Rider and horse, I say, are moved by a common sympathy, science and conduct being furnished by the man, strength, speed, and courage by the brute. From field to field they speed rejoicing, facing and surmounting each obstacle as it presents itself, with a varied dexterity of hand and eye that amounts to artistic skill, and even should unforeseen difficulty or treacherous foothold entail a downfall, rising together, parted, but not at variance, each perfectly satisfied with the efforts of his friend. Then, when the rattling burst is over, and the hounds are baying round a good fox who has never turned his head from the distant covert that killing pace alone forbade him to reach, how fond the caress laid by stained glove on reeking neck, how proudly affectionate the muttered words of praise, a generous animal interprets by their tone. "You're the best horse in England. I never was so well carried in my life!"
But of all forest creatures hunted by our forefathers and ourselves, the stag has been considered from time immemorial the noblest beast of chase. His nature has been the study of princes, his pursuit the sport of kings. The education of royalty itself would once have been thought incomplete without a thorough knowledge of his haunts and habits, while books were written, and authorities quoted, on the formalities with which his courteous persecutors deemed it becoming that he should be hunted to death. To this day the royal and gallant sport flourishes in West Somerset and North Devon with its former vigour. When George the Third was king, that wild, romantic western county was already famous for staunch hounds, untiring horses, and daring riders, no less than for the strength, size, and lasting qualities of its red deer.
An animal that can fly twenty miles on end for life, and die with its back to a rock, undaunted in defeat, a true gentleman to the last, is surely no unworthy object of pursuit.
But what are these shadows that cross the Barle by moonlight, with the water dripping like molten silver off their sides as they emerge one by one from the glistening stream to disappear again in the black night of its overhanging woods? And is not that their king who lags behind, with beam and branches of those wide-spread horns flashing in points of white as he stoops his crowned head to drink, and passes on? No shadow this, but a stately beast in all the strength and beauty of its prime. A stag of size and substance, with goodly fat on his ribs and many tines on his antlers. Thickening, too, somewhat in the neck, for already the clear air of an autumn night tells of early frosts, and soon the peaceful majesty of his repose will change to turmoil of love and war. In the meantime he feeds lazily on, turning without apparent object in a different direction from the herd.
Thus he wanders over a broad surface of country—now cropping the rank grasses that border the Exe, ere he dashes through its swift and shallow stream as though disdaining a bath that only reaches to his knees. Anon dallying with the standing oats, that pine thin and scanty on a bare hill farm, by the verge of the forest; then crossing the swampy skirts of Exmoor at his long jerking trot, to rouse the bittern and the curlew from their rest, he makes his way by many a broken path and devious sheep-track to the impervious coppices and steep wooded declivities of Cloutsham Ball. It is an hour or two before dawn when he reaches this well-known haunt, and the lordly beast, penetrating to its inmost thicket, lays himself down with the intention of sleeping undisturbed till late in the day.
With an indolent hoist of his haunches, that hardly seemed an effort, he has cleared the hazel-grown bank round his resting-place in a spring that covered some five or six yards, but left imbedded in the yielding clay a distinct impression of his cloven feet. Therefore Red Rube, stooping over the slot at daybreak, chuckles inwardly, and observes to his flask, "a warrantable deer!" kneeling down to examine the footprint more closely, and measure its width by the fingers of his own brown hand. Then he takes a wide circuit, embracing several favourite passes for deer, and satisfies himself that, save one light hart or "brocket," as he calls it, not another animal of the species is this morning harboured in Cloutsham Ball.
The stag-hounds are to meet some two miles off to the eastward. It must be travelling that distance with the sun in his eyes that causes Red Rube to blink and grin and occasionally hiccough all the way to their accustomed trysting-place.
He is there betimes with his broken-kneed pony, yet two riders have arrived before him. Rube chuckles and sidles up to them.
"Your servant, Mistress Carew—your servant, your honour," says he, in a deferential tone. "The spurs had need be sharp to-day, master. I'll warrant there'll be wicked riding, with the likeliest lass in Devon looking on!"
Nelly Carew deserved the epithet. The close-fitting blue habit so well set off her trim figure, the saucy little hat was so becoming to her fresh delicate face, that it seemed no wonder John Garnet's eyes should be fixed on his beautiful companion rather than on the opposite ridge of moor, over which hounds and horsemen were expected every moment to appear.
And Nelly, too, was more than proud of her cavalier. How handsome she thought him, and how princely, with his dark eyes, his ruddy cheeks, his pleasant, careless smile, and clustering hair. Never another rider in the West, thought Nelly, could sit his horse so fairly, and where in the bounds of England was the steed to compare with Katerfelto? "I used to think Cowslip the most beautiful creature in the world," said she, patting her favourite's neck; "but your horse has quite put me out of conceit with mine."
"I know who is the most beautiful creature in the world," answered John Garnet, not unconscious that he had arrived at the idiotic stage of his malady. "I have never seen her equal, and never shall; but we'll argue that point going home," he added, while his bright eye grew brighter. "There's no time to wrangle now, sweet Mistress Nelly, for here come the hounds!"
Cowslip and Katerfelto raised their heads at the same moment, with pointed ears and eager, solemn eyes; the grey indulging in a snort of approval and delight.
The cavalcade, consisting of huntsman, hounds, a whipper-in, and half a score of sportsmen, were to be seen filing across the moor in slanting line down the opposite hill.
John Garnet tightened his girths. "It won't be long before the fun begins," observed this impatient young man.
