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- Sprache: Englisch
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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WITH HOUND AND TERRIER IN THE FIELD
Alys Serrell
WAXKEEP PUBLISHING
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This book is a work of nonfiction and is intended to be factually accurate.
All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.
Copyright © 2015 by Alys Serrell
TABLE OF CONTENTS
With Hound and Terrier in the Field
By Alys Serrell
CHAPTER I.EARLY HUNTING EXPERIENCES
CHAPTER II.FIRST DAYS IN HANTS AND BERKS
CHAPTER III.TERRIERS AT WORK
CHAPTER IV.TERRIERS AT WORK (CONTINUED)
CHAPTER V.THE BLACKMORE VALE
CHAPTER VI.OVER BANK AND TIMBER
CHAPTER VII.THE OTTER IN THE LYD
CHAPTER VIII.THE BLOODHOUND IN THE VALE
CHAPTER IX.GOOD SPORT
CHAPTER X.THE OLD BLACK AND TAN TERRIER
CHAPTER XI.THE END OF A LONG REIGN
CHAPTER XII.THE BLACKMORE VALE HOUNDS
CHAPTER XIII.ECHOES OF THE CHASE
WITH HOUND AND TERRIER IN THE FIELD
BY ALYS SERRELL
CHAPTER I.EARLY HUNTING EXPERIENCES
THE GRAPHIC STORIES OF THE hunting-field told me by my father, the Rev. H. Digby Serrell, are among my earliest recollections. Being a Dorsetshire man, my father hunted all the early part of his life with the Dorset packs, and the names of Mr. Farquharson, the Kev. Harry Farr Yeatman, Mr. Tudway, Mr. Hall, and Mr. Drax were household words with the members of his family. As we listened to the tales of those early days, we learned to love the sport so dear to the heart of the narrator, and gained our own first knowledge of hunting from his lips.
My father was a fine sportsman of the old school, and he had a remarkably quick eye and a wonderful knack of sticking to hounds. One of his favorite sayings was that a man was no good in the hunting-field if he could not finish as well as begin. Many a time also I have heard him say, “If you keep down wind of the hounds, they are sure to come to you,” and when riding to hounds I have borne this in mind, and by my own experience have proved its truth. It was always a delight to listen to accounts of the runs of bygone days, for as my father had a very retentive memory, he would describe the incidents that happened in them, and thus bring the whole scene vividly before us.
At the time when he was hunting in Dorset, some of the keenest men with hounds were clergymen, and very remarkable characters they were.
The Rev. Harry Farr Yeatman, of Stock House, owned a pack of hounds with which he hunted fox, hare, and roe-deer in the Stock coverts and parts of Somersetshire. These hounds were dwarf foxhounds, and only stood twenty or twenty – one inches, but they had been drawn from all the best kennels in England by Mr. George Templar of Devonshire, from whose possession they passed to that of Mr. Yeatman in the year 1826. The roe-deer which this pack often hunted were brought into the country by Lord Dorchester, and from that time to the present they have lived in the woods and hills of the wilder districts.
A good old yeoman of Stalbridge, named William Harris, was entered with Mr. Yeatman’s hounds, and was fond of telling the story of his first day in the field. He was riding a pulling pony, and in the course of a run he came full tilt against a local magistrate, whom he ignominiously capsized. The sufferer was very indignant, and appealed to the Master to have the boy flogged. The Master, however, took a different view of the matter, and said slyly he thought he saw some good in the boy, as he had come off number one in his first brush against a justice of the peace. This incident, and the fact that on the same day young Harris dislodged a marten cat which the hounds had treed, made him from that time a favorite with Mr. Yeatman. Harris became one of the hardest riding men in the Vale, and his sons after him were very keen men with hounds. When Harris was once asked who was the best sportsman he had ever known, he replied, “There have been so many of the right sort hereabouts, that I’m blest if I know. But one day I was sitting between the two divines, Mr. Yeatman and the Rev. Jack Russell, and I says, ‘Gentlemen, I feels mortal proud to find myself between the two best sportsmen in England.’”
