“Every species of fence every horse doesn’t suit,
What’s a good country hunter may here prove a brute,”

Sings that clerical bard who wrote the Billesdon-Coplow poem, from which I have already quoted; and it would be difficult to explain more tersely than do these two lines the difference between a fair useful hunter, and the flyer we call par excellence “a Leicestershire horse!”

Alas! for the favourite unrivalled over Gloucestershire walls, among Dorsetshire doubles, in the level ploughs of Holderness, or up and down the wild Derbyshire hills, when called upon to gallop, we will say, from Ashby pastures to the Coplow, after a week’s rain, at Quorn pace, across Quorn fences, unless he happens to possess with the speed of a steeple-chaser, the courage of a lion and the activity of a cat! For the first mile or two “pristinÆ virtutis haud immemor” he bears him gallantly enough, even the unaccustomed rail on the far side of an “oxer,” elicits but a startling exertion, and a loud rattle of horn and iron against wood, but ere long the slope rises against him, the ridge-and-furrow checks his stride, a field, dotted with ant-hills as large as church-hassocks and not unlike them in shape, to catch his toes and impede his action, changes his smooth easy swing to a laborious flounder, and presently at a thick bullfinch on the crest of a grassy ridge, out of ground that takes him in nearly to his hocks, comes the crisis. Too good a hunter to turn over, he gets his shoulders out and lets his rider see the fall before it is administered, but down he goes notwithstanding, very effectually, to rise again after a struggle, his eye wild, nostril distended, and flanks heaving, thoroughly pumped out!

He is a good horse, but you have brought him into the wrong country, and this is the result.

It would be a hopeless task to extract from young Rapid’s laconic phrases, and general indifference, any particulars regarding the burst in which, to give him his due, he has gone brilliantly, or the merits of the horse that carried him in the first flight without a mistake. He wastes his time, his money, his talents, but not his words. For him and his companions, question and answer are cut short somewhat in this wise:—“Did you get away with them from the Punchbowl?”

“Yes, I was among the lucky ones.”

“Is, ‘The King of the Golden Mines’ any use?”

“I fancy he is good enough.”

And yet he is reflecting on the merits of Self and Co. with no little satisfaction, and does not grudge one shilling of the money—a hundred down, and a bill for two hundred and fifty—that the horse with the magnificent name cost him last spring.

Their performance, I admit, does them both credit. I will endeavour to give a rough sketch of the somewhat hazardous amusement that puts him out of conceit with the sport shown by his father’s hounds.

Let us picture to ourselves then, Rapid junior, resplendent in the whitest of breeches and brightest of boots, with a single-breasted, square-cut scarlet coat, a sleek hat curly of brim, four feet of cane hunting-whip in his hand, a flower at his breast, and a toothpick in his mouth, replaced by an enormous cigar as somebody he doesn’t know suggests they are not likely to find. Though he looks so helpless, and more than half-asleep, he is wide-awake enough in fact, and dashes the weed unlighted from his lips, when he spies the huntsman stand up in his stirrups as though on the watch. There lurks a fund of latent energy under the placidity of our friend’s demeanour, and, as four couple of hounds come streaming out of cover, he shoots up the bank rather too near them, to pick his place without hesitation in an ugly bullfinch at the top. Two of his own kind are making for the same spot at the same moment, and our young friend shows at such a crisis, that he knows how to ride. Taking “The King of the Golden Mines,” hard by the head, he changes his aim on the instant, and rams the good horse at four feet of strong timber, leaning towards him, with an energy not to be denied. Over they go triumphantly, “The King,” half affronted, “catching hold” with some resentment, as he settles vigorously to his stride. What matter? most of the pack are already half-way across the next field, for Leicestershire hounds have an extraordinary knack of flying forward to overtake their comrades. His father would be delighted with the performance, and would call it “scoring to cry,” but young Rapid does not trouble himself about such matters. He is only glad to find they are out of his way, and thinks no more about it, except to rejoice that he can “put the steam on,” without the usual remonstrance from huntsman and master.

