A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses Part 15

_Drafted._--Hounds drawn from the pack to be disposed of, or _hung_, are drafted.

"_Earths are drawn._"--When a vixen fox has drawn out fresh earth, it is a proof she intends to lay up her cubs there.

_Eye to hounds._--A man has a good eye to hounds who turns his horse's head with the leading hounds.

_Flighty._--A hound that is not a steady hunter.

_Feeling a scent._--You say, if scent is bad, "The hounds could scarcely feel the scent."

_Foil._--When a fox runs the ground over which he has been before, he is running his foil.

_Headed._--When a fox is going away, and is met and driven back to cover. Jealous riders, anxious for a start, are very apt to head the fox. It is one of the greatest crimes in the hunting-field.

_Heel._--When hounds get on the scent of a fox, and run it back the way he came, they are said to be running heel.

_Hold hard._--A cry that speaks for itself, which every one who wishes for sport will at once attend to when uttered by the huntsman.

_Holding scent._--When the scent is just good enough for hounds to hunt a fox a fair pace, but not enough to press him.

_Kennel._--Where a fox lays all day in cover.

_Line holders._--Hounds which will not go a yard beyond the scent.

_Left-handed._--A hunting pun on hounds that are not always _right_.

_Lifting._--When a huntsman carries the pack forward from an indifferent, or no scent, to a place the fox is hoped to have more recently pa.s.sed, or to a view halloo. It is an expedient found needful where the field is large, and unruly, and impatient, oftener than good sportsmen approve.[202-*]

_Laid up._--When a vixen fox has had cubs she is said to have laid up.

_Metal._--When hounds fly for a short distance on a wrong scent, or without one, it is said to be "all metal."

_Moving scent._--When hounds get on a scent that is fresher than a drag, it is called a moving scent; that is, the scent of a fox which has been disturbed by travelling.

_Mobbing a fox._--Is when foot pa.s.sengers, or foolish jealous hors.e.m.e.n so surround a cover, that the fox is driven into the teeth of the hounds, instead of being allowed to break away and show sport.

_Mute._--When the pace is great hounds are mute, they have no breath to spare; but a hound that is always mute is as useless as a rich epicure who has capital dinners and eats them alone. Hounds that do not help each other are worthless.

_Noisy._--To throw the tongue without scent is an opposite and equal fault to muteness.

_Open._--When a hound throws his tongue, or gives tongue, he is said to open.

_Owning a scent._--When hounds throw their tongues on the scent.

_Pad._--The foot of a fox.

_Riot._--When the hounds hunt anything beside fox, the word is "Ware Riot."

_Skirter._--A hound which is wide of the pack, or a man riding wide of the hounds, is called a skirter.

_Stroke of a fox._--Is when hounds are drawing. It is evident, from their manner, that they feel the scent of a fox, slas.h.i.+ng their stern significantly, although they do not speak to it.

_Sinking._--A fox nearly beaten is said to be sinking.

_Sinking the wind._--Is going down wind, usually done by knowing sportsmen to catch the cry of the hounds.

_Stained._--When the scent is lost by cattle or sheep having pa.s.sed over the line.

_Stooping._--Hounds stoop to the scent.

_Slack._--Indifferent. A succession of bad days, or a slack huntsman, will make hounds slack.

_Streaming._--An expressive word applied to hounds in full cry, or breast high and mute, "streaming away."

_Speaks._--When a hound throws his tongue he is said to speak; and one word from a sure hound makes the presence of a fox certain.

_Throw up._--When hounds lose the scent they "throw up their heads." A good sportsman always takes note of the exact spot and cause, if he can, to tell the huntsman.

_Tailing._--The reverse of streaming. The result of bad scent, tired hounds, or an uneven pack.

_Throw off._--After reaching the "meet," at the master's word the pack is "thrown into cover," hence "throw off."

There are many other terms in common use too plain to need explanation, and there are a good many slang phrases to be found in newspaper descriptions of runs, which are both vulgar and unnecessary. One of the finest descriptions of a fox-hunt ever written is to be found in the account of Jorrocks' day with the "Old Customer," disfigured, unfortunately, by an overload of impossible c.o.c.kneyisms, put in the mouth of the impossible grocer. Another capitally-told story of a fox-hunt is to be found in Whyte Melville's "Kate Coventry." But the Rev. Charles Kingsley has, in his opening chapter of "Yeast," and his papers in Fraser on North Devon, shown that if he chose he could throw all writers on hunting into the shade. Would that he would give us some hunting-songs, for he is a true poet, as well as a true sportsman!

Another clergyman, under the pseudonym of "Uncle Scribble," contributed to the pages of the _Sporting Magazine_ an admirable series of photographs--to adopt a modern word--of hunting and hunting men, as remarkable for dry wit and common sense, as a thorough knowledge of sport. But "Uncle Scribble," as the head of a most successful Boarding School, writes no more.

I may perhaps be pardoned for concluding my hints on hunting, by re-quoting from _Household Words_ an "Apology for Fox-hunting," which, at the time I wrote it, received the approbation, by quotation, of almost every sporting journal in the country. It will be seen that it contains a sentence very similar to one to be found in Mr. Rarey's "Horse Training"--"A bad-tempered man cannot be a good horseman."

