they got into the "Crick " country.^ Then
the Huntsman Whipper-in gets them until the diffi-
culties are past.

We are all great judges of hunting ; horses and
hunting everybody understands ; and the appearance
of the Huntsman Whipper-in, in the character of
Huntsman, of course throws wide the gates of critical
observation. We have many a laugh in our widely-
made sleeve at the contrariety of opinion about the
same man, and the oracular decision with which each
is delivered. If the Master is a favourite with the
speaker, then he is the man, and poor Tom isn't fit to
hold a candle to him ; but if the Master doesn't stand
"A I," as they say at Lloyd's, then Tom is the man,
and the speaker only hopes the Master may not
return on this side of Christmas. In hunting, as in
other things, the medium is seldom hit ; allowances
are never made ; a man is either a demon or a demi-
god. What one fool says another repeats, and that is
what they call " public opinion " — " They say," How
disgusting it is to hear some fellows prating about
Huntsmen and Whips. Monkey boys in jackets even
think themselves qualified to give an opinion.

Mr. Davis, the celebrated animal painter, and
brother to her Majesty's Huntsman, commenced an
admirable work a few years since, called the "Hunter's
^ The most strongly fenced part of Northamptonshire.

84 THE HUNTING FIELD

Annual," being a series of beautifully executed en-
gravings of the most celebrated of our hunting
establishments, in the various departments of the
kennel and the field, accompanied by short bio-
graphical notices of the hounds, countries, and men.
In speaking of the Burton Hunt, then in the hands
of Sir Richard Sutton, Davis gives a capital illustra-
tion in the words of a "Huntsman Whipper-in " of the
difference between the acts of the master and the acts
of the man. " Sir Richard," says Mr. Davis, " hunts
his own hounds, but his locum te?tens must not be
forgotten, the prime, good, old John Shirley, one of
nature's noblest works. To John Shirley Sir Richard
has trusted all the care and business of the kennel
and the discipline of his pack. The hounds are
made to his hands ; Shirley is nominally and hard-
workingly (if we may coin a word) the Huntsman.
He was early initiated into the mysteries and duties
of stable and kennel in the service of Thomas
Assheton Smith, Esq. and we need not say more to
convince that both are well grounded in him. He
came to Lincoln with this gentleman, and it was
here that Sir Richard knew his worth and abilities as
a servant. After he had hunted the hounds for some
seasons, it was signified to him that Sir Richard
wished to take upon himself that task. His answer
was, * Well, Sir Richard, I am glad of it, very glad of
it ; now, whatever you do wrong, be it ever so wrong,
it will be called bad luck ; whenever / met with bad
luck, /was called ignorantly wrong — that will be the
difference. But go on — you will do it well.' "

And well Sir Richard has done it. Long may he
continue to do it, say we.

Jack Shirley, we may remind our readers, is the
Whipper-in described by Nimrod as riding the loose-
headed old hunter down a hill in one of the worst
fields in Leicestershire — between Tilton and Somerby,
abounding with ant hills and deep furrows — the rider

THE WHIPPER-IN 85

putting a lash to his whip, with a large open clasp-
knife between his teeth at the time.

Huntsmen Whippers-in are like lieutenant-colonels,
they have the full command, except when the colonel
is present. The simile, perhaps, is not quite good,
for the presence of the colonel is the exception,
whereas the absence of the Master is generally so in
the hunting field. The seldomer the Master is absent,
the greater, of course, the difficulty of the Huntsman
Whipper-in when he is. Beckford relates how a
Master of Harriers had found out that the use of a
Whipper-in was to ride after the hare, and keep her
in view as long as he could; and we remember a
Gentleman-Huntsman assigning a somewhat similar
position to his Huntsman Whipper-in with foxhounds.
Some one observing that he wondered the Gentleman-
Huntsman kept a Huntsman when he did the thing
so well himself, and was so constantly out, received
for answer, that it was " convenient to have some one
to * blow up ' when things went wrong." " Blowing
up," however, is more generally the perquisite of the
second Whip than the first, he always being younger,
and his place more easily supplied. We know "a
Master" who used to use the second Whip for the
purpose of blowing up the field. When he saw a
man do wTong, he would send the Whip to ride within
ear-shot of him, and then he would come storming up,
reading the riot act to the boy, pretending he had
done what the gentleman had done.

Having, however, compared the Huntsman Whip-
per-in to the colonel of a regiment, we may pursue
the military simile, and say, that as in the army the
comfort of a subaltern is greatly dependent on the
character and disposition of the colonel, so, in the
hunting establishment, the comfort of the Whippers-
in is greatly dependent on the manner and conduct
of the Huntsman. Some Huntsmen are desperately
coarse and overbearing with their Whips, especially

86 THE HUNTING FIELD

their second ones, and then having frightened and
bullied their wits out of them, they wonder they are
good for nothing. We dropped upon one of these
bullying gentry unawares one day — a flash fool, who
thought himself fit for anything, but of whose talent
the world formed so different an opinion, that he is
now out of place — and overheard a rating match that
he thought was all between themselves. " Come and
ride behind me, and don't be showing off there," said
he, with all the importance of a lord-lieutenant, to a
poor frightened lad he had stationed at a gorse cover
corner, with orders not to move till he told him, an
order that the lad had implicitly obeyed, but had
unfortunately attracted a group of children, who, we
suppose, the Huntsman thought would have been
much better employed in looking at him. "Like
master like man," is a very true saying, and in no
instance more strongly exemplified than in Huntsmen
and field servants. If the Master is a coarse, swear-
ing, bullying fellow, the man will think it necessary to
imitate him. Huntsmen, of all people, take their
"cue" from the Master, and they have plenty of
opportunity of observing the terms on which each
sportsman stands with him. Whippers-in take their
"cue" from the Huntsman, and much the same
manners will be found to reign throughout an estab-
lishment. To their credit, however, be it spoken, we
scarcely ever met with anything like rudeness or
incivility from a hound servant. Some have more
manner than others, but they all "mean well." My
lord's men are better drilled, have seen how things
are done in other establishments, but Mr. Rattle-
cover's, though they may not " sky scrape " quite so
high, would be quite as ready to catch a stray horse,
or set a fallen sportsman up on his hind legs. From
catching loose horses Huntsmen are always exempt,
they must go with their hounds, the office therefore
devolves on the Whips, unless some other good

THE WHIPPER-IN 87

Samaritan anticipates them. Let the Whips be re-
membered in the sportsman's " budget." They have
no perquisites beyond their pay, and as every Uttle
makes a mickle, so a trifle from each sportsman will
make a very comfortable addition to their income.
Old Sportsmen, we know, will excuse our freedom in
mentioning it. They do it already, the hint is for
the " young entry " of the season.

But to the duties of second and third class Whip-
pers-in. As yet we have only discussed the office of
Huntsman Whipper-in, and glanced more at what the
others ought not to do, than at what they ought. We
will have recourse to our old friend, Beckford, on the
subject.

"When you go from the kennel," says he, "the
place of the first Whipper-in is before the hounds ;
that of the second Whipper-in should be some dis-
tance behind them ; if not, I doubt if they will be
suffered even to empty themselves, let their necessities
be ever so great, for as soon as a boy is made a
Whipper-in, he fancies he is to whip the hounds
whenever he can get at them, whether they deserve
it or not."

Another gentleman, whom we quoted before,
"Skim," says, "Some second Whippers-in conceive
that they are placed behind the hounds on the road
to flog up all that stop within their reach, as if they
had a drove of pigs before them ; but tJu whip should
never be applied unless for some immediate and decided
fault:'

Mr. Delm^ Radcliffe says : —

" The schooling of a pack will much depend upon
the efficiency of the Whippers-in. The Huntsman is
at this time endeavouring to attach every hound to
himself, and will encourage all (particularly the timid
hounds) as they are driven up to him by his assist-
ants. A sensible and intelligent Whipper-in will very
soon acquire some notions of the peculiar tempers

88 THE HUNTING FIELD

and dispositions of different hounds, so essential to
a Huntsman ; and will not require to be perpetually
cautioned against the indiscriminate administration of
punishment. For one hound a word may suffice,
while others may require as much payment as lawyers
before they do anything; with these it must neces-
sarily be not only a word, but a word and a blow,
and the blow first ; but nothing annoys me more than
to see a cut made at a hound in the midst of others
guiltless of the cause. It is ten to one but the lash,
intended for Vagabond or Guilty, will descend upon
Manager or Blameless, and render others shy to no
purpose. The difficulty consists in contriving to
awe the resolute without breaking the spirit of the
timid."

" Whippers-in, like Huntsmen," writes Mr. Delme
Radcliffe, "must feel a pride in their places, an
interest in the credit and reputation of the pack, and
thoroughly enjoy the sport, although their labour is
not light, but, on the contrary, very arduous, and
often harassing and vexatious. Without being able
to ride, a man will, probably, not be placed in such
a situation; but they should be more than mere
riders, they should be active and good horsemen,
capable of distinguishing between the use and abuse
of the horse intrusted to them."

Some gentlemen assist in turning hounds, some let
them alone, lest they may be doing wrong, and get a
" blessing " for their trouble ; while others console
themselves with thinking that it is no business of
theirs, and just let them have their fling until a
Whipper-in arrives. Of course we would not insult
modern sportsmen by supposing that any of them
would be acquainted with the name of a hound so as
to check him by it as well as by the whip, but in the
absence of a Whipper-in there cannot be any harm
in one of the field circumventing a delinquent, and
turning him back into cover. Young hands ride

THE WHIPPER-IN 89

after hounds instead of riding round them, and the
effort is sometimes productive of a fine trial of speed,
generally terminating, however, by the intrusion of a
fence, through which the hound skulks.

When a Whipper-in is by, however, it is best to let
him do the work, because he can very likely effect
it by a rate; at all events gentlemen should trust
more to their actions than their voices, because the
latter are strange to the hounds, but it must be a
very dull dog that doesn't understand when a person
is manoeuvring to lick him. The human voice divine
is doubtless a fine popular organ, and perhaps it is
a pity that the free use of it does not contribute to
the success of the chase, for we never saw a hunting
field yet where there was the slightest prospect of a
deficiency of noise. We shall never have to import
any of that^ however. Some few men, however, are
so modest or timid, that they are afraid of the sound
of their own voices, and if they see a fox break cover,
they get into such a delightful state of perturbation,
that they don't know what the devil to do, and it
perhaps takes them ten minutes or a quarter of an
hour before they recover their faculties sufficiently to
be able to tell anybody, and even then, they are often
in such a nervous state of confusion, that very likely
they have forgotten the place. For these gentlemen
the hat is the thing. Indeed, a hat high in the air
is worth a hundred halloos, especially if the hounds
are in cover and don't see it. The Huntsman can
then get them quietly out, lay them gently on, and in
foxhunting, as in most other things, a good beginning
is half the battle. The hounds settle w^ell to the
scent, reynard travelling quietly on, perhaps, hears
them well in his rear ; he then has time to consider
which way he will go, and, putting his head straight
for his point, gives them a splitter.

Many a fox is lost in the first few minutes. But to
the Whip—

90 THE HUNTING FIELD

Beckford tells an amusing story of an amateur
Whip, who was got rid of with the following polite-
ness: — "A gentleman," says he, "perceiving his
hounds to be much confused by the frequent halloos
of a stranger, rode up to him, and thanked him with
great civility for the trouble he was taking; but at
the same time acquainted him that the two men he
saw in green coats " {green, the deuce !) " were paid
so much by the year on purpose to halloo, it would be
needless for him, therefore, to give himself 2iny further
trouble."

The first Whipper-in, it seems to be clearly estab-
lished, is to be an independent genius, capable of
thinking and acting for himself, as exemplified in the
case of Will Dean and the Daventry earths. The
station of the second Whipper-in, says Mr. Beckford,
" may be near the Huntsman, for which reason any
boy that can halloo and make a whip smack may
answer the purpose."

^^ May be near the Huntsman," and "may answer
the purpose," writes our veteran, as though he thought
an old head would be better. In truth, though all
men must have a beginning, boy Whippers-in are
generally as great nuisances as boy butlers. They are
like the sham " captain," the London leg proposed to
hold the stakes between the Yorkshire yeoman and
himself at Doncaster races : " If you doubt me," said
the leg, with great apparent hauteur, " my friend, the
captain, here, shall hold the money." "But whe
hads captin ? " asked the wily old Yorkshire tyke, with
a shake of the head. "The boy Whipper-in looks
after the hounds, but who looks after the boy?"

We once saw a fine scene between a Yorkshire
scratch pack Huntsman, and a newly caught yokel of
a lad in topboots, a twilled jacket, and jockey cap.
They had fallen out in coming to cover, and the lad
arrived in the sulks. Scratch packs seldom tarry long
at the meet, for the best of all reasons — the hounds

THE WHIPPER-IN 91

won't stay, and moving towards the cover, a cur dog
took fright, and went away like a fox, with all the
pack full cry after him. Yokel sat grinning. " Torn
them hooundes^'' roared the Huntsman. " Torn them
thyseW replied the youth.

That sort of work, however, will not do for our
second Whip, who is supposed to belong to a regular
establishment. " There is nothing like experience for
impressing things properly on people's minds," says
Mr. Delme Radcliffe, " especially if the consequences
are disagreeable" — indeed, according to him, the
mind is not the only part susceptible of an impres-
sion. In elucidation of this, he relates an anecdote
of a " hawbuck," who being monstrously bothered
with the word "miracle" that occurred frequently in
the course of a sermon, requested an explanation of
it from the clergyman after the service was over. The
reverend gentleman gave bunch-clod a tremendous
kick behind, asking him at the same time if it " hurt
him?" ^^ Hurt mel'^ exclaimed bunch, "you've
hurt me most woundily." " Then," replied the clergy-
man, "it would have been a miracle if I had notT
To bring this to bear upon hunting, Mr. Radcliffe
recommends practical inconvenience for properly
impressing the duties of a second Whipper-in.

"Send your second Whipper-in back," says he,
" some miles after hunting, and insist upon his return
in good time, not without some hounds that may be
missing ; he will be for the future more awake to the
advantage of minding his business, than by repeated
lectures upon the expediency of keeping the pack
together. Follow this principle up, if you would have
deeds rather than words prevail throughout your
estabHshment." Our Yorkshire friend, if sent on
such an errand, would have replied, "seek them
thysel."

"The duty of a second Whipper-in," says Skim,
"is to send on a hound that hangs, to bring up tail

02 THE HUNTING FIELD

hounds, and to mind all that passes in the rear of his
Huntsman; and when all are before him together,
and clear of the wood, to act as occasion may
require." " As occasion may require " is a fine com-
prehensive phrase, capable of containing anything.

The greatest vice hound servants, whether Hunts-
men, first or second Whips, can be guilty of, is that
of drinking, and unfortunately it is one to which they
are peculiarly exposed. Every person likes to treat
them with a glass of something, so what with one
glass here and another glass there, they stand a very
fair chance of becoming, what country people call,
tipplers, that is to say, people who do not get blind
drunk, but who are always getting a drop.

" Bless me ! " exclaimed old Peter Pigskin, as we
were jogging to cover together the other morning,
"Bless me! there's Mr. Lapitup drinking a glass of
grog at yon public-house door. He^s draiik fifteen
hundred a-year, and he's dry still f^''

Gentlemen are not altogether exempt from the
charge of encouraging drinking. When hounds meet
at their houses, they are very apt to send the butler,
or Jeames Plush, out with the brandy-bottle, or some-
thing equally potent, and then there's pretty crashing
and flashing, leaping of gates, and larking at rails. It
is a bad principle, and a custom that had better be
commuted into a goose, or a whole bottle of some-
thing at Christmas; after a long ride, or on a cold
raw morning, a glass may be all very well. It is
against the abuse, and not the use of spirits that we
contend.

We do not object to hospitality to servants; far
from it, but then we advocate its exercise at season-
able times. After a good run, no one would object
to the frothing tankard flowing round — not even
Father Mathew himself, provided that great water
saint had first experienced the delightful delirium of
a wet shirt, got in a hard ridden run ; neither would

THE WHIPPER-IN 93

a glass of something hot and water after a cold wet
trashing day be objected to, but rather recommended,
but it is indiscriminate cold-blooded drinking that
should be avoided. It is a dangerous, a ruinous
thing. One glass this year leads to two next, and so
they go on till ruin is the result. Servants may take
our word for it, that in no station or calling in life
will drinking answer. A drunken man is not a man,
he is only half a man, sometimes not so much.
Hound servants, as we said before, are exposed to
great temptations. They have frequently to lie from
home at night, at inns and public-houses, and we all
know the customs of landlords, and the treating
habits of tap-rooms. Even in moving about home,
exercising hounds, or looking after kennel matters,
they are always liable to the offer.

The farmers, the saddlers, the blacksmiths, the
bootmakers, all like to give them a drop. They
belong to a popular sport, and are popular characters.
We once heard an amusing story of Jack Shirley
going from Lincolnshire to Mr. Ralph Lambton's,
with a draft of hounds, and what was his surprise on
getting into the county of Durham (where he had
never been before) at finding himself accosted every
now and then by the familiar "Jack," and asked
what he would drink? He was taken for Jack
Winter, Mr. Lambton's Huntsman, whom he greatly
resembled.

In the matter of " drink," gentlemen are very apt
to treat hound servants as they treat the unfortunate
sisters of the pave — debauch them first, and then
blame them for being what they are ; give them
drink, and then abuse them for being drunk. Each
man thinks what he himself gives can do no harm ;
but if hounds met before gentlemen's houses every
day they went out, it would be the ruin of half the
establishments going. Mr. Vyner comments severely
on the vice of drunkenness, and gives the following

94 THE HUNTING FIELD

amusing anecdote of what happened with the men
belonging to his pack : —

"There can be but one opinion upon the vice of
drunkenness in any man," says he, " and the second
fault in either a Huntsman or Whipper-in ought to
be the last to be overlooked. Many of my readers
may, I have no doubt, been disgusted in the course
of their lives by such an outrage; but to see a
Whipper-in drunk on champagne would be rather a
novel sight. I remember once meeting at the house
of a jolly good foxhunter 'of the olden time,' who
shall be nameless, where he had a most splendid
breakfast upon the occasion ; and our worthy host,
not being content with giving his guests plenty of
that exhilarating beverage, absolutely sent a bottle
out to the men who were waiting with the hounds
upon the lawn : the result may be imagined. Upon
remonstrating with the elder of the two upon this
most disgraceful occurrence, the answer was, that he
was sorry for what had happened, but that he thought
there could be no harm in the contents of the bottle,
as he had seen a lady drinking some of the same kind
through the window just before."

" This man," adds Mr. Vyner, " had but one fault
in the world; in other respects he was a most
excellent and trustworthy servant, and one of the
quickest and best sportsmen I ever saw handle a
whip ; he had lived twenty years in two of the most
noted hunting establishments in England, but gin
became his ruin."

Drink is a thing that, sooner or later, shows itself
in all men, and, perhaps, in Huntsmen and Whips
sooner than in most, through the medium of the
voice. There is a huskiness about the voice of the
dram-drinker, far removed from the joyful, cheerful
note, of the sound, healthy-lunged, sober man; in-
deed, we sometimes fancy that men's voices sound
differently after a "lawn meet," to what they do at

THE WHIPPER-IN 95

the ordinary run of the hunting fixtures. After the
huskiness comes the broken voice of the old practi-
tioner. We have heard men whose notes have been
broken right in two.

It is curious to see how hunting runs in families —
to see how certain names pervade our different hunt-
ing establishments — how like begets like, and son
succeeds father. Shirley, for instance, has a son
Huntsman to Sir John Cope : old Tom Ball, if we
mistake not, has one or two Whipper-in sons — one,
we know, whipped-in to Mountford, in Leicestershire,
in Lord Suffield's time, and we think there was
another with the Pytchley, during Mr. Payne's first
occupation of the country, if not in Lord Chester-
field's reign. Smith, Lord Yarborough's Huntsman,
is great-grandson of the first Huntsman of that name ;
his father, our readers may remember, had the mis-
fortune to break his neck at a trifling place the very
last day of a season.

Mr. Davis, speaking of Smith, the father, in the
" Hunter's Annual," where, of him and his two sons,
as Whippers-in, capital likenesses are given, says —

" Of the natural requisites for a Huntsman of fox-
hounds, so much has been said before, and really so
much seems to be expected, that a man to shine in
this department is one to be chosen out of ten
thousand, and then his youth ought to be spent in
the education fitting his peculiar line of life. It has
been said of Smith, that if schooling had done as
much for him as nature had endowed him with, that
no situation in life would be too high for his powers.
It is highly honourable to him and his family, that
he is the third generation filling the office of Hunts-
man to the Brocklesby Hunt. In 18 16, the Lord
Yarborough of that day presented the grandfather of
the present Huntsman with a handsome silver cup,
capable of holding the liberal quantity of upwards of
two quarts, on which was this inscription — * The gift

96 THE HUNTING FIELD

of Lord Yarborough to his Huntsman, after having
been more than fifty years in his service; made as
an acknowledgment of that indefatigable and unremit-
ting attention to the business of his vocation, which
may be recommended for a pattern to those who
succeed him, and can never be surpassed.' " Of the
estimation in which the late one was held by the
country, we add a description of the present made to
him by his sporting friends : — A large salver, with
a bold and richly-embossed edge and border, and a
broad chased wreath encircling a plain shield in the
centre, on which is engraved — "This salver and a
teapot, coffeepot, sugar-basin, and cream-ewer (pur-
chased by subscribers of five shillings each), were
presented to Mr. William Smith by his friends and
the sportsmen in the Brocklesby Hunt, as a testimony
of their high estimation of his propriety of conduct
and great ability as a Huntsman: October, 1834."
Sebright had a somewhat similar present from the
gentlemen and yeomen of Lord Fitzw^lliam's Hunt,
in 1836. Sebright is another instance of the passion
for hunting running in families. He is the son of a
famous Huntsman, and was almost nursed in the
kennel. He has gone through all the gradations of
service. At fifteen he entered the list of Whips
under West, who hunted the old Surrey when Mr.
Nevill was Master. He then went to Mr. Osbal-
deston, and from him he came to Lord Fitzwilliam.
Skinner is a good name. There were three brothers
at w^ork with hounds a few years since, all by old
Skinner, who was five-and-fifty years w4th Mr.
Meynell. There were four Hills, all Huntsmen or
first Whippers-in at the same time. Tom and his
brother Peckham in Surrey, Jem in Wiltshire, and
Dick in Oxfordshire, or Jem in Oxfordshire and Dick
in Wiltshire, we forget which. The Oldacres were
all sportsmen, and the name not to be beat; the
celebrated old Tom was father of two Huntsmen.

THE WHIPPER-IN 97

Treadwell is a good name in the hunting world.
There are two brothers who have graduated from
Huntsmen-Whipper-in-ships to be regular Huntsmen ;
one under Mr. Codrington and Mr. Horlock, the
other under Mr. Smith of the Craven. Mr. Codring-
ton's Treadwell now hunts Mr. Farquharson's hounds,
and has a son a Whipper-in with the Hambledon ;
Charles, Mr. Smith's one, is now Huntsman with
Lord Harewood. Old Tom Rose got young Tom
Rose; and, if we mistake not, Tom Wingfield, Mr.
Drake's Huntsman, in Oxfordshire, is son of Tom
Wingfield, who whipped-in to Raven and Goodall in
Leicestershire in Lord Sefton's time. Mr. Drake's
Huntsman, Wingfield, has, or had, a Whipper-in of
the name of Goodall, very likely a son of Goodall the
Huntsman. Tom Leedham, Mr. Meynell Ingram's
Huntsman, is or was whipped-in to by his two sons.
There is one name, " Jones," that is about extinct in
the hunting field. Mr. Meynell had a famous cork-
legged Whipper-in of that name, who was also a bit
of an author, and published some journals of their
doings. He was a great rider and a great drinker
also. They say he used sometimes to get so drunk
that he could not recollect, when he awoke in the
morning, where he had left his leg over-night. There
was also a Robert Jones, who hunted a joint pack,
kept by the late Colonel Wardle and the late Sir
Harry Goodricke's father, in Flintshire. The cele-
brated Tom Crane, afterwards Huntsman to the Fife
hounds, came, we believe, from that part of the king-
dom, and has left no hunting descendants that we
know of. Crane, from all accounts, was a most
extraordinary man. It was said of him that one of
his eyes was worth two of most other men's, and that
his ear was as true as his eye was quick. Crane
hunted the Duke of Wellington's hounds during the
Peninsular war, and one day in the ardour followed
his hounds almost into the enemy's camp.
7

98

THE HUNTING FIELD

Most of these men rose from the ranks, that is to
say, from Whipper-in-ships.

John Winter entered life as Pad-Groom under Mr.
Ralph Lambton in Leicestershire, in Mr. Meynell's
time, and passed through all the gradations of second
and first Whip, and Huntsman Whipper-in, when
Mr. Lambton hunted the hounds. Dick Foster
whipped-in to Lord Foley, in Worcestershire ; Will
Long whipped-in to Philip Payne with the Duke of
Beaufort's ; the late Jack Richards, Huntsman to the
Badsworth, whipped-in to Sir Bellingham Graham, in
the Atherstone country; so did Will Staples, after-
wards Huntsman to Sir Rowland Hill — Will was by
old Tom Staples, once Huntsman to Lord Middleton.
In short, most, of our eminent men have filled the
subordinate offices of Whipper-in, and risen to emi-
nence by talent and good conduct. Let the rising
generation emulate them ; but let them remember
that talent is of no use without conduct. Above all,
let them beware of the drink.

CHAPTER IX

THE EARTH-STOPPER

' Six crafty Earth-stoppers in hunters' green drest,
Supported poor Tom to 'an earth' made for rest."

Tom Moody.

ERTAIN things there are
we never wished to be
, — we never wished to be
a sailor ; we never wished
to be an " old Charley ; "
', we never wished to be
a great spangled cock
ballet dancer at the
Opera ; we never wished
to be Lord Mayor of
York; we never wished
to be Mr. Green, the
aeronaut ; we never wished to be a dentist ; we
never wished to be King of the Cannibal Islands;
we never wished to be a surgeon-accoucheur; we
never wished to be postmaster of Heligoland ; we
never wished to be Stunning Joe Banks; and,
most certainly, we never wished to be an Earth-
stopper. An Earth-stopper ! oh, no ! Of all cold,
candle-light, frigid, cheerless, teeth-chattering, arm-
flopping occupations, that of an Earth - stopper
assuredly is the most so. When all the world is
"snoring," fast asleep, our unfortunate woodland

loo THE HUNTING FIELD

watchman has to leave his downy couch and encounter
the elements and roughnesses of the thicket. Lord
bless us ! fancy such a night as last, the rain beating
against the casements, the wind howling, and blowing
a perfect hurricane : the brooks swelled into torrents,
the rivers into seas j and fancy having to leave the
warm house, the bright crackling fire, to grope and
prowl about the country like a thief in the night
time : a man ought to be well paid for such work as
that.

Earth-stoppers are of two sorts — the resident Earth-
stopper, and the head Earth-stopper, or Earth-stopper
in Eyre^ as the old law books designate the judges of
assize. The head Earth-stopper is an officer peculiar
to great establishments ; he is like the military
inspector of a district, and it is his business to go
about and see that his subordinates do their duty.
In summer he receives and examines into the truth
of reported breeds ; in winter he sees that the right
range of country is properly stopped ; and, above all,
properly opened. The Earth-stopper only does half
his business who only stops the earths ; opening
them after hunting is quite as important.

Yon weather-beaten old man, in the two-year old
cap, and three-year old coat, is the head of the
department of our hunt ; he is to the Earth-stopping
fraternity what the "superintendent" is to the police;
he is paid by the year, they by the stop. Old Foxfix,
for such is his name, is a varmint looking old fellow,
and when the old grey — or rather white — is away
from the high conditioned horses of the field, and
the new scarlet coats of the men do not throw the
old plum colour into the shade, he makes a very
respectable appearance. He knows every hill —
every rise from which a view of the varmint may be
obtained ; and often when the chase has lagged, and
hopes began to pall, old Foxfix's cap, on the sky line
of the horizon, has infused joy into the field below,

THE EARTH-StGFPEfl - > ' ' 'idi '

and brought hounds, horses, and men, to his welcome
and undoubted halloo.

The Earth-stopper is generally a popular man in
the country, and many of them are as good hands
at finding their ways into the earths of farmers and
gentlemen's houses, as they are at finding the fox
earths. Besides ascertaining the breeds and probable
number of foxes, they have also to hear evidence as
to their ravages, and keep a check on the poultry
account. Here they act as middle men between the
Master and the hen farmer, and in this department
we would advise them to give the cast of the scale in
favour of the farmer. Never mind if the hunt does
pay for a few more hens and geese than reynard
really consumes. Foxhunters pay nothing for field
damage, hedging, rail-mending, and so on ; and,
moreover, the poultry is generally the perquisite of
the ladies, to whom foxhunters are always ready to
do suit and service. Indeed, were we a Master —
which had we to make out a catalogue of wishes
instead of one of objections — we should place at the
head of the list — we should always be glad to hear of
a good lot of poultry damage. We should regard the
ravages of reynard much as we regard the appetite
of our friend Peter Pigskin, who it does our heart
good to see feed. The more damage say we the
more foxes, at least we would flatter ourselves so,
though some ungentlemanly foxes certainly will com-
mit waste as well as proper plunder. These, how-
ever, are the shabby dogs of the country, who generally
die ignominiously in cover, their distended bellies
"with fat capon lined."

In no instance is the popularity or unpopularity of
a Master more apparent than in the abundance or
scarcity of foxes. The man who can command a
country full of foxes without the aid of a super-
intendent Earth-stopper, resembles a monarch who
can trust himself among his people without a body

102 THE HUNTING FIELD

guard. There is no criterion — in a hunting country
at least — so infallible as a goodly show of foxes. It
shows that the farmers and the country people are
pleased — rank, wealth, large demesne, will not insure
what the single word " popularity " will achieve.
Popularity is, in truth, the foundation of foxhunting.
It is very true that the sport is popular itself, but it
is also equally true that a popular man with moderate
means will far outstrip in his show of foxes the richest
millionaire who lacks that quality.

Not that we mean to insinuate that keeping a
regular Earth-stopper is any sign of want of popu-
larity; on the contrary, we have known some most
popular Masters who have always had them, but we
say that half a-hundred regular Earth-stoppers will
not insure foxes to a Master who is personally offensive
or objectionable. Fox - preserving, like voting by
ballot, is a good deal matter of conscience. A man
promises to " preserve " just as he promises to " vote "
for you, but if he keeps his own counsel you cannot
detect the contrary. After all is said and done, there-
fore, popularity is the best fox-finder.

There is something very sporting and picturesque
about a fox earth. They are generally in romantic,
sequestered, secluded places ; in deep ravines, or on
the side of woody hills. Their adjuncts are all pure
and rural. The clean thrown up sand at the mouth,
the projecting rock above, or knarled root supporting
its lofty time-honoured oak, with the little accompani-
ments of bright growing hazel, knotty black thorn,
and withered fern or faded heath. It is strange how
fox after fox draws to the same spot ; what was a
breeding earth a century ago is a breeding earth now,
and is as notorious to a country as a turnpike gate.
How creditable it is to the lower orders that they
should be held, as they are, inviolate, at least in all
countries where hounds come, or are even expected
to come. The man who has killed a fox is quite as

THE EARTH-STOPPER 103

much an object of execration among the lower orders,
as the acred vulpecide is in the higher circles, with the
disagreeable addition of moving among men accus-
tomed to speak their minds without the gloss of courtly
phraseology. " Who shot the fox ? " is an exclamation
that has sent many a skulking vagabond out of the
public-house, when a group of honest rustics have
been exulting over a day's sport. Indeed, the lower
orders set an example well worthy the imitation of
many who call themselves their superiors in their
respect for the fox. They look upon him as a sort
of privileged animal. He even seems to shed a sort of
lustre over those in any way connected with him.
Ask the first people you meet in a village where the
constable lives, and they either can't or won't tell
you, but ask where the man lives " wot stops the fox
earths," and they will not only tell you, but accompany
you to the door. This is as it should be, and long
may it continue so. It is this that gets Earth-stoppers
— it is this that makes men nervous and fidgetty
in their beds, lest they oversleep themselves, and
very possibly causes them to bolt master reynard's
door before he has left the house. They are anxious
for the sport themselves, and anxious for the amuse-
ment of the country at large. They feel that the
honours of the day are greatly dependent on them,
and are correspondingly alive to their duties.

Mr. Daniel, in his "Rural Sports," says, "The fox
knows how to ensure safety, by providing himself
with an asylum, which he either does by dispossessing
the badger, or digs the earth himself; in either case
it is so contrived as to afford the best security to
the inhabitants by being situated under hard ground,
the roots of trees, &c. and is, besides, furnished by the
fox with proper outlets, through w^hich he may escape
from every quarter; here he retires from pressing
dangers, and here brings up his young ; so that the
fox is not a wanderer, but lives in a settled domestic

I04 THE HUNTING FIELD

state." Daniel makes him quite a respectable cha-
racter, a housekeeper in fact, with a back and front
door to his residence, though we cannot say we ever
saw an earth with such accommodation. In running
to ground where rabbits abound, it is not uncommon
for reynard to bolt out of one hole while the fox-
hunting "navies" are busy at another, but those
holes are made by the " bunnies," not by the foxes ;
reynard is there only a lodger. Speaking of his
domestic habits, Daniel says further, "The idea of
a settled place of abode indicates a singular attention
to self ; the choice of a situation and of rendering
that abode commodious, and of conceaHng the avenues
to it, imply a superior degree of sentiment ; the fox
is endowed with this quality, and manages it with
advantage ; he prefers the covers near dwellings^ where
he listens to the cries of the poultry ; in his attacks
upon them he chooses the time with judgment, and
concealing his road, slips forward with caution, and
seldom makes a fruitless expedition." Daniel had
not been much of a fox-man, we think, or else the
animal must have changed its habits a good deal
since his book was written. We have often seen
foxes found in covers in the neighbourhood of farm-
houses, but we do not remember at this moment
ever seeing an earth at all that would be called close
to farm buildings. Daniel's book, how^ever, was
written forty years ago, since when foxhunting has
undergone considerable change, particularly the lodg-
ing— we might almost say the domestication of foxes.
We have now all sorts of artificial contrivances, from
the fagot cover down to Mr. Smith's masonic drain.
In Daniel's time, indeed, it seems to have been a
"moot " point whether foxes were entitled to protection
or not, just as we have heard people contend for the
right to shoot persons who have the luck to be out-
lawed. Daniel says, " The destruction and preserva-
tion of foxes are points upon which there is a differ-

THE EARTH-STOPPER 105

ence of opinion ; the law holds out a reward for the
death of the animal, to be paid by the churchwardens
of every parish, whilst the foxhunters and their friends
use all possible exertions to protect the breed and
increase their numbers." He then gives the letter of
a nobleman to his agent in Leicestershire, desiring
the agent to show every accommodation to the tenants
who had been friendly to the hunts of " Lord Spencer,
the Duke of Rutland, Mr. Meynell, and Lord Stam-
ford." " On the other hand," writes the noble lord,
"you will take care and make very particular inquiries
into the conduct of those tenants who shall have
shown a contrary disposition, by destroying foxes or
encouraging others so to do, or otherwise interrupting
gentlemen's diversion, and wdll transmit me their
names and places of abode, as it is my absolute
determination that such persons shall not be treated
with in future by me upon any terms or consideration
whatever. I am convinced that landowners, as well
as farmers and labourers of every description, if they
knew their own interest, would perceive that they
owe much of their prosperity to those popular hunts,
by the great influx of money that is annually brought
into the country ; I shall therefore use my utmost
endeavours to induce all persons of my acquaintance
to adopt similar measures ; and I am already happy
to find that three gentlemen of very extensive landed
property in Leicestershire, and on the borders of
Northamptonshire, have positively sent, within these
few days, similar directions to their stewards, which
their tenants will be apprised of before they re-take
their farms at next Lady-Day. My sole object is,
having the good of the community at heart, as you
and all my tenants know that my sporting days have
been over some time ago."

That letter is as good now as it was the day it was
written.

Having mentioned Mr. Smith's artificial earths or

io6 THE HUNTING FIELD

drains, we may here quote what he says on the
subject of stopping, in his " Diary of a Hunts-
man."

"Hunting countries," says he, "which abound
with fox-earths are very Hable to have blank days,
according to the usual method of arrangements ; for
where there are earths, foxes at times will be in them
when they are wanted elsewhere, even when the
Earth-stoppers do their duty; but the first question
to put is, whether it is likely that a man can be
depended on to get up long before daylight in the
coldest and most dreary part of the winter, to stop
a cold earth and leave the warmer clay by his side.
It's all very well for men to say " yes ! " and that they
know they do their duty properly, for they have sent
down to ascertain it. Ascertain what? that the
earths were stopt before it was light. What matter
that ? how long before light does a fox go to ground
at this time, when it is not light much before eight
o'clock, this being three hours later than at other
parts of the season ; and they are consequently more
often stopt after the fox has gone in than before, and
a very little ingenuity will extort this fact from an
Earth-stopper, that he has often found his stopping
removed by a fox scratching out when he has gone
to take it out himself next morning, which accounts
for many blank days."

Some amusing productions used to be published a
few years ago, under the title of " Sporting Almanacks,"
and assuredly, as far as making sport went, they were
rightly named. In them the commencement of
hunting used to be fixed as accurately as Horncastle
Fair or Doncaster Races. Such a day of September
harehunting commenced — such a day of October
foxhunting began, without any reference whatever to
the seasons. Earth-stopping is dealt with in a similar
way by certain sporting compilers — between such an
hour and such an hour the Stopper is directed to be

THE EARTH-STOPPER 107

at his work, without reference to weather, season,
localities, moon, or anything, just as if foxes had their
dressing and dinner bells, and went to feed with the
punctuality of their pursuers. " We 7nay be wrong,"
as Mr. Meynell used to say, but we take it foxes
resemble a gay club living bachelor, much more than
a punctual six o'clock family man. They like their
chicken, or lamb chops, just at their own time, with-
out the restraint of specified hours. Reynard may
have fallen in with something dainty in the middle of
the day, and may not feel inclined to turn out on the
grand prowl till a later or earlier hour in the morning.
He may put his nose out and find it raining, and
having neither cloak, macintosh, or clogs, may decide
that he is not hungry, or that he has a little something
in his larder in the neighbourhood that he can get
when the weather improves.

From an hour before midnight, till about three
o'clock in the morning, is the prescribed time of
the authorities, though should it be moonlight, and
reynard hungry, we don't see what is to detain him
at home so late. Better, however, to be late than
too early, for it is unpleasant, both to fox and followers,
to have him in the "lock-up house" when he is
wanted at large.

Mr. Smith was an advocate — indeed the inventor
of the system of walling up earths at the beginning
of the season, the duties of the Earth-stoppers being
to see that the fagots, or whatever the barrier was
made of, were not removed until the spring, when
the vixens were let in to a lay up. A deduction was
made from the pay of a man for each time a fox got
to ground in his district.

Mr. Smith, indeed, considers the disadvantages of
having earths are so much greater than the advantages,
that if every earth in the country were done away
with, it would be a benefit to foxhunting, even as
respects the breeding of foxes, for the vixens would

io8 THE HUNTING FIELD

breed above ground in furze, or would find drains
which no one knows of.

Colonel Cook published an estimate some years
since of the expense of hunting a country, which has
been quoted and requoted till we are tired of seeing
it, for it has always appeared to us that the expense
of hunting one country affords no more clue to the
expense of hunting another, than does the manage-
ment of foxes and fox-earths in one country afford
a guide to the management of foxes and fox-earths in
another. Almost all countries are now hunted after
some fashion or other, and a good thing it is that
they are, for it not only keeps men at home, but it
affords sport and amusement to many who would
otherwise not get out at all, but one country may
have too many foxes, while an adjoining, and better
one, may be short of them. The better a country is,
the greater the trouble, difficulty, and expense of
keeping it stocked with foxes. This is self-evident,
for the greater the security, the greater the temptation
to foxes ; hence the necessity of hunting good and
bad places alternately, or the foxes will be all huddled
together in the bad places. Hills, forests, deans,
crags, rocks, are all friendly to foxes, but unfavour-
able to the progression of the chase. We remember
breakfasting with a Master of wiry-haired, rough
mountain hounds once, when the servant came in
to say that a neighbouring farmer had sent word that
he must shoot the fox if the gentleman did not come
to hunt him, for that reynard was constantly eyeing
his lambs. "Tell him to blaze away,'*' replied the
gentleman, adding as the servant left the room, "if
there were fewer foxes I should kill more, but the
fact is, if I ask a man in this country to stay his hand,
he will think he has a claim on me for damage,
whereas I hold out that I have a claim on them for
keeping down the stock of foxes, besides," continued
he, " there are many chances in reynard's favour as it

THE EARTH-STOPPER 109

is. First of all, it's ten to one that the old blunder-
buss will go off; secondly, if it does go off, it's twenty
to one but the farmer misses, and the fox will know
just as well as him that he has got something in his
hand, and will take good care not to let him come
within reach." Good logic in the mountains, but not
in the vales. Contrast it with the doings in Hertford-
shire as described by Mr. Delme Radcliffe, who truly
says that a fox there is worth his weight in gold.
Speaking of the fees to keepers he says : —

" In the first place, I condemn the fixed price set
upon each day's amusement, the extravagance of the
terms upon which hounds leave their kennel, as likely
to operate, at some time or other, seriously against
bye-days ; and as an increase of contingent expense
which might well be spared. Secondly, I assert, that
with all the good will and support of the nobility,
squirearchy, and yeomanry, the Master of Hounds in
this, or any other similarly circumstanced country, is
virtually at the mercy of Gamekeepers and Earth-
stoppers. For every fox that is found, from one
end of the country to the other, the sum of one
sovereign is booked, allowed, and regularly paid.
The fees of Earth-stoppers, from half-a-crown to ten
or fifteen shillings, according to the number of stops
within the province of each, amount on the average
to four pounds per diem. Thus, supposing that the
sport is limited to the finding of one fox, we start
with an expense of five pounds as the smallest tax
upon the day, independent of all the inevitable wear
and tear. So long as the subordinates have as much
interest in foxes as farmers have in their stock or any
kind of property, it is not to be wondered that the
animal abounds ; and it is equally clear that it would
be better that they should cost two sovereigns each,
than that the stock should be diminished, seeing that
there is no medium — that they are, or are not, that
they are altogether preserved, or utterly destroyed —

no THE HUNTING FIELD

as there is no such thing as modification in the forms
of vulpecide." This is expensive work certainly, but
we do not see how it is to be remedied. Foxhunting,
without foxes, will never do ; there is nothing more
disheartening than riding from cover to cover, with
the full conviction that each will be a blank. We
knew a man who went to an enormous expense with
his hounds, but somehow or other, he could not find
in his heart to pay his Earth-stoppers properly, conse-
quently the whole outlay — some thousands per annum
— was absolutely sacrificed for a paltry saving of a
couple of five pound notes, for we really do not
suppose the difference between what he did pay, and
what he ought, would have amounted to more in the
year. "Hertfordshire" does not sound much like
hunting, and doubtless this is an extreme case, and
one that is not fikely ever to become general. In
fact, none but a rich country could stand such work.
A bad custom, however, is much easier introduced
than got rid of, and gentlemen in other countries will
do well to take warning by Hertfordshire. The
mischief here appears to be the "patent office" of
keeper, the fees to Earth-stoppers not being higher
than in other countries. Earth-stoppers should be
w^ell paid. Theirs is the worst office connected with
hunting. A little pettyfogging economy is badly
exercised with them.

Mr. Vyner says that in Warwickshire, in 1830, the
Hunt Committee reduced the pay of the Earth-
stoppers to half, and the result was, what might be
expected, in about half the covers " no find."

An occasional " tip " to a keeper is all very well,
but the regularly "booked demand," described by
Mr. Delme Radcliffe, "carries absurdity and in-
consistency on the face of it," as exposed by the
honourable gentleman himself, who says "that it is
done, notwithstanding most of the great game pre-
servers in Hertfordshire have as much or far more

THE EARTH-STOPPER iii

pleasure in the possession of foxes than of game in
their coverts ; therefore it appears somewhat absurd
that they should be compelled to become parties to
the purchase of them from the very servants whose
duty it is to protect them. The Master stipulates
with his keeper no less for the protection of the
fox than of the pheasant, and yet allows an extra-
ordinary premium to be paid, a prize to be directly
awarded to him for the fulfilment of that, in de-
fault of which he should, and generally would, be
discharged."

