If he can afford it, and likes to spend a season
or two in the shires for the last superlative
polish, let him go and welcome ! He will be
taught to get clear of a crowd, to leap timber
at short notice, to put on his boots and breeches,
and that is about all there is left for him to
learn !

In the British army, though more than a
hundred regiments constitute the line, each
cherishes its own particular title, while applying
that general application indiscriminately to the
rest.

I imagine the same illusion affects the
provinces, and I should offend an incalculable
number of good fellows and good sportsmen,
were I to describe as provincial establishments,



THE PROVINCES 231

the variety of hunts, north, south, east, and
west, with which I have enjoyed so much good
company and good fun. Each has its own claim
to distinction, some have collars, all have sport.

Grass, I imagine, is the one essential that
constitutes pre-eminence in a hunting country,
and for this the shires have always boasted they
bear away the palm, but it will surprise many of
my readers to be told that in the south and west
there are districts where this desideratum seems
now more plentiful than in the middle of Eng-
land. The Blackmoor Vale still lies almost
wholly under pasture, and you may travel to-day
forty miles by rail, through the counties of
Dorset and Somerset, in general terms nearly
from Blandford to Bath, without seeing a
ploughed field.

What a country might here be made by
such an enthusiast as poor " Sam Eeynell,"
who found Meath without a gorse-covert, and
drew between thirty and forty sure finds in it
before he died !

Independently of duty, which ought to be
our first consideration, there is also great
convenience in hunting from home. We require
no large stud, can choose our meets, and, above
all, are indifferent to weather. A horse comes
out so many times in a season ; if we don't
hunt to-day we shall next week. Compare this
equable frame of mind with the irritation and



232 SIDING RECOLLECTIONS

impatience of a man who has ten hunters
standing at the sign of "The Hand-in-Pocket,"
while he inhabits the front parlour, without his
books, deprived of his usual society and occu-
pations, the barometer at set fair, and the
atmosphere affording every indication of a six-
weeks' frost !

Let us see in what the charm consists that
impels people to encounter bad food, bad wine,
bad lodgings, and above all, protracted boredom,
for a campaign in those historical hunting-
grounds, that have already seemed to constitute
the rosiest illusion of a sportsman's dream.



CHAPTEE XIY

TEE SHIRES

" Every species of fence every horse doesn't suit,
What's a good country hunter rnay here prove a brute,"

SINGS that clerical bard who wrote the Billesdon-
Coplow poem, from which I have already quoted;
and it would be difficult to explain more tersely
than do these two lines the difference between
a fair useful hunter, and the flyer we call par
excellence " a Leicestershire horse ! "

Alas ! for the favourite unrivalled over
Gloucestershire walls, among Dorsetshire
doubles, in the level ploughs of Holderness,
or up and down the wild Derbyshire hills,
when called upon to gallop, we will say, from
Ashby pastures to the Coplow, after a week's
rain, at Quorn pace, across Quorn fences, unless
he happens to possess with the speed of the
steeple-chaser, the courage of a lion and the
activity of a cat ! For the first mile or two

233



234 BIDING RECOLLECTIONS

11 pristinas virtutis baud immemor" he bears
him gallantly enough, even the unaccustomed
rail on the far side of an " oxer," elicits but
a startling exertion, and a loud rattle of horn
and iron against wood, but ere long the slope
rises against him, the ridge-and-furrow checks
his stride, a field, dotted with ant-hills as large
as church-hassocks and not unlike them in
shape, to catch his toes and impede his action,
changes his smooth easy swing to a laborious
flounder, and presently at a thick bullfinch on
the crest of a grassy ridge, out of ground that
takes him in nearly to his hocks, comes the
crisis. Too good a hunter to turn over, he gets
his shoulders out and lets his rider see the fall
before it is administered, but down he goes not-
withstanding, very effectually, to rise again after
a struggle, his eye wild, nostril distended, and
flanks heaving, thoroughly pumped out !

He is a good horse, but you have brought
him into the wrong country, and this is the
result.

It would be a hopeless task to extract from
young Eapid's laconic phrases, and general
indifference, any particulars regarding the burst
in which, to give him his due, he has gone
brilliantly, or the merits of the horse that carried
him in the first flight without a mistake. He
wastes his time, his money, his talents, but
not his words. For him and his companions,



THE SHIEES 235

question and answer are cut short somewhat in
this wise :

"Did you get away with them from the
Punch-bowl ? "

" Yes, I was among the lucky ones."

