the routine of country sports.
in my last chapter i took a view of the variety given to rural life by the annual visit to town: but if a gentleman have no desire so to vary his existence; if he love the country too well to leave it at all, most plentiful are the resources which offer themselves for pleasantly speeding on the time. if he be attached merely to field sports, not a moment of the whole year but he may fill up with his peculiar enjoyment. racing, hunting, coursing, shooting, fishing, all offer themselves to his choice; and rural sports, as every thing else in english life, are so systematized; every thing belonging to them is so exactly regulated; all their necessary implements and accessories, are brought to such an admirable pitch of perfection by the advancement of the arts, that the pleasures of the sportsman are rendered complete, and are diffused over every portion of the year. field sports have long ceased to be followed in that rude and promiscuous manner which they were when forests overrun the greater part of europe, and hunting was[30] almost necessary to existence. parties of hunters no longer go out with dogs of various kinds—greyhounds, hounds, spaniels, and terriers, all in leash, as our ancestors frequently did, ready to slip them on any kind of game which might present itself, and with bows also ready to make more sure of their prey. we have no battues, such as are still to be found in some parts of the continent, and which used to be the common mode of hunting in the highlands, when the beasts of a whole district were driven into a small space, and subjected to a promiscuous slaughter; a scene such as taylor the water-poet describes himself as witnessing in the braes of mar; nor such as those perpetrated by the king of naples in austria, bohemia, and moravia, in which he killed 5 bears, 1820 boars, 1950 deer, 1145 does, 1625 roebucks, 1121 rabbits, 13 wolves, 17 badgers, 16,354 hares, 354 foxes, 15,350 pheasants, and 12,335 partridges. such scenes are not to be witnessed in this country. every field sport is here become a science. hunting, coursing, shooting, each has its own season, its well-defined bounds, its peculiar horses, dogs, and weapons. our horses and dogs, by long and anxious attention to the preservation of their specific characters, and to the improvement of their breed, are become pre-eminent, each in their own department. our sporting nobility and gentry have not contented themselves with becoming thoroughly skilful in every thing relating to field diversions; but have many of them communicated their knowledge through the press to their countrymen, and have thus furnished our libraries with more practical information of this kind than ever was possessed by any one country at any one time; and contributed to make these pursuits as effective, elegant, and attractive as possible. it is not my province to go into the details of any particular sports; for them i refer the reader to daniel, beckford, col. thornton, sir john sebright, col. hawker, tom oakleigh, nimrod, and the sporting magazines. my business is to shew how gentlemen may and do spend their time in the country. and in the mere catalogue of out-of-door sports, are there not racing, hunting, coursing, shooting, angling? hawking once was an elegant addition to this list; but that has nearly fallen into disuse in this country, and may be said to exist only in the practice of sir john sebright, and the grand falconer of england, the duke of st. albans. archery[31] too, once the great boast of our forests, and the constant attendant on the hunt, has, as a field exercise, followed hawking. it has of late years been revived and practised by the gentry as a graceful amusement, and an occasion for assembling together at certain periods in the country; but as an adjunct of the field sports it is past for ever. racing, every one knows, is a matter of intense interest with a great portion of the nobility, gentry, and others; and those who delight in it, know where to find newmarket, epsom, ascot heath, doncaster, and other places, often to their cost: almost every county and considerable town, has its course and annual races. these, however, to the country gentleman, unless he be one whose great and costly passion is for breeding and betting on race-horses, are but occasional excitements: the rest run their round of seasons as regularly as the seasons themselves; and place a lover of field sports in the country at any point of the year, and one or more of them are ready for his enjoyment. is it winter? he has choice of all, except it be angling. hunting, coursing, shooting, are all in their full season. hunting, as i have said, is more confined in its range than it was anciently; but it is more regular, less fatiguing, less savage in its character, more complete in its practice and appointments. there is now neither the boar, the bear, nor the wolf, to try the courage of our youth, and stag and buck hunting may be considered as rare and almost local amusements,—but we may quote the words of a great authority as to the position which hunting occupies amongst the rural sports of england. “there is certainly no country in the world, where the sport of hunting on horseback is carried to such a height as in great britain at the present day, and where the pleasures of a fox-chase are so well understood, and conducted on such purely scientific principles. it is considered the beau idéal of hunting by those who pursue it. there can be no doubt, that it is infinitely superior to stag-hunting, for the real sportsman can only enjoy that chase, when the deer is sought for, and found like other game which are pursued by hounds. in the case of finding an out-lying fallow-deer, which is unharboured in this manner, great sport is frequently afforded; but this is rarely to be met with in great britain: so that fox-hunting is now the chief amusement of the true british sportsman: and a noble one it is—the artifices and[32] dexterity employed by this lively, crafty animal, to avoid the dogs, are worthy of our admiration, as he exhibits more devices for self-preservation than any other beast of the chase. in many parts of this and the sister island, hare-hunting is much followed, but fox-hunters consider it as a sport only fit for women and old men,—but, although it is less arduous than that of the fox-chase, there are charms attached to it which compensate for the hard riding of the other.”