It was through his friend Mr. Yeatman that my father made the acquaintance of the Rev.
John Russell, of Devonshire fame, another choice spirit of the clerical circle whose interests were
not bounded by their parochial duties. My father was staying at Stock House when he heard his host lamenting that, owing to his hunting establishment being very short of hands, he did not know how to get some hounds to the Kev. Jack Russell, which he had promised by a certain day.
Being young and always eager where hounds were in question, my father volunteered to take the draft to Iddesleigh, in Devonshire, and to deliver them within the time specified. This meant a long and weary journey by road. But, nothing daunted, my father was off at daybreak with a large piece of cheese in his pocket, with which he coaxed the hounds along till they grew accustomed to him, and he accomplished the odd eighty miles on horseback in the stipulated time. This was the sort of thing to appeal to Mr. Russell. He was very pleased, and gave my father the warmest of welcomes. That night as the two men were sitting at dinner my father expressed his regret that the next day was not one of Mr. Bussell’s hunting days, as he had to go off early in the morning of the day after to enable him to keep his term at Oxford. He expressed so much disappointment at not seeing the famous hounds in the field that at last Mr. Bussell exclaimed, “Look here, my boy, you shall see them, if you don’t mind turning out at daybreak. There is a fox shut up in the saddle-room that was brought me today, and we will see if we can’t dust his jacket for him.” It was in the early spring, and a move was made to the stables the following morning before it was light. The men being roused, the horses were soon saddled, and all was ready for departure. The kennel lad was sent off on a rough pony with the fox in a bag, which he was ordered to let out at a certain spot, and then hounds were unkennelled and they started in pursuit. A glorious spin over a fine wild country followed, at the end of which the fox made good his escape, and the two sportsmen returned home in good time, as hounds had to Innit the next day. From that time Mr. Russell and my father often met, both in Devon and in Dorset.
In an old hunting journal kept by Mr. Yeatman from the year 1826 to 1831, which has come to me through my father, all the entries are signed John Channing, and are written as if from his pen. With regard to the difficulties that confronted Mr. Yeatman when he began to hunt the country, he says, writing in the usual way in the person of his huntsman, John Channing: “It must not be forgotten—1st, that a very considerable part of the country which their proprietor established in 1826 had not been hunted at all for nearly thirty years, that the foxes had been systematically destroyed, and even that their haunts and earths were known to few, if to any persons, except to those who dealt in their destruction; 2nd, that this small extent of country had never been hunted before by any gentleman as an entire country; 3rd, that at its farthest north - eastern, Wiltshire, extremity the coverts are of enormous extent, and so full of earths as to baffle the vigilance of the most careful and active stopper; 4th, that a large portion of the country lying between Compton Castle and Yeovil is nearly destitute of covert of any description capable of holding a fox during the winter months, consisting almost entirely of sandy arable land, intersected by roads and notorious as bad scenting ground; and, lastly, that a system bordering on persecution in the county of Dorset was not wanting to super add difficulties to the whole of no ordinary kind.
Yet in spite of difficulties the hunt became very popular, and from the same old journal I find that at a fixture at Stock House in 1828 there were “two hundred and eighty-five horsemen” present, a very large field for that period. On that occasion hounds were hunting fox, and finding immediately, “after a brilliant burst of forty minutes they killed their fox in superior style in the open, before he could reach Caundle Holt coverts.”
