Part 13

At noon we reach Venniford Cross and find our horses who were sent on yesterday, little short-legged animals with perfect shoulders and forelegs of iron; as well they may have, to climb almost perpendicular hills and gallop over the rugged Devonian slate country, which attains its greatest elevation on Exmoor. The stream of traffic was enormous, or so it seemed in those unfrequented parts. The countryside was agog, and for twenty miles round few Devonians able to sit a horse can have been absent from the meet. Here leaked out a change of venue: it had been determined to draw the gorse and the combes which seam the side of Dunkery, and so for some miles we jogged on by road, sometimes at a walk, often at a fast trot, but always ascending higher and higher. We seemed to be climbing heights of stupendous proportions.

Cloutsham is at length reached, and on the plateau assembled the sort of "field" that Devon and Somerset turn out when the staghounds are afoot. There are the sporting farmer, a doctor or two, boys on ponies, parsons on cobs, strangers from London, neighbours from South Devon, the master of Pixton and other "county" people, and of course every hunting lady of the district, not all of whom use the side saddle! Among this goodly company hardly one is there whose thoughts and anxieties are not centred on the chase--the chase stripped of polish and luxury, the chase divorced from good cheer and even from opportunities for vain display. The instinct and passion of the hunter possesses them all.

We have all come long journeys and have perhaps many hours to remain in the saddle; and now is the time to ease our horses. The field dismounts, and booted ladies are seen seated by the roadside, or seeking refreshment of milk and bread and clotted cream at an adjacent farmhouse. While the "tufters" are drawing, we look round again and inly rejoice that Exmoor is still a vast wild tract hardly civilised. Around it Brendon common lies unenclosed, and the miles from Alderman's Barrow to the east of Dunkery are unbroken by a fence. We are told of rare birds and beasts to be seen there along with the red deer which have had a home in Exmoor from time immemorial; polecats are found, though now somewhat rarely; the Montagu's harrier is occasionally seen; a snowy owl was shot some few years back, and only two years ago a pelican was found walking about on the North Forest if the story of a Somersetshire farmer may be believed. The stag-hunting country is a matter of six and thirty miles, which often the tireless hounds will cross from end to end after their quarry.

Surely the most important, interesting, and difficult part of the chase of the wild deer is the "harbouring," as it is called. How fine an exercise of woodcraft! The harbourer's best guide is the slot, or footprint of the deer, which, to the experienced eye, tells whether the deer afoot be stag or hind, and whether of proper age to hunt and kill. Four or five hours are often spent by the most skilful harbourer in tracking a warrantable stag to his lair. The deer duly harboured, the next thing is to rouse him, and force him to break cover and run for dear life. Selected hounds called "tufters" are laid on the drag, and master, huntsman, whip and harbourer, post themselves where they will be able to stop the hounds after this purpose is served.

Looking across the declivity in front of us, we see the wooded slopes where a stag has been harboured. The scarlet jackets of huntsman and whips move about in the distance, directing the tufters by horn and voice. "There he goes, sir," at length cries a schoolboy on his pony, whose sharp eyes have detected the graceful bound of a deer; but it is a hind, and the schoolboy is told that, although hinds are hunted later on, the present is a close time for them, and that our jolly company of sportsmen and ladies will not ride to hounds this day unless a warrantable stag be found. Our "harboured" stag had evidently wandered on.

Let us leave the field to indulge in that gossip for which Devonians are famous, and follow at a respectful distance the tufters now moving across Cloutsham Ball to Ten Acre Cleeve. We of course find it necessary almost immediately to negotiate a combe, that is, to descend the sides of one of those deep ravines with which Exmoor abounds. We yield the reins and see our horse's head disappear between our knees, his croup rises to our neck, and so we slip, shuffle, and slide down the precipitous pathway. In the bottom of the combe, we meet the tufters returning; they have roused their stag, and now rejoin the pack. Jogging forward, we see a noble beast of chase, large as an eastern donkey, the antlered monarch of Exmoor, trotting in a leisurely way, and evidently making for Holm Wood.

Jumping the fence into the fields by Bucket Hole, our stag has met a woman and two children, who flourished a pink apron at him, so he has turned back, showing how easily sometimes a stag may be headed if he has formed no definite plan as to where he will go; within five minutes we were to see how hopeless a task it is to head a stag when he is determined to make his point. Crossing the combe towards us, the stag came up to the edge of the bushes and coasted along the side, while we rode along the heather on the ridge, in the vain hope that we could keep him out of the Porlock Coverts. Just by Whitestones he turned up, and, undismayed by the shouting and smacking of whips, trotted up to our horses. Riding at him was no good; a sudden stop with lowered antlers--all his rights and three on top both sides--a bound to one side or another, and he is behind you, and perfectly ready to encounter the next one; horses, too, will not go near a stag if they can help it.