i do not enter here into the question of cruelty in this sport, nor into the other question of injury resulting from it to crops and fences, on which grounds many so strongly object to hunting, and on the former ground, indeed, to all field sports. lord byron, for instance, thought hunting a barbarous amusement, fit only for a barbarous country. it is not my intention to undertake the defence of this old english sport from the standing charge against it, we here have only to deal with it as a feature of rural life; and though one cannot say much in praise of its humanity, it cannot be denied that it is a pursuit of a vigorous and exciting character. a fine field of hunters in their scarlet coats, rushing over forest, heath, fence or stream, on noble steeds, and with a pack of beautiful dogs in full cry, is a very picturesque and animating spectacle.
through the winter, then, up to the very approach of spring, hunting offers whatever charms it possesses; pheasant, woodcock and snipe shooting, in the woods and by the streams, are in all their glory. it is the time for pursuing all manner of wild fowl, in fens and along the sea-coast; and if any one would know what are the eager and adventurous pleasures of that pursuit, let him join some old fowler for a week amongst the reeds of cambridge, huntingdon, or lincolnshire,—now laying his traps and springes, now crouching amongst the green masses of flags and other water plants, or crawling on hands and knees for a shot at teal, widgeon, or wild duck; now visiting the decoys, or shooting right and left amongst the rising and contorting snipes. or let him read col. hawker’s delightful description of swivel shooting on the coasts, the mud-launchers and followers of the sea flocks by night. those are sports which require a spice of enthusiasm and love of adventure far above the pitch of the ordinary sportsman.
when spring arrives, and warns the shooter to give rest to the[33] creatures of his pursuit, that they may pair, produce, and rear their broods; as he lays down the gun, he can take up the angle. many a keen and devoted old sportsman, however, never knows when to lay down the gun. though he will no longer fire at game, he likes through the spring and summer months to carry his gun on his arm through the woods, to knock down what he calls vermin,—stoats, weazels, polecats, jays, magpies, hawks, owls; all those creatures that destroy game, or their young broods, or suck their eggs. he is fond of spying out the nests of partridges and pheasants, and from time to time marking their progress. it is a grand anticipative pleasure to him when, passing along the furrow of the standing corn, his old pointer, or favourite spaniel starts the young birds just able to take the wing, and he counts them over with a silent exultation. he is fond of seeing to the training of his young dogs, of selecting fresh ones, of putting his fowling-pieces and all his shooting gear in order. there are some old sportsmen of my acquaintance, who, during what they call this idle time, have made collections of curious birds and small animals which might furnish some facts to natural history. an old uncle of mine in derbyshire, who has shot away a fine estate, i scarcely ever recollect to have seen out of doors without his gun. i saw him lately, when in that county, a feeble, worn-out old man, just able to totter about, but still with the gun on his arm. for those, however, who can find it in their hearts to lay aside the gun at the prescribed time, and yet long for rural sports, what can so delightfully fill up the spring and summer as the fishing-rod? there is no rural art, except that of shooting, for which modern science and invention have done so much as angling. since izaak walton gave such an impetus to this taste by his delicious old book, it has gradually assumed a new and fascinating character. a host of contrivances have been expended on fishing tackle. what splendid rods for simple angling, trolling, or fly-fishing, are now offered to the admiring eyes of the amateur! what a multitude of apparatus of one kind or other! what silver fish and endless artificial flies angling has become widened and exalted in its sphere with the general expansion of knowledge and the improvement of taste. it has associated itself with the pleasures and refinements of literature and poetry. all those charms which worthy izaak threw[34] round it, have continued to cling to it, and others have grown up around them. the love of nature, the love of travel have intertwined themselves with the love of angling. angling has thence become, as it were, a new and more attractive pursuit—a matter of taste and science as well as of health and pleasure. it is found that it may not only be followed by the tourist without diverting him from his primal objects, but that it adds most essentially to the delights of a summer excursion. since wordsworth and john wilson set up their “angler’s tent” on the banks of wast-water, “at the head of that wild and solitary lake, which they had reached by the mountain-path that passes barn-moor-tarn from eskdale,” making an angling excursion of seven days amongst the mountains of westmoreland, lancashire, and cumberland, having “their tent, large panniers filled with its furniture, provisions, etc., loaded upon horses, which, while the anglers, who separated every morning, pursued each his own sport up the torrents, were carried over the mountains to the appointed place, by some lake or stream, where they were to meet again in the evening;” and
that solitary trade,
mid rural peace in peacefulness pursued,
through rocky glen, wild moor, and hanging wood,
white flowering meadow, and romantic glade;