Another run chronicled in March 1831 deserves mention. The meet was “at Batcombe Wood, near Bruton, and the wind was in the south-west, with driving rain. We found immediately, and went away on only middling terms across the enclosure by Batcombe Lodge and on to Asham Wood “—the latter a covert of some 600 acres—” across the corner of Asham, hounds made for the ‘alpine heights of Mendip,’ hunting their fox over the heather and furzes of this wild and romantic region to a place called Lye. Here, in heavy fog and rain, the fox was apparently lost, having been headed by the furze-cutters on the moor. By taking hounds on two miles, the line was recovered in masterly style in Lye Wood the pack racing their fox through the fine coverts of Colonel Horner at Mells, and on to Vallis and Little Elm, near Frome. Here a curious sight presented itself In a rocky gorge in the valley at the base of a tree overhanging a mountain torrent, the hounds were at bay, and on the top of the tree, twenty feet above ground, and in a mass of ivy, the fox was at perch. From thence he made his leap into the stream below, a favorite hound and the fox sinking to the bottom together. Thus ended a run of four hours and forty-five minutes, over every variety of ground, a good twenty-five miles having been covered in this curious chase, which extended through thirteen parishes.” A peculiarity that marked Mr. Yeatman’s description of a run was that he always noted the number of parishes hounds had been through.
A story told of Mr. Butler and Mr. Yeatman is that one day when they were driving to the meet together, these two worthies disputed as to which of them could best preach a hunting sermon. The dispute waxed warm, and they settled they were to try on the following Sunday. When the time came, Mr. Butler gave as the text of his discourse, “We heard of it at Ephratah, and found it in the wood,” while Mr. Yeatman chose the words, “This is the heir,"—hare,—"come let us kill him.” How the rival merits were decided I do not know.
Mr. Butler was a favorite with all, from the lowest to the highest, and many stories my father used to tell of the friendship of the eccentric parson with the Prince of Wales. The Prince, afterwards George IV, at that time kept a pack of foxhounds in Dorset, and hunted from Critchell, which place he had taken from Mr. Sturt. Billy Butler’s acquaintance with the Prince began in the field. The Prince, after a long and fruitless draw with his hounds, was told that the rector of Frampton could tell him where to find a fox if any one could, as he knew the home of every fox in the country. Inquiring if the gentleman was out, and hearing that he was, the Prince sent a messenger asking Mr. Butler to come and speak to him. This of course Mr. Butler did, and he told the Prince that a fox was generally to be found in a certain gorse at a little distance. Much pleased at the news, the Prince trotted off. Unfortunately for his informant, the covert was drawn blank. Mr. Butler, however, was not one to sit quietly under defeat, so, getting off his horse, he went up to the huntsman and said—
“Which do you consider your best hound to face a thick place? I am sure the fox is at home, but the gorse is so dense the hounds have overdrawn in.
“Well, sir,” was the reply, as the huntsman pointed with his whip to an old hound, “Trojan there is as good as any.”
To the astonishment of every one present, Mr. Butler went up to the hound indicated, and after stroking him down and making friends with him, picked him up in his arms and disappeared with him into the covert. Talking to the hound as he went, he at last released him, and induced him to put his nose down. After a few moments Trojan gave a whimper, and lashing his sides with his stern, started full cry through the gorse. The rest of the pack joined in, and pushing their fox out handsomely, a capital run followed. After this the Prince and Mr. Butler became fast friends, and the latter was often invited to Critchell.
It is said, though for this I have not my father’s authority, that one day when the Prince invited Mr. Butler to dine with him on the following Sunday, he received the unceremonious rejoinder, “Well, your Royal Highness, Sunday is a bad day to ask a parson to dine. If your Royal Highness will make it Monday, I will come with pleasure.” The suggestion was taken in good part, and the dinner was fixed for Monday.
Another story of the way in which Mr. Butler came to the assistance of the Prince, my father was very fond of narrating. The Prince’s hounds had many times found a fox in a particular covert, from which he always took the same line, and saved himself in the main earths some miles away. One night after they had had one of these runs Mr. Butler was dining at Critchell, and he suggested that the next time hounds met for this covert he should take two couples of the fastest hounds in the pack, and go to a shepherd’s hut he had noticed about half-way between the covert and the main earths. The Prince was delighted at the idea, so a few days afterwards a special fixture was made in order to carry it out. Mr. Butler started off with the hounds coupled and fastened to the thong of his hunting-whip, and on reaching the hut he tied up his horse, and hid himself and the hounds inside. After waiting anxiously for some time, he heard the chase drawing near, and peeping out espied “Master Reynard” approaching. Waiting till the fox came up, he flung open the door, and with a cheer capped on the two couple of hounds in full view. Vaulting into the saddle, “Billy” rode his hardest in their wake, and the field came streaming behind. The fox, however, proved equal to the occasion, and after a desperate race for life, slipped into the earth and saved his brush, much to the chagrin of Mr. Butler and the Prince.