Mr. Delme Radcliffe suggests the following
remedy : —

" I would not entirely abolish rewards to keepers,"
says he, " by way of encouragement in the shape of
douceurs at Christmas, or at the end of the season ;
but I would have no regular charge for finds, nor
even regular charges for Earth-stopping, excepting in
coverts expressly hired for the purposes of the hunt.
There such payments might be a part of the wages
of those employed ; but I would have the preserva-
tion of the foxes, and the stopping of the earths
for hunting matters, entirely dependent upon their
respective proprietors. I would have every lord of
a domain make a point of enforcing his determination
to contribute gratuitously all in his power to the noble
sport."

A very good resolution, say we ; but suppose the
said lord is a shooter, how then? Foxhunters are
very apt to fancy that every one must favour their
sport, but some apparently very friendly people
would have no objection to see foxhunting aboHshed
altogether.

"Instead of a regular bill, amounting to from ;^io
to ;^i5 to be presented by a keeper," writes Mr.
Radcliffe, " as the price of his forbearance, in per-
mitting the existence of animals considered obnoxious
to game, and, in reality, destructive to the rabbits.

112 THE HUNTING FIELD

which are his perquisites, I would have £5 the
maximum of remuneration. Such a sum might be
adequate compensation to any good servant for the
trouble of doing his duty, and would be received
merely as a token of approbation of the manner
in which he discharged it, when the success of
his endeavours entitled him to such consideration.
There can be no reason why underkeepers, or other
labourers, might not as well undertake the earth-
stopping, on account of their regular employer, as
on that of recompense from a separate body."

"It has been always the custom, in Herts,"
continues our author, " to hold two Earth-stopper
feasts, one on each side of the country; the
Huntsman presiding: they are attended by all the
Gamekeepers, Earth-stoppers, ef hoc genus omne^ of
the districts ; the annual expense of both seldom
exceeding ;^3o ; and they tend to implant^ and keep
alive, sentiments most desirable to cherish."

Mr. Smith devotes a whole chapter to keepers,
between whom and the world at large he seems
anxious to do justice.

" There is an old saying," writes he, " ' give a dog
a bad name and hang him,' — which maxim is too
often applied to gamekeepers : for there are some
who are really friends to foxhunting, and who have
more pride in showing foxes with their pheasants,
that is in the same covers, than any others can have
in showing pheasants without them : innumerable
instances can be proved that foxes and pheasants can
be had in abundance in the same covers, particularly
where there are rabbits : the writer has seen five
foxes cross a ride in a cover, and nearly as many
hundred pheasants."

In the following, Mr. Smith hits the right nail on
the head : —

" The great objection which keepers have to foxes is,
that they destroy so great a number of rabbits, which

THE EARTH-STOPPER I13

are the keeper's perquisites, and consequently they
are disposed to destroy foxes."

No doubt about it, and therefore the remedy is
not to let the keeper have rabbits. Some people
will say they won't come without. Won't they,
indeed ! We know a gentleman who advertised for
a keeper, and had thirty applications in one week.
Keepers are not Hke Huntsmen or Whips, men that
are difficult to meet with. As Mr. Grantley
Berkeley, the great game authority of the day, says,
" Any man who can shoot a hawk sitting will do for a
keeper."

"It is a difficult thing," adds Mr. Smith, "to know
how to act with them ; but it is much the wisest plan
to treat them civilly, even if they are doubtful, until
proofs can be brought against them that they do
destroy foxes against their master's will; for there
are many keepers most highly respectable men, and
indeed, under any circumstances, it is the height of
folly to abuse them openly, as is too often done."

Mr. Smith afterwards relates an anecdote of a most
righteous keeper, who, being accused of killing cubs,
which he offered to take any sized oath he did not,
on the act being brought home to him, candidly said,
" Well, then, I did do it ; for it would be unnatural
in me not to kill what I was brought up to do."

We are, however, getting rather off the line, but
keepers are so connected with foxes and Earth-
stoppers, that we could hardly avoid touching upon
them. We agree with Mr. Smith that there are many
highly respectable men among keepers, men who are
really fond of hunting, and we are not sure that in
some instances where they are blamed, the fault is
with the Earth-stopper. Of course an Earth-stopper
cannot " ring " the foxes out at a certain hour, as the
bellman does the merchants on the Royal Exchange,
and he must just " stop " at the likeliest time for the
majority to be roaming ; and, if any stay at home

114 THE HUNTING FIELD

when they ought to be out, why they must just go
without their suppers. Do not, however, let sports-
men condemn a keeper for an occasional blank.
Who knows but a fox, finding his earth stopped, may
say to himself, " I'll cut my stick ; for, if I mistake
not, those terrible high bred dogs of Mr. Rattlecover's
will be here to-day." It is not attributing too much
sagacity to the wily animal to suppose that he will
recognise the features that preceded a former dis-
comfiture. Foxes are quite as good hands as other
animals at discriminating where harm is meant and
none — who are their friends and who not. How
leisurely a fox disturbed by the sombre dressed
shooter trots away, sniffing the air and looking over
his shoulder, as much as to say, these bothersome
people are not wanting me. He takes them as coolly
as the "Artful Dodger" would take a poHceman in
quest of a comrade with whom he has not been
doing " business " lately.

Here is old Foxfix himself, we declare, doing the
electric telegraph with his cap, rejoicing the hearts of
a now desponding field.

CHAPTER X

THE GROOM

[F half the fellows calling
themselves " Grooms "
were in their proper
places, how well the
pigs would be attended
to!

Were it not for the in-
consistency of the thing,
it would say much for
the confiding innocence
of human nature, and
confidence in mankind,
that while some men try, and pause, and deliberate,
and hesitate, and call in friends, and, lastly, veterinary
surgeons, to examine a horse ere they buy him, they
yet can hire a Groom with oftentimes no recom-
mendation but the fellow's own. It never seems to
strike some men that a horse is a horse, or only half
a horse, according to the manner in which he is kept
— that you may make one and the same animal two
perfectly different creatures, by good grooming and
bad; nay, that you may even keep a groggy, half
worn out horse on his legs by dint of condition and
management. Grooms are as various as geraniums or
dahlias — they are of all sorts, from the Stud-Groom of
my lord duke, who occasionally condescends to hold a

ii6 THE HUNTING FIELD

stirrup, down to the yokel who looks " arter " old Miss
Frowsington's "one oss chay," digs the garden,
waits at table, milks the cow, washes the poodle,
cleans the parrot's cage, sweethearts the maid, and
makes himself generally useless and troublesome.
Grooms rank high in the scale of servitude, and
though in our fancy sketch of the Earl Marshal's
coronation procession we put house servants above
them, yet, if we were arranging them, we are not
sure but we would place Grooms immediately after
Huntsmen and kennel servants. We look upon a
Groom as a real useful article in an establishment ;
in our mind they rank equal with the cook in the
domestic department, and, like cooks, are of exceed-
ingly various orders of merit. We can't do without
a Groom, any more than we can without a cook;
for though in our moments of high-horseish-ness we
may swear that we will clean our own horse or
cook our own dinner, rather than put up with the
impudence of a servant, still it is a feat that no
one would like to be constantly repeating. Grooms,
therefore, we say, are really useful people, and, like
the old story of the king and the basket-maker of our
childhood, rank before the ornamental " knights of
the napkin " and toilet.

Of course in this our "Analysis of the Hunting
Field," the Hunting Groom is the one we have most
in our mind's eye, and to him we shall chiefly direct
our observations.

A great change we imagine has taken place in the
whole style and system of hunting within the last
century, and everything appertaining to horses,
hounds, country, and riding, has undergone material
alteration.

If we take an old map of a county, it looks like
a barren plain instead of the divided town dotted
populous region of the present day, and though in
riding over it we may be told that this is Thisselton

THE GROOM 117

Moor, or that Wideopen Common, there' is nothing
to indicate such regions but the name. Moors, open
fields, common lands, &c. are all favourable to hunt-
ing, not only as tending to promote the straight-
forward progression of the chase, but in preventing
the honourable contention of arriving first at big leaps ;
for it may be observed, that men are never jealous of
each other so long as there is no fencing. Our
forefathers, therefore, had every chance of being
sportsmen ; for, besides having no rivalry or emulation
among themselves, the lengths of their runs, with the
softness of their steeds, tended to make the riders
save them at all points. With the exception, too,
of perhaps some half-dozen hunts, Mr. Beckford's,
Mr. Meynell's, Lord Talbot's, Lord Yarborough's,
Lord Fitzwilliams's, and a few others, the majority of
the packs were either trencher fed, or only kennelled
during the winter: a couple, or so, of hounds,
perhaps, being kept at the house of each follower,
whose attention would be rivetted on his darlings in
chase, instead of diverted to the rasping of Thompn
son, or the bruising of Jobson. These hunts were
doubtless very popular, for there is nothing so taking
as a bustle and stir, in which all are at liberty to
share. That is what makes a contested election so
popular. Men come out, and fuss, and canvass, and
strut, and swagger, who are heard of no more until
another contest comes round. There was another
characteristic attendant on many hunts in former
days, which is almost wholly lost sight of now —
namely, hunts that used to hunt hare till Christmas,
and fox after. We never hear of such establishments
now — at least not avowedly — though there are,
doubtless, some that will hunt hare either before or
after Christmas ; but there are still those ubiquitous
gentlemen, the "oldest inhabitant," whose retentive
memories are charged with the miraculous doings of
the past — how they dragged up to reynard by daybreak

ii8 THE HUNTING FIELD

— how Jowler unkennelled him — how Towler hit him
off at the road, and what a dance he led them over
hill and dale, till all the foot people were shaken off,
and half the horses sent home sad and tired. These
half-and-half hunts had an advantage not apparent
at first sight, which bears upon the heading of our
paper. By running hare till Christmas sportsmen
got their soft horses into condition for the lengthened
and more fatiguing fox chases that took place after.

The condition of hunters was certainly not
generally understood, or perhaps attended to, until
about twenty years ago, when " Nimrod " essayed his
letters on the subject. We do not mean to say that
large first-rate establishments were ignorant of the
subject; but certainly tired, stopping, and dying
horses were much more common before he wrote
than they have been since. Indeed, we seldom hear
of a horse being killed by sheer riding, unless in the
hands of some raw, enterprising beginner, who has
omitted no opportunity of taking a gallop whenever
he could get one, needful or otherwise — a gallop
being a gallop with some, and quite as enjoyable
without hounds as with.

Mr. Beckford, in his " Thoughts upon Hunting,"
glanced at what " Nimrod " afterwards wrote into a
system, namely, losing all the condition gained by the
work and the feeding of winter, by turning the horses out
to grass in the spring. Mr. Beckford, we imagine, had
been of the grazing order ; indeed, for any but a few
countries, there is no doubt but the old-fashioned
system, with proper management, will always produce
condition enough for all legitimate riding to hounds.
The heat and flies of summer used to be the great
argument against turning out ; but, as summers go,
it is very seldom we have much to complain of in
that way. Doubtless the house system is the surest
and safest way to hard condition, but it is much more
expensive than the other, though of course its

THE GROOM 119

advocates always swear it is not. A man's hobby
never costs anything.

" Nimrod's " letters on condition did a great deal of
good, though perhaps he was rather in the extreme,
at all events induced men to run into the extreme,
who lost sight of the fact that "Nimrod" took
Leicestershire for his standard, and that what might
be necessary there might be superfluous elsewhere.
Besides, it is evident that with the variety of constitu-
tions, tendency to lameness, and infirmity of horses,
no general rule can be laid down for their manage-
ment. Treatment adapted to each case seems to us
a sounder and more sensible system. We advocate
clipping, a practice "Nimrod" never could bring
himself to hear of, though there is no doubt that all
who have tried it will admit its wonderful efficacy.
*' Nimrod's" objection seemed to be its cheapness,
and its tendency to make Grooms idle; but the
former is an objection that poor men will readily
pocket, and the latter is easily remedied by giving
each man three horses instead of two to take care of.
As times go, anything that tends to diminish the
expense of hunting establishments ought to be adopted,
and certainly clipping is a thing that not only saves
labour to the servant, but also needless annoyance
and irritation to the horse. A Groom never knows
when he is done with a woolly-coated horse, for after
he has strapped him, and rubbed him, and got him,
as he thinks, after much toil and labour to himself,
and plunging and kicking and wincing on the part of
the horse, all right and comfortable, very likely, on
going into the stable an hour or so after, he finds the
horse all broke out again into a cold clammy sweat,
and all the rubbing and whisping to do over again.
Take the animal's pea-jacket of a coat off, either by
clipping, shaving, or singeing, and he not only looks
five-and-twenty per cent, better, but he thrives to the .
extent of five-and-twenty per cent, more, and does a

120 THE HUNTING FIELD

third more work into the bargain, with half or less
than half the trouble to the Groom.

Clipping used to be quite a trade, nay, it almost
threatened to become a "profession" at one time, so
high did the artists run up their prices ; but the hum-
bug of the thing is exploded, and prices are down.
With very few exceptions, all the fellows who go about
the country clipping are mere grooms and helpers out
of place, who can't clip a bit better than a man's own
servant. Then when they get into a house where the
master is weak enough to let them have wear and
tear for their teeth, unless they have another victim
in view, they are in no hurry to take their departure,
and a horse will serve them the best part of a week.
Travelling rat-catchers and itinerant grooms are things
that should be carefully avoided. It is a far better plan
for a master to keep a set of clipping scissors of his
own, and let a Groom try his *' prentice" hand on a
hack or some horse that is not much wanted or seen,
than to take in one of these chance-coming clippers.
A grey horse, for instance, shows bad clipping less
than any, and a man must be a very numb hand if he
does not get into the way of the thing after going
over a whole horse. Besides, a man's own Groom
chps at his leisure, at those midday hours that are
consumed in the saddle room, in polishing that
eternal curb chain. Grooms always have in hand, or
ready to let fall, the moment they see " master com-
ing." A real clipper will clip a horse in a day, and
most likely charge a guinea for it, which, it must be
admitted, is pretty good pay. We have heard of two
guineas being paid in former times.

Shaving is a still easier process than clipping, and
we wonder it is not more generally adopted. Any
man who can shave himself can shave a horse, and
shaving is attended with far less fatigue to the hand
than clipping. The veriest beginner can shave a
horse a day — the Groom, village barber, sexton, any-

THE GROOM 12^

body. It requires nothing but half-a-dozen razors,
hot water, and common soap, well lathered in to the
part you are at work upon. There should be a man
or boy to hold the horse, one to shave, and a third to
keep setting the razors, as it makes awkward work
when the shaver has to stop every now and then, dry
his hands, and commence whetting. It is a more
efficacious process than clipping, and gets rid of much
of the singeing and smell-making that concludes that
operation. The only difference in point of conven-
ience is, that you cannot well ride a shaved horse
without clothing for a week or so after the operation,
whereas a clipped one will come out the day after —
indeed we once saw a horse out with hounds in Kent,
whose fore-quarters were rough and shaggy, and the
hind ones smooth and smart, looking very like a
French poodle, a likeness that was increased by the
monkeyfied appearance of the man upon it. As to
the risk attending either clipping or shaving, we
confess we never saw or heard of any ill effects
arising from either, though, as we said before, we
have seen and felt very great advantages. We may,
therefore, be called "clippers."

Now to the general subject of Grooms and con-
dition.

A real Leicestershire Hunting Groom treads closely
on the heels of the Training Groom, with respect to
condition : he is, in fact, a Training Groom without
the "humbug," at least he ought to be without it.
Some men keep Grooms to be their masters, and to
these the real Training Groom perhaps would be the
thing. They then would not get a glimpse of their
horses, save by sufferance. We have no notion of
paying a man to be our master. A gentleman ought
to be just as good a judge of the requirements of a
hunter as a Groom, indeed he ought to be a better,
because he is the man who has ridden the animal, and
he also is the man who knows when he wants to ride

J22 THE HUNTING FIELD

him again ; it therefore seems the height of softness
and absurdity for a master to put up with the not
uncommon answer to a message that he wants to
see his horses, that the stable " is shut up." This is
carrying the mystery and humbug of the racing stable
into the hunting one. It may be right, and necessary
in the racing stable; we don't pretend to give an
opinion on that point ; but in nine cases out of ten
it is sheer humbug as applied to hunters. Many a
man, we believe, has been choked off hunting by the
over condition of his horses. Some Grooms have but
one system — the very tip-top condition, good nerves,
bad nerves, or no nerves at all. First-rate, race-horse
condition may be all very well for Sir Rasper
Smashgate, who rides fourteen stone, with the nerves
of a Roman gladiator, but for little Paul Poplin, it is
nothing short of cruelty to put him on an over fresh
horse — cruelty the most refined, for you make the
poor victim pay for his suffering. What can be more
humiliating to a man of " taste, enterprise, and spirit,"
as the old '' Sporting Magazine " used to put on its
title page, than being hurried here, there, and every-
where, knocked against gate-posts, dashed among
trees, bumped against acquaintance, by an impetuous,
overbearing, resolute horse, that the Groom has been
coddling and spicing for the show off on this particular
day. Horrid reflection, when there are five or six
more waiting their turns to do the same thing !

In hiring a Groom, as in buying a horse, it is very
material to see whether they are adapted to the work
we intend to put them to. Hunters are not like
carriage or park horses, that can be kept for show with
impunity, and it is no use a man hiring a Stud Groom
and buying six or eight horses merely because he
happens to have plenty of money, when a less aspiring
servant, with fewer nags, would make him much more
comfortable. He had better lay his money out in
plate, or in some less troublesome article than hunters.

THE GROOM 123

He must not mind being called shabby. Surely a
man is not to make himself miserable for the sake of
being called liberal. Of all charges that of shabbiness,
^'closeness," is the commonest and easiest made. If
a man's stomach is not equal to the "drenching"
dinner-giving entails, and he is sparing of his feeds,
he is called shabby. If he gives dinners and does not
push his wine, he is said to be trying to save it. If
Dick Sharpwit tries to do him with a horse, and fails,
Dick dubs him a "screw;" and so they ring the
changes on the charge through all the transactions of
life. Nothing, however, insures a man the charge of
shabbiness equal to foiling another in a do. It is
propagated with double rancour, for the delinquent to
screen himself and get his revenge. The man must
lead a wretched life who troubles himself with think-
ing what " the world says of him."

It may generally be remarked, in looking over a
hunting field, that the Grooms who are the neatest
and best turned out themselves, have their horses
best turned out too. This turn-out of self is difficult
to define, varying, when out of livery, according to the
taste of the wearer, and when in livery, restricted a
good deal to the cut and putting on of the clothes. A
woolly - hatted Groom has always a shaggy - headed
horse. That is a rule admitting of no exception.
Dingy-clothed Grooms, with inky-looking tops, have
always dull-coated, ill-conditioned horses. Fellows
with Britannia- metal-looking spurs, gloveless fists,
sloggering boots with the straps hanging out, unbrushed
coats, burst seams, stained waistcoats, flying-ended
neckcloths, generally have their chokebands as tight
as they can draw them, and the head - stalls of
the bridles flapping about, with buckles and bits as
dull as pewter. Some fellows can " dress the Groom "
and can do nothing else. Others, again, are fond
of horses, just as a child is fond of a kitten ; but,
as to any real hard work about them, that they have

124 THE HUNTING FIELD

no taste for. These creatures are only fit for pony
phaetons, or Mr. Brown's one-horse chay. Of all
abominations, however, that of slang servants is the
greatest — fellows who lard their answers with cant
terms, get their waistcoats as near their knees, and
their breeches as near their ancles as they can.

An ill-mannered servant is a thing no gentleman
should have. Manner is a thing that speaks for itself,
therefore a master has no excuse in saying he did not
see the want of it when he hired the servant. There
is nothing bespeaks the low-lived ill-conditioned fellow
so much as calling gentlemen by their proper names,
as Thompson, Simpson, and so on. We know servants
do it among themselves ; indeed, it is in consequence
of their doing it among themselves that causes some
of them to slip it out before their masters ; but candi-
dates for place may rely upon it it is very bad policy
letting an expectant master hear it. No judge would
ask any questions after such a display of familiarity.
Touching the hat is a thing there is less of, the lower
we get in the scale of servitude, till we reach John
Hawbuck fresh from the plough, who gives a familiar
grin, and says " it's a foine day." We remember the
observation of a nobleman's Stud-Groom one day, on
seeing a newly-caught yokel of theirs answer a gentle-
man without the touch of the hat, which w^as, that
"there would have to be a deal more politeness
before he did for the7ny

Touching the hat is an art, and can be made to
convey almost as much meaning as words. My lord's
servant will take his off, even to a commoner, if
the commoner is a friend of his lordship. Mr.
Plantagenet's will do the same, or raise his hand
slowly and respectfully till he gets fairly hold of the
brim. Captain Bolisher's, of the heavies, will give a
sort of back hand salute. Mr. Rattlebar's, whose
master drives the coach, gives a comical sort of twirl
of his arm, as though he wanted to look under his

THE GROOM 125

elbow ; while Tom Tinker, Mr. Loosefish's young man,
gives a quick snatch, when he is just upon you, as
though he hardly thought you worth a salute at all.
We have observed that servants whose places are
tottering become singularly assiduous in the matter of
the "felt," and we have even known Grooms out of
place subsisting entirely upon the precarious income
derived from touching theirs.

Grooms are about the only servants upon whom
masters can form anything like an accurate opinion,
and it would be well for them to remember that fact.
The communication between masters and all other
servants is so slight, and occurs at such stated and
expected periods, that it would be odd if they could
not raise sufficient manners to pass muster ; but
Grooms — stable-servants in general — have the "eyes
of England" upon them, as "hard-up" orators say.
Not only is the private eye of England (the masters)
upon them, but the real public eye of the world at
large.

Every Groom, who enters the hunting field — every
Groom, as he passes along the street — rides as it were
upon his character. His horse and himself show what
he is.

There are two things we make it a rule never to
keep, a drunken servant and an oil lamp ; and we go
upon much the same principle in both cases, namely,
that the servant is sure to be drunk, and the oil lamp
to go ou.t, when we want them. Drunkenness is an
inexcusable vice in any servant — least of all in a
servant entrusted with horses; yet how many fat^
comfortable-looking old ladies we see getting into their
carriages in the country, to be whisked home by
fellows who have been boozing in the tap-room all day,
and whose fine cutting and tearing earns them the
reputation of " excellent coachmen." Women think
of nothing but going fast. If they are fast driven they
think they are well driven. That, however, appertains

126 THE HUNTING FIELD

more to the branch " Jehu " than the pecuhar class of
servants under consideration.

" Honesty, sobriety, and civility " are the cardinal
qualities inquired after in character; but there is
another very important one, especially in a Hunting
Groom, " punctuality," that should never be lost sight
of. Want of punctuality counterbalances almost every
good quality. Half an hour — nay, five minutes — is
sometimes everything in a hunting morning. Fancy
a man coming twenty miles to meet hounds, and his
horse arriving five minutes after the last craner has
taken the distant fence, the panting hack sobbing as
the master sits straining his eye-balls — now after the
hounds, now in vain research about the country. If
any one were to put the following query to us : —

" Would a master, whose Groom was late with his
horse, and so lost him * the run of the season,' be justi-
fied in quilting him ? "

We should answer —

"Most decidedly yes — lay into the wannintf'^

Perhaps we might add —

^'Beware that he^s ?tot too big.''^

AV^ant of punctuality attaches to both ends of the
morning start. There is the want of punctuality in
getting away from home, which entails hurrying on
the road, and is more common than the w^ant of
punctuality in arriving at the meet. A fellow who
can't get out of his bed of a morning is only fit to sit
in feathered breeches and hatch eggs. Somebody said
of a once prime minister, that he always seemed as if
he had lost half an hour in the morning, and was
running after it all the rest of the day ; and assuredly
there is nothing so annoying as a servant, who, for
the want of the early half hour, hurries and jumbles
the w^ork of two hours into one.

To a punctual person there is something strangely
self-speaking, evident, and significant in the move-
ments and appearances of an unpunctual, dilatory.

THE GROOM

127

behindhand servant. We will suppose the master
shaving, at which critical period, instead of seeing the
stable door open, and the horse going away, Tom is
running about in his fustians; then, when at length
he does appear booted, the saddle and bridle make
their appearance, and have to be put on, till at last the
master, in ungovernable fury, hurries on his things,
vowing he'll go out and lick him, when he sees Tom
rushing out of the stable, scrambling on to the horse,
and cutting away at the rate of ten miles an hour.
An unpunctual man is always an irregular man, he

never knows where he has anything. We like to see
a quiet, orderly, methodical Groom, who knows where
to lay hands on what he wants, and who does his
work as though it were his daily custom, and not
something out of his usual way.

There is nothing so bad as a hurrying, scuttling,
muddle-headed servant in a stable — a fellow who
never knows where he has anything, and who is
always applying the wrong article for want of know-
ing where the right one is ; " making shift," as they
call it. Again, we have seen fellows who thought to

128 THE HUNTING FIELD

ingratiate themselves with their masters, by showing
unusual bustle and activity when they were in the
stable — snatching at this, pulling at that, and dashing
here, there, and everywhere. That sort of work won't
do with horses. A man must have a head as well as
hands before he can be called *' a Groom."

CHAPTER XI

THE GROOM — Continued

1 ILLING servants are a
"real blessing" to
masters, as the soothing
syrup people advertize.
Willingness covers a
multitude of sins, and
saves many a graceless
dog his place. Willing-
ness, however, is a thing
confined almost entirely
to small establishments.
Let a servant be ever
so well disposed that way, when he gets into a large
establishment, he is obliged to conform to the rules
and ordinances of the place, and do nothing that
can by any possibility be considered the work of
another, or that the odd boy about the place can
be made to do. Idleness is looked upon as a
sacred right, a right that each new comer is bound
to preserve inviolate, and transmit to his successor
perfect and unimpaired. The true dignity and duties
of servitude are only properly appreciated and per-
fectly understood in large houses. Whoever got his
hat brushed at a duke's?

"Willingness" of course includes pleasantness of
manner ; for it is hardly possible for a fellow who
9

I30 THE HUNTING FIELD

goes slouching and muttering away to obey an order
to be called " willing." A man may never absolutely
refuse to do a thing, nor ever neglect to do it, and
yet be a most unpleasant and unwilling servant — one
that we would rather do a thing ourselves than give
an order to.

It is related that one of the Dukes of Bedford used
to declare that he was never so happy as when he
awoke in the morning on a journey and found him-
self in a chintz bed, instead of the stateliness of
Woburn ; and we, in our humble meditative rambles,
often think, as the opening door of some great house
discloses the bedizened and bepowdered retinue of
servants, what misery, what hardship it would be to
have them calling us " master." We, who direct the
energies of willing and industrious hands, shudder at
the thoughts of ruling a handful of idle, overfed
lackeys. "What can they be all kept for," we some-
times think. Surely all the owners of these great
houses cannot be like the unfortunate Miss Biffin,
born without arms or legs, and incapable of doing
anything for themselves. And then a thought strikes
us that these are the necessary concomitants of
wealth and station, and hurrying on we thank our
stars that we were not born with a "sideboard of
plate in our mouths," as Dickens would say.

" The servants are the gentlemen of England," says
Sam Slick. "Next to bein the duke," writes he,
" I'd sooner be groom to a gentleman that sports a
four-in-hand than anything I know of to England :
four spankin, sneezing, bosses that knows how to
pick up miles and throw em behind em in style —
g'long you skunks, and turn out your toes pretty —
whist — that's the ticket — streak it off like iled light-
ning, my fox tails ; skrew it up tight, lock down the
safety valve, and clap all steam on, my busters ; don't
touch the ground, skim it like hawks, and leave no
trail; go ahead handsum, my old clays — yes! the

THE GROOM 131

servants are the gentlemen of England ; they live like
lighten cocks, and yet you hear them infarnal rascals,
the radicals, callin these indulgent masters tyrants,
endeavourin to make these happy critturs hate the
hand that feeds them, telling these pamper'd gentle-
men they are robbed of their rights, and how happy
they'd all be if they lost their places, and only had
vote by ballot and universal suffrage."

Sam is a true observer — many an over-fed fellow is
talked into imaginary grievances that would never
occur to him of his own accord, or if he was out of
place. "Idleness," as the copy heads well say, "is
the parent of all mischief," and it is much to be re-
gretted that the system of great houses encourages
idleness as it does in servants. Not only is it pre-
judicial to the servants themselves, but most injurious
to those who may happen to be thrown in their way.
People indeed of all sorts are so apt to think of what
others have that they are without, rather than what
they have that others are without. In place, a
servant perhaps sees that servants in other places do
not do what he is required to perform, and instead
of recollecting how many hundreds there are out of
place who would jump at his situation with all its im-
perfections, he tries by every device and shifty excuse
to rid himself of what he is pleased to denominate
"not his work." The moment a servant begins
to talk in this strain, it is time to get rid of him.
They never do any good after. Many, otherwise
well-meaning lads, we believe, are laughed and talked
into this kind of thing ; others again adopt it naturally,
from a sluggish, inert disposition. To the former we
would say, " Reflect on what you may have to do if
you fall out of place."

Until all masters' fortunes and ideas are alike, it is
impossible to suppose that servants' places can be
alike, or even that the place of one master can
regulate or guide the place of another. "Every

132 THE HUNTING FIELD

herring must hang by its own head," as the saying is,
and servants must take each place upon its individual
merits, without reference or regard to what is done or
allowed at another. No master ought to allow a
servant to quote the doings of another place to him.
These observations are peculiarly applicable at the
present time, for the increased and increasing facilities
of communication, as well by post as by railway, have
brought about such a system of note comparing and
laying heads together, that half the servants are agog
to know what the other half have. Then if Tom
Brown finds out that Harry Jones has a couple of
pounds a-year more than himself, he feels it a point
of honour to ask to have his wages raised, forgetful
very likely of the fact that he is in possession of a
couple a pounds a-year more than Giles Scroggins
at some other place. A^^ servant's sliding scale only
knows the ascendant. The breed of old attached
family servants, so beautifully described by Washing-
ton Irving, will be almost extinct with their generation.
Few new ones are rising up to supply their places. It
may save annuities to expectant heirs, but we much
question whether the new system is better for the
general interest of families.

There are no people under the sun so well done by
as gentlemen's servants. They live on the fat of the
land, have no cares, no anxieties, and are paid out of
all proportion to their labouring brethren. An in-
flated beef and beer bursting bragger will assert that
he can do what a labouring man cannot; but a
handy labouring man will do his own work and the
braggart's at his leisure hours. What are the gener-
ality of servants, in fact, but part and parcel of the
labouring population? They are not a bit better
educated ; if they were, they would aspire to clerk-
ships or shopmen's places. All the difference is that
one lights on his legs in gentleman's service, the
other sticks to the spade, the axe, or the trowel, and.

THE GROOM 133

we believe, is often the richer and the happier man
of the two. Gentlemen's servants are often sadly
improvident. They have great temptations, it is
true; but few, we fear, try to resist them. The
easiness of comfort is soon acquired, and the chance
of adverse circumstances is unpleasant to contemplate.
In hiring a Groom, or indeed a servant of any sort,
it is always advisable to get them from places rather
under than above those they are coming to. A re-
trograding servant is generally a dissatisfied servant,
and as they always ride in the highest hole in the
stirrup of their knowledge, they are very apt to think
it necessary to instruct the new master in the style
and doings of their best place; instead of serving,
they assume the direction. In the country, the scale
of servitude is as nicely understood, and the position
of families as accurately settled by servants, as the
hereditary nobility is by Mr. Burke or the Heralds'
College. Grooms from great places are often full of
whims and conceit, and think nothing can be right
but what was done at Sir John's or my lord's.
Masters are great fools to submit to anything of the
sort. No two books, let alone two masters, agree
upon even the most ordinary point of stable manage-
ment. Take feeding, for instance — one man will tell
you that hay should be given in about the quantity of
1 2 lb. a-day; but if you go into a barrack yard, and
ask a soldier what his horse gets, he will tell you 81b.
is the allowance. The more ignorant a Groom is,
the more mysterious, conceited, and pedantic he is,
the more he talks about his infallible receipts and
nostrums, known to none but himself, or confided by
some equally great authority. These sort of pre-
tenders are only for young men, the old stager knows
the simplicity of condition too well to be talked to in
that strain. One of the absurdities of the times is
making everything as complicated and mysterious as
possible, using hard words where hard words can be

134 THE HUNTING FIELD

brought in, and dividing and subdividing trades,
professions, and occupations. The first thing a lad
does now-a-days is to set up a watch, after which, if
his mind incline towards horses, he buys what he
calls a " printed book " about them, and thinks
himself equal to Field, Mavor, or Goodwin. The
real requirements of horses are very few and very
simple : good food, good grooming, good stables,
and work proportionate to the food and constitution.
Apportioning the food to the work is a thing that
never enters the heads of nine-tenths of the horse
hissers, calling themselves Grooms ; their great
anxiety always being to get as much food down each
horse's throat as they possibly can. They are quite
unhappy if they can't cram four feeds down a day.
We would rather see them keen about giving them
plenty of exercise than plenty of corn. It is in the
exercising department that half the stable servants
fail. Young lads are especially slack, and some have
the still worse trick of trying to put two hours' exercise
into one by hurrying, trotting, and cantering. We
have seen urchins rushing with their horses out of
the stables, jumping up, snatching their bridles, and
cutting away as if they were riding for the m.idwife,
instead of going out in that leisurely, orderly way, that
belongs peculiarly to the word exercise — exercise in
contradistinction to errands or work. Indeed there is
not one boy in fifty fit to be trusted with horses, we
mean fit to be left in the entire charge of them.
They should always have a man over them. Let the
reader recall the equestrian performances of his own
boyish days, the hurried and protracted ride, the secret
gallop, the stealthy leap, the quiet race, and say
whether he would have been a fit person to trust
with a valuable horse at that time of life. Talk of
years of discretion at one-and-twenty ! Let a man
of forty ask himself if he was discreet at one-and-
twenty.

THE GROOM 135

Exercising before breakfast is a great promoter of
short commons in the walking department, and a
great inducement for an early return. We do not
know why Grooms should like having their horses
out before the world is properly aired, but certainly
the managers of large studs generally adhere to that
system. In the old days of mails and coaches, we
have often passed whole strings of sheeted and hooded
horses in the environs of different hunting quarters,
as we have whisked by in the opening mist of early
dawn. Six o'clock is the usually prescribed stable-
man's hour for being with his horses, which is two
hours before daylight in winter. Doubtless the earlier
a man is at his stable the better, to see that all is
right and quiet ; but we think it would be better both
for horse and man, if, after setting things fair and
straight, the latter returned to his breakfast, and took
his horses out after sun-rise.

Sheeting and hooding horses at exercise to the
extent we generally see them, and then sending them
out next day with only a saddle on, seems almost an
experiment on health. Again, how seldom we see
them clothed according to the state of the weather
and the season of the year. What is once put on
is generally kept on. It is a good rule in hunting
stables, where horses have to He out often, to clothe
lightly at home. An extra rug or sheet will then tell
should the Groom get into a bad, cold, or unaired
stable.

Galloping horses to get them into condition is a
dangerous process, and one in which, we believe,
more are lamed and broken down than by regular
work in the hunting field. Taking a horse into a
field by himself, oppressed with fat and clothing, and
kicking and bucketing him about till the sweat runs
down in streams, and he is fit to drop, does seem an
abuse of the noble animal that nothing can justify.
The horse does not know what it means, what you

136 THE HUNTING FIELD

are about, or what he is expected to do. Instead of
the quick, self-containing, energetic stride that he
takes in the excitement of hunting, he blobs and
flounders about, drops his legs and rolls like a bullock
till the senseless brute on his back either tires himself
or feels the horse failing under him. In sweating, as
in ordinary exercising, the compression system — the
putting an hour's work into half-an-hour — is often
the fatal fault. We all know that we can sweat a
horse by common road riding ; what then is to prevent
the necessary reduction of flesh being made quietly
under clothing? Nothing, but that it requires more
time. Galloping does it quicker, and lads like gallop-
ing best. Then the way they saw and haul, and hang
on by the mouth is truly awful.

We remember in the days of our adolescence, fold-
ing a shilling in a nice clean crisp " Henry Hase,"
with the ;£i mark figuring like a raspberry tart at the
corner, for the purpose of giving it to the first Groom
we met riding on the snaffle, and feeling his horse's
mouth as he went. Well, we carried that "Henry
Hase " for weeks and months until the shilling wore
itself through, and we daresay we might have carried
it till now, without meeting with such a rarity in
London, as a Groom riding on the snaffle. They all
hang on by the curb.

If a Groom can give a ball and bleed a horse, we
would compound for all the other knowledge in favour
of that first of all essentials, good "elbow grease" and
exercise. "Giving a ball," indeed, is about the extent
of some of their ability in the physicing line, the
proper preparation of a horse for it being much beyond
the march of their intellect. If a horse is difficult to
move, instead of lengthening the period of his pre-
paration, they increase the quantity of aloes, until we
hav6 seen a poor beggar with near a dozen drachms
in his guts. In these cases Grooms always swear the
aloes are bad, or the bran is bad, or the water is bad.

THE GROOM 137

or something is bad — anything but that their manage-
ment is bad. Some fellows are fit for nothing but
inventing excuses, and uncommonly quick and clever
they are.

Veterinary surgeons are now so distributed about
the country that in anything out of the ordinary way
it is best to send for one of them. With horses, as
with men, cold and repletion are the principal causes
of illness, and when bleeding and physicing fail, let
not a master persevere, but send for the "vet."
Horses sometimes fall lame without any one, not even
the "vet," being able to discover the seat of the
lameness, and will as suddenly get well and disappoint
all the prognostications of the learned. Physic is
then the thing — it can do no harm, if it does no good
— ^given in moderation, of course.

Shoeing is a thing that the green-horns of service
are little acquainted with the importance of. They
are always "just going" to get their horses shod, let
the shoes be ever so thin, when they are asked about
them. Foot lameness, that curse of good horseflesh,
whose origin " no one knows nothing of," may be all
traced to indolent, ignorant stablemen — Grooms we
will not call them — and clumsy unskilful blacksmiths.
Some men make a fuss about seeing their horses
fed ; we would rather see them shod. Shoeing is a
thing upon which doctors differ, as well as upon
other points. One man will tell you that the shoe
should be made to fit the foot, and not the foot
burnt with the hot iron to make it fit the shoe, while
others will say that if the shoe be not burnt and fitted
well, the crust breaks and shivers up. Both these
statements may be found in " printed books." Per-
haps it may be enough for us to observe that a horse
should be shod every three weeks or a month, and
that it is better to get them shod every three weeks,
than removed at that period, and shod at the end of
the month. The less wrenching and country-smith

138 THE HUNTING FIELD

working there is about a horse's foot the better, as
we well know.

On this point, however, we shall enlarge when
we come to treat of our friend Elijah Bullwaist, the
blacksmith, whose rubicund visage now greets us as
he enters the hunting field on his shaggy white pony.

Instead of seeing a saddle-room shelf studded with
bottles and boxes, we would rather see a good assort-
ment of combs, brushes, scissors, towels, buckets,
sponges, leathers, knee-pails, and such like things.
Warm water is a grand specific. It is like the tongue
of the dog to a wound. A little sharp water is useful
in cases of cuts and over-reaches. ' The following is
a good recipe taken from Mr. Smith's "Diary of a
Huntsman," and he recommends a Whipper-in carrying
a small phial of it, with a feather in the cork, ready
for immediate use : —

8 drops of oil of thyme
10 drops of oil of vitriol
I ounce of spirits of wine

As an alterative medicine the following recipe was
given us by an old sportsman endorsed " an excellent
medicine for horses : " —

4 ounces of nitre

4 do antimony

4 do cream of tartar

4 do sulphur

Mix, and give it once or twice a week in their corn,
about a tablespoonful at a time.

Instead of inquiring into an ordinary working
Groom's scientific acquirements, his knowledge of
"Taplin," the "Gentleman's Recreations," and so on,
we would infinitely prefer putting him into a loose
box beside a dirty hunter, and seeing him set to work.
There is something about a workman, be he a joiner,
painter, glazier, mason, or what not, that proclaims

THE GROOM 139

itself even to the uninitiated in the craft, and in no
case more strongly than in a strapper. Look at the
poor, miserable, feeble creatures that stare at your
horse as you dismount at a third-rate London livery
stable, or in an ill-frequented country inn yard ; see
how they potter and dribble and fistle about the
animal, fearing as it were to tackle with him, and
when they do, most likely commencing with that
abomination of all abominations, whipping off the
saddle, and contrast their dawdling, inert movements
with the prompt, vigorous decision of the well accus-
tomed stable-man, who is stripped to the shirt, has
the bridle and stirrups in hand, girths loose, and
hunting martingale off before the other poor ninny
has got his shirt sleeves turned up.

When at length Dribbles does begin to hiss, the
chances are he does nothing but teaze and tickle the
animal with his ill-arranged whisp, or having scraped
a certain quantity of mud off its belly he will proceed
forthwith to plaister it about the ears by way of
making it comfortable about the head. The real
workman having disencumbered the horse of his
bridle will shake his litter up, sponge his eyes, nose,
and mouth, and give him his gruel. We like to see
the hunter getting his gruel, it must be as refreshing
to him as a basin of soup to a tired man. Then he
will give him a bit of hay, which will occupy the horse
and keep him from snatching and biting at the man
or the manger. Sponging under the tail and all
about is a grand thing, and we should like to see
more of it. Pulling the ears, too, is a thing all
horses like, and doubtless tends much to make them
comfortable about the head. Real good powerful
strapping is quite as essential towards condition as
feeding and exercise. Some fellows only strip horses
and starve them.

Ascending a little in the scale of stable servitude,
we will take a glance at the Second Horseman. The

I40 THE HUNTING FIELD

Second Horseman should know a little about hunting,
and a good deal of the country in which his perform-
ances are required. This knowledge of hunting should
be sufficient to keep him from doing mischief, at all
events, while his knowledge of the country, and of
the usual runs of foxes, should enable him to have
his horse up, when wanted, fresh and fit to go on.

Looking at the second-horse system in its ordinary
everyday aspect, we cannot, however, help saying,
that there is a good deal of flash and humbug, in
the majority of instances, where we see them out.
Except for very heavy men, or very hard riders on
very good days, one horse ought to do all that reason-
able riders need require. Gentlemen's horses are not
like servants' horses, continually on the go. While
the men are trotting and crashing over big places in
a cast, gentlemen have nothing to do but turn their
horses' heads to the wind, and give them their puff.
Servants, in far the greater number of countries, have
but one horse a-piece out, and theirs come more
regularly and more continuously throughout the
season, than the horses of any of the field. The
servants, too, must be with their hounds, must go on
to the end of the day, whereas gentlemen may shut
up and go home at any moment they like.

Roads are now so numerous and accommodating,
that a servant with an eye and moderate brains, ought
to be able to pilot a second horse, without putting
him to anything like work. Some fellows, however,
never learn a country. They will ride over the same
country for years, nay, will do the same circle twice
in a day, without discovering that they are not going
straight. They are like the lady who got into the
inner circle of the Regent's Park, and walked for
many hours, thinking she was never going to get
round.

Many of the second horses that we see in the
hunting field, however, are there from the repletion

THE GROOM

141

of the stables, and by way of exercise, rather than in
expectation of being really wanted. Doubtless it is
convenient to have two out ; one may fall lame, lose
a shoe, and the man who is provided seldom wants.
Here, then, let us recommend Grooms to ride like
Grooms, and not like gentlemen, in the hunting field.
They have no business in the front rank ; neither is
it etiquette to pass in muddy lanes and roads. This
latter hint may be useful to others than servants.

We do not exactly know whence the "Pad Groom "
derives his title, nor indeed what, in a "Castle of

Indolence," would be considered the legitimate duties
of his office. In the humbleness of our ignorance we
have confounded them with the Second Horsemen,
though we believe there is a distinction, without,
perhaps, much difference. The "Pad Groom," we
rather think, forms the sort of appendage to his
master that the can sometimes does to the dog's tail
— while the Second Horseman may flourish about
the country, so long as he keeps on the line of the
hounds. The " Pad Groom " should act as pioneer,
and be always ready to ram through a bullfinch, or
blind fence, it being derogatory to a gentlemanjto

142 THE HUNTING FIELD

risk his neck, when he can afford to keep a man for
the purpose. Paddy should be an adept at opening
gates, throwing down walls, breaking rails, and great
generally in the art of destruction.

If the Master should be unlucky enough to kill his
horse, he would then take the " Pad Groom's ; " in
which case, as the latter would most likely have to
" pad the hoof home," it is not impossible that some
such catastrophe may have led to the creation of the
title; or, it may be that the "pad," on the death of
the fox, is consigned to the guardianship of this hero
by ambitious claimants.

