“Willey, April 19, 1795.
“Dear Sir,
“Per bearer I send you yr couple of bitches I promised you. The largest is near a year old, the lesser about half a one, and if she be permitted to walk about your house this summer, will make you a clever bitch; further, she’s of Grace Grafton’s kind, as her father was got by his Grace’s Voucher, and bred by Mr. Pelham. Blood undeniable, at a certainty. As to yr dam of her, she’s of my old sort, and a bitch of blood and merit. The other bitch I bred also, to ye test of my judgment, from a dog of Pelham’s. I call her handsome in my eye, and not far off being a beauty. Her dam was got by Noel’s famous Maltster, out of a daughter of Mr. Corbet, of Sundorn, named Trojan. I wish you luck and success with your hounds, and when I can serve you to effect, at any time, you may rely on my faithful remembrance of you.
“I remain, dear sir,
“Your very humble servant,
“G. Forester.
“P.S.—The largest bitch is named Musick, the lesser is named Gaudy.
“P.S.—We have had good sport lately; and one particular run we had, upon Monday last, of two hours and one quarter (from scent to view), without one single interruption of any kind whatever.”
The Willey Long Runs—Dibdin’s Fifty Miles no Figure of Speech—From the Clee Hills to the Wrekin—The Squire’s Breakfast—Phœbe Higgs—Doggrel Ditties—Old Tinker—Moody’s Horse falls Dead—Run by Moonlight.
“Ye that remember well old Savory’s call,
With pleasure view’d her, as she pleased you all;
In distant countries still her fame resounds,
The huntsmen’s glory and the pride of hounds.”1773.
The portrait at the head of this chapter is from a carefully drawn copy of a painting at Willey of a favourite hound of the Squire’s, just a hundred years ago.
Dibdin, in his song of Tom Moody, speaks of “a country well known to him fifty miles round;” and this was no mere figure of speech, as the hunting ground of the Willey Squire extended over the greater part of the forest lands we have described. There were fewer packs of hounds in Shropshire then, and the Squire had a clear field extending from the Clee Hills to the Needle’s Eye on the Wrekin, through which, on one remarkable occasion, the hounds are reported to have followed their fox. The Squire sometimes went beyond these notable landmarks, the day never appearing to be too long for him.
Four o’clock on a hunting morning usually found him preparing the inner man with a breakfast of underdone beef, with eggs beaten up in brandy to fill the interstices; and thus fortified he was ready for a fifty miles run. He was what Nimrod would have called, “a good rough rider” over the stiff Shropshire clays, and he generally managed to keep up with the best to the last;
“Nicking and craning he deemed a crime,
And nobody rode harder perhaps in his time.”
He could scarcely “Top a flight of rails,” “Skim ridge and furrow,” or, charge a fence, however, with Phœbe Higgs, who sometimes accompanied him.
Phœbe, who was a complete Diana, and would take hazardous leaps, beckoning Mr. Forester to follow her extraordinary feats, led the Squire to wager heavy sums that in leaping she would beat any woman in England. With Phœbe and Moody, and a few choice spirits of the same stamp on a scent, there was no telling to what point between the two extremities of the Severn it might carry them. They might turn-up some few miles from its source or its estuary, and not be heard of at Willey for a week. One long persevering run into Radnorshire, in which a few plucky riders continued the pace for some distance and then left the field to the Squire and Moody, with one or two others, who kept the heads of their favourites in the direction Reynard was leading, passed into a tradition; but the brush appears not to have been fairly won, a gamekeeper having sent a shot through the leg of the “varmint” as he saw him taking shelter in a churchyard—an event commemorated in some doggrel lines still current.
Very romantic tales are told of long runs by a superannuated servant of the Foresters, old Simkiss, who had them from his father; but we forbear troubling the reader with more than an outline of one of these, that of Old Tinker. Old Tinker was the name of a fox, with more than the usual cunning of his species, that had often proved more than a match for the hounds; and one morning the Squire, having made up his mind for a run, repaired to Tickwood, where this fox was put up. On hearing the dogs in full cry the Squire vowed he would “Follow the devil this time to hell’s doors but he would catch him.” Reynard, it appears, went off in the direction of the Clee Hills; but took a turn, and made for Thatcher’s Coppice; from there to the Titterstone Hill, and then back to Tickwood, where the hounds again ousted him, and over the same ground again. On arriving at the Brown Clee Hills the huntsman’s horse was so blown that he took Moody’s, sending Tom with his own to the nearest inn to get spiced ale and a feed. By this time the fox was on his way back, and the horse on which Tom was seated no sooner heard the horn sounding than he dashed away and joined in the chase. Ten couples of fresh hounds were now set loose at the kennels in Willey Hollow, and these again turned the fox in the direction of Aldenham, but all besides Moody were now far behind, and his horse fell dead beneath him. The dogs, too, had had enough; they refused to go further, and Old Tinker once more beat his pursuers, but only to die in a drain on the Aldenham estate, where he was found a week afterwards.
“A braver choice of dauntless spirits never
Dash’d after hound,”
it is said, and to commemorate one of the good things of this kind, a long home-spun ditty was wont to be sung in public-houses by tenants on the estate, the first few lines of which were as follows:—
“Salopians every one,
Of high and low degree,
Who take delight in fox-hunting,
Come listen unto me.“A story true I’ll tell to you
Concerning of a fox,
How they hunted him on Tickwood side
O’er Benthall Edge and rocks.“Says Reynard, ‘I’ll take you o’er to Willey Park
Above there, for when we fairly get aground
I value neither huntsmen all
Nor Squire Forester’s best hound.“‘I know your dogs are stout and good,
That they’ll run me like the wind!
But I’ll tread lightly on the land,
And leave no scent behind.’”
