LETTER XV

I left off just as I had found the fox: I now, therefore, with your leave, will suppose that the hounds are running him. You desire that I would be more particular with regard to the men: it was always my intention. To begin, then—The huntsman ought certainly to set off with his foremost hounds, and I should wish him to keep as close to them afterwards as he conveniently can; nor can any harm arise from it, unless he should not have common sense. No hounds then can slip down the wind, and get out of his hearing: he will also see how far they carry the scent; necessary requisite;—for, without it, he can never make a cast with any certainty.

You will find it not less necessary for your huntsman to be active in pressing his hounds forward,¹ while the scent is good, than to be prudent in not hurrying them beyond it when it is bad. Yours, you say, is a good horseman: it is of the utmost consequence to your sport; nor is it possible for a huntsman to be of much use who is not; for the first thing, and the very sine quâ non, of a fox-hunter, is to ride up to his headmost hounds. It is his business to be ready at all times to lend them that assistance which they so frequently need, and which, when they are first at a fault, is then most critical. A fox-hound at that time will exert himself most: he afterwards cools, and becomes more indifferent about his game. Those huntsmen who do not get forward enough to take advantage of this eagerness and impetuosity, and direct it properly, seldom know enough of hunting to be of much use to them afterwards.

You will perhaps find it more difficult to keep your whipper-in back, than to get your huntsman forward; at least, I always have found it so.² It is, however, necessary; nor will a good whipper-in leave a cover while a single hound remains in it: for this reason there should be two; one of whom should always be forward with the huntsman. You cannot conceive the many ills that may happen to hounds that are left behind.³ I do not know that I can enumerate one half of them; but of this you may be certain, that the keeping them together is the surest means to keep them steady. When left to themselves, they seldom refuse any blood they can get; they acquire many bad habits; they become conceited; a terrible fault in any animal;——and they learn to tie upon the scent; an unpardonable fault in a fox-hound:—besides this, they frequently get a trick of hunting by themselves; and they seldom are worth much afterwards. The lying out in the cold, perhaps the whole night, can do no good to their constitutions; nor will the being worried by sheep-dogs, or mastiffs, be of service to their bodies:—all this, however, and much more, they are liable to do. I believe I mentioned in my fourth Letter, that the straw-house door should be left open when any hounds are missing.

Every country is soon known; and nine foxes out of ten, with the wind in the same quarter, will follow the same track. It is easy, therefore, for the whipper-in to cut short, and catch the hounds again; at least, it is so in the country where I hunt. With a high scent, you cannot push on hounds too much. Screams keep the fox forward, at the same time that they keep the hounds together, or let in the tail hounds;⁴ they also enliven the sport, and, if discreetly used, are always of service; but, in cover, they should be given with the greatest caution.

Most fox-hunters wish to see their hounds run in a good style. I confess I am myself one of those. I hate to see a string of them; nor can I bear to see them creep where they can leap. It is the dash of the fox-hound which distinguishes him, as truly as the motto of William of Wickham distinguishes us. A pack of harriers, if they have time, may kill a fox; but I defy them to kill him in the style in which a fox ought to be killed: they must hunt him down. If you intend to tire him out, you must expect to be tired also yourself. I never wish a chase to be less than one hour, or to exceed two:⁵ it is sufficiently long, if properly followed: it will seldom be longer, unless there be a fault somewhere; either in the day, in the huntsman, or in the hounds. What Lord Chatham once said of a battle, is particularly applicable to a fox-chase: it should be short, sharp, and decisive.

There is, I believe, but little difference in the speed of hounds of the same size: the great difference is in the head they carry; and, in order that they may run well together, you should not keep too many old hounds: after five or six seasons, they generally do more harm than good. If they tie upon the scent, and come hunting after, hang them up immediately, let their age be what it may: there is no getting such conceited devils on; they will never come to a halloo, which every hound that is off the scent, or behind the rest, should not fail to do; and they are always more likely to draw you back than help you forward.⁶

You think me too severe on skirters. I must confess, that I have but one objection to them, and it is this—I have constantly seen them do more harm than good.

Changing from the hunted fox to a fresh one, is as bad an accident as can happen to a pack of fox-hounds, and requires all the observation and all the ingenuity that man is capable of, to guard against it. Could a fox-hound distinguish a hunted fox as the deer-hound does the deer that is blown, fox-hunting would then be perfect.⁷ There are certain rules that ought to be observed by huntsmen. A huntsman should always listen to his hounds while they are running in cover; he should be particularly attentive to the headmost hounds, and should be constantly on his guard against a skirter; for, if there be two scents, he must be wrong. Generally speaking, the best scent is least likely to be that of the hunted fox; and as a fox seldom suffers hounds to run up to him as long as he is able to prevent it, so nine times out of ten, when foxes are hallooed early in the day, they are all fresh foxes. The hounds most likely to be right, are the hard-running line-hunting hounds, or such as the huntsman knows had the lead before there arose any doubt of changing. With regard to the fox, if he break over an open country, it is no sign that he is hard-run; for they seldom at any time will do that, unless they be a great way before the hounds; also, if he run up the wind; as they seldom or ever do that when they have been long hunted and grow weak; and when they run their foil, that also may direct him. All this, as you will perceive, requires a good ear and nice observation; and, indeed, in that consists the chief excellence of a huntsman.

When the hounds divide and are in two parts, the whipper-in, in stopping, must attend to the huntsman, and wait for his halloo, before he attempts to stop either; for want of proper management in this particular, I have known the hounds stopped at both places, and both foxes lost by it. If they have many scents, and it is quite uncertain which is the hunted fox, let him stop those that are farthest down the wind, as they can hear the others, and will reach them soonest: in such a case, there will be little use in stopping those that are up the wind.