CHAPTER XII

THE GROOM — continued

HE sagacity both of
hounds and horses in
the matter of hunting
is truly astonishing, and
we hardly know to
which to yield the
preference. It is an
undoubted fact that
many of what are called
trencher - fed hounds,
learn to know the hunt-
ing days, and will sit
at the doors listening for the summoning horn, or
travel to the usual place of meeting by themselves.
An old hunter knows just as well as his Groom the
preparations that indicate the coming chase, and is
as delighted as ever he can be. Shortening the
supply of water is one of the usual concomitants, but
if a horse was left to himself, he would never drink
more than he ought. We mean if he was left to his
own discretion entirely, with a constant supply of
water within reach. Of course when he only gets it
at stated intervals, and then oftentimes less than he
would like, he acquires a greedy sort of swallow, that
hurries it down as quickly as possible, as he does not

143

144 THE HUNTING FIELD

know how soon the pail may be withdrawn from his
head.

Some horses are much more fretful and much more
easily excited than others, but as a general principle,
fretfulness is more the characteristic of young horses
than of old ones. Indeed, fretfulness is such a draw-
back to a hunter, that a horse that carries it beyond
years of discretion, say seven, is generally recom-
mended "to turn his attention to something else,"
as they say in the Guards when they want to get rid
of a man. Young horses may readily be excused for
a little nervous irritability with so exciting a cause as
the chase, and it should be the duty of the Groom
to remove all causes as much as possible, and keep
things as near their usual course and appearance as
they can. For instance, in taking a young horse to
lie out over night, instead of leaving him in the stable
when the others go to exercise, and then about the
middle of the day stripping him and rolling up his
things and fussing about the stable, putting all agog,
he should just lead him out when the others go to
exercise, sheeted and all, get his stable things quietly
up, and ride leisurely and easily away, without all the
fuss and elbow working that says to the horse as well
as to the whole world — " here we are away for the
Mountain daisy, to meet Squire Rattlecover's hounds
to-morrow." Because horses can't talk and hold
dialogues with their riders after the fashion of
Balaam's ass, some fellows fancy they have no more
instinct or memories than the saddles on which they
ride. Starting for cover in the morning, again, should
always be done as quietly and soberly as possible,
where a horse is at all subject to nervous irritation.
The sight of a scarlet coat in advance will set many
a horse off, that would otherwise have been got coolly
and comfortably to the meet. Some gentlemen have
a nasty trick of going out to breakfast on hunting
mornings and setting whole strings of horses on the

THE GROOM 145

fret by cantering past them in scarlet. A Groom
should never calculate on doing more than five miles
an hour in going to cover. Some horses will go six
comfortably, but five is about the pace. The first
thing he should do on arriving, of course, is to get
his horse into a stable or outhouse, where with the
aid of a little clean straw and a stable towel, he will
remove the mud sparks from the horse's legs and
renovate the polish of the bits, buckles, and stirrups.
A damp morning soon clouds the steel. It is these
trifles that mark the difference between the Groom
with the head from the one without. Some men
seem to think if they start fair and clean, or are neat
and clean, once a-day, that is all that can be required
of them, and that they may get themselves, their
horses, and all about them, dirty, tarnished, and
daubed, without any reflection on their care and
neatness. "They have got dirtied since they came
out," they say. A neat servant not only avoids all
collision, but removes little casualties as they occur.
There is a wide difference between a neat man and
a smart man. The neat man is always neat whatever
he has on, the smart man is often the creature of
the moment that degenerates into the carelessness of
the sloven after a flourish.

Lying out over night and mixing in the tap-room
society of stable-yards, is a sad trial for servants, and
the less a master throws them into that sort of tempta-
tion the better. It is not only the drinking, swearing,
and gambling that not unfrequently goes on, but
tricks are taught that often prove the ruin of lads ;
charging for things they never get, putting down
more than they pay, and various other devices that
all sooner or later end in ruin. Servants who wish
to do justice to themselves and their masters, should
never pay anything without getting a bill of particulars
and a receipt. They then can send them in along
with their books, and if wrong is done, the master
10

146 THE HUNTING FIELD

sees where to apply, and the servant stands exonerated.
Grooms, hunting ones in particular, may rely upon it
that gentlemen know the price and value of most
things just as well as they do, and it does not follow
because a master is not always storming or kicking
up a row that he does not observe what is wrong. A
dishonest servant is sure to " catch it " sooner or later.

But if we deprecate the country inn yard, what shall
we say to the abomination of some London livery
stable ones. Why, in the words of the author of the
" Young Groom's Guide and Valet's Directory," that a
few weeks at such places has been the ruin of many
a young man. There is nothing, writes he, "but
drinking, tossing, colting, &c. going on from morning
to night; it begins, as Blacky says, by drinking for
dry, and then comes drinking for drinky, and so on
to the end of the chapter." Purl the first thing in
the morning before their eyes are hardly open ; porter
at lunch, porter at dinner, and again a double dose
at night. Then, there they are the next morning,
some wdth a splitting head-ache; some so sick and
squeamish that nothing but a hair of the same dog
will cure them ; and the cry is, " d — n it, I cannot
do my work without my half-pint of * purl.' Well,
away they go for this precious stuff, and, at the corner,
probably meet with some more * purl drinkers ; ' and
then it is nothing but tossing up and tossing down,
till they return back, half stupified and muddled
before they begin their work, and are soon obliged to
take another draught to quench the thirst and fever
produced by the first."

That is a sad picture, but we do not believe an
overdrawn one of some of these places, and masters
should pause ere they consign a lad to such a scene
of temptation.

One of the most important duties of a Hunting
Groom is taking horses out over night, and making
the best of bad stables. Fourteen miles is as far as

THE GROOM 147

a horse should go from home on the morning of
hunting, and when distances are beyond that, with
the probability of the draw being still further away,
it is always desirable to let them lie out over night.
No doubt a horse does better in his own stable, just
as a man does better in his own bed ; but fourteen
miles is quite distance enough; and even though some
horses may do more with impunity, still it takes a
good deal away from the pleasure of the day for a
man to think that he has not power enough under
him to do what may be required. Imagination has
a great deal to do in the enjoyment of the chase,
as well as in other things. In going from home a
servant should take everything he usually requires,
and never calculate on finding anything at an inn.
Having got everything there, his next care should
be getting them back, for people are very apt to
" borrow."

In naming fourteen miles as the outside distance,
we are talking of meets which are towards home.
Gentlemen, whose horses stand at head quarters,
have a great advantage over out-lying sportsmen, in-
asmuch as they may readily calculate on their horses
being able to do as much as the horses of the hunt ;
but supposing the fixture to be at the kennel, and a
man travels fourteen miles to get to it, he need not
be surprised at finding himself trotted half as far again
on the other side before the day is done.

Lying out over night entails the necessity of being
able to pack, a thing very few servants are up to. So
long as they unpack, also, so that " master " does not
see the state of confusion things are in, they are
very easy how they are spoiled by being crammed
and squeezed together. Soldiers' servants are always
capital hands at packing. We often wish to get one
of them to give a clumsy packer a lesson in the art.
There is another thing soldiers' Grooms excel in, and
that is in the saving of bedding. Instead of covering

148 THE HUNTING FIELD

the wet litter with dry straw, as is too often done by
lazy, hiding, hurrying fellows, they dry the wet straw
in the air during the day, and it comes again nearly
as good as ever at night.

But here comes the first flight of Grooms, with all
the important top-boot bustle that proclaims the
coming scarlets. See how they steal along at that
" within-themselves sort of pace " peculiar to hunters.
Let us step aside under the lea of this old barn, and
scan them as they gain the field.

First, comes Timothy Jones, Paul Poplin's young
man, all louped up in gold, wdth his mare in a white
lather, and her mouth nearly deadened with the
hauling of Tim's heavy hand. Tim and his master
are recruits of the season, the master knowing as
much of hunting as the man-boy does of horses.
That hat, with the gold threads binding the oval sides
to the gilt acorn on the crown is a contrivance of
Paul and his sisters, the idea being taken from the
Marquis of Dazzleton's footman. Tim's Groom's
footman's coat, with the red and blue worsted shoulder
knot, and patches of gold lace on the collar and
cuffs, would disgrace anything but the rumble of a
pony phaeton, and his red-seamed blue trousers and
bluchers seem lost for want of the red string of the
Italian greyhound. We don't know that we ever saw
such an apology for a Groom in our lives, and how
Tim will have the face to present that well-lathered
mare to his master baffles our comprehension. Poor
weak^ washy thing ! She has done her day's work
already, and another such ride will finish Tim's
military-looking over-alls. She has been the laughing-
stock of all the knowing ones in coming along.

This great woman -thighed, bull -headed, bloated,
porpoise-looking fellow, with his beastly calves bagging
over his lack-lustre, mis-shapen, painted top-boots, is
Mr. Spavin, the horse-dealer's man, with a well-
shaped screw for sale under him. At first glance you

THE GROOM 149

would think the fellow was a fool, till you arrived at
his little rogueish black eyes, peering from among the
lumps of fat composing his unhealthy ginnilied cheeks.
The fellow is the biggest scamp in the country. He
lies like truth. He comes out as much to fish out
the secrets of gentlemen's stables as in the hope of
selling the horses he rides, though he is always ready
to do his best in that way, particularly when he falls
in with a flat, who he will persecute, and ride at,
and talk at, with the audacious impudence peculiar
to travelling prospectus men, railway surveyors, and
small horse-dealers' men. He has been making a
set at Paul Poplin's mare, making her as fidgetty and
fretful as possible, in order the better to recommend
the antediluvian beggar on which he is riding. The
two Grooms in blue frocks and small-striped waist-
coats next him are neat, and after them there comes
a man made, dressed, and riding to our mind as a
hunting Groom should be. He is short, light, and
wiry. Forty summers may have passed over his head,
leaving traces of the wear, but not the cares of life.
On the contrary, his clear bright eye beams radiant
on the cheerful scene, produced perhaps by the
inward consciousness that his horse will not be eclipsed
by any in the field. See how all that man's things
are in keeping, from the hat on his head to the spur
at his heel. The nap is as close and as flat as his
horse's coat. There are no flowing locks protruding
at the sides, the pride of housemaids and abhorrence
of masters. There are no filthy, bristly, gingery
whiskers fringing his cheeks, or extending round his
chin. His horse and he are both well trimmed. His
clean white neckcloth is well put on ; no shirt collars
appear above. His dark grey coat and waistcoat show
the wear of work with the care of keeping, while
his well -put -on dark drab mother-of-pearl buttoned
breeches look as though they neither courted nor
dreaded the assaults of the mud. Then the tops —

ISO THE HUNTING FIELD

there is more in top-boots than in any other article
of dress — not only in the cut, material, and keeping,
but in the art of putting them on. London Grooms
— we mean men in the habit of coming to London —
are almost the only ones who really can put on top-
boots. This arises in a great measure from their
having a proper respect for, and appreciation of, the
article itself. There used to be a bootmaker in Paris,
who, on a complaint being made by a customer,
used immediately to ask if the wearer had been
walking in his boots. If he replied in the affirmative,
then St. Crispin would shrug up his shoulders, and,
throwing out his hands, exclaim that he " expressly
defended " his customers from walking in his boots,
" that they were only for riding and carriage work."

London Grooms are the only ones who seem to
have any idea that top-boots are only for riding in.
A fellow in the country pulls them on at all times
and occasions, from walking to church (or the public-
house) to driving the market cart. The consequence
is, that after two or three good trudges and paddles
in them, the boots lose all shape, make, and sit, and
have that dejected melancholy air that only makes
their fallen greatness more painful.

Boots and breeches, with the proper cleaning and
putting of them on, give an air and character to the
entire turn out. Who, on seeing a postilion in dingy
leathers, and dull boots, ever thinks of looking at his
horses ? But to our Groom in the greys. His boots
are well made, of good material, well cleaned, well
kept, and well put on. The rose-tinted tops are
longish, not affectedly so, but bearing a fair propor-
tion to the boot itself. They fall in neat wrinkles
down the leg, and the sole is clean and free from
mud stains, instead of being marked half way up the
instep, with the paddling about before starting.
Contrast that man's appearance with the high-
shouldered, blear-eyed, Tom-and- Jerry-looking fellow

THE GROOM 151

in the black coat and waistcoat, all creases and
whitening, from kicking about in the saddle room
since the " last day," with a button off one, and a
button out of the other leather breeches knee, the
top-boots pulled up as high as ever he can get them,
and the ends of a dirty twisted white neckcloth flying
out at either side of a half-buttoned straggling waist-
coat. The fellow looks as if he had slept in his
clothes, or put them on in the dark, so hurried and
ill arranged is he. He has heard that long-tops are
the *^ go," so he has got them extra length, and daubed
them so with putty powder, that if it was to come a
shower of rain he would be the same colour from the
knee to the heel. There is a generous supply of mud
about his ankles, almost enough to constitute a forty
shilling freeholder.

This great hulking, ill - countenanced fellow, on
the badly-clipped rat tail, is what may be called a
register-office servant — a fellow that is generally on
the books, and gets taken up at short notice, in
extremities. He is a sour-tempered, ill-conditioned
fellow, who can only conduct himself decently for
one month after being ground down by poverty and
adversity for six. He is now a helper, and takes his
master's horse to cover, though weighing three stone
more than his master. When he applies for another
situation he will dub himself "Pad Groom," or
" Second Horseman," despite that he stands six feet
high, with the brawny limbs of a bargeman. The
register-office will endorse him as such, and there is
no saying but by mere dint of impudence and want
of contradiction, some flat may be taken in to hiring
him — Second Horseman ! — second ploughman, more
like. What a ragged-looking rascal it is to send to
cover. How anybody dare trust such a fellow with
a twenty pound horse we can't conceive. If the
horse patrol were to catch him near London, they
would be sure to take him up for stealing it. There

152 THE HUNTING FIELD

is something terribly self - convicting about a job-
servant. Seedy, but painfully well-brushed hats,
nasty frowsey tartan neckcloths, long ditto waistcoats,
white -seamed, button - covered, greasy -collared dark
coats, stained drabs with tarnished knee buttons,
patched boots with sloggering caps, the whole set
off with a pair of baggy Berlin gloves.

This old boy, blue and all blue, with the tarnished
band on the greasy hat, is Cottonwool's coachman.
What he has come out for nobody knows, unless
Henrietta has sent him to look after Smashgate. Ah,
see how old Blue Bluey greets the baronet's groom !
There's a wring of the hand that looks like business.
Trust a servant for smelling a rat ! They are at once
the best-informed and worst-informed people under
the sun. They know everything and nothing — every-
thing in the hall, nothing in the parlour. Who would
have thought to see such a swell-consequential-looking
man — gentleman^ we might say — with white cords and
basket buttons on his brown cut-away, doing the
familiar with such a tawdry, dirty-clothes-bag-looking
old file as that coachman — a man whose boots have
evidently belonged to his predecessor, and whose
plush breeches would hold two pair of such legs as
his? Nevertheless there they greet. "Well, Matthew."
"Well, Mr. Thomas." Not that Mr. Thomas thinks
Henrietta by any means a match for his master ; but
Mr. Thomas having cast a favourable eye on the
joint-stock lady's maid at Fleecy Hall, who, according
to the usual etiquette of servitude, will accompany
the first married " Miss," Mr. Thomas thinks it well
to favour the suit. What with this double pull upon
him, it will be odd if the baronet is not caught.

But enough for this paper is the scribblement
thereof. If this lecture on Grooms should cause one
untidy dog to survey himself in the limpid stream
and amend his ways, one silly lad to give over
considering whether this or that is "his work," one

THE GROOM

153

thoughtless master to pause ere he throws a servant
into needless temptation, or induce one infatuated
youth to dress his servant like a Groom instead of a
strolling player, all we have got to add is, that we
shall be abundantly satisfied if the benefitted party
will send us a barrel of oysters.

CHAPTER XIII

PETER PIGSKIN

ERE comes old Peter
, Pigskin! Peter, of whose
existence we have given
so many indications,
that we dare say our
readers are puzzled to
know who he is ; Peter,
the family stopgap and
**back hander" at
Cottonwool's ; Peter,
the man who it does
one's heart good to see
feed ; Peter, the man who sings

"We won^t go home till morning,"

and who most probably practises what he sings. Now,
what do our readers think Peter is ? A Sportsman,
it is quite clear, or he would not be in our " Analysis ; "
and, sportsmanlike, his early appearance procures
him the honour of our first salute.

When we commenced these sketchy papers we
little anticipated that the opening numbers would
stretch themselves into so many parts ; yet so they
have, and this only fairly launches us among the
field. As yet we have only dealt with the " master "
and the " men," as it were, leaving the wide range

154

PETER PIGSKIN 155

of character and station forming the ingredients of
a hunting field for discussion and description. The
uninitiated may suppose that a "field" is merely
composed of one set of people, drawn from the same
class of life ; but the foxhunter knows how different
is the fact, and how foxhunting reverberates, as it
were, through the whole of our social system ; how
the joy that a good run inspires in the breast of the
peer descends through all classes, even to the humble
pedestrian who witnesses either the find or the finish.
"Foxhunting," as was well said by Beckford, ^4s
the peculiar sport of Britons," and we trust it will
never be obliterated from the national character. It
is a fine, generous, comprehensive sport, that every
true follower delights to see his neighbour partake
of. It unites all classes in brotherly union, like
Shakespere's military offer of brotherhood, "be his
profession ne'er so mean."

We need scarcely say that Peter Pigskin wears a
dark coat, for whoever saw a meet of foxhounds where
a dark coat did not arrive first? It is not a black
coat, but a dark coat; a bottle green, with metal
buttons, straight cut, single breasted, and short.
Peter is a man that has been elevated by foxhunt-
ing; not ridiculously raised above his station, but
a man whom foxhunting has brought into contact
with parties he would not otherwise have become ac-
quainted with. Peter now, and Peter fifty years ago,
are very different people. The little, light, bow-legged,
shrivelled, grey-headed old man whose clean but
queer-cut clothes bespeak defiance to the elements,
was then the smart, straight, dapper postilion to the
Duke of Blazington, and rode the leaders of his
grace's coach and six. In those days great men
turned out like great men, and not like great midwives,
or great jewellers, as too many do now. The Duke
drove his six richly-caparisoned horses, whose flaunt-
ing manes were entwined with a luxuriance of ribbon.

156 THE HUNTING FIELD

and whose long tails were protected from the mud
by midway gatherings of the same material. Peter
was then in the flush of youth. His plump, healthy
cheeks glowed rubicund beneath the powder of his
well-pomatumed hair, terminating behind his lace-
daubed velvet cap in a knotty pig-tail, the buttons and
gold lace of his jacket almost concealed the rich
scarlet of the material, while his well-cleaned leathers
fit so tight and close as to cause astonishment to the
beholders how he ever got into them. The youthful
Peter on the leaders looked like the rosebud to his
blooming father on the box, radiant in all the
magnificence of a three-cornered gold -laced hat,
projecting pig-tail, bottle-nose, ponderous back, and
stomach without end.

When the Duke of Blazington died, he left Peter
;^2o a year; and when Peter's father died, which he
did in the most complimentary manner shortly after
his grace, Peter got what amounted to ;^2o a-year
more. Our friend then married the pretty head
housemaid of Blazington Castle, and took the neat
little hostelry called the " Grapes," midway between
Plumley and Moss Side, so agreeably known to many
of our readers as the first stage on the road matri-
monial. This sign Peter shortly after changed into
that of the "Fox and Hounds," and prosperity
attending way-side speculation in those days, Peter
soon found the weekly contents of his till would
justify him in buying a poster that would do a little
hunting occasionally. Peter used then to creep out
on the sly, breeched and gaitered, with a stick in his
hand. Somehow he always happened to have business
in the neighbourhood of where the hounds met —
either a servant to hire, a horse to look at, a pig to
buy, corn to pay for, barley for malting to bespeak,
or something of that sort, and being there he would
just stay to see them " find." Just stay to see them
find! What a charming, self-deluding sort of allow-

PETER PIGSKIN 157

ance that is. As if any man with the feelings of a
sportsman within him, and the feelings of anything
like a horse below him, was ever satisfied with such
a snatch of pleasure as that. Nevertheless, Peter
used to try it. " Pll just see them find," he used to
say to himself, as he pulled out his great watch, and
followed the hounds into cover, observing as he went,
"there's plenty of time to ride to Wall House or
Kirkland after."

Hark to Joyful ! Hark ! she's on the drag. " Have
at him good bitch J " halloos the Huntsman, and Peter's
frame shakes with emotion. Now they get together,
and the old grove echoes their cry a hundred-fold.
Peter presses his hat firmly on his brow, with a half
sort of inkling that he may as well see them away
from the cover. Now they go full swing ! Reynard
has run the cover's utmost limits, and dare not break.
The hounds are yet " too near," as Beckford would
say. The music ceases ! The fox has slipped back,
and the hounds have overrun the scent.

" Tallyho ! " halloos the second Whipper-in from
the far end of the cover, and " Tallyho " is hallooed,
and re-echoed, and repeated, till every living thing
is alarmed.

The Huntsman's horn goes twangs twangs twangs as
he gallops through bush and briar to the halloo. The
hounds strain their utmost powers to overtake him,
and horses and men are in a delightful state of
excitement. Peter Pigskin forgets all about the
barley for malting, and settling himself as well in his
saddle as shorts and continuations will allow, crams
and hustles away with the best. Peter was always a
man of first-class nerve, and first-class nerve makes
a second-class horse go uncommonly well. More-
over, a man who is only going to take an instalment
of a run — say five shillings in the pound — always
thinks he may as well have it as good as he can get.
Away they go over the hill, now down the vale, and

158 THE HUNTING FIELD

right across Brackenburgh Meadows, pointing for
Disley. The table of precedence and all the
Heralds' College humbug is abolished — nerve reigns
triumphant, and the majesty of horsemanship is
established. In our mind's eye we see them settling
into places. Well with his hounds, but not too near,
is the Huntsman ; then a hard-riding farmer ; while
Peter and the parson

" Ride side by side,"

as the song has it ; red-coats come next in prodigal
profusion, and we have not time to look at the tail.
There's a rare scent, a slight frost in the air, and the
hounds are bristling for blood — it is one of those
sort of days on which the worst packs appear good.

Peter keeps his place, intending to pull up on the
other side of each fence, and go and see after his
barley. Somehow or other, the horse carries him
over half the next field before he gets a fair pull at
him, and then he thinks that being so far advanced,
he may as well see what they do in the next field,
until twenty minutes are exhausted, and Peter's bay
is in a white lather.

Twenty minutes on paper, and twenty minutes' real
riding across country, are very different things, and
a check is gratefully received even by the foremost.
We have seen it asserted that no man ever had the
candour to acknowledge the opportuneness of a check ;
but we think that all sportsmen are ready to patronize
them at the proper time. It is your steeplechase
gentlemen, with their cutting whips, who are always
** just getting into their stride " when they occur.
Twenty minutes' best pace across the country is no
trifle.

Our pack, however, are at a check, the hounds
having spread like a rocket, and made their own cast,
now want the assistance of the Huntsman.

Peter dismounts, looks at his horse, sees all his

PETER PIGSKIN 159

shoes are on, and scrapes the thick of the sweat off
with his stick. The soft horse has had a " benefit,"
and the sweat runs down his legs and over his hoofs.
"I wish I mayn't be giving him too much," thinks
Peter, eyeing his distended nostrils and heaving flanks,
as he turns his head to the wind.

The barley for malting then comes across his mind,
and it strikes him he's been riding away from it.
" It's been a grand gallop," says he to himself, running
its beauties through his mind, " / wish they'd killed
himr

"Well, I suppose I must be going," says Peter
to himself, laying hold of his stirrup preparatory to
mounting. Just as he gains his saddle the hounds
begin to feather and Peter's eye to twinkle.

^^They are on him again I ^"^ exclaims he, in extacies,
as gathering his reins with one hand, he brandishes
his stick with the other, and spurs the well-lathered
nag into a trot.

Another instant, and with heads up and sterns down,
the hounds race along the hedgerow. Peter forgets
all about the barley for malting, his attention being
rivetted on the hounds. There are seldom two bursts
in a run, and the second part exhibits their hunting
qualities rather than their speed. No man innately
imbued with the passion for hunting could be ex-
pected to leave hounds under such circumstances,
and if Peter's mission had been ten million times
more important than the mere purchase of barley for
malting, we feel assured he would stand acquitted
with our readers for forgetting it. Not that Peter did
exactly forget it, for Dustbin, the sporting miller,
declares he heard him exclaim, as his freshened
hunter took a flying leap over a bullfinch and brook,
" Hang the barley I I daresay it isrUt worth having ! "

Thus Peter coaxed himself on from point to point,
now declaring he would go another day, now deluding
himself that the hounds were bending his way, now

i6o THE HUNTING FIELD

turning his horse as if he was absolutely leaving, when,
as luck would have it, the hounds invariably turned
the same way, and Peter was in for it again. The
story runs that Peter made nine starts before he got
to his destination.

Stolen pleasures are said to be the sweetest, and
we are by no means sure that a stolen hunt is not
as good as any. That single day keeps the latent
embers alive, ready to burst into fire under more
favourable circumstances.

Not that Peter's passion was much pent up, for
what with his farm and his inn, he had abundant
excuses for riding in the direction the hounds had
to meet. Some people ride out in the afternoon, to
take their chance of falling in with them, but these
are the mere feather-bed coffee-housers of hunting;
Peter's business always seemed to march with the
hounds. Men of business in those days were shyer
of hunting and daylight amusements than they are
now. Hunting used to be thought incompatible with
sober tradesmanlike occupations.

That is quite a mistaken idea, however ; moderately
pursued, we are satisfied that hunting is the finest
preparative for business that ever was adopted.

It is said that, whenever Liston, the great surgeon,
had a difficult operation to perform, he used to brace
his nerves by a gallop with harriers on the Pentland
Hills ; and all London literary men will acknowledge
the refreshing obligations derived from pure air, strong
exercise, and country scenery. There are some trades,
to be sure, that hunting agrees with better than others ;
an innkeeper's, perhaps, at the head of the list. Of
course a great deal depends upon the man, but, as
a general rule, a good sportsman is always welcome
whatever he is.

Peter's was a happy life — money rolled up, and
children did the same, but the means of maintenance
kept pace with the increase. He soon gave up hunt-

PETER PIGSKIN i6i

ing in gaiters. All who have tried it will admit it is
a most expensive amusement. He turned out a pair
of old Blazington boots, which were very soon ac-
corded the honour of ramming through all the big
places first.

Thus things went on for many years ; young Peters
sprung up, resembling the portrait we drew of our
hero on the Duke of Blazington's leaders, while Peter
himself, instead of expanding into the red cabbage-
looking figure of his father, receded into the little wiry
old man now entering the hunting field.

We should state, that Peter is now what the world
calls a gentleman — a gentleman in the idle accepta-
tion of the term, meaning a man with nothing to do,
nothing to do except hunt. Shortly after the railway
mania broke out, the since celebrated Jeames de la
Pluce, Esq. attended by his pugiHstic wally, Fitz-
warren, and a man in livery, drove up in a dashing
chariot and four to the Fox and Hounds, and politely
intimated to Peter that he was going to draw a line
of railway slap through his kitchen and back offices.
Jeames, who is quite the man of manners, accom-
panied the intimation with a hint that the company
"would be appy to pay through the nose for the
ecomodetion." A bait so fairly thrown out was not
likely to be lost on a man like Peter, and after enter-
taining de la Pluce with the best of everything, he
stuck the Fox and Hounds into him at three times
its worth. Peter expatiated on the loss it would be
to him ; Mrs. Pigskin dilated on the laceration of her
feelings at leaving it, and de la Pluce swept away
their expostulations with sovereigns, those weighty
arguments, that settle all accounts between man and
man, or woman either.

Peter now lives at Rosemary Cottage, about three
quarters of a mile from Fleecy Hall, where the reader
may remember they first met him. Rosemary Cottage
was built by a jolly bacchanalian, who having a pre-

i62 THE HUNTING FIELD

sentiment that he would break his neck some night
going to bed drunk, built it all on the ground floor.
Unfortunately, however, he sunk a well, which did
his business quite as effectually as a staircase.

Peter and Cottonwool began life about the same
time, that is to say, they commenced business about
the same time — Peter's probationary saddle-work
being struck off the account, and it says much for
Cottonwool's sense that he has stemmed the dis-
pleasure of his fine, tight-sleeved, highly-flounced
daughters, and stood by the "friend of his youth,"
as Lord Melbourne would say.

Punch says, " the retired wholesales never visit the
retired retails," and we believe something of the same
sort of dignity pervades country life.

In point of breeding there was not much to choose
between the progenitors. Cottonwool being the son
of the Duke of Blazington's saddler, his mother by
a butler out of a buxom dairymaid; while Peter's
maternal descent was a cross between a very respect-
able market gardener and a milliner.

The Miss Cottonwools, however, do not carry their
inquiries into the region of pedigree ; they take things
as they are. Here are they, three fine, strapping,
slapping lasses, with a great green coach to ride in,
a sky-blue man to drive it, and another sky-blue man
to loll behind, accustomed to receive the admiration
of the first-class country bucks at the race and assize
balls, and they cannot be expected to tolerate this
dowdey old man in his drab shorts and grey worsted
stockings. "Really, if papa chooses to invite such
people to the house on company days, they ought to
dine in the kitchen," they say.

Pigskin, indeed, according to the strict letter of
right, we believe, ought to take precedence of Cotton-
wool, he being a retired tradesman, while our friend
of the fine daughters still drives a brisk business, and
discourses learnedly on the produce of Albama,

PETER PIGSKIN 163

Demerara, Carthagena, the raw article, long and
short stapled. And speaking of that, it is an ex-
traordinary thing how Pigskin and he ever delude
themselves into the idea that they are driving a con-
versation, for the talk of one is of nothing but trade,
while Pigskin's conversation runs upon horses and
hunting. Nevertheless they get through their long
evenings together most plainly, and each thinks the
other a most agreeable man. It is quite clear, then,
that similarity of sentiment and congeniality of mind
are not absolutely necessary for people getting on
well together in this world. We believe brandy and
baccy unite more people in friendship than anything
else.

To see Pigskin in perfection, the reader should
visit him at home — see him when he returns after
hunting, in all the joyous abandon of a good run, to
his snow-white cloth, strong soup, strong ale, and
beefsteak pudding. See him in his comfortable
woollens and slippers, in his round-backed chair,
pipe and spit box. See him in his snug room, with
fox-brush bell-pulls at either side of the bright fire,
sporting prints on the walls, and " BelFs Life " on the
table.

The Quarterly Review Hunt, by Aiken, after
Apperly, that occupy the place of honour about the
middle of the wall, have their story and association
with the sport. Peter having come to London to
see the lions, was riding loosely and leisurely down
Regent Street one afternoon, after a heavy shower
had rendered his namesake, Peter Laurie's abomina-
tion, the wood pavement, more slippery than usual,
when his horse suddenly fell, shooting Peter Pigskin
with his head heavily against a dust cart wheel.
Stunned with the blow, he was carried insensible
into Mr. Ackermann'^ well known Eclipse Sporting
Gallery, and extended on the floor amidst all the
sporting pictures and representations of scenes that

i64 THE HUNTING FIELD

living he loved so well. Every attention that kindness
or surgical skill could suggest was offered ; but poor
Pigskin exhibited no symptoms of returning animation.
At last the still pause betokening the exhaustion of
all the remedies and the extinction of all hope ensued,
and the lately bustling attendants gradually subsided
into calm meditative spectators. Peter had not
moved since he was brought in. The medical man
took his leave with a solemn air, saying, he would
return within an hour, the doors connecting the
picture gallery with the shop were closed, and every-
thing hushed and stilled down to perfect quiet. There,
as Mr. Ackermann sat watching his unknown guest,
nature gradually recovered herself, and ere the lapse
of half an hour, a low, ^^ thafs very good^^ fell upon
his astonished ear, apparently from the dead man.
On looking. Pigskin's eyes were found fixed on the
pictures of the Quorn Hunt, hanging on a level
with his eye on the opposite wall — How long he had
been contemplating them remains unknown — but the
one that drew forth the ejaculation, was where " Snob "
opens the gate for the good little bay horse, instead
of leaping it. When the doctor returned, Pigskin
was in an easy chair examining the series. The point
of the story, however, is that Mr. Ackermann was so
delighted with the recovery, that he insisted upon
making Pigskin a present of the set. Nay he did
more, he stretched them for him also. Far better
than *' stretching " poor Peter himself! Long may
the old boy live to tell the story, and drink Mr.
Ackermann's health as the kindest of men and most
liberal of publishers.

Peter enjoys life, for he is not a slave to its forms.
He rises with the sun, and goes to bed when he is
tired. He gets his dinner when he comes in from
hunting, and on other days he dines at two o'clock.
Peter never sends out glazed or embossed cards with
— " Mr. and Mrs. Pigskin request the honour of Mr.

PETER PIGSKIN 165

and Mrs. Hogslard's company to dinner," and so on,
but if a brother foxhunter wants a billet the night
before hunting, he is sure to find a welcome at Peter's
house. So in the field; if a man is left far from
home, or tires his horse, Peter has always a stall and
steak pudding at his service. Peter gives him the
best he has, and makes no apologies for what he does
not offer. Then, when they have satisfied hunger,
and drawn their easy chairs to the fire, with the little
old oak table to put the bright port or black bottle
with its necessary accompaniments upon, Peter will
go over every inch of the run again, dilating with
rapture on the performance of the hounds, and dwell-
ing with enthusiasm on the exploits of his favourites.
We are afraid to mention how many best runs in his
life Peter has seen ; their name is Legion.

But we are keeping the old gentleman too long on
our easel. We have sketched him from boyhood,
and must now finish him off as he is. There is some-
thing about a sportsman that invariably proclaims
itself, whether he be clad in scarlet and leathers of
high life, or the unassuming drabs and bottle-green
of middle station. Peter's eye retains its fire, not-
withstanding the lapse of seventy winters — we will
say summers — seventy summers, for they have passed
lightly over him.

The only piece of spruceness about Peter is his
neckcloth and shirt ; the former is of French cambric,
and he has a large pleated frill to the latter. Looking
at him one is strongly reminded of the old adage,
"clean shirt, clean shave, and a guinea in one's
pocket." His drab breeches are made of uncommonly
stout double-milled cloth, and his old mahogany tops
are scratched and roughed till they look as if they
had been rasped by the cook or the blacksmith.

Peter's horse is like himself, a wiry-looking piece
of whalebone. There is not a better shaped or a
better conditioned one in the field than the old

1 66

THE HUNTING FIELD

chestnut, and his saddle and bridle are models of
their order. There is as much character about saddles
as there is about top-boots. It is not going beyond
the mark to say that a good, well-put-on saddle and
bridle make a difference of ten pounds in the looks
of a horse. A London saddle will fit any horse, just
as a London coat will fit anybody. What a difference
there is between Peter's lean, roomy, well-shaped one,
and that fat, lumpy, spongy-looking thing of Paul
Poplin's. Again, look at Peter's well-cleaned, soft,
thin-reined bridle, with the choke band dangling

under his horse's head like a lady's necklace, while
Paul's is made to act up to its name, by being drawn
as tight as ever the bewildered, bedizened lad can get
it. We should like to appoint Peter inspector of
hunting cavalry, and get him to go round the stables
and teach ignoramuses the first principles of action.
Who would hire a Groom that run his choke band up
to the top hole ?

But enough of that, let us part with Peter. There
is not a man in the hunt more respected than Peter
Pigskin, and he draws his popularity from two sources —
his fine, sportsmanlike horsemanship, and his generous,

PETER PIGSKIN 167

unaffected character. No man ever saw Peter Pigskin
press upon hounds. He always rides as though he
anticipated a check, but when they " do run " and do
go straight, when a run is established, oh, but Peter is
there, imbibing delicious enjoyment as he goes. Yet
he has no jealousy ! He is the first to pull up, and
the last to move on again. Long may the old ever-
green flourish, and may many ambitious gentlemen,
who it would be impolitic in us to name, take a leaf
out of his book.

CHAPTER XIV

THE FARMER

N estimating the position
or pretensions of a
member of any calling,
it is important to know
whether the individual
in question is at the top
or the bottom of the
tree. Take a coach-
maker, for instance : it
makes all the difference
in the world whether the
party is a Baxter or a Leader, or one of the little
shuffling, shambling shed-holders we see on the City-
Road, or in the environs of London ; yet both write
themselves up coachmakers, and both are doubtless
entitled to the appellation. So John Slyboots, the
unlicensed peripatetic packman, with his decoy
ribbons and shawls, and circulars offering "equit-
able exchange " with servants for " household
commodities " — inviting domestics to rob their
masters and mistresses — may call himself a haber-
dasher ; but we suspect " Jones, Loyd, and Co., " or
"Lubbock, Sir John W., Bart, Forster and Co.,"
would regard his "bit of stiff" with a very different
eye to what they would the acceptance of " Swan and
Edgar," or of their felicitously named neighbours,
" Evans and Liberty."

168

THE FARMER 169

In talking of a Farmer, it is necessary to make
the same sort of distinction. There is all the
difference in the world between a Leicestershire
or Northamptonshire grazier, or a Norfolk or
Northumbrian Farmer, and the little scratching-
holders-at-will we too often meet with, who seem to
be running a starving match between themselves and
the land, and look likely to make a dead heat of
it. A Lincolnshire Farmer will have his ;^2,ooo or
;^3,ooo a year in wool ; and Norfolk or Northumbrian
Farmers, think nothing of holding land to that
amount. Yet these men, opulent and independent
as they are, only rank as farmers, unless they occupy
their own land, in which case they combine the title
of Esquires.

The dictionaries, from which we authors draw half
our apparent knowledge, say that '^ to farm, is to hire,
or take upon hire ; to hold or take, for certain rents
or sums to be rendered, or other considerations
required or performed ; to let land or other property
on such conditions; to till, or cultivate land;" so
that the payment of money seems to draw the line
between the Farmer and the farming landowner, or
what is commonly called an Esquire.

Most of us have some sort of outline in our mind's
eye of the human form divine filling the various
occupations of life, and the word " Farmer," we
should think, generally suggests a large drab coat,
with flap pockets, patent cords, drab gaiters, and
double soles. The term *' Gentleman - Farmer "
suggests a green cutaway, with white cords, and top-
boots. The Gentleman-Farmer, we should imagine,
was merely a refinement, or buck of a Farmer — not a
landowner occupying a certain portion of his own land,
though some of these we see write themselves up
Farmers at the backs of their gigs and dog-carts.

Taking the word " Farmer," however, in its general
and comprehensive sense, it is suggestive of more

I70 THE HUNTING FIELD

innocent if not more poetical associations than any
other title we know of. It is the " love in a cottage "
of industrious life. We who live in smoky, foggy,
pent-up London, to whom Primrose Hill or the tree-
clad heights of Hampstead are a luxury, sigh for the
enjoyment of our own cow, and a shady flower-
strewed pasture to feed her in. What pleasure to
turn an old fat hen off her nest and pick out our own
warm egg — to shake the thick reluctant cream from
the spout of the well-filled jug. How delightful to
wander in the flower-garden, amid the hum of our
own bees, all at work for our own profit — to see our
own ducks scudding over our own pond, and instead
of the carrier pigeons of Islington and Holloway, to
see the wheeling flocks alight on our own white dove-
cote. Above all, picture the enjoyment of the sunny
hay field, with coatless men mingling with the merry
maids of the village green.

Farmers are about the only people exempt from any
settled denunciation on account of their calling. We
hear of savage soldiers, rascally lawyers, humbug-
ging parsons, greedy tradesmen, grasping doctors,
exorbitant coachmakers, ruinous milliners, but the
worst accusation we ever hear brought against a
Farmer is that of doltishness or stupidity. That is a
last " refuge of the destitute " sort of charge, answer-
ing to the "ugly old cat" of the ladies, or the
schoolboy's objection to Dr. Fell : —

" I do not like you, Doctor Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell ;
But this I know full well,
I do not like you, Doctor Fell."

"You are a thick-headed farmer, and that's the
long and short of it," as a friend of ours would say,
in closing what he would call an "argument."

To appreciate a farmer properly, it is necessary
for a person to be acquainted with country as well as

THE FARMER 171

with town life. He will then be able to draw a
just estimate of the quiet, respectable loyalty that
pervades the whole class, and contrast it with the
hurried, self-interested excitement and elbowing that
characterises the gatherings of large bodies. There
is something at once substantial and respectable
about the yeomanry of the kingdom, if we may so
designate all the landholders who are qualified to vote
for knights of the shire, instead of the 40s. freeholders
of former times.

The " yeomanry of England " has always inspired
in our landsman's mind the sort of feeling that " Ye
Mariners of England" rouses in that of the sailor.
We look upon them as one of the main-stays of this
country.

If there is one class of men, however, who can
more properly appreciate the spirited liberality of the
farmer than another, it is foxhunters ; above all, fox-
hunters, who themselves are also farmers. We do
not mean foxhunting farmers, but farming foxhunters ;
country gentlemen, who keep a small quantity of
land in their own hands more for amusement than
profit — perhaps. These are the parties who can
best enter into the feelings and appreciate the
forbearance of the real farmer, whose means of
livelihood depend on the well-doing and produce of
his crop. Let the squire picture to himself his
feelings at seeing the well -ploughed, well -worked,
well-manured, well-watched field of young wheat, that
he has boasted of the expected produce of to all his
neighbours, counted as so much gold, nay, perhaps,
held up to the admiration of his local agricultural
society — let him picture to himself his feelings, we
say, at seeing this beloved spot crossed diagonally by
a field of fifty horsemen, followed by a score of
boys on ponies, whose rear is brought up by a herd
of cows or Scotch cattle, that sweep round the
enclosure before they can be got out !

172 THE HUNTING FIELD

How long will it be, we should like to know,
before he would muster resolution to take a cool
survey of the spot, and look with indifference on the
varied footings of the horses and the cattle ? yet this
man is a foxhunter himself, to whom farming is a
secondary object; how much stronger, then, must
be the feeling of the man who is no foxhunter, and
whose sole dependence is on the produce of that
trampled soil.

Take a field of turnips — what havoc and
destruction a field of horsemen make in smashing
through its contents ! Not only what the horses
absolutely knock out of the ground and destroy, but
every turnip they hit is more or less injured,
especially if there comes a frost. We must say, and
greatly to their credit we say it, that it really is
astonishing the damage and inconvenience farmers
put up with every year, and the extraordinary good
grace with which they do it. It is not the grumpy,
passive acquiescence, that looks — " I'd break your
head if I durst " — but the sheer downright permission
to do what the exigencies of the sport require. All
farmers stipulate for is against " wilful damage," and
most justly are they entitled to what they ask.
Nothing can be more annoying to the true sportsman
than to see wanton or unnecessary mischief; crush-
ing young quicksets for the sake of a leap, letting
cattle escape for want of shutting the gate, or any of
the numerous acts of omission or commission that all
go to swell the catalogue of damage.

Some townspeople have not the slightest idea of
the damage they do, indeed many of them do not
seem to think it is possible to do more harm to one
field than to another. There's our friend John
Chub, the ironmonger, of Camomile Street, who goes
pound, pound, pounding, straight as an arrow,
whether hounds are running or drawing, just as he
would clatter about among his fenders, fire-irons, and

THE FARMER 173

hardware. Chub means no harm, indeed there's no
better man — regular at church, punctual at business
— kind to his wife, ditto his children, pays the
income-tax without more grumbling than his
neighbours, never keeps the rate or tax-gatherers
waiting, and if he only knew when he was going to
do harm he would never attempt it ; but somehow
Chub looks upon the country as a sort of enlarge-
ment of Hyde Park, over which a person is at liberty
to go any way he can get. True, Chub never
attempts the wall or the rails of Kensington Gardens,
but that is only because he sees they are too big ; so
it may be said he never rides at the Grand Junction
or Paddington Canal, but whatever Chub sees at all
"upon the cards" he looks upon as fair and proper
game — nay, as something that he ought to have a
shy at. Nothing short of the fear of a broken neck
can turn him to the right or the left.

So with Paul Poplin — Paul has not the slightest
idea of going out of his way for anything except a
toll-bar, which he shirks, to avoid paying; and he
thinks a red coat would justify his riding into a lady's
drawing-room if he liked. Gardens he looks upon
merely as small enclosures — fields on a small scale —
" retail " ones, as he calls them. Paul has heard of a
" bull in a china shop," and it is just to a china shop
that Paul's ideas of a bull's capabilities of mischief are
limited. He can fancy the consternation the animal
would create among the jugs and basons, but as to
thinking it could make the slightest difference to a
Farmer whether the animal was in his own close
or a neighbour's, Paul thinks if he got into the
neighbour's it would be so much the better for the
owner, as he would get fed for nothing.

