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 make thevicinity dry or comfortable, and a total absence of all those littleneatnesses which give the eye so much pleasure in looking at an Englishfarm-house. There were, notwithstanding, evident signs that this aroseonly from want of taste or ignorance, not from poverty or the negligencewhich attends it. On the contrary, a noble cow-house, well filled withgood milk-cows, a feeding-house, with ten bullocks of the most approvedbreed, a stable, with two good teams of horses, the appearance ofdomestics active, industrious, and apparently contented with their lot;in a word, an air of liberal though sluttish plenty indicated the wealthyfanner. The situation of the house above the river formed a gentledeclivity, which relieved the inhabitants of the nuisances that mightotherwise have stagnated around it. At a little distance was the wholeband of children playing and building houses with peats around a hugedoddered oak-tree, which was called Charlie's Bush, from some traditionrespecting an old freebooter who had once inhabited the spot. Between thefarm-house and the hill-pasture was a deep morass, termed in that countrya slack; it had once been the defence of a fortalice, of which novestiges now remained, but which was said to have been inhabited by thesame doughty hero we have now alluded to. Brown endeavoured to make someacquaintance with the children, but 'the rogues fled from him likequicksilver,' though the two eldest stood peeping when they had got tosome distance. The traveller then turned his course towards the hill,crossing the foresaid swamp by a range of stepping-stones, neither thebroadest nor steadiest that could be imagined. He had not climbed far upthe hill when he met a man descending.
He soon recognised his worthy host, though a 'maud,' as it is called, ora grey shepherd's plaid, supplied his travelling jockey-coat, and a cap,faced with wild-cat's fur, more comrhodiously covered his bandaged headthan a hat would have done. As he appeared through the morning mist,Brown, accustomed to judge of men by their thewes and sinews, could nothelp admiring his height, the breadth of his shoulders, and the steadyfirmness of his step. Dinmont internally paid the same compliment toBrown, whose athletic form he now perused somewhat more at leisure thanhe had done formerly. After the usual greetings of the morning, the guestinquired whether his host found any inconvenient consequences from thelast 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, we wadnaturn 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 the foxafter I had tumbled from the tap o' Christenbury Craig, and that mighthave confused me to purpose. Na, naething confuses me, unless it be ascreed o' drink at an orra time. Besides, I behooved to be round thehirsel this morning and see how the herds were coming on; they're apt tobe negligent wi' their footballs, and fairs, and trysts, when ane's away.And there I met wi' Tarn o' Todshaw, and a wheen o' the rest o' thebillies on the water side; they're a' for a fox-hunt this morning,--ye'llgang? I 'll gie ye Dumple, and take the brood mare mysell.'
'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 a weekat 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 some daywi' your feet foremost.'
'Tut, lass!' answered Dandle, 'ye ken yoursell I am never a prin the wauro' 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, or afterheavy rain, the torrents descended with great fury. Some dappled mistsstill floated along the peaks of the hills, the remains of the morningclouds, for the frost had broken up with a smart shower. Through thesefleecy screens were seen a hundred little temporary streamlets, or rills,descending the sides of the mountains like silver threads. By smallsheep-tracks along these steeps, over which Dinmont trotted with the mostfearless confidence, they at length drew near the scene of sport, andbegan to see other men, both on horse and foot, making toward the placeof rendezvous. Brown was puzzling himself to conceive how a fox-chasecould take place among hills, where it was barely possible for a pony,accustomed to the ground, to trot along, but where, quitting the trackfor half a yard's breadth, the rider might be either bogged orprecipitated down the bank. This wonder was not diminished when he cameto the place of action.
They had gradually ascended very high, and now found themselves on amountain-ridge, overhanging a glen of great depth, but extremely narrow.Here the sportsmen had collected, with an apparatus which would haveshocked a member of the Pychely Hunt; for, the object being the removalof a noxious and destructive animal, as well as the pleasures of thechase, poor Reynard was allowed much less fair play than when pursued inform through an open country. The strength of his habitation, however,and the nature of the ground by which it was surrounded on all sides,supplied what was wanting in the courtesy of his pursuers. The sides ofthe glen were broken banks of earth and rocks of rotten stone, which sunksheer down to the little winding stream below, affording here and there atuft of scathed brushwood or a patch of furze. Along the edges of thisravine, which, as we have said, was very narrow, but of profound depth,the hunters on horse and foot ranged themselves; almost every farmer hadwith him at least a brace of large and fierce greyhounds, of the race ofthose deer-dogs which were formerly used in that country, but greatlylessened in size from being crossed with the common breed. The huntsman,a sort of provincial officer of the district, who receives a certainsupply of meal, and a reward for every fox he destroys, was already atthe bottom of the dell, whose echoes thundered to the chiding of two orthree brace of foxhounds. Terriers, including the whole generation ofPepper and Mustard, were also in attendance, having been sent forwardunder the care of a shepherd. Mongrel, whelp, and cur of low degreefilled up the burden of the chorus. The spectators on the brink of theravine, or glen, held their greyhounds in leash in readiness to slip themat the fox 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 move inthe air. The dogs, impatient of their restraint, and maddened with thebaying beneath, sprung here and there, and strained at the slips, whichprevented them from joining their companions. Looking down, the view wasequally striking. The thin mists were not totally dispersed in the glen,so that it was often through their gauzy medium that the eye strove todiscover the motions of the hunters below. Sometimes a breath of windmade the scene visible, the blue rill glittering as it twined itselfthrough its rude an
d solitary dell. They then could see the shepherdsspringing with fearless activity from one dangerous point to another, andcheering the dogs on the scent, the whole so diminished by depth anddistance that they looked like pigmies. Again the mists close over them,and the only signs of their continued exertions are the halloos of themen and the clamours of the hounds, ascending as it were out of thebowels of the earth. When the fox, thus persecuted from one stronghold toanother, was at length obl'ged to abandon his valley, and to break awayfor a more distant retreat, those who watched his motions from the topslipped their greyhounds, which, excelling the fox in swiftness, andequalling him in ferocity and spirit, soon brought the plunderer to hislife's end.
In this way, without any attention to the ordinary rules and decorums ofsport, but apparently as much to the gratification both of bipeds andquadrupeds as if all due ritual had been followed, four foxes were killedon this active morning; and even Brown himself, though he had seen theprincely sports of India, and ridden a-tiger-hunting upon an elephantwith the Nabob of Arcot, professed to have received an excellentmorning's amusement. When the sport was given up for the day, most of thesportsmen, according to the established hospitality of the country, wentto 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, active fellow,well framed for the hardy profession which he exercised. But his face hadnot the frankness of the jolly hunter; he was down-looked, embarrassed,and avoided the eyes of those who looked hard at him. After someunimportant observations on the success of the day, Brown gave him atrifling gratuity, and rode on with his landlord. They found the goodwifeprepared for their reception; the fold and the poultry-yard furnished theentertainment, and the kind and hearty welcome made amends for alldeficiencies in elegance and fashion.