In return for the many services Mr. Butler had done him, the Prince determined to give him a present. He told him he might go to the stable and choose any horse he liked, and Mr. Butler picked out a fine chestnut, with which he was much delighted. His pleasure, however, was rudely checked a few days later when a message came to him that it was found the chestnut did not belong to the Prince, and was now wanted back by its owner. A check for £150 that accompanied the news did not make up for the disappointment, though not long afterwards the Prince made ample amends by saying, “I am sorry you lost your horse, Billy. Go into my stable and take another.”
Almost as much talked of as his master was a terrier named Pompey that belonged to Mr.
Butler. This dog was shaved like a poodle, and was as keen after a fox as any hound that hunted over the Vale. Mr. Butler died at Okeford Fitzpaine, from which place he had hunted for many years.
In memory of this day’s sport Mr. Hall had the fox’s head set up in a glass case and sent to my father, and it is still in my possession in a perfect state of preservation.
But while Mr. Yeatman, Mr. Hall, Mr. Portman,—the first Baron and first Viscount Portman,—and later Mr. Drax were hunting over parts of Dorset and Somerset, the whole of the country of Dorset was nominally under the mastership of Mr. T. J. Farquharson, whose hunt territory was no less than fifty-four miles in length. Before, however, Mr. Farquharson started his foxhounds in 1806 the country had been hunted early in the eighteenth century. My friend Mr. Charles Phelips tells me that his great-grandfather, Mr. Phelips of Montacute, in Somerset, is said to have been the founder of the Cattistock Hunt, as he kept his hounds at Cattistock and hunted parts of Somerset, Dorset, and Wilts.
From the same source I have an old paper which tells of a huntsman named Isaac Rogers, who was born at Montacute and became known throughout the West of England as the “Doctor.” Rogers seems to have been something of a character. On account of the great fondness he showed as a lad for horse and hound he was taken by Mr. Phelips as under-strapper in his stables. Here the “Doctor” rose successively to be groom, postilion, and whipper-in to the hounds, and on the death of the huntsman, Amos, he was promoted to the vacant post.
Many are the anecdotes told of this worthy while he was hunting Mr. Phelips’s hounds. He was never afraid of speaking his mind, and always maintained there were no hounds in England that could beat his. The owner of a noble pack of foxhounds, who had been on a visit to Mr. Phelips, and, like all who knew the “Doctor,” been attracted by him, asked him to come and see his hounds and taste his strong beer. As soon, therefore, as haymaking was over, at which the “Doctor” always took his share, the huntsman started off to inspect the rival pack. When the owner asked him his opinion of his hounds, Rogers answered, “Why, they be pictures to look at, but they ain’t half so scratched in the face as our old measter’s be down at Montacute.”
The Cranborne Chase Hunt had the distinction of being the first country in which hounds were kept to hunt fox to the exclusion of all other kinds of quarry. Mr. Thomas Fownes, who purchased certain rights in the Chase, as well as the Manor of Staple on—or Steepleton—in Dorset, in the middle of the seventeenth century, hunted his hounds from Stapleton, and built up a pack which was said to be the best in England. From the possession of Mr. Fownes, Stapleton passed into the hands of Julines Beckford, father of the celebrated Peter Beckford, author of ‘Thoughts on Hunting.’ The future writer was accustomed to hunting in the Chase from his earliest years, and when he arrived at man’s estate he became the Master of a pack of harriers. He soon, however, made foxhunting his chief object, and set to work to revive the glories of the old Cranborne Chase Hunt. The country over which Beckford hunted adjoined the Blackmore Vale Hunt territory, on the northern side of its boundaries.