It is only the real sportsman, or person who takes
part in the management of a country, that can be
fully sensible of the obligations foxhunters are under
to Farmers. In the first place, we are indebted to

174 THE HUNTING FIELD

them for the existence of the animal we hunt ; and
their sufferance, nay, protection of it, is the more dis-
interested and meritorious, inasmuch as foxes cannot
by any possibiHty do Farmers any good, but, on the
contrary, are almost certain to occasion them loss
and inconvenience. They, in fact, harbour animals for
their own inconvenience. This they do, too, in spite
of domestic grievances and expostulations, for foxes
occasionally make ^2id foray es among the poultry, and
it would be extremely difficult to convince a Farmer's
wife that a hare was not quite as good an animal to
harbour for the purpose of hunting, and a much
better one for the purposes of the table. It may be
said that harriers go three times over the ground for
the fox's once, and granted they do, still they do not go
over wheat, or ground on which they can do damage ;
at least they " didn't ought to do," seeing the case is
never one of urgency. But, with a flying, straight-
running fox, with a burning scent, and main earths
open in an adjoining country, so far from caring for
wheat, we believe a field of foxhunters would ride
over the great Lord Mayor himself, and all the court
of aldermen, if they came in the way. It may also
be said that Farmers enjoy the sport themselves as
much as any one out, and we grant those who come
out do ; but for one Farmer that hunts, there are five
hundred that do not. Recent times have not been
favourable to the race of Foxhunting-Farmers, and
many, we fear, are dismounted. Besides, those who
do hunt are generally the top-sawyers of the trade;
whereas, in many countries, the preservation of foxes
may be quite as much dependent upon a small
Farmer who has not the means of hunting, as upon a
large holder.

A favourite argument in favour of Farmers encourag-
ing foxes and foxhunting, has always been the advantage
they derive from the consumption of hay, oats, straw
^farming produce generally — and the opportunities

THE FARMER 175

it affords for selling their horses to advantage. These
arguments are plausible enough, but, like many
plausible ones, are destitute, or nearly destitute of
truth. There is no doubt that the standing of large
studs, such as we saw congregated at Melton, Leicester,
Leamington, Cheltenham, Coldstream, and other
places, must cause a considerable consumption of
the enumerated articles, but the extra profit goes
into the pocket of the middleman, and not into that of
the Farmer : corn-chandlers, inn-keepers, liverymen,
saddlers, are all benefited, and many of them very
largely ; but what the bona fide Farmer gets is seldom
more than the mere market price, with the accommo-
dation, perhaps, of a near, instead of a distant delivery
for his produce.

As to selling horses to advantage, that is a point
involving so many contingencies, that we fear even the
most sanguine dare hardly look the matter fairly in
the face. Good stock, good luck, good keeping, good
handling, and though last, not least, good riding.
The only way we think that breeding can pay is where
the breeder hunts himself, and can show his horse
off to advantage. Even then a great deal depends
upon whim and caprice. One man can sell anything,
and get almost any price, while people will hardly
look at the horse of another. The riding is, perhaps,
the most important point, and there are not many
men with both the nags and the nerves equal to the
task.

Taking the average of countries, we believe it will
be found that a Farmer is generally the best man in
the majority of hunts — either a Farmer or a parson, '
though rigid discipline has thinned the ranks of the
latter. A Farmer, however, is generally the best man,
and, in stating this, it must be remembered that they
generally give a good deal away by riding unmade and
oftentimes moderately-conditioned horses.

" Upon the w-h-o-o-l-e," as Farmer Wopstraw says

176 THE HUNTING FIELD

in "Hillingdon Hall," we are inclined to think if it
were not for the innate, national inclination for hunt-
ing implanted in Britons, Farmers would find the
preservation of foxes and the promotion of hunting a
very poor speculation for anything they can get by it
in the way of money.

The importance of standing well with the Farmers
is a matter so perfectly understood by all Masters of
Foxhounds, as to require no enforcement at our hands.
If a Master has not the goodwill and support of the
Farmers, he need never attempt to hunt a country.
Farmers have always been considered worthy the
regard and attentions of all authorities on hunting.
The great Mr. Meynell, it is said, used to arrange
a day in each week to suit the convenience of the
graziers attending their market, and Mr. Corbet used
to show the Warwickshire ones similar attention.

Colonel Cook, in his w^ork on foxhunting, speaks of
the Farmers in the countries he had hunted in the highest
praise, and in enforcing the importance of hunting the
good and bad parts of a country alternately, he says,
that although Farmers are liberal, they think it hardly
fair play, if they rent a farm in the best part of the
hunt for sport, to have their land rode over constantly,
whilst in the other less favourable part the hounds
never meet. Their conversation, says he, "at the
market dinner, over a bottle, is often on this subject,
whereas if you do but hunt the whole country impar-
tially, there can be no cause of complaint."

Mr. Smith eulogizes the conduct of the Farmers in
all the countries he has hunted, and urges that every
attention and consideration should be paid them.
There is a story told of Mr. Smith, we forget whether
in his book or not, that when he had the Craven
country, and was in the habit of cub-hunting in
Marlborough and Savernake Forests in the autumn,
that a fox broke and took through a field of wheat,
and on riding to stop the hounds, a young Farmer

THE FARMER 177

came up and begged he would ride through the wheat,
adding, " his father would be very much offended if
he did not."

Indeed it has been frequently observed that
Farmers are generally the first to ride over their own
wheat. An amusing instance of this is related by
Nimrod in his northern tour. A nobleman's Hunts-
man was blowing somebody up for riding over a field
of wheat, who not attending to the rate, the Huntsman
launched out again with something stronger. Still the
man paid no attention. The Huntsman " at him " a
third time, adding the inquiry if he didn't know he
was riding over wheat?

"Well," replied the Farmer. "/A my own r'
thinking to silence the reprover with the information.
" So much the worse,"" retorted the Huntsman, adding,
^^ there's the force of example,"

Farmers are the most easily pacified and soonest
satisfied race of men under the sun. The smallest
kindness, the smallest attention, the smallest con-
sideration, is never lost upon them. Let a Master of
Hounds only show that he is sensible of any damage
he may have done them, or of any accommodation he
may have received, and they do not know how to stop
the expression of his thanks soon enough. It is in
these sort of trifles that Masters of Hounds show their
tact and management. We have seen some Masters
desperately uncouth with the Farmers, taking no
notice of them either at the meet or the finish. Others
again have always something polite or good-natured
to say, and a felicitously presented " brush " has
atoned for the tramplement of much wheat. We
remember when it used to be a favourite topic of
discussion, whether riding over wheat did it harm or
good, and we have seen stout pen and ink champions
in favour of the system, but, like many plausible
things upon paper, the theory and practice are very
dissimilar. It is quite clear that Farmers do not

178 THE HUNTING FIELD

think so, otherwise they would turn their cattle in to
their wheat fields.

In some countries Farmers' cups are given, to be
contended for by the horses of Farmers in the limits
of the hunt, and certainly, as a mark of gratitude and
attention to this most praiseworthy class of men, it is
a tribute deserving of commendation, but we almost
doubt whether the prizes generally reach the objects
the givers would like to see them go to. In the
first place, hunting and racing are such totally differ-
ent amusements, that one seldom sees a taste for
both combined in the same person, added to which,
Farmers, least of all people, are likely to cultivate an
inclination for both, and if a man keeps a horse for
the cup, it is not very likely that he will keep him
for the legitimate purposes of hunting. Hence these
prizes too often fall into the hands of itinerant black-
legs and leather-platers, or men in league with some
skirting, nicking, road-riding, fox-heading fellow, who
is always getting among the hounds at the death, or
grinning in the Master's or Huntsman's face at a
check, to draw their attention to the fact of his being
up.

If we could be certain of seeing these trophies go
into the hands of the real Foxhunting Farmers of the
hunt, if we could think that each succeeding year was
adding a fresh rivet to the chain of foxhunting, by
drawing the recipient in closer union with the members
of the hunt, nothing could be more desirable than the
encouragement of such prizes; but when, instead of
their going to grace the sideboard of some true lovers
of the sport, to show by their inscription to their
descendants and friends that their zeal was appreciated
and rewarded, they fall into hands who merely value
them for their weight, and who are ready to sell their
unprized prizes for the next year's contest, it raises a
question whether some more suitable acknowledg-
ment could not be devised that should be exclusively

THE FARMER 179

beneficial to Farmers, and incapable of diversion from
the right course. Prizes for the best colts or hunters
bred in the limits of the hunt, prizes for the best
sheep, or indeed for anything exclusively in the
province of Farmers, might, we think, be advan-
tageously substituted, especially now, when every
district has its agricultural association or Farmer's
club.

We like to see a good lot of Farmers in the hunting
field. People may talk of the Excise and the Stamp
Offices, indicating the prosperity of the country, but
to our minds, there is nothing so convincing as seeing
plenty of Farmers out hunting. Farmers are not
improvident people ; they live too retired to be im-
provident, and it may be laid down as a general rule,
that no man who communes much with himself will
ever be so. Extravagance and improvidence are
engendered by contact and crowds ; one man leads
another astray, and having embarked in a thing few
men like to back out. But Farmers are not gregarious
beings. Society with them is the exception, and not
the general rule. The family circle supplies their
wants in that way, and a domestic man will rarely be
found doing an act prejudicial to his family. When
times are adverse, then Farmers do not hunt, and
therefore we hold that a good show of them is the
most satisfactory evidence of general national pros-
perity.

We hope to live to see farming occupying a higher
position in the enterprise of our country than it at
present holds. Not but there are many bright
ornaments among its peaceful followers already, but
we hope to see farming taken up more as the occupa-
tion of gentlemen, who will adopt its fine, healthy,
interesting pursuits, instead of some of the genteel
starvations called " professions," that many waste the
best of their lives in following, to quit in disgust at the
time they ought to be making money. Farming is

i8o THE HUNTING FIELD

not a money-bag loading business, like many sedentary
trades and pursuits, but then it is a certain means of
good and comfortable living, and requires no long
slavish apprenticeship, or extraordinary power of
intellect to learn, and no great capital to set up with.
Suppose a parent can give his son two or three
thousand pounds, to set him up in a farm of from
eight hundred to a thousand a-year rent. For that
he gets a good house and garden, and his farm will
furnish him with every real requirement — not to say
luxury of life, and instead of imbibing the foul, noisome
air of the town, in some confined chamber or manu-
facturing office, and getting snatches of life by
occasional dives into the country, his whole year is
one of wholesome, pleasurable excitement and enjoy-
ment. To a lover of the country no life can compare
with that of a Farmer. He enjoys from youth to age
what others slave and toil in hopes of reaching at the
end. Farming is the nearest approach to primitive
independence of any calling we can adopt. The
Farmer is his own master, and though he may not
derive so large an apparent income as the investor of
money in, or follower of other pursuits, yet when we
come to see what the Farmer gets for nothing, that
others have to pay for, and observe how one thing
dovetails in with another, it will be found that after all,
the enjoyments of life are not regulated by the figures
in three ruled columns of red ink, but in making the
most of such advantages as circumstances afford and
put in our way. Take a horse for instance — a Farmer
will keep a horse well for five-and-twenty pounds a-
year, whereas the Londoner will have to pay his
guinea a-week for the keep of his, and then very likely
only have it half "done by." There is cent, per cent,
at once, and there is much the same difTerence in the
price of articles of domestic consumption. To talk of
dining with a Farmer is enough to set a Cockney's
mouth watering for a week — the very mention of the

THE FARMER i8i

thing conjures up all sorts of anticipations of pure,
wholesome, rich, abundant excellence. The prime
home-fed beef, the dark graveyed mutton, the clean-
fed pork, the plump white turkey, the delicate chicken,
the beautiful ham, the mealy potato, the scarlet beet,
above all, the fine, bright, home-brewed October, and
home-made butter and cheese. A large farmhouse is
a sort of general provision warehouse, containing the
genuine, unadulterated article. Who ever got a snack
of anything at a farmhouse without thinking it
excellent ? Who so truly hospitable as the Farmer ?
He gives what he has freely and heartily, and never
apologises for the absence of what he has not. Who
ever hunted in the midland counties without retaining
a gratified recollection of the excellence of the Farmer's
pork-pies ? The Lewes sausages of former days will
still smack on the palates of many. Again, what place
so sweet, so enjoyable, as a dairy. If people would
but be satisfied, and make the most of what they have,
instead of yearning after what they have not, no
mercantile trading life could compare with that of a
Farmer. The glittering uniform may delight the boy,
but the easy coat of the country resident, the roomy
house, above all, self-mastery, present attractions that
no gaudy outward show can compensate for the want
of. Though we hear of few large fortunes made in
farming, we seldom see a Farmer in " The Gazette " —
never almost, unless he has been speculating in some-
thing he ought not. Railways, perhaps.

But let us take a glance at a Farmer in the hunting
field. The jolly - looking chap turning in is Mr.
Barleycorn, of Verdon, one of the old school of
Farmers ; he is mounted on one of the old stamp of
hunters. Horse and rider are very much of a-piece,
big, boney, lasting looking articles. The horse is two-
and-twenty years old, and though old " Corn," as they
call him, rides fifteen stone, and is generally first to
come and last to go, there is no blemish or symptom

i82 THE HUNTING FIELD

of decay about the nag. Barleycorn and his friend,
Michael Brownstout, of Sapcote, keep a pack of
harriers between them, but when the foxhounds are
near they give the preference to them. Barleycorn
has farmed in good times, bad times, and middHng
times, but in whatever times he has farmed his heart
has always been in the right place, and he has never
given way to despondency or fear. Fear forsooth !
look at his frame ; there's a fist that would fell an ox.

He d ns Peel, but only because he considers Peel

" did him." He's not a bit afraid of what he calls the
Mouncheers,

Barleycorn, to our fancy, is one of the happiest of
men. He is rich — rich in the fewness of his wants —
and has nearly all the requirements of life within
himself. A good, large, roomy, well-built, old
fashioned farm-house, with attic windows peering out
of the stone roof, a comfortable parlour on either side
of the entrance, and the kitchen sufficiently near to
make the knocking on the table with his knife answer
the purpose of a bell, to indicate when he is ready for
the second or third steak and the pudding. He has
a nice, clean, healthy-looking girl to wait upon him,
and a managing body of a wife to look after the girl
and the interests of the dairy and larder as well.
Barleycorn hunts his twice a week, and has always
hunted his twice a week, and means to continue to
hunt his twice a week, and yet he has only the big
nag under him, and an old brood mare, that takes her
turn about the farm the day after a hard run or a long
day. His friend, Brownstout, is a sort of double, both
in size and dress, and, when their backs are turned, it
is hard to say which is which. Having great con-
fidence in each other's judgment, they generally buy
in " duplicate," thus, if Barleycorn treats himself to a
new beaver, he buys another for Brownstout ; and,
some people say, that after a " wet night " or two, the
hats become common, and they just take either. Both

THE FARMER

183

their Christian names being John, and their surnames
beginning with a " B," perhaps aids the confusion or
commonalty. Their thunder and Hghtning coats are
cut off the same web, and made up by the same snip
— so are their waistcoats, ditto their big-ribbed cotton
cords, as the dangling drab ribbon over the mahogany
tops testify. This similarity of dress is often seen in
the country; indeed, in the hunting field one may
sometimes tell the residents of particular districts by
their clothes.

In hunting, Barleycorn and Brownstout are equally

unanimous, both being admirers of the silent system.
They hunt by the weather, and not by the card. If
Monday is a bad day they turn out on the Tuesday,
or adjourn again till the Wednesday, the Sabbath and
market-days being the only ones to avoid. It says
much for their management, that under whatever
Master the foxhounds have been kept. Barleycorn
and Brownstout have never been accused of inter-
fering with their sport; on the contrary, they have
received the repeated expression of the thanks both
of Master and followers, for their preservation of the
"varmint." At the present moment, we may add.

i84 THE HUNTING FIELD

that there is a duplicate round of cold beef at each
of their houses, in case the hounds should happen to
pass either way. As we fear our numerous engage-
ments will prevent our partaking of either, we shall
now bid adieu to our good friends the "Farmers,"
regretting our inability to portray them in the bright
colours we could wish, but, assuring them at the
same time, of our hearty appreciation and unfeigned
respect.

CHAPTER XV

ELIJAH BULLWAIST, THE BLACKSMITH

ASTING our eye over the
field, the next character
that greets is one of
whom we before spoke
— Elijah Bullwaist, the
Blacksmith. Were it not
for the shagginess of his
pony's coat and the red-
ness of Bullwaist's nose,
some apology would be
due for keeping them
so long ; but neither is
likely to take harm by
standing. Bullwaist is rightly named, for he is a man
of Herculean proportions, six feet two in his stocking
feet, broad shouldered, broad backed, and big limbed.
How he ever can have the conscience to pile his
ponderosity upon that poor, ill-fed, hard- worked, white
pony, passes our comprehension. Surely none of the
" notables " for the suppression of cruelty to animals
can have heard of his performances, or Mr. Thomas
would have been after him, "Dicky Martin" in
hand.

It has always appeared to us that the old school of
blacksmiths are as much a distinct class or breed of
men as coachmen, sailors, or Jews. To our mind

1S5

i86 THE HUNTING FIELD

they are a sort of cross between a travelling tinker
and a stableman — by Vulcan out of Pitchfork, or
something of that sort. They are almost all sports-
men or sporting men — that is to say, they have a
turn for everything going, or can turn their hands to
everything. They like a hunt, and they like a race ;
they like a game at pitch and toss, are great at quoits,
can play at cards, dominoes, get up raffles, shoot
matches, jump in sacks, bait badgers, and don't care
if they go out coursing occasionally. Like the travel-
ling tinker, they generally have a turn for keeping a
horse. " Keeping," indeed, we can hardly call it —
starving, starving a horse w^ould be nearer the mark.
Bullwaist's pony is a sample of that. Its shape is
good, but it is long "overdue," as the bankers say,
only there is nothing on it to make soup of. Yet the
poor beast was in the coal cart all yesterday, and was
assisting at a moonlight flitting the night before.
Now it has seventeen stone, avoirdupois weight,
piled upon its back. Bullwaist is a hard task-
master. He never thinks he can get enough out of
a horse.

The blacksmith's shop is to the country what the
saddler's is to the town, the grand emporium of news.
It is to the servants what the hair-dresser's is to their
masters, or perhaps their mistresses, for we will give
our sex credit for having something else to do than
gossip. When the Blacksmith combines the trade
of publican as well, it will go hard if he is not ac-
quainted with all the " inns and outs " of the country.
It will be odd if he does not know who was at the
castle last week, and who is expected next; nay, we
will be bound to say he can tell who supplied the
Dorking fowls, and what butcher sent the most beef
and mutton. He has a chronological chart in his
head of all the kings and queens that have reigned
there since the days of his boyhood; can tell what
butler king was most liberal with the beer, and what

THE BLACKSMITH 187

key-earrying queen was most lavish in the larder.
Nothing, perhaps, can equal the gossip of a public-
house keeping country smith, and we often wonder
at gentlemen tolerating such nuisances on their estates.
They are the ruin of servants, and the general haunts
of idleness. It is an odd thing, but let the beer be
ever so good and strong and plentiful at the castle
or the hall, the servants will draw to the public-house
to spend their own money in trash. As this cannot
be for the sake of the drink, it must be for the sake
of the gossip, and let any tolerator of such a nuisance
picture to himself what the conversation is likely to
run upon. We have seen many a lazy skulking dog
dragging his legs along to the public-house, who could
never " find time " to go to church.

With gratitude we say it, the Royal Veterinary
College has done much to eradicate a breed of men
who were at once the curse of horseflesh and the
country, and in lieu of the botching, bungling,
ignorant, self-sufficient, drunken, daring, kill or cure,
fear nought horse and cow-leeches of twenty or five-
and-twenty years ago, we have an educated race of
men, combining the business of shoers and veterinary
surgeons, who can be called in when a Groom or
Master's knowledge is exhausted or insufficient. In
consequence of the distribution of veterinary surgeons
through the country, we have got a better set of work-
ing smiths — men with some idea of the anatomy and
delicacy of a horse's foot, and not fellows who cut
and wrench and hammer and tear, as if it had no
more feeling than a vice or an anvil. Londoners have
no idea what an old country smith was like; they
would do anything — set a limb, shoe a horse, make
a key, mend a gun, sharp a ploughshare, or prescribe
for horse, dog, cow, and even man. The division
between whitesmith and blacksmith is still unknown
in the greater part of the kingdom.

Few libraries are without that useful work, "The

iSS THE HUNTING FIELD

Horse," 1 written by Lord Brougham, and a select party
of sportsmen (Mr. Leader, most likely, and others),
and published under the superintendence of the
Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge — a
work that contains more really useful matter in an
easy, unpedantic, intelligible-to-the-meanest-capacity-
form, than any that we know of; and were it not for
the tendency it might have to lead ignorant fellows
to experimentalise on poor horses, we could wish it
were in every saddle-room as well. That, perhaps,
not being desirable, we may quote a passage on shoe-
ing that is incapable of perversion, and well worthy
the attention of masters, servants, Bullwaists, and all
— if such bigoted creatures as Bullwaists are open to
conviction: — "We will suppose the horse is sent to
the forge to be shod," says Lord Brougham and Co. :
" If the master would occasionally accompany him
there, he would find it much to his advantage. The
old shoe must be first taken off. We have something
to observe even on this. It was retained on the foot
by the ends of the nails being twisted off, turned
down, and clenched. These clenches should be first
raised, which the smith seldom takes the trouble
thoroughly to do ; but after going carelessly round
the crust, and raising one or two of the clenches, he
takes hold first of one heel of the shoe, and then of
the other, and by a violent wrench separates them
from the foot, and by a third wrench, applied to the
middle of the shoe, he tears it off. By this means he
must enlarge every nail hole, and weaken the future
hold, and sometimes tear off portions of the crust,
and otherwise injure the foot. The horse generally
shows by his flinching that he suffers by the violence
with which this preliminary operation is performed.
The clenches should always be raised or filed off;

^ Here let us recommend Mr. Miles's treatise on the foot of
the horse to the especial attention of sportsmen and horse masters
generally. It is a most sensible work.

THE BLACKSMITH 189

and where the foot is tender, or the horse is to be
examined for lameness, each nail should be partly
punched out. Many a stub is left in the crust, the
source of future annoyance, when this unnecessary
violence is used."

His lordship shows himself to be an accurate
observer, and to have profited by his sporting pur-
suits, albeit followed in France, not the likeliest
country for sporting science. No doubt the horse
does flinch — nay, we have heard them give a sort of
groan, not unlike the sound emitted by a man catch-
ing up his foot on having his corn trod upon.

The man-shoer and the horse-shoer occupy similar
stations in the biped and quadrupedal world, though
the latter have, perhaps, the best of it, in their exemp-
tion from the abuse invariably lavished on a misfitting,
uneasyfitting "snob." Let a man think of the misery
he has endured from the uneasy, uneven pressure of
a tight boot, and he will surely have some considera-
tion for the comfort of his horse. There is in horse-
shoeing precisely the same discomfort, without absolute
lameness, that there is in human shoeing, and it is
that discomfort that a careless, off-hand sort of fellow
never discovers. A man with a head, and eyes in
that head, can see by the way a horse stands in his
stall whether he is comfortable or not; but many
fellows will get on their backs and ride them eight
or ten miles without feeling that they are not going
in their usual form, which a master discovers the
moment he mounts. These are the cast-iron, wooden-
headed class of servants, " Grooms " we will not call
them, who have no more feeling or sympathy with
horses than hedge stakes. They go lob, lob, lobbing
along without thought or care, save how to get there,
and how to get back. Notwithstanding the great
improvement that has taken place within the last
twenty years in the style of country blacksmiths, and
the manner of country shoeing, there is still ample

I90 THE HUNTING FIELD

room for further advancement. There is still as
much difference between the skilfully town-shod horse,
and the lumpy, heavy, graceless, iron-bound hoof
emancipated from the hand of the country shoer, as
there is between the Bartley turned out boot, and the
shapeless, baggy, half-tanned leather looking things
of John Crookedlast, of the village of Clottington.
There is as much difference in iron as there is in
leather. A set of shoes from one man will last half
as long again as a set of shoes from another man,
just as a pair of boots from one man will outwear two
pairs from another. We have seen stuff put on for
iron that was almost as soft as gingerbread, driven
in by great tenpenny-nail-looking things, whose fat
unburied heads looked as if they were meant to act
the part of one of CrosskilFs clod-crushers; regular
tear-up-the-land and soil-looking things.

It is not our intention to discuss the merits of the
different forms of shoes, but there is one point con-
nected with hunting shoes that merits a word or two,
and that is " calkins," or turnings up of the heels, to
prevent slipping. These are very useful in downy,
hilly countries, and if the calkins could be added on
arriving at that sort of country, they would be very
good, especially in frosty weather, where, as all Sussex
sportsmen know, one side of a hill is often soft and
the other side hard, according as they lie to the sun.
Some turn up the outer heel only, and on soft greasy
surfaces, perhaps, the outer heel is sufficient, but as
that causes uneven treading, it must be prejudicial
to the foot on roads and hard surfaces. If calkins,
therefore, are used, they should be used to both sides
of the heel, or the foot either raised up or pared
down, so as to preserve an equality.

There is another very important point connected
with shoeing, particularly hunter shoeing, that even
our friend Lord Brougham and the whole "Useful
Knowledge Society" seem to have overlooked, and

THE BLACKSMITH igt

that is nails. The best and neatest of shoes are
useless without good nails, just as the best and
neatest of biped ones are useless without strings or
fastenings of some sort. Now it is a notorious fact>
though we dare say Elijah Bullwaist will deny it, that
the same man cannot make both shoes and nails.
Bullwaist will make what he calls nails just as he
makes what he calls shoes, but if any of our readers
will pop into a veterinary forge, or well-conducted
smithy, he will find making nails and making shoes
are distinct departments, nay, in many, that making
nails, making shoes, and putting them on, constitute
three separate branches. Let the shoes be ever so
good and ever so well put on, it is clear that they are
of no use, especially for hunters, unless they will stay
on, and that staying on depends almost entirely upon
the make and quality of the nails.

We do not know a more graceless, thankless office,
than telling a man he has lost a shoe, particularly if
the discovery is made in the middle of a run. We
wonder if any person ever got thanked for such
information. Shoe losing is one of the drawbacks
upon foxhunting, and one of the greatest arguments
for the second horse system. A man with a second
horse looks at his nag's feet at a check with very
different feelings to the man who has merely a spare
shoe at his saddle. The man with his Groom behind
him with a second horse can afford to be civil when
he is told he has lost a shoe : he has nothing to do
but change horses, just as he would change his plate
at dinner. But the man with but one horse, no spare
shoe, and no knowledge of where a blacksmith is to
be found, has a very dejected melancholy air as he
turns from the hounds and rides about among the
country people, asking if they can tell him " where to
find a smith ? " Shoe cases are now so common that
the exception is seeing a saddle without one, and
there are divers patent contrivances extant for self-

192 THE HUNTING FIELD

fastenings and self-adjustings, that might be very
useful if the patentee was in attendance to work
them, but which had better be discarded in favour of
the common shoe, with a few nails to set it on with.

What an unfavourable opinion of foxhunters any one
would draw who merely saw them arrive at a black-
smith's on losing a shoe in the middle of a run. To
heighten the loser's chagrin, after seeing all his lovely
companions gradually disappear, when at length, horse
in hand, he arrives at the pointed out spot, it's ten to
one but he finds the shop empty, the blacksmith after
the hounds, and the apprentice shading the sun from
his eyes with his hand on the top of a distant wall,
straining his sight after the pack. Then when the
unfortunate sportsman does get a creature to attend
his behest, what gaping, poking, and searching after
what they know they have not, work there is ; what
fumbling of dray - horse shoes, and measuring of
donkey ones, to see if they will fit. The eye seems
useless to some fellows, they are never satisfied a
thing won't do, until they measure it. If a man
has not a shoe with him, the only plan is to get the
best fitting old shoe the shop will afford put on.
Don't let the fidgetty sportsman hurry the man, or
he will most likely drive a nail into the quick. Let
** patience " be the word, and if on getting the horse
to the door, and leading him on a few yards, he walks
sound, let our sportsman remount and see if a lucky
check or turn will not let him in again.

Some people are very easily "cowed" if we may
use such an expression in connection with hunting,
on losing hounds, and never attempt to catch them
if they once get away from them, or to fall in with
them again after getting a lost shoe replaced. Instead
of doing so, they indulge in all sorts of imprecations,
and conjectures as to the splendour of the affair they
are losing. A pack out of sight are always supposed
to be going best pace, whereas, perhaps, they are

THE BLACKSMITH 193

pottering on the other side of the hill, picking the
scent over fallows or cattle-stained ground. A hunt
is not like a steeple-chase, where a few minutes make
all the difference. We have seen a man lose a shoe,
find a smith, get another put on, and jump in with
the hounds running back with their fox as he led the
horse out of the door.

Some people are desperately inquisitive about a
horse's health, temper, appetite, and peculiarities,
asking no end of wise questions, and taking no end
of precautions, and yet we dare say it never enters the
head of one in a hundred to ask if he is a shoe-
thrower. Some, we dare say, will smile at the idea,
because such a blessing as a shoe-thrower has never
fallen to their lot. We remember some years ago
being in a party of foxhunters, where the productions
of a hunting contributor to one of the sporting
magazines was under discussion, and a gentleman
observed that he did not think the writer could be
a man of much experience, because he spoke of a
piebald hunter in the field as a curiosity, whereas,
said the speaker, "piebalds are quite common in
our country." So we are all apt to argue from what
we ourselves know. This gentleman lived in a
country where there was a famous piebald stallion,
but we may appeal to our readers whether a piebald
horse is not an unusual sight in the hunting field.
But this gentleman thought not, and we have the
same sort of idea, that shoe-throwers are not so
uncommon. Of course all horses will cast their shoes
occasionally, but there are some that make a point of
doing it at the very earliest opportunity. Indeed we
are something like the gentleman who lived in the
country with the piebald stallion — for a friend of ours
once bought a finely shaped white horse at TattersalPs,
perfect to look at, fast in his gallop, temperate at his
fences, but who invariably pulled off a fore shoe
before he had gone over half-a-dozen leaps — nay, we
13

194 THE HUNTING FIELD

have known both shoes come off together. And yet
there was nothing the matter with the horse's feet ;
they were good, sound, healthy feet — he did it by
catching the hind shoes with the fore, and no con-
trivance or ingenuity could prevent his doing it.
Now that is a case "in point," as the lawyers say,
and though we admit the occurrence is a rare one,
still we think that question might just as reasonably
be asked as half the questions that are put about
hunters.

Speaking of this horse, leads us to observe how
beautifully Providence turns even the infirmities of
His creatures to good account. To look at this
animal no sportsman could doubt the appropriateness
of its form for hunting purposes. It was the hunter
all over, with one of the lightest, best set on heads
we ever saw. Added to a commanding figure, it had
the finest freest action imaginable, and though the
circumstance of such a horse coming to the hammer
single-handed as it were — that is to say not in a stud
— certainly was suspicious, still there were always fine
venturesome men in the yard ready to speculate on
such a piece of perfection, and it was sold in different
parts of London — at Tattersall's, Aldridge's, the
Horse Bazaar, and Barbican a dozen times at least
before it was regularly blown. We recognised it in
five hunts one season — the Royal buckhounds, Mr.
de Burgh's staghounds, the Hatfield, the Surrey, the
old Berkeley, and more than once saw its sleight-of-
hand trick of chucking a fore-shoe half-way up in the
owner's face, before we suspected what screw was
loose. On each change of hunt we need hardly say
it was in the hands of a different owner, and as luck
would have it, about the twelfth time of " asking," our
friend Blatherington Brown, the Manchester ware-
houseman of Friday - street, who thinks he knows
more about horses than muslins, had strayed into
Tat's with a nice clean fifty pound note in his blue

THE BLACKSMITH 195

satin note-case, and seeing this superb animal trotting
to and fro, and Tat labouring up the ladder of
bidders — a very unusual thing for Tat to do, by the
way — Brown thought it wasn't possible he could take
any harm even if he got the horse, and if he didn't,
why giving a " bid " was a cheap piece of flash that
would tell in the City. Shock Jem, the enterprising
Mr. Py well, and other cheap Johns of the yard, had
run the horse up to their utmost limits, and still he
stood below what Blatherington Brown had in his
note-case. Accordingly he blurted out ^' fifty /^^ on
the top of forty-seven, and turned on his heel with a
neglige sort of air, as much as to say, he's worth that
if he's worth anything.

" F^fty ! going for f^fty ! all you all done at f<?fty ! "
exclaimed Tattersall, with a quick glance around, and
in another instant the hammer was down.

Blatherington wanted a second horse, for he was
going to Brighton, where he meant to play old goose-
berry with the Brighton and Brookside dogs, to say
nothing of astonishing Colonel Wyndham, and the
" East Sussex," and very well pleased he was with his
purchase until he got him into the Sussex clay, when
he began to play his old tricks, and off went the shoes.
A horse is desperately soon blown in the country ;
we don't mean in his wind, but in his character, and
Brighton being only a slice of London, poor Claudius
Hunter, for so Blatherington christened him, after the
great civic patron of white horses, very soon had his
London reputation tacked to his Brighton one, and

he was what theatrical people call d d. In this

dilemma it occurred to the fruitful mind of old Mr.
Boss, the tit-tup-ing, Hessian-booted riding master,
that Claudius might prove a valuable acquisition in his
stud. It may appear singular to our readers that a
horse which was a drug in one man's hands should be
an acquisition in another's, but Boss had lived a long
time in the world, almost as long as Widdicomb, who

196 THE HUNTING FIELD

Punch says has turned three hundred years, and Boss
had learnt a thing or two. Among other things Boss
had learned that half the people who hunted from
Brighton only hunted for the sake of wearing red
coats, and that they were never so happy as when
they got off their horses, having qualified to strut on
the flags and tell their exploits to the ladies. The
only difficulty of doing that is an excuse for coming
home, and Boss saw that a horse that would furnish
his own excuse would not only be in great request,
but would also be able to go out very often. Accord-
ingly, he threw himself in Blatherington's way as,
slipper on foot, Claudius and he re-entered Brighton
by luncheon time, having disposed of a shoe about
Firle. Boss, of course, knew the horse's infirmity,
and finding Brown in the parting mood, they very
soon made a deal. Well, Claudius was the most
popular horse that ever entered Brighton — like a
belle at a ball, he was always engaged three or four
deep. His colour was greatly in his favour, for
though it is a generally received axiom that a white
horse should always be forward, yet as it takes half-
a-dozen fields or half-a-dozen fences to settle people
properly in their places, a horse that always declined
before the rubicon was reached could never be said
to be conspicuously behind. Indeed Claudius always
looked most promising. When other mad devils
were yawning and boring, and rushing and shaking
their heads, like terriers wdth rats in their mouths,
Claudius was as cool and collected as possible, taking
his fences as though he meant to go on fencing all
day. But that was all deception — Claudius was an
honest horse, and never disappointed his rider; as
sure as he came to the sixth fence, so sure would a
shoe be gone or going. Then, with well feigned
regret and disgust, the rider would pull up, and after
receiving the condolence of the passing field, would
cast about in search of a smithy, and slipper on foot

THE BLACKSMITH 197

would re-enter Brighton by the longest route, so as
to display the faultless pink on the faithful white.
Then young ladies sitting in bay and balcony windows,
bending over novels, or laps full of work, would
exclaim — " Oh, dear ! there's that orrid Mr. Spoonbill
coming home from hunting ; " or — " Oh ! I declare
here's Captain Green on the white horse, looking
so nicer

Then Mr. Spoonbill having lingered by the way,
answering every inquiry any one would have the kind-
ness to put to him relative to the run, would at last
render up Claudius to the hands of Mr. Boss, and,
repairing to his lodgings, would re-arrange his curls
and whiskers, and, putting a most deceitful little
macintosh over his scarlet coat, would go clonk^ clonk,
clonk, with his spurs on the flags the rest of the
afternoon, a cross between a post-boy and a heavy
dragoon.

But, Lord bless us ! what a way out of our ground
this mention of Claudius Hunter has led us. We
have been taking a canter on Brighton Downs, and a
ride through the town, instead of sticking to the hero
at the head of our paper. Well, here goes at him
again.

Elijah Bullwaist is a full flowering specimen of
the old tribe of " horse and cow leech," and for the
benefit of posterity we will impale him on our sheet.
Bullwaist's monstrous bulk is further increased by a
profusion of foul, filthy clothes. He seems as if he
carried his whole wardrobe on his back. Peering
above his nasty rusty black duffle frock coat, we see
as many dirty waistcoats as would serve the grave-
digger in "Hamlet." Above the rusty-stained
unwholesome duffle, with its broad binding, parting
from its seams and sides, is one of those ancient
abominations, a Witney coat, with large mother-of-
pearl buttons. It was once white, but the days of its
whiteness are long gone by, and it is now a sort of

198 THE HUNTING FIELD

whitey brown walking pestilence, combining the
odour of tobacco, aloes, sulphur, oil, turpentine,
opium, what Bullwaist calls harbs (herbs), a definition
that he applies to all medical ingredients that he is
not particularly acquainted with. Harbs and brandy
are grand specifics in Bullwaist's pharmacopoeia.

Bullwaist's corduroy breeches and gaiters partake
of the general nastiness of his apparel, and two great
slits across the middle of each shoe give him the air
of being troubled with the gout, or perhaps corns, a
sort of retribution for the many his bad shoeing has
entailed upon horses. A careless twisted red cotton
kerchief chafes against his unshaven chin, and an old
shallow -crowned, broad -leafed, napless black hat,
protects his dirty bald head from the winds, and
keeps the lank uncombed grey locks of the sides
down upon his greasy coat collar. Altogether,
Bullwaist has a most unwholesome sort of look ; yet
this is the sort of man that deals in drugs and potions,
and is consulted about the ailments and accidents of
cattle and horses; and, strange to say, many of the
country people prefer these ignorant quacks, these
blockheads, these horse torturers, to regularly
educated men. They have heard of some wonderful
cure, some extraordinary operation bordering on a
miracle, performed by them, that banishes the recol-
lection of all their bungling failures, and of all their
broken promises. Some, indeed, carry the principle
out with regard to themselves, and many a lout would
rather be operated upon by a bone-setter than by a
Liston, a Cooper, or a Brodie. It is wonderful the
influence some of these quacks obtain over the minds
of country people ; nay, even over parties from whom
better things might be expected. In a village, not
fifty miles from London, carriage-fulls of people used
to resort, week after week, to a man fully as ignorant
and as brutal as Bullwaist; nay, we beheve, more
ignorant, for Bullwaist can make a sort of writing,

THE BLACKSMITH l^H

whereas the individual in question was wholly ignorant
of the art.

Here is a specimen of Bullwaist^s spelling. We
are sorry we cannot give a fac-simile of the calligraphy
itself:—

1836.— Anthew Brown to Eli. Bullwaist.

Febery 8.— To a Botel of Blistern oil

;^0

3

0

28. — To firin the marledg

0

10

6

March I. — To a Jurney .

0

2

6

To a Jurney .

0

2

6

To Oinement

0

2

0

To 2 Doze of Bales

0

2

0

To a Pot of Oinement .

0

2

6

To a Jurney to Ruben them

0

3

0

To 2 Doze of Pirgin Bales

0

3

0

To a Jurney .

0

2

6

£^ 13 6

The above is really and truly an account rendered
by Bullwaist so recently as 1836, and looking at the
spelling, and the style of the man, what a mass of
cruelty his ignorant, brutish barbarity must have
inflicted upon the poor animals that the last fifty or
five-and-fifty years have brought under the ban of his
ignorance. "To a Botel of Blistern oil," for a bottle
of blistering oil ! and to " firin the marledg," for firing
the mare's leg. "The Jurney to Ruben them,"
perhaps requires the aid of the glossary even more
than the others, and were it not for the " pot of oine-
ment " that precedes the item, we should have been
puzzled to collect that the " Jurney to Ruben them,"
meant a journey to rubbing them with the precious
stuff.

We have another bill of the same worthy's before
us, where there is a charge for "a bottel of esens,"
meaning a bottle of essence (essence of what? we
wonder), and there is an item " To Rowling the mar
and sane," or sow, we cannot tell which, that quite

200 THE HUNTING FIELD

beats our power of deciphering. Then the impudence
of a fellow so replete with ignorance charging as much,
nay more, for his medicine than the regularly educated
practitioner. Three shillings for two "pirgin bales,"
meaning, we presume, two physic balls, which we all
know can be bought at any chemist's for a shilling
a-piece, or for ten shillings a dozen. The veterinary
surgeons, we may observe, do themselves no good by
exorbitant charges for medicine, it only drives custom
away to the chemist that would otherwise come to
them. " Live and let live," is a good useful motto,
applicable to vets as well as to other trades. There
is a story told of a young "sawbones," who, on
sending in his bill to his solitary patient, added the
following note : —

"Being a young man anxious to get forward I have charged
double,"

and Elijah Bullwaist is in a somewhat similar pre-
dicament, only he is an old man whose business has
left him.

Twenty years ago Elijah had the sign of the Rising
Sun in the centre of the village of Hatherly, with a well
frequented smithey adjoining, but irregular conduct
caused him at length to forfeit his license, and he has
now a beer-shop and forge at the east end of the
town, where he carries on a second-rate business as
a blacksmith, and a first-rate one as a blackguard.
This beer-shop is the resort of all the vagabonds in
the country; poachers, trampers, tinkers, discarded
servants, hawkers, pedlars, raffs of all sorts, who find
in Bullwaist and his numerous progeny, congenial
spirits and ribald company.

There, over the lowest, basest, most revolutionary
prints, they charge the result of their own misconduct
on the laws, and heap abuse on every one whose
authority keeps them in control. It is a sad sight to
see a hoary old sinner, like Bullwaist, leading his own

THE BLACKSMITH 201

children on in a course that has been productive of
his own ruin. It is a sad thing for a country to see
the seeds of vice ready to spread and waft in all
directions : to calculate that the nuisance of old
Bullwaist is to be the lot of many parts — Bullwaist
is a bad man. It is one of his boasts that he never
goes to church, and we never knew one who so
boasted that was to be trusted.

Parents should bear this fact in mind, that there is
no occupation or employment in life in which the
character of themselves is not inquired into with

regard to their children. If the parents are honest,
steady, respectable people, there will be every reason
to believe that their children will be the same, at all
events the world will take them on credit as such, but
if parents are notorious wrongdoers, the evil of their
reputation will attach to their children, and be serious
impediments to their worldly advancement.

We may also add, though we have no desire unduly
to stigmatize a class, that few people are fond of
engaging with those who are connected with beer-
shops. "Inn" service is generally considered bad
enough, but bold must be the man who tackles with

202 THE HUNTING FIELD

the offspring of the beer-shop. We never look at one
of their nasty, dingy, common-looking signs, without
thinking what apt prototypes they are of the squalor
within. But the hounds are away, and here is old
Bullwaist, as usual, getting in people's way. He
doesn't seem to like water a bit better than his nag.
^^ Now, old boyl''^ we fancy we hear this red-coated
buck exclaiming, as he dashes past, leaving old
"Waist" in the lurch.

1

I

^1

CHAPTER XVI

THE SQUIRE

is only those who have
been much abroad that
can rightly appreciate
the advantage of having
resident country gentle-
men. It is only the
absence of the class in
other countries that im-
presses us with the con-
viction of its importance
in our own. In no other
country in the world do
we find individuals with
the same power and territorial possessions occupying
so unassuming a place in the national scale — men that
in this country rank as mere Esquires, in other lands
would be princes and magnates from the importance
of their possessions. We, who have seen marquises
presiding at gaming tables, and counts figuring
off behind counters, feel proud of belonging to a
country whose greatness is based on such substantial
foundations.

The title " Esquire " is so prostituted by the indis-
criminate application of modern usage, that were it
not founded in respectability, and maintained by its
"order," it must long ere this have fallen into dis-

203

204 THE HUNTING FIELD

repute. Every man dubs himself, or is dubbed,
*' Esquire." One of the judges, in reply to an objection
of counsel, that a man had improperly described
himself an " Esquire," observed that it had been held
that every man who was not a gentleman was entitled
to be called " Esquire ; " and a still older authority —
we believe the lamented Mr. Thurtell, or one of his
confederates — propounded the doctrine that keeping
a gig and horse was proof of a man being a gentleman.
In spite, however, of all its misapplications — in spite
of all the jibes and jeers levelled at the class, there is
still something about the title " Esquire," or " Squire,"
peculiarly grateful to Englishmen, and peculiarly ex-
pressive of the tranquil simplicity of country life.
Strictly speaking, we believe the title of Esquire is
the prerogative of parties named in her Majesty's
commission of the peace, of members of certain pro-
fessions and callings, but there is no doubt that its
real working identity is the lord of the soil, the
country resident — the country justice, if you will, but
the follower of field sports, at all events. This is the
sort of being that the title " Esquire " suggests to the
minds of Englishmen, and this is the sort of " Squire "
that the country people look up to as the highest
authority within the scope of their imaginations. And
rightly, we believe, they do so look up, for a well
educated right thinking gentleman is an acquisition in
a district, and are best appreciated, as we said before,
by those who have witnessed their want or removal.
We may even go further, and say, that counties well
supplied with resident gentry exhibit a much smaller
amount of crime than counties where they are scarce.
All statesmen are aware of this, and it has always
been an object with Governments to afford, by the
encouragement and protection of country sports,
every inducement to landowners to live on their
estates.