Other verses describe the hunt, and Reynard, on being run to earth, asking for quarter on condition that
“He will both promise and fulfil,
Neither ducks nor geese to kill,
Nor lambs upon the hill;”
and how bold Ranter, with little faith in his promise, “seized him by the neck and refused to let him go.” It is one of many specimens of a like kind still current among old people. An old man, speaking of Mr. Stubbs, for whom, he remarked, the day was never too long, and who at its close would sometimes urge his brother sportsmen to draw for a fresh fox, with the reminder that there was a moon to kill by, said,
“One of the rummiest things my father, who hunted with the Squire, told me, was a run by moonlight. I’m not sure, but I think Mr. Dansey, Mr. Childe, and Mr. Stubbs, if not Mr. Meynell, were at the Hall. They came sometimes, and sometimes the Squire visited them. Howsomeever, there were three or four couples of fresh hounds at the kennels, and it was proposed to have an after-dinner run. They dined early, and, as nigh as I can tell, it was three o’clock when they left the Hall, after the Beggarlybrook fox. Mind that was a fox, that was—he was. He was a dark brown one, and a cunning beggar too, that always got off at the edge of a wood, by running first along a wall and then leaping part of the way down an old coal pit, which had run in at the sides. Well, they placed three couples of hounds near to this place in readiness, and the hark-in having been given, the gorse soon began to shake, and a hound or two were seen outside, and amongst them old Pilot, who now and then took a turn outside, and turned in, lashing his stern, and giving the right token. ‘Have at him!’ shouted one; ‘Get ready!’ said another; ‘Hold hard a bit, we shall have him, for a hundred!’ shouted the Squire. Then comes a tally-ho, said my father, and off they go; every hound out of cover, sterns up, carrying a beautiful head, and horses all in a straight line along the open, with the scent breast high. Reynard making straight for the tongue of the coppice, finds himself circumvented, and fresh hounds being let loose, he makes for Wenlock Walton as though he was going to give ’em an airing on the hill-top.
“‘But, headed and foiled, his first point he forsook,
And merrily led them a dance o’er the brook.’“Some lime burners coming from work turned him, and, leaving Wenlock on the left, he made for Tickwood. It was now getting dark, and the ground being awkward, one or two were down. The Squire swore he would have the varmint out of Tickwood; and the hounds working well, and old Trumpeter’s tongue being heard on the lower side, one challenged the other, and they soon got into line in the hollow, the fox leading. Stragglers got to the scent, and off they went by the burnt houses, where the Squire’s horse rolled over into a sand-pit. The fox made for the Severn, but turned in the direction of Buildwas, and was run into in the moonlight, among the ivied ruins of the Abbey.”
Its quaint Interior—An Old Friend’s Memory—Crabbe’s Peter at Ilford Hall—Singular Time-pieces—A Meet at Hangster’s Gate—Jolly Doings—Dibdin at Dinner—Broseley Pipes—Parson Stephens in his Shirt—The Parson’s Song.
We have already described the exterior of the Hall and its approaches. In the interior of the building the same air of antiquity reigned. Its capacious chimney-pieces, and rooms wainscoted with oak to the ceiling, are familiar from the descriptions of an old friend, whose memory was still fresh and green as regards events and scenes of the time when the Hall stood entire, and who when a boy was not an unfrequent visitor. Like Crabbe’s Peter among the rooms and galleries of Ilford Hall,
“His vast delight was mixed with equal awe,
There was such magic in the things he saw;
Portraits he passed, admiring, but with pain
Turned from some objects, nor would look again.”
Against the walls were grim old portraits of the Squire’s predecessors of the Weld and Forester lines, with stiff-starched frills, large vests, and small round hats of Henry VII.’s time; others of the fashions of earlier periods by distinguished painters, together with later productions of the pencil by less famous artists, representing dogs, cattle, and favourite horses. In the great hall were horns and antlers, and other trophies of the chase, ancient guns which had done good execution in their time, a bustard, and rare species of birds of a like kind. Here and there were ancient time-pieces, singular in construction and quaint in contrivance, one of which, on striking the hours of noon and midnight, set in motion figures with trumpets and various other instruments, which gave forth their appropriate sounds. A great lamp—hoisted to its place by a thick rope—lighted up that portion of the hall into which opened the doors of the dining and other rooms, and from which a staircase led to the gallery.
A meet in the neighbourhood of Willey was usually well attended: first, because of the certainty of good sport; secondly, because such sport was often preceded, or often followed by receptions at the Hall, so famous for its cheer. Jolly were the doings on these occasions; songs were sung, racy tales were told, old October ale flowed freely, and the jovial merits and household virtues of Willey were fully up to the mark of the good old times. The Squire usually dined about four o’clock, and his guests occasionally came booted and spurred, ready for the hunt the following day, and rarely left the festive board ’neath the hospitable roof of the Squire until they mounted their coursers in the court-yard.
Dibdin, from materials gathered on the spot, has, in his own happy manner, drawn representations of these gatherings. His portraits of horses and dogs, and his description of the social habits of the Squire and his friends are faithfully set forth in his song of “Bachelor’s Hall:”—
“To Bachelor’s Hall we good fellows invite
To partake of the chase which makes up our delight,
We’ve spirits like fire, and of health such a stock,
That our pulse strikes the seconds as true as a clock.
Did you see us you’d swear that we mount with a grace,
That Diana had dubb’d some new gods of the chase.
Hark away! hark away! all nature looks gay,
And Aurora with smiles ushers in the bright day.“Dick Thickset came mounted upon a fine black,
A finer fleet gelding ne’er hunter did back;
Tom Trig rode a bay full of mettle and bone,
And gaily Bob Buckson rode on a roan;
But the horse of all horses that rivalled the day
Was the Squire’s Neck-or-Nothing, and that was a grey.
Hark away! &c.“Then for hounds there was Nimble who well would climb rocks,
And Cocknose a good one at finding a fox;
Little Plunge, like a mole, who would ferret and search,
And beetle-brow’d Hawk’s Eye so dead at a lurch:
Young Sly-looks that scents the strong breeze from the south,
And Musical Echo with his deep mouth.
Hark away! &c.“Our horses, thus all of the very best blood,
’Tis not likely you’d easily find such a stud;
Then for foxhounds, our opinion for thousands we’ll back,
That all England throughout can’t produce such a pack.
Thus having described you our dogs, horses, and crew,
Away we set off, for our fox is in view.
Hark away! &c.“Sly Reynard’s brought home, while the horn sounds the call,
And now you’re all welcome to Bachelor’s Hall;
The savoury sirloin gracefully smokes on the board,
And Bacchus pours wine from his sacred hoard.
Come on, then, do honour to this jovial place,
And enjoy the sweet pleasures that have sprung from the chase.
Hark away! hark away! while our spirits are gay,
Let us drink to the joys of next meeting day.”
On the occasion of Dibdin’s visit there were at the Hall more than the usual local notables, and Parson Stephens was amongst them. As a treat intended specially for Dibdin, the second course at dinner consisted of Severn fish, such as we no longer have in the river. There were eels cooked in various ways, flounders, perch, trout, carp, grayling, pike, and at the head of the table that king of Severn fish, a salmon.
Dibdin: “This is a treat, Squire, and I can readily understand now why the Severn should be called the ‘Queen of Rivers;’ it certainly deserves the distinction for its fish, if for nothing else.”
