CHAPTER VI
An attempt has been made in the last chapter to describe a successful morning, when scent and luck have served and the earths are well stopped. On these occasions everything seems so easy. But there will be some scentless mornings which will test the patience and perseverance of the very stoutest. The best thing the Huntsman can then do is to keep on moving and using his voice cheerily, so as to show his men, his Hounds, and the Cubs that he means to persevere. When the Hounds cannot speak to a Cub, the only thing that is likely to keep him on his legs is the sound of the human voice; but, if the covert is too thick for a horse to go through, it is better to stand still and encourage the Hounds to draw it rather than dismount and draw it on foot. The Huntsman only has to do this a few times for the Hounds to acquire the habit of never going into a thick place at all unless he gets off his horse and goes in first to show them the way.
Now this proposition contains the kernel of the true secret of hunting Hounds, which is always to endeavour to let the Hounds do everything for themselves, and even when help is actually given, to give it in such a manner that they do not know they are being helped, and think they are acting on their own initiative. This is why all the great master minds agree that Hounds, when in a difficulty, should never be meddled with except as a very last resort. Now in order to carry this idea into practice it cannot be too often repeated that the principal part of the technique of the Huntsman should be to keep his Hounds always well in front of him, where he can influence them by a half-turn of his horse’s head, and keep their noses down, whereas, once he gets in front of them, he may require two or more men with whips to drive them after him with their noses in the air. The acquisition of this art requires some cultivation, and may be helped by remembering that the Huntsman must regulate his pace by the pace of the Hounds. If he does not wish them to get behind his horse, it seems a simple common-sense rule never to place himself in front of them. Yet many people seem to forget that on a bad scenting day Hounds will go slowly, and that on a good scenting day they will go quickly, and think that the Huntsman can enliven the proceedings on a poor scent by getting ahead of his Hounds and setting the pace himself. There never was a greater fallacy. Huntsmen who adopt this practice are sometimes called quick, until they have lost Fox after Fox and eventually find that their reputation has disappeared without any one being able to give reasons in writing. The only occasion when the Huntsman should have his Hounds kept close to him by his whipper-in, and make the pace himself, is when he makes up his mind to go to a holloa, and rightly wishes to prevent the Hounds hunting any line until he has laid them on to the Fox he means to hunt. When he determines to go to a holloa, he should go and fetch his Hounds, distract their attention from what they are doing, and tell them in language about which there can be no mistake, that he is going to lay them on to a scent.
But even now he should not get ahead of the Hounds. He should carry them with him in his hand, so that he may be able to lay them all on to the line together.
And there is much fine art in laying Hounds on to a line. The manner in which it is done may make all the difference in the world to the day’s sport, because, if it is attempted in a haphazard, unscientific fashion, it will almost surely result in either dragging them over the line without hitting it, or in “that fatal piece of bungling, hitting it heel-way,” the most heart-breaking of all exhibitions. In order to avoid this the Huntsman should, as already stated, have all his Hounds round his horse well in hand. The next, and the most important thing of all, is that, before he gets near the line, he should ascertain beyond all manner of doubt what is the direction of the Fox’s head. When the Fox has been holloaed over a road or a ride in a covert this should not be difficult. If the whipper-in has had to go and fetch the Huntsman he can always give him full information on the way to the place. If the Huntsman is coming to the holloa, the whipper-in, or whoever has seen the Fox, should stand on the line with his horse’s head the same way as the Fox has gone. Some distance—say twenty to thirty yards—before the Huntsman gets to the place where the Fox has crossed, he should stop and turn his horse’s head in the direction that the Fox has gone, and put all the Hounds into the covert. He should then ride quite slowly down the ride or road, so as to give his Hounds time to spread and get their noses down. It is better for the Huntsman to keep in the ride than to go into the covert with his Hounds, because, by keeping in the ride, he has every Hound between him and his Fox, and is in a position to stop any Hound from getting on to the wrong side of the ride and speaking to the scent heel-way. If this system is carefully followed, the Hounds will soon get to learn when the time has come for them to feel for the scent, and they will get busy at once. The Huntsman must not be disappointed if they do not always speak at once to the scent at the very place where the Fox is reported to have crossed, because he may make a sharp turn inside the covert, as soon as he is out of sight, and may run parallel to the ride for a few yards before resuming his original direction; or it may be one of those curious days on which Hounds seem to own the scent better when they are a few yards to the right or left of the actual line; or again, if the Fox is running down wind, the steam from the horses may spoil the scent for a few yards. Strange things happen out hunting. It is true, however, that when you are hunting Hounds there is nothing more mortifying than to be shown by your own tried and trusted whipper-in the exact spot where he last saw the Fox, and then to find that your Hounds will not own to the scent. But it is certain that the best way to avoid this distressing experience is to slow down some time before you get to the place, so as to give your Hounds plenty of time to spread and feel for the scent, and they will sooner or later tell you where their Fox is gone.