since sir humphry davy went angling and philosophising in the mountain tarns, and along the trout and salmon streams not only of scotland and ireland, but of france and switzerland, the enthusiasm for angling has grown into a grand and expansive passion. we have our “anglers in wales,” our “anglers in ireland;” stephen oliver has flourished his lines over the streams of the north, jesse over the gentle and majestic thames. the only wonder is, that, as our countrymen walk to and fro through all known regions of the earth, we do not hear of anglers in the danube—the ister—the indus—the joliba,—of trolling in la plata, and fly-fishing in south africa and australia. all that will come in its own good time: meanwhile let us remind our country friends of the further blessings which await them, even should all the rapid streams of our mountain rivers and rivulets, loch leven trout, loch fine herrings, and salmon pulled flouncing from the crystal waters of the teith or the shannon, to be crimped and[35] grilled by most delicious art, satiate them before the summer is over. the 12th of august approaches! the gun is roused from its slumber—the dogs are howling in ecstasy on their release from the kennel—the heather is burst into all its crimson splendour on the moors and the mountains, and grouse-shooting is at hand once more!
that sentence is enough to make a sportsman start to his feet if it were but whispered to him in his deepest after-dinner doze. in “the book of the seasons” i asserted that sportsmen felt the animating influence of nature and its beauty in their pursuits. for that passage many have been the gentle lectures of the tender-hearted; but that it was a true passage has been shewn by the thanks which many sportsmen have given me for that simple vindication, and by the repeated quotation of the whole article in their books. that they do feel it, is plainly shewn in many papers of the sporting magazines; but nowhere more vividly than in “the oakleigh shooting code.” if the unction with which the paper on grouse-shooting is written in that book were more diffused through works of the like nature, vain would be all arguments to check the love of shooting. the feeling on this subject has been evidenced by the avidity with which that part of the book has been quoted far and wide. but the spirit of the picturesque is not more prominent in these chapters than in the description of oakleigh hall, and of the “wide-ranging treeless view of the smooth-turfed limestone hills, the white rocks breaking out in patches, so characteristic of derbyshire.”
but we are pausing on our way to the highlands; and surely nothing can be so inspiring and exciting in the whole circle of sporting scenes as a trip to the moors and mountains of the north, in the height of summer—in the beauty of summer weather, and in the full beauty of the scenery itself. if the season is fine—the roads are dry—the walks are dry—the bogs are become, many of them, passable, the heather is in full bloom, the fresh air of the mountains, or the waters in sailing thither, the rapid changes of scene, the novel aspects of life and nature in progressing onward, by the carriage, the railway, the steamer, with all their varying groups of tourists and pleasure-seekers, of men of business and men of idleness, are full of enjoyment. to the man from the rich[36] monotonous lowlands, from the large town, from the heart of the metropolis perhaps, from the weary yoke of business, public or private, of law, of college study, of parliament and committees, what can be more penetrating and delicious than the breathing of the fresh buoyant air, the pleasant flitting of the breeze, the dash of sunny waters, the aspect of mountains and moors in all their shadow and gloom, or in their brightness as they rise in their clear still beauty into the azure heavens, or bask broad and brown in the noon-sun? there go the happy sportsmen; seated on the deck of some fast-sailing steamer, with human groups around them; they are fast approaching the “land of the mountain and the flood.” they already seem to tread the elastic turf, to smell the heather bloom, and the peat fire of the highland hut; to climb the moory hill, to hear the thunder of the linn, or pace the pebbly shore of the birch-skirted lake. they have left dull scenes or dry studies behind, and a volume of walter scott’s novels is in their hands, living with all the character and traditions of the mountain-land before them. well then, is it not a blessed circumstance that our poets and romancers have kindled the spirit of these things in the heart of our countrymen, that such places lie within our own island, and that science has so quickened our transit to them? let us just note a few of the symptoms which shew us that this memorable 12th of august is at hand. in the market towns you see the country sportsman hastening along the streets, paying quick visits to his gunsmith, ammunition dealer, tailor, draper, etc. he is getting all his requisites together. his dogs are at his heels. then you see him already invested in his jacket and straw hat, driving off in his gig, phaeton, or other carriage, with keeper or companion, and perhaps a couple of dogs stowed away with him. you see the keeper and the dog-cart on their way too. as you get northward these signs thicken. in large towns, as manchester, liverpool, glasgow, edinburgh, you see keeper-like looking men, with pointers and setters for sale tied up to some palisade, or lamp-post, at the corner of a street. but woe to those who have to purchase dogs under such circumstances. it is ten to one but they are grievously gulled; or if they should chance to stumble upon a tolerable dog, there is not time for that mutual knowledge to grow up which should exist between the[37] sportsman and his companion of the field. he that sees beforehand his trip to the hills, should beforehand have all in readiness: he who on a summer ramble is smitten with a sudden desire of grouse-shooting, must however, do the best he can.