We consider the maintenance of field sports of

THE SQUIRE 205

immense importance to the well-being of a country.
They not only engender a fine manly daring spirit
among all who are in any way drawn within the scope
of their influence, but they materially tend to promote
a healthy spirit of sociality and intercourse among
neighbours. Nor are their beneficial effects confined
to the mere followers of field sports ; all the in-
habitants of a district, all who are in any way de-
pendent upon others for the amusement of them-
selves or friends are benefited by their existence and
prosperity, and interested in their maintenance. To
illustrate this, let us look at the case of a large country
house in a sporting district, and one in a country
where there is neither hunting nor shooting.

The great difference between London society and
country society is this : — In London we get people
together just when and for as long as we want them,
at a time of day and under circumstances peculiarly
adapted to the development of anything like informa-
tion, talent, or humour; whereas in the country,
people must be thrown more upon each other than
the average stock of reminiscences and parish politics
will find conversation for. Here people get into their
carriages, if they have them, or street equipages if
they have not, and five or ten minutes will take them
to their most distant friend; but in the country,
visiting is oftentimes a serious job — a matter of two
or three days' business. And then comes the con-
sideration, what are a host or hostess to do with their
good friends when they have got them scraped
together ? Now, we take it will be readily conceded
by all who have tried it, that of all dull, wearisome,
up-hill work, there is nothing equal to dragging out a
tedious existence among people with whom we have
little in common, where breakfast, luncheon, and
dinner are the only alleviations of the settled stream
of inactive monotony; in other words^ that mere
eating and drinking are not sufficient inducements to

2o6 THE HUNTING FIELD

draw people from home. Have we a country reader
unoppressed with the mental incubus of a three days'
visit to a stupid country house, where the good people,
though desperately glad to see you, are high and dry
for conversation before it is time to dress for the first
day's dinner? Suppose it a first visit, entailing the
magnificence of the "best of everything," and the
usual pressing and urging of people for miles around
to meet. The scene opens in the drawing-room, with
the usual apologies for the smallness of the party, and
the recital of a long list of invited friends who have
been too shrewd to be victimised. Mr. and Mrs.
Gabble were asked, and had promised to come, but
unfortunately Mrs. Gabble's mother had arrived from
Boulogne-sur-Mer, and would neither accompany
them nor hear of their leaving her. Captain and Mrs.
Smith were both laid up of bad colds, or would have
been there, and Mrs. Buggins had just got her eleven
boys home from school, and could not leave them,
and Miss Toby and her brother had just gone on a
visit to their rich uncle's ; and so they go on through
a long list of shuffles and apologies, ending with the
usual asseveration that it is " a wretched country for
neighbours — not such another bad one in England "
— the common denunciation, in short, of all unlucky
party pressers. The victim listens with polite com-
placency, inwardly chuckling, perhaps, at escaping so
many bores, until his satisfaction gradually changes
into astonishment at what has brought him there
himself. Some men are so dense as never to re-
member that mammas consider it part of their duty
to bring all the single men to their houses to give
their daughters a chance, and think because they have
no fancy for any of the girls, that the girls cannot
have any design upon them. Innocent youths !
There is not a man goes into a house where there
are girls, without being more or less bespoke or
assigned to some one or other of them.

THE SQUIRE 207

But we must get on with our visit, or we shall
make our sketch as long as the infliction itself. If
a dinner passes heavily, what a prospect there is
for the evening ! What a spirit-depressing thing it
is to feel that no gentle knock or quiet area ring,
following the slow rumble of wheels, wdll bring
liberation through the footman's hands, but that we
are regularly booked, and in for the night — not only
the night, but two following ones, with the addition
of long unoccupied days. One day, however, shall
serve for all. Let us suppose the dawdling breakfast
at last finished, that it has been protracted even until
eleven o'clock, then comes the appalling conviction
of thin boots, and total indolence. The ladies retire
to the drawing-room, and the wretched male victims
of society, whom spurious hospitality has brought
together, either follow them or make for the library.
This is the time that country-house indolence is most
apparent and most appalling. If a man has any, the
smallest occupation or resource Avhen at home, the
first hour or so after breakfast is sure to bring it out ;
but in a strange house, away from his horses, his
garden, his dogs, his gun, his fishing-rod, his books,
his everything that makes home home, what is a man
to do ? There cannot perhaps be a greater nuisance
for both sexes than a lot of men hanging about a
drawing-room after breakfast. It must be as great a
bore to the ladies as it is to the men — yet how often
we see it — men lounging and idling and twaddling,
until luncheon prepares them for the excursion to
Prospect Hill or the ruined abbey by the river, the
usual inflictions on unhappy victims. Lord bless us !
we would rather break stones than be condemned to
such ponderous idleness.

There is no " tip-and-go-ish-ness " in the country —
none of that light effervescence that distinguishes the
active-minded man in brief contact with a sparkling
circle. People in the country, though they have

2o8 THE HUNTING FIELD

nothing to say to you, think they cannot see too much
of you. They must have you alongside of them, and
when at length dull time has dragged through the
imprisonment, and with well feigned regrets you are
about to separate, they " bind you over " to appear
again on that day three months, or inform you that
they are to have the pleasure of meeting you at dinner
the next day at the new gaol you are going to.

Let us take the converse of this sad picture. Let
us suppose a country house in a hunting country,
and see the influence field sports have in procuring
society. It is just like the difference between a
volunteer and a pressed man. Instead of a hostess
having to send out urgent solicitations to some, and
embossed cards to, others, the probability is that the
fixture of the hounds, in the county papers, conveys
the first intimation that she may prepare for a party ;
and instead of apologies, excuses, and backings out,
the plot thickens as the time approaches.

We have heard it said that extempore speeches are
always the best, and we have met people simple
enough to believe well-conned orations were extem-
pore; but that is a "fallacy" that does not require
Dr. Dixon to expose. We think we shall, however,
be borne out by our readers in asserting that extempore
parties are generally the pleasantest, especially ex-
tempore parties of sportsmen. People may object to
the conversation of foxhunters, just as they may
object to the conversation of lawyers, soldiers, sailors,
or any other class of men, but surely brisk, animated
conversation of any sort is infinitely preferable to the
forced, up-hill driblets of words proceeding from
constrained people with nothing in common. Put
the case in its very worst form, it leaves the uncon-
cerned, uninterested guest the privilege of running
his own thoughts and ideas through his mind, without
those tiresome interruptions and appeals that invari-
ably accompany forced attempts at " most delightful

THE SQUIRE 209

evenings." Eagerness and animation, however, are
catching, particularly over wine, and we have seen
many a jolly, laid-on-the-shelf-sportsman, and even
unentered host, the one forget his years, the other
his ignorance, and under the benign influence of
wine and hilarity swear eternal attachment to the
sport that has formed the staple of the evening's
conversation.

Then contrast the early activity of the hunting
morning with the sluggish inertness of the mere
" house full of company," with nothing to do.
Gaitered Grooms, and abortions of lads, not abor-
tions in buttons, but abortions in boots, will be seen
hurrying about getting ready for the start, while
breakfast, instead of being forced as far into the
morning as possible, so as to take a good cut out of
the day, will be rung for at the very moment it is
ordered, and woe betide the cook if it is not ready.
How lively the red coats make the table look, and
how each man's eye beams with pleasure as entering
the breakfast-room he casts his eye on the assembled
party. The very servants seem to partake of the
general enthusiasm, and bustle about with unusual
activity.

Suppose the meet takes place in the park, then
breakfast is laid for the "million."

" Show meets," as they are called, are not generally
popular with sportsmen, and perhaps deservedly not,
but the ladies like them, and they tend to keep up
the spirit of hunting. After all is said and done,
they are harmless things ; a quarter of an hour
consumed in liquoring the men and parading the
hounds, and another quarter in running the latter
through the evergreens, under pretence of drawing
for a fox, is all the mischief they do, and the man
who does not like " make believes " has nothing to
do but come half an hour late.

Hunt breakfasts are capable of complimentary
14

2IO THE HUNTING FIELD

application, or otherwise, and require some tact in
their management. It is clearly a compliment for a
gentleman to invite a stranger into his house ; it is
a compliment to the man and a compliment to the
sport, inasmuch as it shows that he thinks none but
gentlemen partake of it. It is also a compliment to
invite a general acquaintance, with whom he may not
be in the habit of visiting, but whom he sees before
his house ; but we should almost question whether
it would be a compliment to say to such a man, a
day or two before, " The hounds meet at my house
on Monday, and I shall be glad to see you to break-
fast," because it would be almost tantamount to saying
he was "just worth a breakfast, and nothing more."
These, however, are points that depend upon the
peculiarity of each case.

The sketch we have drawn of country visiting for
mere visiting sake, and country visiting for a specific
purpose, will show that hunting is not a question
affecting only its followers, but one in which all the
residents are more or less interested. All who like
society — society in its easiest, and therefore its most
agreeable footing — are interested in having a country
hunted. Any one who has seen the change produced
by the introduction or withdrawal of a pack of fox-
hounds, will be satisfied of the truth of this observation.
With a well-conducted pack, and the interchange of
visiting it engenders, winter passes away almost as
pleasantly as summer; and, even in the longest,
hottest, brightest day, we remember with pleasure
the red-curtained, sparkling fire-side comforts of the
previous winter. An Englishman, indeed, is nothing
without his domestic hearth. The open fields and
cloudless skies of France and Italy, bring joy to the
mind of the foreigner; but John Bull should be drawn
in the Turkey-carpeted, fire-side party, with the little
table and bright bottle of port just starting on its
circular voyage.

THE SQUIRE 211

To the resident country gentleman having the
country hunted is of vast importance; and fond of
hunting as men may be, they had better put up with
an inferior country and sport, than leave their homes
in search of better. The man who hunts from home
hunts in the most comfortable, rational, and satis-
factory way, uniting pleasure and business, and not
sacrificing the latter to the former.

The man who leaves his home for hunting must, to
a certain extent, make a business of it, for what else
can he do ? Away from his ordinary pursuits and
occupations, he must either hunt or lie idle, and we
need not observe that hunting in other countries is
about half as expensive again as hunting from home.
Not only is everything to be bought and paid for at
full price, but many things paid for that would be had
for nothing at home — lodging, for instance — while a
stud that would be ample for all the requirements of
home work will be totally unequal to the demands
of a regular five or six days a week hunting quarter.
The resident, we think, must be very short of occupa-
tion and resources who is not satisfied with three days
a week at the most.

The last quarter of a century has made a great
difference in the style and habits of the country
gentleman, and indeed, with the exception of a few
of the old school still remaining, such a thing as a
real country gentleman — that is to say, a gentleman
who lives all the year round in the country — is scarcely
to be met with. The last five-and-twenty years have
effected a wonderful revolution in our whole social
system. The means of mental resources and bodily
communication have been] increased a hundred-fold.
Railways and steamboats have superseded coaches,
just as magazines and newspapers have annihilated
books. There is quite as much improvement in
the mode and economy of mental improvement as
there is in the way of bodily transit. Information,

212 THE HUNTING FIELD

instead of being bonded in costly quartos, and
voluminous encyclopaedias, irrigates the whole land
in cheap tracts and treatises. A man can buy just
what he wants and nothing more. So with news-
papers. The son of the man who, twenty years
ago, was content with his country paper, now has
his London daily, and Sunday one on the " dies

M*Adam was thought a miracle twenty or five-and-
twenty years ago, and gentlemen who had been
accustomed to plough their ways to their market
towns with their carriage wheels up to the axles
began to think they ran easier on hard surfaces.
Gradually roads became better, and the old fat
maggots of horses were thought equal to two journies
a week instead of one. Country houses in former days
were like besieged towns, where it was necessary to
keep a large stock of everything, and where everything
and everybody was taken in and welcomed. Inns were
then the characteristic of towns, but the improvement
of roads and consequent increase of communication
have established them in nearly all parts where a trade
can be driven, and with their establishment the old
system of taking in servants and horses has been
gradually going out. Some object to the discontinu-
ance of the custom, as contrary to the principles of
old English hospitality, but like all antiquated customs
it is as w^ell to get rid of it where no present advantage
is derived, and when the circumstances that gave rise
to the custom have disappeared. If society is looked
upon as the medium of conversation and the inter-
change of sentiments and opinions, then it cannot be
said that servants or horses contribute to the purpose;
and though it might be a breach of hospitality to send
a friend's horses away to bad stabling, it would look
rather like " sponging " to send them to private
stables when there is good standing in the neigh-
bourhood. Of course all this must be received with

THE SQUIRE 213

due allowance for time and peculiarity of situation,
also for the operation of the reciprocity system. It
is a very different thing taking a friend's horse in
over night, and a string of horses coming for a month.
In the one case the accommodation is great to the
sender, and the expense is nothing to the receiver;
added to which, if a sportsman, he will have a billet
for his horse on the other side of the country, but it
would be an awful tax upon the owner of a house in
a good hunting country if he was expected to take
in the studs of all the friends that the fame of the
country might draw within its limits.

A place in a country Squire's house is generally
looked upon by servants as the best situation. In
them there is that proper personal inspection by
the heads of the establishment that no really honest
servant will ever object to, while there is none of that
currying favour with upper servants incident to the
steward's room of great houses. Our papers on " The
Groom " drew from a subscriber in Paris, who states
himself to be an " Old Stableman," a letter approving
of our " hints," but wishing we had given the masters
a few as well as the men, and among others he drew
our attention to the fact that a " talking servant " will
frequently command a place to the exclusion of the
quiet, hard-working man. He certainly admits that
the persons who hire such are " simpletons," but the
tongue is such a deceitful, seductive instrument, that
we fear what he says is too true, especially with young
men of large fortune. Much as we are all disposed
to repudiate the idea of a talking servant, often as
the impolicy of trusting to them is exposed, still there
is a something about the plausible subtlety of the
tongue that beguiles us when the rule comes to
direct application. So with persons dealing largely
in promises and professions : as a general rule, we
know they are always to be suspected, yet when the
professions come to be made to ourselves, we are

214 THE HUNTING FIELD

too apt to suppose we are the exceptions, though
we should have laughed at anybody else for doing
so.

It has long been a settled opinion of ours, that high
wages do not necessarily procure good servants, and
our Parisian correspondent fully confirms the truth
of that position. Great people, of course, must have
servants ; but because my Lord Duke hires a Groom
from Squire Rattlecover, at double the wages the
Squire gave, does it follow that the man, therefore,
becomes doubly good ? Certainly not ; on the con-
trary, the chances are that he deteriorates. The
Squire was fond of his stable, he knew all about it
just as well as his Groom ; his Groom knew this, and
was glad that his master took an interest in his
department; the Squire knew what a man should
do, and knowing it, required to have it done, but he
was never unreasonable in his demands, and always
considerate in his indulgences, and a community of
interest was established between them, and the badge
of servitude was almost obliterated by the constant
contact with a liberal, right-thinking master. The
man was comfortable with Squire Rattlecover, and
though his wages might not be higher than the
common wages of the country, still that word
"comfort" comprised an infinity of attractions.

Let us glance at the same man in a nobleman's
establishment. His lordship, we will readily concede,
possesses every amiable quality that the country
Squire does, but his intercourse with his servants is
necessarily small, and the man finds himself under
the dominion of other servants, instead of under the
gentle sway of his former master. As our correspond-
ent says, " he has now got to a fresh school, and
his business will be to find out which is the most
plausible and cunning among the upper servants, so
as to acquire the greatest influence at head quarters,
and then study to please and serve those upper

THE SQUIRE 215

servants — drive out the lady's-maid, lend the butler
and valet horses, convey them or their friends to the
railway-station, pick out their confidantes among the
lower servants to praise them to " — in fact, make
those upper servants masters, and trust to them for
keeping right with the real employer. "It is no
matter how good a stableman a man may be," he
says, " unless he stands well with the people in the
steward's room, for there is the real dominion.
There is none of this," he adds, "in the house of the
well-regulated country Squire, where every servant
stands on his own merit, and the master and mistress
can see who do their duty, without trusting to what
other servants say or think."

Our correspondent, as we said before, being in
Paris, concludes his sensible letter with the following
observations on the difference between English and
French servants. " I was surprised," he writes, " to
find so many English stablemen here, some very bad,
some good. The English one is always preferred,
because, in the first place, he is brought from a good
practical school; and, secondly, if he is of the right
sort, he will be working whether his master is looking
at him or not, whereas ^ monsieur ' always wants his
employer to see how busy he is." That is a very
capital description of a workman and a "make
believe," and one that will apply to a great many
English as well as French Grooms. We have seen
fellows who did not know how to be hurrying and
bustling enough when their masters were by, and yet
who could employ themselves for a whole morning in
jingling a curb chain or scouring a stirrup iron, when
there was no one looking on. The great mischief of
great houses, as we said before, is keeping more
servants that can by any possibility be worked. This
is what people call keeping up their station; and
though we are far from wishing to see great people
degenerate into little ones, we should be very sorry

2i6 THE HUNTING FIELD

to accept a servant from many of them, even though
they would pay him his wages.

But to the hunting field.

Modern custom has caused an amazing consump-
tion of scarlet cloth in the hunting field. We are old
enough to remember the time when the scarlet coat
was looked upon quite as the distinguishing mark of
the man of independent means, just as the gold
epaulette is still looked upon as the badge of the
miHtary or naval professions. Few men in trade or
business thought of riding in scarlet, except the
merchant princes of London, perhaps, in the palmy
days of the old Berkeley. In the country, where
things are on a much smaller scale, and people more
narrowly watched, it was rarely seen. Much as we
desire to uphold hunting, and anxious as we are to
draw all real sportsmen within the scope of its
enjoyments, we confess we are not advocates for
indiscriminate scarlet-coating. It imposes on no one,
but draws forth ill-natured remarks from many. The
man who puts on a scarlet coat advertises to the
world that he is going a hunting — nay more, he
advertises that he goes so often that it is necessary to
have a coat expressly for the purpose. Then come
the usual amiable observations that it would be better
if he was looking after his business, wondering who
attends to things when he is away, and so on. Now
the man who goes out in a black coat may be going
anywhere, especially if he carries his whipthong in his
pocket ; at all events he carries no convicting
evidence on his back that he is going to hunt.

People instead of saying to him, *'Well, you are
going a hunting, are you ? " in a tone that as much as
says, " What business have you in a red coat," merely
inquire " If he is going to see the hounds ? " and it
rests with him to admit he is, or say, like Peter
Pigskin, that he is going to buy barley for malting, or
any other article that comes into his head.

THE SQUIRE 217

In addition to these arguments against indis-
criminate *' scarlet coating," we may adduce another
that will perhaps have more weight than the foregoing.
Nothing looks better than a well-appointed, well-
turned out sportsman ; and nothing looks worse than
a badly-turned out one. Things that would pass
muster uncommonly well with a black coat, are made
dreadfully conspicuous by a red one. There is
nothing so offensive to the eye as an ill-cut, ill-
coloured, bad cloth'd red coat. The majority of the
wearers of them seem to think that the coat being
scarlet, is all that is necessary ; hence we sometimes
see the most antediluvian cuts and the most out-of-
the-way fits — coats that look as if they were sent by
the Jews in Holywell-street on job for the day. Did
ever sportsman, we would ask, see a foxhunter
figuring on the stage without a shudder? Even
Widdicomb himself, great and versatile as he is, sunk
beneath the character at Astley's. Who will ever
forget Punch's portrait of him bowing like a man
milliner in the saw-dust circle ? Fancy turning half-
a-dozen Widdicombs into each hunting field, with
their red baize coats, outrageous breeches and boots,
and marvellously caparisoned horses. Yet we some-
times see objects that are not much behind the great
equestrian master of ceremonies in misconception of
the character and accoutrements. If occasional
sportsmen, and men dependent on the world^s
favours, would take our advice, they would eschew
the scarlet coat, by which means they would escape
alike the smiles of their superiors and the detraction
of their equals or inferiors. But here comes a
licensed scarlet coat wearer — Squire Trevanion of the
Priory — followed by three or four friends who have
come to his house overnight for the convenience of
the " meet." The Squire's ^' chinchilla " whiskers, as
Mrs. Gore would call them, show that he is rather
past the prime of life, and like men vacillating

2i8 THE HUNTING FIELD

between two periods, he presents a few of the
characteristics of the times in which he has lived.
The straight cut coat has never given way to the
swallow tail dress, or round duck hunter, neither
have the lightish drab cords been superseded by
whites or leathers. Even the horse's tail has escaped
the long prevaiUng switch or swich, and appears in
the good old fashioned square cut — Lord bless us !
we are old enough to remember the time when it was
the fashion not to allow horses any tail at all, or ears
either scarcely. When we used to see nags as close
docked as the old waggon horses, leaving them
something very like a whitening brush sticking out of
their hind quarters. Squire Trevanion has seen all
these, and being satisfied of the folly of fashion, has
adopted and stuck to the cut of his youth. A
clinging to old customs is perhaps one of his
characteristics. Though he travels by railways, he
stoutly insists on the superiority of the chariot and
posters. Squire Trevanion is, however, a right,
steady going, well thinking man, and his word and
opinion are taken when those of many of the " new
lights " will not go down. Honest men will leave
matters to his reference, rather than go to Messrs.
Sharp and Quirk of the neighbouring town, and he is
considered the worst friend the lawyers have, for he
makes up no end of quarrels that would otherwise
bring grist to their mills.

Like all men whose names end in " ion," he traces
his pedigree back so far that none but a " Burke "
could burrow to his original ancestor. Suffice it for us
to say, that the family have lived so long at the Priory,
that the country people believe they have been there
ever since the world began; and as in London we
have but one " Duke," so in Mr. Trevanion's neigh-
bourhood there is but one " Squire." Not but that
there are plenty of others, but he is the Squire par
excellence.

THE SQUIRE 219

The Priory is a comfortable old-fashioned Eliza-
bethan house, with its stables behind, the whole
embosomed in lofty oaks of stupendous growth,
whose spreading branches harbour myriads of rooks,
that keep up a lively clamour about the place. The
house is neither too large nor too small; no state
rooms "put away," but everything comfortable,
commodious, and neat. The estate shows the best
of farming, and everything about bears the impress of
care and attention.

As a sportsman, in which it is more our province

to regard him, he is one of the " never-do-mischief
sort," and though a fair rider for a man past the grand
climacteric, will always turn out of his line to avoid
damage. Living in the country, and observing the
effects of seasons and of circumstances, he knows what
really is harm and what is not, and never makes
unnecessary clamour about trifles ; neither does he
sacrifice one sport for the sake of another, or make a
business of one to the neglect of the other. He has
a fair show of pheasants about the house, and hares,
partridges, and pheasants scattered over the estate in
sufficient abundance to show ample sport to a man

220 THE HUNTING FIELD

blessed with the use of his legs ; but as to drawing
them together for a battue^ that is a thing he has
never thought of. He has no desire to see his name
figuring in the country papers with so many hundred
head of game attached to it. Down with the battues 1
say we. ^

CHAPTER XVII

LORD evergreen; with some thoughts on

TUFT HUNTING

' There is more virtue in a saddle than in the whole materia
??iedica.'^ — Thistle Whipper.

HO comes here? Who
is the venerable,
thoughtful-looking
man riding quietly
into the field with the
rein on the neck of
his well - bred bay
hack? He greets
Peter Pigskin with a
familiar "Halloa, Mr.
Pigskin, how are you ?
glad to see you. ^^

Peter quickly raises
his hat as high as the hunting string will allow, with
a "Good morning, my lord, glad to see you down
among us again."

" Can't be more pleased than I am, Mr. Pigskin, I
assure you," rejoins his lordship, his intelligent eyes
sparkling with pleasure as he surveys the glad
scene —

Where all around is gay, men, horses, dogs ;
And in each smiling countenance appears
Fresh blooming health and universal joy."
221

222 THE HUNTING FIELD

By the way, our friend Somerville is not quite
correct in his phraseology — " dogs " is a term
not allowed in speaking of hounds. However,
never mind, he is a pleasant poet, and we forgive
him.

The nobleman now entering the field is a minister
— one of the Cabinet and Lord Lieutenant of the
county. He seeks relaxation from the toils of office
by a run down into his native county. Last night's
mail train brought him down, to-morrow night's train
takes him up. He is going to enjoy a stolen
pleasure. Lord Evergreen has been a sportsman
from his youth, and neither age, cares, nor the
trammels of office can deaden the feeling within him.
Deaden it, forsooth ! they are more likely to cherish
it — to increase it.

What so likely on a mild February morning, when
mistaken birds are warbling their premature notes in
St. James's or the Green Park, and sprouting shrubs
are opening their silly buds — what so likely to awaken
the victim of red boxes and Downing Street to the
delights of the real country, as the too palpable
imitation and efforts of nature in town.

We are quite certain that the parties who enjoy
hunting most are those who cannot command an
unlimited quantity of it. The regular five-days-a-
week-man looks to the sport and the sport only;
whereas those who only get it by fits and starts —
those who exchange the unsporting, unnatural cere-
ments of brick and mortar for the broad open enjoy-
ment of unrestricted, unadulterated country — are the
people that get the " sermons out of stones," and
good out of everything.

Let people talk as they will of the wild tractable
scenery of St. James's or the Regent's Park, the
forest-like glades of Kensington Gardens, or the open
breadth of Hyde Park, " still, still," as Sterne says,
" it is not country," and we cannot divest ourselves of

LORD EVERGREEN 223

the idea of omnibuses^ chimney-pots, and cabbage
gardens in the distance.

But away from London, away from its toils, away
from its cramping narrowness, its coldness, its stiff
calculating formalities, how the emancipated mind
bounds and revels in the luxury of unrestricted
country. Now along the narrow valley, now through
the woody grove, now over the swelling hill, from
whose commanding height we see the shining river
circling, till the landscape runs itself into nothing in
the distance. The very horse seems to partake of
the joy and inspiration of the rider, and treads the
ground with a light, blithesome step, that as much
as says, " Why don't you hunt oftener ? " Diana, we
often think, favours the occasional sportsman. How
often we see brilliant runs on the very days we most
wish them — days when strangers are out, or people
have come a long way. Truly, sportsmen are a
happy race, they have much to be thankful for, and
little, very little, to complain of. Who has not seen
" splendid runs " on days when hunting appeared to
be almost out of the question? Again, we often
think that men ride harder on occasional days, such
as Lord Evergreen is now going to take, than they
do in a regular four or five days a-week course of
hunting. The extra excitement sends them along.

If it be true, as asserted by Dr. Johnson, that " the
true state of every nation is the state of common life,"
who is so likely to be acquainted with the real wants
and condition of a country as a foxhunting nobleman ?
He brings the experience of other climates, and the
benefits of education to bear upon the absolute
condition of the unexpecting, unprepared peasantry.
The foxhunter is the man of all others to get accurate
information, for he wanders about, without pomp or
terror, and is welcomed rather than avoided by any.
Take your commissioner, with his solemn look, inkey
fingers or metallic-pencilled note-book ; is he so likely

224 THE HUNTING FIELD

to get a frank, candid answer as the man whose whole
manner and appearance disarms both fear and sus-
picion, nay, inspires confidence, and procures a ready
answer to every question he may ask? To get at
the real truth with some people, the only plan is to
make them believe that you are after something else,
and if Her Majesty's Government would take a few
sharp, enterprising foxhunters into her public offices,
keeping them a competent stud of respectable-looking
horses, we will be bound to say they would get them
far more sound, reliable, accurate information upon
any subject of country interest, such as stock of
wheat, sickly potatoes, poor-law workings, than lord-
lieutenants, or the solemn pompous-looking gentlemen,
who sit in inn parlours, driving away truth, just as
a fox or a shepherd's dog drives away a flock of sheep.
Country people don't like strangers — they don't
understand examination, cross-examination, re -ex-
amination, and blue -booking. They are afraid of
pen, ink, and paper. But put them alongside a red
coat, in a stable, under a shed, or behind a hedge,
and they will tell you anything you like to ask them,
simply because they think you don't care to know it.
This hint is worth the consideration of the Home
Secretary, especially after the expense the late Govern-
ment was put to in getting up the potato panic, and
if he thinks well of it, but fears the cost, or doubts
what Joe Hume may say, we should be glad to see
if we could not make some arrangement so as to
carry it out between us. If the Government, for
instance, would find horses, we would pay expenses,
or we might join, and job a few horses of Tilbury,
for the first season, to see how the thing worked ; all
that we should stipulate for would be, that the parties
should be sent into civilized countries where there
is decent hunting, so that their reports of the chase,
for publication, might indemnify us for our share of
the expense.

LORD EVERGREEN 225

Certain we are, that there is no invention so fine
for suppressing the truth as a Government commission
and a fuss.

The hunting field has been said to be the great
leveller of rank, but that is not the case. The
hunting field, indeed, is a place where deference
is voluntarily paid to station, because it is in the
hunting field that station never demands it. Lord
Evergreen comes in quietly on his hack, unattended
by servants or state, and as long as the business of
the day is confined to plain straightforward sailing,
every one gives way to his Lordship ; but when the
fox is found, and goes right away, then the order of
things is reversed, and those who ride behind are
extremely welcome to ride in front.

It is this sort of yielding and taking of precedence
that has raised the idea of foxhunting being a levelling
amusement, but no one acquainted with it can enter-
tain such an idea — at least if he does he^s a fool.

What can be a finer sight than to see the Duke
of Wellington enter the hunting field ! Not one of
those gorgeous spectacles, it is true, such as a
coronation, a review, the Lord Mayor's show, or a
procession to the Houses of Parliament — not one of
those pompous continental exhibitions called a chasse,
where armed menials keep back the crowd, and brass
bands proclaim alike the find and finish ; but what
can be a finer sight — a sight more genial to the mind
of a Briton — than the mighty Wellington entering
the hunting field with a single attendant, making no
more fuss than a country Squire ? Yet many have
seen the sight, and many, we trust, may yet see it.
The Duke takes the country sport like a country
gentleman — no man less the great man than this
greatest of all great men — affable to all, his presence
adds joy and lustre to the scene.

The Duke is a true sportsman, and has long been
a supporter of the Vine and Sir John Cope's hounds.
15

226 THE HUNTING FIELD

He kept hounds himself during the Peninsular War,
and divers good stories are related of them and
their huntsman (Tom Crane), whose enthusiasm used
sometimes to carry him in the enemy's country, a
fact that he used to be reminded of by a few bullets
whizzing about his ears.

What a number of noblemen we have seen keeping
hounds or acting as Masters of Hounds. The Dukes
of Richmond, Rutland, Buccleugh, Beaufort, Bedford,
and Cleveland ; the Marquises of Salisbury, London-
derry, Hastings, and Tavistock ; Earls of Derby,
Harewood, Ducie, Chesterfield, Scarborough, Lons-
dale, Fitzwilliam, Fitzhardinge, Radnor; Lords Anson,
Middleton, Southampton, Forester, Petre, Yarborough,
Hawke, Elcho, Portman, Gifford, Althorpe, Hastings,
Glasgow, Kintore, John Scott, Bentinck, Redesdale,
Suffield, Parker, Galway, and others, whose names
do not occur to us at this moment.

Many of the above hunted to great ages, and lived
all their lives in enjoyment of excellent health, from
the invigorating pursuits of the chase. Lord Lons-
dale, we believe, rode till he was near eighty, the
late Duke of Cleveland hunted his own hounds till
he was well up to seventy, and the late Lord Hare-
wood may almost be said to have died in the saddle,
somewhat turned of that age. Lord Evergreen might
pass for fifty, though he has not much change to take
out of sixty.

But let us take a glance at the " order " generally.
Though the style and magnificence of our nobility
is very imposing in London, still it is in the country
that they should be seen to appreciate their true
influence and importance. In London there are too
many of them ; they are too closely packed, to say
nothing of being over-ridden by the dazzle of the
Court, for them to shine singly in their individual
lustre. In the country they rule despotic. They are
the great stars of their respective hemispheres. Great-

LORD EVERGREEN 227

ness stretches itself out, and grandeur has room to
shake and show itself. Indeed, we believe there
is more uniform state — more constant show m the
country than in London, where recent years have
confined the state equipages and liveries to levee
and drawing-room days. Greatness has been cropped
a good deal, too, by the introduction of railways.
Coach and four succeeding coach and four, and
saddle and carriage horses, accompanying servants'
van, all tended to keep up the character and im-
portance of the English nobleman. Now they are
put on a truck and tacked to the tail of a train, with
little more ceremony than attends the transit of Mr.
Flatcatcher's race-horse, or Mr. Bullocksmithy's fat
ox. The utilitarians will tell you that it is all the
better, but we don't know that it is for all that.
Some one said "there had been ten men hung for
every inch they had curtailed in the judge's wig,"
and state — even on the road — was not without its
advantages. To be sure the public style of travelling
favours intercourse with the world and knowledge
of life; but, as we said before, there is no better
place than the hunting field for acquiring that. How-
ever, railroads are now the universal mode of travelling,
and my Lord Duke and family, who formerly made
a grand progress though England of many days —
travelling with a retinue as long as Polito's or Womb-
well's menageries — now whisk from one end of the
kingdom to the other in the liberal limits of a summer's
day.

Let us look at a nobleman "at home," as
Mathews used to say of himself.

What a world in miniature a nobleman's castle is.
Placed in nature's choicest, sunniest spot, it looks
upon all the luxuries, necessaries, and enjoyments
of life ; waving corn-fields rise beyond the park —
herds of deer are scattered over it — the many-coloured
and scarcely less picturesque little wild Scotch kyloes

228 THE HUNTING FIELD

fatten in droves, while the more sedate and matronly
cows graze indolently in groups — hares, pheasants,
and partridges run and bask about, with a sort of
privileged security — the rabbit warren is alive, and
the sedgey sun-bright lakes swarm with fish and wild
fowl, and the clear purling stream with beautiful
speckled trout. In those paddocks may be seen
brood mares and foals, the winners, and expected
winners, of our great prizes, while in others the worn-
out favourites of the hunting field close

"A youth of labour with an age of ease."

Then the stables, the coach-houses, the harness-
rooms, the straw-houses, the granaries, with all their
concomitants of grooms, coachmen, postilions, helpers,
and the out-lying kennels — out-lying, but not too
distant for the mellowed notes of the baying pack
to fall with the sweet west wind on the listener's ear
as he stands at the castle gates. There is nothing
sets off, nothing enlivens a place like a pack of hounds.
Even in summer they are an object of attraction.
How beautiful they look in a morning, passing in-
dolently at exercise among the venerable trees and
glades of the park, attended by the hatted and purple-
coated servants of the hunt, wearing at once the
stains and laurels of the bygone year. Even if a
great man does not hunt, still a pack of hounds is
an ornament and attraction to his place. There is
nothing so popular as keeping a pack of hounds.
We must all remember the noble example of the
Oxford sweep, who recorded his vote for a particular
candidate, because, said he, " I unts with the duke."

That duke, however, we may add, was the Duke
of Beaufort, an out-and-out sportsman, one of the
most popular men of the day. We have been cudgel-
ling our brains and labouring at an imaginary de-
scription of a nobleman's estabUshment, whereas, if
we had cast our eyes westward, we should have had

LORD EVERGREEN 229

it all cut and dried to our hands at Badminton.
Take a lawn meet there. What could give a foreigner
a finer idea of the vast magnificence of an English
nobleman's establishment than what he would see
at that fine old place. The splendid hounds, the
magnificent horses, the countless servants, the bounti-
ful hospitality within and without ; above all, the open-
hearted, unaffected cordiality of the noble owner.
Still hound-keeping for sheer political purposes would
not answer. It is only when the owner is a sports-
man, that "the fellow-feeling makes us wondrous
kind," principle tells upon his companions in chase.
Keeping hounds, in the hopes of influencing votes,
would be a poor speculation. It would be attempt-
ing bribery upon men who are not open to corruption.
Your small voters don't " unt ; " nothing under a
master sweep. Indeed, it is no small recommendation
to the chase, that it is so little capable of perversion
to other than legitimate purposes.

A nobleman's influence, however, must always be
great in his own locality. There is the influence of
wealth and station, almost always blended with the
influence of private worth. Common people may
not be great judges of etiquette or accomplishments,
but they are all judges of the homely qualities of
which they themselves partake. A bad husband, a
harsh master, an unpunctual payer, are qualities that
adapt themselves to all stations of life ; indeed, we
believe the lower w^e look in society, the more great
people are respected for what they are than for what
they have. The influence of intercourse is also
considerable. The nobleman occupies much the
same place in the country that royalty occupies in
London. People all like to be asked to the Palace.
An occasional dinner keeps all things straight in the
country — Venison's very convincing.

And here let us take a glance at a most popular
sport that somehow or other has never been treated

230 THE HUNTING FIELD

with the respect it deserves — we allude to the noble
sport of Tuft Hunting. True, Lord William Lennox
launched a novel under that title ; but as we prefer
letting other people read our thoughts and ideas to
reading the thoughts and ideas of other people,
without meaning the slightest disrespect to his lord-
ship, we can candidly say we have never read his
work; therefore we trust, whatever may be the
similarity of ideas, that we shall not be accused of
"cribbing" from him.

Tuft Hunting is a fine, delicate, scientific, enter-
prising, subtle amusement. If the proper "study of
mankind is man," surely the pursuit of a lord must
be proper beyond all contradiction.

We have looked into Bailey, Richardson, and
several of the old dictionaries, to see if they throw
any light on the origin of the term, but we have
drawn them all blank. Bailey gives " Tuft " {totdffe F)
a lock of hair, or bunch of ribbons, &c., also the crest
of a bird, and then "Tuft (with botanists), a thicket
of trees, bunch of grass," &c. ; while Richardson
deals much in the same sort of description, giving
" Tuft — the top, or summit," leading one to suppose
that one might say, " the tuft of the morning," instead
of the "top of the morning to you," a species of
phraseology we never heard indulged in. In the
long tail of quotations with which this worthy gentle-
man obscures the meaning of words, there is one
allusion to hunting, certainly, but not with the pack
we allude to. The quotation is as follows : —

' ' With his hounds
The labouring hunter tiifts the thick unbarbed grounds,
Where harbour'd is the hart."

That is not our pack — ours are the two-legged hounds
— the talking, babbling, fawning, courting, humbugging,
glozing things called men. After all is said and done,
we are inclined to adopt the hypothesis (to make use

LORD EVERGREEN 231

of a fine word) of a friend, and attribute the term to
the gold tassels or tufts worn by noblemen at our
universities, which distinguish them from the common
herd, just as a fox's brush distinguishes it from a hare.
Indeed there can be no doubt that that is the origin
of the term, and we will thank the next dictionary
maker to add "Tuft Hunter" to the T's, and de-
scribe them as "a breed of men whose offence is
rank," or a breed of men desperately smitten with
title. Rank at school doesn't go for much — at least
not at our great schools where lords abound, and a
marquis may be fag to a milliner's son, but at college
rank dawns forth hke a meteor, and subsequent
adulation atones for early familiarity and humiliations.
Then the fine nose of the Tuft Hunter begins to
show itself, and men lay the foundation of characters
that generally remain with them to the end of life —
desperate Tuft Hunters.

Like hounds. Tuft Hunters may be divided into
different classes — varying like hounds in their keen-
ness, energy, and determination. There is the bold,
open-mouthed, dashing, foxhound Tuft Hunter, who
runs at a lord as if he would eat him — who persecutes
him — who lards him with " lordships," and does not
know how to be subservient and obsequious enough.
There is the pottering, dribbling, babbling harehunt-
ing Tuft Hunter, who deals more with lords in con-
versation than in reality, and there is the lurching
Tuft Hunter, who professing contempt for the game,
never misses an opportunity of having a run at it
— with several minor varieties not important to our
purpose.

We might carry our kennel simile further, and
divide the followers into sexes. Women are generally
desperate Tuft Hunters. There is no denying that.
Many a poor man has been made to stoop to the
scent who has no natural inclination that way. Tuft
Hunting is an instinct that pervades nearly the whole

232 THE HUNTING FIELD

sex. We have heard a tenth-rate milliner knock the
peerage about with her tongue, just as an expert
billiard player knocks the balls about on the table.
Nay, there is our second cousin, old Miss Deborah
Crustyface, of Canonbury-square, Islington, in whose
presence it is absolutely dangerous to mention the
name of a nobleman, for she immediately strikes a
scent, and heads up and sterns down, runs into
them even up the third and fourth generation, not
unfrequently diverging into collateral alliances and
marriages with commoners. Not only has she Burke,
Lodge, and Debrett, peerage, baronetage, and all at
her fingers' ends, but Dodd's dignities, privileges and
precedence, with Hsts of great public functionaries
from the revolution down to the present time. To
hear her talk you would fancy she was the "lady,"
as they now call " wives " of a Lord Chamberlain, so
accurately has she the ladder of consequence, called
precedence, arranged in her head. She knows what
ring of the ladder the Lord Privy Seal holds, as also
the legitimate consequence of a knight banneret, and
the place of the eldest son of a knight grand cross of
St. Michael and St. George. In fact the old fool is
peerage mad, though how she came to be " bit "
nobody knows ; for though in her occasional west-end
rambles she sees people riding in coroneted coaches
who she takes to be lords, she has never yet accom-
plished an identity so as to be able to say that is the

Duke of A or that the Marquis of B . True,

that in her ruminating mind, with the aid of her
books, assisted sometimes by Madame Tussaud's
exhibition, she shadows forth certain ideal personages
for her titles, nay, sometimes assigns the creations of
her mind to corporeal objects ; but she is generally
as wide of the mark as the celebrated would-be
Countess Ferrers ^ was in her descriptions of the noble-

^ The most extraordinary action of modern, or perhaps any
times, was one brought by a Miss Smith, a girl of twenty,

LORD EVERGREEN 233

men and great people with whom her intended liege
lord associated. We remember being victimized by
our venerable relative down St. James's-street, one
afternoon, when she insisted that a certain duke was
Sir Francis Burdett, merely because he wore top-
boots; and Madame Tussaud's Sir Francis wears
them also ; while every big, burley, bushy- wigged man
she christened Daniel O'Connell. We met six Daniel
O'Connells between Sam's corner and Slaughter's
coffee-house in St. Martin's-lane. O'Connell, we may
tell him, may take it as a compliment, for we never
knew our cousin. Miss Crustyface, descend to a
commoner before. It was all owing to his generous
breadth of shoulder and the fine dark cauliflower wig
he sports in Madame Tussaud's exhibition, or rather
perhaps all owing to his being in Madame Tussaud's
exhibition, that Miss Crustyface gave herself any
trouble about him.

Talking of the Countess Ferrers — oi*, alas ! for true
enterprising talent ! Miss Smith — talking of Miss
Smith — what a loss was there for want of a little real
London information and experience. We will be
bound to say, if Miss Smith had had but a tithe of
the opportunities our cousin. Miss Crustyface, enjoys,
she would have triumphed over the earl — at all events
have made costs — heavy, vindictive costs, compensate
for the loss of the coronet. Inspired young lady !
If the unblushing " white rose " of the country — if the
untrained, untutored mind of rural life could depict
scenes and situations that outwitted her Majesty's
great "cute" Solicitor-General, what might we not
have hoped from the resources of an ampler field?
It was not her fault that Lord Clive was painted the

against Lord Ferrers, for an alledged breach of promise of
marriage ; which she sought to estabhsh by a series of letters,
supposed to have been written by herself to herself. After the
trial had lasted four days, the Solicitor-General submitted to a
non-suit. —6'^^ Pickering's Report, in i vol.

234 THE HUNTING FIELD

very reverse of what he is. It was not her fault that
gentlemen were stationed at Brighton who were
quartered in Scotland, or that Lord Brougham was
made to dine with those with whom he was not
acquainted — it was the fault of circumstances — the
want of opportunity of knowing better. But, take it
for all and all, the performance was a wonderful — a
miraculous one.

Talk of our novelists — our Bulwers, our Blessing-
tons, our Dickenses, our Jameses, our Hooks, or our
Hoods — how they sink into nothingness, how they
must hide their diminished heads before the maiden
efforts of that unadulterated, unsophisticated country
girl. Their writings are the produce of active and
experienced lives, their ministerings are to minds pre-
disposed to fiction (which yet they sometimes fail to
move), but here was pure, innocent inexperience,
storming the great citadel of reason, of Plutus, and of
power, capturing legal acuteness, and all but carrying
judge and jury in her train. Such efforts were worthy
of a better end.

