Part 62

On the 30th, after the total eclipse of the sun in the afternoon, the evening was dull, and low clouds threatened rain. I fished in the same place as last. The river was clear but brimful; indeed, here and away overflowing its banks, and running so wildly that a dry fly cast up stream in the usual manner immediately dragged, and if thrown across, the line sagged or bellied, and consequently, whenever a fish took my fly, it was most difficult, on the slack line, to strike and hook him. To let the fly drift was easier and the only alternative, and in this way 2½ brace of grayling, from 10 to 13 inches in length, were creeled by 8.10 p.m. At which time, having lost my fly in an overhanging branch, it was too dark to see to tie on another, and I reluctantly had to leave off. It was particularly provoking, for the fish were then rising in that reckless way they often do for a brief time at dusk.

Next evening my practice was between the bridge and the lower boundary of the Twyford fishery on the west side, and for once in a way all the conditions an angler wishes for were favourable: the smooth, clear, and sun-lighted stream reflected white cumuli clouds and the azure sky; flies were in the air, which the _Hirundinidæ_ in graceful curves of flight and with unerring sight were intercepting, while olive duns, in straggling, intermittent groups, were floating down, and fish taking them eagerly. And to complete one’s satisfaction, a gentle breeze from the west made casting easy. The successful fly of yestereve, a red quill on a 000 hook, was again used, and from 6.30 to a little after 8 p.m. four brace of grayling, scaling from 12 oz. to 1 lb. 5 oz., were hooked, played, and brought to grass, besides several returned. And a larger grayling escaped by the small hook working out just as the net was nearly in position to thrust under him. There is no necessity to further describe this evening’s very good sport than to say that for the one and a half hours I was almost constantly at work, and that the fish rose and fastened to my artificial fly as readily as they did to the naturals; but with so good a rise of duns there were, of course, ten chances to one against the red quill. Bearing this in mind, the sport could scarcely have been better.

On September 2nd sport was greatly interfered with by horses drawing carts, vans, &c., passing through the ford, and as it was Saturday night, the drivers sometimes stopped midway to refresh their horses, wash wheels, &c. At another time a boy on the back of a tired horse that had done his week’s work was made to stand awhile in the ford for the benefit of his legs, and now and again the boy, evidently delighted to be riding, would take a turn from shore to shore, and once he began to splash up stream until I remonstrated. And twice a lumbering watering-cart was slowly filled from a bucket dipped into the river. With all these interruptions one’s patience was much tried, as I had no chance of fishing until about 7.30 p.m. I should have gone elsewhere had I not noticed that within a few minutes after each disturbance had temporarily ceased a shoal of about a dozen grayling came on to the churned-up gravelly bottom to feed, probably on crushed or crawling larvæ, snails, &c. I resolved, therefore, to bide my time, and when all was quiet again fish began to rise, freely taking _Trichoptera_ as they touched or floated on the surface of the smooth stream, and at intervals my counterfeit fly, each time with fatal effect, for when I left off a leash of beautiful 11 to 13-inch grayling, as bright as silver, lay on the grass at my feet. And while they were being arranged in the creel for presentation to a friend, embellished with the wild flowers, mimulus and willow-herb, the clock of Twyford church slowly tolled out the hour of eight. Twilight was passing into darkness; Mars, the evening star, low down in the south-western sky, showed large and luminous; birds were mute—the silence was oppressive.

The evening of September 12th was bright, rather cool and windy, but at 6.40 black gnats were dancing in mazy groups under the boughs of trees and pale midges around my cap as I stood near the poplar-tree above Shawford Bridge. The river was very full and flowing swiftly, but smooth and favourable for dry-fly practice. Many small trout were unavoidably hooked and time was lost in putting them back, but one weighing 1½ lb. was kept, because an invalid friend wanted it, and I was not likely to fish in this part of the river again until the trout season would be over. Half an hour afterwards grayling were rising to dark-winged olive duns; I changed my fly for the Englefield quill pattern with silver tag, dressed on 0 hooks, and by a little after eight o’clock it had tempted to their fate three brace, measuring 10 to 11½ inches, when I had to hurry away to catch my train. It was very pretty sport, and a good wind-up of the foregoing ten evenings’ sport and pastime, on each occasion obtained within two hours, and aggregating 30½ brace.