when you pass into scotland, the signals of the time grow more conspicuous. in the newspapers, you see everywhere advertisements of highland tracts to be let as shooting-grounds. when you get into the highlands themselves, you find in all the inns maps of the neighbouring estates, divided into shooting-grounds for letting. it is very probable that the income derived from this source by the highland proprietors frequently far exceeds the rental of the same estates for the grazing of sheep and cattle. the waters and the heaths seem to be the most profitable property of a great part of the highlands. almost every stream and loch is carefully preserved and let as a trout or salmon fishery, many of them for enormous sums; and so far is this carried, that sportsmen who are not inclined to pay eighty or a hundred pounds a-year for a shooting ground, complain that ireland is the only country now for shooting in any degree of freedom. sometimes several gentlemen join at a shooting ground; and it is a picturesque sight to see them, and their dogs and keepers, drawing towards their particular locations as the day approaches.
on the 10th of august, 1836, we sailed up the grand caledonian canal from fort william to inverness in the steam-packet with a large party of these gentlemen. of their number, principally military men—
captains, and colonels, and men at arms;
some notion may be formed from the fact that we had on board upwards of seventy dogs, mostly beautiful setters; a perfect pyramid of gun-cases was piled on the deck, and dog-carts and keepers completed the scene.
one of the singular features of english life at the present moment is the swarming of summer tourists in all interesting quarters. in these highland regions the consequent effect is often truly ludicrous. into one miserable village, or one poor solitary inn, pour, day after day, the summer through, from seventy to a hundred people. the impossibility of such a place[38] accommodating such a company is the first thing which strikes every one. the moment, therefore, that the vessel touches the quay, out rushes the whole throng, and a race commences to the house or village to secure beds for the night. such is the impetus of the rush that the first arrivers are frequently driven by the “pressure from without” up the stairs to the very roof. a scene of the most laughable confusion is exhibited. all are clamouring for beds; nobody can be heard or attended to; and generally all who can, burst into rooms which are not locked up, and take forcible possession. such scenes, any one who has gone up this canal, or to the western isles must have seen,—at oban, at tobermory, and at inverness, which last place boasts three inns, and where, on our arrival with a hundred fellow-passengers, we found three hundred others had just landed from a london steamer! our sportsmen, however, who were well aware of the statistics of the north, had written beforehand, and secured bed-rooms at all the sleeping-places, which were duly locked up against their arrival, and they sate very composedly to witness the race of worse-informed mortals.
on this occasion a very characteristic contrast was presented between the sportsmen and a number of students who were on board at the time. these students, many of whom spend the college recess in pedestrianizing through the highlands, have a character almost as peculiar to themselves as the german bürschen. in twos and threes, with their knapsacks on their backs, they may be seen rambling on, wherever there is fine scenery or spots of note to be visited. they step on board a packet at one place, and go off at another, steering away into the hills; ready to take up their quarters at such abode as may offer—the road-side inn or the smoky hut of the gael. wherever you see them, they are all curiosity and enthusiasm; all on fire with the sublime and beautiful—athirst for knowledge; historical, antiquarian, traditionary, botanical, geological—anything in the shape of knowledge. they are the first to climb the hill, to reach the waterfall, to crowd round every spot of tragic interest; everywhere they go agog with imagination, and everywhere they lament that they do not feel adequately, the power, and beauty, and grandeur of the objects of their attention. such a group we had on board. on the other[39] hand, the sportsmen had but one object, which absorbed all their interests and faculties. they cared not at that moment for the fall of foyers, saw scarcely the splendid mountains and glens around. their souls were in the brown hills of their shooting grounds—the fever of the 12th of august was upon them. they kept together, talking of guns, dogs, grouse, roebucks; all their conversation was larded and illustrated with the phraseology of their own favourite pursuit. they were, many of them, clad in a close jacket and trousers of shepherd’s tartan, with their telescope slung at their backs. they seemed to look on the students as so many hair-brained and romantic striplings—the students on them, as so many creatures of the chase. as we proceeded, the fiery nimrods were, one after another, put out at the opening of beautiful glens, and at the foot of wild mountains where their huts lay, and the vessel received a considerable accession of silence by the departure of their keepers, who, having found a highland piper on board, got up a dance in the steerage cabin, and kept that end of the vessel pretty well alive both day and night. having thus brought them to their grounds, there can be no better narrator of what passes there than thomas oakleigh.