Nelly laughed. "When you know our country better," said she, "you will find out that a mile in distance with a coombe to cross, sometimes means a good half hour's-ride. Let us go and meet them," she added, putting Cowslip into a canter. "Here comes my aversion, Master Gale."
The Parson, mounted on his staunch black nag, was within a bow-shot, trotting softly through the heather, husbanding strength for the exertions of the day. Even to John Garnet's eyes, prejudiced as he was by Nelly's dislike, there seemed much to admire in the bearing of man and horse. The free, stealing action, the close and easy seat, the light hand, the well-bitted mouth, the confidence of the one, the docility of the other, and the good understanding prevailing between them, argued a partnership that prided itself on encountering difficulties and setting danger at defiance in concert.
"He looks like business, that parson of yours," said John Garnet to his companion, as they bounded away together; "if he's half as good in the pulpit as he seems in the saddle they ought to make him a bishop!"
Nelly's only answer was a little grimace of disgust, followed by a loving smile.
Meeting the assemblage of stag-hunting sportsmen, already increased by fresh arrivals, who turned up from every quarter as if they were the natural growth of the moor, John Garnet could not but observe that many a practised eye travelled approvingly over the symmetrical shape of Katerfelto ere it rested on the better known beauty of Mistress Carew. The honest squires whispered each other with nods, winks, and looks of intelligence.
"'Tis a rare bit of horseflesh!" said one in a faded scarlet hunting-frock with tarnished lace. "Strong as a yoke of bullocks, and light as a January brocket. Seems to me, neighbour, I've seen that nag before."
"Like enough," was the answer. "Thof I never thought to clap eyes on's rider again. That's the lad robbed Sir Humphrey and his three varlets single-handed a twelvemonth gone last Whitsuntide, by Upcot Sheepwash, and showed six hours afterwards in the market at Taunton town. It's fifty miles, squire, if it's a furlong. Aye, aye, a good horse, neighbour, and a bad trade."
"I heard tell he was hanged!" said the listener, opening round eyes of astonishment.
"He did ought to have been," replied the other. "But Galloping Jack had good friends in the West, and a good friend he's been himself, not so long ago neither, to one or two honest fellows you and me would be main vexed to see called to account. Live and let live, says I, but if we find a right stag in yonder hazels who knows his way to the sea, why, that grey horse and his rider are bound to be at one end of the hunt, and I leave it to you, neighbour, to say which!"
With these words he dismounted heavily to adjust girths and bridle, for Red Rube was already in close confabulation with the huntsman, and business seemed about to begin.
The harbourer looked more than half-drunk, yet not for an instant was that sagacity of his at fault which partook rather of animal instinct than human experience.
"The old stag will move the brocket," said he, with a laborious wink, "and it's your business to drive him to the moor, Abel. I'll warrant I bring you within a land-yard of 'un, and all as you've got to do is to catch 'un if you can!"
"Tancred and Tarquin will do that much," replied Abel, a man of few words, and in less than a minute those venerable "tufters" were uncoupled and at his horse's heels, forcing their way through the tangled underwood.
To control twenty couple of hounds hunting different lines is no easy matter. One or two are held in command without difficulty, so that their staunch pursuit may be transferred from scent to scent till they have forced the right deer into the open, when they can be stopped, while the body of the pack are brought up and laid on. Then for the crash, the chorus the jubilee! Hark together! Hark! and Forrard away!!
The brocket's heart beats fast at the first note of the "tufters," and well it may. Tancred and Tarquin are two majestic black and tan hounds, six and twenty inches high, with sweeping ears, pendant jowls, and large lengthy frames, nearly as heavy as himself. For one palpitating moment the wild deer's instinct prompts him to leap from his lair, and scouring at speed across the moor to seek the distant fastnesses of Swincombe, the gorge of Badgeworthy, or wheeling down-wind, like a bird on the wing, by Culbone slopes, to take refuge in the hanging woods of Glenthorne where they fringe the Severn Sea. But the next, a deep, loud, and melodious roar, seems to paralyse his very heart, and he crouches to the earth, scarce daring to move an ear. Suddenly the branches crash behind him, an antlered head looms wide and stately between him and the sky, while he leaps to his nimble feet in a bound that is hastened by the sharp thrust of a horn against his haunch. In less than a minute the old stag couches in the young one's lair, and the brocket, scared with fear, is darting across the moor like an arrow from a bow.
"Hark back, Tancred! Tarquin! Tarquin! hark back!" Morose and solemn, conscientiously, yet sore against the grain, these veterans desist from their pursuit, soon to be rewarded for this disciplined sagacity by a nobler quarry, a higher and stronger scent. But for a leap that covers twenty feet of distance, and lifts his antlers twice his own height in air, the old stag's flank would be torn by Tancred's reeking muzzle, his haunches crushed under Tarquin's weighty paws. But no! with half-a-dozen bounds he crashes through the hazels, speeds up a narrow glade, and emerges stately and triumphant on the open moor.
Standing erect upon an eminence against the sky, he pauses one instant, as if to afford his pursuers an opportunity of noting his grand proportions and noble width of head. All eyes are turned towards him in admiration and delight.
"Beautiful!" exclaims Parson Gale, forgetting the existence of John Garnet and the terms of his own wicked oath.
"Beautiful!" whisper the lovers, exchanging a lover's glance, while Katerfelto's rider feels a thrill of delight creep through his whole frame with the consciousness of his horse's speed and endurance; nor can Nelly herself spare him more than half her attention, so taken up is she with the gallant appearance of the deer.