On October 3rd, at noon, many large grayling had worked up to the shallows under the pretty little weir over which the water from the Shawford House garden reach was falling in a glassy cascade. The overhanging trees prevented overhand casting, but, by kneeling and crouching low, my fly could be sent forward over them. It was not noticed at first, but at the third essay it was snatched at, and the grayling hooked: fortunately he turned, and rushing zigzag down stream without disturbing the others, was followed and netted out. After prudently waiting a time, the weir was again quietly approached, and still the grayling were seen there, but now, more on the alert, rising to olive duns. My very poor imitation was nevertheless taken at the first throw as it lightly dropped in the white froth and among the air-bubbles under the waterfall, and a grayling well hooked and landed—his desperate struggling causing the other fish to scurry away out of the pool. It was satisfactory to know, while consuming an _al fresco_ luncheon which followed, that a handsome brace was already in the creel—indeed, it gave a zest to appetite.

Lower down, where the broad water is divided by the first islet, the narrowed channel is a favoured feeding place for grayling. They were now darting up to the surface, taking floating flies—iron blues they looked like—but to pass along the bank would disturb them. I therefore several times let my dry fly drift down, and at last it was effective in bringing another fish to hand. About 4 p.m. the sparse rise of _Ephemeræ_ was over, nor did they come on again until an hour after sunset, when dark-winged olives in considerable numbers were on the wind-rippled stream under the low-branching trees at the upper end of the mill race, where casting was almost impossible, but in an eddy one grayling could be tried over, and he came to grief, the two brace for the day scaling 4 lb. 2 oz.

The morning rise on November 3rd did not begin until about 11.30, and only lasted for two and a half hours. On the lower reach of the main stream in the park several small rings and splashes were seen on the glide above the second island, such as denote grayling busily taking surface food, but they were many times cast over before my 00 red quill was taken and a fish hooked, who instantly furrowed along the top of the water to the opposite side, and made vain attempts to rub the hook out in a shallow weed-bed; then when held firmly from the rod and played he repeatedly, as if in wrath, turned wildly over and over on the surface (grayling seldom or never spring _out_ of water as trout do), and being thus exhausted and before he could take another turn, as they sometimes do when apparently dead beaten, was drawn near enough to be netted out. Almost under similar conditions another grayling was shortly after lured by the same fly and killed—the brace weighing 2¼ lb.

Higher up, twenty yards in the rear of the first islet, a large grayling was observed in a clear bay behind weeds, and, save for the gently waving movement of his tail to maintain his equipoise, showing no signs of life—“Glued to the bottom and very little use to cast over him,” an angler would say. Nevertheless, in a desultory sort of way I did send my red quill over him, and his head slightly moved up. Again my fly was floated over, and this time he came to inspect it, paused, and retired. I also retired some thirty or forty yards lower down, and under the dry sedge bordering my bank managed to hook and land an 11-inch grayling. Then I quietly worked up again to the beforementioned big one, and by a long throw deftly placed my fly a yard in front of him. Like a shadowy flash he boldly rose, touched the fly, and drowned it, no doubt seizing it submerged unknown to me, for in the act of recovering my fly it firmly hooked him, and after a well-fought battle he was safely landed, and, held on a steelyard, weighed 1 lb. 5 oz. Then at the extremity of the park where the two streams meet a grayling could be seen quiescent under the opposite branches, but, as before, an experimental cast tempted him to rise from his lethargy and snap at my fly, when, well hooked, and after giving exciting sport, he was brought to bank, under 1 lb. in weight.

On four other days in November my sport aggregated 15½ brace, and on seven days in December to finish the season, 19½ brace.

RED QUILL.

Hound Sales, Past and Present.

