Ladies in the Field: Sketches of Sport. Various
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fox-hunting in England.
Riding men, who love the sport for its own value, are usually sunny-tempered, kindly at heart, and generously disposed. Women, who ride, are easy to please and unaffected; in fact, what many men describe as "a good sort." In conclusion, my advice to girls is, to take a riding man for a husband, and to follow themselves as far as possible all out-door pursuits and amusements. Their moral qualities will not suffer from it, while their physique will gain considerably, for bright eyes, a clear complexion, and a slim figure are beauties never to be despised.
Violet Greville.
HUNTING IN THE SHIRES.
"There are emotions deeply seated in the joy of exercise, when the body is brought into play, and masses move in concert, of which the subject is but half conscious.
"Music and dance, and the delirium of battle or the chase acts thus upon spontaneous natures.
"The mystery of rhythm and associated energy and blood-tingling in sympathy is here. It lies at the root of man's most tyrannous instinctive impulses."
Considering that J. Addington Symonds was a permanent invalid, exiled to Davos by his health, he shows in this paragraph extraordinary understanding.
Fox-hunting is not merely an idle amusement; it is an outlet for man's natural instincts; a healthy way of making him active, and training his character. Whether it exercises his mental faculties in a like degree is another question. I do not think a man can be very stupid who rides well to hounds. The qualifying remark that "he is so perfectly mounted" rather adds to his credit than otherwise, for, with unlimited means, and the best possible intention it is difficult in these days of competition to get together a stud of hunters of the right stamp.
People vary considerably in their notions of the right stamp; but most men and women who know anything about horses look out for quality, good bone, loose elbows, active shoulders, strong back, clean hocks, and a head put on the right way; whether in a horse over sixteen-hands or a pony. A judge of horse flesh will never be mistaken about these qualifications, either in the meanest-looking cab horse or a rough brute in a farmyard.
Hunting people of long experience will tell us they have had one horse in their lives. One that suited their temperament, that they took greater liberties with, that gave them fewer falls, and showed them more sport than all the others. Whyte Melville says, "Forty minutes over an enclosed country establishes the partnership of man and beast in relation of confidence." The combination of pluck, decision and persuasion in a man, and nervous susceptibility in a horse, begets intimacy and mutual affection which many married couples might envy. One horse may make a man's reputation, and pleasantly raise the average of an unequal, even shady, lot in his sale at Tattersall's.
I had a brown horse that did a great deal for me. He was nearly thorough-bred; by Lydon, dam by Pollard, 15·3, with beautiful limbs and freedom. He had poor ribs, rather a fractious mouth, and the courage of an army. I hunted him for six seasons; in Cheshire, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Bedfordshire, Leicestershire, Buckinghamshire, and Northamptonshire, and he never gave me a fall.
I once fell off him. After an enormous jump over an average fence, prompted by a feeling of power and capacity, he gave a sort of skip on landing, and on this provocation I "cut a voluntary," to use a sporting phrase. He died of lockjaw, to my unceasing regret. I remember in 1885 being mounted on an extraordinary hunter. I had not gone ten strides before I knew I could not hold him. My patron, on receiving this information, said, "What does it matter! hounds are running—you surely don't want to stop?" "Oh, no!" I replied, "but I cannot guide him." "That doesn't matter—they are running straight," so, stimulated by this obvious common sense, I went on in the delirium of the chase, till I had jumped so close to an innocent man that my habit skirt carried off his spur, and, in avoiding a collision at a ford, I jumped the widest brook I have ever seen jumped; and after that I got a pull at him. He could not put a foot wrong, and was perfectly unconscious of my wish to influence him.
I began hunting with the inestimable advantage of possessing no horses of my own. For four years I rode hired horses, and had many uncouth falls, but I never hurt myself or my horse. There is freemasonry among "hirelings," I think: they know how to protect themselves and their riders. They jump without being bold; they are stale without being tired; and they live to be very old; by which, I presume, they are treated better than one would suppose. The first horse I ever possessed of my own cost £100, and was called Pickwell, after a manor house in Leicestershire. He was 15·2, with a swivel neck. For the benefit of people who do not understand this expression, I will say he could almost put his head upon my lap. He was a very poor "doer," and, towards the end of the season, assumed the proportions of a tea-leaf, and had to be sold. He could not do a whole day even when only hunted three days a fortnight. He was an airy performer, and I was sorry to part with him. I hunted him with the Grafton, the Bicester, and Selby Lownides. Parts of the Grafton country are as fine as Leicestershire, without having quite its scope or freedom. It is a very sporting country, with fine woodlands and good wild foxes. When I hunted there we had, in Frank Beers, as good a huntsman as you could wish to see.
In a paper of this length any criticism of the various merits of hunting countries would be impossible. In a rough way this is how I should appraise them. The Cottesmore for hounds. The Burton for foxes. The Holdernesse for horses. The Pytchley for riders, and the Quorn for the field.
This needs some explanation.
The Cottesmore is the most beautiful hound country in England. It is wild and undisturbed: all grass, and carrying a good scent. No huntsman can interfere with his hounds, and no field over-ride them, for the simple reason that they cannot reach them easily. The drawbacks of this from a horseman's point of view are as obvious as the advantages to a houndman's. The country is very hilly in parts, and a good deal divided by unjumpable "bottoms," which the experienced do not meddle with, and which are only worth risking if you get away on good terms with the pack, "while they stream across the first field with a dash that brings the mettle to your heart and the blood to your brain," and your instinct tells you that you are in for a good thing! You gain nothing by chancing one of these bottoms in an average hunting run. The scientific subscriber who knows every inch of the country will be in front of you, and you are fortunate if you get your horse out before dark. Brookesby thus describes the Cottesmore:—"A wide-spread region, scarcely inhabited; ground that carries a scent in all weathers; woodlands which breed a travelling race; and mile upon mile of untracked grass, where a fox will meet nothing more terrifying than a bullock."
If hounds really race over the hilly part of the Cottesmore, no horse or rider can follow them straight. He must use his head and eyes, not merely test his pluck and quickness.
He need never lose sight of the pack if he is clever, and he will see a vision of grass landscape stretching away below him, and all around him, that will not fade with the magic of the moment.
There are people who predict the abolition of fox-hunting in England. These think themselves the penetrating observers of life; they are really the ignorant spectators, who take more trouble to avoid barbed wire than to prevent it being put up; people who join in the groan of the times, without energy or insight. Prophecies of this kind should have no value, unless it be to make hunting people more consciously careful. Since there are larger subscriptions than ever, and more people hunt, we can only trust that compensation will be given liberally, but not lavishly, and upon principles of good sense and justice. I have thus digressed merely to say that if such a day should arrive, hunting is likely to survive longer in the Cottesmore than in most countries.
The Burton (Lincolnshire) presents a striking contrast to the Cottesmore. It is as flat as Holland, and you must be on the back of hounds if you wish to see them work. Most of the country is ploughed, and, by a time-honoured custom which brought both credit and money to the Lincolnshire farmers, many of the fields are double ploughed. This latter, to ride over, is only a little better than steam plough. As the price of wheat in England has fallen by 30 per cent. the farmers are ruined,