“on the 11th of august the sportsman arrives at his shooting quarters; probably some isolated tavern, ‘old as the hills,’—if such a house as the grouse-shooter occasionally locates himself in, in the northern or midland counties of england, or in scotland, where oatcake and peat supply the place of bread and fuel, can be called a tavern. the place, humble in character, has been the immemorial resort of sportsmen in august, although during the rest of the year, sometimes many months elapse ere a customer, save some itinerant salesman calling for his mug of beer, ‘darkens the door.’ * * * at the house will be found all the keepers, and tenters, and poachers, and young men from the country round, assembled, amounting in the whole to not more than some eight or ten persons, all knowing ones, each anxious to display his knowledge of the number and locality of the broods, but each differing, wide as the poles asunder, in his statement, except on four points, in which all are agreed, viz.—that the hatching season has been finer than was ever known before! that the broods are larger and more numerous than were ever counted before! that the birds are heavier[40] and stronger than were ever seen before! and that they will, on the following day, lie better than they ever did on any previous opening day in the recollection of the oldest person present! each successive season being, in their idea, more propitious than its precursor! anxiety and expectation are now arrived at a climax. at night, the blithe and jocund peasantry mingle with their superiors: their pursuits are for once something akin. in the field-sports they can sympathize together: the peasant and the peer associate; the plough-boy and the squire talk familiarly together; it is the privilege of the former, his prescriptive right. the circling cup, and lighthearted and hilarious laugh promiscuously go round! this night distinctions are unknown—and would that it were oftener so! * * * long before midnight, all who can obtain beds retire, though not an eye is drowsy. the retainers lie on sofas, elbow-chairs, or whatever else presents itself; but sleep is almost a stranger during the night. the soldier before battle, is not more anxious as to the result of the morrow, than is the sportsman on the night of the 11th of august! morning dawns, ‘and heavily with mists comes on the day.’ the occupiers of benches and chairs are first on the alert: the landlady is called; breakfast is prepared—the dogs are looked at; all is tumult, noise, and confusion. reckless must he be that can rest longer in bed—‘the cootie moor-cocks crowsely crow;’ breakfast is hastily dispatched—next is heard the howling and yelping of dogs, the cracking of whips, the snapping of locks, the charging, and flashing, and firing of guns, and every other note of preparation. the march is sounded, and away they wind for the heather and hills, true peep-o’-day boys, far, far from the busy, money-getting world, to breathe empyreal air; to enjoy a sport that should be monopolized by princes—if, indeed, princes could be found deserving of such a monopoly! every person the shooter meets with seems this day to have thrown off his sordid cloak, and to be divested of those meaner passions which render life miserable: all are now warm, open-hearted, frank, sincere, and obliging. the sportsman’s shooting-dress is a sibboleth, which introduces him alike to his superiors, to his fellows, and his inferiors: an acquaintance is formed at first sight: there are no distant looks, no coldness, no outpouring of arrogance, or avarice, or pride; but a happy rivalry exists, to eclipse each other in the number and size of birds[41] killed—the chief object of emulation being to kill the finest old cock. let us be understood to express that this happy state of things subsists only so long as the shooter’s peregrinations are circumscribed by the limits of his own or friend’s manor. the moment he becomes a borderer, a very different reception awaits him! to the sportsman in training, full of health and strength, and well appointed, it is of little consequence whether there be game or not. the inspiriting character of the sport, and the wild beauty of the scenery, so different from what he is elsewhere in the habit of contemplating, hold out a charm that dispels fatigue! he feels not the drudgery. to him the hills are lovely in every aspect; whether beneath a hot, autumnal sun, with not a cloud to intercept the torrid beam, or beneath the dark canopy of thunder-clouds; whether in the frosty morn or in the dewy eve—whether, when through the clear atmosphere he surveys, as it were in a map, the countries that lie stretched around and beneath him, or when he wanders darkly on, amidst eternal mists that roll continuously past him—still a charm pervades the hills. the sun shines brighter, and the storm rages more furiously than in the valleys! the very sterility pleases: and to him who has been brought thither by the rapid means of travelling now adopted, from some bustling mart of trade or vortex of fashion, the novelty of loneliness is agreeably exciting! the stillness that reigns around is as wonderful to him as the solidity of land to the stranded sailor! scarcely is there a change of scene—stillness and solitude, hill and ravine, sky and heather, everywhere magnificent, the outline