Although we did all we knew to turn him, I do not think we forced him fifty yards from the course he would have taken had he been left to himself. Andrew Miles always declared that there was only one way to turn a stag, and it would have required an exceedingly well-drilled field, proof against the temptation to look at the stag, to carry out his plan. "Get right in front of the stag," Miles would say, "and ride as hard as you can go for the point to which he is making; he will dodge round you if you ride at him, but he will not deliberately follow you."

But now our stag, with an air of insulted majesty, turns his back upon us and sets out for his long last journey. He must rouse himself, for the soul-stirring notes of the hounds float towards us. The pack is at length laid on, the sweet scent fills the big hounds with delirious joy, and in long drawn file they race forward, and the chase begins.

We had a nice gallop over Skilgate Common and down a steep, root-grown slope, through the Bittscombe plantations. The stag turned down the valley to Raddington. Despite the blazing sun and intense heat, hounds ran fast, but Devonia's wilds are not everywhere to be invaded, and here the sobbing horses must pound along the road, while the hounds turn up over a grass field as steep as the side of a house; some riders indeed climbed up, some cast forward, others like myself cast back towards Skilgate, on the chance of the stag swinging round towards Haddon again; but we were wrong, as he went straight over the top, past Hove and Quarterly, into the Exe valley by Morebath, running through several little coverts. From this point I was beaten out of my country and hardly know how to tell of our wanderings.

The stag worked the line of a brook past Shillingford as far as Hockley bridge where he soiled, but the eager hounds gave little respite, and our new-found stag went away up a little valley to the left. Hounds ran on fast, keeping about a hundred yards from the lane, which helped us to get along, for Devonshire banks with the leaves on cannot be ridden over in September. The heat and dust were something to be remembered, but hounds pushed on, hovering a minute where bullocks had been over the line, and again where a mare and foal charged them in a most determined manner doing, luckily, no harm. Huntsham seemed to be the point, a good old-fashioned line often travelled by deer fifty years ago, but most unusual now.

Leaving Huntsham on the right, we went on by Cudmore to Hole Lake, hounds running on grass, horses again pounding along the road. Now we turn into the fields and gallop alongside the pack, which kept on in most determined manner, and with more music than is usually given on so hot a day. We soon got into a maze of small combes running down to the brook which passes under Huntsham Wood. From gate to gate, and gap to gap we hie, keeping as near hounds as may be, and passed a farm which I was told is Redwood. A patch of ferny gorse-covered ground is Bere Down, across which hounds ran fast, much disturbing a pony at grass, who jumped the fence down the biggest drop I ever saw anything except a deer come over in safety. The stag went down the line of the brook till its junction with the bigger Loman Water near Chief Loman. Here a long check refreshed us, the stag having worked first the road and then the water for a long distance. The pack puzzled it out slowly, both Anthony and Col. Hornby dismounting to keep close to them through the impassable places. Then we heard a holloa ahead, and hounds were lifted about a quarter of a mile to Land's Mill, when they hit off the line, just owning it down the road, and so recall us to the chase.

The field seemed hardly to diminish, though it kept changing; many of those from the Minehead and Dunster side stopped and went home, but every hamlet, every farm we passed, brought out recruits eager to see the hounds, for they do not often come this way. The whole country was in a wild state of commotion and excitement. A capital gallop over a ridge of hills, where the chase went through a field of roots, which some gentlemen were just beginning to shoot over (and much I fear we spoiled their sport), brought us to the Western Canal, where the stag swam over, while we crossed by a bridge, and went on again to the Halberton lane. In the field beyond, sheep had foiled the ground, but hounds cast forward, and were soon running again down to the canal, which here "ran a ring." Hounds feathered down the towing-path and over the railway, where we had to make a _détour_. We had just rejoined them when there was a burst of music, and the stag was seen swimming in the canal. He scrambled out, ran down the road a few hundred yards with the pack at his heels, and then jumped over the fence into ploughed ground, where he fell, and was rolled over a moment afterwards, when he was found to have a broken leg. The fatal stab to the heart was dealt as soon as our stag was taken, and now the hounds must be given their portion. "Look at that!" exclaims a sporting farmer as the body is turned over and the legs are seen standing stark and stiff in the air. "Ay, properly runned up, poor thing," answers the huntsman, who is busy anatomising. "Brisher, bother your old head, you'm always after the venison." And Brusher, who has stolen forward and began licking the haunch, beats a hasty retreat, not without a taste of whipcord. Then the hounds' portion is made over to them, the huntsman reserves his perquisites, and the head being claimed by the Master, all the farmers of the district account for the venison share and share alike. The run lasted exactly seven hours from the lay on; the last hour and a-half we hunted in the dark. Eight only of us saw the finish.

