LETTER XXII

Are not your expectations somewhat too sanguine, when you think that you shall have no occasion for bag-foxes to keep your hounds in blood the first season? It may be as well, perhaps, not to turn them all out, till you can be more certain that your young pack will keep good and steady without them. When blood is much wanted, and they are tired with a hard day, one of these foxes will put them into spirits, and give them, as it were, new strength and vigour.

You desire to know, what I call being out of blood? In answer to which, I must tell you, that, in my judgment, no fox-hound can fail of killing more than three or four times following, without being visibly the worse for it. When hounds are out of blood, there is a kind of evil genius attending all that they do; and, though they may seem to hunt as well as ever, they do not get forward; while a pack of fox-hounds well in blood, like troops flushed with conquest, are not easily withstood. What we call ill luck, day after day, when hounds kill no foxes, may frequently I think, be traced to another cause, namely, their being out of blood; nor can there be any other reason assigned why hounds, which we know to be good, should remain so long as they sometimes do without killing a fox.¹ Large packs are least subject to this inconvenience: hounds that are quite fresh, and in high spirits, least feel the want of blood: the smallest packs, therefore, should be able to leave at least ten or twelve couple of hounds behind them, to be fresh against the next hunting day. If your hounds be much out of blood, give them rest: take this opportunity to hunt with other hounds; to see how they are managed; to observe what stallion hounds they have; and to judge yourself, whether they be such as it is fit for you to breed from. If what I have now recommended should not succeed; if a little rest, and a fine morning, do not put your hounds into blood again, I know of nothing else that will; and you must attribute your ill success, I fear, to another cause.

You say, that you generally hunt at a late hour: after a tolerably good run, do not try to find another fox. Should you be long in finding, and should you not have success afterwards, it will hurt your hounds: should you try a long time, and not find, that also will make them slack. Never try to find a fox after one o’clock; you had better return home, and hunt again on the next day: not that I, in general, approve of hunting two days following with the same hounds: the trying so many hours in vain, and the being kept so long off their food, both contribute to make them slack; and nothing, surely, is more contrary to the true spirit of fox-hunting; for fox-hounds, I have already said, ought always to be above their work. This is another particular, in which hare-hunting and fox-hunting totally differ; for harriers cannot be hunted too much, as long as they are able to hunt at all: the slower they go, the less likely they will be to over-run the scent, and the sooner, in all probability, will they kill their game. I have a friend, who hunted his five days following, and assured me that he had better sport with them the last day than the first.

I remember to have heard, that a certain pack of fox-hounds, since become famous, were many weeks, from a mixture of indifferent hounds, bad management, and worse luck, without killing a fox; however, they killed one at last, and tried to find another:—they found him, and they lost him; and were then, as you may well suppose, another month without killing another fox:—this was ill-judged: they should have returned home immediately.

When hounds are much out of blood, some men proceed in a method that must necessarily keep them so: they hunt them every day, as if tiring them out were a means to give them strength and spirit:—this, however, proceeds more from ill-nature and resentment, than sound judgment.² As I know your temper to be the reverse, without doubt, you will adopt a different method; and, should your hounds ever be in the state here described, you will keep them fresh for the first fine day; when, supposing them to be all perfectly steady, I do not question that they will kill their fox.

When hounds are in want of blood, give them every advantage; go out early, choose a good quiet morning, and throw off your hounds where they are likely to find, and are least likely to change:—if it be a small cover, or furze-brake, and you can keep the fox in, it is right to do it; for the sooner you kill him, when you are in want of blood, the better for the hounds.

When hounds are in want of blood, and you get a fox into a small cover, it must be your own fault if you do not kill him there: place your people properly, and he cannot get off again. You will hear, perhaps, that it is impossible to head back a fox. No animal is so shy; consequently, no animal is so easily headed back by those who understand it. When it is your intention to check a fox, your people must keep at a little distance from the cover side; nor should they be sparing of their voices; for, since you cannot keep him in (if he be determined to come out), prevent him, if you can, from being so inclined. All kind of mobbing is allowable, when hounds are out of blood;³ and you may keep the fox in cover, or let him out, as you think the hounds will manage him best.