everywhere bold, and where the view terminates amid rocks and crags, frequently sublime! at noonday, near some rocky summit, perchance on the shepherd’s stone, the shooter seats himself, and shares his last sandwich with his panting dogs. we will suppose him to be on the boundary of the muir-lands: on one hand he sees an unbounded expanse of heathery hills, by no means monotonous if he will look upon them with the eye of a painter, for there is every shade of yellow, green, brown, and purple,—the last is the prevailing colour at this season, the heather being in bloom: nor are the hills monotonous, if he looks at them with the eye of a sportsman, for by this time (we suppose him to have been shooting all the morning) he will have performed many feats, or at any rate will have met with several adventures, and the ground[42] before him is the field of his fame. he now looks with interest on many a rock, and cliff, and hill, which lately appeared but as one of so many ‘crags, knolls, and mounds confusedly hurled!’ he contemplates the site of his achievements, as a general surveys a field of battle during an interval of strife; the experience of the morning has taught him a lesson, and he plans a fresh campaign for the afternoon, or the morrow, or probably the next season, should the same hills be again destined to be the scene of his exploits. the shooter looks down on the other hand from his rocky summit, and, in the bright relief, through the white rents in the clouds, sees the far-off meadows and hamlets, the woods, the rivers, and the lake. he rises, and renews his task. the invigorating influence of the bracing wind on the heights, lends the sportsman additional strength—he puts forth every effort, every nerve is strained—he feels an artificial glow after nature is exhausted, and returns to the cot where he had previously spent a sleepless night, to enjoy his glass of grog, and such a snooze as the citizen never knew!”
this is a graphic and true picture of the outset of grouse-shooting; but it is but one amongst many of the exciting situations and picturesque positions which this fine sport presents. there is a wide difference, too, between the grouse-shooting of the north of england and of the highlands. on the english moors, the majority of shooters who assemble there, are the friends or acquaintances of the proprietors, or of their friends and acquaintances, who have received invitations, or procured the favour to shoot for a day or two at the opening of the season. the outbreak on the morning of the 12th, is therefore proportionably multitudinous and bustling. the throng of the people on the preceding evening, crowded into the inns and cottages in the neighbourhood where the best shooting lies, is often amazing. many sportsmen, who on other occasions would think scorn to enter such a hovel, or jostle in such a crowd, may be seen waiting in patient endurance, in a situation in which a beggar would not envy them. others will be seen stretched on their cloaks on the floor, while their dogs are occupying their beds, or the soft bottom of a huge old chair; their great anxiety being, to have their dogs fresh and able for the coming day. at the faintest peep of dawn, which is about three o’clock at that season, loud is the sound of guns on all sides, going off farther and farther in[43] the distance. at noon, on some picturesque and breezy hill, you may see a large party congregated to luncheon, where provisions and drink have been conveyed by appointment. there, ten or a dozen sportsmen seated on the ground, all warm in body and mind—their dogs watching eagerly for their share of the feast, which is thrown them with liberal hand—their guns reared against some rock—their game thrown picturesquely on the moorland turf—flibbertigibbets, with their asses who have brought up the baskets of provisions, the keg of beer, and bottles of porter, are running about and acting the waiters in a style of genuine originality; while keepers and markers are at once lunching and keeping an eye on the dogs, lest they are too troublesome to their masters; who are all talking together with inconceivable ardour of their individual achievements. the situation, the mixture of men and animals, of personages and costumes, all go to make up a striking picture. on the english moorlands, however, grouse-shooting is but as it were a brilliant and passing flash. as the enjoyment of the sport is generally a matter of grace and friendship, and is sought by numbers who can only devote to the excursion, at the best, a few days, it is a scene of animation and havoc for a week or ten days, and then its glory is over. during this time, however, the keepers on many estates make a rich harvest, by presents from gentlemen for attendance and guidance to the best haunts of the game—by the loan of dogs at good interest to such as have not come well provided, or have met with accidents, or whose dogs, as is sometimes the case, unused to this kind of sport and scenery, have bolted and disappeared at the first general discharge of guns; and by furnishing, sub rosa, grouse at a guinea a brace to certain luckless braggadocios, who have boastingly promised to various friends at home plenty of game from the moors; and have not been able to ruffle a single feather! in the highlands the scene is different. the grounds