" Facts are stronger than fiction," says the proverb,
and assuredly the would-be-countess has proved them
so ; yet, let her not regret the loss of that " bauble,"
the coronet, as Oliver Cromwell called the "mace."
It would but have consigned her to a life of inglorious
ease, perhaps voluptuous indolence, whereas she has
that within her which surpasses rank and wealth —
the power of leading the world. If the great man of
Great Marlborough Street, or some of the enterpris-
ing brethren of the press, have not a nine-volume
novel coming out from her pen, all we can say is,
that fiction must be out of fashion, or real talent
unappreciated.

But to return to Tuft Hunting.

A real, determined, out-and-out Tuft Hunter, is a
thing that loves a title merely because it is a title,
without reference to fame, talent, acquirements,

LORD EVERGREEN 235

agreeableness, or any of the hundred-and-one qualities
that constitute the difference between one man and
another. Show such a man a lord, and he " ats him "
as a greyhound would a hare. The peerage occupies
the sort of place in his head that ale and beer
measure occupies in the head of a publican — gallons,
half-gallons, quarts, pints, gills, &c. &c. He looks
at a duke as a gallon, an earl as a quart, a viscount
as a pint, and a baron as a gill, and considers that
each rank holds just its own particular quantity, and
that the only difference among noblemen is in the
sign of the measure. In countries where game is
abundant, a hound of this sort may be seen changing
from title to title, always, however, on the ascendant ;
just as some hounds will change from hare to martin
cat, and from roe deer to fox. We have known a real
out-and-out Tuft Hunter inconvenience himself by
taking up his quarters at hotels frequented by noble-
men, even though he had not the slightest chance of
a contact, except on the staircase or in the passage.
Still he could talk about, " Ah — yes — ah — I remember
we were staying together at the Bedford, at Brighton ; "
or, " Ah — yes — ah — I remember meeting him at the
Plough, at Cheltenham." These are the sort of Tuft
Hunters that acute keepers — alias stewards of public
dinners — bait their traps with royal dukes and great
men to catch, well knowing that their presence will
effect what no charitable motive would accomplish.
His Serene Highness the Grand Duke of
DooDLETON in the chair, acts like a sugar saucer
upon flies, draws all the Tuft Hunters from their
holes, to flutter and bask in the sunshine of royalty.
Then, if his Serene Highness takes a sham glass of
wine with them, they reckon they have established his
acquaintance, if not his friendship, for life. Harmless
foible ! So let it pass.

The most contemptible species of Tuft Hunter
undoubtedly is the assiduous, cringing, never-miss-a-

236 THE HUNTING FIELD

chance Tuft Hunter, who yet pretends to great
independence, nay, almost blunt rudeness, to noble-
men, when away.

We have met Tuft Hounds of this description —
men who talk as if they always spoke their minds
most freely — nay, influenced the conduct of noble-
men, but who yet were the most abject, servile,
sneaking, fawning sycophants in " the presence," the
carpet ever saw. These are, undoubtedly, the skirting,
babbling, lurching things of the pack, from which no
scientific master of " tuft hounds " would even breed.
Tuft Hunting, however, is not a sport to be pursued
in packs — indeed tuft hounds are generally so des-
perately jealous that it is scarcely possible to get two
to run together. Tuft Hunters never agree. They
are always jealous of each other being on the scent,
and then as the pot called the kettle *' black bottom,"
so the cut one calls the other "Tuft Hunter." Flash-
ing with titles, calling noblemen by their names, or
by their titles without their names, as, "Well, duke,
how are you ? " or abbreviating their names, is all bad
taste, and has always the contrary effect to what is
intended, making the auditors set the flashers down
as fools, if not something worse, instead of as very
" fine fellows," and " deuced thick with my lord."
Flashing behind their backs is more common, but
equally snobbish. Why not render unto lords the
things that are lords' ? There is no doubt that Tuft
Hunting is an hereditary instinct, descending from
father to son, and traceable through families, just like
the gout, the tic, or a taste for foxhunting. A good
Tuft Hunting father generafly begets a good toadying
son. Still we should observe that as the slightest
twinge of the gout is enough to make people set a
man down as gouty, so the slightest contact with a
nobleman is apt to saddle a man with the charge of
Tuft Hunting. It is of all imputations the easiest
made, and is oftentimes made without the slightest

LORD EVERGREEN

237

foundation. Now, for our own parts, we have no
objection to bear the imputation of Tuft Hunting, in
as far as admitting that the society of noblemen is
oftentimes preferable to the society of commoners,
and we are really hardened enough not to be ashamed
of the admission. If education, knowledge, talent,
manners, intercourse with the polished world, are
recommendations for a companion, where are we so
likely to find them as in the leisure circles of the
aristocracy ? To run after a man merely because he
is a lord, is an amusement fit only for a lacquey, but

to shun a man because he is a lord, and because his
acquaintance might entail upon one the charge of
Tuft Hunting, is sacrificing rather too much at the
shrine of our estimable friend "public opinion," or
the opinion of the gentleman who rejoices in the title
of " they say."

The fable of the old man, the boy, and the ass,
is an admirable illustration of the opinion of our good
friend the world, with regard to companions. If a
man listens to all that is said respecting the objects
of his choice, he would very soon be left alone in his

238 THE HUNTING FIELD

glory. Tuft Hunting, however, is always more offen-
sive than what is called keeping "low company,"
because, in the first place, some people have a secret
pleasure in seeing others do WTong, while \he protege
■ of the nobleman is lifted, as it were, over the heads
of his companions, and thus made an object both for
envy and ridicule.

Let no modest, unopinionated youth, then, be de-
terred, from fear of incurring the old charge of Tuft
Hunting, from paying proper respect to great men.
It is their due. The omission of it is rudeness, and
it is only by carrying it to excess — converting respect
into servility — that it becomes ridiculous.

CHAPTER XVIII

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE

^i. EXT to the man who is
always wanting to bet
with you, the man who
is always wanting to sell
you a horse is the most
disagreeable. Most of
our readers, we doubt
not, have some squarey,
slangy, " I'11-lay-you-two-
to-one-of -f/iaf " sort of
person, among their ac-
quaintance, and many, doubtless, are oppressed
with an — " I'll sell you a horse," friend, while some
will recognise in Captain Shabbyhounde a genius
combining both these amiable, characteristic, and
enterprising qualities.

Both the above figures of speech are sometimes
taken up by young men at the outset of life, more
because they think it sounds fine than from any real
inclination to " do " any one, as it is called, either in
betting or in horse dealing. It is a mistaken notion,
and one that we dare say only requires the exposing
hand of our Analysis to correct. Slang and cant
have fortunately taken their departure from among
gentlemen, and have found refuge among the legiti-
mate denizens of the stable. The real betting man

239

240 THE HUNTING FIELD

is a decided nuisance ; it is dangerous to open one's
lips in his presence, and they may be looked upon
as the kites and vultures of society. We never see
a young man with a clasped book and metallic pencil
without reckoning him ruined. They always are
sooner or later.

The " I'll sell you a horse," friend, is a much more
innocent creature than the betting one. The " I'll
sell you a horse," sometimes arises from a paucity of
ideas ; it is a sort of " come uppermost thought,"
spoken perhaps just for the sake of something to say,
like the passenger who, on a voyage to India, used
to address the captain every morning after the usual
salutation, with " Pray, sir, what do you think of
Napoleon Bonaparte?"

Again, some men indulge in it from excessive
delight at the novelty of ownership. Many people
wouldn't know they had a horse if they did not adver-
tise the fact in that way. The course of life runs
thus : watch, gun, top-boots, and then a horse. The
possession of a horse converts the boy into a man.
Instead of being whipped himself, he gets something
to whip.

After aping a stage coachman, there is nothing so
disgusting as seeing a young man acting the groom
or horse-dealer : we mean dressing the character as
well as acting it.

Doubtless there is something very pleasant and
attractive in horse dealing. There is the sort of
excitement peculiar to the lottery about it. We have
known men who could not be trusted at a horse
auction, so sure were they to come home with some
''''tremendous bargain." A private deal is very en-
gaging. The greatest ignoramus — the man who would
not know which side of a horse to get on at, will
nevertheless go out of his way to accompany a friend
to look at a horse. That interest is a good deal
excited by a desire to see an animal of which he is

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 241

likely to hear much more hereafter. It is an interest
that does not attach to a horse-dealer's transactions,
because "dealing" is his trade, and he is supposed
to be too wary to be done.

Mr. Whipend may buy fifty horses without any one
troubling his head about any of them; but let Mr.
Spoonbill be seen trotting one out, and he will have
the whole " town " out, as they say.

Old John Lawrence, a kind-hearted, if not a very
practical writer on horses, exclaims, "Who shall coun-
sel a man in the choice of a wife or a horse ! " but if
a buyer were to listen to all the hints and suggestions
he will have made him, he would stand a good chance
of going on foot the rest of his life. In spite of Mr.
Lawrence's exclamation, good stout counsellors will
never be wanting on the animal side of the question
at all events, and the ridiculous thing is, that the
lower the figure, the greater the fear on the part of
the purchaser. Time was, when we used to talk
about a twenty pound horse, just as we did about a
twenty shilling note, a guinea hat, a silk umbrella, or
any other unimportant thing; but now — thanks to
the march of railroads — a twenty pound horse has
become an object of considerable importance. People
used formerly to talk of "giving a horse away for
twenty pounds," just as our friends under the Quad-
rant talk of giving one a piping bullfinch for an old
coat ; but now twenty pounds is a most difficult sum
to realize. People look at a twenty pound horse as
if they thought the seller had stolen it. A two
hundred pounder is an easier one to sell.

Gentlemen dealing is at best but a ticklish trade,
and we doubt any one being able to pursue it for any
length of time, and retain the title of a "gentleman."
Every woman has been said to be a separate enigma,
and the same may be said of every horse, and yet to
hear an ignoramus talk, you would think there was
but one article answering to the name — that they
16

242 THE HUNTING FIELD

were all alike. There are very few horses without
something or other that they would be better without,
and which a man is obliged to slur over by himself,
or servant, if he wishes to get rid of the animal
without a sacrifice. It is just this slurring over that
constitutes one of the great difficulties of gentlemen
dealing. You must have a servant in your confidence
— you must, to a certain extent, place yourself in the
power of that servant, and where is the gentleman
who would like to feel himself under such domina-
tion ! Of course, gentlemen must both buy and sell ;
it is the buying with a view of selling again to a profit
that constitutes the horse-dealer. The best plan is
for a man to look upon horses as an article of luxury,
for which he must expect to pay something, instead
of expecting a profit, and then that man is best off
who pays least. It is not worth any gentleman's
while, for the sake of a five, ten, or even a fifty pound
note, saying anything about a horse that he knows
is not borne out by the facts. We have heard men
assert that anything is fair in horse dealing, but that
is the mere bravado'of some notorious cheat, wanting
to carry off his delinquencies on a general principle.
Lying is never allowed among gentlemen — above all,
lying for self-interest. If any one doubts the truth of
this position, let him observe the coolness, the shirk-
ing, the cutting that attends a man of this description
in the hunting field. Instead of the hearty, joyous
welcome that greets the legitimate sportsman, there
are cold, sour looks and mutterings about cheating
scamp, and wonderings who he is come to "do" now.
In remote parts there is no scope for this kind of
work ; a false deal or two does for a man, and no one
will look at his horses after ; and even in London and
the metropolitan hunts it is wonderful how soon a
man is " blown." In our opinion, gentlemen dealing,
with a view to money making, is the most unpromising
of all speculations. Some men have a vanity about

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 243

the thing, and assert they make money, even though
they lose. This is a sort of vice, or folly, that carries
its own correction along with it. Some again only
count their "gains," leaving the long catalogue of
losses to the account current, which somehow or
other never comes to be balanced.

It has always appeared to us that the prejudice of
the day has affixed a very illiberal and unmerited
odium on the trade of a horse-dealer. Doubtless
there are scamps and cheats in the business, just as
there are scamps and cheats in all trades, but taking
them as a whole, we believe there is more honesty
among the regular dealers than there is among what
are called gentlemen dealers. Let us examine the
position and peculiarities of the two. The licensed
dealer generally does business in a large way; for
one horse that passes through the hands of the
gentleman dealer he will have fifty through his, and
though quick sale is the soul of trade, and it is his
interest to keep passing horses through his hands, he
gets far more abused for an occasional failure than
the gentleman dealer, who must know all the faults
and weak points of his horses from the length of time
he keeps them, and the personal trials and examina-
tions he makes of them. We consider it just as
impossible for the licensed dealer — at least a licensed
dealer in a fair way of business — to know all the
ins and outs and peculiarities of the horses passing
through his hands, as it is for the gentleman dealer
to be ignorant of them. The licensed dealer must
occasionally make mistakes, must occasionally be
taken in himself, yet if he passes the deceptive horse
on quickly to a customer, he gets blown up and
abused, as if it had been a premeditated robbery.

With respectable dealers, the faulty horses are the
exception, and not the general rule ; but we have too
much reason to think that with many of what are
called "gentlemen dealers" the faulty are the rule

244 THE HUNTING FIELD

and the sound ones the exception. It is ridiculous
to suppose that men whose business is horse dealing
— who have been at it all their lives, and many of
their fathers before them — with the extensive rami-
fications of long-continued business — can find it their
interest to deal in what must be unsatisfactory articles
to their customers, or yet that such men are to be
beat out of their own markets by the newly jumped
up capital-less judge of yesterday. These "gentlemen
dealers " as they call themselves often take up the
trade, because it is a ready-money one — ready-money
at least as far as the seller is concerned, though we
are not quite so sure about its being a ready-money
one when they are the buyers. It is then " I'll give
you a bill at three months," or, " If you don't want
the money at present, I don't care if I give the odd
five : " whereas the regular dealer is the credit giver,
if there is any. Indeed it is this credit giving that
tends to run horses up to such enormous prices in
London. Even of licensed horse dealers there may
be said to be two distinct classes, namely, the dealers
in young fresh horses, and the traffickers in aged,
blemished, second-hand ones, as they may be called.
It is the province of the latter that the "gentlemen
dealers " chiefly invade. Again there are men calling
themselves gentlemen, and even admitted into the
society of those who are, who do not hesitate to act
as middle-men between a buyer and a seller. We
have known men who did not scruple to take a five-
pound note for buying a horse "cheaper," as they
call it, for another than he could for himself. These
are the men who talk themselves into the reputation
of judges, and the ignorant and uninformed in these
matters are glad to avail themselves of their experi-
ence rather than trust to the word of a dealer. The
dealers know these men, and know that unless they
have their good word they have very little chance of
selling their horses, and of course that good word

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 245

must be obtained by the usual means, and, as a
natural consequence also, the usual means must be
added to the price of the horse, so that the purchaser
by employing such a party is in reality running up his
own price. The same sort of thing descends in the
scale of life, and the coachman must be propitiated
when a new pair of horses arrive, or they will stand
a very poor chance of finding favour in his eyes, and
the groom will expect a similar compliment on the
arrival of a hunter or hack.

The hero whose name we have placed at the head
of this paper, and who is just now entering our hunt-
ing field, is an admirable sample of the tribe we have
been describing — a gentleman horse-dealer. Captain
Shabbyhounde is a man who lives by his wits, and is
what is generally called, "up to everything." He can
ride a race, ditto a steeple-chase, play billiards, ditto
rackets (which by the way he studied in Denman
Lodge, as they call the Bench), buy a horse, sell a
screw, measure twelve paces, cut the cards, row a
match, shoot a ditto, and take the part of a walking
gentleman in private theatricals.

Forty years, five-and-twenty of which have been
spent in elbowing, and active intercourse with the
world, have tended to polish Shabbyhounde's wits up
until he is as keen as a razor. There are few things
that he is not up to, or had a turn at, though if his
habits have acquired any settled direction it will be
for race and steeple-chase riding, billiard playing, and
horse dealing. Hunting, it will be seen, we have not
enumerated in the catalogue of the Captain's accom-
plishments, for to tell the truth, he only hunts as
an auxiliary to horse dealing, and we are not desirous
of enrolling such a character among its legitimate
followers. The Captain's season is summer, or per-
haps spring and summer, when the silk jacket and
doe skins are in vogue.

Captain Shabbyhounde has a taste for horses, but

246 THE HUNTING FIELD

it is not the taste of a sportsman — a taste that
amounts almost to affection for an animal that pleases
him ; for Captain Shabbyhounde would sell anything
he has — his own father if he could get anything for
him — and his taste amounts to a sort of enterprising
dabbling in an interesting article that brings him in
money. He is a good judge of horses, and a good
judge of what they can do, and has a turn for cobbling
them up, and passing infirm ones off as sound.
Hunting, of course, favours this sort of dealing, for
as the Captain only professes to deliver them sound,
if they break down on the second or third day, he
shifts any blame from himself to the chapter of
accidents. " Most unfortunate," he will say, " but
these accidents will happen ; that horse never had a
moment's illness all the time he was in my stable —
must have put his foot in a rabbit hole, or wrenched
himself some way." If the unfortunate purchaser is
a hard rider, perhaps he will throw in some '''desperate
leap " he saw him take, to make his misfortune
lighter.

The Captain, though a light weight man, is very
tenacious about not carrying anything extra. Here
the racing man shows itself. Though he would not
leave the "coppers" at a turnpike gate until he
returns, he will nevertheless wait till the tollkeeper
fumbles in all his pockets, and looks in the corners
of all his drawers for one of those hide-and-seek four-
penny pieces, the most uncatchable and slip-through-
the-fingers coin. His clothes are all made on the
principle of extreme lightness, and whether in cords
or leathers, of which he has "two and one," he never
wears drawers, and sometimes he even dispenses with
stockings ; his boots, too, are of the paper sort, and
spurs of the true racing cut.

It would puzzle Shabbyhounde himself to make
out how he came by the title of Captain. He was
originally an apprentice to a clothier at Frome ; but

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 247

having a soul above "buttons," he suddenly
disappeared from the scene of action, and, after
vegetating some time at Boulogne, returned to
England a Captain, instead of, as might have been
expected, a count. This was, perhaps, accorded
on the strength of moustachios, a military-looking
travelling cap, and a broad black stripe down a pair
of blue trowsers, strapped under Wellington boots,
with ringing heel-spurs. " Captain " is a convenient
travelling name. Shabbyhounde had some little
money at starting — a few thousand pounds —
sufficient to make or mar a man. A part of this he
"dropped" in mastering the mysteries of the magic
game of ecarte^ for there is little to be acquired
in this world without payment, and the balance,
whatever it was, has kept the Captain going ever
since. Of course he has had his seasons of prosperity
and depression ; but he has never been seen either
at the billiard or card table, or in any gambling and
ready money concern, without a well-displayed purse
full of sovereigns, or a stiff roll of notes, of which he
seemed most thoroughly careless. Indeed, it is in
scenes such as these that he chiefly shines, for it
is much easier to affect the flash man than the
foxhunter. Well-made clothes, smart cravats, clean
gloves, good boots, are things of easy accomplish-
ment \ but it is difficult for the non-foxhunting man,
at least for the man who has no real taste that way,
to pass muster among sportsmen. People soon see
who come out for pleasure and who for other
purposes, though, as we said before, it is no small
recommendation to hunting that it is so little
capable of perversion to other than legitimate
purposes. It may be prejudice, and because w^e
"know the man," but we cannot help thinking
there is something about Shabbyhounde's appear-
ance indicative of his calling, and different to other
people. His very clothes seem to tell his story.

248 THE HUNTING FIELD

They have neither the neat appropriateness of
the well got-up sportsman, nor the indifference of the
careless dresser. There is a sort of attempt — a sort
of shabby genteelishness about them, unknown in the
general run of hunt costume.

Of course he rides in a cap. This he does for
the sake of identity, and in order that none of the
hazardous leaps he takes in the prosecution of his
calling of horse-seller, may be appropriated by any
one else.

It is not a badly-shaped cap ; neither one of those
ridiculous sugar-loaf things we sometimes see sticking
a mile off a man's head, nor one of the squash order,
that look as if they only want ears to turn down to
make very comfortable travelling ones, but it has the
appearance of having been made by a workman, and
not of second-rate velvet either. This cap, indeed,
is the best thing about him ; but below it are a pair
of very watchful, restless, grey eyes, full of anxiety
and suspicion. " Conscience, which makes cowards
of us all," keeps Shabbyhounde in a constant state
of alarm. The meet of hounds, so enjoyable to the
sportsman, so fruitful in anticipations, and so
productive of agreeable surprises, is to him a scene
of constant nervous dread and anxiety. He does not
know who may cast up. The recollection of his
misdeeds crow^ds upon his memory, and his torment-
ing brain conjures the figures of appearing sportsmen
into the bodies of those whom his ingenuity has
defrauded. He does not know how parties will
receive him. He does not know whether the secret
of his last " do " may have oozed out, how many of
the lies he told in effecting it may have been detected,
or what Groom in whose power he has placed
himself may have betrayed him. All these are sad
drawbacks to the pleasures of the meet — sad
drawbacks to the pleasures of anything.

To the man of sensitive mind there can be no

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 249

humiliation so great as the quiet, silent, cold shoulder
reproof of a party of gentlemen.

Shabbyhounde's coat, of course, is a dress one —
not only a dress one in cut, but absolutely an
evening one. These dress coats for hunting in —
these

^'Beds by night, and chests of drawers by day,"

have always appeared to us to be the economy of
extravagance, paltry in conception and contemptible
in execution. If a man is such a determined out-
and-out sportsman that he must always have the
insignia of his calling about him, surely he can afford
a coat for each division of the day, and not have to
look forward to converting the superfine cloth of the
drawing-room into the defier of thorns, and storms,
briars and bushes, out of doors.

We are quite aware that, generally speaking, these
coats are launched on the service they are meant for
— that they go at once into the hunting field, but the
theory is the same, they originated in a paltry idea
of converting dress coats into hunting ones when
they got shabby, and a shabby dog he must have
been who started the idea.

Although we fully agree in the words of the old
song, that there's

"Naught like boots and leather breeches,"

we do not carry our admiration for hunting
accoutrements quite so high as to insist upon there
being nothing like scarlet for dining in. Indeed, we
don't like it. It makes too much of a business of
the thing, added to which we often see the greatest
cocktails in a morning the most tenacious of appear-
ing in it in an evening.

If, however, men with their hair stifily curled, and
pumps on their feet, will put themselves into scarlet
for dinners and balls, let us beg of them to get new
coats occasionally. Most things look well when they

250 THE HUNTING FIELD

are fresh and new ; finery, above all things, should
be good, for much of its popularity depends upon its
newness, and scarlet evening coats are no exception
to the rule. What can look nastier than a greasy
annual, a keepsake, or book of beauty, for instance,
or a frowsey faded piece of worsted- worked finery?
Nothing but a shapeless, makeless, old-fashioned red
rag dancing about. Yet what things we have seen,
to be sure ! and what men in them ! Tall, gaunt,
spectral-looking fellows, with faces the very antipodes
of their coats, and little roundabout, teetotum, beer-
barrel-looking things, that could never by any
possibihty sit on a horse. These people have coats
that they got when "they hunted," as they call it,
some twenty years ago perhaps, and having them,
they think it right to air them every now and then,
that is to say, whenever they can get an opportunity,
at hunt or fancy balls, at which latter place, indeed,
hunt coats are valuable, as saving many a worthy
man from being choked in uniform. But if a man
hopes to kill a girl — which, after all, we suppose is
the real object of appearing in scarlet — let him
ascertain before he commits himself, that there are
no military going, else his plain coat will have a very
denuded, stripped-of-its-lace appearance by the side
of the glittering uniforms of his competitors. Hunt
coats are best at hunt balls.

Shabbyhounde's coat has not come to the cover
before it w^as due. It has long lost all the freshness
of newness, while sundry stains on the back and left
shoulder give indications of lamp droppings, or wax
swealings, obtained in the fantastic toe service. Still
it is not a badly cut coat, though the collar rather
puts the back to the blush, having only superseded
a black velvet one with a gold embroidered fox on
each side, it shows rather too new for the rest. Of
course Shabbyhounde sports an anonymous button,
one we should think made entirely out of his own

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 251

head ; but he does not trust the keeping together of
his coat to these usual articles, for he has it secured
by a diminutive steel bit, which, with a curb chain to
his watch, add, very materially, he considers, to his
sporting appearance. No flash man was ever seen
without pins or brooches, sometimes both, and
Shabbyhounde has a large gold pin representing two
race horses contending for a prize, in the full stride
of extended limb. His cravat is a rich purple and
black-flowered satin one, and his waistcoat a worked
one, blue ground, with yellow roses. We need
hardly add that he rides with a large cutting whip.
He is a little man, though hunting dress has the
singular effect of making some little men look taller
and some tall men shorter than they are. Of course
the Captain keeps his moustachios, this being part of
his stock in trade, but he is not prodigal in whisker,
neither does he indulge in flowing hair, at least not
in winter.

We will now glance at him in action. He is
always in a desperate stew about a start. His whole
thoughts and conversation turn upon this point. He
never cares to see the fox go away. He never looks
to see whether the body of the hounds are out of
cover, but as soon as a hound speaks, he begins to
settle himself in his saddle, gets his horse firmly by
the head, and keeps his eye on w^hat he considers
the foremost man to be ready to start the moment
he sees him move. Thus he goes like a jockey, creep-
ing to the starting post all arms and legs, jealous in
the extreme if any horse's head comes before his.
" Hold hard ! " is the only hunting term Shabby-
hounde knows, and most liberally he vociferates it
when any one gets before him. It is a term,
however, he pays little attention to, if he is first —
the Master not up, and an expectant purchaser in
the rear. What places he will then go at ! what
risks he will run !

252 THE HUNTING FIELD

A looker-on would fancy he had half a dozen
spare necks at home, so little does he seem to care
for the one he is wearing.

How amiable he is about his horses, how tender of
their reputation, how anxious to transfer their faux
pas to his own shoulders. We saw old staggering
Bill, as he is called, a big, bay, wooden-legged old
screw, give him a tremendous fall over a stone wall,
which the old beggar absolutely ran at without the
slightest attempt at leaping, and not content with
tumbling him over on the far side, the indolent
brute lay on his leg for some five minutes, which
agreeable time was spent by the Captain in alternate
exhortations to the horse to rise, and protestations
to the parties who came to compel him, that it was
" all his own fault ; the horse wasn't to blame in the
least." Another day he was riding a groggy old
grey in a sharpish burst over a roughish country,
where, as usual, the Captain was doing his best to
distinguish himself, when in crossing a field of wheat,
the veteran fell in a grip, and rolling heavily over
him, left the Captain distended for dead. It is a
painful sight to see a red coat and white breeches
lying full stretch on the land, a painfulness that was
increased in the present instance by the apparent
lifelessness of the body and the springing of the
young green wheat all around. There lay the
Captain, and it was not until he was stuck up on
end, and some brandy poured down his throat, that
he began to give any symptoms of returning
animation, when the first words he uttered, as he
stared wildly around, were, " Good beast as ever was
for all thatr In short nobody ever saw the Captain
' without an excuse for a horse, whatever he did.

There are some people in the world, not many
certainly, who have no idea of improving an
opportunity — indeed upon whom the temptations of
fortune are perfectly wasted, but the Captain is not

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 253

one of these. We will give an instance of his
observing acuteness and anxiety to "do business,"
as they say on 'Change. As he was getting on to
his horse one morning, he saw a woman coming up
with a pig in a string by the leg, after the approved
fashion of pig-driving, and all sorts of dealing being
interesting, she was accosted by a passing countryman
as to what she had given for it. " Far o'er much,"
replied the lady, desirous of having the inquirer's
estimate before she told.

"You'd give six-and-twenty shillings, perhaps,"
rejoined the man.

"No, a guinea," replied the lady.

Well, the Captain went to meet the hounds, and
after drawing Copgrove Hanging Wood and
Ashbourne Gorse blank, they turned in the direc-
tion of Harpsford, intending to go to Drewsborough
Great Wood.

On the road coming down the Chequers Hill,
what should Captain Shabbyhounde espy but his
friend with the pig in the string, who, with that
obstinate sort of stupidity called pigheadedness, was
quartering the road as if to make the most of the
journey. The Captain's keen eye saw " opportunity,"
and tickling old Beelzebub in the flank, he coaxed
him in between young Tom Pappington and Miles
Brown, who were enjoying an angry discussion on
the corn-laws. Both being rather beat for arguments
(indeed what they advanced were only the crumbs
they had picked up at their fathers' tables), they
were not sorry to transfer the further discussion to
the Captain if he was inclined to accept of the boon.
Accordingly they appealed to him for his opinion of
protection, and the Captain prolonging a draw at
his cigar — that most convenient of all idea furnishers
— drawled out at length, as he watched the upward
curl of smoke rise above his nose, that he thought
repeal would bring down prices.

254 THE HUNTING FIELD

"But," continued he, after a pause, during which
he adjusted the end of the cigar, "you great
landowners should know these things much better
than me."

Piggy had now got near hand, and after a snort
and semi-circular dart on meeting the hounds, had
adopted the grass siding of the road, and was
advancing in that sort of retrograding way that makes
one congratulate oneself upon not being a pig-driver.

"It will bring down the price of bacon, too,"
observed the Captain, eyeing the bristling little
beggar as it squeaked and tugged at the cord.
"There's a nice little pig," continued he, pointing
it out to Pappington. "What price would you set
upon it?"

Pappington looked at it with a most sagacious eye,
as if he was in the habit of valuing whole droves every
day.

*' Thirty shillings," said he, with the greatest con-
fidence.

" What do you say, Mr. Brown ? " asked the Captain.

" I say five-and-twenty," replied Brown.

" Let us make a sovereign sweepstakes," said the
Captain, "for the nearest guesser."

" Done," rejoined Pappington.

"Will you be in?" asked the Captain of Sam
Tubbs, who was just passing, to whom he explained
the purport of the venture.

Tubbs, who was a judge of pigs, joined and priced
the pig at four-and-twenty shillings.

The Captain guessed three-and-twenty.

" What did you give for your pig, my good woman ? "
inquired Pappington, riding up.

" Five-and-twenty shillings," replied the woman.

She had been hoaxing the man.

That was a spec deserving of a better result. We
shall now exhibit our Captain in the more genial
field of horse dealing.

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 255

He once had a horse that he sold six times over in
one year, receiving from each purchaser a bonus for
taking him back. This was Lambkin, as he was
erroneously called," though we really believe the name
had considerable influence in selling him. Lambkin
was a finely-shaped black horse about fifteen two, or
rather under, a size adapted for hacking, hunting, or
harness. The Captain either got him in a gambling
debt, or from some officer ordered to join his regi-
ment, we don't know whether. Suffice it to say, that
in the season of sea kale and spring captains, Shabby-
hounde cast up at Market Harborough with Lambkin
in his stud. Now Lambkin really was a nice-looking
horse — he was what we may call a creditable,
gentlemanly-looking horse, in contradistinction to
the blemished, iron-marked, knuckling, round-legged
Tom and Jerry seedy-looking screws that generally
composed his stud. With any man but Shabby-
hounde upon him, the horse would have looked like
a hundred and fifty or two hundred guineas, but
spring captains are always suspicious creatures — such
a spring captain as Shabbyhounde — suspicious beyond
all conception. Many people looked at the horse^
many admired him, many talked of him, and if
Shabbyhounde had not been at Harborough before,
he would very soon have sold him. As it was, he
rather hung fire — everybody was satisfied that there
was a screw loose somewhere, and most industriously
they set to work to discover it. One thought his
carcass was too big for his legs, another that his wind
wasn't good — that he didn't cough as he ought, a
third that there was an enlargement of the near knee,
a fourth thought he detected incipient spavin, a fifth
a little warmth in the off leg, a sixth that his feet
didn't match, a seventh suspected incipient cataract,
while the herd of greenhorns condemned his standing
over legs, which were in fact one of the best points
about him. We are not like Luke Lieall, the .

^56 THE HUNTING FIELD

"Cripplegate Pet," as he is called by the horse
dealers, who invariably expatiates on the advantages
of any infirmity about a horse that he wants to sell,
but we may observe that real standing over legs, such
as Lambkin had, are a recommendation. Standing
over legs are of two sorts, the natural and the
acquired. The natural, of course, are those with
which a horse is foaled, while the acquired are the
result of hard work, as are too strikingly portrayed by
stage coach and cab horses, knuckling towards the
ground. It is a truism for which we will vouch the
great Tat himself, that naturally standing over legs
never fail, while the others have too palpably failed
already. That however is beside the subject. The
question before the house is " what was the matter
with Lambkin ? " Well, reader, what do you think it
was ? D'ye give it up ? Well, we'll tell you. He
iwas difficult to mount I

We have already stated that he was good tempered
— even playful — but he had his peculiarity, and that
peculiarity consisted in kicking people over his head
the moment they mounted. To further his amiable
designs, nature had endowed him with the most
powerful back and loins that ever horse possessed.
Even in leaping, it required a good seat to keep in
the saddle with the tremendous lashes out he gave
behind, and the reader may easily imagine what
•redoubled force he would muster for a premeditated
Icick, and with what awful violence it would tell on
the unsuspecting confidence of a half acquired seat.
Lambkin could spanghew a rider as clean as ever
schoolboy spanghewd a sparrow from a trap.
Send him flying through the air like an arrow or a
darting hawk. It was only at the first mounting he
did it. If the rider — or would-be rider — kept his
seat — the horse would give in after a fight, a piece of
politeness that tells more with a master than a stranger,
seeing that the stranger, if he gets kicked off, in all

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 257

probability will never be master. It was just one of
those nasty sort of tricks that would prevent nine men
out of ten from trying a horse.

Still, beau Shackell, Elmore, Bartley, Anderson,
Bill Bean, a whole jury of horse-dealers, could not
have detected anything wrong about Lambkin. His
action was good, he could trot with a loose head on
pavement, and in the field his performances were
first-rate ; first-rate at least with Shabbyhounde on
his back, and a horse wanter behind. His temper
too was perfect, and he had a playful way of rattling
and champing the bit when he had nothing to do, as
much as to say, "why can't you trust me without
this nasty thing in my mouth." Whether it was this
playfulness, or to disarm suspicion of his infirmity,
we know not, but Shabbyhounde christened him
Lambkin. Now the name Lambkin certainly does
convey the idea of a very gentle, playful, docile
creature, it disarms suspicion, nay, even inspires
confidence, and would make one go up to an animal
in a stall, that we might have declined had he been
called "Beelzebub," "Old Nick," "The Tiger," or
any such name. But Lambkin ! who would be
afraid of Lambkin ! so great is the charm — the magic
of a name. And yet his kicking was not from vice
— it was a mere trick — a trick that he had acquired
with a sore back, and which had grown into habit by
repeated successes. Before he came into the hands
from which Shabbyhounde got him, he had spanghewd
two prebendaries, a fat apothecary, a linen-draper,
three ostlers, a master butcher, an official assignee, a
railway surveyor, and two druggists. The uninitiated
in "kicks off" may say that it makes very little odds
w^hether a horse kicks you off from vice or from fun ;
but there we beg to differ from them, it makes a good
deal of difference, especially if you fall near. The
vicious horse will often follow up his success by
attacking you either with his teeth or his heels,
17

258 THE HUNTING FIELD

standing with his nasty frightful iron calkings at your
nose, considering which eye he shall knock out ;
whereas the playful ejector merely seems to have
been having a trial of skill how far he could send
you, and stands looking at the result, just like a
baker playing at bowls. The vicious horse to be
sure gives a sort of notice to such few as are capable
of taking a hint. There is a certain liberal display
of the white of the eye, and a muscular cat-like con-
traction of the back and loins, all symptomatic of
his intentions, but any misgivings arising out of such
symptoms are generally allayed by those in the secret
declaring that it's " all play " — " the quietest horse in
the world when he's mounted" — "child might ride
him" — with that most taking of all appeals to a
Briton, " not to be frightened," an appeal that drives
more men to destruction than even an engineman on
a railway. Lambkin, on the contrary, gave no in-
dication of anything of the sort. He would let a
stranger walk up to him, handle him, gather up the
reins, and even put his foot into the stirrup without
wincing ; but as soon as he felt the souce in the
saddle, as surely down went the head, up went heels,
and away went the intrepid adventurer. And yet, as
we said before, Lambkin was not obstinately persever-
ing, if he found he could not unship a chap, he would
shut up shop, at all events, confine his endeavours to
an occasional hoist ; but a new customer invariably
drew forth all his best energies, which he continued
to use till one or other gained a decided victory.
We need scarcely say, that Shabbyhounde had gained
that desirable ascendency, and though he always
found it convenient to ride Lambkin to cover, and
was especially shy of mounting in the inn yard before
strangers, yet that was from a desire of keeping the
peculiarity snug, and not from any expectation of
Lambkin proving "too many for him."

It has been well said that there is no secret so close

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 259

as that between a rider and his horse, and as Shabby-
hounde had no taste for disclosing the secrets of his
stable, it will be abundantly clear that the only way
of selling a horse like Lambkin — at least the only
way of getting anything like a price for him — was
selling him in the field, a process that the Captain
was particularly partial to, especially after having
"gone a good un" before the expected buyer.

Our readers will now have the kindness to consider
it a fine morning in February, and the " Squire's "
hounds meeting at Kelmarsh, a few miles below
Market Harborough, on the Northampton - road.
They will further oblige us by supposing that Captain
Shabbyhounde having mounted Lambkin in the inn
yard without more trouble than usual, has walked him
quietly to the meet.

We took occasion lately, when sketching the por-
trait of old Mr. Bull waist, to introduce the adventures
of another horse — Claudius Hunter — and to comment
on the admirable dispensations of Providence in
turning even the infirmities of his creatures to good
account, and in relating the adventures of Lambkin,
we may observe how a never-failing supply of flats is
kept up in the world — a fact most perfectly under-
stood by advertising tailors, persevering wine
merchants, and peripatetic map men.

It so happened that on this particular morning, the
Honourable Julius Milksop, a newly emancipated, but
beardless Cantab, made his appearance with the
Pytchley in all the luxuriance of flowing locks,
cheroots, and a perfumed pocket - handkerchief.
Shabbyhounde's eyes, which had had " no specula-
tion in them for some time, glared withal," for
Milksop looked like a man for his money, added to
which he did not seem to have any acquaintance in
the field, so the Captain ascertaining from his groom
who he was — a piece of information that the groom
of course accompanied with the title of Honourable

26o THE HUNTING FIELD

— "Honourable Milksop" — according to the then
Cambridge idiom, why the Captain took him at once
under his wing — a most prudent proceeding, seeing
that it not only increased his own consequence, but
prevented any of those illiberal remarks or insinua-
tions that an opposition Shabbyhounde might
indulge in. The Captain and Julius very soon
struck up a dialogue, for Julius was just of the age
to rush into indiscriminate acquaintances, and a
youth — nay a man — entering a strange hunting field,
is very like a fresh boy turned into a school — glad to
take up with the first one that speaks to them. Since
Mr. Lockhart went down into Leicestershire with his
good little "bay horse," and wrote the surprising
article on the "Chase," in the " Quarterly Review,"
people have been rather suspicious of strangers in the
hunting field, and many a man has been charged with
being a Quarterly Reviewer, whose banker's or whose
betting-book has been his only claim to literature.
Authorship somehow is not a popular trade in the
country. Nimrod was the only author on horseback
who could fairly face a hunting field in propria
personce. There was no mystery or concealment
about him. He went in as Nimrod, and as Nimrod
he wished to be known. He even indulged in the
lordly privilege of putting " Nimrod " on the backs of
his letters. But to our story — the Honourable Julius
Milksop is landed in Northamptonshire, and " taken
up " by Captain Shabbyhounde, who, riding his best
horse, had got his leather breeches on, and looked
more like the gentleman, if not more like the fox-
hunter than usual.

After giving the hounds the usual run of the ever-
greens about Kelmarsh, and drawing Scotland Wood
blank, they trotted away to a cover on some broken
ground on a hill side belonging to Sir Justinian
Isham, called Blue Devils, or blue something we
forget what, when a whimper and the Squire's cheery

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 261

holloa as he worked among the gorse on foot soon
proclaimed the varmint astir, as was very soon con-
firmed by the crash of his redoubtable dog pack
forcing their way to the spot. Presently Jack Stevens's
halloo away ! was heard from below, and joy and fear
became depicted on every face. Scream ! screech !
twang, twang, crack, crack, whoop 1 whoop ! all noise,
bustle, and confusion — yonder he goes ! Which way !
over the hill ! No, he's turned ! Now d'ye see him ?
No, I don't ! Yes, I do ! No, it's a dog !

^^ Follow me, I know the country ^^ cried the Captain
to his pupil, as he hustled along, jostling two or three
funkers out of their places, and leaping over the
gorse and brushwood that obstructed his path, he
dived down into the bottom. The Second Whip
brought Osbaldeston his horse, and the Captain and
Milksop start fair with the hounds, followed by all
the bold boys of the county. It's a rare burst ! and
there's a rare scent !

It was worth going a long way to see Osbaldeston
ride Pilot, or any of his

"Cock horses to Banbury Cross," ^

followed by that best of good Whips, Jack Stevens,
and our pen even now inclines to follow the Squire
instead of sticking to the subject at the head of our
paper — Captain Shabbyhounde. The Squire, how-
ever, and we must part for the present, for the
Captain durst not ride before him, and his object
now was to break the fences for his new acquaint-
ance, and show what a wonderful horse he was on.
Accordingly at the first divergible point the Captain
struck off to the left, clearing four stiff rails instead
of opening the bridle gate which they joined. Milk-
sop followed him, for all lads like leaping, and
they presently found themselves in great enjoyment
among the bullfinches. The Squire's red coat on
the right acted as a sort of guide, and first one, and

262

THE HUNTING FIELD

then the other, went at the fences, as though they
would eat them. Milksop was no shirker, on the
contrary he would take anything that anybody else
w^ould take, and wanted particularly to distinguish
himself. So Shabbyhounde and he went on from
fence to fence, rejoicing.

As luck would have it, at the end of ten minutes
or so the fox took it into his head to turn short to
the right, but the Squire's hounds turning short also,
they were getting together on the line, when our friends
found themselves "right among them" before they

knew where they were. It is a general rule that when
mischief is done, every person who is not in the place
with the master or fault finder, whoever he may be,
is wrong, and it required no rhetoric from the Squire
to proclaim " that any but a natural born fool might
be sure that the fox would turn where he did," but
when the Squire came up and saw it was his old
tormentor, Captain Shabbyhounde, who had ridden
them to check, he began reading the Riot Act, most
vehemently, exclaiming, as he held the hounds on
across the enclosure, something about d — d horse-

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 263

dealing something — that did not sound at all like
"gentleman." The scent was good, the hounds were
quickly on the line, without letting in more of the
tail than desirable, and away they went again full
tilt.

CHAPTER XIX

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE — C07icluded

»0 a stranger, or a man
like Shabbyhounde,who
never looks to hounds,
a ring is as good as a
line, and he reached
Cottesbrooke, after
running down nearly to
Little Creaton, without
being aware that they
had not been going
straight. At Cottes-
brooke the pace in-
creased, and the fox
making for Thornby Folly, turned a little towards
Naseby, and was finally run into in view in the large
fields where the two cross carving knives on the
map denote the battle to have been fought. The
new friends rode gallantly together, at least as far as
they went, nor was their cordiality diminished, by
the partnership " blowing up " they had received from
the Squire.

As luck would have it, Mr. Milksop's horse began
to decline before they reached Thornby Folly. He
blundered and tripped, and at last fell on his head
on the far side of a fence. Shabbyhounde saw how
it was, and having alighted, picked up and scraped

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 265

his acquaintance, as the late Mr. Hood would have
said, nothing would serve him but he would put
Milksop on Lambkin. If the generality of the
Captain's horses had only been as good on their legs
as they were in their wind, they would have been
invaluable, and Lambkin, for a wonder, was perfect
in both. He had gone the run stoutly and well, was
still as gay as a lark, and with Milksop's lighter weight
upon him, bounded off like an arrow from the bow.
Lambkin never thought of trying to kick Milksop off
— that was only a home exploit ; on the contrary, he
scuttled away, and very soon was well with the hounds
again.

Naseby Field used to be rather deep in those days
— it may be so still, for aught we know — and after a
fair trial, over sound springy pastures. Milksop found
Lambkin had the knack of getting his hind legs well
under him, and of going through deep also. What
a luxury that is ! How delightful to feel the hind
quarters throwing the fore ones on, treading the water,
as it were, instead of the floundering deeper and
deeper still, lob, lob, lobbing, grunting, groaning,
sobbing, sighing, hammer-and-pincering of the mere
turf strider.

Give us the horse that can go in deep as well as
on grass, the nag that can creep as well as fly, and we
will throw extreme pace to "Bunbury,"^ to divide
among the Jockey Club.

