CHAPTER III.BEAGLING.By G. H. Longman.
By G. H. Longman.
Though perhaps it may be too much to say that hunting the hare on foot with a pack of 15-in. beagles is the most interesting method of pursuing the animal, still, if the evenness of the chances is to be the criterion of interest, certainly the contest between a good pack of beagles and a strong hare—the odds being slightly in favour of the latter—presents sport in its truest elements.
A good pack of these little hounds will no doubt on a good scenting day account for any hare, barring accidents; but these accidents are extremely numerous, the first and foremost being the rising up in the middle of the pack of a fresh hare just as the hunted animal is evidently sinking. This mishap occurs more frequently than any other, and is generally irremediable. Imagine a large ploughed field of stiff clay, the hunted hare down, and hounds just feathering on the line, scent having become a little weak. The huntsman is nearest (and all praise to him, as hounds have run hard for forty minutes!); he has pulled up to a walk, for the clay land clings to each boot with a tenacity which renders even walking a wearisome struggle. He knows well that the moment is critical, as there are probably fresh hares lying in the field; that scent may so far fail as to compel him to make a cast; and that this will certainly increase the already imminent danger of a change. He is just stopping, in order to keep well away from his hounds, when he almost treads on a fresh hare which gets up under his feet. She heads straight for the pack, but our huntsman stands still as death; puss, seeing hounds, swerves away without their catching a view, and the danger of a change is for the moment past. But our huntsman’s eyes are at work, and he presently observes a dark form stealing away about a hundred yards in front of the pack. He looks again, makes sure that it ishishare, and then, blowing his horn, has his hounds to him in a trice, while he gamely struggles through the clay at the best pace he can muster towardsthe spot where the hunted hare has disappeared over a brow, her arched back betraying her distressed condition, so that if only hounds can get a view they must kill her.
The game is well-nigh won; but unfortunately the hounds’ heads are up, and, a fresh hare rising in their very midst, away goes the whole pack, running the stranger in view. Really well under control as they are, no amount of rating or horn-blowing will stop them unless someone can get round them. Get round them! Alas, anyone who has run with beagles knows the impossibility of this until hounds check! It is, moreover, quite likely that they will run without checking for at least twenty minutes, and then what prospect will there be of recovering the line of the hunted hare? Some slight chance indeed there is, for a tired hare always stops, so that, if any vestige of a line can be shown, hounds may work up to and re-find her. Far oftener, however, all trace has vanished, when they are brought back to the spot where she was last seen.
But let us describe a day’s sport with beagles, starting with the supposition that the master is sufficiently energetic to be up and at it by six o’clock on a beautiful October morning; for not only are hares scarce in the district over which he proposes to hunt, the consequence being that he will have a better chance of a find by getting on the trail, but he also desires to give his young entry the lesson for which running a hare’s trail up to her form is so admirably adapted.
There has been rain, but it passed away on the previous afternoon, and after a brilliant night the ground is covered with a heavy dew. Our huntsman is wise to begin operations thus early, for now scent is probably good; whereas when the sun has reached any height the atmospheric conditions will, as a rule, become less favourable.
Let us linger for a moment by the gate, where hounds are clustered round their huntsman, some jumping up at him, and others making an unprofessional use of their tuneful voices, a transgression which, however, elicits but a faint-hearted rate, for our huntsman loves his hounds intensely, and feels almost inclined to encourage a breach of etiquette which only enhances his already keen sense of enjoyment.
It is a charming scene. A country roadside which forms the boundary between some rough grass meadows leading down to a stream on the one side, and a heather common on the other, gently undulating towards a piece of water, to which the wild duck are just coming in from the stream where they have spent the night. Even now a few duck are to be seen overhead, thewhistle of their wings first making us aware of their presence. They are circling high above us, not daring to pitch, and will probably take a fresh flight to another and larger sheet of water about three miles further on.