"Beautiful!" echo the honest squires and yeomen, already speculating on the line, and anticipating the severity of the chase, while Red Rube, with his hand pressing Abel's knee, who is laying on his hounds with a cheer, thus delivers himself:—
"Brow, Bay, and Tray, I tell'ee, with four on the top! All his rights, as I am a living sinner, a warrantable deer, if ever there was one, or I'll eat'un, horns and all!"
In the first ten minutes of a run with hounds everything else must needs be forgotten, for in these minutes men cast to the winds all earthly considerations but one, viz., how to get as close to the chase as possible, and keep there! It is not too much to say that a league of heather had been traversed at speed ere Parson Gale found he could spare a thought for anything but the holding together of Cassock, and the making the most of that good horse's powers.
His skilful riding, however, and intimate knowledge of the country, soon enabled him to draw rein on a slope of rising ground, while the line of chase, bending towards him where he stood, afforded a general survey of the whole pageant as it swept on.
The hounds, stringing in file through its tall luxuriant heather, threaded the deep, dim coombe he had skirted so judiciously, in a sinuous line, like some spotted serpent of gigantic length. Seen from the vantage ground above, they seemed to be running at no great pace, though with much energy and determination; but John Garnet, who had plunged into the valley at their sterns, could have told a different tale. It taxed even Katerfelto's powers to keep on terms with them as they rose the opposite hill, Tarquin and Tancred swinging along at head with a steady persistency that implied endurance till the close of day. Except the stranger on the grey horse, not another rider was within a mile of the pack. Abel had adopted the same line, though not quite so skilfully, thought the Parson, as himself, and was leading his active, cat-like little horse up a precipitous ascent to regain the ground he had lost. Mistress Nelly could be seen on the white pony, a speck in the distance, making for some rocks on the moor, where her experience taught her the deer was likely to pass, and was followed by no inconsiderable cavalcade. Other sportsmen rode at speed for other points, some in bold relief against the sky-line, some mere spots of red on the brown expanse of moor, all with their horses' heads in different directions, yet each persuaded that his own line was the best and would eventually land him alone with the hounds!
Alas for the fallacies of experience itself when pitted against chance! Alas for the caution of age and the cunning of wood-craft! Alas for the heavy-weight rider and the horse that knew not how to gallop! After this one turn, of which the Parson so readily took advantage, the stag never paused nor wavered, but sped across the open straight as an arrow, six miles on end, without halt or hindrance, and the hounds ran him without a check.
"Curse him! curse him! how he rides!" muttered the Parson, watching that grey horse sail over the moor, in smooth and easy stride, like the stroke of a bird's wing, while John Garnet sat home in the saddle, and chose his ground with the judgment of one born and bred in the West. Katerfelto carried his master without difficulty alongside of the hounds; Parson Gale, half-a-mile off, with no immediate prospect of getting nearer, admired and envied the daring rider, even while he swore to have his blood.
Half-a-mile astern, in an enclosed country, is bad enough but to be half-a-mile behind a good horse crossing Exmoor at speed with a pack of hounds in front, is virtually to be in another kingdom! To save his life, the Parson could not come within hailing distance of his foe, do what he would.
Yet he tried his wickedest! Cassock's sides were scored with the unaccustomed spur. Cassock's speed was taxed unfairly up steep incline and over level marsh. The black nag was as good a beast as ever looked through a bridle, but he carried a stone and a half more weight, and had neither the blood, nor the size, nor the speed and scope of Katerfelto. "He's a heavy deer," muttered the Parson, with an unclerical oath and a strong pull at his horse. "He'll hang in Badgeworthy woods, or 'soil' in Badgeworthy water. It's the only chance in the game now, for at such a pace as this, the farther I ride the farther I am left behind!"
Not once in a season, not once in ten seasons, had the Parson been so out in his reckoning. The wild red deer while he is the noblest and most courageous of those forest creatures that trust for safety to their speed, is also the most eccentric and unaccountable in his flight. Let us borrow the grey-speckled wings of the moor-buzzard hunting leisurely overhead, and accompany our stag through the rush-grown swamps of Exmoor, as he crosses its undulating surface at that free pitching gallop which he seems so rarely to hasten in alarm, or to modify from fatigue.
His taper head and noble antlers are thrown slightly back, his dark and gentle eye seems fuller than in repose, but brightened by a consciousness of intelligence rather than by the tension of anxiety or distress. His nostrils are spread to catch the taint of an enemy in the breeze, and his mouth is open, while he is yet fresh and full of strength. When he closes it, there will be many a reeking flank besides his own, for wind and limb will have failed at last, and the only force left him then will be the courage to die. In the meantime he is all energy, vitality, and speed. To be hunted is but a generous rivalry that tests the powers in which his spirit takes pride, that wages his own endurance and sagacity against the hostile instinct of his natural enemy the hound. Speeding over the moor, it seems that he can mock at the untiring hate of Tarquin, Tancred, and their comrades, yelling on his track, fierce, busy, and persevering, but many a furlong in the rear.
Badgeworthy woods and copses frown darkling before him. Badgeworthy water brawls in foaming jets and rippling eddies at his feet. The covert would seem to offer safety and concealment, the river to afford at least refreshment and temporary respite from pursuit. With a strange and wilful pertinacity, for which Parson Gale, labouring hopelessly behind, is at a loss to account, he shoots away from this tempting refuge of wood and water, coasting a precipitous hill that overhangs the stream, to speed along its dangerous incline at a pace that seems but to increase with the prospect of fresh exertions in an open country, unbroken by coombe, covert, or ravine for miles.