Forrardl forrard 1 that inspiriting cheer to the
fresh — that tantalizing mockery to the h^dit— forrard f
forrard/ was still the cry, and Lambkin responded to
it vigorously.

The Honourable Julius Milksop being in
"The morning of life,"
as the elegant Dr. Goss sublimely sings, when

^'Middling horse-flesh takes the reason prisoner,"

^ The great turf writer of the present day.

266 THE HUNTING FIELD

it will not surprise our ancient readers to learn that
he soon found out there was a considerable difference
between the horse he was on and the one he had
been riding, nor was the improvement less apparent,
owing to the sudden transition from a beaten horse
to a fresh one. Indeed Mr. Milksop, like many
young gentlemen riding on the top of the morning,
went a good deal upon price. He thought if he gave
a good lot of money, he was sure to get a good horse,
a problem not quite so apparent to those who have
made a long journey in old Father Time's coach.
The nag he was on was out of Jordan's stud, a fair
hack hunter when in the superior wind peculiar to the
class, but who had got rather pursey from a repletion
of oats and deficiency of work since he entered our
friend's (if he will allow us to call him so) service.

Yonder he goes I cried the Squire, pointing with his
whip to where reynard was stealing over a gently
swelling hill in the distance. Yonder he goes ! repeated
he, urging his horse on to the pack. The blood of
old Furrier was in the ascendant, and the staunch
pack clustered like bees — a sheet would have covered
the whole. The fox gains the hedge-row, and is for
a moment screened from view — another second, and
he creeps through again, hearing hounds on the same
side. Ah ! it's all over with him. The hounds divide,
and there's no escape. Whoo whoop ! Vengeance
snaps him !

A fox is one of the few animals whose death never
draws forth compassion.

"Poor is the triumph o'er the timid hare,"

wrote Somerville, and hundreds will echo the sentiment
who never feel a pang of compunction for poor reynard.
The fact is, he is a carnivorous dog, and dies game.
The scream of the hare is piteous in the extreme.
Our fox will not excite any more pity, we dare say,
from the fact of our having killed him twice.

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 267

"A southerly wind and a cloudy sky" used to be
the huntsman of old's delight, but we confess we have
no objection to sun. We don't get so much of it in
England that we can afford to shut it out even for
hunting. Sun adds cheerful brilliancy to any scene —
to a grand foxhunting finale as much as to anything.
All nature looks smiling and gay. There can be
nothing gayer or livelier than a well-grouped kill on
a bright day, in the middle of a large pasture like
those about Naseby. The led horses forming the
outer circle, the dismounted red coats mopping them-
selves on foot, the huntsman, with uplifted fox, in the
m.iddle of the baying pack, the echoing whoo whoops
of the whips, and ever and anon the unexpected
arrival of some unfortunate outcast brim full of excuses
for not being up.

Such a scene was it on the day we have been de-
scribing. The Squire was delighted ! All the " ups "
were rejoiced, even the lagging lane and line riders
were pleased with the country they had passed
through, and all joined in testifying their unqualified
approbation of the pack, and asserted their perfect
readiness to be continually going before the Lord
Mayor to make affidavit that Osbaldeston's were the
*' best hounds in England ! "

Who, we should like to know, ever hunted with a
pack that were not occasionally the best ?

The Squire, seeing Mr. Milksop well up, and re-
collecting that he was one of the unfortunate wights
he had " blessed " in the run, most politely handed
him the brush, with an intimation that he had gone un-
commonly well, and he was glad they had had such a
good day for his first. The stranger having acknow-
ledged the compliment, and tipped Jack Stevens a
sov., as Jem Bland used to call them, sought his led
horse, and, brush in hand, retired from the field in
quest of his own.

We must now return to our friend Captain Shabby-

268 THE HUNTING FIELD

hounde. The Captain got Mr. Milksop's horse just
in time, for the pace they were going, and the loose
way Mr. Milksop rode, would have polished him off
in another field or two.

He was not the first tired horse the Captain had had
through his hands, by many, indeed the generality of
his stud exhibited the sunken, dejected eye, peculiar
to stopped and over-marked horses. By slackening
Milksop's horse's girths, turning his head to the wind,
rinsing out his mouth, and other little attentions, the
Captain was soon enabled to pursue the chase on foot
with his horse in his hand.

Hunting on foot is only poor sport at best, pursued
in top boots lamentably poor, and the Captain was
not sorry to see his new acquaintance returning on
the line of the run. Great was his joy when the
proud trophy waved over Milksop's head proclaimed
the glorious finish, and greater still, though more
suppressed, his delight at hearing that Lambkin had
^'carried him well."

What an opportunity was here for a man of
Shabbyhounde's enterprising qualities — what a field
for the exercise of his " insinivating " talents. A
youth, as fresh and verdant as a turnip-field — a
splendid horse — a clear stage, and no opposition.
Could but the Captain have had a peep at the
banker's book, he would indeed have been elated.
That was his only fear. He had once been bit by an
apparent greenhorn in the matter of a post obit, and
he rather dreaded the innocence of youth. " Nothing
veuture nothing gain," however, thought the Captain,
and he "at him " again with the virtues of his horse.
If ever animal had cause to be proud of the favours
of a master, it surely was Lambkin — Shabbyhounde
did butter him up — did lay it on thick. Not but
that the horse deserved praise; for he was a "good-
un," and nothing but a "good-un," barring the little
playful propensity already related. Indeed, Shabby-

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 269

hounde laid it on so thick that Milksop, who was
most "jolly green," thought it useless asking if he
would sell such a piece of perfection. The conse-
quence was the Captain was obliged to throw out the
bait himself, a decidedly unskilful move in the grand
game of "do." However, there is no help for it,
where such verdancy does exist, and the Captain was
obliged, after sundry beatings about the bush, to put
it to Milksop rather pointedly " if he would not like
to have Lambkin ? '' There are very few people who
can't take a good horse, the difficulty generally being
about paying for him ; but this did not seem to weigh
with Mr. Milksop, who merely said he would be glad
to take him — " take him^^'' just as he would take a hat
from a hatter, a pair of braces from a hosier, or a
waistcoat from his tailor. That fine, easy, Canta-
bridgian style of doing business not sounding at all
like money, and " tick " being at all times abhorrent
to the mind of our Captain — at least when he had to
give it — and dangerous in the extreme in a case like
the present, he let out at once that the price w^ould be
a hundred and seventy-five guineas.

Milksop didn't seem chagrined at all at the informa-
tion; indeed, he rather looked upon the price as
complimentary to his judgment in horse-flesh, seeing
that he pronounced Lambkin first-rate, and he had
given a hundred and twenty for the horse he was on.

We think the Captain showed great judgment, not
only in asking a high price, but in asking it in such
a way as to look as if he had measured the horse out
to the odd five guineas. Had he asked a hundred
and fifty or two hundred, it might have been regarded
as a mere random, off-hand, figure-of-speech sort of
price ; but a hundred and seventy-five guineas carried
considerate calculation on the face of it. Time was,
when gentlemen used not to think it right to offer
each other less for their horses than they asked —
they used to leave bartering and bargain-driving to

2^o THE HUNTING FIELD

jobbers and dealers — but those days are about past
— gentlemen haggle just as hard as the hucksters.
To this rule, however, we must add that Mr. Milksop
was an exception. His father, old Viscount Creamjug
of Papcastle Tower, had instilled good old-fashioned
gentlemanly ideas into his mind, and Mr. Milksop
invariably acted up to them. Honourable himself,
he had no suspicion of dishonesty in others — a fine
healthy feeling, but one that is not exactly adapted
to this extremely sharp world of ours. Be that as it
may, the Captain got his price, and how the horse
turned out will soon appear.

Captain Shabbyhounde, like most of the puffing,
advertising tradespeople, not expecting to do business
w4th the same person a second time, always made a
point of bilking the groom, when he accomplished a
sale by himself, and he did not depart from his custom
in the present instance. Indeed, there does seem
something superlatively silly in feeing a servant,
because we have taken it into our head to buy a
horse. We might just as well fee the housemaid on
buying a broom, the dairymaid on buying a cow, or
the man or boy on buying a hat.

Nobody who knew the Captain, or rather no one
who did not know him, but who heard him talk, could
doubt for a moment that his objection was founded
on pure principle. He denounced it as an absurdity,
as a mere premium for dissatisfaction, and the urging
of frequent changes on the part of servants.

When, however, the deal was not to be accom-
plished without, our friend knew how to plant a
sovereign, or even a five pound note, as well as
anybody. The Captain indeed was the creature of
circumstance, now liberal, now mean, just as it suited
his purpose. The character is a common one, and
we need not describe it further.

When Mr. Strutt, Mr. Milksop's valet and stud-
groom, heard that he had presumed to purchase a

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 271

horse without consulting him, he was highly indignant.
Strutt had had cause for dissatisfaction before, and it
was only not seeing his way clearly to a better place,
that prevented him turning his master off. When he
learned that his master had dealt with Shabbyhounde,
he looked upon himself as regularly robbed. It may
seem strange that Mr. Strutt, who had so lately arrived,
should be "up" to the Shabbyhounde dodge; but
Strutt was a high privilege man, one who stood upon
the rights of his order, and he considered it a down-
right insult for any man, be he who he might, to
attempt to "do "his master without consulting him.
He took an enlarged comprehensive view of the ques-
tion— not the mere " A and B " deal case, as between
Shabbyhounde and his master, but he looked at the
general principle of the thing, and he saw if such
work was allowed it would be destructive of settled
principles, and most prejudicial to the interests of his
profession. Moreover, Shabbyhounde's fame was not
altogether unknown to him, though it did not enter
into Strutt's imagination that a man could be so de-
praved as to think of defrauding him of his regulars ;
the amount of which, however, he could not but feel
greatly depended upon the imparlance before the deal.
It is a delicate case, and one that we feel assured
will come home to the feelings of all stabularian
professors. It makes all the difference in the world,
whether the imparlance is before or after the deal.

Strutt looked as though nature had meant him for
the name, for he was a most bumptious, consequen-
tial, rosy-gilled bantam cock -looking little fellow,
uniting in his apparel the extravagancies of valet and
groom. He had a groom's hat and a valet's hair, a
groom's coat and a valet's waistcoat, a swell satin
cravat, and groomish made trowsers, buttoning up
the leg with French cut gaiters and thin shoes. At
the time of which we are writing, he might be forty
or forty-five years of age, greyish about the whisker,

272 THE HUNTING FIELD

but not about the hair, pot-bellied, and uncommonly
"long in the tooth." He knew where sixpence could
be laid on, or a shilling squeezed out, as well as any
man going. He had been Lord Creamjug's *'own
groom," and had been selected by his lordship to
accompany his son to Cambridge, in the advanced
capacity of valet and groom of the one horse his
lordship thought would assist in digesting his son's
mathematics, and other cross-grained stuff that he
had to encounter with his mental teeth.

Of course, Strutt had improved his own education
and knowledge of arithmetic among the highly re-
spectable tradesmen and "talented" men congregated
at Cambridge, and at the time of which we are speak-
ing you might have drawn Piccadilly and Oxford Street
too, without finding a more " knowing hand " than
Simon Strutt.

Of course, Strutt had now nothing to do with what
he called the " dirty work " of the stable. The stud
had increased to four, for which he had the second
horseman, a regular helper, and as many occasional
ones as he chose to take ; Strutt superintended. His
valeting was onerous. He attended to all his master's
clothes, except his hunting and shooting things, his
morning boots and shoes, dirty trowsers and gloves.
Those he assigned to the second horseman. He gave
the linen out to wash, and counted it or not when it
came back as suited his convenience. Altogether,
Strutt — we beg his pardon, Mister Strutt — had a hard
easy life of it — laboriously idle.

Strutt, we need not say, was desperately indignant
when his master informed him that he had bought
the " sweetest horse in the world," and when he men-
tioned the name of Captain Shabbyhounde, his gill-less
chops reddened like a turkey-cock's thropple at the
sight of a scarlet coat. He did not like captains in
general, or the name of Captain Shabbyhounde in
particular. Our readers may suppose how much he

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 273

was disconcerted, when he committed himself by
writing the following letters : —

"George Inn, Northampton.
"Sir, — Understanding the Honourable Mr. Milksop has
been looking at a horse of yours, i shall be glad to kno when
it will suite you for me to com over and examine him and so on,
yours to command,

"Simon Strutt, Stud Groom.

"To Captain Shabbyhounde, Market Harborough."
The Captain replied as follows : —

" Sir, — Your master has bought my horse, and he only
remains in my stable to suit his convenience, and save the horse
a journey southward, when he is going west. He had a hard
day at Kelmarsh, and as we thought he would not be fit for four
or five more, we arranged that he should stay here, and I would
send him to meet you at Dunchurch on Friday, where Mr.
Milksop proposes riding him with Mr. Osbaldeston's hounds on
Saturday. — Yours obediently,

" George Shabbyhounde.

"To the Honble Julius Milksop's Groom, Northampton."

We should have premised that Mr. Milksop was a
mere bird of passage, hunting his way to Leamington
Priors, where the Viscountess Creamjug had gone in
a terrible hurry, suffering from an affection of the toe
(what common people would call a corn), which she
preferred placing under the silent treatment of Doctor
Jephson, to undergoing the public gibbeting of Monsr.
Eisenburg, or any of the advertising fraternity.

Before Captain Shabbyhounde's answer reached
the anxious hands of Mr. Strutt, that vile jade rumour
had spread some very unpleasant stories Respecting
the Captain's mode of doing business. Indeed it
appeared that a jury of grooms had sat on him only
the season before, when they returned an unanimous
verdict that he was a "snob," and strongly recom-
mended that he " should be transported back to the
country from whence he came, being totally unfit," as
18

274 THE HUNTING FIELD

they thought, "for a civilized one," a sentence, we
may add, that they would have had some difficulty in
carrying out, seeing that no one had ever been able
to tell what country claimed the Captain. That case
had originated in much such a transaction as the
present — an unprincipled attempt to defraud a man
of his regulars. Indeed the cases were so analogous,
that it was agreed in consultation that unless the
Captain was brought to book before the horse was
delivered, there would be very little hope of getting
anything after. That impression Vv^as quite confirmed
by the receipt of the Captain's reply, which did not
even hint at doing the "usual" or the "genteel," or
anything that could be construed into an acknow-
ledgment of vested rights. Strutt was outrageous.
He was so put about that he could not take the chair
at the Grooms' Champagne Club, which was to hold
its weekly meeting that night.

Instead of going, he concocted the following letter.
How many he cancelled before he got one to his
mind, it is immaterial to say : —

" Sir, — I beg to acknowledge your letter respectin the horse
which is quite satisfactory, i was not awar the honble had gone
so far in the matter. The honble is a very honble gent in horse -
dealing, but not quite up to the thing, and i am sponsible to the
Right Honble Lord Viscount Creamjug for the honbles safety
and neck and limbs and other particklars i should like to have
him passed by a vet, and i will thank you to send me his ped :
along with him. Hopin to have further dealings. — I am, Sir,
your respectful servant,

" Simon Strutt, Stud Groom, Northampton.

"To Capt George Shabbyhounde, Market Harborough."

" P.S. The honble not being up to snuff, it may save trouble
if you will say what kompliment i may kalculate on, so that i
may kalculate the kompliment due to your groom. We wish of
course to be quite genteel."

Captain Shabbyhounde was not such a fool as to
indulge in the " pleasures of hope " of having a second

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 275

deal with Mr. Milksop, therefore he saved Strutt the
expense of a " rule to compute " by not returning any
answer to the letter.

The showman will now change the shade, and the
intelligent and accommodating reader will have the
kindness to accompany us to the **Cow" at Dun-
church.

It was midday, and Mr. Strutt was airing his little
round stomach before the inn door, indulging in one
of his master's Havannahs. The weather was still
fine, rather unseasonably so if anything, and Strutt,
like a good servant, was also airing a cut tartan velvet
waistcoat of his master's, which fitted him marvellously
well, considering the disparity of their corporations.
He had also a shirt with a very finely-worked front
on, and three diamond studs secured by a diminutive
chain down the middle. Altogether he looked as full
of beans and consequence as man could possibly do,
a gentleman that none but a public body — the Bank
of England, South Sea House, or some such estab-
lishment, could purchase, if taken at his own valuation.
What a contrast to the lean, haggard, lank-haired,
one-eyed man coming up on a worn-out pony with
the redoubtable Lambkin in his hand. The old,
napless, seen-better-days looking hat of the stranger
is put out of all countenance by the spic-and-span,
fresh-from-the-band box, blooming-looking affair on
the well-anointed curls of the smoker. " Well to do "
must the man be who turns out a new tile in February,
tempting not only the snow, but Jupiter Pluvius.
This, too, Strutt did, in spite of the redoubtable
Moore having prophesied in his wonderful weather
column, " Now dull with frequent downfall." Strutt,
of course, found his own clothes, and affected a sort
of mixture of the foreigner and the country gentleman.
Not so the stranger, whose seedy old drab coat and
broad blue-and-white striped livery waistcoat, put all
idea of concealment of servitude out of the question,

276 THE HUNTING FIELD

even if the shabby cockade in the hat had been
wanting.

" I'm blowed, if I don't believe this ere kiddey with
the ventilator in his old tile is a bringin of my new
'orse," observed Mr. Strutt, taking his cigar out of his
mouth, with which, and a hand in each coat pocket,
he had been straddling, the observed of all observers
of a select circle of post-boys, horse-keepers, and
idlers, the usual concomitants of the glorious but now
departed greatness of stage-coaches.

" I say, old chap ! " exclaimed Strutt to the man
who had now begun fumbling and smelling at the
piece of dirty paper as if he could read, " I say, old
chap, are you a lookin for your nuss?"

*' Brought a horse for a gentleman," replied the
man, again holding the dirty slip of paper upside
down before his nose.

" Here, let me see it," said Mr. Strutt, perceiving
how it was. He took and read as follows : —

"The Cow at Dunchurch. Ask for the Honourable Mr.
Milksop's groom, and deliver the horse to him."

"/ thought so,''^ said Mr. Strutt, tearing the paper
up, and giving it to the winds. "I thought so,"
repeated he, looking at the horse.

" And have you no letter from your master?" asked
Strutt.

" No," repHed the man.

"No!" repeated Strutt. "What! no letter, no
message, no nothing ? "

" No ! " was all the answer returned.

The "gemman wot does our shades" would not
like to have them dulled by recording the oaths that
followed. Suffice it to say, Strutt saw his worst fears
were realized, and stormed and fumed accordingly.

The horse, too, came in for his share of abuse.

What was the use of bringing such a d d cat-legged,

cow-hocked, sickle-hammed, leg-tied, spavined, glan-

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 277

dered, broken-down rip of a brute to him ! He didn't
'orse a coach ! He didn't keep a cab !

Poor Job Tod, the spectral groom, had lived in
many bad places, and had had too many blowings-up
and blackguardings to care much about one now, so
finding he had got to his customer, he sought the
ostler, who conducted him to Mr. Milksop's stable,
where, notwithstanding Mr. Strutt's asseverations that
he would not receive the horse without his pedigree,
warranty, and we don't know what else, he nevertheless
let the second horseman lead him quietly in. Strutt's
bumptious, inflated, cock-sparrow manner — his full
rubicund face and boisterous action, contrasted with
the lean, haggard, pensive looks of the ill-fed, ill-paid
stranger, whose wrinkled, cadaverous cheeks were
innocent of colour, whose old, misfitting clothes hung
on him like sacks, and whose short parchment-looking
leathers and tightly-pulled up boots, were a world too
wide for his shrunk shanks. The poor creature did
not look as if he had had a good meal for a month,
and most likely he had not; for the Captain gave
him but twelve shillings a-week, and he had himself,
a wife, and three small children to keep out of it.
How meek, passive poverty is imposed upon in this
world ! And yet the poor creature was faithful, faith-
ful even to the Captain — early and late at his stable,
careful and patient with his horses, attentive to the
last comer as to the first ; his regard for the animal
seemed to extend to the whole equine generation.

The Captain was not the man to tell his right hand
what his left hand did; but if he had, we really
believe he might have trusted Job Tod. He would
have kept his secret. Indeed, nature seemed to have
meant Job for the secret service department ; for if
ever there was a silent, uncommunicative, monosyl-
labic creature, it was Tod. "Yes" or "No" seems
to constitute the stock of his vocabulary. Honest
as Aristides, and always as poor; patient, attentive,

278 THE HUNTING FIELD

watchful, without being inquisitive, he served even
Shabbyhounde with all the faithfulness of affection ;
yet he had never risen much above the rank of a
horse-dealer's man. The reader will see why. Job's
manner and appearance were against him — he had
but one eye and no tongue.

Strutt, however, was not deficient in that respect.
Having abused every limb and every look about the
horse, he turned the voluble battery of his tongue
upon poor Job, whose master he belaboured, through
him, in a most exemplary way. Job, however, as we
said before, cared little for that sort of thing, and
having retraced his steps to Harborough, and returned
the pony to the butcher from whom he had borrowed
it, he betook himself to his stable, just as if he had
only been along at the post office.

" Well, Job, you've got back," observed his master,
entering the stable at four o'clock.

" Yes," replied Job, as he knelt, hand-rubbing one
of the ticklish-legged stud.

*' Did you see the groom ? "

" Yes," was the answer.

"What did he say?"

"Z^ d vie well,'" replied Job.

Change the shade again, Mr. Showman, and put us
in the one exhibiting Strutt coming out after dinner
fuller than ever of beer, brandy, baccy, and black-
guardism.

That's your sort, Mr. Showman ; now we'll go on
again.

" Let's see the d d cripple out," says Mr.

Strutt, swaggering into the yard, hallooing out, " Here,
Tom ! John ! James ! ostler ! what are you all
about ? " " Saddle me that orse," exclaims he, as his
authoritative voice brings out the whole crew with
their mouths full, they having been regaling in the
kitchen with what had come from the " bar table."

"Take off my straps," said he, cocking up a leg to

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 279

a newly caught helper. This is a proceeding, by the
way, we never could understand. We have always
imagined that the use of straps was to keep the
trowsers down in riding, but we see certain of the XX
knowing ones always take theirs off before mounting.
The obedient helper quickly had Strutt divested of
his.

"Bring me the honourable's riding whip,"
continued he, "you'll find it on my dressing-table,
and put them 'ere straps there."

Here let us pause for a moment to observe on one
of the absurdities of the day. We keep a barometer
. of impudence, and we find that when servants begin
to call their masters and mistresses by their names, as
Mr. Brown, or Mrs. Green, instead of " my master "
or "my mistress," they are generally getting above
themselves, and want taken down a peg or two.
Time was when such phraseology was unknown ; but
that was before grooms drank champagne, or
housemaids wore artificial flowers and veils. The
fact is, however, the whole system of servitude is
gone wrong ; but servants are not the only parties to
blame for that misfortune. Simon Strutt called his
master " the honourable," because being the servant
of a lord's son reflected honour on himself. Had he
been plain " mister " he would have called him " my
boy," or " Milksop," or any other term of familiarity.
" Mr. Brown," or " Mrs. Green," we mean to observe,
is a before-your-face style of expression, instead of the
old one of " master " or " mistress."

Now for the last shade of all that ends this strange
eventful story.

Lambkin quickly made his appearance, looking all
the better for his feed of corn and entry into the
stable. Even Strutt, prejudiced as he was, could not
but feel that he was a nice looking horse.

Tom, the helper, sidled him up to where Mr.
Strutt stood, and with one hand at the bits, the other

28o THE HUNTING FIELD

at the stirrup, and the clean towel over the left
shoulder, held Lambkin for the great little man to
mount.

Mount he did, but ere his right foot gained the
stirrup, Lambkin, with one of those tremendous
efforts, sent him flying several yards, pitching him head
foremost in the pit of old Marjory Daw, the Banbury
cake woman's, stomach, who, unfortunately for herself,
was passing by at the time.

What a hubbub was there ! How the women
screamed ! how the men stared ! Gilpin's celebrated
ride to Edmonton did not create greater sensation on
that line of road than did Simon Strutt's summerset.

It was an uncommonly clean thing.

The most provoking part of a "kick off" is, that
nobody can help laughing — great as their anxiety
may be, still the laugh will out. That is very odd,
for people do not laugh at each other when they
tumble out hunting, and yet they generally fall much
softer and dirtier, and consequently with less chance
of being hurt than the victim of a deliberate kick off.
" More dirt the less hurt " is a sound hunting axiom.
In this case perhaps, there were more than the
usual provocatives of laughter. There was a little
bumptious, over-dressed, cock-sparrow looking thing,
pitching like a cannon ball into an old cake-woman's
bread-basket. Old Margery was floored — regularly
doubled up — her Banbury cakes were scattered all
over the road, while the concussion sent Strutt's head
right into his hat, knocking the crown clean out, and
leaving him with the rest of the hat over his face,
looking just as if he were going to have a game at
blind man's buff.

Ye gods, what a rage he was in ! How he did
stamp, and splutter, and groan, and kick, and
swear he was finished ! The scene was ridiculous —
too ridiculous to pursue, so we will chop over to the
Captain and his doings.

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 281

The Captain's acute mind on hearing Job Tod's
laconic account of what had passed, saw there w^as a
chance which, industrious as he was, he determined
not to throw away. Accordingly he addressed the
following letter to Mr. Milksop, and sent it in a
parcel by the next " up " coach to Northampton,
where Mr. Milksop had to sleep : —

*' (Private and Confidential.)

" Dear Sir, — My groom having just reported to me that
your servant Strutt was very dissatisfied on the delivery of
Lambkin, it has just occurred to me that it is possible he may
play some tricks with the horse so as to prejudice you against
him, and I therefore think it due to myself to give you this hint
on the subject. His dissatisfaction, I imagine, arises from my
not complying with a most absurd custom of tipping him because
you bought my horse, a system too much pursued, I am sorry
to say, by parties with lame or inferior horses, in order to get
the servants' good word with their masters. That is a system
that has always been strenuously opposed by,

* ' My dear Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,
"George Shabbyhounde,

** To the Hon. Julius Milksop, ** Market Harborough.

Northampton. "

There never was a more perfect master-stroke of
policy than that of the Captain. Generally speaking,
it is a foolish, thankless office, giving a man a hint
about a servant ; but in the Captain's case it was a
dashing venture where he could not lose. Besides
we have already stated that Strutt had cause of dis-
satisfaction with his master, who had shown certain
rebellious symptoms, all inclining towards having
more of his own way; and of course what was
unpalatable to the man, would not be altogether
lost upon the master. In truth, Strutt did not
accommodate his carefulness of the boy, to the
growing independence of the man, and Mr. Milksop
had once or twice gone out of his way rather to let
Strutt see that he was not to have the upper hand.
The Captain's hint, therefore, was not likely to be

282 THE HUNTING FIELD

thrown away. Nevertheless, Mr. Milksop had for-
gotten all about it, as in the enjoyment of the " balmy
breeze " of a fine hunting morning, he cantered up to
the Cow at Dunchurch. What did he see ! Strutt,
instead of standing with his usual patronising air,
with a couple of jean-jacketed helpers behind him,
acknowledging his presence with a finger to his hat,
appeared in an old cloth foraging cap, with a blue
pocket handkerchief bound over his left eye, while
the other exhibited symptoms of going into
mourning.

"What's the matter?" exclaimed Mr. Milksop,
pulling up in astonishment.

''Matter!''' replied Strutt, with the dignity of a
deeply injured man ; " matter, by God ! " continued
he, " I've pretty near lost my precious life with that
ere blasted rip of yours."

"What rip?" asked Mr. Milksop, who knew the
term to be one of general application.

" Why that d d beast Colonel Scabbydog, or

whatever they call him, has stuck into you."

" What, my new horse ! " exclaimed Mr. Milksop.

''New Devil!'' retorted Mr. Strutt, "he's as
vicious as a whole caravan full of tigers."

" Vicious ! " repeated Mr. Milksop.

" Vicious, ay, vicious^' reiterated Strutt, with an
emphasis, "he nearly killed me — most pulled the
stable down — takes ten men to hold him — 'bliged to
put his corn down through the rack."

" God bless me, you don't say so ! " observed Mr.
Milksop, quite disconcerted. "You are none the
worse though, I hope," added he, looking at the little
great man's dejected appearance.

" Wuss ! " exclaimed he, his impudence rising with
his master's consideration. " Wuss," repeated he,
with a shake of his head and shrug of his shoulders,
"never had such a shake in my Hfe, I know. Wish
I may ever get over it."

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 283

" Well, but what am I to do ? " asked Mr. Milksop,
seeing the hounds were about to leave the meet, " I
was going to ride him, you know," added he.

" I intend you to ride Apollo," said Strutt, with his
usual consequence, " he's all ready — here, Tom ! "
exclaimed he, *' bring out the orse ! "

When the hounds were drawing Birdingbury
Faggot Cover, who should appear but Captain
Shabbyhounde, and with his appearance returned the
recollection of the over-night letter. Shabbyhounde's
quick eye saw at once it was a "case," but Milksop's
countenance, as he hurried up, had more the
appearance of a man wanting information, than the
lowering sulky scowl of one who has been ^^ done'^
The Captain was a second Lavater in physiognomy.

"Tell me," said Mr. Milksop, in the hurried way
men speak on the eve of battles and fox-hunts, " Tell
me," repeated he, " is that horse of yours vicious ? "

^^ Not the least /^^ exclaimed Shabbyhounde, with
emphasis, squeezing Milksop's proffered hand.

" Tallyho ! gone away I hark, halloo ! hark \
hoop ! hoop ! crack ! crack ! crack ! hold hard ! go
on ! Now, sir ! Do go on or get out of my way I
I'll ride you over ! "

Away for the Shuckborough hills, and Merston
Priors, and across to Ladbrooke Gorse, where the
hounds killed their fox, or another, which did quite
as well, ere our friends had time to finish their
confab. Once indeed

"They met, 'twas in a crowd,"

the majority of whom were craning at a wide
brook, and as Shabbyhounde and Milksop beat
simultaneously on the opposite bank, the former
flourishing his whip, exclaimed in joyous exultation at
the feat, " Not a sweeter tempered horse in the world,
by God ! " but a paralyzing bullfinch immediately

284 THE HUNTING FIELD

intervening, stopped all further intercourse, and they
saw no more of each other till the end of the run.
Not that either of them shirked the bullfinch, but
they got through at different places, and it is much
easier to part company than get together in a run.
The pace was severe. Quickest thing that ever
was seen ! All quick things are. Every season fur-
nishes a bushel of them. "A fellow feeling makes
us wondrous kind," they say, and in no case is the
truth of the adage more strongly exemplified than
among foxhunters.

We often think if Frenchmen had a turn for
hunting, what hugging and kissing there would be on
a kill !

Shabbyhounde and Milksop had each "gone a
good-un," and some time was consumed in discuss-
ing the delightful variety and size of the leaps ere
Mr. Milksop again bethought him of recurring to
Lambkin.

Shabbyhounde assured him he was the most
perfect tempered horse he had ever had in his stable,
and though it would be going out of his way, he
offered to accompany Mr. Milksop to Dunchurch to
prove it.

Had Lambkin been troubled with hydrophobia, he
could not have been more tightly secured than they
found him. Tied short up to the rack, and hoppled
both before and behind.

"What's all this about?" asked Shabbyhounde,
following the disconcerted Strutt into the stable.

" Vicious ! " retorted Shabbyhounde, in reply to
Strutt's asseveration — "not half so vicious as the
man that put those on," continued he.

Strutt, for once, was taken aback.

The Captain proceeded to liberate the animal,
whose trembling, frightened manner, showed he had
been abused. All abused horses show this, if masters

CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 285

would but take the trouble to observe them.
Nevertheless there are more savage servants in stables
than nine-tenths of the world imagine.

It would be impertinent in us to trouble the
sagacious reader with the denouement of this deal in
detail. The most rusty-brained, wooden-headed cock
among them, must anticipate that the Captain was too
many for Strutt. The fact of the horse having been
taken out, coupled with Strutt's assertion of his vicious-
ness, and the Captain's wily insinuation by letter, all
tended to a hasty dismissal, which was not even ,
softened by the stale trick of being allowed to give up
the place himself on seeing he was going to lose it.
Strutt was chassaed.

Having had occasion, however, to exhibit the
Captain in not the most enviable colours, to avoid the
imputation of painting human nature "too severely-
true," we will add something that may be placed to
his credit. Finding Mr. Milksop was not sufficiently
strong in the fork to compete with the vigorous,
efforts of Lambkin, and knowing that his recent
success over Strutt would only add fresh fuel to
the fire of his exertions, the Captain kindly gave
Mr. Milksop the pick of his stud in exchange, and
Milksop got a very fine ^'^o piece of antiquity that
was worth " any money," if he only stood sound.
Shabbyhounde's disinterested benevolence carried him
still further. He accommodated Mr. Milksop with Job
Tod, though helpers' wages had riz from twelve to
fourteen shillings a-week, and he could not hope to
supply Job's place under this latter amount.

Job, it may be thought, was not exactly the man
for the heir to a peerage, but when a master has.
been racked by the forward, loquacious, tormenting
impertinence of an officious, presuming puppy, he is
very apt to fall into the other extreme in the choice of
a successor, and Job, it must be admitted, was the very
antipodes to Strutt. Job was too old and too strongly

286

THE HUNTING FIELD

stamped by nature to change or be spoiled, though
good clothing and diet soon made a very different
looking man of him. Indeed so pleased was Mr.
Milksop with Job, that he looked upon Captain
Shabbyhounde in the light of a benefactor, and the
piece of antiquity fortunately keeping on his legs, Mr.
Milksop was not at all sorry to see our hero cast up
at Leamington, w^here the recital of his kindness so
touched old Lord and Lady Creamjug, that Shabby-
hounde absolutely had the honour of dining with
them !

But we must dismiss this illegitimate member of
the hunting field, who has occupied more of our
space than any of the real worthies who have pre-
ceded him.

Captain Shabbyhounde, adieu !

(5^

CHAPTER XX

LADY FOXHUNTERS
SIR RASPER SMASHGATE AND MISS COTTONWOOL

^ HERE is nothing we hate
so much as seeing a
woman lolling alone in
a carriage with a lap-
dog sticking out of the
window. It is the pic-
ture of deserted dejec-
tion— of utter loneliness,
friendlessness, and soli-
tude.

Carriages are now so
multiplied that not keep-
ing one is the singularity instead of keeping one the
wonder. Roads are so good that we can get almost
everywhere upon wheels ; and feet and horses — saddle
horses at least — are about in equal disuse. We
should like to see a return of the number of carriages
kept now, and the number that were kept a hundred
or even fifty years ago.

Considering the luxurious inert lives many of our
highest aristocracy lead, it is wonderful that they still
retain their superiority of appearance. What possible
exercise can there be in lounging on a soft cushioned,
easy hung carriage, for two or three hours in the day,

287

288 THE HUNTING FIELD

grinding up and down by the Serpentine, or, what is
worse, hurrying from house to house, changing from
hot rooms to cold air, and from cold air to hot rooms
— carved ivory card-case in hand, making what they
call "calls." Surely this system of cold-catching
must have been invented by the doctors for the
purpose of procuring patients. No wonder dashing
ladies think so little of their poor horses and servants
shivering in the cold and night air when they are so
regardless of themselves.

It is said that caricatures contain in a manner the
history of the times, and much such an observation
may be applied to inn and public-house signs. What
should we have thought fifteen or twenty years ago of
the sign of the Railway Tavern or the " Locomotive
Inn" depicted, with its hissing engine, and a long
train of railway carriages after it, and yet it has
become quite common, superseding our ancient friend
the pack-horse. "The pack-horse" was eminently
characteristic of the times, speaking, as plainly as
words can speak, of heavy bottomless roads and
slow progress. The unspeakable badness of the
roads in former times may perhaps have been one
reason for the fewness of carriages that were kept in
comparison with what are kept in the present day,
for formerly travelling was a real matter of slavish
drudgery, and we are not surprised at our forefathers
staying at home, or at our foremothers being able to
spin, pickle, and preserve.

People who were past horse exercise had scarcely
any alternative but staying at home, unless they
tacked all the lumbering long-tailed cart-horses to
the old family tub, and ploughed their way to the
next town, furnishing subsequent lazy road-surveyors
with the favourite argument against improvement,
that "Squire Stick-in-the-mud's coach and four used
to travel that road when it w^as far worse." Squire
Stick-in-the-mud was never in a hurry, not so Squire

LADY FOXHUNTERS 289

Stick-in-the-mud's grandson, who is always in a stew
— always in motion and never doing anything —
railways have really made idle people believe that
their time is valuable.

Housekeeping and riding we take it had been part
of a woman's stock education in former days. If we
consult the old novelists we shall find that quite as
many heroines disappeared on side-saddles or on
pillions, as in the more aspiring mode of hack
chaises and four. Fielding, who had great knowledge
of both town and country life, makes his Sophia
Western arrive at the inn at Upton on horseback at
night, attended solely, if we remember rightly, by Mrs.
Honour, the housekeeper. We have not seen any
writer attempt to subjugate a railway train, so as to
invest it with the interest and sentiment necessary for
a novel. The noise, the smoke, the hiss, the " now,
marm, if you please ; tickets^ tickets^ tickets^ show your
tickets " — the riotous bell, and alarm whistle, are all
against the quiet privacy of an elopement.

Riding for ladies is now become wholly a matter
of luxury — there are no journey ridings — even the
pillions have disappeared with recent years, and
farmers' wives drive to market in gigs with "Giles
Jolter," or whatever their husband's name may be,
painted up behind. When her Majesty took her
daily promenades a cheval, as the French call them,
in the Park, equestrianism was all the rage, and we
had nothing but smart habits and slate-coloured veils.
Indeed, each season shows a good muster of fair
equestrians still, though, perhaps, not so many as
there used to be. We never go into the Park
without thinking how much better it must be for
them than the enervating, listless motion of a
carriage. Even park riding is slow work compared
to the free gallop of the country, but to be sure park
riding is generally pursued at a season of the year
when it is too hot for hard exercise.
19

290 THE HUNTING FIELD

One of the great faults of ladies' horses, and one
that prevents a great number of ladies from riding, is
having them too fresh — too much above themselves.
Grooms have what, when properly directed, is a very
laudable ambition, a desire to see their horses look
well, and this they are very apt to promote by over-
feeding and stimulants. High feeding, however, will
not do for ladies' horses. They should be rather
under than above themselves. Still you cannot get
one groom in a dozen to believe this — at all events
to act upon it. "Oh, mistress is going to ride
to-morrow," and down goes another feed of corn.
It would be much better to take one off and give
the horse a gentle canter in the morning. When
her Majesty rode, Miss Quentin always took the fiery
edge off her steed in the riding school for her.

All sportsmen know that half the pleasure of
hunting is in being pleasantly carried by a horse
that you have perfect confidence in, and surely
ladies must be equally sensible to the pleasures of
comfort. There can be no enjoyment if you are
constantly calculating when you are likely to be on
your back. We do not know a more frightful sight
than a woman run away with.

If low condition is desirable for the road, how
much more so must it be if a lady enters the hunting
field — a scene that is enough to excite the most
sedate and orderly-minded horse.
. And here we may observe that there is a wide
difference between ladies hunting and ladies coming
to see hounds throw off. They are as much in their
place at the meet as they are out of it tearing across
country. We like to see them at the meet ; it shows
that they take an interest in the amusements of their
husbands, their brothers, or their sweethearts. The
meet then being open to them, it follows as a matter
of course that they should come on horseback. We
cannot imagine poorer amusement than hunting on

LADY FOXHUNTERS 291

wheels — starving in a carriage on a cold winter's day,
jolting about country roads, pitching from one side of
the vehicle to the other, wondering which ditch they
will go into. People in carriages seem out of their
element altogether ; they look as if they did not belong
to the concern, and have very much the same sort of
appearance that a man in top-boots and spurs would
have in a ball-room. Let ladies come on horseback,
especially if they are pretty, for then the gentlemen
can make up to them through their horses, just as
they sometimes make up to gentlemen through the
gentlemen's dogs. Moreover, having to "attend to
the ladies" is an excellent excuse for any "coffee-
houser" who wants to cut home when they find.
Having then cantered to the meet, and seen old
reynard start, let our fair friends canter home to
luncheon, "with such appetites as they may" —
generally pretty good ones, we should think.

One of our objections to ladies hunting, though we
do not know that we have ever seen it taken before,
is that it deprives gentlemen of the agreeable change
and variety which their society makes in the evening.
Without intending the slightest disrespect to the fair
sex, we may say that it is possible to have "too much
of a good thing," and, if we exhaust all our jokes and
small-talk in a morning, it is very likely we shall be
"high and dry" in the evening. It is this sort of
over-communication that makes daily hunt dinners
such irksome, tedious things. You sit down with
the same men that you have been riding about with
all the day to a hash of the same conversation that
you have been indulging in before. We have all
our fancies and ideas as to what is most pleasant
and agreeable, but to our mind the good dinner and
cheerful female society of the evening is no small
enhancer of the pleasures of the morning. If, then,
the ladies have been at the meet, they can take part
and interest in the hunting part of the conversation,

292 THE HUNTING FIELD

which otherwise would be extremely dull and un-
interesting to them. What man ever wants to be
bored with the details of a day of which he has not
partaken ?

When women do ride they generally ride like the
very devil. There is no medium with them. They
either "go" to beat the men, or they don't "go"
at all. We have seen some uncommon performers
among women, performers that would put nine-tenths
of the men to the blush. We are puzzled whether to
give the palm to the single or to the married women
in this respect ; but, as the single are most interesting,
perhaps the preference will be yielded to them. Like
many things in this world it makes all the difference
who the party is that hunts. If a pretty woman
hunts we are all glad to see her; if an ugly one
comes we wonder what " brings her out." Certainly
dishevelled hair, ruddy and perspiring face, and
muddy habit, are more likely to be forgiven in the
bloom of youth than in what ought to be the orderly
sobriety of maturer years. We had dotted down a
lot of names of first-rate female performers across
country, but in looking it over we find it contains
such a curious medley, that we think it better to
suppress it altogether than risk the chance of offending
by publishing an unpalatable assortment.

Never having been a woman, we cannot understand
how it is they manage to keep their seats. We see
what are called " wash ball " seated men rolling about
constantly, and yet women, to whom the term as well
as the form is much more applicable and becoming,
manage to keep on. Keeping their seats on the
road, and keeping them in the field are very different
things, about as different as riding horses on the road
and riding them with hounds. "Still, where there's
a will there's a way," and pretty dears who would
scream at the sight of a frog or a mouse, will face a
bullfinch from which many men would turn away —

LADY FOXHUNTERS 293

indeed that is one of the palpable inconveniences of
ladies hunting, for it is almost a point of honour for
men to go over what ladies have taken. If it were
not their ignorance when horses have done enough,
and their great desire for pace, we would rather be a
woman's horse than a man's. Women have much
finer, and more delicate hands than men, and they
never fight or bully their horses as men do — neither do
they ever pull them into their leaps — by which means
nine-tenths of the annual falls are procured. A horse
worthy the name of a hunter would very seldom fall
or make a mistake if left to himself. Let a man
watch a loose horse, or even a raw foal, following
the field, and see how safely, slowly, and easil)^, they
go over places that some men and some horses
terrify each other into believing are all but impractic-
able. Who has not seen horses throw arches, like
the dome of St. Paul's, over places little wider than
water furrows ?