The more closely hounds are studied the stronger must grow the conviction that no animal can excel the well-bred foxhound as an example of perfect conformation. It is permissible to think also that the man whose eye is accustomed to the points of the foxhound is pretty certain to be a judge of horses, the “points” of either being in a sense nearly identical. To take the high-bred foxhound, the lay of his shoulders are perfect for movement, the blades meeting well into the back, the fore ribs very far down or deep in proportion to the frame, the brisket below the elbow, the back also level shaped, muscles united to a loin wide for the size of the hound, the quarter very full, and the hock straight. Then we have the make-up of the beautiful neck that must mean ease in stooping for a line, and the legs and feet, over which some people differ, the majority of good judges wanting a big bone down to the toes, and others being content with less bone, and less inclined to be critical about the straightness of the fore limb. The late Lord Macclesfield and Mr. G. Lane Fox, both excellent judges, thought more of necks and shoulders than legs and feet, and Mr. H. Chaplin, great on both horses and hounds, thinks more of the quality of bone than the quantity. But, allowing for these slight divergencies of opinion, it must be acknowledged that the judgment of many has brought the foxhound to an extraordinary standard of perfection. His pace is very wonderful, and, unlike that of the greyhound, it is lasting. In the Great Wood run of the Badminton Hunt of three hours and forty minutes’ duration, all but three hounds out of seventeen and a half couples were up at the finish when the horses were all settled, most of them an hour before, and yet the hounds were comparatively fresh. They all fed well the same night, so Charles Hamblin told the writer, and were right enough the next day. There have been many other examples in which longer runs have been quoted, but the Great Wood was perhaps the greatest in regard to pace.

Three hours and three quarters’ hard galloping in a twenty-seven mile point is like seven Grand Nationals thrown into one. The development of such powers in the foxhound must be regarded as the work of past masters in the selection always of the fittest, and the great sales of the last century have proved most conclusively the individuality of those masters. To take Mr. John Corbet, of Sundorne, in the very earliest days of the century. He had seen all the qualities above alluded to compressed, as it were, in Trojan, who could race to the front of the pack, stay the longest runs, hunt a colder scent than others, jump higher and cleaner than any hound ever seen, and was able to run in his eighth and ninth seasons. His fitness was so great for the hunting field that Mr. Corbet absolutely bred a pack of hounds from him, and when he sold that pack to the sixth Lord Middleton for £1,500 the latter wrote, when enclosing his cheque, that he thought them remarkably cheap. This they turned out to be, as they gave Lord Middleton a vast amount of pleasure in hunting and hound-breeding for many years. It enabled him to breed a second Trojan in Vanguard, and such Masters, as Mr. Foljambe, Lord Henry Bentinck and Mr. Arkwright, of the Oakley, in a measure continued the line to the days of present hound-lovers. There was, again, Osbaldeston with his Furrier. The Squire would believe in nothing else, and consider what tremendous sales he had from the progeny of the old hound, to count those he sold, which some say he lent, to the late Mr. Harvey Combe; and the ten couples of bitches he sold for £1,000 to the Master of the Pytchley.

Other sales by auction, though, have perhaps been more famous in illustrating the judgment of both buyers and sellers, as, for instance, the great sale at the Bicester kennels in 1851, through the retirement of Mr. Tom Drake. The latter had been a very noted master of hounds for twenty-one years, and possibly long before that, in a less ostensible way, than in governing the Bicester. At any rate, he had taken a lot of trouble in his search for hound blood, and every hound in the sale catalogue had been bred by himself. He had bred from the Brocklesby Herald, and a great deal from Mr. Foljambe’s Stormer, so full of the Osbaldeston Furrier blood. His Duster had been used at Belvoir, but the latter celebrity was not in evidence on the sale day, although he might have been as he was then only seven years old. Lord Henry Bentinck was the most notable buyer on that May afternoon; he bought lot 2 of four couples for 200 gs., lots 5 and 6 for respectively 91 and 135 gs., and lot 10 for 165 gs. In all he bought twenty couples, and that must have helped to make his Burton pack, as, although he had been building it up for eight years from hounds he got from Lord Ducie, the latter were not so good as Mr. Drake’s. The first Drake sale, though, led up to another of still greater importance, as Mr. Tom Tyrwhitt Drake, better known to a later generation of sportsmen, took on his father’s old country, the Bicester, in the year of the sale, 1851, and he bought a few lots of the old pack, eight couples of entered hounds in all, and three brood bitches in whelp.

