LETTER XIV
Fox-hunting, however lively and animating it may be in the field, is but a dull, dry subject to write upon; and I can now assure you from experience, that it is much less difficult to follow a fox-chase than to describe one. You will easily imagine, that to give enough of variety to a single action, to make it interesting, and to describe in a few minutes the events of, perhaps, as many hours; though it pretend to no merit, has at least some difficulty and trouble; and you will as easily conclude that I am glad they are over.
You desire me to explain that part of my last Letter, which says, if we can hold him on, we may now recover him. It means, if we have scent to follow on the line of him, it is probable that he will stop, and we may hunt up to him again. You also object to my saying, catch a fox: you call it a bad expression, and say that it is not sportly. I believe that I have not often used it; and when I have, it has been to distinguish between the hunting a fox down as you do a hare, and the killing of him with hard running. You tell me, I should always kill a fox: I might answer, I must catch him first.
You say, that I have not enlivened my chase with many halloos: it is true, I have not; and, what is worse, I fear I am never likely to meet your approbation in that particular; for should we hunt together, then I make no doubt you will think that I halloo too much; a fault which every one is guilty of, who really loves this animating sport, and is eager in the pursuit of it. Believe me, I never could halloo in my life, unless after hounds; and the writing a halloo appears to me almost as difficult as to pen a whisper.
Your friend A——, you say, is very severe on us fox-hunters: no one is more welcome. However, even he might have known, that the profession of fox-hunting is much altered since the time of Sir John Vanbrugh; and the intemperance, clownishness, and ignorance of the old fox-hunter, are quite worn out: a much truer definition of one might now be made than that which he has left. Fox-hunting is now become the amusement of gentlemen; nor need any gentleman be ashamed of it.
I shall now begin to answer your various questions as they present themselves. Though I was glad of this expedient to methodize, in some degree, the variety that we have to treat of, yet I was well aware of the impossibility of sufficiently explaining myself in the midst of a fox-chase, whose rapidity, you know wery well, brooks no delay. Now is the time, therefore, to make good that deficiency: what afterwards remains on the subject of hunting, will serve as a supplement to the rest; in which I shall still have it in my power to introduce whatever may be now forgotten, or give a further explanation of such parts as may seem to you to require it; for, since my principal view in writing these Letters is, to make the instruction that they contain of some use to you, if you should want it; if not, to others— the being as clear and as explicit as I can, will be far beyond all other considerations. Repetitions, we know, are shocking things; yet, in writing so many Letters on the same subject, I fear it will be difficult to avoid them.
First, then, as to the early hour recommended in my former Letter—I agree with you, that it requires explanation: but you will please to consider, that you desired me to fix the hour most favourable to the sport, and, without doubt, it is an early one.1 You say, that I do not go out so early myself. It is true, I do not. Do physicians always follow their own prescriptions? Is it not sufficient that their prescriptions be good? However, if my hounds should be out of blood, I go out early; for then it becomes necessary to give them every advantage. At an early hour, you are seldom long before you find. The morning is the part of the day that generally affords the best scent; and the animal himself, which, in such a case, you are more than ever desirous of killing, is then least able to run away from you. The want of rest, and perhaps a full belly, give hounds a great advantage over him. I expect, my friend, that you will reply to this, “a fox-hunter, then, is not a fair sportsman.” He certainly is not; and, what is more, would be very sorry to be mistaken for one. He is otherwise from principle. In his opinion, a fair sportsman, and a foolish sportsman, are synonymous: he therefore takes every advantage that he can of the fox. You will think, perhaps, that he may sometimes spoil his own sport by this: it is true, he sometimes does, but then he makes his hounds; the whole art of fox-hunting being to keep the hounds well in blood. Sport is but a secondary consideration with a true fox-hunter. The first is the killing of the fox: hence arises the eagerness of pursuit—chief pleasure of the chase. I confess, I esteem blood so necessary to a pack of fox-hounds, that, with regard to myself, I always return home better pleased with but an indifferent chase, with death at the end of it, than with the best chase possible, if it end with the loss of the fox. Good chases, generally speaking, are long chases; and, if not attended with success, never fail to do more harm to hounds than good. Our pleasures, I believe, for the most part, are greater during the expectation than the enjoyment. In this case, reality itself warrants the idea, and your present success is almost a sure fore-runner of future sport.2
I remember to have heard an odd anecdote of the late Duke of R——, who was very popular in his neighbourhood: A butcher at Lyndhurst, a lover of the sport, as often as he heard the hounds return from hunting, came out to meet them, and never failed to ask the duke, “What sport he had?” “Very good, I thank you, honest friend.” “Has your grace killed a fox?” “No: we have had a good run, but we have not killed.” “Pshaw!” cried the butcher, looking archly, and pointing at him with his finger. This was so constantly repeated, that the duke, when he had not killed a fox, was used to say, that he was afraid to meet the butcher.