Even John Garnet, standing in his stirrups and easing Katerfelto, who has not yet demanded any such indulgence, begins to ask himself how long this kind of thing can last.
The sun is already high in a blue, cloudless heaven—blunt, grey boulders studding the steep hill-side stand out in high relief, shilt and shingle glitter on the bare tops above, and bushy tufts of heather fade to a dusky purple below; but here and there green moss lies dank and soft round many a bubbling spring, while a breeze from the north fills lungs and nostrils with its cool, clear air, so that the deer, taking the wind sideways as it takes the hill, bounds on with ever-increasing speed, refreshed, invigorated, full of strength, and running still! The dark, impervious glades, the deep precipitous ravines of Widdecombe are frowning yonder in the distance, though many a mile of moorland intervenes; they seem to offer a secure retreat, and even if he should be driven through that stronghold, and forced into the open once more, shall he not make his point in the cliffs beyond Combe Martin, steering for yonder thread of blue on the horizon, that promises death or freedom in the Severn Sea!
Who shall say that all this calculation, this strategy, this reflection, is so far below reason, as to be called instinct? Even Red Rube, many a mile behind on his pony, taxing his resources of intellect and cunning, backed by the observation of fifty years, that he may arrive somehow at the finish in time to hear the "bay," confesses he is but a fool when his wits are pitted against those of a deer driven to its last shifts.
He is riding slowly and doggedly, due west, without a soul in sight. He could not explain why he should have chosen this direction, but some mysterious instinct of the hunter tells him that thus only has he the slightest chance of seeing any more of the chase.
In the meantime vexation, confusion, and distress prevail for many a weary mile of rocky steep, tangled heather, and holding swamp. Here a good horse, floundering to the girths, emerges from the mire with a throbbing flank and staring eye that tell too plainly their own sad tale. His master, pretty well exhausted also in the struggle, standing hopelessly on foot, while friends and neighbours, in but little better plight, come labouring past, each man riding faster than his horse, and pointing eagerly forward to that distance he must never hope to reach.
The last of the string, whose powers are dying out like the flame of a candle, sinks from a false and labouring trot to a reeling walk, which soon collapses in a dead stop.
"I've shot my bolt too, neighbour!" says the defeated sportsman to his comrade in distress. "It's many a long day since we've seen such a brush as this over Exmoor, and I'd try to finish the run now in my boots, only I've grown so plaguy lusty for climbing these hills!"
So they lead their horses homeward despondently enough, with many a longing, lingering look at those lessening forms that are yet far in rear of the actual chase, and many a speculation as to when it will end, what direction it will take, and who are the lucky ones with the hounds.
There can be no run so good in reality as that which we lose in imagination when beaten off by exigencies of country or pace.
Tancred and Tarquin are leading no longer. The grandson of the former, nearly an inch higher than himself, has come to the front, and for the first time since his puppyhood vindicates the purity of his lineage, and proves the staunch, determined qualities of his race. He has never hitherto run at head, but now, when the pace is best, he takes the scent from his grandsire by sheer force of nose and wind and speed. Not another hound in the pack can wrest from him his post of honour in the front; and it is a pity that John Garnet, who knows nothing about him, and cares as little, should be the only man near enough to mark the excellence of his performance. Were they but there to see it, the young hound's dash and style, tempered by undeviating steadiness in pursuit, would fill Abel's eyes with tears, and call forth a blessing from Parson Gale's lips!
That keen sportsman is cursing volubly instead, though none the less does he take every advantage of ground, cut off every angle, and avoid every swamp in the line; therefore Cassock gallops steadily on at a fair, regulated pace, which neither increases nor decreases the disheartening interval between his rider and the hounds.
"I would give five years of my life," mutters the Parson, "to be lifted up by some supernatural power and set down half-a-mile, just half-a-mile farther on!—ten to be riding that grey horse instead of the man who owns him! But the reckoning must come at last, and may my right hand wither at the wrist if I make it not the fuller and deadlier for every hour it is delayed!"
John Garnet, speeding away in front, on excellent terms with the hounds, and as happy as a king, little thought of the malice and hatred following in his track, little thought, indeed, of anything—unless it were Nelly Carew's blue eyes—but the keen enjoyment of his favourite pursuit. He was far too practised a horseman, however, to forget in his enthusiasm the normal rules of his art, and reflected more than once that although he had never ridden an animal to be compared with him, yet Katerfelto was but a horse after all, and so far like other horses that at last his long powerful gallop must come to an end. Therefore he spared him as much as was compatible with his resolution not to leave the hounds, and kept his eye forward with considerable judgment and sagacity, so that when opportunity offered he might never throw a chance away.
Thus, while the pack, guided by Tancred's grandson, who bore the imposing name of Thunderer, dived into a precipitous ravine, he rode judiciously along its edge, and pulled his horse into a trot, while he watched them swarming and bustling through the gigantic growth of heather that fringed several hundred feet of an almost perpendicular incline. From thence he scanned the ground in front to find a more practicable descent, and down it he plunged without hesitation so soon as the hounds, giving tongue freely, dashed into the water below. It was a shallow, darkling stream, breaking and brawling over ledges of granite between high, steep banks, clothed in tangled underwood, and John Garnet could not but hope that now the deer had taken soil, and soon would burst on his ear that loud and welcome chorus called the "bay." It disappointed him a little to observe the pack cross the stream, borne downward by its current, wading, swimming, shaking their ears and sides, while Thunderer informed them loudly that he was in possession of the scent.