The King can gallop like a race-horse, and is soon at the next leap—a wide ditch, a high staked-and-bound hedge, coarse, rough and strong, with a drop and what you please, on the other side. This last treat proves to be a bowed-out oak-rail, standing four feet from the fence. “The King,” full of courage, and going fast, bounds over the whole with his hind legs tucked under him like a deer, ready, but not requiring, to strike back, while two of Rapid’s young friends with whom he dined yesterday, and one he will meet at dinner to-day, fly it in similar form, nearly alongside. An ugly, overgrown bullfinch, with a miniature ravine, or, as it is here called, “a bottom,” appears at the foot of the hill they are now descending, and, as there seems only one practicable place, these four reckless individuals at once begin to race for the desirable spot. The King’s turn of speed serves him again; covering five- or six-and-twenty feet, he leaps it a length in front of the nearest horse, and a couple of strides before the other two, while loud reproachful outcries resound in the rear because of Harmony’s narrow escape—the King’s forefoot, missing that priceless bitch by a yard!

Our young gentleman, having got a lead now, begins to ride with more judgment. He trots up to a stile and pops over in truly artistic form; better still, he gives the hounds plenty of room on the fallow beyond, where they have hovered for a moment and put down their noses, holding his hand up to warn those behind, a “bit of cheek,” as they call this precautionary measure, which he will be made to remember for some days to come!

He is not such a fool but that he knows, from experience in the old country, how a little patience at these critical moments makes the whole difference between a good day’s sport and a bad. It would be provoking to lose the chance of a gallop now, when he has got such a start, and is riding the best horse in his stable, so he looks anxiously over his shoulder for the huntsman, who is “coming,” and stands fifty yards aloof, which he considers a liberal allowance, that the hounds may have space to swing.

To-day there is a good scent and a good fox, a combination that happens oftener than might be supposed. Harmony, who, notwithstanding her recent peril, has never been off the line, though the others over-shot it, scours away at a tangent, with the slightest possible whimper, and her stern down, the leading hounds wheeling to her like pigeons, and the whole pack driving forward again, harder than before.

It is a beautiful turn; young Rapid would admire it, no doubt, were his attention not distracted by the gate out of the field, which is chained up, and a hurried calculation as to whether it is too high for the King to attempt.

The solution is obvious. I need hardly say he jumps it gallantly in his stride. It would never do, you see, to let those other fellows catch him, and he sails away once more with a stronger lead than at first. What a hunting panorama opens on his view!—a downward stretch of a couple of miles, and a gentle rise beyond of more than twice that distance, consisting wholly of enormous grass fields, dotted here and there with single trees, and separated by long lines of fences, showing black and level on that faded expanse of green. The smoke from a farm-house rises white and thin against the dull sky in the middle distance, and a taper church-spire points to heaven from behind the hill, otherwise there is not an object for miles to recall everyday life; and young Rapid’s world consists at this moment of two reeking pointed ears, with a vision of certain dim shapes, fleeting like shadows across the open—swift, dusky, and noiseless as a dream.

His blood thrills with excitement, from the crown of his close-cropped head to his silken-covered heel, but education is stronger than nature, and he tightens his lips, perhaps to repress a cheer, while he murmurs—“Over the brook for a hundred! and the King never turned from water in his life.”

Two more fences bring him to the level meadow with its willows. Harmony is shaking herself on the farther bank, and he has marked with his eye the spot where he means to take off. A strong pull, a steady hand, the energy of a mile gallop condensed into a dozen strides, and the stream passes beneath him like a flash. “It’s a rum one!” he murmurs, standing up in his stirrups to ease the good horse, while one follower exclaims “Bravo! Rapid. Go along, old man!” as the speaker plunges overhead; and another, who lands with a scramble, mutters, “D——n him, I shall never catch him! my horse is done to a turn now.”

“The King,” his owner thinks, is well worth the £350 that has not been paid. The horse has caught his second wind, and keeps striding on, strong and full of running, though temperate enough now, and, in such a country as this, a truly delightful mount.

There is no denying that our friend is a capital horseman, and bold as need be. “The King of the Golden Mines,” with a workman on his back, can hardly be defeated by any obstacle that the power and spring of a quadruped ought to surmount. He has tremendous stride, and no less courage than his master, so fence after fence is thrown behind the happy pair with a sensation like flying that seems equally gratifying to both. The ground is soft but sound enough; the leaps, though large, are fair and clean. One by one they are covered in light, elastic bounds, of eighteen or twenty feet, and for a mile, at least, the King scarcely alters his action, and never changes his leg. Young Rapid would ask no better fun than to go on like this for a week.