We must, however, return to the pack. The Master is moving off, and as he waves the pack over a bank into the heather any hound throwing his tongue will be severely dealt with if the whipper-in can only get near enough to administer one cut, accompanied by “Ware riot, Melody!” for business has begun.
Ten couple of hounds there are in all, and two couple of them are unentered. Melody is one of these, and while there must be no question of sparing the rod, we have a fellow-feeling for her exuberance of spirits. The delinquent already has her stern up once more (it was momentarily lowered on receipt of the whipper-in’s practical rebuke), and is as busy as any of them, flinging here and there, and pushing her way into a cluster of hounds which look remarkably busy, for, yes! they have already struck a line, no doubt of a hare returning from feeding in the grass meadows adjoining the common.
The huntsman maintains a masterly inactivity, merely rating any hound which shows an inclination to dwell on the line. Now they are running quite merrily across the heather, but come to a stop where the hare has taken to one of the paths which abound hereabouts. She has run the path for quite eighty yards, and only the older hounds can carry the line along it, the body of the pack casting about, and showing a slight inclination to run heel. The huntsman, however, holds them forward, walking quietly along the path, well in rear of those hounds who are carrying the line.
These tactics result in a pretty hit, for, although the hare has run the road for eighty yards, she has run her foil for at least twenty-five before flinging off, so that the body hit the line out of the path while the old hounds are still picking out the scent further along; but these at once go to cry, and the whole pack flings briskly forward. The huntsman allows them very ample room, knowing that puss has very likely made her form not far away. See! they have overrun the scent, and, as they spread back fan-like to recover the line, up jumps the hare and off they go, running in view for a short distance, and then taking up the line with a chorus which at once proclaims a scent.
The whipper-in is lying wide, and succeeds in turning the hare out of a broad sandy path which would otherwise undoubtedly have caused a check; and away they go over the open heather at apace which tries our wind terribly. The pack head straight for a sort of island farm which lies on a hill side in the middle of the heather, cross it, and, emerging once more at the top of the hill, run beautifully over the heathery flat until they come to a main road, where they check long enough to enable the huntsman to get up to them.
A pretty picture is displayed! A fine stretch of heather extending for some miles, through which the old main road from London to Portsmouth runs, with now and again considerable stretches of fir woods forming a dark fringe to the view, whilst over the fir tops the sun, just emerging, adds a sparkling brightness to the landscape, which would be alone sufficient to repay the early start. The busy pack makes a beautiful foreground, flinging here and there in search of the momentarily vanished clue. Mark that veteran of the pack, well known for his wide and independent casts; the huntsman’s eye is on him, and he moves quietly in his direction, without, however, so much as whistling to his hounds.
He has judged wisely, for Challenger unmistakably has the line and speaks to it confidently, just as the huntsman gets near enough to put in with good effect, “Hark to Challenger!” and hounds, flying to cry, take up the running with a chorus which it does one’s heart good to hear. They have, however, only run about a hundred yards when they check quite suddenly, once more spreading out like a fan. But they are only momentarily at fault. Poor puss is down, her heart having failed her after coming about two miles straight, and she is up and off in view as soon as the hounds, who have slightly overrun the scent, spread back to where she has clapped. She heads for home, and hounds run fast for another fifteen minutes before checking on the island farm which they crossed in the first burst.
The sun is getting strong by this time, and scent does not serve so well on the arable land. Hounds slowly carry the line into the middle of a newly ploughed hillside field, and gradually come to a stop. Evidently the hare is forward, so, after leaving his hounds alone sufficiently long to enable them to recover the line, unassisted if they can, the huntsman resolves on a cast “forrard.” He whistles his hounds to him, and at a gentle double casts them round the fence from about opposite to where they checked, keeping his hounds in front of him, and giving them time to try as they go. Almost immediately one of the puppies speaks, and out pops a rabbit right under his nose. The huntsman rates “Ware rabbit!” and, very much to their credit, none of the old hounds break away. It is, however, altogethertoo much for the puppies, who every one of them courses the rabbit for about a hundred yards in full cry.