Here was the nucleus of another pack, but Tom Drake, as he was familiarly called by his friends, must have been an extraordinary good judge, as he bred from such bitches as Melody one of the hereditary stock for whom he gave 18 gs. in whelp to Duster; and Skilful, by Mr. Foljambe’s Stormer. He bought a lot of drafts also from Belvoir, Lord Henry Bentinck’s and Badminton, and before the sixties his hounds were very much talked of. He had, in fact, formed a beautiful pack in eleven years, as it was in 1862 that he decided to sell it, and once more the Messrs. Tattersall journeyed to the Bicester kennels, by this time at Stratton Audley, to dispose of another Drake pack. Albeit a large proportion of the hounds were not home-bred, I have always put this sale down as the most important on record, as such famous results can be traced from it and the hunting public expressed such confidence in Mr. Drake, as shown by the capital prices made. Moreover, some of the best hound judges living were amongst the buyers and bidders, including Mr. Tailby, Mr. John Chaworth Musters, Lord Middleton, Mr. Villebois, the Hon. E. Duncombe, afterwards Lord Feversham, and Sir John Trollope. The largest buyer was the late Lord Eglinton, then just commencing his career as a master of hounds—his lordship, taking three lots, twelve couples in all, for 420 gs., and they furnished foundation stock for the splendid pack now at Eglinton Castle. Mr. Tailby got two high-priced lots for 230 and 185 gs., but there were four in them by grandsons of Duster, and a five-year-old dog by old Lucifer, bought at the first Drake sale and almost as famous as Duster himself. Mr. John Chaworth Musters, with much discrimination, took lot 13, as, although there were in it some that were ostensibly drafts from Belvoir, they were pretty good ones. Good they turned out to be, as the four couples included Sportly, almost the ancestress of the future South Notts pack, and some say, of the Warwickshire as well. This famous daughter of Mr. Foljambe’s Sportsman and the Duke of Rutland’s Rampish made the lot of four couples exceedingly cheap at 225 gs. It has been well said, too, that the Bedale pack was made by the purchases here of the Hon. E. Duncombe; and Lord Middleton’s two lots that cost 310 gs. must have done the Birdsall pack some good, as there was much Belvoir, Stormer, Singer and Comus blood included in them, all, in fact, Drake classic blood so to speak, as Singer, the sire of Senator, was by Comus out of Syren, by the Drake Duster. In all, and perhaps before the most distinguished audience ever brought together by a hound sale, Mr. T. T. Drake’s hounds realised 2,911 gs., whereas the senior Mr. Drake’s pack eleven years before had only made 1,728 gs.

The next greatest sale of public importance, according to my view, was that of the Rufford, held in 1860, two years before Mr. Drake’s. Captain Percy Williams, one of the finest foxhound judges ever known, had been exactly twenty years making the pack, beginning with drafts; but by careful breeding from quality—both for good looks and work, with the advantages also of capital walks—he had got together a beautiful pack of hounds that were the talk of the country. The late Lord Fitzwilliam, who was very thorough as a hound man, had a strong belief in these Rufford hounds, and nobody could outbid him for some of the lots, which were all in five couples, and so the prices do not seem so extraordinary. Lord Fitzwilliam gave 310 gs. for one lot, 300 gs. for another, 240 gs. for a third, and in all bought a little over 1,300 gs. worth of hounds during the afternoon. What they might have done was never quite tested, for two years afterwards hydrophobia broke out in the Wentworth kennels and most of these hounds were destroyed. The Hon. Mark Rolle gave the highest price of the day, viz., 370 gs., for five couples that included Telegram, who was a host in himself, and 270 gs. for another lot, the Devonshire M.F.H., altogether expending 775 gs. on three lots; and a beautiful pack of hounds he bred from such purchases, with several other West Country packs getting beholden to Telegram.