"Is, 'The King of the Golden Mines' any
use?"

" I fancy he is good enough."

And yet he is reflecting on the merits of
Self and Co. with no little satisfaction, and does
not grudge one shilling of the money a hundred
down, and a bill for two hundred and fifty that
the horse with the magnificent name cost him
last spring.

Their performance, I admit, does them both
credit. I will endeavour to give a rough sketch
of the somewhat hazardous amusement that puts
him out of conceit with the sport show r n by his
father's hounds.

Let us picture to ourselves then, Eapid
junior, resplendent in the whitest of breeches
and brightest of boots, with a single-breasted,
square-cut scarlet coat, a sleek hat curly of brim,
four feet of cane hunting-whip in his hand, a
flower at his breast, and a toothpick in his mouth,
replaced by an enormous cigar as somebody he
doesn't know suggests they are not likely to find.
Though he looks so helpless, and more than half-
asleep, he is wide-awake enough in fact, and
dashes the weed unlighted from his lips, when



236 BIDING RECOLLECTIONS

he spies the huntsman stand up in his stirrups
as though on the watch. There lurks a fund of
latent energy under the placidity of our friend's
demeanour, and, as four couple of hounds come
streaming out of cover, he shoots up the bank
rather too near them, to pick his place without
hesitation in an ugly bullfinch at the top. Two
of his own kind are making for the same spot at
the same moment, and our young friend shows
at such a crisis, that he knows how to ride.
Taking " The King of the Golden Mines," hard
by the head, he changes his aim on the instant,
and rams the good horse at four feet of strong
timber, leaning towards him, with an energy not
to be denied. Over they go triumphantly, The
King, half affronted, catching hold with some
resentment, as he settles vigorously to his stride.
What matter ? most of the pack are already
half-way across the next field, for Leicestershire
hounds have an extraordinary knack of flying
forward to overtake their comrades. His father
would be delighted with the performance, and
would call it " scoring to cry," but young Eapid
does not trouble himself about such matters. He
is only glad to find they are out of his way, and
thinks no more about it, except to rejoice that
he can put the steam on, without the usual
remonstrance from huntsman and master.

The King can gallop like a race-horse, and is
soon at the next leap a wide ditch, a high



THE SHIRES 237

staked-and-bound hedge, coarse, rough and
strong, with a drop and what you please, on the
other side. This last treat proves to be a bowed-
out oak-rail, standing four feet from the fence.
The King, full of courage, and going fast, bounds
over the whole with his hind legs tucked under
him like a deer, ready, but not requiring, to
strike back, while two of Eapid's young friends
with whom he dined yesterday, and one he will
meet at dinner to-day, fly it in similar form,
nearly alongside. An ugly, overgrown bullfinch,
with a miniature ravine, or, as it is here called,
a bottom, appears at the foot of the hill they are
now descending, and, as there seems only one
practicable place, these four reckless individuals at
once begin to race for the desirable spot. The
King's turn of speed serves him again ; covering
five- or six-and-twenty feet, he leaps it a length
in front of the nearest horse, and a couple of
strides before the other two, while loud reproach-
ful outcries resound in the rear because of
Harmony's narrow escape the King's forefoot,
missing that priceless bitch by a yard !

Our young gentleman, having got a lead now,
begins to ride with more judgment. He trots
up to a stile and pops over in truly artistic form ;
better still, he gives the hounds plenty of room
on the fallow beyond, where they have hovered
for a moment and put down their noses, holding
his hand up to warn those behind, a "bit of



238 BIDING RECOLLECTIONS

cheek," as they call this precautionary measure,
which he will be made to remember for some
days to come !

He is not such a fool but that he knows, from
experience in the old country, how a little
patience at these critical moments makes the
whole difference between a good day's sport and
a bad. It would be provoking to lose the chance
of a gallop now, when he has got such a start,
and is riding the best horse in his stable, so he
looks anxiously over his shoulder for the hunts-
man, who is coming, and stands fifty yards aloof,
which he considers a liberal allowance, that the
hounds may have space to swing.