Mr. Forester: “Do you know, Dibdin, that fellow Jessop, the engineer, set on by those Gloucester fellows, wants to put thirteen or fourteen bars or weirs in the river between here and Gloucester; why, it would shut out every fish worth eating.”
“What could be his object?” asked Dibdin.
“Oh, he believes, like Brindley, that rivers were made to feed canals with, and his backers—the Gloucester gentlemen, and the Stafford and Worcester Canal Company—say, to make the river navigable at all seasons up to Coalbrookdale; but my belief is that it is intended to crush what bit of trade there yet remains on the river here, and to give them a monopoly in the carrying trade, for our bargemen would be taxed, whilst their carriers would be free, or nearly so.”
“We beat them, though,” said Mr. Pritchard.
“So we did,” added the Squire, “but we had a hard job: begad, I thought our watermen had pretty well primed me when I went up to see Pitt on the subject; but I had not been with him five minutes before I found he knew far more about the river than I did:
“‘I am no orator, as Brutus is,
But, as you know me all, a plain and honest man.’”
Several voices: “Bravo, Squire.”
To Stephens: “Will you take a flounder?—‘flat as a flounder,’ they say. I know you have a sympathy with flats, if not a liking for them.”
“The Broseley colliers made a flat of him when they dragged his own pond for the fish he was so grateful for,” said Hinton.
The laugh went against the parson, who somehow missed his share of a venison pasty, which was a favourite of his. He had been helped to a slice from a haunch which stood in the centre of the table, and had had a cut out of a saddle of mutton at one end, but he missed his favourite dish.
“Is it true,” inquired Dibdin, looking round at roast, and boiled, and pasties, “what we hear in London, that there is very considerable scarcity and distress in the country?”—(general laughter). This brought up questions of political economy, excess of population, stock-jobbing, usury, gentlemen taking their money out of the country and aping Frenchified, stick-frog fashions on their return. The latter was a favourite subject with the Squire, who could not see, he said, what amusement a gentleman could find out of the country equal to foxhunting, and gave him an opportunity of introducing his favourite theory of taxing heavily those who did so. The discussion had lasted over the fifth course, when more potent liquors were put upon the table, together with Broseley pipes. The production of the latter was a temptation Stephens could not resist of telling the story of the Squire purchasing a box, for which he paid a high price, in London, and finding, on showing them to one of his tenants, as models, that they were made upon his own estate. The laugh went against the Squire, who gave indication, by a merry twinkle in his eye, that he would take an opportunity of being quits. Discussions ensued upon the virtues and evils of tobacco, and the refusal of Parliament to allow a census to be taken; one of the guests expressing a belief, founded upon a statement put forth by a Dr. Price, that the population of England and Wales was under five millions, or less, in fact, than it was in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. “Which,” added the Squire, “is not correct, according to poor-law and other statistics produced before Parliament, which show that there are from three to four births to one death.”
Mr. Whitmore: “I can readily believe that this is true in your parishes of Willey and Barrow, Forester, where a certain person’s amours, like Jupiter’s, are too numerous to mention.” (Laughter, in which the Squire joined.)
Mr. Forester: “A truce to statistics and politics, let us have Larry Palmer, our local Incledon, in to sing us some of Dibdin’s songs.” (General approbation.)
And Larry, who was blind, and who was purposely kept in ignorance of Dibdin being present, then gave in succession several of what Incledon called his “sheet-anchors,” including “The Quaker,” “My Trim-built Wherry,” “Tom Bowling,” &c., with an effect and force which made the author exclaim that he never heard greater justice done to his compositions, and led to an exhibition of feeling which made the old hall ring again.
Dibdin’s health was next given, with high eulogiums as to the effect of his animating effusions on the loyalty, valour, and patriotism which at that time blazed so intensely in the bosom of the British tar.
Dibdin, in acknowledging the toast, related incidents he had himself several times witnessed at sea; and how deeply indebted he felt to men like Incledon and others, adding that the inspiration which moved him was strongly in his mind from his earliest remembrance. It lay, he said, a quiet hidden spark which, for a time, found nothing hard enough to vivify it; but which, coming in contact with proper materials, expanded.
“Tell Dibdin of Old Tinker,” cried Childe, of Kinlet.
The tale of Old Tinker was given, the last bit of court scandal discussed, and some tales told of the King, with whom Mr. Forester was on terms of friendship, and the festivities of the evening had extended into the small hours of the morning, when, during a brief pause in the general mirth, a tremendous crash was heard, and the Squire rushing out to see what was the matter, met one of the servants, who said the sound came from the larder, whither Mr. Forester repaired. Looking in, he saw Stephens in his shirt, and, with presence of mind, he turned the key, and went back to his company to consider how he should turn the incident to account.
It appears that Stephens had been several hours in bed, when, waking up from his first sleep, he fancied he should like a dip into the venison pie, and forthwith had gone down into the larder, where, in searching for the pie, he knocked down the dish, with one or two more. The Squire was not long in making up his mind how he should turn the matter to account; he declared that it was time to retire, but before doing so, he said, they must have a country dance, and insisted upon the whole household being roused to take part in it. There was no resisting the wishes of the host; the whole of the house assembled, and formed sides for a dance in the hall, through which Stephens must necessarily pass in going to his room. Whilst this was taking place Mr. Forester slipped the key into the door, and going behind Stephens, unkennelled his fox, making the parson run the gauntlet, in his shirt, amid an indescribable scene of merriment and confusion!
The very Rev. Dr. Stephens had paid for his nocturnal escapade, one would have thought, sufficiently to satisfy the most exacting. But the Squire and his guests, just ripe for fun, insisted that he should dress and come down into the dining-room to finish the night. The further penalty, too, was inflicted of making him join in the chorus of the old song, sung with boundless approbation by one of the company, beginning—
“A parson once had a remarkable foible
Of loving good liquor far more than his Bible;
His neighbours all said he was much less perplext
In handling a tankard than in handling a text.
Derry down, down, down, derry down.”
The gist of which lies in the parson’s reply to his wife, who, when the pigs set his ale running, and he stormed and swore, reminded him of his laudation of the patience of Job, whereupon he denies the application, with the remark—
“Job never had such a cask in his life.”
“The hunting in the Cheviot,”
now called “Chevy Chase,” succeeded, and the night closed with Dibdin singing his last new song, to music of his own composing, with a jolly, rollicking chorus by the whole company.