are more generally rented by individuals or parties; they are wider and wilder, and both from their extent and distance from the populous districts of england are more thinly scattered with shooters. there, some of the sportsmen take their families to their cottages on their shooting-ground, and on which they have probably bestowed some trouble and expense, to render them sufficiently comfortable and convenient for a few months’ occasional[44] summer sojourn, and what in nature can afford a more delicious change from the ordinary course and place of life? up far amongst the wild mountains and moorlands, amid every fresh and magnificent object—amid fairyland glens of birch and hills of pine, the sight of crystal, rapid, sunny streams, and the sound of waterfalls, in the lands of strange and startling traditions. to intelligent children full of the enjoyment of life and healthful curiosity, in such scenery every thing is wonderful and delightful; to ladies of taste, such a life for a brief season must be equally pleasant. there are some ladies, indeed, of the highest rank, who are in the regular habit of spending a certain portion of every year in the highlands; and one in particular, of ducal rank, who at that season rambles far and wide amongst the cottages and the beautiful scenery of her native hills, telling her daughters, that if they there indulge in english luxuries, they must prepare them themselves,—such is the simplicity of her mountain residence and establishment; and they take their cook’s oracle, and wonderfully enjoy the change. the language and costume of the inhabitants are those of a foreign country; every object has its novelty, and the little elegancies of books, music, and furniture, which can be conveyed to such an abode, strike all the more from the stern nature without. then there is the finest fishing in the lochs and mountain-streams, the most delightful sailing in many places, and in the woods there are the shy roebuck and sometimes the red-deer to be pursued. the grouse and black-cock shooting season is, therefore, longer and steadier there; but the full perfection of its enjoyment is to be found, perhaps, after all, only by the happy mortal who makes one of the select party collected at one of the great highland houses of the aristocracy, where the best shooting, every requisite of horses, dogs, attendants, etc., are furnished—and where, after the fatigues of the day, the sportsman returns to his own clean room, to an excellent dinner, music, and refined society. but, amid all these seductions, nothing will make the thorough english sportsman forget the first of september. back he comes, and enters on that regular succession of partridge, pheasant, woodcock, snipe, and wild-fowl shooting, of hunting and coursing, which diversify and fill up the autumn and winter of english rural life. to these pleasures then we leave him.
[45]
a word with the too sensitive.
i have not attempted to defend the hunter, the courser, or even the shooter, in the preceding chapter, from the charge of cruelty which is perpetually directed against them—they are a sturdy, and now a very intelligent people; often numbering amongst them many of our principal senators, authors, and men of taste, and very capable of vindicating themselves; but i must enact the shield-bearer for a moment, for that very worthy and much-abused old man, izaak walton, and the craft which he has made so fashionable. spite even of lord byron’s jingle about the hook and gullet, and a stout fish to pull it, they may say what they will of the old man’s cruelty and inconsistency—the death of a worm, a frog, or a fish, is the height of his infliction, and what is that to the ten thousand deaths of cattle, sheep, lambs, fish, and fowl of all kinds, that are daily perpetrated for the sustenance of these same squeamish cavillers! they remind me of a delicate lady, at whose house i was one day, and on passing the kitchen door at ten in the morning, saw a turkey suspended by its heels, and bleeding from its bill, drop by drop. supposing it was just in its last struggles from a recent death-wound, i passed on, and found the lady lying on her sofa overwhelmed in tears over a most touching story. i was charmed with her sensibility; and the very delightful conversation which i held with her, only heightened my opinion of the goodness of her heart. on accidentally passing by the same kitchen door in the afternoon, six hours afterwards, i beheld, to my astonishment, the same turkey suspended from the same nail, still bleeding, drop by drop, and still giving an occasional flutter with its wings! hastening to the kitchen, i inquired of the cook, if she knew that the turkey was not dead. “o yes, sir,” she replied, “it won’t be dead, may-happen, these two hours. we always kill turkeys that way, it so improves their colour; they have a vein opened under the tongue, and only bleed a drop at a time!” “and does your mistress know of this your mode of killing turkeys?” “o yes, bless you sir, it’s our regular way; missis often sees ’em as she goes to the gardens—and she says sometimes, ‘poor things! i don’t like to see ’em, betty; i wish[46] you would hang them where i should not see ’em!’” i was sick! i was dizzy! it was the hour of dinner, but i walked quietly away,
and ne’er repassed that bloody threshold more!
