CHAPTER XXV
Give ye, Britons, then, Your sportive fury, pitiless to pour Loose on the nightly robber of the fold. Him from his craggy winding haunts unearth'd, Let all the thunder of the chase pursue.
THOMSON'S Seasons.
Brown rose early in the morning and walked out to look at theestablishment of his new friend. All was rough and neglected in theneighbourhood of the house;--a paltry garden, no pains taken to makethe vicinity dry or comfortable, and a total absence of all thoselittle neatnesses which give the eye so much pleasure in looking at anEnglish farm-house. There were, notwithstanding, evident signs thatthis arose only from want of taste or ignorance, not from poverty orthe negligence which attends it. On the contrary, a noble cow-house,well filled with good milk-cows, a feeding-house, with ten bullocks ofthe most approved breed, a stable, with two good teams of horses, theappearance of domestics active, industrious, and apparently contentedwith their lot; in a word, an air of liberal though sluttish plentyindicated the wealthy farmer. The situation of the house above theriver formed a gentle declivity, which relieved the inhabitants of thenuisances that might otherwise have stagnated around it. At a littledistance was the whole band of children playing and building houseswith peats around a huge doddered oak-tree, which was called Charlie'sBush, from some tradition respecting an old freebooter who had onceinhabited the spot. Between the farm-house and the hill-pasture was adeep morass, termed in that country a slack; it had once been thedefence of a fortalice, of which no vestiges now remained, but whichwas said to have been inhabited by the same doughty hero we have nowalluded to. Brown endeavoured to make some acquaintance with thechildren, but 'the rogues fled from him like quicksilver,' though thetwo eldest stood peeping when they had got to some distance. Thetraveller then turned his course towards the hill, crossing theforesaid swamp by a range of stepping-stones, neither the broadest norsteadiest that could be imagined. He had not climbed far up the hillwhen he met a man descending.
He soon recognised his worthy host, though a 'maud,' as it is called,or a grey shepherd's plaid, supplied his travelling jockey-coat, and acap, faced with wild-cat's fur, more commodiously covered his bandagedhead than a hat would have done. As he appeared through the morningmist, Brown, accustomed to judge of men by their thewes and sinews,could not help admiring his height, the breadth of his shoulders, andthe steady firmness of his step. Dinmont internally paid the samecompliment to Brown, whose athletic form he now perused somewhat moreat leisure than he had done formerly. After the usual greetings of themorning, the guest inquired whether his host found any inconvenientconsequences from the last night's affray.
'I had maist forgotten't,' said the hardy Borderer; 'but I think thismorning, now that I am fresh and sober, if you and I were at theWithershins' Latch, wi' ilka ane a gude oak souple in his hand, wewadna turn back, no for half a dizzen o' yon scaff-raff.'
'But are you prudent, my good sir,' said Brown, 'not to take an hour ortwo's repose after receiving such severe contusions?'
'Confusions!' replied the farmer, laughing in derision. 'Lord, Captain,naething confuses my head. I ance jumped up and laid the dogs on thefox after I had tumbled from the tap o' Christenbury Craig, and thatmight have confused me to purpose. Na, naething confuses me, unless itbe a screed o' drink at an orra time. Besides, I behooved to be roundthe hirsel this morning and see how the herds were coming on; they'reapt to be negligent wi' their footballs, and fairs, and trysts, whenane's away. And there I met wi' Tarn o' Todshaw, and a wheen o' therest o' the billies on the water side; they're a' for a fox-hunt thismorning,--ye'll gang? I'll gie ye Dumple, and take the brood maremysell.'
'But I fear I must leave you this morning, Mr. Dinmont,' replied Brown.
'The fient a bit o' that,' exclaimed the Borderer. 'I'll no part wi' yeat ony rate for a fortnight mair. Na, na; we dinna meet sic friends asyou on a Bewcastle moss every night.'
Brown had not designed his journey should be a speedy one; he thereforereadily compounded with this hearty invitation by agreeing to pass aweek at Charlie's Hope.
On their return to the house, where the goodwife presided over an amplebreakfast, she heard news of the proposed fox-hunt, not indeed withapprobation, but without alarm or surprise. 'Dand! ye're the auld manyet; naething will make ye take warning till ye're brought hame someday wi' your feet foremost.'
'Tut, lass!' answered Dandle, 'ye ken yoursell I am never a prin thewaur o' my rambles.'
So saying, he exhorted Brown to be hasty in despatching his breakfast,as, 'the frost having given way, the scent would lie this morningprimely.'