The Squire’s Friends and the Willey Rector more fully drawn—Turner—Wilkinson—Harris—The Rev. Michael Pye Stephens—His Relationship to the Squire—In the Commission of the Peace—The Parson and the Poacher—A Fox-hunting Christening.
Besides professional sportsmen who were wont to make the Willey roof-trees echo with their shouts, the Squire usually assembled round his table, on Sundays, the leading men of the neighbourhood, each of some special note or importance in his own district, who formed at Willey a sort of local parliament. Among these were brother magistrates, tenants, and members of the clerical, legal, and medical professions. Thomas Turner, a county magistrate, and the chairman of a court of equity, to establish which the Squire assisted him in obtaining an Act of Parliament, to whom was dedicated a sermon delivered before the justices of the peace by the Rev. L. Booker, LL.D., was one of these. Mr. Turner carried on the now famous Caughley works, where he succeeded in producing, by means of English and French workmen, china of superior merit, which, like the old Wedgwood productions, is now highly prized by connoisseurs. He was the first producer of the “willow pattern,” still so much in demand, and his general knowledge gave him great influence. The Squire paid occasional visits to his elegant chateau at Caughley, and gave him one of the two portraits of himself which he had painted, a picture now in possession of the widow of Mr. Turner’s son, George, of Scarborough, in which the Squire is represented—as in our engraving—in his scarlet hunting coat, with a fox’s brush in his hand—a facsimile of the one from which our woodcut is taken. Another, but only an occasional visitor at the Hall, was John Wilkinson, “the Father of the Iron Trade,” as he is now called, who then lived at Broseley, and who was one of the most remarkable men of the past century. He was for some years a tenant of the Squire, and carried on the Willey furnaces. He was also a friend of Boulton and Watt, and was the first who succeeded in boring their cylinders even all through; he was the first, too, who taught the French the art of boring cannon from the solid. He built and launched at Willey Wharf the first iron barge—the precursor of all iron vessels on the Thames and Tyne, and of the Great Eastern, as well as of our modern iron-clads. Mr. Harries of Benthall, Mr. Hinton of Wenlock, Mr. Bryan of The Tuckies, and Mr. John Cox Morris, farmer of Willey, who took the first silver cup given by the Agricultural Society of Shropshire for the best cultivated farm, and who had still further distinguished himself in the estimation of sportsmen by a remarkable feat of horsemanship for a large amount, were among those who visited the Squire.
But a more frequent guest at the Hall and at the covert-side was the Willey Rector, the Rev. Michael Pye Stephens, whose family was related to that of the Welds, through the Slaneys. The Rector was therefore, as already shown, on familiar terms with the Squire, and the more so as he was able to tell a good tale and sing a good song. The rural clergy a century ago were great acquisitions at the tables of country squires, and were not unfrequently among the most enthusiastic lovers of the chase. It was by no means an uncommon thing, forty years ago, to see the horse of the late Rector of Stockton, brother to the Squire of Apley, waiting for him at the church door at Bonnigale, which living he also held, that he might start immediately service was over for Melton Mowbray. His clerk, too, old Littlehales, who to more secular professions added that of village tailor, has often told how his master, being sorely in need of a pair of hunting breeches for Melton, undertook to close the church one Sunday in order to give him the opportunity of making them, with the remark, “Oh, d—n the church, you stop at home and make the breeches.” But the Rector of Willey was by no means so enthusiastic as a sportsman. He was not the
“Clerical fop, half jockey and half clerk,
The tandem-driving Tommy of a town,
Disclaiming book, omniscient of a horse,
Impatient till September comes again,
Eloquent only of the pretty girl
With whom he danced last night!”
Neither did he resemble those more bilious members of the profession of modern times—
“Who spit their puny spite on harmless recreation.”
On the contrary, he held what it may be difficult to gainsay, that amusements calculated to strengthen the frame and to improve the health, if fitting for a gentleman, were not unfitting for a clergyman. His presence, at any rate, was welcomed by neighbouring squires in the field, as “Hark in! Hark in! Hark! Yoi over boys!” sounded merrily on the morning air; and as he sat mounted on the Squire’s thorough-bred it would have been difficult to have detected anything of the divine; the clerico-waistcoat and black single-breasted outer garment having given place to more fitting garb. Fond of field sports himself, he willingly associated with his neighbours and joined in their pastimes and amusements. A man who was a frequent guest at the Hall, who received letters from the Squire when in London, and who would take a long pipe now and then between his lips, and moisten his clay from a pewter tankard round a clean-scoured table in a road-side inn, was naturally of considerable importance in his own immediate district.
The Rector of Willey had, we believe, been brought up to the legal profession, he had also a smattering knowledge of medicine, which enabled him to render at times service to his parishioners, who called him Dr. Stephens. He was in the commission of the peace, too, for the borough; and so completely did the characters combine—so perfectly did law and divinity dove-tail into each other—that he might have been taken as a personification of either.
“Mild were his doctrines, and not one discourse
But gained in softness what it lost in force.”
Without stinginess he partook of the good things heaven to man supplies; he was “full fed;” his face shone with good-humour, and he was as fond of a joke as of the Squire’s old port. As a justice of the peace he was no regarder of persons, providing they equally brought grist to his mill; he had no objection to litigants smoothing the way to a decision by presents, such as a piece of pork, a pork pie, or a dish of fish; once or twice, however, he found the fish to have been caught the previous night out of his own pond. Next to a weakness for fish was one for knee-breeches and top-boots, which in the course of much riding required frequent renewal; and, ’tis said, that seated in his judicial chair, he has had the satisfaction of seeing a pair of new chalked tops projecting alike from plaintiff’s and defendant’s pockets. In which case, with spectacles raised and head thrown back, as though to look above the petty details of the plaint, after sundry hums and haws, with inquiries after the crops between, and each one telling some news about his neighbour, he would find the evidence on both sides equally balanced and suggest a compromise! A good tale is told of the justice wanting a hare for a friend, and employing a notorious poacher to procure one. The man brought it in a bag. “You’ve brought a hare, then?” “I have, Mr. Stephens, and a fine one too,” replied the other, as he turned it out, puss flying round the room, and over the table amongst the papers like a mad thing. “Kill her! kill her!” shouted Stephens. “No, by G—,” replied the poacher, who knew that by doing so he would bring himself within the law, “you kill her; I’ve had enough trouble to catch her.” After two or three runs the justice succeeded in hitting her on the head with a ruler, and thus brought himself within the power of the poacher.