When hounds are at a check, let every one be silent and stand still: but as I have already said so much on that head in my eleventh Letter, on hare-hunting, I beg leave to refer you to it. Whippers-in are frequently at this time coming on with the tail hounds: they should never halloo to them when the hounds are at fault: the least thing does hurt at such a time, but a halloo more than any other. The huntsman, at a check, had better let his hounds alone, or content himself with holding them forward, without taking them off their noses. Hounds that are not used to be cast, à tout bout de champ, will of themselves acquire a better cast than it is in the power of any huntsman to give them; will spread more, and try better for the scent; and, if in health and spirits, will want no encouragement.

Should they be at fault, after having made their own cast (which the huntsman should always first encourage them to do), it is then his business to assist them farther; but, except in some particular instances, I never approve of their being cast, as long as they are inclined to hunt. The first cast I bid my huntsman make, is generally a regular one; not choosing to rely entirely on his judgment: if that should not succeed, he is then at liberty to follow his own opinion, and proceed as observation and genius may direct. When such a cast is made, I like to see some mark of good sense and meaning in it; whether down the wind, or towards some likely cover, or strong earth: however, as it is, at best, uncertain, and as the huntsman and the fox may be of different opinions, I always wish to see a regular cast before I see a knowing one; which as a last resource, should not be called forth till it be wanted. The letting hounds alone is but a negative goodness in a huntsman; whereas, it is true, this last shows real genius, and, to be perfect, it must be born with him. There is a fault, however, which a knowing huntsman is too apt to commit:—he will find a fresh fox, and then claim the merit of having recovered the hunted one. It always is dangerous to throw hounds into a cover to retrieve a lost scent, and, unless they hit him in, is not to be depended on. Driven to the last extremity, should a knowing cast not succeed, your huntsman is in nowise blamable. Mine, I remember, lost me a good chase, by persevering too long in a favourite cast; but he gave me so many good reasons why the fox ought to have gone that way, that I returned perfectly well satisfied, telling him at the same time, that, if the fox was a fool, he could not help it.

Gentlemen, when hounds are at fault, are too apt themselves to prolong it: they should always stop their horses some distance behind the hounds; and, if it be possible to remain silent, this is the time to be so: they should be careful not to ride before the hounds, or over the scent; nor should they ever meet a hound in the face, unless with a design to stop him. Should you at any time be before the hounds, turn your horse’s head the way they are going, get out of their track, and let them pass by you.

In dry weather, foxes, particularly in healthy countries, will run the roads. If gentlemen, at such times, will ride close upon the hounds, they may drive them miles without any scent.⁸ High-mettled fox-hounds are seldom inclined to stop while horses are close at their heels.

An acquaintance of mine, a good sportsman, but a very warm one, when he sees the company pressing too close upon his hounds, begins with crying out as loud as he can, hold hard! If any one should persist after that, he begins moderately at first, and says, I beg, Sir, you will stop your horse—Pray, Sir, stop—God bless you, Sir, stop!—God d—n your blood, Sir, stop your horse!

I am now, as you may perceive, in a very violent passion; so I will e’en stop the continuation of this subject till I be cool again.

¹Pressing hounds on, is perhaps a dangerous expression; as more harm may be done by pressing them beyond the scent, when it is good, than when it is bad. However, it means no more than to get forward the tail hounds, and to encourage the others to push on as fast as they can while the scent serves them.

²Though a huntsman cannot be too fond of hunting, a whipper-in easily may. His business will seldom allow him to be forward enough with the hounds to see much of the sport. His only thought, therefore, should be to keep the hounds together, and to contribute as much as he can to the killing of the fox.

[³Hounds should never be waited for unless they have not had a chance of hearing the horn. Hounds are very much like children; they hate being left behind or lost, and if they find no one waits, they will take care to get on, but if they see that there is a nursemaid waiting outside the covert until they choose to come out, they often won’t hurry themselves.]

⁴Halloos seldom do any hurt, when you are running up the wind; for then, none but the tail hounds can hear you: when you are running down the wind, you should halloo no more than may be necessary to bring the tail hounds forward; for a hound that knows his business seldom wants encouragement when he is upon a scent.

[⁵Now that horses and hounds are faster than in Beckford’s time, we might say not less than thiry-five minutes or more than one hour and forty minutes, at least, in a grass country.]

⁶From this passage, the critic endeavours to prove the sportsman’s ingratitude; and yet common sense, I believe, induces most men to rid themselves of that, which, if kept, would be prejudicial to them. The critic seems to allude to a well-known fable of Æsop, but is not very happy in the application. He has also misquoted the passage—the author does not say tire, but tie upon the scent.—Good hounds, when they become aged, are liable to the first; bad ones only, are guilty of the last. In either case, death is not meant as a punishment, nor is it considered as a misfortune.—Vide Monthly Review.

[⁷This is a point on which we cannot quite agree with the author. Some hounds can and undoubtedly do distinguish between the scent of the run fox and that of a fresh one. It is a very delicate power of perception, and is often lost by a pack being continually holloaed on to fresh foxes. There is also no doubt that a fox’s scent changes as he becomes tired, and the hounds to know this must be those that have had continual experience in catching their foxes. When a fox is getting tired and the scent is growing weaker, a pack that is out of blood will not persevere and try without considerable encouragement.]

⁸No one should ever ride in a direction which, if persisted in, would carry him amongst the hounds, unless he be at a great distance behind them.