i say, what is izaak walton’s cruelty to this, and to many another such perpetration on the part of the tender and sentimental? what is it to the grinding and oppression of the poor that is every day going on in society,—to the driving of wheels and the urging of steam-engines, matched against whose iron power thousands daily waste their vital energies? what is it to the laying on of burdens of expense and trouble by the exactions of law, of divinity, of custom,—burdens grievous to be borne, and which they who impose them, will not so much as touch with one of their little fingers?
they sit at home and turn an easy wheel,
and set sharp racks to work to pinch and peel.—john keats.
these things are done and suffered by human beings, and then go the very doers of these things, and cry out mightily against the angler for pricking the gristle of a fish’s mouth!
i do not mean to advocate cruelty—far from it! i would have all men as gentle and humane as possible; nor do i argue that because the world is full of cruelty, it is any reason that more cruelty should be tolerated: but i mean to say, that it is a reason why there should not be so much permission to the greater evils, and so much clamour against the less. is there more suffering caused by angling than by taking fishes by the net? not a thousandth,—not a ten thousandth part! where one fish is taken with a hook, it may be safely said that a thousand are taken with the net: for daily are the seas, lakes, and rivers swept with nets; and cod, haddock, halibut, salmon, crabs, lobsters, and every species of fish that supplies our markets, are gathered in thousands and ten thousands—to say nothing of herrings and pilchards by millions. over these there is no lamentation; and yet their sufferings are as great—for the suffering does not consist so much in the momentary puncture of a hook, as in the dying for lack of their native element. then go these tender-hearted creatures and feast upon turtles that have come long voyages[47] nailed to the decks of ships in living agonies; upon crabs, lobsters, prawns, and shrimps, that have been scalded to death; and thrust oysters alive into fires; and fry living eels in pans, and curse poor anglers before their gods for cruel monsters, and bless their own souls for pity and goodness, forgetting all the fish-torments they have inflicted!
“ay, but”—they turn round upon you suddenly with what they deem a decisive and unanswerable argument—“ay, but they cannot approve of making the miseries of sentient creatures a pleasure.” what! is there no pleasure in feasting upon crabs that have been scalded, and eels that have been fried alive? in sucking the juices of an oyster, that has gaped in fiery agony between the bars of your kitchen grate? but the whole argument is a sophism and a fallacy. nobody does seek a pleasure, or make an amusement of the misery of a living creature. the pleasure is in the pursuit of an object, and the art and activity by which a wild creature is captured, and in all those concomitants of pleasant scenery and pleasant seasons that enter into the enjoyment of rural sports;—the suffering is only the casual adjunct, which you would spare to your victim if you could, and which any humane man will make as small as possible. and over what, after all, do these very sensitive persons lament? over the momentary pang of a creature, which forms but one atom in a living series, every individual of which is both pursuing and pursued, is preying, or is preyed upon. the fish is eagerly pursuing the fly, one fish is pursuing the other, and so it is through the whole chain of living things; and this is the order and system established by the very centre and principle of love, by the beneficent creator of all life. the too sensitively humane, will again exclaim—“yes, this is right in the inferior animals: it is their nature, and they only follow the impulse which their maker has given them.” true; but what is right in them, is equally right in man;—the argument applies with double force in his case. for, is there no such impulse implanted in him? let every sportsman answer it; let the history of the world answer it; let the heart of every nine-tenths of the human race answer it. yes, the very fact that we do pursue such sports, and enjoy them, is an irrefragable answer. the principle of chase and taking of prey, which is impressed on almost all living things,[48] from the minutest insect to the lion of the african desert, is impressed with double force on man. by the strong dictates of our nature, by the very words of the holy scriptures, every creature is given us for food; our dominion over them, is made absolute. the amiable cowper asserted that dogs would not pursue game, if they were not taught to do so. we admit the excellent nature of the man, but every day proves that, in this instance, he was talking beyond his knowledge. every one who knows anything of dogs, knows, that if you bring them up in a town, and keep them away from the habits of their own class to their full growth, the moment they get into the country they will pursue each their peculiar game, with the utmost avidity, and after their own manner. there is then, unquestionably, an instinctive propensity in one animal to prey upon another—in man pre-eminently so—and it is not the work of wisdom to quench this tendency, but to follow it with all possible gentleness and humanity.