The parson was sometimes out of temper, and then he swore, but this was not often; still his friends were wont to joke him on the following domestic little incident:—His services were suddenly in demand on one occasion when, a full clerical costume being required, he found his bands not ready, and he set to work to iron them himself. He was going on swimmingly as he thought, and had only left the iron to go to the bottom of the stairs, with a “D—n you, madam,” to his wife, who had not yet come down; “d—n you, I can do without you,” when, on returning, he found his bands scorched and discoloured.
A foxhunter’s christening in which the Willey Rector played a part on one occasion is too good to lose. He was the guest of Squire B—t, a well-known foxhunter, who at one time hunted the Shifnal country with his own hounds. A very jovial company from that side had assembled, and it was determined to celebrate a new arrival in the Squire’s family, and to take advantage of the presence of the parson to christen the little stranger. The thing was soon settled, and Stephens proceeded in due form with the ceremony necessary to give to the fair-haired innocent a name by which it should be known to the world. The conversation of the company had of course been upon their favourite sport, a good many bottles of fine sherry and crusty old port had been drunk, and under their influence, it was settled that one of the company should give the child a name in which it should be baptized, let it be what it would. Stephens having taken the child in his hands, in due form asked the name; it was given immediately as Foxhunting Moll B—t! With this name the little innocent grew up, and finally became the wife of Squire H—s; with this name she of course signed all legal documents—first, as Foxhunting Moll B—t, and, secondly, as Foxhunting Moll H—s.
The Willey Whipper-in—Tom’s Start in Life—His Pluck and Perseverance—Up Hill and down Dale—Adventures with the Buff-coloured Chaise—His own Wild Favourite—His Drinking-horn—Who-who-hoop—Good Temper—Never Married—Hangster’s Gate—Old Coaches—Tom Gone to Earth—Three View Halloos at the Grave—Old Boots.
“The huntsman’s self relented to a grin,
And rated him almost a whipper-in.”
Moody’s Horn, Trencher, Cap, Saddle, &c.
Tom Moody never rose above his post of whipper-in, but he had the honour of being at the top of his profession; and before proceeding further with our sketch of Squire Forester it may be well to dwell for a time upon this well-known character, whom Dibdin immortalised in his song, so familiar to all sportsmen. He was in fact, in many respects, what Mr. Forester had made him: Nature supplied the material, and Squire Forester did the rest. Tom had the advantage of entering the Squire’s service when a youth. Like most boys of that period, he had been thrown a good deal upon his own resources, a state of things not unfavourable to a development of self-reliance, and a degree of humble heroism, such as made life wholesome. Tom had no opportunities of obtaining a national-school education, nor of carrying away the prize now sometimes awarded to the best behaved lad in the village. But in the unorganized school of common intercourse, common suffering, and interest, was developed a pluck and daring which led him to perform a feat on the bare back of a crop-eared cob that gave birth to the after events of his life. It appears that he was apprenticed to a Mr. Adams, a maltster, who had sent him to deliver malt at the Hall. On his return he was seen by the Squire trying his horse at a gate, and repeating the attempt till he compelled him to leap it. It is said that—
“He who excels in what we prize,
Appears a hero in our eyes.”
And Squire Forester, struck by his pluck and perseverance, made up his mind to secure him. He sent to his master to ask if he were willing to give him up, adding that he would like to see him at the Hall. The message alarmed the mother, who was a widow, for, knowing her son’s froward nature, she at once imagined Tom had got into trouble. On learning the true state of the case, however, and thinking she saw the way open to Tom’s promotion, she consented to the change in his condition. His master, too, agreed to give him up, and Tom was transferred to the Willey stables, where, from his good nature and other agreeable qualities, he became a favourite, and from his daring courage quite a sort of little hero. It was Tom’s duty to go on errands from the Hall, and once outside the park, feeling he had his liberty, he did not fail to make use of opportunities for displaying his skill. In riding, it was generally up hill and down dale, at neck-or-nothing speed, stopping neither for gate nor hedge—his horse tearing away at a rate which would have given him three or four somersaults at a slip. He seldom turned his horse’s head if he could help it, and if he went down he was soon up again. Extraordinary tales are told of Tom’s adventures with the Squire’s buff-coloured chaise, in taking company from the Hall, and in fetching visitors from Shifnal, then the nearest place to reach a coach. Having a spite at a pike-keeper, who offended him by not opening the gate quick enough, “Tom tanselled his hide,” and resolved the next time he went that way not to trouble him. Driving up to the gate, he gave a spring, and touching his horse on the flanks, went straight over without starting a stitch or breaking a buckle. On another occasion he tried the same trick, but failed; the horse went clean over, but the gig caught the top rail, and Tom was thrown on his back. “That just sarves yo right,” said the pike-keeper. “So it does, and now we are quits,” added Tom; and they were friends ever after. This, however, did not prevent Tom trying it again; not that he wanted to defraud the pike-man, whom he generally paid another time, but for “the fun of the thing.” Indeed, with his old wild favourite, with or without the buff-coloured gig, there were no risks he was not prepared to run. “Ay, ay, sir,” said one of our aged informants, “you should have seen him on his horse, a mad, wild animal no one but Tom could ride. He could ride him though, with his eyes shut, savage as he was, and on a good road he would pass milestones as the clock measured minutes; but give him the green meadows, and Lord how I have seen him whip along the turf!” “He was like a winged Mercury, making light both of stone walls and five-feet six-inch gates. He was a regular centaur, for he and his horse seemed one,” said another. “I cannot tell you the height of his horse,” said a third, “but he was a big un; whilst Tom himself was a little one, and he used to be on horse-back all day long. If he got into the saddle in a morning he rarely left it till night.”
In giving the qualifications necessary for one aspiring to the post of whipper-in, a well-known authority on sporting subjects has laid it down that he should be light (not too young), with a quick eye and still quicker ear, and that he should be—what in fact he generally is—fond of the sport, or he seldom succeeds in his profession. Now Moody, or Muddy, as his name was pronounced, answered to these conditions.
He was what was called Foxy all over—in his language, dress, and associations. He wore a pin with a knob, something smaller than a tea-saucer, of Caughley china, with the head of a fox upon it; and everything nearest his person, so far as he could manage it, had something to put him in mind of his favourite sport. His bed-room walls were hung with sporting prints, and on his mantelpiece were more substantial trophies of the hunt—as the brush of some remarkable victim of the pack, his boots and spurs, &c. His famous drinking-horn, which we have engraved together with his trencher in the trophy at the head of this chapter, was equally embellished with a representation of a hunt, very elaborately carved with the point of a pen-knife. At the top is a wind-mill, and below a number of horsemen and a lady, well mounted, in full chase, and with hounds in full cry after a fox, which is seen on the lower part of the horn. A fox’s brush forms the finis. The date upon the horn, which in size and shape resembles those in use in the mansions of the gentry in past centuries when hospitality was dispensed in their halls with such a free and generous hand, is 1663. It is a relic still treasured by members of the Wheatland Hunt, who look back to the time when the shrill voice of Moody cheered the pack over the heavy Wheatlands; and together with his cap, of which we also give a representation, is often made to do duty at annual social gatherings.
