CHAPTER XLI

NOVEMBER

PEOPLE scatter so far and wide, that it is generally November before the country gets established in the full swing of its sporting supremacy. Summer has then fairly abdicated in favour of winter, light clothes have been replaced by warm ones, red coats brought out to air, top-boots reviewed, and Pater familias is surprised to find that he cannot read so well by candlelight as he did in the spring. The transition of nature from heat to cold, though slow and gradual at first, becomes fierce and determined afterwards. First goes the sycamore, that cheerful tree of early spring—black spots disfigure its leaves as though there had been a shower of ink. Then the hazel turns yellow, next the beech, then the birch, presently the lime showers off its leaves in volleys, and the yellow ash stands in bold relief against the sturdy oak. The charms of the garden are gone, the flowers look shabby and dull, while bottles of flies and wasps usurp the place of the late blooming peach. A sharp white frost or two, followed by drenching rains, finally settles matters; the oaks turn brown, the rivers flood their banks, the brooks roar, the country is saturated with wet, and ready for hunting.

“Society,” as contradistinguished from “company,” then commences in the pleasantest easiest form, people asking each other to their houses because it is a convenience to the visitors to come, and not because the host wants to astonish them with his splendour. If there were no other argument in favour of field-sports than the sociality they engender, it would be amply sufficient to carry them through. Contrast a country house, from which there is hunting or shooting, with one where there is nothing to do, and there will not be much doubt about the matter. The sporting furnishes the chief dish in the bill of fare, and with plenty of good exercise, a good appetite, and good spirits, are sure to be engendered. If there is nothing to do—nothing but eat, eat, eat, a man had better pen himself up in a club, and be stall-fed like an ox. Field-sports should, therefore, be encouraged by every legitimate means, not only for the manly spirit they engender, but on account of the inducement they hold out for a resident gentry. Even if the hunting is not so good as may be got elsewhere, there is nothing like a man hunting from home. Winter is a precarious season, and if the day proves bad, a man at home need not turn out, he has his books or his bills, or his farm, or his something to attend to, whereas, at an inn, or elsewhere, he very likely feels constrained to go, if it is only for the sake of something to do. “Touring” is only for bachelors and men without fixed residences. The family man will find it far cheaper to subscribe to hounds at home than desert his affairs by going away, even though he gets his hunting nominally for nothing. The risk and trouble of travelling, the expenses of the journey, the grumbling of the groom, the discomforts of the inn, to say nothing of the magnitude of the bill, all tend to deter a man from moving. A shooter can put up with a much worse billet than a fox-hunter, because being a summer excursionist he has the fresh air to resort to, while a fox-hunter is housed early in the evening, and must put up with all the nuisances and annoyances so peculiarly the property of the British inn.

Shooting—shooting in moderation at least—is a sport that may be enjoyed almost anywhere. It is not necessary to have an array of keepers, and beaters, and markers, shooting made easy, in fact, for men who have the full use of their limbs, and like to see the sagacity of dogs displayed in the field. As an old writer on hunting once said, “the emulation of leading in hounds and their masters has been the ruin of many a good cry,” so as regards shooting, we have often thought that the emulation of making a big bag has been destructive of much quiet rational sport. Every one wants to beat his neighbour in point of numbers, and as everything nowadays finds its way into the papers, a perpetual rivalry is kept up throughout the country. Then the concentration of game attracts the ruffianly poachers, and those deadly conflicts ensue that are so much to be deplored. In a moderately preserved country, where men shoot instead of slaughter, poaching does not pay: at all events, it is carried on in a very limited way, by local men who are well known and easily detected. These are generally the very scum and scourings of the country, men whose least crime is that of poaching; for if a respectable man has a real turn for the trigger, he is speedily engaged as a keeper. The dregs then only remain, skulking fellows lurking about beer-shops, who carry their convictions on their faces, on their backs, on their everything about them. Moderate preserving, therefore, we think should be encouraged, and the slaughter of the battue censured and despised. So much for shooting; now for the nobler pursuit of hunting.

There are few countries now without some approximation to a pack, and the district we are describing possessed the advantage of two, namely, that kept by his Grace the Duke of Tergiversation, and a subscription pack under the auspices of Mr. Jessop, and though neither might draw many strangers from afar, they were yet amply sufficient to keep the natives at home. So, perhaps, the legitimate ends of the Chase were accomplished; those riding over the land to whom it belonged, without subjecting the farmers to irresponsible damage. The Duke’s being the oldest pack, of course claim precedence at our hands, and his huntsman being a character, we will devote an introductory chapter to him.