“They don’t see the hunts they used to see in the old days,” he said; “there’s a lot of reasons for that, the one being the ground, that is now got cleared of the water it used to hold. There is a deal less boggy land now, than in my father’s time. That makes it hard for the foxes. The hounds can go now, fast, over what would ’a held ’em long ago. Then to my way, the foxes aren’t the same kind; all the good ’uns got killed off in the mange years, as they call ’em, when all the foxes got mange; you’d see some of ’em with no more hair than on a baby. They got in a lot of new foxes, presently, on the sly, from Germany, somebody was saying, but they aren’t like the old English sort, nor won’t be, yet awhile; for you can’t hurry Nature, that’s sure; she’s one that won’t be hurried, not for anything that you can do.”
“Do you hunt?” Frampton asked. “Were you ever a huntsman?”
“I? No,” the old man said. “No, sir; but when I was a young man, I was a groom, or under-strapper, as they called ’em then, to Sir Peter Bynd, over yonder, at the great
He turned again to his work.
“What is it that you liked in hunting?” Frampton asked. “Why do men hunt? They could gallop over the fields in winter, without harm, at any time, without going to all this expense. Why shouldn’t they do that? Why should they torment poor foxes, and have all this swank and folly?”
The old man looked at him with some perplexity, as he might have looked at a foreigner whose tongue he did not well understand. He carefully leaned his curved slasher against the hedge, with an air of having done with work for a while.
“It’s in man’s nature to like sport, sir; they take to it naturally. And it gives a chance to every man to enjoy what he likes best. There’s some are all for putting on fine clothes and riding a cock-horse, all shiny, lots of that kind, men and ladies; then, there’s many likes riding, riding like the devil, three horses a day; then, some are all for watching the hunting of the hounds. There’s not many cares for that but some will. My father was one of them. He’d be in the covert, if he could ever get near ’em, watching each hound. He used to say that he’d give all the riding ten times over just to watch that. He said hunting went out when riding came in. He said they don’t hunt the fox at all now, they just run him off his legs. What he liked to see was the huntsman a part of the pack, in covert or out of it on one of these slow hunting days, when there’s nothing but wafts of scent. But not many care for that now. A lot cares for hunting because others care for it, and because it puts life into a country-side, to see a lot of life in it. And it is a fine sight, on a moist morning.”
“Don’t you think you could get the fine sight in some other way?”
“Ah, you might,” the old man admitted; “but then, you see, you don’t.”
He reflected on this, and on what other sights the countryside offered, the parade of the Territorials once in every summer, the Flower Show at Tatchester in early August, the point-to-point meeting in April. No, it did not seem to him that there would be much to see in that part of the world, if hunting were put out of the scheme.
“No,” the old man went on, “no. We’ve had hunting from time immortal, and I hope we always will have.”
It is possible, that at this moment a suspicion crossed his mind that this with whom he spoke was a city gentleman. He had heard of such as people quite without any feeling for sport, and no knowledge of country things. He had even heard of such as sometimes inclined to write that hunting ought to be abolished.
“But,” Frampton said, “we haven’t had fox-hunting long. It is a recent sport; it was hardly known before the reign of Queen Anne. People killed foxes, but they didn’t hunt them with hounds.”
“No, sir?”
“No.”
The old man resumed his slasher with a weary air.
“Ah, but hereabout they did, sir. This is Spirr Wood, where fox-hunting begun. The Fire of London begun, as I have heard say, sir, in one place, and fox-hunting begun at Spirr Wood. You may not have known, sir, that this is that Spirr Wood.” Seeing that Frampton remained blank, and not liking such ignorance, he went on: “This is what they call the great Spirr Wood. You be a stranger in these parts, sir, if I may make so bold, and you will let me speak. There be a noble great song about this wood.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Frampton said. “What sort of a song? Do you know it?”
“They call it the
“Will you sing it to me?”
“Ah, it’s not so easy, to go back over a song like that one.”
“Try. I’d like to hear it.”