You ask, Why the huntsman is to draw so quietly? and, Why up the wind? With regard to his drawing quietly, that may depend on the kind of cover before him, and also on the season of the year. If your covers be small, or such from which a fox cannot break unseen, then noise can do no hurt; if you draw at a late hour, and when there is no drag, then the more the cover is disturbed the better— the more likely you are to find. Late in the season, foxes are wild, particularly in covers that are often hunted. If you do not draw quietly, he will sometimes get too much the start of you. When you have any suspicion of this, send on a whipper-in to the opposite side of the cover, before you throw in your hounds. With regard to the drawing up the wind—that is much more material. You never fail to give the wind to a pointer and setter—why not to a hound?3 Besides, the fox, if you draw up the wind, does not hear you coming; and your hounds, by this means, are never out of your hearing: besides, should he turn down the wind, as most probably he will, it lets them all in. Suppose yourself acting directly contrary to this, and then see what is likely to be the consequence.
You think I am too severe on my brother-sportsmen: if more so than they deserve, I am sorry for it. I know many gentlemen who are excellent sportsmen; yet I am sorry to say, the greater number of those who ride after hounds are not: and it is those only to whom I allude. Few gentlemen will take any pains; few of them will stop a hound, though he should run riot close beside them; or will stand quiet a moment, though it be to halloo a fox. It is true, they will not fail to halloo if he should come in their way; and they will do the same to as many foxes as they see. Some will encourage hounds which they do not know: this is a great fault. Were every gentleman who follows hounds to fancy himself a huntsman, what noise, what confusion would ensue! I consider many of them as gentlemen riding out; and I am never so well pleased, as when I see them ride home again. You may perhaps have thought that I wished them all to be huntsmen—most certainly not: but the more assistants a huntsman has, the better, in all probability, his hounds will be. Good sense, and a little observation, will soon prevent such people from doing amiss; and I hold it as an almost invariable rule in hunting, that those who do not know how to do good, are always liable to do harm.4 There is scarcely an instant during a whole chase, when a sportsman ought not to be in one particular place; and I will venture to say, that if he be not there, he might as well be in his bed.
I must give you an extraordinary instance of a gentleman’s knowledge of hunting: He had hired a house in a fine hunting country, with a good kennel belonging to it, in the neighbourhood of two packs of fox-hounds, of which mine was one; and, that he might not offend the owner of either, intended, as he said, to hunt with both. He offered me the use of his kennel, which, for some reasons, I chose to decline: it was afterwards offered to the other gentleman, who accepted it. The first day that the hounds hunted his country, he did not appear: the second day, the hounds were no sooner at the cover-side, than my friend saw an odd figure, strangely accoutred, riding up, with a spaniel following him. “Sir,” said he, “it gave me great concern not to be able to attend you when you was here before: I hope you was not offended at it; for, to show you how well I am inclined to assist your hunt, you see, I have brought my little dog.”
I will now give you an instance of another gentleman’s love of hunting:—We were returning from hunting over a very fine country; and, upon its being remarked that we had a pleasant ride, he replied—“The best part of the sport, in my opinion, is the riding home to dinner afterwards.” He is, without doubt, of the same opinion with a fat old gentleman that I one day overtook upon the road, who, after having asked me, “How many foxes we usually killed in one day?” and “Why I did not hunt hare rather than fox, as she was better to eat?” concluded with saying, “There is but one part of hunting I likes—it makes one very hungry.”
There are two things which I particularly recommend to you;—the one is, to make your hounds steady; the other, to make them all draw. Many huntsmen are fond of having them at their horse’s heels; but, believe me, they never get so well, or so soon, together, as when they spread the cover: besides, I have often known, when there have been only a few finders, that they have found their fox, gone down the wind, and been heard of no more that day.
Never take out an unsteady old hound: young ones properly awed from riot, and that will stop at a rate, may be put into the pack, a few at a time; but an old hound that is vicious should not escape hanging: let him be ever so good in other respects, I will not excuse him; for a pack must be wretched indeed, that can stand in need of such assistance.
There is infinite pleasure in hearing a fox well found. When you get up to his kennel with a good drag, the chorus increasing as you go, it inspires a joy, more easy to be felt than described. With regard to my own sensations, I would rather hear one fox found in this lively manner, than ride the best hare-chase that was ever run.
Much depends on the first finding of your fox; dimidium facti, qui bene cœpit, habet, which we learned at Westminster, is verified here; for I look upon a fox well found to be half killed. I think people generally are in too great a hurry on this occasion. There is an enthusiasm attending this diversion, which, in this instance in particular, ought always to be restrained.5 The hounds are always mad enough when they find their fox: if the men be also mad, they make mad work of it indeed. A gentleman of my acquaintance, who hunts his own hounds, and is not less eager then the rest of us, yet very well knows the bad consequences of being so—to prevent this fault in himself, always begins by taking a pinch of snuff; he then sings part of an old song, “Some say that care killed the cat,” &c. By this time his hounds get together, and settle to the scent. He then halloos, and rides as if the d—l drove.
If the fox break cover, you will sometimes see a young sportsman ride after him. He never fails to ask such a one, “Do you think you can catch him, Sir?” “No.” “Why, then, be so good as to let my hounds try if they can.”