Out they sallied accordingly for Otterscope Scaurs, the farmer leadingthe way. They soon quitted the little valley, and involved themselvesamong hills as steep as they could be without being precipitous. Thesides often presented gullies, down which, in the winter season, orafter heavy rain, the torrents descended with great fury. Some dappledmists still floated along the peaks of the hills, the remains of themorning clouds, for the frost had broken up with a smart shower.Through these fleecy screens were seen a hundred little temporarystreamlets, or rills, descending the sides of the mountains like silverthreads. By small sheep-tracks along these steeps, over which Dinmonttrotted with the most fearless confidence, they at length drew near thescene of sport, and began to see other men, both on horse and foot,making toward the place of rendezvous. Brown was puzzling himself toconceive how a fox-chase could take place among hills, where it wasbarely possible for a pony, accustomed to the ground, to trot along,but where, quitting the track for half a yard's breadth, the ridermight be either bogged or precipitated down the bank. This wonder wasnot diminished when he came to the place of action.
They had gradually ascended very high, and now found themselves on amountain-ridge, overhanging a glen of great depth, but extremelynarrow. Here the sportsmen had collected, with an apparatus which wouldhave shocked a member of the Pychely Hunt; for, the object being theremoval of a noxious and destructive animal, as well as the pleasuresof the chase, poor Reynard was allowed much less fair play than whenpursued in form through an open country. The strength of hishabitation, however, and the nature of the ground by which it wassurrounded on all sides, supplied what was wanting in the courtesy ofhis pursuers. The sides of the glen were broken banks of earth androcks of rotten stone, which sunk sheer down to the little windingstream below, affording here and there a tuft of scathed brushwood or apatch of furze. Along the edges of this ravine, which, as we have said,was very narrow, but of profound depth, the hunters on horse and footranged themselves; almost every farmer had with him at least a brace oflarge and fierce greyhounds, of the race of those deer-dogs which wereformerly used in that country, but greatly lessened in size from beingcrossed with the common breed. The huntsman, a sort of provincialofficer of the district, who receives a certain supply of meal, and areward for every fox he destroys, was already at the bottom of thedell, whose echoes thundered to the chiding of two or three brace offoxhounds. Terriers, including the whole generation of Pepper andMustard, were also in attendance, having been sent forward under thecare of a shepherd. Mongrel, whelp, and cur of low degree filled up theburden of the chorus. The spectators on the brink of the ravine, orglen, held their greyhounds in leash in readiness to slip them at thefox as soon as the activity of the party below should force him toabandon his cover.
The scene, though uncouth to the eye of a professed sportsman, hadsomething in it wildly captivating. The shifting figures on themountain-ridge, having the sky for their background, appeared to movein the air. The dogs, impatient of their restraint, and maddened withthe baying beneath, sprung here and there, and strained at the slips,which prevented them from joining their companions. Looking down, theview was equally striking. The thin mists were not totally dispersed inthe glen, so that it was often through their gauzy medium that the eyestrove to discover the motions of the hunters below. Sometimes a breathof wind made the scene visible, the blue rill glittering as it twineditself throu
gh its rude and solitary dell. They then could see theshepherds springing with fearless activity from one dangerous point toanother, and cheering the dogs on the scent, the whole so diminished bydepth and distance that they looked like pigmies. Again the mists closeover them, and the only signs of their continued exertions are thehalloos of the men and the clamours of the hounds, ascending as it wereout of the bowels of the earth. When the fox, thus persecuted from onestronghold to another, was at length obliged to abandon his valley, andto break away for a more distant retreat, those who watched his motionsfrom the top slipped their greyhounds, which, excelling the fox inswiftness, and equalling him in ferocity and spirit, soon brought theplunderer to his life's end.
In this way, without any attention to the ordinary rules and decorumsof sport, but apparently as much to the gratification both of bipedsand quadrupeds as if all due ritual had been followed, four foxes werekilled on this active morning; and even Brown himself, though he hadseen the princely sports of India, and ridden a-tiger-hunting upon anelephant with the Nabob of Arcot, professed to have received anexcellent morning's amusement. When the sport was given up for the day,most of the sportsmen, according to the established hospitality of thecountry, went to dine at Charlie's Hope.
During their return homeward Brown rode for a short time beside thehuntsman, and asked him some questions concerning the mode in which heexercised his profession. The man showed an unwillingness to meet hiseye, and a disposition to be rid of his company and conversation, forwhich Brown could not easily account. He was a thin, dark, activefellow, well framed for the hardy profession which he exercised. Buthis face had not the frankness of the jolly hunter; he was down-looked,embarrassed, and avoided the eyes of those who looked hard at him.After some unimportant observations on the success of the day, Browngave him a trifling gratuity, and rode on with his landlord. They foundthe goodwife prepared for their reception; the fold and thepoultry-yard furnished the entertainment, and the kind and heartywelcome made amends for all deficiencies in elegance and fashion.