To-day there is a good scent and a good fox,
a combination that happens oftener than might
be supposed. Harmony, who, notwithstanding
her recent peril, has never been off the line,
though the others over-shot it, scours away at
a tangent, with the slightest possible whimper,
and her stern down, the leading hounds wheeling
to her like pigeons, and the whole pack driving
forward again, harder than before.

It was a beautiful turn ; young Eapid would
admire it, no doubt, were his attention not
distracted by the gate out of the field, which is
chained up, and a hurried calculation as to
whether it is too high for the King to attempt.

The solution is obvious. I need hardly say he
jumps it gallantly in his stride. It would never



THE SHIRES 239

do, you see, to let those other fellows catch him,
and he sails away once more with a stronger lead
than at first. What a hunting panorama opens
on his view ! a downward stretch of a couple of
miles, and a gentle rise beyond of more than
twice that distance, consisting wholly of enormous
grass fields, dotted here and there with single
trees, -and separated by long lines of fences,
showing black and level on that faded expanse
of green. The smoke from a farmhouse rises
white and thin against the dull sky in the
middle distance, and a taper church - spire
points to heaven from behind the hill, other-
wise there is not an object for miles to recall
everyday life ; and young Eapid's world consists
at this moment of two reeking pointed ears,
with a vision of certain dim shapes, fleeting
like shadows across the open swift dusky, and
noiseless as a dream.

His blood thrills with excitement, from the
crown of his close-cropped head to his silken-
covered heel, but education is stronger than
nature, and he tightens his lips, perhaps to
repress a cheer, while he murmurs " Over the
brook for a hundred ! and the King never turned
from water in his life."

Two more fences bring him. to the level
meadow with its willows. Harmony is shaking
herself on the farther bank, and he has marked
with his eye the spot where he means to take off.



240 BIDING BECOLLECTIONS

A strong pull, a steady hand, the energy of a
mile gallop condensed into a dozen strides, and
the stream passes beneath him like a flash.
" It's a rum one ! " he murmurs, standing up in
his stirrups to ease the good horse, while one
follower exclaims " Bravo ! Eapid. Go along,
old man ! " as the speaker plunges overhead ; and
another, who lands with a scramble, mutters,

" D n him, I shall never catch him ! my

horse is done to a turn now."

The King, his owner thinks is well worth the
350 that has not been paid. The horse has
caught his second wind, and keeps striding on,
strong and full of running, though temperate
enough now, and, in such a country as this, a
truly delightful mount.

There is no denying that our friend is a
capital horseman, and bold as need be. " The
King of the Golden Mines," with a workman on
his back, can hardly be defeated by any obstacle
that the power and spring of a quadruped ought
to surmount. He has tremendous stride, and no
less courage than his master, so fence after fence
is thrown behind the happy pair with a sensation
like flying that seems equally gratifying to both.
The ground is soft but sound enough ; the leaps,
though large, are fair and clean. One by one
they are covered in light, elastic bounds, of
eighteen or twenty feet, and for a mile, at least,
the King scarcely alters his action, and never



THE SHIRES 341

changes his leg. Young Kapid would ask no
better fun than to go on like this for a
week.

Once he has a narrow escape. The fox having
turned short up a hedgerow after crossing it, the
hounds, though running to kill, turn as short,
for which they deserve the praise there is nobody
present to bestow, and Kapid, charging the fence
with considerable freedom, just misses landing
in the middle of the pack. I know it, because
he acknowledged it after dinner, professing, at
the same time, devout thankfulness that master
and huntsman were too far off to see. Just such
another turn is made at the next fence, but this
time on the near side. The hounds disappear
suddenly, tumbling over each other into the ditch
like a cascade. Peering between his horse's
ears, the successful rider can distinguish only a
confused whirl of muddy backs, and legs, and
sterns, seen through a cloud of steam ; but
smothered growls, with a certain vibration of
the busy cluster, announce that they have got
him, and Eapid so far forgets himself as to
venture on a feeble " Who whoop ! "

Before he can leap from the saddle the hunts-
man comes up followed by two others, one of
whom, pulling out his watch, with a delighted
face repeats frantically, " Seven-and-twenty
minutes, and a kill in the open ! What a good
gallop ! Not the ghost of a check from end to

16



BIDING RECOLLECTIONS

end. Seven-and-twenty minutes," and so on,
over and over again.