Tom was a small eight or nine stone man, with roundish face, marked with small pox, and a pair of eyes that twinkled with good humour. He possessed great strength as well as courage and resolution, and displayed an equanimity of temper which made him many friends. The huntsman was John Sewell, and under him he performed his duties in a way so satisfactory to his master and all who hunted with him, as to be deemed the best whipper-in in England. None, it was said, could bring up the tail end of a pack, or sustain the burst of a long chase, and be in at the death with every hound well up, like Tom. His plan was to allow his hounds their own cast without lifting, unless they showed wildness; and if young hounds dwelt on a stale drag behind the pack he whipped them on to those on the right line. He never aspired to be more than “a serving-man;” he wished, however, to be considered “a good whipper-in,” and his fame as such spread through the country. There was not a spark of envy in his composition, and he was one of the happiest fellows in the universe. The lessons he seemed to have learnt, and which appeared to have sunk deepest into his unsophisticated nature, were those of being honest and of ordering himself “lowly and reverently towards his betters,” for whom he had a reverence which grew profound if they happened to have added to their qualifications of being good sportsmen that of being “Parliament men.”
Tom’s voice was something extraordinary, and on one occasion when he had fallen into an old pit shaft, which had given way on the sides, and could not get out, it saved him. His halloo to the dogs brought him assistance, and he was extricated. It was capable of wonderful modulations, and to hear him rehearse the sports of the day in the big roomy servants’ kitchen at the Hall, and give his tally-ho, or who-who-hoop, was considered a treat. On one occasion, when Tom was in better trim than usual, the old housekeeper is said to have remarked, “La! Tom, you have given the who-who-hoop, as you call it, so very loud and strong to-day that you have set the cups and saucers a dancing;” to which a gentleman, who had purposely placed himself within hearing, replied, “I am not at all surprised—his voice is music itself. I am astonished and delighted, and hardly know how to praise it enough. I never heard anything so attractive and inspiring before in the whole course of my life; its tones are as fine and mellow as a French horn.”
When Squire Forester gave up hunting, the hounds went to Aldenham, as trencher hounds; the farmers of the district agreeing to keep them. They were collected the night before the hunt, fed after a day’s sport, and dismissed at a crack of the whip, each dog going off to the farm at which he was kept. But it was a great trial to Tom to see them depart; and he begged to be allowed to keep an old favourite, with which he might often have been seen sunning himself in the yard. He continued with his master from first to last, with the exception of the short time he lived with Mr. Corbet, when the Sundorne roof-trees were wont to ring to the toast of “Old Trojan,” and when the elder Sebright was his fellow-whip.
Like the old Squire, Tom never married, although, like his master, he had a leaning towards the softer sex, and spent much of his time in the company of his lady friends. One he made his banker, and the presents made to him might have amounted to something considerable if he had taken care of them. In lodging them in safe keeping he usually begged that they might be let out to him a shilling a time; but he made so many calls and pleaded so earnestly and availingly for more, and was so constant a visitor at Hangster’s Gate, that the stock never was very large. Indeed he was on familiar terms with “Chalk Farm,” as the score behind the ale-house door was termed; still he never liked getting into debt, and it was always a relief to his mind to see the sponge applied to the score.
Tom was a great gun at this little way-side inn, which was altogether a primitive institution of the kind even at that period, but which was afterwards swept away when the present Hall was built. It then stood on the old road from Bridgnorth to Wenlock, which came winding past the Hall; and in the old coaching days was a well-known hostelry and a favourite tippling shop for local notables, among whom were old Scale, the Barrow schoolmaster and parish clerk; the Cartwrights and Crumps, of Broseley; and a few local farmers. One attraction was the old coach, which called there and brought newspapers, and still later news in troubled times when battles, sieges, and the movements of armies were the chief topics of conversation. Neither coachmen nor travellers ever appeared to hurry, but would wait to communicate the news, particularly in the pig killing season, when a pork pie and a jug of ale would be sufficient to keep the coach a good half hour if need be. We speak of course of “The time when George III. was king,” before “His Majesty’s Mail” became an important institution, and when one old man in a scarlet coat, with a face that lost nothing by reflection therewith—excepting that a slight tinge of purple was visible—who had many more calling places than post offices on the road, carried pistols in his holsters, and brought all the letters and newspapers Willey, Wenlock, Broseley, Benthall, Ironbridge, Coalbrookdale, and some other places then required; and these, even, took the whole day to distribute. Although the lumbering old vehicle was constantly tumbling over on going down slight declivities, it was a great institution of the period; it was—
It was a great treat to travellers, who would sometimes get off the coach and order a chaise to be sent for them from Bridgnorth or Wenlock, to stop and listen to Tom relating the incidents of a day’s sport, and a still greater treat to witness his acting, to hear his tally-ho, his who-who-hoop, or to hear him strike up—
“A southerly wind and a cloudy sky
Proclaim a hunting morning.”
Another favourite country song just then was the following, which has been attributed to Bishop Still, called—
THE JUG OF ALE.
“As I was sitting one afternoon
Of a pleasant day in the month of June,
I heard a thrush sing down the vale,
And the tune he sang was ‘the jug of ale,’
And the tune he sang was the jug of ale.“The white sheet bleaches on the hedge,
And it sets my wisdom teeth on edge,
When dry with telling your pedlar’s tale,
Your only comfort’s a jug of ale,
Your only comfort’s a jug of ale.“I jog along the footpath way,
For a merry heart goes all the day;
But at night, whoever may flout and rail,
I sit down with my friend, the jug of ale,
With my good old friend, the jug of ale.“Whether the sweet or sour of the year,
I tramp and tramp though the gallows be near.
Oh, while I’ve a shilling I will not fail
To drown my cares in a jug of ale,
Drown my cares in a jug of ale!”
To which old Amen, as the parish clerk was called, in order to be orthodox, would add from the same convivial prelate’s farce-comedy of “Gammer Gurton’s Needle:”—
“I cannot eat but little meat
My stomach is not good;
But sure I think that I can drink
With him that wears a hood.”