The Purbeck was yet another old hunt, whose country, as well as that of the Cranborne Chase, belonged in part to Dorset. The former was under the mastership of Sir Granby Calcraft, who kept a pack of hounds at Rempstone in the early years of the last century, and at the close of the preceding one.
In 1806 Mr. Farquharson, after passing through Eton and Oxford, became a Master of Hounds as soon as he had attained his majority. He bought a sack from Mr. Wyndham of Dinton, and with Peter Beckford and “Billy” Butler as his guides, he determined to hunt the hounds himself In spite of the young Master’s enthusiasm, however, he found his experience was not yet equal to the task, so he resigned the horn to Ben Jennings, who came from Essex to be his huntsman.
At his home at Langton, which was situated in a beautiful park on the banks of the river Stour, Mr. Farquharson built stables which were said to be the finest in the south of England. They were built of bath stone, in oval form, were fitted with oak stalls for thirty-four horses, and had a covered ride round them. At Eastbury, a village a little distance off, kennels for seventy five couple of hounds were erected, together with stabling for some fifty horses. The kennels were never very satisfactory, however, and there was constant illness among the hounds. On the other side of his country Mr. Farquharson had a hunting-box at Cattistock, and for over fifty years he hunted this large territory at his own expense six days a week.
With all classes Mr. Farquharson was popular. Three times in the course of his hunting career he received practical proof of the good feeling existing with the landowners and farmers of the district. The first of these testimonials was presented to him in 1827, and took the form of a handsome Etruscan vase and shield, for which the substantial sum of £1150 had been raised. Again at the end of fifty years’ mastership a magnificent pair of silver candelabra were subscribed for, and the balance of the £1800 collected was expended on a portrait of the Master painted by Mr.— afterwards Sir—Francis Grant. In this picture Mr. Farquharson is on his favorite horse Botanist, and has Rarity, one of the best hounds in his pack, at his side. Before the painting was ready for presentation Mr. Farquharson had announced his intention of resigning, and it was therefore at a farewell meeting with the members of his hunt that he received it.
Mr. Farquharson married as his second wife Mrs. John Phelips, widow of the Squire of Montacute, who had been a staunch friend and supporter of the hunt, and had lived up to the motto over the entrance to his house, “Through this wide opening gate none come too early, none return too late.” Another prominent member of Mr. Farquharson’s hunt was Mr. Williams, known to his friends as “The Bangalore.” The nickname was given to him because on one occasion when the Master was rallying him upon his want of knowledge of hunting, he replied that he had once kept a fox on a chain for three years when he had been stationed at Bangalore.
During the later years of his reign, Mr. Farquharson had the celebrated Jim Treadwell as his huntsman, Ben Jennings, who had been with him for thirty years, having become too old for his duties. It was when Mr. Hall gave up the part of the Vale over which he had hunted, and sold his hounds, that half his pack, together with Treadwell, who had been hunting them, went to Mr. Farquharson. The new huntsman was a brilliant rider and a judicious hound-breeder, and he remained with Mr. Farquharson to the end of his reign.
Of the long dispute between Mr. Drax and Mr. Farquharson, that dragged its weary length through so many years, everyone has heard. The cause dated back to the time when Mr. Drax Grosvenor, of Charborough, made over his country to Mr. Farquharson soon after the latter had started hunting. An agreement was made between them that if at any future time either Mr. Drax Grosvener or his son Richard should wish to take back the Charborough country, Mr. Farquharson should give it up. Neither of the Drax Grosvenors wished to do this. But Mr. John Samuel Wanley Sawbridge, who married Mr. Erie Drax Grosvenors daughter, and assumed the names of Erie Drax, started a pack of harriers at Charborough, and after a few years, wishing to exchange the hunting of the hare for that of the fox, he demanded his father-in-law’s former country back from Mr. Farquharson. This the latter declined, on the ground that Mr. Drax had been no party to the original agreement; and, moreover, the Master said he felt himself bound to keep the country in its integrity, as it had been handed over to him. A lengthy correspondence
and a good deal of ill-feeling was the result; and when Mr. Drax bought a property in the very heart of Mr. Farquharson’s hunt country, matters became very strained, and Mr. Farquharson was warned off all coverts belonging to his opponent. After Mr. Drax resigned in 1853, Mr. Digby of Sherborne Castle, Lord Portman, and other landowners joined in putting pressure on Mr. Farquharson to give up a portion of his immense territory, so the old Master, in 1858, determined to resign.