Though I am so great an advocate for blood, as to judge it necessary to a pack of fox-hounds, yet I by no means approve of it, so far as it is sometimes carried. I have known three young foxes chopped in a furze-brake in one day, without any sport; a wanton destruction of foxes, scarcely answering the purpose of blood; since that blood does hounds most good which is most dearly earned. Such sportsmen richly deserve blank days; and, without doubt, they often meet with them. Mobbing a fox, indeed, is only allowable when hounds are not likely to be a match for him without it. One would almost be inclined to think blood as necessary to the men as to the hounds, since the best chase is flat, unless you kill the fox. When you ask a fox-hunter, What sport he has had? and he replies, It was good; I think the next question generally is, Did your hounds kill? If he should say, They did not, the conversation ends; but if, on the contrary, he tell you that they did, you then ask a hundred questions, and seldom are satisfied till he has related every particular of the chase.

When there is snow on the ground, foxes will lie at earth.⁴ Should your hounds be in want of blood, it will at that time be easy to dig one to turn out before them, when the weather breaks; but I seem to have forgotten a new doctrine which I lately heard, that blood is not necessary to a pack of fox-hounds.⁵ If you also should have taken up that opinion, I have only to wish, that the goodness of your hounds may prevent you from changing it, or from knowing how far it may be erroneous.⁶

Before you have been long a fox-hunter, I expect to hear you talk of the ill-luck which so frequently attends this diversion. I can assure you, it has provoked me often, and has made even a parson swear:—it was but the other day that we experienced an extraordinary instance of it: we found at the same instant a brace of foxes in the same cover; and they both broke at the opposite ends of it. The hounds soon got together, and went off very well with one of them; yet notwithstanding this, such was our ill-luck, that, though the hunted fox took a circle of several miles, he at last crossed the line of the other fox; the heel of which we hunted back to the cover from whence we came: it is true, we perceived that our scent worsted, and were going to stop the hounds; but the going off of a white frost deceived us also in that.

Many a fox have I known lost by running into houses and stables. It is not long since my hounds lost one, when hunting in the New Forest:—after having tried the country round, they had given him up, and were gotten home; when in rode a farmer, full gallop, with news of the fox: he had found him, he said, in his stable, and had shut him in. The hounds returned: the fox, however, stood but a little while, as he was quite run up before.

Some years ago, my hounds running a fox across an open country in a thick fog, the fox scarcely out of view, three of the leading hounds disappeared all of a sudden; and the whipper-in, luckily, was near enough to see it happen. They fell into a dry well, near a hundred feet deep: they and the fox remained there together till the next day, when, with the greatest difficulty, we got them all four out.

Another time, having run a fox a burst of an hour and a quarter (the severest I ever remember), the hounds at last got up to him by the side of a river, where he had stayed for them. One hound seized him as he was swimming across, and they both went down together: the hound came up again, but the fox appeared no more. By means of a boat and a long pole, we got the fox out. Had he not been seen to sink, he would hardly have been tried for under water; and, without doubt, we should have wondered what had become of him.

Now we are in the chapter of accidents, I must mention another, that lately happened to me on crossing a river, to draw a cover on the other side of it:—The river Stower frequently overflows its banks, and is also very rapid and very dangerous. The flood that morning, though sudden, was extensive: the neighbouring meadows were all laid under water, and only the tops of the hedges appeared. There were posts to direct us to the bridge; but we had a great length of water to pass before we could get at it: it was, besides, so deep, that our horses almost swam; and the shortest-legged horses, and longest-legged riders, were worst off. The hounds dashed in as usual, and were immediately carried, by the rapidity of the current, a long way down the stream. The huntsman was far behind them; and, as he could advance but slowly, he was constrained to see his hounds wear themselves out in a useless contention with the current, from their efforts to get to him. It was a shocking scene! many of the hounds, when they reached the shore, had entirely lost the use of their limbs; for it froze, and the cold was intolerable: some lay as if they were dead, and others reeled as if they had been drinking wine. Our ill-luck was not yet complete: the weakest hounds, or such as were most affected by the cold, we now saw entangled in the tops of the hedges, and heard their lamentations. Well-known tongues! and such as I had never heard before without pleasure. It was painful to see their distress, and not know how to relieve it. A number of people, by this time, were assembled near the river-side; but there was not one amongst them that would venture in. However, a guinea, at last, tempted one man to fetch out a hound that was entangled in a bush, and would otherwise have perished. Two hounds remained upon a hedge all night; and, though at a considerable distance from each other when we left them, yet they got together afterwards; and the next morning, when the flood abated, they were found closely clasping each other: without doubt, it was the friendly warmth which they afforded each other that kept both alive. We lost but one hound by this unlucky expedition, but could not save any of our terriers. They were seen to sink, their strength not being sufficient to resist the two enemies they had to encounter (powerful when combined) the severity of the cold, and the rapidity of the stream.