A sale that had much to do in adding lustre to the Foxhound Stud Book was that of Sir Richard Sutton’s, at the death of that popular sportsman, December 13th, 1855. Lord Stamford had taken on the Quorn and was naturally anxious to get as much of the pack as possible, but there were hounds in the pack for which the connoisseurs of blood sought very eagerly, and Mr. Richard Sutton, Sir Richard’s son, who had taken on the Billesdon side of Quorn Country, was determined that some of the lots should not slip through his hands for any money. He outbid everyone when coming to lot 13, that included three couples from which certainly a great pack could have been formed. There was the stallion hound Dryden, then only six years, and thought by a very able huntsman to have been the best hound ever seen in Leicestershire; he was by Lord Henry Bentinck’s Contest, which made him all the more valuable; and he had already been the sire of Destitute, the dam of the ever-celebrated Belvoir Senator. Then, amongst his companions in lot 13 were Vaulter, a son of the Drake Duster; Lounger, a second season son of Dryden; and Doubtful, an unentered daughter of the same, besides a dog called Roderick by the Brocklesby Roderick. The bidding was very keen, but Mr. Sutton silenced everyone at 260 gs., and reports at the time said he would have gone on. Mr. Sutton’s pack, however, came to the hammer again in less than six months after the above date, and once more Dryden was put up, but with a different result, as in a lot of four couples he was sold for 85 gs. to the Duke of Cleveland, then Master of the great Raby and Hurworth country, who paid in all 240 gs. for twelve couples. The sensation of the sale, though, was when Lord Stamford completely outbid everyone for lot 2, and never left them until his reckoning with the Messrs. Tattersall was 470 gs. for the four couples, or over 58 gs. a hound, the odd part of it being that two couples were first season hounds. Lord Henry Bentinck was a big buyer also, as he started the sale by giving 200 gs. for five couples.

Another sale much talked of in 1858 was that of Mr. James Morrell’s hounds, as the Old Berkshire pack at that time had a great reputation; and the Badminton is said to have been improved immensely by the purchase of eight couples of hounds for 400 gs., and two brood bitches for, respectively, 50 gs. and 25 gs., the acquisition of the five-season hunter, Fleecer, by Lord Fitzhardinge’s Furrier, in one of the 200 gs. lots being of the greatest value, as shown in after years.

The greatest sale of the century, in regard to prices, was Lord Poltimore’s in the spring of 1870, when twenty-two couples of dog hounds made 3,170 gs.; two of the lots, one of three couples, and the other of three couples and a half, made 600 gs. each, or, in one case, 100 gs. a hound. Another lot went for 500 gs. and others for 460 gs. and 400 gs. Whether they were worth it has been a matter of discussion amongst experts in hound-lore; but this much can be said, that Lord Poltimore was an exceptionally good judge, and he had a splendid adviser in Lord Portsmouth. I saw the bitch pack and had a day’s hunting with them shortly after the sale, and I do not think I have ever seen anything more beautiful out of Belvoir. Then for the good they have done! Whipster by Woldsman, purchased in a 600 gs. lot by Sir Algernon Peyton, proved a tower of strength to the Bicester pack, and several bought by Major Browne did an immense amount of good to Lord Eglinton, and other masters of the North had good reasons to recollect them. Woldsman, who was not amongst those sold, will ever do honour to the hound judgment of Lord Poltimore, as, besides being the sire of the above-named Whipster, he had Lord Zetland’s Wanderer to his credit as well, and the latter has been the corner-stone of the Aske kennel. I could mention five or six other descents from Woldsman and also from Lexicon, Latimer, Roman and Limner, all but the last-named of the 100 gs. order.