While the field straggle in, and the obsequies
of this good fox are properly celebrated, a little
enthusiasm would be justifiable enough on the
part of a young gentleman who has had the best
of it unquestionably through the whole of so
brilliant a scurry. He might be expected to
enlarge volubly, and with excusable self-conscious-
ness, on the pace, the country, the straight
running of the fox, the speed and gallantry of the
hounds ; nor could we blame him for praising by
implication his own determined riding in a
tribute to " The King of the Golden Mines."

But such extravagancies are studiously
repudiated and repressed by the school to which
young Eapid belongs. All he does say is this

" I wonder when the second horse w r ill come
up ? I want some luncheon before we go and
find another fox."

I have already observed that in the shires we
put two days into one. Where seventy or eighty
couple of hounds are kept and thirty horses, to
hunt four times a week, with plenty of country,
in which you may find a fox every five minutes,
there can be no reason for going home while light
serves ; and really good scenting days occur so
rarely that we may well be tempted to make the
most of one even with jaded servants and a
half-tired pack of hounds. The field, too, are



THE SHIRES 243

considerably diminished by three or four o'clock.
One has no second horse, another must get home
to write his letters, and, if within distance of
Melton, some hurry back to play whist. Every-
thing is comparative. With forty or fifty horse-
men left, a huntsman breathes more freely, and
these, who are probably enthusiasts, begin to
congratulate themselves that the best of the day
is yet to come. " Let us go and draw Melton
Spinney," is a suggestion that brightens every
eye ; and the Duke will always draw Melton
Spinney so long as he can see. It is no unusual
thing for his hounds to kill, and, I have been told
they once found their fox by moonlight, so that
it is proverbial all over his country, if you only
stop out late enough, you are sure of a run with
the Belvoir at last. And then, whether you
belong to the school of young Eapid or his father,
you will equally have a treat. Are you fond of
hounds ? Here is a pack that cannot be surpassed,
to delight the most fastidious eye, satisfy the
most critical taste. Do you like to see them
hunt ? Watch how these put their noses down,
tempering energy with patience, yet so bustling
and resolute as to work a bad scent into a good
one. Are you an admirer of make-and-shape ?
Mark this perfect symmetry of form, bigger,
stronger, and tougher than it looks. Do you
understand kennel management and condition ?
Ask Gillard why his hounds are never known



244 BIDING RECOLLECTIONS

to tire, and get from him what hints you
can.

Lastly, do you want to gallop and jump, defeat
your dearest friends, and get to the end of your
best horse ? That is but a moderate scenting-
day, on which the Belvoir will not afford
opportunity to do both. If you can live with
them while they run, and see them race into
their fox at the finish, I congratulate you on
having science, nerve, all the qualities of horse-
manship, a good hunter, and, above all, a good
groom.

These remarks as to pace, stoutness, and
sporting qualities, apply also to the Quorn, the
Cottesmore, and the Pytchley. This last, indeed,
with its extensive range of woodlands in
Rockingham Forest, possesses the finest hunting
country in England, spacious enough to stand
six days a week in the mildest of winters all the
season through. Under the rule of Lord Spencer,
who has brought to bear on his favourite amuse-
ment the talent, energy, and administrative
powers that, while they remained in office, were
so serviceable to his party, the Pytchley seems
to have recovered its ancient renown, and the
sport provided for the white collars during the
last year or two has been much above the average.
His lordship thoroughly understands the whole
management of hounds, in the kennel and the
field, is enthusiastically fond of the pursuit, and,



THE SHIRES 245

being a very determined rider as well as an
excellent judge of a horse, is always present in
an emergency to observe the cause and take
measures for the remedy. Will Goodall has but
little to learn as a huntsman, and, like his father,
the unrivalled Will Goodall of Belvoir celebrity,
places implicit confidence in his hounds. " They
can put me right," seems his maxim, " oftener
than I can put them ! " If a man wanted to see
a gallop in the shires at its best, he should meet
the Pytchley some Saturday in February at
Waterloo Gorse, but I am bound to caution him
that he ought to ride a brilliant hunter, and, as
young Eapid would say, " harden his heart " to
make strong use of him.

Large grass fields, from fifty to a hundred
acres in extent, carrying a rare scent, are indeed
tempting ; but to my own taste, though perhaps
in this my reader may not agree with me, they
would be more inviting were they not separated
by such forbidding fences. A high blackthorn
hedge, strong enough to hold an elephant, with
one, and sometimes two ditches, fortified,
moreover, in many cases, by a rail placed half a
horse's length off to keep out cattle from the
thorns, offers, indeed, scope for all the nobler
qualities of man and beast, but while sufficiently
perilous for glory, seems to my mind rather too
stiff for pleasure !