Once he has a narrow escape. The fox having turned short up a hedgerow after crossing it, the hounds, though running to kill, turn as short, for which they deserve the praise there is nobody present to bestow, and Rapid, charging the fence with considerable freedom, just misses landing in the middle of the pack. I know it, because he acknowledged it after dinner, professing, at the same time, devout thankfulness that master and huntsman were too far off to see. Just such another turn is made at the next fence, but this time on the near side. The hounds disappear suddenly, tumbling over each other into the ditch like a cascade. Peering between his horse’s ears, the successful rider can distinguish only a confused whirl of muddy backs, and legs, and sterns, seen through a cloud of steam; but smothered growls, with a certain vibration of the busy cluster, announce that they have got him, and Rapid so far forgets himself as to venture on a feeble “Who—whoop!”

Before he can leap from the saddle the huntsman comes up followed by two others, one of whom, pulling out his watch, with a delighted face repeats frantically, “Seven-and-twenty minutes, and a kill in the open! What a good gallop! Not the ghost of a check from end to end. Seven-and-twenty minutes,” and so on, over and over again.

While the field straggle in, and the obsequies of this good fox are properly celebrated, a little enthusiasm would be justifiable enough on the part of a young gentleman who has “had the best of it” unquestionably through the whole of so brilliant a scurry. He might be expected to enlarge volubly, and with excusable self-consciousness, on the pace, the country, the straight running of the fox, the speed and gallantry of the hounds; nor could we blame him for praising by implication his own determined riding in a tribute to “The King of the Golden Mines.”

But such extravagancies are studiously repudiated and repressed by the school to which young Rapid belongs. All he does say is this—

“I wonder when the second horses will come up? I want some luncheon before we go and find another fox.”I have already observed that in the shires we put two days into one. Where seventy or eighty couple of hounds are kept and thirty horses, to hunt four times a week, with plenty of country, in which you may find a fox every five minutes, there can be no reason for going home while light serves; and really good scenting days occur so rarely that we may well be tempted to make the most of one even with jaded servants and a half-tired pack of hounds. The field, too, are considerably diminished by three or four o’clock. One has no second horse, another must get home to write his letters, and, if within distance of Melton, some hurry back to play whist. Everything is comparative. With forty or fifty horsemen left, a huntsman breathes more freely, and these, who are probably enthusiasts, begin to congratulate themselves that the best of the day is yet to come. “Let us go and draw Melton Spinney,” is a suggestion that brightens every eye; and the Duke will always draw Melton Spinney so long as he can see. It is no unusual thing for his hounds to kill, and, I have been told, they once found their fox by moonlight, so that it is proverbial all over his country, if you only stop out late enough, you are sure of a run with the Belvoir at last. And then, whether you belong to the school of young Rapid or his father, you will equally have a treat. Are you fond of hounds? Here is a pack that cannot be surpassed, to delight the most fastidious eye, satisfy the most critical taste. Do you like to see them hunt? Watch how these put their noses down, tempering energy with patience, yet so bustling and resolute as to work a bad scent into a good one. Are you an admirer of make-and-shape? Mark this perfect symmetry of form, bigger, stronger, and tougher than it looks. Do you understand kennel management and condition? Ask Gillard why his hounds are never known to tire, and get from him what hints you can.

Lastly, do you want to gallop and jump, defeat your dearest friends, and get to the end of your best horse? That is but a moderate scenting-day, on which the Belvoir will not afford opportunity to do both. If you can live with them while they run, and see them race into their fox at the finish, I congratulate you on having science, nerve, all the qualities of horsemanship, a good hunter, and, above all, a good groom.

These remarks as to pace, stoutness, and sporting qualities, apply also to the Quorn, the Cottesmore, and the Pytchley. This last, indeed, with its extensive range of woodlands in Rockingham Forest, possesses the finest hunting country in England, spacious enough to stand six days a week in the mildest of winters all the season through. Under the rule of Lord Spencer, who has brought to bear on his favourite amusement the talent, energy, and administrative powers that, while they remained in office, were so serviceable to his party, the Pytchley seems to have recovered its ancient renown, and the sport provided for the white collars during the last year or two has been much above the average. His lordship thoroughly understands the whole management of hounds, in the kennel and the field, is enthusiastically fond of the pursuit, and, being a very determined rider as well as an excellent judge of a horse, is always present in an emergency to observe the cause and take measures for the remedy. Will Goodall has but little to learn as a huntsman, and, like his father, the unrivalled Will Goodall of Belvoir celebrity, places implicit confidence in his hounds. “They can put me right,” seems his maxim, “oftener than I can put them!” If a man wanted to see “a gallop in the shires” at its best, he should meet the Pytchley some Saturday in February at Waterloo Gorse, but I am bound to caution him that he ought to ride a brilliant hunter, and, as young Rapid would say, “harden his heart” to make strong use of him.