It disappointed him still more when the grey horse had splashed and struggled through from bank to bank, that the hounds, whose noses had never yet been off the line for an instant, should be looking about them on the further side with heads up and wistful faces gazing in his own as though half ashamed of failure, half pleading for assistance. There was no doubt they had come to a check, and appealed to the horseman for help he was unable to afford. The ground rose steep and high, the darkling copse that clothed these abrupt hill-sides shut out the light of day. John Garnet was at a loss. Had the deer lain down? or was it forward still, and in which direction? He naturally looked for Tancred to inform him, but Tancred was nowhere to be seen.
The Parson, meanwhile, labouring doggedly on, had caught a distant glimpse of the hounds even as they disappeared over the brink of this precipitous coombe, in time to play a bold stroke that merited success. He determined not to cross the valley at all, but to steer for that side of it on which the line of chase now seemed to lie, and so hoped to come in on the deer, refreshed by the bath he never doubted it had indulged in, as it rose the hill once more and made for the open moor. Urging Cassock to further effort, he increased the pace for a stretch of another mile, but when he halted his good horse—who stopped willingly enough at the wished-for station—not a living object was to be seen dotting the brown expanse, not a sound to be heard but the wail of the curlew flitting softly over the waste. Deer and hounds and John Garnet must have sunk into the earth! The solitude seemed unbroken, the chase had come to a standstill, and the Parson was at fault!
Tancred, a marvel of canine sagacity, had good reason for deserting his comrades, to engage in some quiet researches of his own. It is unnecessary to inform those who love stag-hunting—and those who do not will hardly care to learn—that scent often hangs over running water, and travels downwards with the moving stream; therefore the deer, wading craftily towards the river's source, emerged on its farther bank, refreshed and strengthened by the bath, at some considerable distance above the place where it plunged in. Such tactics were only in accordance with the calculation and reflection we call instinct; but Tancred was possessed of instinct too, and remembered, no doubt, many a cast he had made on similar occasions with successful result. The old hound, therefore, assuming an expression of ludicrous solemnity, dashed through the water, to enter without delay, on a close scrutiny of his own, along the opposite bank, in the reverse direction from that mistaken line on which his grandson was insisting with unbecoming clamour, and snuffled at every pebble, poked his black nose into every tuft of brushwood, grass, or heather he came across. Soon, with a flap of his pendant ears, a lash of his stern against his mighty ribs, up went the wise and handsome head in a roar of triumph—a roar that, for the first, struck terror to the red-deer's heart, some furlongs on in front—a roar that brought the old hound's comrades to his side, with an alacrity sufficiently denoting how, by the best of all judges, this lord of the kennel was trusted and revered.
"He's forward!" exclaimed John Garnet, plunging through briar and brushwood, with the rein on Katerfelto's neck. "Hold up, old man! we shall soon be in the open again; and, by George, this is the best run you or I ever saw in our lives."
These words of encouragement were addressed by the rider to his horse, as the latter scrambled sideways up a bank that would have taxed the agility of a goat. Gaining the top they were rewarded by a spectacle that seemed equally to the taste of each. Through an open wood of grand old oaks, standing wide apart, ran twenty couple of powerful stag-hounds, majestic in shape, gigantic in stature, deep and rich in colour, stringing somewhat, it may be, as they passed in and out the gnarled substantial stems, but shaking the very acorns from the autumn boughs above, as that leafy canopy trembled to the music of their full sonorous cry. Katerfelto's neck swelled with delight, while he reached at his bridle for liberty to go faster still. The sunbeams broke and sparkled overhead amongst the flickering green, the waving ferns lowered their banners in graceful homage as they bent and yielded underfoot, the dark moor, visible here and there through the trees, stretched to the horizon in front. The whole pageant seemed too beautiful for reality, and John Garnet felt as if he were hunting in a dream.
Emerging once more on the open, he found he was no longer alone with the hounds. "That must be a good black horse," he said to himself, and thought no more about it; for although, as a stranger in the county, he believed the run to have been perfectly straight, he was no ungenerous rival, and felt rather gratified that his pleasure should be shared by one who could appreciate its charm. He might want assistance too, he reflected, at the finish; for to kill a stag at bay, and rescue his carcase from the fangs of a pack of hounds, however tired, that had "set him up," was no pleasant job to undertake single-handed in the wilds of Devon. Therefore he greeted the appearance of Parson Gale, galloping steadily towards him, with an encouraging wave of the arm, and a jolly cheer.
The Parson's knowledge of wood-craft had served him at last. Of the few turns the deer made out of its direct line, this at least had been in his favour. It was in a strange tumult of mingled exultation and malignity, that he now found himself almost within speaking distance of his rival, well within hearing of the hounds. "It must soon be over," thought the Parson, "and he shall not boast he rode clean away from Abner Gale after all! Anyhow, Master Garnet, the deer cannot surely travel much farther, and then comes the reckoning between you and me."
