|
C. J. Cornish - The Naturalist on the Thames
shrieking of the jays as they flit protesting from tree to tree, the hearty ring of the huntsman's voice
cheering his hounds - surely all this should send each fox flying out over the fields beyond! But a fox has
no nerves. He keeps his head with the coolness of a Red Indian, and a "slimness" all his own. The first
fox doubles back along his tracks, crosses the big ride, twenty yards lower, just as that part of the pack
which is hunting him flings on up the fence, and waits again till he hears them break out where he first
stopped. From outside, where the field are waiting on a knoll which gives a downward view into the
rolling acres of the wood, the rest of the pack are seen forcing another fox upwards towards the hills. The
sight is as pretty as our woods can show. Down below the red coats of the master and huntsman move up
the rides, and the heads and sterns of the broad line of hounds, now all clean and bright after brushing
through the wood, rise and fall, appear and vanish, as they leap over or thrust through the low slop and
brambles. In front, where a goyle runs up to a hollow of the hill, the ground has been cleared of wood,
and the forest of tall teazle-tops is full of goldfinches, flying from seed-head to seed-head, too tame to
mind the noise or care for anything but their breakfast. Yet even they gather and fly before the
approaching tumult. Hares come hurrying out, and dash over the smooth hillside; magpies rise, poise
themselves, slue round, and dive backwards into the wood; and then circumspect, lopping easily and
lightly along, a fox crosses through the teazles, and slips down to a drain in the hollow; and see! another
fox behind him, along the same path, and on the same errand, for each trots up to a covered drain, looks
at it, and finding it stopped, pauses a second to think, and takes his resolve. One slips back into the wood,
the other canters to the fence, rising the hill, looks out, whisks his brush and is off - across the turf, over
the fifty-acre field of growing wheat, and away to the back of the hills. Half the pack are running the first
fox, who has slipped back to the river, but with the other half every one gets clear off, and does his best
over the awful ground. The mud explodes like shells as the hoofs crush into it, but somehow every one is
across and away, and on to the green road and a line of sainfoin much sooner than could be expected.
The fox can be seen crossing the back of the hill, looking big and red, and full of running; but after
twenty-five minutes over all sorts of ground, from medium bad to "downright cruel," for the soaking
rains have made a very pudding even of the pasture, the fox is run into and killed close to the Thames.
No one need be sorry for him, for he had lived by theft and violence for the past two years, and was duly
eaten himself by his natural enemies. Then back to the wood again, where the rest of the pack had been
whipped off their fox, and were waiting dolefully to begin again, by which time the other foxes, of which
two elected to stay, had resolved that come what might, they would stick to the wood, of which they
knew every inch by heart; and by keeping under the river bank, sneaking under layers of felled
brushwood, dodging along drains, and other devices, postponed their fate for two hours, when one was
"chopped" and one broke away and was run till dark. This is not the kind of thing that keeps hunting
alive, but it is the kind of day which occurs in most ordinary counties in February, and at which no one
greatly grumbles. But if a slow woodland day is unattractive, the man who hunts in a modest way from
London and wishes to be sure of a run has no lack of choice. Try, for instance, a day on the South
Downs, five miles from the sea, on the vast uplands and among the furze-covered bottoms behind
Beachy Head, when the snow-clouds are rolling in from the Channel and dusting the summits of the
downs with white. There is at least the certainty of foxes, and of a gallop over the highest and soundest
land in the South, and even "February fill-dike" cannot make the going heavy.
EWELME - A HISTORICAL RELIC
At the head of one of the smaller Thames tributaries, a few miles from the river, lies Ewelme, the ancient
Aquelma, so called from the springing waters which rise there. There are trout in the brook and excellent
water-cresses higher up, which are cultivated scientifically. Also there was a political row in Gladstonian
days over an appointment to the living. But the real interest of this exceptionally beautiful Thames-valley
|