Luckily the interloper runs up hill along the fence, so the delinquents are easily stopped by the whipper-in, who is lying back, and turned to the master’s horn. It may here be remarked that it is comparatively easy to stop beagles from rabbits in the open. The pack the writer has in mind would always stop if rated when a rabbit got up in an open field; but in covert, where one could not easily get at them, the case was very different, and you might holloa yourself hoarse without producing much effect. Master Bunny, however, only caused a momentary diversion, and hounds, having struck the line in the bottom corner of the fence, are once more chiming away merrily over the heather in the direction of puss’s original form.
Will they catch her? Well, if she is a leveret her bolt must be nearly shot, but if she is an old hare—and she is big enough!—she will lead the pack a merry dance for another good half-hour before giving in. So is the fight fought between poor puss and her enemies the beagles. Sometimes a circle; sometimes a straight bolt and then as a rule clapping till hounds are over her, and getting up behind them, making her way home again; sometimes, though not often, making a long point and dying some five miles from home. I once recollect a hare being found close to the brook near which hounds were thrown off, as above described, making a point of five miles over the heather, and being eventually killed in the grounds of a well-known public school situated in that district. This is, however, an exceptional occurrence.
Many and varied are the incidents which occur during the chase of a hare. Often have we been hopelessly at fault on that common, when, to our joy, we have beheld a hat held aloft on some neighbouring hill. We know that hat well. It belongs to the most arrant poacher in the neighbourhood; he is the best hand at seeing a hare sitting in the whole countryside, and he knows a hunted hare when he sees her. We tried at one time to reclaim him by paying him more for every hare he found for us than he could get for one dead in the public-house. No use! the instinct was far too strong, and only a week or two after the beginning of the compact “the Long ’un,” as he was called—for he was a tall fellow—was caught setting a snare one Sunday morning.
When we were drawing for a hare he would walk with his hands behind him, and, turning his head slowly from side to side, would cover all ground within fifty yards as well as any setter.Probably before very long he would suddenly stop, and, indicating a certain spot perhaps twenty yards away, would quite quietly remark, “There she sets!” Surely enough there she did sit; though as often as not his eye alone could discern Madam Puss crouched in her heathery form. A wonderfully observant man he must have been, and great fun we used to have about him; but as to reclaiming him, you might as well have asked him not to eat—or drink, for it must be regretfully admitted he was at least as fond of liquid as of solid nourishment.
He was often in gaol—always for poaching—and, as the keeper used to say, “The Long ’un always came out fatter than he went in!” so his home fare was probably neither plentiful in quantity nor of an Epicurean quality. He never bore malice, as the following incident shows. He had been in gaol for poaching on the common above described. His sentence expired on a Saturday, and as a party of us were walking on the following Sunday afternoon along one of the footpaths which thread the common, who should appear round a corner but our friend, just fresh from gaol?
What did he do? Why, he lifted his hat, and wished us good-day in the cheeriest manner possible, just as if he had met us by appointment to help find a hare for the beagles.
Probably he was there for no very legitimate purpose, but at the moment he was, of course, on the footpath, where he had as much right to be as anyone else; and one could hardly help sympathising with the love of sporting adventure which was doubtless the main cause of his poaching proclivities. At any rate, he found us many a hare, and was an important factor in bringing not a few to hand.
No attempt has been made to describe in detail the different methods of hunting beagles, or the different stamp of beagle which is suitable for different countries, as all these points have been dealt with in the Hunting volume of the “Badminton Library.” The writer has merely attempted to place before the reader a picture (very imperfect, doubtless) of such leading episodes in this sport as he has himself witnessed many and many a time; and if the picture should by any lucky chance induce any reader of these pages to be “up and at it” by six o’clock in the morning, and test for himself the enjoyment of watching a good pack of beagles at work, he will, if he has any hunting instinct at all in him, assuredly be well repaid, and the writer will not have written in vain.