But one notable peculiarity of this wild stag-hunting in the West, is the impossibility of calculating on the endurance of a red-deer. A light young hart, four or five years old, unencumbered by flesh, and with the elasticity of youth in every limb, can naturally skim the surface of his native wastes like a creature with wings; but it is strange, that on occasion, though rarely, a stag should be found with branching antlers to prove his maturity, and broad well-furnished back to denote his weight, that can yet stand before a pack of hounds, toiling after him at steady three-quarter speed, over every kind of ground, for twenty, and even thirty miles on end. We can gauge to a nicety the lasting qualities of our horse—we have a shrewd guess at about what stage of the proceedings even such staunch hounds as Tancred and Tarquin must begin to flag; but the powers of a hunted stag defy speculation, or as old Rube observed, in his more sober and reflective moments, "'Tis a creatur three parts con-trairiness and only a quarter venison. Why, even I can't always tell ye where to vind 'un, nor which road he'll think well to travel, nor how fur he'll go. Them as made 'un knows, I'll warrant; but there's many a deer lies in the forest, as is one too many for Red Rube!"
It may be that the breeze was from the north, bringing with it the keen salt savour of the sea; it may be that the deer, reckoning up its remaining strength, felt unable to traverse all that width of broken country which must intervene, ere it could reach the sheltering heights of Seven Ash, or the dark gorge that shuts in Combe-Martin Cove, between the cliffs; for turning short to the right, it set its head resolutely upward, and the pace became more severe with every stride. The line too was exceedingly trying to hounds and horses, from the undulating nature of the ground, intersected at every mile with deep and narrow coombes—unseen, till it was too late, by judicious coasting, to avoid their laborious steeps. Up and down these the deer travelled obliquely, using the broken sheep-tracks that afforded but little foothold to a hound, and none whatever to a horse. Katerfelto began to lean on his bridle, and Cassock, following at a respectful distance, relapsed into a trot. Their riders also wished from their hearts that the thing would come to an end. There is but little satisfaction in the finest run on record if, spite of troubles, triumphs, pains, and perils, we never get to the finish after all.
But to one individual the turn thus taken at so critical a period of the chase was welcomed with exceeding gratitude and delight. Red Rube, on the broken-kneed pony, had hung perseveringly on the line instinct rather than experience prompted him to adopt. Steadily adhering to his western course, and keeping the high ground, he was fortunate enough to hit on the chord of the arc, and travelled less than a mile for every two covered by the chase. Therefore, halting above the green slopes of Paracombe to listen, his ears tingled, and his heart thrilled while he caught the dear familiar cry. "They do run ov 'un still!" exclaimed the old man, his grey eye sparkling, and the colour rising in his wrinkled cheek; "and they do come nigher momently, for sure. He do mean 'soilin' in the Lynn, I'll warrant, but they'll set him up this side Waters-meet, I'll wager a gallon!" Then he consulted that elaborate map of the country he carried in his head, and admonished the broken-kneed pony with a touch of his single spur.
Now, Red Rube's proficiency in stag-hunting and Parson Gale's only differed in degree, nor was the divine very far behind the harbourer in knowledge of their favourite pursuit. He too, could make his guess at the probable termination of the run, and husbanded Cassock's powers to the utmost, with shrewd misgivings, lest his horse should prove unable to outlast the deer.
Yes, the good stag must falter and fail ere long. His russet hide is blackened now with sweat and mire, his eye starts wild and blood-shot from his reeking head; he stops more than once to take breath and listen, but toiling on again labours heavily in his gait, and sways from side to side. Facing a steep hill, he breasts it gallantly, and for the first time since he left his harbour, scales the ascent in a direct line for the top. Parson Gale, a mile behind, catches a glimpse of him in the act, and plies his spurs freely, for he knows that now the game is played out.
John Garnet too, who obtains a nearer view, is not surprised to see the stag come faintly back, ere he has mounted half-way up, and plunge downward into a thickly-wooded valley, dark and silent, but for the brawling of a distant torrent in its depths. Crashing through the leafy underwood with a cry that grows louder, fiercer, and yet more musical, as they come nearer and nearer their game, Thunderer, Tarquin, Tancred, and the rest, dash eagerly forward, with flaming eyes, impatient of delay, and heads flung up at frequent intervals, as each hound catches its ravishing particles, and owns the transport afforded by the scent of a sinking deer. Crossing and recrossing the stream downwards, always downwards, they plunge and splash through the water, on the track of their prey, rousing the echoes with a yell and chorus that announce their certain triumph, and cruel thirst for blood.
Nearer, clearer, deadlier, every moment, it rouses all the red deer's instincts of courage and defiance. If fight he must, he will fight at the best advantage and to the bitter end! His pitiless foes are not a hundred paces off, not twenty, not ten. But for a bound those failing limbs could only make in extremity of despair, they must have been upon him now, and would have got him down, had he not leaped out of their very jaws, to a ledge of water-worn granite, whence he slips deftly into a pool that reaches his brisket, and takes up a position of defence, with his back to an overhanging rock.
Right well he knows the advantage of standing firm on his legs, while his assailants must swim to the attack; and, lowering his head, delivers the thrusts of those formidable antlers with deadly effect. Hound after hound dashes in for the death-grapple, only to turn aside, worsted, if not overcome. Tarquin and Tancred, swimming warily out of distance, are watching their opportunity; and Thunderer, seamed from shoulder to flank, dripping with blood and water, bays wrathfully from the shore. Facing his death in the deep wild glades and rocky glens of beautiful Waters-meet, the stag seems undaunted still and undefeated, as when fresh from his leafy lair, bold and triumphant, he spurned the red mountain heather on the moor by Cloutsham Ball.