You ask, At what time you should leave off hunting? It is a question which I know not how to answer; as it depends as much on the quantity of game that you have, as on the country that you hunt: however, in my opinion, no good country should be hunted after February; nor should there be any hunting at all after March. Spring-hunting is sad destruction of foxes: in one week you may destroy as many as would have shown you sport for a whole season. We killed a bitch-fox one morning, with seven young ones, which were all alive. I can assure you we missed them very much the next year, and had many blank days which we needed not to have had, but through our own fault. I should tell you, this notable feat was performed, literally, on the first of April. If you will hunt late in the season, you should at least leave your terriers behind you. I hate to kill any animal out of season. A hen-pheasant with egg, I have heard, is famous eating; yet, I can assure you I never mean to taste it; and the hunting a bitch-fox big with young, appears to me cruel and unnatural. A gentleman of my acquaintance, who killed most of his foxes at this season, was humorously called, midwife to the foxes.

Are not the foxes’ heads, which are so pompously exposed to view, often prejudicial to sport in fox-hunting? How many foxes are wantonly destroyed, without the least service to the hounds or sport to the master; that the huntsman may say he has killed so many brace! How many are digged out and killed, when blood is not wanted, for no better reason! foxes that, another day, perhaps, the earths well stopped, might have run hours, and died gallantly at last. I remember, myself, to have seen a pack of hounds kill three in one day; and, though the last ran to ground, and the hounds had killed two before, therefore could not be supposed to be in want of blood, the fox was digged out, and killed upon the earth.⁷ However, it answered one purpose which you would little expect—it put a clergyman, who was present, in mind that he had a corpse to bury, which otherwise had been forgotten.

I should have less objection to the number of foxes’ heads that are to be seen against every kennel-door, did it ascertain with more precision the goodness of the hounds; which may more justly be known from the few foxes they lose, than from the number that they kill. When you inquire after a pack of fox-hounds, whether they be good, or not, and are told they seldom miss a fox; your mind is perfectly satisfied about them, and you inquire no further: it is not always so, when you are told the number of foxes they have killed. If you ask a Frenchman, What age he is of? he will tell you that he is in good health. In like manner, when I am asked, How many brace of foxes my hounds have killed? I feel myself inclined to say, the hounds are good; an answer which, in my opinion, goes more immediately to the spirit of the question than any other that I could give; since the number of foxes’ heads is, at best, but a presumptive proof of the goodness of the hounds. In a country neighbouring to mine, foxes are difficult to be killed, and not easy to be found; and the gentlemen who hunt that country, are very well contented when they kill a dozen brace of foxes in a season. My hounds kill double that number: ought it to be inferred from thence that they are twice as good?

All countries are not equally favourable to hounds. I hunt in three, all as different as it is possible to be; and the same hounds that behave well in one, sometimes appear to behave indifferently in another. Were the most famous pack, therefore, to change their good country for the bad one I here allude to (though, without doubt, they would behave well), they certainly would meet with less success than they are at present used to: our cold flinty hills would soon convince them, that the difference of strength between one fox and another—the difference of goodness betwixt one hound and another—are yet but trifles, when compared with the more material difference of a good-scenting country and a bad one.⁸

I can hardly think you serious, when you ask me, If the same hounds can hunt both hare and fox? However, thus far you may assure yourself, that it cannot be done with any degree of consistency. As to your other question, of hunting the hounds yourself, that is an undertaking which, if you will follow my advice, you will let alone. It is your opinion, I find, that a gentleman might make the best huntsman: I have no doubt that he would, if he chose the trouble of it. I do not think there is any profession, trade, or occupation, to which a good education would not be of service; and hunting, notwithstanding it is at present exercised by such as have not had an education, might, without doubt, be carried on much better by those that have. I will venture to say, fewer faults would then be committed; nor would the same faults be committed over and over again, as they now are. Huntsmen never reason by analogy, nor are they much benefited by experience.