A pleasant cheerful glass or two, Tom was wont to say, would hurt nobody, and he could toss off a horn or two of “October” without moving a muscle or winking an eye. His constitution was as sound as a roach; and whilst he could get up early and sniff the fragrant gale, they did not appear to tell. But he had a spark in his throat, as he said, and he indulged in such frequent libations to extinguish it, that, towards the end of the year 1796, he was well nigh worn out. After a while, finding himself becoming weak, and feeling that his end was approaching, he expressed a desire to see his old master, who at once gratified the wish of the sufferer, and, without thinking that his end was so near, inquired what he wanted. “I have,” said Tom, “one request to make, and it is the last favour I shall crave.” “Well,” said the Squire, “what is it, Tom?” “My time here won’t be long,” Tom added; “and when I am dead I wish to be buried at Barrow, under the yew tree, in the churchyard there, and to be carried to the grave by six earth-stoppers; my old horse, with my whip, boots, spurs, and cap, slung on each side of the saddle, and the brush of the last fox when I was up at the death, at the side of the forelock, and two couples of old hounds to follow me to the grave as mourners. When I am laid in the grave let three halloos be given over me; and then, if I don’t lift up my head, you may fairly conclude that Tom Moody’s dead.” The old whipper-in expired shortly afterwards, and his request was carried out to the letter, as the following characteristic letter from the Squire to his friend Chambers, describing the circumstances, will show:—
“On Tuesday last died poor Tom Moody, as good for rough and smooth as ever entered Wildmans Wood. He died brave and honest, as he lived—beloved by all, hated by none that ever knew him. I took his own orders as to his will, funeral, and every other thing that could be thought of. He died sensible and fully collected as ever man died—in short, died game to the last; for when he could hardly swallow, the poor old lad took the farewell glass for success to fox-bunting, and his poor old master (as he termed it), for ever. I am sole executor, and the bulk of his fortune he left to me—six-and-twenty shillings, real and bonâ fide sterling cash, free from all incumbrance, after every debt discharged to a farthing. Noble deeds for Tom, you’d say. The poor old ladies at the Ring of Bells are to have a knot each in remembrance of the poor old lad.
“Salop paper will show the whole ceremony of his burial, but for fear you should not see that paper, I send it to you, as under:—
“‘Sportsmen, attend.—On Tuesday, 29th inst., was buried at Barrow, near Wenlock, Salop, Thomas Moody, the well-known whipper-in to G. Forester, Esq.’s fox-hounds for twenty years. He was carried to the grave by a proper number of earth-stoppers, and attended by many other sporting friends, who heartily mourned for him.’
“Directly after the corpse followed his old favourite horse (which he always called his ‘Old Soul’), thus accoutred: carrying his last fox’s brush in the front of his bridle, with his cap, whip, boots, spurs, and girdle, across his saddle. The ceremony being over, he (by his own desire), had three clear rattling view haloos o’er his grave; and thus ended the career of poor Tom, who lived and died an honest fellow, but alas! a very wet one.
“I hope you and your family are well, and you’ll believe me, much yours,
“G. Forester.
“Willey, Dec. 5, 1796.”
We need add nothing to the description the Squire gave of the way in which Tom’s last wishes were carried out, and shall merely remark that the old fellow kept on his livery to the last, and that he died in his boots, which were for some time kept as relics—a circumstance which leads us to appropriate the following lines, which appeared a few years ago in the Sporting Magazine:—
“You have ofttimes indulged in a sneer
At the old pair of boots I’ve kept year after year,
And I promised to tell you (when ‘funning’ last night)
The reasons I have thus to keep them in sight.“Those boots were Tom Moody’s (a better ne’er strode
A hunter or hack, in the field—on the road—
None more true to his friend, or his bottle when full,
In short, you may call him a thorough John Bull).“Now this world you must own’s a strange compound of fate,
(A kind of tee-to-turn resembling of late)
Where hope promised joy there will sorrow be found,
And the vessel best trimm’d is oft soonest aground.“I’ve come in for my share of ‘Take-up’ and ‘Put-down,’
And that rogue, Disappointment, oft makes me look brown,
And then (you may sneer and look wise if you will)
From those old pair of boots I can comfort distil.“I but cast my eyes on them and old Willey Hall
Is before me again, with its ivy-crown’d wall,
Its brook of soft murmurs—its rook-laden trees,
The gilt vane on its dovecot swung round by the breeze.“I see its old owner descend from the door,
I feel his warm grasp as I felt it of yore;
Whilst old servants crowd round—as they once us’d to do,
And their old smiles of welcome beam on me anew.“I am in the old bedroom that looks on the lawn,
The old cock is crowing to herald the dawn;
There! old Jerry is rapping, and hark how he hoots,
‘’Tis past five o’clock, Tom, and here are your boots.’“I am in the old homestead, and here comes ‘old Jack,’
And old Stephens has help’d Master George to his back;
Whilst old Childers, old Pilot, and little Blue-boar
Lead the merry-tongued hounds through the old kennel door.“I’m by the old wood, and I hear the old cry—
‘Od’s rat ye dogs—wind him! Hi! Nimble, lad, hi!’
I see the old fox steal away through the gap,
Whilst old Jack cheers the hounds with his old velvet cap.“I’m seated again by my old grandad’s chair,
Around me old friends and before me old fare;
Every guest is a sportsman, and scarlet his suit,
And each leg ’neath the table is cas’d in a boot.“I hear the old toasts and the old songs again,
‘Old Maiden’—‘Tom Moody’—‘Poor Jack’—‘Honest Ben;’
I drink the old wine, and I hear the old call—
‘Clean glasses, fresh bottles, and pipes for us all.’”
Dibdin’s Song—Dibdin and the Squire good fellows well met—Moody a Character after Dibdin’s own heart—The Squire’s Gift—Incledon—The Shropshire Fox-hunters on the Stage at Drury Lane.
The reader will have perceived that George Forester and Charles Dibdin were good fellows well met, and that no two men were ever better fitted to appreciate each other. Like the popular monarch of the time, each prided himself upon being a Briton; each admired every new distinguishing trait of nationality, and gloried in any special development of national pluck and daring. No one more than Mr. Forester was ready to endorse that charming bit of history Dibdin gave of his native land in his song of “The snug little Island,” or would join more heartily in the chorus:—
“Search the globe round, none can be found
So happy as this little island.”