Admiration, dashed with pity, thrills John Garnet's heart, while he contemplates the noble creature thus defending himself, like a true knight, against overwhelming odds; but the hunter's instinct of destruction rises paramount, and, leaping lightly from his horse, he scrambles over the wet and slippery boulders, with some vague notion of affording assistance to the hounds.
It is not till he gains the rock beneath which the deer has taken refuge, and comes near enough to touch the animal with his whip, that he realises his own helplessness. He carries no hunting-knife, and his only weapons, a brace of horse-pistols, are safe in Katerfelto's holsters, a hundred yards above him in the wood.
But Abner Gale is not thus to be caught at a disadvantage, and unarmed. He too has dismounted; and, rather from instinct than reflection, runs in behind the quarry, with eight inches of bare steel in his hand. The Parson is an adept in all ceremonies of the chase, and no man knows better how to administer its death-stroke to a hunted deer.
The roar of the torrent, the continuous baying of the pack, drown all other noises; and John Garnet, stooping over the stag, while considering whether he shall noose the beast in his whip, and try to hold it till assistance arrives, little thinks so fierce an enemy stands behind him, with his arm up to strike!
Now, it is but justice to say, that the Parson, running in upon the red-deer thus "set-up," and holding its own against the hounds, was wholly moved by the force of habit and the instincts of his craft. He, too, had pressed forward when he heard "the bay," and, leaving Cassock beside the grey horse, had rushed down with all the speed his heavy riding-boots permitted, to cut the stag's throat from behind.
It was only when he looked from that hated rival, unconscious of his presence, and within arm's length, to the steel in his hand, that the hideous temptation came upon him; and while the sky seemed turning crimson, and the river running blood, through the stupefying roar of the water and deafening clamour of the hounds, a whisper from hell, in the Tempter's own voice, bade him "Slay! slay!—Smite and spare not!"
Men undergo strange experiences at such moments, and live a long time in the dealing of a thrust, or the drawing of a trigger! Parson Gale, glancing wildly round, believed that no human eye was on his movements, believed that, save for himself and his victim, the solitude was unbroken by human presence, believed that the devil in person was at hand to help him in his crime, and that this hellish tinge of crimson colouring sky and wood and water was a reflection from his wings!
His eye had already marked the spot where, between the shoulders of that laced hunting-coat, he could plant a blow that should pierce the very heart. He nerved himself, set his teeth, and raised his hand.
One convulsive effort of the braced sinews, one flash of the descending steel, a choking sob, a gasping cry, a hoarse rattle of the hard-drawn parting breath, and all would have been over; but even while the knife quivered in air, John Garnet turned his head, leaped to his feet, and caught his enemy by the wrist.
A yell of rage from the grey stallion, jealous of Cassock's approach, and rearing on end for an unprovoked assault, attracted his attention and saved his rider's life.
The green leaves shining in the sun wove bowers of Fairyland overhead, the torrent plunged, and roared, and tumbled in foaming eddies round that translucent pool, shining like silver through the dark tangled beauties of wooded Waters-meet.
Above stood two strong men, rigid, motionless as statues for the space of a full minute, locked in each other's grasp, and below, leaping, swimming, dashing, retreating, traversing to and fro, the noblest pack of hounds in Europe clamoured round the stag at bay!
"Hold on, Parson! you've been and dropped your knife!" said a rough voice in Abner Gale's ear, while a dexterous snatch twitched the weapon out of his fingers. "Shame! gentlemen, shame!" continued Red Rube—for it was none other than the harbourer, who thus struggled up in the nick of time—"that two such noble riders should dispute about the honour of blooding a pack of hounds!"
Then stooping nimbly down, and seizing its branching antlers with one hand, while with the other he drew the Parson's hunting-knife across the stag's throat, he observed that in the huntsman's absence it was a harbourer's right to administer its death-stroke to the deer. Slowly, proudly, the stately creature's head drooped to the level of those eddying waters, already mantling in crimson circles with its blood. Fiercely, savagely, maddened by the work of slaughter, leaping and tumbling over each other in their eagerness to tear their prey, the hounds threw themselves on the carcase, and it required the efforts of all three men to preserve it from being foully mangled in their fangs.
Side by side, in silence, yet assisting each other and Red Rube, with all their skill in wood-craft, the foes who had but now been grappling in a death struggle, drew ashore, dismembered, and disembowelled the dead stag, as if their only consideration were the authorised distribution of its venison, and proper recompense of the hounds with blood.
It was not till the prescribed obsequies were fulfilled, till lights and liver had been set aside, the head sawn off, the "slot," or forefoot, carefully severed for preservation, in memorial of so fine a run, the paunch swallowed in eager gulps by the famished hounds, while Tancred and Thunderer growled at the two ends of a yard of entrails, and Red Rube, with bare, blood-stained arms, wiped the Parson's knife on a tuft of grass, but forbore returning it to its owner, that John Garnet, finding a moment's leisure, observed how three or four of the most fortunate riders had arrived, as though dropped from the clouds, in time to witness the finish before all was over. Amongst them he looked in vain for the pretty white pony and Nelly Carew.
In the congratulations exchanged, the ebullitions of excitement indulged in by these triumphant sportsmen, the Parson's moody scowl escaped remark, save by one, whose whole life was spent in noting these trifling signs by which important results are indicated to the observing. Red Rube drew his own conclusions from the attitude in which he found those two foremost riders at the crowning catastrophe of the chase, and was satisfied, while he marked his sullen glances and vindictive brow, that the Parson entertained some deeper and deadlier grudge against the more successful sportsman than could arise from a mere question of priority in cutting the deer's throat.