"TALLY-HO!

"Fox-hunting, I maintain, is ent.i.tled to be considered one of the fine arts, standing somewhere between music and dancing. For 'Tally-ho!' like the favourite evening gun of colonising orators, has been 'carried round the world.' The plump mole-fed foxes of the neutral ground of Gibraltar have fled from the jolly cry; it has been echoed back from the rocky hills of our island possessions in the Mediterranean; it has startled the jackal on the mountains of the Cape, and his red brother on the burning plains of Bengal; the wolf of the pine forests of Canada has heard it, cheering on fox-hounds to an unequal contest; and even the wretched dingoe and the bounding kangaroo of 'Australia have learned to dread the sound.

"In our native land 'Tally-ho!' is shouted and welcomed in due season by all conditions of men; by the ploughman, holding hard his startled colt; by the woodman, leaning on his axe before the half-felled oak; by bird-boys from the tops of leafless trees; even Dolly Dumpling, as she sees the white-tipped brush flash before her market-cart in a deep-banked lane, stops, points her whip and in shrill treble screams 'Tally-ho!'

"And when at full speed the pink, green, brown, and black-coated followers of any of the ninety packs which our England maintains, sweep through a village, with what intense delight the whole population turn out! Young mothers stand at the doors, holding up their crowing babies; the shopkeeper, with his customers, adjourns to the street; the windows of the school are covered with flattened noses; the parson, if of the right sort, smiles blandly, and waves his hand from the porch of the vicarage to half-a-dozen friends; while the surgeon pushes on his galloway and joins for half-an-hour; all the little boys holla in chorus, and run on to open gates without expecting sixpence. As for the farmers, those who do not join the hunt criticise the horseflesh, speculate on the probable price of oats, and tell 'Missis' to set out the big round of beef, the bread, the cheese, and get ready to draw some strong ale,--'in case of a check, some of the gentlemen might like a bit as they come back.

"It is true, among the five thousand who follow the hounds daily in the hunting season, there are to be found, as among most medleys of five thousand, a certain number of fools and brutes--mere animals, deaf to the music, blind to the living poetry of nature. To such men hunting is a piece of fas.h.i.+on or vulgar excitement, but bring hunting in comparison with other amus.e.m.e.nts, and it will stand a severe test. Are you an admirer of scenery, an amateur or artist? Have you traversed Greece and Italy, Switzerland and Norway, in search of the picturesque? You do not know the beauties of your own country, until, having hunted from Northumberland to Cornwall, you have viewed the various counties under the three aspects of a fox-hunter's day--the 'morning ride,' 'the run,'

and 'the return home.'

"The morning ride, slowly pacing, full of expectation, your horse as pleased as yourself; sharp and clear in the gray atmosphere the leafless trees and white farmhouses stand out, backed by a curtain of mist hanging on the hills in the horizon. With eager eyes you take all in; nothing escapes you; you have cast off care for the day. How pleasant and cheerful everything and everyone looks! Even the c.o.c.ks and hens, scratching by the road-side, have a friendly air. The turnpike-man relaxes, in favour of your 'pink,' his usual grimness. A tramping woman, with one child at her back and two running beside her, asks charity; you suspect she is an impostor, but she looks cold and pitiful; you give her a s.h.i.+lling, and the next day you don't regret your foolish benevolence.

To your mind the well-cultivated land looks beautiful. In the monotony of ten acres of turnips, you see a hundred pictures of English farming life, well-fed cattle, good wheat crops, and a little barley for beer.

Not less beautiful is the wild gorse-covered moor--never to be reclaimed, I hope--where the wiry, white-headed, bright-eyed huntsman sits motionless on his old white horse, surrounded by the pied pack--a study for Landseer.

"But if the morning ride creates unexecuted cabinet pictures and unwritten sonnets, how delightful 'the find,' 'the run' along brook-intersected vales, up steep hills, through woodlands, parks, and villages, showing you in byways little gothic churches, ivy-covered cottages, and nooks of beauty you never dreamed of, alive with startled cattle and hilarious rustics.

"Talk of epic poems, read in bowers or at firesides, what poet's description of a battle could make the blood boil in delirious excitement, like a seat on a long-striding hunter, clearing every obstacle with firm elastic bounds, holding in sight without gaining a yard on the flying pack, while the tip of Reynard's tail disappears over the wall at the top of the hill!

"And, lastly,--tired, successful, hungry, happy,--the return home, when the shades of evening, closing round, give a fantastic, curious, mysterious aspect to familiar road-side objects! Loosely lounging on your saddle, with half-closed eyes, you almost dream--the gnarled trees grow into giants, cottages into castles, ponds into lakes. The maid of the inn is a lovely princess, and the bread and cheese she brings (while, without dismounting, you let your thirsty horse drink his gruel), tastes more delicious than the finest supper of champagne, with a _pate_ of tortured goose's liver, that ever tempted the appet.i.te of a humane, anti-fox hunting, poet-critic, exhausted by a long night of opera, ballet, and Roman punch.