There was a neat little jaundiced backed book
published a few years ago by Moxon, of Dover-street,
called " Hints on Horsemanship to a Nephew and
Niece, or Common Sense and Common Errors
in Common Riding, by an officer of the House-
hold Brigade of Cavalry," which, barring the officer
authorship, always an objectionable paternity in our
mind, gives a greenhorn as much instruction as it is
possible to derive from books, and contains, besides
sundry instructions about how to get on and how to
get off, the following very sensible observations on
the subject of pace — " I cannot finish," says he,
" without one word to deprecate a piece of inhumanity,
practised as much, perhaps more, by ladies than
gentlemen — the riding the horse fast on hard ground "
(our author might have included our old friends the
Grooms, for whoever saw one that did not select the
centre of the road, and how many do we see clattering
along making up for lost time, seeming as though

294 THE HUNTING FIELD

they were trying how soon they could w^ar the
horse's legs out). "I pray them to consider,"
continues our author, "that horses do not die of
old age, but are killed because they are crippled;
and that he who cripples them is the cause of their
death, not he who pulls the trigger. The practice
is as unhorsemanlike as it is inhuman. It is true
that money will replace the poor slaves as you use
them up, and if the occasion requires it, they must,
alas ! be used up ; but, in my opinion, nothing but
a case of life and death can justify the deed. If the
ground be hard and even, a collected canter may be
allowed, but if hard and uneven, a moderate trot at
most. One hour's gallop on such ground would do
the soundest horse irremediable mischief. Those
who boast of having gone such a distance in such
a time, on the ground supposed, show ignorance or
inhumanity. Such facts require cruelty only, not
courage. Nay, they are performed most commonly
by the very persons who are too cowardly or too
unskilful to dare to trust their horse with his foot on
the elastic turf, or to stand with him the chances of
the hunting field; and such is the inconsistency of
human nature, that they are performed by persons
who would shudder at the bleeding flank of the
race-horse ! or who w^ould lay down with disgust and
some expression of maudlin, morbid humanity, the
truly interesting narrative of that most intrepid and
enduring of all gallopers. Sir Francis Head. But
compare the cases. In the case of the race-horse,
he has his skin wounded to urge him to a two or at
most a five minutes' exertion, from which in ten
minutes he is perfectly recovered and ready, nay
eager to start again. In the case of the wild horse
of the Pampas, he is urged for two, three, or perhaps
five hours to the utmost distress for wind, as well as
muscular fatigue ; he is enlarged, and in three or four
days he is precisely the same as if he had never been

LADY FOXHUNTERS 295

ridden. But in the case of this English road-rider,
though no spur is used, unfair advantage is taken of
the horse's impetuous freedom of nature ; his sinews
are strained, his joints permanently stiffened ; he is
deprived, at once and for ever, of his elasticity and
action, and brought prematurely a cripple to the
grave." Let the ladies remember that ; it is not age
that makes most horses useless, but work. It has
been well said that a free-actioned, high-couraged
horse will wear out two sets of legs, and we believe
it. Let us then endeavour to make the one set that
nature allows last as long as possible. Riding on
soft ground will be found to be a great conducer to
that end. Now to other matters.

If any pretty young lady were to propound to us
the following —

" Do you think it would assist me in catching young
Mr. Redrag if I were to take to foxhunting ? "

We should say : —

Be cautious ; we have our doubts. It may catch
him, or it may scare him. Some men think mounting
themselves as much as they can manage, and would
rather have a wife staying at home looking after the
house than tearing about the country after the hounds.
Besides, it is possible you might beat him, and men
don't like being beat by their wives in the field, any
more than wives like being beat by their husbands
in the house. Again, we say, be cautious. But here
comes a case in point : our fair friend, Henrietta
Cottonwool. Henrietta has been after that weary
Sir Rasper Smashgate, the whole of this blessed
season, and now, as spring is about to set in, with
its usual severity, she feels herself constrained to
take some decided step. " To be, or not to be," is
the point — Lady Smashgate or Henrietta Cottonwool.
Henrietta is a fine, large, full-grown, healthy-looking
girl, who, of course, says she thinks "all girls fools
who marry," and yet at the same time would do

296 THE HUNTING FIELD

anything to catch a husband herself. She uses the
common figure of speech, in fact, or, rather, the
common figure of lie — a figure so common, that if
all men were married it might be abolished, for it
only does for the bachelors, and those must be of the
soft order, who believe it.

A man is not a match for a woman till he's married.
That is an aphorism to which all Benedicts will assent.
Our friend Sir Rasper Smashgate is in a somewhat
similar predicament to the half-starved costermonger's
horse, whose guardian boy declared had plenty of
corn only he "hadn't got no time to eat it." Smash-
gate is matrimonially inclined, at all events he has
no objection to matrimony, only hunting leaves him
no time for making love. We should apologise to
the baronet for not sooner sketching him, but the
same sort of difficulty has attended our efforts — we
never knew where we had him. Our reminiscent
readers will perhaps recal that in the early part of
these papers we mentioned the fact of Mr. Cotton-
wool having been partly converted to foxhunting, or
rather fox-preserving, from having seen Henrietta in
the grasp of Smashgate (waltzing, or attempting to
waltz, as far as the Smasher was concerned), which,
aided by the promptings of the ambitious Mrs. Wool,
had induced our friend to have the Master and
" Co." to feed (vide No. i of these papers). That
man " Co.," as the country lad in London wrote to
his father, " is a great man — he is in partnership
with almost everybody;" but the Co. in this case
was meant to include all the members of the hunt,
or, perhaps, more correctly speaking, it was meant
for Sir Rasper in particular and for the hunt in
general. Sir Rasper was to be " Co." As the best
laid plans, however, will occasionally miscarry, so,
in this instance, Mrs. Cottonwool's project went awry.
On the day of the dinner, which Sir Rasper accepted
"conditionally," as indeed he accepts all his invita-

LADY FOXHUNTERS 297

tions during the winter, ^^ if he gets home m time^^^ he
had gone eighteen miles " t'other way " to meet Lord
Uncommonswell's magnificent hounds, which, never
throwing off before eleven by their clocks, or half-
past eleven by other people's, had been close upon
twelve before they moved from the meet, the
Countess of Uncommonswell having come in her
barouche and six, with five out-riders, to smile be-
nignly on the field, and try to stick a couple of
plainish sisters (now rendered still plainer by the
addition of red noses), into any ambitious Nimrods
who might aspire to wives out of a coronetted carriage.
It was a show day, in short, and of course, late. The
meet might be unusually protracted perhaps, from
the circumstance of the countess not having any one
in particular to whom she wished to recommend her
goods, she had, therefore, to keep a stall, as it were,
and trust to chance for customers. Some men think
of nothing but sweet-hearting. They are always
"dying" for some girl, and commit as many imaginary
demises in the twelvemonth as old Mantalini himself.
When the hounds did throw off in earnest (for of
course they had to draw two or three sham places
first, for the accommodation of the ladies), the way
they dashed into Everhold Gorse plainly said that
sly-boots (if he will allow us to call him so) was at
home, and before Lord Uncommonswell had got half
through his dog-language, a great banging big-brushed,
white-tagged, greyish-backed dog-fox, almost knocked
the fifth Whipper-in off his hind legs, as he was
trying to open the bridle-gate at the north end of the
cover. The poor lad was so paralyzed — never having
been in such close contact with so formidable a
customer — that a second or two elapsed ere it
occurred to him that he ought to do something, a
pause that master reynard availed himself of for
stealing quietly up the deep newly-cleaned-out ditch
of a thick hedgerow. At last the lad having cUmbed

298 THE HUNTING FIELD

on to his gigantic horse, hoisted his cap in the air,
which had much the effect of the prolonged flourish
of the head-fiddler at the opera.

A terrible noise was the result !

" Now," as Peter Beckford familiarly asks, " where
are all your sorrows, and your cares, ye gloomy souls ?
Or where your pains and aches, ye complaining ones ?
One halloo has dispelled them all."

Peter's description does not exactly fit our hunt,
for we had a hundred halloos at least, and half as
many screeches and yells, to say nothing of the dis-
cordant brass music of the noble Master and his
Huntsman.

However, the following will do : —

"What a crash they make, and echo seemingly
takes pleasure to repeat the sound. The astonished
traveller forsakes his road, lured by its melody ; the
listening plowman now stops his plow (sic in the
original, as the lawyers say), and every distant
shepherd neglects his flock, and runs to see him
break. What joy ! what eagerness in every face ! "

And then Peter prigs a bit of poetry from Somer-
ville, which we in our turn will prig from Peter,
requesting the accommodating reader to turn the
sentiment about the forgetfulness of sorrow into
Smashgate's total forgetfulness of Cottonwool's
dinner : —

"How happy art thou man when thou'rt no more
Thyself! When all the pangs that grind thy soul,
In rapture and in sweet oblivion lost,
Yield a short interval and ease from pain ! "

We like old Somerville for that idea ; it speaks the
sportsman. Sporting writing has this charm, it is
sure to tell with sportsmen. Others may turn up
their noses (some people's noses seem only made for
turning up), and say " what stuff! " but good sporting
feeling is sure to tell where it is intended. Who has

LADY FOXHUNTERS 299

not felt one tally-ho ! banish old dull care, for as
every Frenchman has a " suit," so every EngUshman
has a sorrow, and it is only by increasing their size
that we are sensible of the smallness and absurdity
of the old ones. It has been well said that an
Englishman is only thoroughly happy when he is
miserable.

Be that as it may, however, Sir Rasper Smashgate
had as few cares as most people. His hopes and
fears w^ere centred in his stud, with the addition,
perhaps, of his razors. If he got a good shave in the
morning he was generally happy for the rest of the
day, for he had twelve as good hunters as a sixteen
stone man could desire, with two thorough-bred
hacks, and a stud-groom equal to his business, and
yet not above it. Added to this. Sir Rasper was in
the heighday of youth, stood six feet high in his
stocking-feet, with a great deal of good land, and a
great deal of money in the funds — two most desirable
concomitants — moreover, he never laid out a shilling
in pills.

Smasher (for so he is called by his friends) came
to his title from an uncle, at an earlier period than
uncles are generally in the habit of putting off their
shoes, before which our hero had lived at home with
his mother, who had long held a commission to get
him a wife — a commission that we regret to say she
had departed this life without executing. Smashgate
was an exemplification of the good and dutiful son,
for he was ready to marry any one his mother re-
commended ; but thinking she would be the best
judge of the article, he just left it to her to suit him,
as he would the choice of a piece of linen for shirts,
or as he left it to Tilbury to supply him with horses.
Somehow Sir Rasper was never much in society,
though many great ladies had him high on their list
of " eligibles," and some had gone to no little trouble
in " touting " him. Whether his mother had put him

300 THE HUNTING FIELD

up to a thing or two, or he had too manly a mind to
contend with the hsping butterfly things he had to
encounter we know not, but certainly, after the death
of his mother. Sir Rasper seemed more likely to be a
bachelor than a Benedict.

We sometimes meet men like Sir Rasper Smashgate
in the world — men who seem neglected by the sex,
just as we see women neglected by the men. Indeed,
there must be many such, for it was only this morning
we encountered the following amusing advertisement
in a Sunday paper :

"Matrimonial Society. — Single ladies and gentlemen
really desirous of entering that state which heaven has adjudged
to be the most conducive to virtue and happiness, will find the
above truly deserving of their consideration and confidence. A
select party of ladies and gentlemen, combining rank, influence,
character, talent, and extensive acquaintance, influenced princi-
pally by a desire to extend the social comforts they have realised
to the hermits around them, whose single state is the result
alone, perhaps, of circumstances, have determined to improve
their leisure by promoting, as it lies in their power to do,
felicitous unions. To prevent imposition, a trifling sum is re-
quired as a proof of sincerity, and nothing afterwards, but on
the realisation of matrimonial bliss. Both parties mutually
bound to secrecy and sincerity. — None but respectable characters
need apply, who will be treated with the utmost respect and
decency."

The prevention of imposition is a charming feature
in the foregoing. It is like the livery stable notice,
"for fear of accidents, pay before mounting." Sir
Rasper Smashgate had never been reduced to this
deplorable state, but the death of his mother, and
hearing nothing about matrimony, coupled with his
extensive prosecution of the chase in winter, and the
attractions of Epsom, Ascot, Limmer's door, club
windows, and yachts in summer, with shooting in
autumn, drew him more and more from the petticoats,
till at last disappointed mammas used to speak of him
as that "'orrid man, Sir Rasper Smashgate," and
indulge in the usual insinuation ladies deal in against

LADY FOXHUNTERS 301

men who don't make up to their daughters — " Poor
lost creature 1 " and so on.

We have now run a ring with our hero, and shall
bring him back to the starting place to see if Henrietta
Cottonwool can run a "ring" with him too. Oh,
could but another Diable Boiteux visit the earth,
disclosing the secrets of human breasts, as Le Sage's
Diable disclosed the secrets of the town, what a real
blessing it would be to sighing, dying, suitoring
lovers ! When Sir Rasper Smashgate did not cast
up at Cottonwool's, what tormenting thoughts racked
the mind of poor Henrietta ! Dressed in her new
pale blue satin, with a point berthe, and a silver
thing like a cow tie twisted in her bright brown hair,
and a winter's nosegay in her hand, of which nosegay
she was ready to give Sir Rasper any part he asked,
or the whole of her hand if he preferred. All this,
too, after she had planned the proceedings of the
drawing-room, the line of march to the dining-room,
so as to manoeuvre herself next him at dinner, ring
after ring, and door after door opened, and no Sir
Rasper. Everybody but him.

Cruel Lord Uncommonswell ! or rather cruel fox
that took the cruel hounds such a cruel distance.
When Sir Rasper Smashgate ought to have been
sitting down to dinner at Mr. Cottonwool's, he was
sucking off a pair of waterlogged boots and tripey
leathers at a village public twenty miles off. They
had had a tremendous run ! They were sure to have,
indeed. It only requires a man to have a particular
engagement in the east to insure him a splitting run
to the west. Sir Rasper had been uncommonly well
carried; indeed, he generally was, and wearing a
blank button had felt himself bound to ride for the
honour of the world at large. He was so elevated
that we are almost ashamed to say he never thought
of Cottonwool, Henrietta, or anybody, until he got
his huge legs dived into a bucket of hot water.

302 THE HUNTING FIELD

Then, as he sat thinking the run over, and debating
whether he should have " beef-steak," or " mutton-
chop " — "mutton-chop" or " beef-steak," for dinner,
it occurred to him that he ought to be dining at
Cottonwool's.

*'Ah, well, never mind," observed he, "I said I'd
come if I could," and, with that easy indifference, he
settled both hopes and fears, and the fate of all the
roasts, boils, jellys, and creams. Much as women
may pretend to like hunting, there is not one old one
in a hundred who will admit the excuse of a "late
day" for a non-appearance at dinner, at least at a
"spread." Dinner, in their minds, is the grand
business of life, it takes precedence of everything.
" Men hcv-7e no business to accept invitations, if they
ain't sure thty can come. All stuff about the hounds
— 7nere excuse — Mr. Spoonbill and Mr. Slowman
could both come away — why couldn't Sir Rasper —
could, if he would — where there's a will there's a
way ; " and then they generally wind up with the old
assertion, that "he'll come the next time he's asked,"
meaning that they won't give him another chance,
which most likely they don't do until it suits their
convenience, when, like Lord Byron's lady, who

-" Loves again,

To be again undone,"

they invite again, to be disappointed a second time.

Gentlemen, however, may take our word for it, it is
no use joking with the ancients about dinner. We
have reason to believe that we lost a very stiff legacy
from a sturdy old aunt, whom nothing could convince
that we were not humbugging about the hounds.
We had promised to dine with her to meet old Sir
Timothy Grumpington of Grumpington Hall, Gray's
Inn-road (a sweet rus in urbe on the left, as you go
north), and unfortunately our friend Joseph Lob of
Highbury-terrace, offered us a mount with Lord

LADY FOXHUNTERS 303

Derby's staggers (for it is long ago, and aunt, Lord
Derby, Grumpington, staggers and all, have long been
in their graves), which met at the White Lion, Lock's
Bottom, whither Lob offered to drive us, and bring
us back if we liked. The great merit of staggers un-
doubtedly is the certainty of a gallop, and the pretty
near certainty where you will finish; but, on this
provoking day, the insensate creature seemed to have
had a turn for visiting every part of the country ; and
north, south, east, and west, were equally favoured
with his presence ; the consequence of which was,
our aunt was not favoured with ours for three-
quarters of an hour after the appointed time, when we
found Sir Timothy Grumpington with half-appeased
appetite, but wholly unappeased mind, and aunt in
that direful state of excitement that old ladies in-
variably are whose whole dinner has been spoiled by
long waiting. People should be all in the same boat
who sit down to a long-delayed dinner.

But let us hark back to Henrietta, Sir Rasper, and
Fleecy Hall, for we want to get a glance at the end of
the season before we finish our book. Sir Rasper, as
we said before, did not cast up at the Fleecy Hall
dinner, and, as usual, in all cases of extreme anxiety,
no end of mistaken, and, we fear, somewhat illiberal
surmises, were indulged in, as to the cause of his
absence. Mrs. Cottonwool, who had been "trotted
out " by a few men before she became Mrs. Cotton-
wool, and knew all the symptoms of " no go," set it
down at once as a case of desertion — *' trifling with
her daughter's feelings," as they call it. It never
entered her mind that a man could love hunting
better than his food, after the fashion of Gray's bull-
dog, who is reported to have loved fighting better
than his, and therefore she would advise Henrietta to
have no more to say to Sir Rasper. Indeed, for her
part, she thought her daughter had had a most
fortunate escape, for it was quite impossible to look

304 THE HUNTING FIELD

for conjugal happiness with a man so thoroughly
undomesticated as he was, who thought of nothing
but tearing about the country from morning to night ;
indeed, if all were true, there were other objections^
which Mrs. Cottonwool indicated by sundry little
tosses of her head, much in the manner of a carriage
horse teazed by flies.

Old " Wool," of course, said that he never thought
there was anything in it, which procured him the
usual recommendation " to hold his tongue, and not
talk about things he did not understand," for Mrs.
Cottonwool had clearly settled in her own mind that
there had been a "nibble," and though she might
pretend to "whip off" at present, she meant to lay
Henrietta on again the first convenient opportunity.
Those opportunities in the country are very rare,
especially in the hunting season, where men ivill
make their engagements subservient to hunting.
This is where hunt balls tell ; it gives the women a
chance of bringing men to book ; for, as they cannot
be hunting at night, if they have any ^^ real inten-
tions " they can come to a ball.

Henrietta Cottonwool, of course, being of the same
way of thinking as " mamma " — indeed, mamma's
opinions must have been chiefly derived from the
daughter — has determined not to let the season close
without a final effort for our hero. Accordingly she
has enlisted one of those convenient articles called a
cousin, that women know so well how to use, either
as suitors or cats'-paws, to attend her to the meet.
Well she looks as she sits on her horse, and if the
animal was only as well turned out as she is, she
would do uncommonly well. There is not one
woman in a hundred with the slightest idea about
either a horse or a carriage. Thin legs and long tails
are all they look for in a saddle-horse. Small legs,
however, would not exactly do for Henrietta, for she
is a good load, though her well-formed back and

LADY FOXHUNTERS 305

waist are admirably developed by the close-fitting
evenness of her well-made London habit. The hat,
too, becomes her. It rather fines than fulls her
plump healthy cheeks, and the maid has given some
extra labour in the brightening and arrangement of
her flat-dressed hair. Most young women look well
in hats and habits. But here comes Sir Rasper,
bearing down the road like a man-of-war in full sail
He comes at the pace of the regular five or six days
a week man, who knows to a minute how long it will
take him to "do" each meet. You can tell at a
glance that he is a workman ; every thing bespeaks
it, from the hat on his head to the spur at his heel.
What an age of anxiety — what a world of time is
often comprised in a brief, unpremeditated moment
like the present ! A glance, a look, a word, and the
thing is done. Sir Rasper greets our fair friend with
the hearty cordiality of a half-way-met agreeably-
surprised foxhunter. He is pleased with the atten-
tion of so fine a girl. A tinge of pink pervades
Henrietta's bright healthy complexion, as she re-
cognizes the pressure of his somewhat hard hand.
When hers is released she dives into the saddle-
pocket for the fine lace-fringed handkerchief. Cousin
Spooney looks amazed.

How long soever a man may be about it, it is clear
there must be a first thought, a first impulse as to
marrying a girl, and Sir Rasper's impulse came on
him rather suddenly this morning. Pleased with
Henrietta's appearance, flattered by her preference,
and perhaps wanting a solace for the fast wearing-out
season, he said to himself as he changed his hack for
his hunter, ''^ By Jove^ why shouldrCt I marry herV^

TO OUR READERS.

" If any of you know cause or just impediment
why these two persons should not be joined to-

3o6

THE HUNTING FIELD

gether in holy matrimony, you are now to declare
it."

ORDERED,

" That she be made. Lady Smashgate accordingly ;
and that we have two pair of gloves and one pound
of cake sent us. Cards and compliments we dispense
with."

W00^S

CHAPTER XXI

COLONEL CODSHEAD ; OR, THE CLOSE OF THE SEASON

"I knows no more melancholic ceremony than takin the
string out of one's at, and foldin hup the old red rag at the end
o' the season — a rag unlike all other rags, the dearer and more
hinterestin the older and more worthless it becomes."

Jorrock's Sportin Lector.

ORD bless us ! here
comes old Colonel
Codshead — old we may
well call him, for we
have seen him cast up
at the end of fifteen
seasons, vowing each
time that he meant
to take to hunting in
"right earnest" at the
beginning of the next.
Season after season
have we seen the incursions of good living on his
frame, marked the slow progress of corpulence, as
layer after layer of fat has been added to his size.
Fourteen years ago, the colonel, though not slim, was
what might be called a fine stout healthy looking
man — full limbed, but not obese — ruddy, without
being pimply, blotchy, or purply.

Now he looks like an over-fed alderman. His

307

3o8 THE HUNTING FIELD

lascivious eyes are starting out of his head, the roses
of his flabby cheeks have dissolved into number-
less little red veins, while his mulberry-coloured nose
has thrown out divers little knots and hillocks, all
indicative of devotion to the jolly god.

Codshead has on the very coat — nay, we believe,
the very coat, waistcoat, breeches, and boots — in
which he appeared fourteen years ago. The coat,
we remember, was the first dress one — the first

"Bed by night, and chest of drawers by day,"

that appeared in our country, and of course produced
a corresponding impression. It then fitted him as a
coat should fit, easy and comfortable-looking, neither
too tight nor too loose; the waist was where the
colonel's waist was, and if the collar was twice or
thrice the breadth of collars of the present day, it was
not a bit more ridiculous than the hem-like things of
our times will be hereafter. It was then a fresh, well-
favoured coat, and though we cannot say we admire
the cut, it nevertheless became the colonel. Alas !
how changed are both coat and colonel !

There is nothing hurts a man's vanity so much as
the conviction that he is getting fat. So long as he
retains his figure and activity he may be any age, but
when this

" too, too solid flesh won^t melt,"

when relentless beef will load the neck, back, reins,
loins — all the places that used to be mentioned in
Moore's once indelicate almanack — a dreadful con-
viction comes over him, that — to put it in the mildest
form — he is not so young as he was.

Against this terrible admission Colonel Codshead
has long borne up stoutly and manfully. — He will not
admit that he is an ounce heavier than he was twenty
years ago, and all because by dint of extreme exertion

COLONEL CODSHEAD 309

and compression he can manage to squeeze himself
into the clothes he wore then. It certainly says
much for the elasticity and the accommodating
nature of human raiment that the clothes which then
encased our hero, will now contain a carcass almost
half as big again. Pride feels no pain, they say, and
that is lucky, or our colonel would be in the height of
suffering at the present moment, for the once easy,
well-fitting coat is now as tight as the parchment on a
drumhead — indeed all his clothes are in a correspond-
ing state of uneasiness.

The coat is one of the few instances we have met
with of a scarlet coat being absolutely shabby without
bearing any apparent marks of wear. A hunting coat
generally fails at the laps, which acquire a fine
buckram -like feel and plum -coloured hue, to the
enhancement of the rest of the garment. The
Colonel's coat has gone down altogether. It has no
more sign of wear — horse wear at least — than an
omnibus cad's, or an old Vauxhall waiter's. There is
something healthy, sporting, and pleasing in the sight
of a well-dyed, well-stained, dull-buttoned old coat.
We look at it with the sort of reverence that we
regard the tattered banners in a church chancel, or in
a baronial hall. We respect the old rag for what it
has done ; but a frowsy, dusty, faded, flannelly, bath-
bricky looking thing like the Colonel's, suggests a
finger and thumb to the nose more than anything
else ; yet it has seen service — drawing-room, dining-
room, ball-room service, but little — very little — out-
of-door work.

The history of a hunting coat, from the matter-of-
course fall on the first launch, down to the ultimate
dismissal as "too bad even for a wet day," would
furnish a fine theme for the pen of the biographer of
the " fox," or any other gentleman short of a subject.
The Colonel's coat, we don't think, ever got the
initiatory fall ; it has been an upstanding one all its

3IO THE HUNTING FIELD

life. Some men pass with the ladies for great sports-
men because they never get falls ; the dear creatures
never imagining for a moment that they never get
them because they never give their horses a chance
of giving them them. So, again some ladies, when
they hear of Captain Fearnought or Mr. Daredevil
getting two or three tumbles a-day, immediately set
them down as desperate tailors, imagining, of course,
that they tumble off. To adapt the doctrine of
hunting mischances to the "meanest capacity," the
horses should be described as getting the falls and
not the men. But let us paint away at the Colonel,
for he covers a great breadth of canvas.

The most forlorn looking things in a hunting field
are a pair of old tight moleskin breeches, bursting
at the knees. How Colonel Codshead ever got his
great uncompromising legs wheedled into his, passes
our comprehension. Were it not for the danger that
would attend the performance in consequence of the
frailty of the article, we should imagine that he had
had recourse to the old expedient of being slung into
them, as it is said the booted dandies of George the
Third's time used to be into theirs, when an exquisite
giving an order to his leather breeches maker added
these emphatic words, "Mind, if I can get into them
I won't have them." Colonel Codshead's moleskins
have seen many seasons — they are far anterior to the
coat — indeed we remember thinking, when it was
launched, that it would have been as well if he had
carried his attentions a little lower, and got himself a
pair of new breeches also. Since then the button-
holes have been acting the part of a boy's nick-stick
prior to the holidays. Each succeeding season has
scored a rent until there is not a button-hole without
a darn. The whole ten buttons look as if they were
ready to fly off at a moment's notice. Tremendous
work it must have been getting them coaxed together !
The boots are quite of a piece with the breeches, with

COLONEL CODSHEAD 311

whom, however, they do not seem on visiting terms ;
a great interregnum — supplied certainly with a pro-
tuberance of most puddingey calf — intervening between
them and the moleskins. Spurs he doesn't sport —
they might be dangerous.

Colonel Codshead's anonymous - coloured, collar-
marked horse, is of a piece with his master — a great ^
plethoric, overfed creature, incapable of exertion if his
rider wished it. Indeed the evenness of condition of
the two is the only point we can praise ; and certainly
it is much more sensible for men to regulate their
horse's strength to their own, than to strive for that
tip-top condition, the property and prerogative of
stout nerves. What is the use of having a horse
equal to double the exertion the rider is capable of?
The Colonel's horse, in the palmy days of machiners,
would always have commanded forty pounds, for he
has sizt and strength enough for a wheeler ; indeed
we do not know but he might fetch forty pounds now,
prices being somewhat up. He is a dull, inanimate,
heavy-countenanced, ugly-looking animal, rendered
still worse from having been badly clipped, and being
now in that state of transition so trying to all horses,
the half-way house between his two coats. A badly
clipped horse looks wretched on a frosty, or cold,
drying day.

There is something about hunters — indeed about
horses that have any pretensions to that character —
that shows itself before you come to the real hedging
and ditching work. The horse that evinces no
increased pleasure or activity of action on changing
from hard ground to grass, has seldom any seeds of
the chase in his composition. His forte is harness.
The horse that puts his feet into ruts, grips, and
water furrows, instead of hitching himself over them
as it were, will be very apt to do the same in the
field, and it is perfectly notorious that a man may
break his neck at a small place as well as at a large

312 THE HUNTING FIELD

one. Indeed, we believe, if the catalogue of accidents
was canvassed, it would be found that the majority
of them have happened at small places. Horses
either do not see them or will not give themselves the
trouble to clear them. Hence men who hunt in
parts of Essex, and other widely-ditched countries,
declare that their formidable-looking leaps are the
safest — a comfortable theory to those who can bring
themselves to believe it.

Codshead is always " wanting a horse." There are
a good many men of this sort in the world, men who
are always on the look out, but who never buy. In
introducing Captain Shabbyhounde to our readers in
a former chapter, we commented upon the " I'll sell
you a horse " figure of speech sometimes adopted by
young men, or would-be great sportsmen, and knowing
ones, and the "Do you know of a horse that will
suit me ? " is the corresponding figure of speech for
the other end of life — adopted either by desperately
cautious men, or men who just ask the question
because they think it is fine to ask about a horse, or
from want of something to say. It seems an absurd
sort of question — for how are we to know what will
suit another man. Half the people in this world
don't know what will suit themselves. A quick tailor
or bootmaker, they say, will measure a man with his
eye, and perhaps a horse-dealer may have the same
knack at guessing what will suit a customer ; but the
generality of people who are bored with the " do you
know of a horse that will suit me ? " question have
no such ability. To be sure, if one sees a great
pudding-headed, snuffy-nosed, wabbling-gutted fellow
stumping about, we may say " that man's only fit for
a cob, or for water carriage ; " but the bulk of horse-
wanters have no particularising mark, no character-
istic, or indicating symptoms. It is only in the
hunting field that riders can be classed. There one
can say, such and such a horse will suit such

COLONEL CODSHEAD 313

and such a man; because we see what both can
do, as well as what both "can't do," or won't try
to do.

If you were to shpw Colonel Codshead a hundred
and fifty horses he would pick a hole in each. Indeed
people are tired of showing him them, and to say that
you know a man who wants a horse, and name
Colonel Codshead, is enough to provoke a smile on
the face of the owner. Young Tom Rapid, who is
always in a hurry, having nothing whatever to do,
always greets our hero with, "Well, Cod, how are
you ? " adding, in the same breath, ^^ I don^t knoiv of a
horse that will suit you. ^^

But hark ! our Master greets the Colonel. Let
us hear what passes. Ten to one but it is the old
story.

Master, loquitur. " Good morning. Colonel Cods-
head ; glad to see you among us at last."

" Good morning, sir," replies Codshead ; " glad to
find myself out, I assure you ; quite refreshing after
the toils and fatigues of office."

Master. "Oh, ah, I forgot; IVe the honour of
addressing the Mayor of Turtleton (Master raising
his hat as he speaks), I hope we shall see more of
you ; though the season, I am sorry to say, is about
over."

"More's the pity," replies Codshead; "I was in
hopes to have had some good spring hunting."

" Not this season, I'm afraid," replies the Master ;
"too dry — fallows flying — farmers making up their
fences."

Codshead. "Well, better luck next time: must
begin early next year."

" Do'' replies the Master.

" Buy three or four good horses, and hunt regularly,"
rejoins Codshead.

" That's your sort ! " replies the Master.

"Never feel so well as I do after a good day's

314 THE HUNTING FIELD

hunting," adds Codshead, bumping himself in the
saddle.

'* Fine healthy amusement," observes our Master.

" You don't know of a horse that will suit one, do
you ? " asks Codshead — (hurrah 1 we knew it would
come).

" Not at present," replies our Master, with a smile,
having had an inward wager himself as to whether
Codshead would ask the question or not.

There are many Codsheads in the world — many
men who fancy they would like hunting amazingly
when they can't get it, and who never trouble it when
it is to be had. Scarlet coats have a vast of lies to
answer for. The Colonel, like his horse, has not the
slightest natural inclination for hunting — indeed, it is
rather a punishment to him than otherwise — he hunts
for the sake of the society and the good dinners it
procures him. After that, we need scarcely say the
Colonel is a bachelor. Now, a married colonel, and
a bachelor colonel, though born in the same year
perhaps, are very different aged people in female
estimation ; and our Colonel — albeit, but a yeomanry
one — ranks rather as one of those pretty boyish
colonels peculiar to the '* Guards," than one of the
hobbling, frosty-pated, wound-scarred old cocks of
the Peninsula or Waterloo.

A woman's foxhunter and a man's foxhunter are
very different things. If a man in a red coat is
always at a woman's beck and call — always ready
with something to say (a feat, by the way, not in
the accomplishment of all) — always ready to dance
attendance at their carriage sides when they go to see
the hounds throw off — always careless of the hounds
for the sake of their company — they think him a most
agreeable, engaging, captivating man — just what a
foxhunter ought to be, and when the "pasteboards"
go out such a man is sure to be remembered.

The man's foxhunter is one who adores the ladies.

COLONEL CODSHEAD

J^o

delights in their society, would ride a hundred miles
in the wet to serve them (on a non-hunting day), but
from the greatest beauty of whom the joyous Tally
ho I would draw him like a shot. Women like deeds
of daring, and the man who would leap turnpike
gates, garden walls, spiked palisades, and such-like
trifles, would find favour in their eyes for the madness,
while the sportsman would set such a performer down
for a fool.

We need not say that Codshead is a woman's
foxhunter, any more than that he is not a likely bird
to attempt any eccentricities in the leaping way. He
gets out of that scrape by professing to be one of the
" has beens " — " used to be a desperate rider — would
leap almost anything." He is only a ** has been " in
the riding way though ; in other respects he looks upon
himself as the pink of perfection, and truly it says
little for a neighbourhood where such a slushbucket
is tolerated.

Yet he is not only tolerated, but run after. His
red coat far oftener appears above a pair of black
shorts than above the darned moleskins, while the
glorious amplitude of calf now bagging over the too
tight top, like an overgrown omelette souffle over a
small dish, procures for him the appellation of a
" monstrous fine man." Somebody once told him
that he was like George the Fourth, and he has
dressed the character ever since — puffy, clean shave
all round, with a profusion of wiggy-looking curls at
the side of his broad-banded, broad-bound, broad-
brimmed hat. We wonder how many Princes and
George the Fourths we have seen in the course of
our time ?

Codshead is in request among the women, who
have a very favourite maxim, "that a man is never
too old to marry." Comfortable assurance !

To be sure Codshead's age varies a good deal,
according to the views and prospects of the speaker.

3i6 THE HUNTING FIELD ,

A mamma, with a "fairish chance" daughter will
kindly put him down at forty, while another with
small, or diminished hopes, will run him up to sixty.
Still, if there is a dinner going on within ten miles of
Turtleton, Codshead is sure of an invite. Single men
are always in request, even though they are as big
as —

" Two single gentlemen rolled into one."

This year he has shone forth in redoubled splendour
— Mayor of Turtleton, as well as Colonel Codshead,
and the consequent good living is visible alike on his
carcase and on his countenance. His hunting serves
to bring him in dinners. Very few appearances in a
red coat procure a man the reputation of a foxhunter
among the non-hunting portion of the community,
and the politeness of a well-judging world always
associates good society with the sport. Thus then,
if Mr. Closefist objects to having our Colonel invited
to dinner, insisting that he is nothing but a great
overgrown sponge, Mrs. Closefist will retaliate that he
is a man in the very first society, a man who visits
everybody, a great man with the Scourcountry hounds,
and Codshead comes, if in the hunting season, of
course in his red coat. Women and mackerel are all
for scarlet.

But what a place Turtleton must be when Codshead
is its great authority on hunting. He is the Nimrod
of the place. Somehow burgesses are seldom built
for boots or saddles. They sit their horses, as they
do their stools, with firmness, ease and grace — until
they begin to move, and then it's all up with them or
rather all down. Colonel Codshead returns thanks
for the toast, "Success to foxhunting," far oftener
than he puts the success of it to the proof. He is a
slow, pompous, broken-winded speaker — he looks like
one. " Gentlemen," says he, for it is the same thing
over and over again; "gentlemen," says he, looking

COLONEL CODSHEAD 317

especial wise, " I beg to return you my best (gasp)
thanks for the (gasp) honour you have done me in
drinking my (gasp) health in connection with fox-
hunting (gasp). Gentlemen, it is a (gasp) sport,
gentlemen (gasp), peculiar to (gasp) Britons, and
dignified (gasp) with the (gasp) of the greatest (gasp)
men of the (gasp) day [applause]. I hope (gasp) I
shall never live (gasp) to see the (gasp) day when it
will be (gasp) other than (gasp) popular. It brings
the (gasp) peer in connection with the (gasp) peasant,
and bind all its (gasp) followers up in social (gasp)
harmony."

But let us dismiss the great puffy porpoise, and
talk about something else. He will soon dismiss
himself if they find a fox. This day, however, is
to qualify him to talk of hunting for the summer.
Alack-a-day ! talking of it will be the most any of us
can do for some time. However, never mind, we
have had a glorious season — wonderful and curious
in weather, and certainly more than an average one in
point of sport. We hope our readers have laid in a
good stock of consolation for its close, by having
made the most of it while it lasted. Cub hunting
was late, owing to the harvest; indeed, in some
countries they would scarcely have any; but when
hunting did begin we had a rare and continuous run
of it. Hounds could never be said to be fairly
stopped, till just as many were thinking of stopping
themselves towards the latter end of March, for,
though there were occasional checks in particular
districts, yet, as a whole, they were never brought to
a stand-still, as they are in decided frosts or regular
snow-storms. The weather was various — in most parts
fine, in many unseasonably so.

At Chiswick the meteorological register kept at the
gardens of the Horticultural Society gave a state of
weather unprecedented for many years in December
and January, in which latter month Covent-garden

3i8 THE HUNTING FIELD

exhibited quite a spring-like appearance — primroses,
violets (sweet-scented), cowslips, anemones, and many .
of the flowers which in mild seasons usually bloom in
the month of February being seen in profusion. The
fine weather extended throughout the country.

The northern papers of the end of January spoke
of the mildness of the atmosphere producing a pre-
mature effect on vegetation, and said that the thrushes
were warbling forth their "wood notes wild" to
welcome the return of spring, and altogether it was a
most unusually open season.

The absence of frost was one of its striking
characteristics, and with the absence of frost may be
noticed the almost total absence of accidents. We
never remember a season w^ith so few — no necks, no
limbs, scarcely a collar-bone broken. This shows
that hunting is not a dangerous amusement if people
will only follow it rationally. It makes all the differ-
ence in the world whether a man falls on the flags
or on a feather bed. It is of no use contending
with the adverse elements, nor is there any pleasure
in trying to force a season unnaturally into the spring.
That man is the best sportsman who knows when
to leave ofl*. But to the close of the season, for
we are no advocates for the family slaughtering of
" Mayfoxes."

Winter slipped away beautifully, to the delight of
foxhunters and the Wenham Lake Ice Company, and
the dismay of "native industry" among the con-
fectioners and salmon picklers. But for the " wood-
cocks," peculiar to Christmas, we should never have
known it had been here. We are not unreasonable
in our desires^ and if we get the year fairly hunted
out, and a few days for the boys at Christmas, we
never grumble at a fortnight's frost or so; but this
year the weather was kinder than we even desired —
January was open from end to end — whole thirty-one
days — a bumper month. There might be a sprinkling

COLONEL CODSHEAD 319

of snow here and there, and a night or two's frost,
but as a whole, hounds were never stopped. February
we have recorded. The early part of the last week
of that month was as full of warmth and vegetation
as many ordinary Mays or Junes. The trees were
all budding, the hedges were all bursting into leaf,
and gentlemen rode up to their horses' girths in
turnip-tops.

Our *' oldest inhabitant" — for all discreet authors
keep an oldest inhabitant of their own — our oldest
inhabitant always shook his head, however, when he
looked in upon us, and we observed upon the extra-
ordinary fineness of the season, and the fact of winter
having forgotten us. " Don't halloo, before you are
clear of the wood," the old gentleman used to say,
for he was a hunter in his youth, though when that
youth was nobody knows. " You'll catch it yetj'^ he
used to say, in the oracular style peculiar to old
gentlemen, speaking what they think parables.

Well, we will let him have his fling through January,
for we thought it likely we should ^' catch it^^^ and we
backed him well into February too, but when the
birds began to sing and Covent-garden to blow, why
we thought it was time to follow the fashion, and
throw *' previous opinions " to the winds ; so the next
time the old cock called, we began to crow over him.
"Well, Where's winter?" said we; "where's all the
bad weather you promised us?" "Young man," re-
plied he, gravely (we are only sixty-three), "young
man," replied he, knitting his shaggy, snow-white
brows, " I have lived a long time in the world, and I
never knew Death, the Tax-gatherer, or an English
winter forget to come. I don't mean to say," con-
tinued he, "that we shall have it all in the Me-tro-
po-lis, but I mean to say that winter is not over yet."
With that he resumed his cocked hat and cane, and
went across the water to the other " undying one," at
Astley's.

320 THE HUNTING FIELD

Old gentlemen don't like to be laughed at —
young ones neither, sometimes — and we saw no more
of our " oldest inhabitant " till the middle of March.
The season in the meantime had been quiescent, no
great advance in vegetation, but no check to what
had arrived. As the "old 'un" had rather incon-
venienced us by his absence, having had some
questions put about events that occurred shortly
before the great fire of London, a scene at which he
was particularly active, we did not think it prudent
to broach the subject of the truant winter, and the
"oldest inhabitant" having got through the arrear
of antiquarian questions, took his departure in the
hurried way people do when there's a disagreeable
topic they don't want mentioned.

Hunting, we reckoned, was fast winding up. March
has never much ingratiated itself with us as a hunting
month. It sounds harsh and repulsive, speaks rather
of high winds, hard dusty roads, and flying fallows,
than of that delightful, sloppy, spongy, splash-my-
boots state of things peculiar to the legitimate chase.

Third week in March, and spring slowly, though
steadily on the advance. This " oldest inhabitant " is
getting " too old," thought we, for he had looked in
at our publisher's, on Saturday, (the 14th), and reiter-
ated his conviction that we should catch it yet.

"We really believe we may have too old an oldest
inhabitant," continued we, thrusting our hands, a la
D' Israeli^ into our breeches pockets, and pacing
about our apartment. If we knew where to lay hands
on one from a hundred to a hundred and fifty years
old, we really think we would "shelf" this oldest
inhabitant, for he is evidently getting in arrear of the
times.

A change then came o'er the spirit of our dream.

All our northern and midland letters of the i8th of
March, spoke of the withering influence of the pre-

COLONEL CODSHEAD 321

ceding day. They said the weather was cutting cold,
with every appearance of a fall. When people talk
of a fall, in relation to the weather, it always means
"snow" — rain they designate by its proper title. We
would not have met our " oldest inhabitant " that day
for something. Not that the old man would have
exulted over us, for Widdicombe and he are far re-
moved above the scornful passions and prejudices
of the world; but our own conscience would have
upbraided us for doubting the accuracy of the ancient.
Straightway w^e went to the leather-breeched ancient
on Snow-hill, and bought our "oldest inhabitant" half
a hundred weight of fleecy hosiery. Nor was the
present unseasonable, for the Scotch, northern, and
midland papers of that week's end brought up dire-
ful accounts of hurricanes, tempests, and tremendous
snow-storms, accompanied by nipping frosts. At
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where the civilization of rail-
ways shoots across the island to Carlisle, the black-
faced ones were uncommonly well powdered. It
appears by the prints of that region, that her Majesty's
mail-bags are conveyed onward to " Auld Reekie " by
means of coaches and horses, and they talked of six
horses being necessary on parts of the road. Such
doings sound queer in our railway-netted world.
However, the storm came, and though we escaped
in " Me-tro-po-lis," as our ancient calls it, there was
plenty of it in the country, and it was cold enough in
town. So the prophecy of the ancient was fulfilled,
and he has risen in our estimation in consequence.
Never will we believe flowers, thrushes, lambs, or
anything of the sort again, in preference to our own
"oldest inhabitant." What with the hosiery and this
notice, we trust our friend will think we have made
the amende honorable.

A snow-storm is a punishing thing ; it puts a stop
to everything. As we said before, we can stand it at
Christmas, but at no other time. At Christmas we

322 THE HUNTING FIELD

can cpnsole ourselves with the thoughts that it is
seasonable — that as we must have it, it is better to
have it at the right time, and be done with it — that
the horses want rest, and we draw our chairs round
the fire, and look forward to resuming the field with
redoubled zeal.

But a March storm, while it checks hunting and
blights all our floricultural hopes and expectations,
presents no bright prospect in view. Go when it will,
hunting, we feel, cannot return, at least not in the
genuine, natural, other half of the thing, sort of
way.

The only consolation about a March storm — at
least one late on in the month — is that they never
last. They are like frosts in November, which are
sometimes uncommonly keen and iron-bound at night,
and yet extremely wet and sloppy in the morning.
When a March storm gets the turn of its complaint,
it generally subsides very fast. A day of cold, bitter,
blustering storm will be succeeded by one of balmy
sunshine, that melts the snow in half the time it takes
in the earlier months. So it was this year, though
snow-wreaths might be seen on the higher grounds
in the month of April. Strange to say, April was
a better hunting month this year than March. It
was wet, and cold, and splashy enough in all
conscience.

The season, so prosperous during its continuance,
closed, we are happy to say, with fewer drawbacks
and derangements to future foxhunting than generally
attends the finish of each year. As some advertising
tradespeople are always dissolving partnership, or re-
tiring from business to get in their debts, so some few
hunts brought their " stock " to market, most likely
for the purpose of weeding the studs or of getting
parties to "buck up" in the way of subscription.
These objects being accomplished, the " firms " re-
sumed business, in some cases, perhaps, with a change

COLONEL CODSHEAD

323

of "foreman," or cutter-out— we mean, whipper-in.
None of the great hunts were affected with the "spring
cough," and we trust they are now all about taking
the field again with undiminished vigour, and long
enduring permanence.

Printed by

Morrison & Gibb Limited,

Edinburgh

\

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THE ANALYSIS

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With 7 Coloured
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Methuen and Co., Lond<m

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