Large grass fields, from fifty to a hundred acres in extent, carrying a rare scent, are indeed tempting; but to my own taste, though perhaps in this my reader may not agree with me, they would be more inviting were they not separated by such forbidding fences. A high black-thorn hedge, strong enough to hold an elephant, with one, and sometimes two ditches, fortified, moreover, in many cases, by a rail placed half a horse’s length off to keep out cattle from the thorns, offers, indeed, scope for all the nobler qualities of man and beast, but while sufficiently perilous for glory, seems to my mind rather too stiff for pleasure!

And yet I have seen half-a-dozen good men well-mounted live with hounds over this country for two or three miles on end without a fall, nor do I believe that in these stiffly fenced grazing grounds the average of dirty coats is greater than in less difficult-looking districts. It may be that those who compete are on the best of hunters, and that a horse finds all his energies roused by the formidable nature of such obstacles, if he means to face them at all!

And now a word about those casualties which perhaps rather enhance than damp our ardour in the chase. Mr. Assheton Smith used to say that no man could be called a good rider who did not know how to fall.

Founded on his own exhaustive experience there is much sound wisdom in this remark. The oftener a man is down, the less likely is he to be hurt, and although, as the old joke tells us, absence of body as regards danger seems even preferable to presence of mind, the latter quality is not without its advantage in the crisis that can no longer be deferred.

I have seen men so flurried when their horses’ noses touched the ground as to fling themselves wildly from the saddle, and meet their own apprehensions half-way, converting an uncertain scramble into a certain downfall. Now it should never be forgotten that a horse in difficulties has the best chance of recovery if the rider sits quiet in the middle of his saddle and lets the animal’s head alone. It is always time enough to part company when his own knee touches the ground, and as he then knows exactly where his horse is, he can get out of the way of its impending body, ere it comes heavily to the earth. If his seat is not strong enough to admit of such desirable tenacity, let him at least keep a firm hold of the bridle; that connecting link will, so to speak, “preserve his communications,” and a kick with one foot, or timely roll of his own person, will take him out of harm’s way.

The worst fall a man can get is to be thrown over his horse’s head, with such violence as to lay him senseless till the animal, turning a somersault, crushes his prostrate body with all the weight of its own. Such accidents must sometimes happen, of course, but they are not necessarily of every-day occurrence. By riding with moderate speed at his fences, and preserving, on all occasions, coolness, good-humour, and confidence in his partner, a sportsman, even when past his prime, may cross the severest parts of the Harborough country itself with an infinitesimal amount of danger to life and limb. Kindness, coercion, hand, seat, valour, and discretion should be combined in due proportion, and the mixture, as far as the hunting-field is concerned, will come out a real elixir vitÆ such as the pale Rosicrucian poring over crucible and alembic sought to compound in vain.

I cannot forbear quoting once more from the gallant soul-stirring lines of Mr. Bromley Davenport, himself an enthusiast who, to this day, never seems to remember he has a neck to break!

“What is time? the effusion of life zoophytic,
In dreary pursuit of position or gain.
What is life? the absorption of vapours mephitic,
The bursting of sunlight on senses and brain.
Such a life has been mine, though so speedily over,
Condensing the joys of a century’s course,
From the find, till they ate him near Woodwell-Head Covert,
In thirty bright minutes from Banksborough Gorse!”

Yes, when all is said and done, perhaps the very acme and perfection of a riding run, is to be attained within fifteen miles of Melton. A man who has once been fortunate enough to find himself, for ever so short a distance, leading

“The cream of the cream, in the shire of shires,”

will never, I imagine, forget his feelings of triumph and satisfaction while he occupied so proud a position; nor do I think that, as a matter of mere amusement and pleasurable excitement, life can offer anything to compare with a good horse, a good conscience, a good start, and

“A quick thirty minutes from Banksborough Gorse.”

THE END.

LONDON:
R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR,
BREAD STREET HILL, E.C.

193, Piccadilly, London, W.
November, 1877.