And now looking over my record of this memorable run how bare an itinerary it seems, lacking the mental eye to fill up the scene with luscious autumn tints, and lacking too the stir and movement of the chase. Then the blood boils in veins of horse and man, then a fierce energy urges on the pursuers. What can compare with it, but the wild charge of cavalry? The occasion past, however, our pulse resumes its normal beat, and presently in slumber the scene and all its glories fade away. But not the memory fades! Year by year while trouble, sickness, hopes and longings get blotted from our recollection, the printed page or glance at whip and spur, shall revive with more than pristine splendour, the memory of the chase.

And what of the stag? Well, the stag's life is not, I fear, a happy one; for him no sooner is one trouble past than another is upon him. During the summer his horns are growing and keep him in constant irritation and anxiety. The velvet is hardly lost when the fever of the rutting season consumes him. Then there is the hard winter to live through, and with the return of spring returns also the period for the shedding of old horns, and sprouting of new ones. Indeed, it is only for a few weeks in every year that the stag is his perfect self, and those weeks, with a small margin before and after, constitute what is called the stag-hunting season, a season of relief to the farmer whose turnip crops have been ruined by the herd's depredations, a season of anxiety to the master of the Devon and Somerset staghounds, a season of delight to him who loves the chase. Pleasure unalloyed, indeed, for so long as fortune favours him, but assuredly the day will sooner or later arrive when a grip or cart rut on Exmoor will turn horse and rider over, when the red grass or white bog flower that should warn the horseman to "take a pull" is overlooked or disregarded, with alarming results. The least of the ills that flesh is heir to, when stag-hunting on Exmoor, is to lose one's way twenty miles from home, and be found a solitary horseman wandering on the moor, soaked to the skin, out of hail of any living creature but forest ponies, and uneasily musing on the old nurse-tales of pixies. If, in such case, you are fortunate enough to stumble upon a moorland farm, do not fail to accept the shelter which will surely be offered; and so shall the congratulations of your friends sound sweet in your ears when you return safe and sound on the morrow. Your landlord also, if you are staying at an inn and hunting on a hired mount, will welcome you with such evident sincerity that you feel sure it is not unconnected with the recovery of his horse.

SPORT AMONGST THE MOUNTAINS

BY "SARCELLE"

It is a gloriously bright, glowing autumn morning, a light breeze ruffles the clear, blue surface of the Atlantic, or rather of a little bay thereof, which lies in a pretty setting of hills and mountains just in front of the window whereat I am writing, beyond the hydrangeas and fuchsias of the garden and an intervening stretch of marshland, home of many a snipe and duck. As the day is bright, and the water in the river low, there is but little chance of hooking either salmon or trout before evening; therefore, instead of "dropping a line" to those finny aristocrats, I will endeavour to "improve the shining hour" by writing a few lines about them, and their "followers."

Truly a fitting room is this in which to write of matters piscatorial--ay, of sport in general. In a corner, just two feet to the left of me, are my two beloved rods, a trout fly-rod and a trolling-rod; by the opposite end of the fire-place repose a handsome salmon-rod, and a landing-net of portentous dimensions, so huge that it looks more suitable for Og, king of Bashan, or Goliath of Gath, than for any modern mortal: but it is not upon record that those large gentlemen ever studied the quaint pages of "The Contemplative Man's Recreation." Two chairs off me lies my old creel, which had eleven good sea-trout in it yesterday, but now contains only my precious fly-book, its cover shiny with hundreds of glittering scales of the beautiful fish, which I shall be at no pains to remove; for when I am far away from these charming scenes those scales shall remind me of the river and the lough, of the mountains and the heather, of the grouse and the snipe, and of the genial companions it has been my good luck to meet in old Ireland.

A little beyond my fishing-basket is a sideboard which is littered with central-fire cartridges, tins of powder, and bags of shot. It is also adorned by one or two short clay pipes, and by a "billy-cock" hat, which, like almost every other hat in this inn, is covered with the most approved "casts" of salmon and trout-flies. In the corner, by the sideboard, two more rods and another landing-net; on the floor, sundry and divers pairs of sturdy-looking shooting boots. Next we come to a big salmon-creel, three central-fire guns, and a muzzle-loader; more hats, adorned with bunches of heather and casts of flies; a big shrimp-net (by the way, I and a fellow-sportsman took about five quarts of beautiful prawns with that latter one afternoon); more pipes, more fishing-rods.