To lay Hounds on to a line in the open in the middle of a field is a little more difficult, but the principle of the operation is the same, the all-important thing being to keep them well in hand and not attempt to lay them on until the direction of the Fox’s head has been definitely ascertained. Having found this out, the Huntsman should then manœuvre so as to get every Hound between him and his Fox. This can best be done by pulling up, or slackening his pace, so as to allow the Hounds to get well in front of his horse. If the Fox has crossed a field it is a good plan to put the Hounds through a gate or gap into the field, and for the Huntsman not to enter the field with them. By turning his horse’s head he can then draw the Hounds across the line, and as soon as one Hound even has spoken they will all start together merrily, and will take the credit for themselves. This method also has the advantage of keeping the riders off their backs by giving them a field’s start. If, on the other hand, the Huntsman gets ahead of his Hounds and rides wildly, cap in hand, in the direction the Fox has gone, with the pack straggling after him, half the Hounds will be staring at his horse’s tail, while the other half will very likely strike the scent heel-way if the Fox is travelling down wind, as is generally the case. The same tactics should be applied when the Fox has crossed a road; the Huntsman should throw his Hounds over the road, but on no account enter the field himself. In this way he is so placed that he is master of the situation; he can stop Hounds if they happen to hit the scent heel-way; he can also prevent the horsemen from entering the field until every Hound has got his head down and is well settled to the line. If he jumps the fence out of the road with the Hounds behind him, every one else will jump out of the road, and very likely drive him and the Hounds for two or three fields before he hits the line, if, indeed, under these circumstances he is lucky enough to hit it at all. He, moreover, stands a good chance of being forced into taking a parallel line to that of the Fox, and he will learn, without studying Euclid, that two parallel lines will never meet.
So much for the art of laying Hounds on to a scent. Let us now find our Fox, and offer some suggestions for the conduct of the Huntsman in the field after November 1. On and after this magic date it will be his first duty to aim at getting all his Hounds away together as closely as possible behind the first Fox that leaves the covert. If the Hounds have found their own Fox and are tied to him with a good cry, he will be wise to await events, bearing in mind the golden rule that Hounds should never be stopped off one Fox and put on to another, however tempting this proceeding may appear to be at the moment. Should they throw up suddenly, and another Fox is holloaed away when all is silent, it is of course just possible for a clever Huntsman, if he is up wind of the pack, to pounce upon the chance like lightning and to carry them away to the holloa. But do not forget that to do this is to take a liberty which can only be justified by complete success, while a failure, or even a partial success, may ruin the whole day. But there are other occasions when the scent in covert, particularly in a thick one, may not be so good, and only a few Hounds have opened. The whipper-in holloas a Fox away down the wind, probably the same one that the Hounds have found. He should not continue holloaing longer than is necessary to let the Huntsman know that the Fox is away. The leading Hounds may or may not go to the holloa. But the worst thing the Huntsman can do is to gallop off to the holloa with them and begin blowing his horn for the rest of the pack when he gets there. The Fox having gone away down wind, most of the best Hounds will be left in the thickest part of the covert and may not hear the horn at all, and at best will get a bad start, a poor reward indeed for having generously gone into the thorns and brambles to get the Fox on his legs, and one that may well make them rather chary of repeating the process. It is true that with a certain amount of luck every Hound may eventually be counted out of covert, provided always they do not get on to another Fox on the way; but the tail will be separated from the head by one or two fences, and probably by several ladies and gentlemen who will have galloped down wind after the Huntsman in order to get a start, so that the pack will not get together until the leading Hounds have come to the first check. Nothing could be more demoralizing.
When the Hounds who are left behind have been striving with their heads in the air to get to the front, it takes them some time to grasp the situation when they get there; many valuable moments are lost before they recover their moral and put their heads down; acute observers will tell you that under these circumstances, unless there is a burning scent, things are never quite the same again, and that a minute or two, apparently lost at the beginning in giving every Hound a good start, is recovered over and over again in the course of the run by the concentration and cohesion resulting from the whole body starting in a mass. In order to accomplish this, the moment a Fox is holloaed away down wind the Huntsman should either stand still or, if necessary, turn back up wind, so as to get into close touch with the body of the pack. He should then tell them that the Fox has gone and that he wants them. For this purpose he should reserve one particular call on his horn, a call that he never sounds except when the Fox has broken covert, or when he has got his foot upon the Fox’s dead body. Hounds will fly to this note like nothing on earth, and will come tumbling out of the thick covert into the ride, or field as the case may be, only too gladly. The Huntsman then canters them round to the holloa—where the whipper-in should be standing on the line, having stopped any leading Hounds that may have hunted the Fox through the covert—and lays on both ends of his pack together, so that he gives each Hound a fair start, and correctly carries out the first phase in the operation designed for the purpose of catching his Fox.