Now, Red Rube knew Abner Gale's character as well as he knew the surface of Exmoor Forest, and wanted none to tell him that the Parson's hatred meant persecution, by all means, fair and foul, even unto death! To John Garnet the harbourer had taken one of those fancies so often entertained by the old for those who might be their grandsons. He liked the young man's pleasant face and frank kindly manners; his enthusiasm for the chase; above all, his skill in the saddle and daring style of horsemanship; nor thought him less deserving because of a shrewd suspicion that he was the identical highwayman for whose capture a reward of one hundred guineas had been offered by his Sovereign Lord the King. Therefore—and it shows how high John Garnet must have stood in his opinion—Rube refrained from giving information of his hiding-place, and claiming that large sum of money for himself. Therefore, also, he determined that, so far as he could prevent it, the Parson should do no mischief to this promising young stag-hunter; whom, moreover, he highly admired for his recklessness in thus appearing openly while so high a price was on his head. In short, he loved his new acquaintance better than his old friend and fellow-sportsman, better even—and it is saying a great deal—than one hundred guineas in gold!
It is needless to observe that of those who reached the finish at Waters-meet before the "bay" was over, Abel the huntsman arrived first, making his appearance, indeed, immediately after Rube had cut the stag's throat. There seemed nothing more to be done therefore, when the hounds, now thoroughly tired and footsore, had been satisfied, the jaded horses remounted, and the riders' different versions of their own doings exhausted for the present, than to jog slowly home, each in his own direction, with a happy chance of meeting more than one defeated sportsman, to whom he might repeat the oft-told tale, never weary of recapitulating the pace, distance, severity, triumphant conclusion, and whole chain of events that marked this memorable run.
John Garnet, turning to remount his horse, was surprised to find the animal in the custody of Red Rube, who handed his rein, and held his stirrup with an officious alacrity foreign to his usual manner. The rider's first thought, no doubt, was for the well-being of his steed, after so exhausting a performance; yet did he not fail to remark a peculiar expression on the harbourer's countenance, and the nervous haste with which the old man helped him into the saddle, pocketing the gratuity forced on him unconsciously, and by instinct as it seemed, without a word of thanks.
It was not till he had satisfied himself of Katerfelto's soundness, and felt the horse break gaily into a trot, stepping free and true, that he gave a thought to Rube's flurried gestures and strange anxiety to start him on his homeward way, dismissing the subject from his mind without further comment, in the natural conclusion that the harbourer was drunk.
Then he abandoned himself to the exciting memories of the last few hours, exulting, as well he might, in the extraordinary speed and stamina of his favourite.
Meantime Parson Gale, seeking in vain for his hunting-knife, with a moody brow and many curses on his own carelessness in losing this favourite weapon, returned to his trusty Cassock, with the intention, no doubt, of following his rival, and calling on his brother-sportsmen to seize him in the name of the king. He was no mean judge of such matters, and in their late trial of strength found John Garnet fully his match. Unarmed, therefore, he determined not to encounter his enemy hand to hand, regretting his own folly in yielding to passion and endeavouring to slay him at disadvantage, thus warning him of danger, and setting him on his guard. How much better, thought the Parson, to track him as old Tancred tracked a deer, never slackening in effort, never off the scent, never turning aside for any consideration, till he had run him ruthlessly down, delivered him into the hands of justice, and seen the last of him on Tyburn Hill.
It seemed to Abner Gale that his brother's blood cried out from the very stones, not to be silenced nor appeased till his adversary stood in the hangman's cart, with the nightcap over his face, and the fatal nosegay in his hand.
The poor black horse, however, instigated by no such thirst for vengeance, and desiring only the warmth and rest of its distant stable, was felt to be in a sorry plight so soon as it was burdened once more with the weight it had carried so gallantly through the day. Sore, stiff, and weary, it was hopeless to expect from it anything more than the very slowest trot. It bore besides, on crest and shoulder, marks of the grey stallion's unprovoked assault; nor were these calculated to soothe the vindictive feelings of its master. Many a bitter curse he ground between his teeth, reflecting that, for the present, he must abandon all hope of following up his enemy, and, for his angry mood forbade him to join in the talk of his excited brother-sportsmen, plod his homeward way as best he might alone.
How different were his feelings from those of the half-dozen friends and neighbours, who had not half such good cause to be satisfied with their own performances in the chase. These laughed and jested merrily, in frank, hearty good-humour, praising the run, the country, each other's riding, and by implication their own, the huntsman, the harbourer, the stag, the horses, and the hounds. One or two trudged a-foot up and down the steep inclines beside their weary steeds, all did their best to ease and indulge the staunch animals that had carried them so well; and each, while claiming for the rider a large share of credit due to the horse, betrayed in his bearing the self-satisfaction of a man who has performed a good action, rather than the sullen preoccupied air of one, like Abner Gale, who meditates a crime!
Though in the West of England, as in Ireland, distances from point to point seem held of less account than in other parts of the kingdom, those are a dozen or so of very long miles, that stretch from Waters-meet to Porlock, after a good run with stag hounds, on a horse that has been galloping all day. We should indeed be surprised could we calculate the extent of country over which the powerful stride of a hunter sweeps in such a chase as I have endeavoured to describe; and should marvel yet more, were it possible to ascertain the exact distance traversed by a hound. The endurance of either animal seems truly wonderful when put to the test; but the real horseman is ever considerate to his "gallant and honourable friend," holding stoutly by the maxim—