In one corner of the room is a stuffed badger, which was pulled out of a deep and narrow hole, after a struggle of nearly two hours, by a white bull-terrier with a brown patch over one eye, who is now lying at my feet. On the chimney-piece are a grouse and a peregrine falcon, the latter incurring grave penalties by "the wearing of the green," for some friendly hand has adorned it with a little Dolly Varden hat of that colour. Now to complete his notion of my immediate surroundings, the reader must picture another window at the other end of this room, looking out not upon the sea, but upon a high heathery mountain, the home of the grouse and the hare; and he must imagine frequent interruptions from the incursions of friendly dogs, pointers, setters, retrievers, greyhounds, and terriers. Yes, the whole atmosphere of this house is evidently of the sport, sporting; the "commercial" would be at a discount here; all are lovers of the rod or gun, many of both; and those of the fair sex who honour us with their presence--thank goodness we are not without their refining and humanising influence--take a keen interest in our sport, and are proud of the doings of their respective husbands, brothers, or sons--for there are several family-parties staying here.

Some of my readers with sporting proclivities are already beginning to ask, "Where is this 'happy hunting ground?'" Alas, I fear me that I must not proclaim it in the pages of so popular a periodical as this, for there were nine rods on the little river yesterday, and our worthy hostess has her house nearly full of people, and her hands quite full of work; and if it were only generally known in London how delightful a place is the White Trout Inn (that is the most appropriate _sobriquet_ I can think of for the moment), we should be flooded with eager sportsmen, the rivers would be over-fished, the moors over-shot, and the place spoiled. Before I dilate further on the delights of the White Trout Inn and its surroundings, I must lay down my pen for a brief space, and devote myself to the consumption of a hearty breakfast, at which some of the fish, from which the inn takes its name, invariably figure, accompanied generally by eggs and bacon, grilled mutton, and other solid viands.

It is done, the inner man is refreshed; and though a stronger breeze has sprung up, bringing clouds with it, and rods are off to the river, and guns to the mountain, and a knowing old professional angler in long-tailed frieze coat, indescribable hat, knee breeches, and black stockings, opines that there is a good chance for both trout and salmon, I must forego the sport for the present, and finish my appointed task. The White Trout Inn is not situated in a town, nor even in a village, though there are a few scattered houses here and there, but the place has the inestimable advantage to the sportsman of being twenty miles distant from a railway. Within a comfortable hour's walk of mine inn is a lovely lake five miles in length, surrounded by mountains as grand as artist could desire. White villas nestle here and there on the wooded slopes that lead down to the clear blue water, dotted with sundry fishing-boats, from which anglers are throwing the fly for salmon or trout, both of which swarm in the lake.

From the lake down to the sea a beautiful river runs a picturesque course of about four miles, in a valley with mountains on the one side and well-cultivated hills and slopes on the other; and in every part of the river are to be found the noble salmon, the brilliant white or sea-trout, and their humble relative, the brown trout--in England a prize coveted by most anglers, and esteemed by most _gourmands_, but here looked upon with contempt alike by fishermen and epicures, being far exceeded both in strength and gamesomeness, and in delicacy of flavour, by its migratory brother from the sea. The fishing in both river and lake is free to visitors at this inn, who have, moreover, the privilege of shooting over some of the neighbouring mountains, where may be found grouse, hares, woodcock, and snipe. There is grand duck-shooting here in the season, and the lovely bay affords an immense abundance and variety of sea fish to those who like a good breeze and a bit of heavy hand-pulling, as an occasional change after many days' fly-fishing. We have a glorious sandy beach, where sea-bathing may be enjoyed untrammelled by conventionalities of machines or costumes. We have always some of "the best of all good company" here; in fact, one gentleman, as true a sportsman as ever crossed country, drew trigger, or threw salmon-fly, has taken up his abode here _en permanence_, and finds sport of some kind for nearly every day in the year.

I must not omit to mention that, for those who like to take rifle or shot-gun out to sea with them, we have seals pretty frequently, and a great abundance of large wild-fowl. Our larder, I need hardly say, is kept constantly supplied with the best of fish and game, and the "cellar's as good as the cook," the whisky especially being undeniable and insinuating, and "divil a headache in a hogshead of it."

But I am to say something about salmon-fishing. Faith, it's difficult to say anything new about it, inspiring and exciting theme though it be. The _rationale_ of it I utterly renounce. We know pretty well why a trout takes an artificial fly. It is a tolerably correct imitation of a natural insect, which is the natural food of our spotted friend; and the different flies which are used on different waters, and during the various months, are constantly changed to correspond with the proper insects frequenting each locality at each period. Of course, this is reasonable enough. A trout is lying on the look-out for flies, and something comes floating down the stream towards him, which so closely resembles his natural food, that he sees no earthly (or watery) reason to suppose it to be unwholesome, and he takes it, and--it disagrees with him. But why on earth a salmon should ever make such a fool of himself as to jump at a huge, gaudy arrangement of feathers, fur, silk, &c., which is not an imitation of anything "in the heavens above or the earth below, or the waters under the earth," the nearest approach to a faithful simile for which would seem to be an imaginary cross between a humming-bird and a butterfly, altogether passes my comprehension. Still more astonishing is it that these extraordinary objects must be varied in size, colours, and sundry other particulars, according to locality and time of year.