Having told you, in a former Letter, what a huntsman ought to be, the following, which I can assure you is a true copy, will show you, in some instances at least, what he ought not to be:

Sir,

Yours I received the 24th of this present Instant June and at your request I will give you an impartial account of my man John G——’s Character. He is a Shoemaker or Cordwainer which you please to call it by trade and now in our Town he is following the Carding Business for every one that wants him he served his Time at a Town called Brigstock in Northamptonshire and from thence in great Addington Journeyman to this Occupation as before mentioned and used to come to my house and found by riding my horses to water that he rode a horse pretty well which was not at all mistaken for he rides a horse well and he looks after a kennel of hounds very well and finds a hare very well he hath no judgment in hunting a pack of hounds now tho he rides well he dont with discretion for he dont know how to make the most of a horse but a very harey starey fellow will ride over a church if in his way tho may prevent the leap by having a gap within ten yards of him and if you are not in the field with him yourself when you are a hunting to tutor him about riding he will kill all the horses you have in the stable in one month for he hath killed downright and lamed so that will never be fit for use no more than five horses since he hath hunted my hounds which is two years and upwards he can talk no dog language to a hound he hath no voice speaks to a hound just as if his head were in a drum nor neither does he know how to draw a hound when they are at a loss no more than a child of two years old as to his honesty I always found him honest till about a week ago and have found him dishonest now for about a week ago I sent my servant that I have now to fetch some sheep’s feet from Mr. Stanjan of Higham Ferrers where G——used to go for feet and I always send my money by my man that brings the feet and Stanjan told my man that I have now that I owed him money for feet and when the boy came home he told me and I went to Stanjan and when I found the truth of the matter G——had kept my money in his hands and had never paid Stanjan he had been along with me once for a letter in order for his character to give him one but I told him I could not give him a good one so I would not write at all G——is a very great drunkard cant keep a penny in his pocket a sad notorious lyar if you send him upon an errand a mile or two from Uppingham he will get drunk stay all day and never come home while the middle of the night or such time as he knows his master is in bed he can nor will not keep any secret neither hath he so much wit as other people for the fellow is half a fool for if you would have business done with expedition if he once gets out of the town or sight of you you shall see him no more while the next morning he serves me so and so you must expect the same if you hire him I use you just as I would be used myself if I desired a character of you of a servant that I had designed to hire of yours as to let you know the truth of every thing about him.

P.S.—He takes good care of his horses with good looking after him as to the dressing e’m but if you dont take care he will fill the manger full of corn so that he will cloy the horses and ruin the whole stable of horses.

Great Addington June the 28th 1734.

¹A pack of hounds that had been a month without killing a fox, at last ran one to ground, which they dug, and killed upon the earth: the next seven days that they hunted, they killed a fox each day.

²It is not the want of blood only that is prejudicial to hounds: the trying long in vain to recover a lost scent, no less contributes to make them slack.

³Yet, how many foxes owe their lives to the too great eagerness of their pursuers?

⁴Earths should be watched when there is snow upon the ground; for foxes then will lie at earth. Those who are inclined to destroy them, can track them in, and may dig them out.

[⁵This doctrine has its advocates in these days, but it is generally amongst the lookers-on, and not those who have the management of hounds. Blood, as the author says, is all-important, and no pack will show good sport unless they get plenty of it.]

⁶Those who can suppose the killing of a fox to be of no service to a pack of fox-hounds, may suppose, perhaps, that it does them hurt: it is going but one step further.

[⁷It will be seen that though Beckford is such a great believer in blood, he yet strongly condemns killing foxes wantonly. The only excuse for wholesale butchery is when foxes are too numerous and farmers are complaining.]

⁸Great inequality of scent is very unfavourable to hounds. In heathy countries the scent always lies; yet, I have remarked, that the many roads which cross them, and the many inclosures of poor land that surround them, render hunting in such countries, at times, very difficult to hounds. The sudden change from a good scent to a bad one, puzzles their noses, and confuses their understandings; and many of them, without doubt, follow the scent unwillingly, owing to the little credit that they give to it. In my opinion, therefore, a scent which is less good, but more equal, is more favourable to hounds.