As soon as the resignation had been effected and the hounds dispersed, the Blackmore Vale Hunt enlarged its borders. Lord Portman and his son took that part which is still known by their family name, and Lord Poltimore took what has since been known as the Cattistock country.
Mr. Farquharson did much to encourage horse breeding among the farmers of Dorset, and a pony of his own breeding, though standing only 142, was a favorite mount of Jim Treadwell’s. This animal, which was known as “The Pony,” carried Treadwell for eight seasons, and it was on his back that the huntsman’s well-known picture was taken. Mr. Farquharson lived to see the division of his old country, for he only died at Langton in 1871, when he was in his eighty seventh year.
The hunt territory of these early days which most nearly coincided with the country of the Blackmore Vale of the present time, was that hunted by Mr. Drax after he had closed his coverts to Mr. Farquharson, Mr. Drax then had the support of those farmers and landowners who objected to the loner distances to be traversed to meet Mr. Farquharson in the widely extended tract of country over which his fixtures were scattered. Mr. Drax’s foxhounds were started in 1833, and when in 1840 he bought Mr. Portman’s hounds, he became the Master of the whole of the Blackmore Vale country. Mr. Drax remained in office till 1853, when he sold his hounds to Mr. G. Whieldon of Wyke Hall.
The season following of that in which Mr. Drax’s hunt was started, Mr. Henry Hall, by arrangement with Mr. Yeatman, undertook to hunt a portion of the latter Master’s country; but though he had a great deal to do with the management of matters for some years, he was only the recognized Master for one season. Mr. Tudway of Wells, who bought some of Mr. Hall’s hounds when the latter gave up, and hunted in the neighborhood of Wells, had some of the Blackmore
Vale coverts lent to him, and when Mr. Theobald succeeded Mr. Tudway, those coverts were still hunted by his hounds.
An accident that my father had cause to remember happened to him when he was out with Mr. Tudway’s hounds. They had run a fox very hard, and at last it took refuge under a hawthorn tree, and setting up his back kept the hounds at bay. The first rider to reach them was my father, and he, springing from his horse, grasped the fox by the neck and brush and lifted him over his head. As he did so, the fox fixed his teeth into his wrist and held on tenaciously, giving him a very severe bite. It is a thing to remember that when a fox is handled he is never happy till he gets something tight between his teeth to which he can hang, and once he has this you can generally take hold of him safely. In Hampshire, where traps are constantly put down and left by poachers on the heath commons, I have often released both foxes and hounds by giving them
my hunting crop to gnaw while I set them free. On one occasion I heard a hound near Bramshill in great distress, and suspecting what was the matter I turned back. I found the hound caught by the foreleg in an iron gin which was securely pegged down, and three strangers were doing their best to get hold of him. The hound, however, was nearly frantic from pain, and was flying furiously at them, so I jumped down, and thrusting my crop well into his mouth, I put my foot on the trap and he was out in a minute. Happily, he was not much the worse for his adventure.
The Vale was noted for its hard riders in Mr. Drax’s time, and one of those whom it was said nothing short of a haystack would stop was Mr. Tatchell Bullen, who was “such a bruiser across country” that his friends suggested he should neither wear spurs nor carry a whip. Parson Place and the Rev. C. Newbolt of punning fame were also among the hardest, and few could beat the first Baron Portman when he was on his favorite chestnut Three-to-One. Mr. Hall was also a fine horseman and a fearless and straight rider.