And yet I have seen half-a-dozen good men



246 HIDING RECOLLECTIONS

well-mounted live with hounds over this country
for two or three miles on end without a fall, nor
do I believe that in these stiffly fenced grazing
grounds the average of dirty coats is greater than
in less difficult-looking districts. It may be that
those who compete are on the best of hunters,
and that a horse finds all his energies roused
by the formidable nature of such obstacles, if he
means to face them at all !

And now a word about those casualties which
perhaps rather enhance than damp our ardour in
the chase.

Mr. Assheton Smith used to say that no man
could be called a good rider who did not ~know
how to fall. Founded on his own exhaustive
experience there is much sound wisdom in this
remark. The oftener a man is down, the less
likely is he to be hurt, and although, as the old
joke tells us, absence of body as regards danger
seems even preferable to presence of mind, the
latter quality is not without its advantage in the
crisis that can no longer be deferred.

I have seen men so flurried when their horses'
noses touched the ground as to fling themselves
wildly from the saddle, and meet their own
apprehensions half-way, converting an uncertain
scramble into a certain downfall. Now it should
never be forgotten that a horse in difficulties has
the best chance of recovery if the rider sits quiet
in the middle of his saddle and lets the animal's



THE SHIBES 247

head alone. It is always time enough to part
company when his own knee touches the ground,
and as he then knows exactly where his horse is,
he can get out of the way of its impending body,
ere it comes heavily to the earth. If his seat is
not strong enough to admit of such desirable
tenacity, let him at least keep a firm hold of the
bridle ; that connecting link will, so to speak,
preserve his communications, and a kick with
one foot, or timely roll of his own person, will
take him out of harm's w r ay.

The worst fall a man can get is to be thrown
over his horse's head, with such violence as to
lay him senseless till the animal, turning a
somersault, crushes his prostrate body with all the
weight of its own. Such accidents must some-
times happen, of course, but they are not
necessarily of every-day occurrence. By riding
\vith moderate speed at his fences, and preserving,
on all occasions, coolness, good-humour, and
confidence in his partner, a sportsman, even
when past his prime, may cross the severest
parts of the Harborough country itself with an
infinitesimal amount of danger to life and limb.
Kindness, coercion, hand, seat, valour, and dis-
cretion should be combined in due proportion,
and the mixture, as far as the hunting-field is
concerned, will come out a real elixir vitce such
as the pale Rosicrucian poring over crucible and
alembic sought to compound in vain.



248 BIDING RECOLLECTIONS

I cannot forbear quoting once more from the
gallant soul-stirring lines of Mr. Bromley
Davenport, himself an enthusiast who, to this
day, never seems to remember he has a neck
to break !

" What is time ? the effusion of life zoophytic,

In dreary pursuit of position or gain.
What is life ? the absorption of vapours mephitic,

The bursting of sunlight on senses and brain.
Such a life has been mine, though so speedily over,

Condensing the joys of a century's course,
From the find, till they ate him near Woodwell-Head Covert,

In thirty bright minutes from Banksborough Gorse I "

Yes, when all is said and done, perhaps the very
acme and perfection of a riding run, is to be
attained within fifteen miles of Melton. A man
who has once been fortunate enough to find
himself, for ever so short a distance, leading

" The cream of the cream, in the shire of shires,"

will never, I imagine, forget his feelings of
triumph and satisfaction while he occupied so
proud a position ; nor do I think that, as a
matter of mere amusement and pleasurable
excitement, life can offer anything to compare
with a good horse, a good conscience, a good
start and

" A quick thirty minutes from Banksborough Gorse."

UNWIN BBOTHEB8, THE QBESHAM PRESS, WOKINO AND



NEW COMPLETE LIBRARY EDITION

. . OF . .

G. J.Whyte=Melville's Novels



Large crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d per volume.



^'HE late G. J. WHYTE-MHLVILLE, uniting, as he did, the
Vl/ qualities of poet, novelist, sportsman, and leader of society,
has long been acknowledged to stand above rivalry when dealing
with sport and the romance of old. Although the sale of his
works has always been large, the publishers feel that the time