No one could have done its geography or have painted the features of its inhabitants in fewer words or stronger colours. We use the word stronger rather than brighter, remembering that Dibdin drew his heroes redolent of tar, of rum, and tobacco. He had the knack of seizing upon broad national characteristics, and, like a true artist, of bringing them prominently into the foreground by means of such simple accessories as seemed to give them force and effect.
In the Willey whipper-in Dibdin found the same unsophisticated bit of primitive nature cropping up which he so successfully brought out in his portraits of salt-water heroes; he found the same spirit differently manifested; for had Moody served in the cock-pit, the gun-room, on deck, or at the windlass, he would have been a “Ben Backstay” or a “Poor Jack”—from that singleness of aim and daring which actuated him. How clearly Dibdin set forth this sentiment in that stanza of the song of “Poor Jack,” in which the sailor, commenting upon the sermon of the chaplain, draws this conclusion:—
“D’ye mind me, a sailor should be, every inch,
All as one as a piece of a ship;
And, with her, brave the world without off’ring to flinch,
From the moment the anchor’s a-trip.
As to me, in all weathers, all times, tides, and ends,
Nought’s a trouble from duty that springs;
My heart is my Poll’s, and my rhino my friend’s,
And as for my life, ’tis my King’s.”
The country was indebted to this faculty of rhyming for much of that daring and devotion to its interests which distinguished soldiers and sailors at that remarkable period. Dibdin’s songs, as he, with pride, was wont to say, were “the solace of sailors on long voyages, in storms, and in battles.” His “Tom Moody” illustrated the same pluck and daring which under the vicissitudes and peculiarities of the times—had it been Tom’s fortune to have served under Drake or Blake, Howe, Jervis, or Nelson—would equally have supplied materials for a stave.
From the letter of the Squire the reader will see how truthfully the great English Beranger, as he has been called, adhered to the circumstances in his song:—
“You all knew Tom Moody, the whipper-in, well.
The bell that’s done tolling was honest Tom’s knell;
A more able sportsman ne’er followed a hound
Through a country well known to him fifty miles round.
No hound ever open’d with Tom near a wood,
But he’d challenge the tone, and could tell if it were good;
And all with attention would eagerly mark,
When he cheer’d up the pack, ‘Hark! to Rockwood, hark! hark!
Hie!—wind him! and cross him! Now, Rattler, boy! Hark!’“Six crafty earth-stoppers, in hunter’s green drest,
Supported poor Tom to an earth made for rest.
His horse, which he styled his ‘Old Soul,’ next appear’d,
On whose forehead the brush of his last fox was rear’d:
Whip, cap, boots, and spurs, in a trophy were bound,
And here and there followed an old straggling hound.
Ah! no more at his voice yonder vales will they trace!
Nor the welkin resound his burst in the chase!
With high over! Now press him! Tally-ho! Tally-ho!“Thus Tom spoke his friends ere he gave up his breath:
‘Since I see you’re resolved to be in at the death,
One favour bestow—’tis the last I shall crave,
Give a rattling view-halloo thrice over my grave;
And unless at that warning I lift up my head,
My boys, you may fairly conclude I am dead!’
Honest Tom was obeyed, and the shout rent the sky,
For every one joined in the tally-ho cry!
Tally-ho! Hark forward! Tally-ho! Tally-ho!”
On leaving Willey, Mr. Forester asked Dibdin what he could do to discharge the obligation he felt himself under for his services; the great ballad writer, whom Pitt pensioned, replied “Nothing;” he had been so well treated that he could not accept anything. Finding artifice necessary, Mr. Forester asked him if he would deliver a letter for him personally at his banker’s on his arrival in London. Of course Dibdin consented, and on doing so he found it was an order to pay him £100!
When the song first came out Charles Incledon, by the “human voice divine,” was drawing vast audiences at Drury Lane Theatre. On play-bills, in largest type, forming the most attractive morceaux of the bill of fare, this song, varied by others of Dibdin’s composing, would be seen; and when he was first announced to sing it, a few fox-hunting friends of the Squire went to London to hear it. Taking up their positions in the pit, they were all attention as the inimitable singer rolled out, with that full volume of voice which at once delighted and astounded his audience, the verse commencing:—
“You all knew Tom Moody the whipper-in well.”
But the great singer did not succeed to the satisfaction of the small knot of Shropshire fox-hunters in the “tally-ho chorus.” Detecting the technical defect which practical experience in the field alone could supply, they jumped upon the stage, and gave the audience a specimen of what Shropshire lungs could do.
The song soon became popular. It seized at once upon the sporting mind, and upon the mind of the country generally. The London publishers took it up, and gave it with the music, together with woodcuts and lithographic illustrations, and it soon found a ready sale. But the illustrations were untruthful. The church was altogether a fancy sketch, exceedingly unlike the quaint old simple structure still standing. A print published by Wolstenholme, in 1832, contains a very faithful representation of the church on the northern side, with the grave, and a large gathering of sportsmen and spectators, at the moment the “view halloo” is supposed to have been given. It is altogether spiritedly drawn and well coloured, and makes a pleasing subject; but the view is taken on the wrong side of the church, the artist having evidently chosen this, the northern side, because of the distance and middle distance, and in order to make a taking picture. The view has this advantage, however, it shows the Clee Hills in the distance. Tom’s grave is covered by a simple slab, containing the following inscription,
TOM MOODY,
Buried Nov. 19th, 1796,
and is on the opposite side, near the old porch, and chief entrance to the church.
In the full-page engraving, representing a meet near “Hangster’s Gate,” a famous “fixture” in the old Squire’s time, the assembled sportsmen are supposed to be startled by the re-appearance of Tom upon the ground of his former exploits. It is the belief of some that when a corpse is laid in the grave an angel gives notice of the coming of two examiners. The dead person is then made to undergo the ordeal before two spirits of terrible appearance. Whether this was the faith of Tom’s friends or not we cannot say, but Tom was supposed to have been anything but satisfied with his quarters or his company, and to have returned to visit the Willey Woods. The picture presents a group of sportsmen and hounds beneath the trees, and attention is directed towards the spectre, an old decayed stump. The following lines refer to the tradition:—
“See the shade of Tom Moody, you all have known well,
To our sports now returning, not liking to dwell
In a region where pleasure’s not found in the chase,
So Tom’s just returned to view his old place.
No sooner the hounds leave the kennel to try,
Than his spirit appears to join in the cry;
Now all with attention, his signal well mark,
For see his hand’s up for the cry of Hark! Hark!
Then cheer him, and mark him, Tally-ho! Boys! Tally-ho!”