Читать книгу Wild Life at the Land's End - John Coulson Tregarthen - Страница 8

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Beyond the memory of Dick Hal, who remembered the home-bringing of two wounded “Church-Town” men after Waterloo, the hounds had met on Feast Days at the Castle. The grounds with their stately terraces and relics of feudal dignity were thrown open for the meet, the protests of old Jenny at the park gate notwithstanding.

Long before the hour appointed a little crowd assembled outside the lodge. Fishermen in blue guernseys were there, miners in their workaday clothes, and a strong force of villagers. It is noteworthy what a motley crowd, from squire to ploughboy, from vigorous youth to crippled old age, will congregate to witness a day’s fox-hunting.

And surely the sight of twenty couple of hounds drawing a patch of gorse in an open and wild country, the suspense that follows the first whimper, the find, the thrilling tally-ho, and the hurry and scurry of the field, is a spectacle as pleasant as it is exhilarating.

Looking out of an upper window of one of the little towers that flanked the gateway was old Jenny Trewheela, blind of one eye, whose sharp tongue was more effective than a fifteen-pounder in defence of her charge. Villagers averred that “her main suction ware vinegar,” and a candid friend had told her so. As the hour approached the crowd began to press too close to the lodge to please her vigilant eye. “Werta shovin’ to? Thee shussen wan of ee come inside the gates till th’ ’ounds ’a gone through. They be Sir Bevil’s orders.”

“Sober, mawther,” said a keen-eyed poacher, “we be all afeeard of ee, and thee dost knaw it; but hows’ever we doan’t want none o’ your winegar. Custna haand round a bit o’ crowse and a drop o’ somethin’ to drink? ’Tes a dry East wind and bra’ an cold.”

“Sauce and imprence! I do knaw thee and the crooked ways of ee, though thee dost skulk behind a honest man,” and with that she banged-to the window.

A few minutes before the village clock chimed the hour, the huntsman, hounds, and whippers-in passed through the gate and along the approach to the inner court, and drew up on the far side of the keep near the old culverin. By ones and twos, gentlemen from the country round, tenant farmers and crofters, rode up to the Castle.

This venerable building in the hundred of Penwith in the parish of Madron had been the seat of the Tresillians from the time of Henry the Second. The Castle is quaintly described in an old survey of Cornwall as “very ancient, strong and fayre and appurtenanced with the necessaries of wood, water, parkes, moors, with the devotion of a rich-furnished chapelle and charitie of almshouses.”

The terrace is still haunted by the squire who fell on the memorable day when the place was held for the King against the Roundheads. The painting in the hall shows the assault on the outer wall, where a lurid glare lights up helm and pike at the narrow breach; for above battlement and turret, clearly outlined, leap tongues of fire from the beacon on the Cairn.

Dents in the granite walls still mark where the cannon-balls struck the building; and it was at that time—I know there are some who dispute the date—that one of the quarterings of the family arms above the entrance was effaced.

Sir Bevil and Lady Tresillian, who were standing on the steps below, gave their guests a hearty welcome. Breakfast was laid in the wainscotted hall, bright with log fires.

Cornish worthies in their gold frames wink at the merry gathering round the table.

Sir Bevil, despite his grey hairs, looks young for his sixty years. Life’s work is stamped on his high-bred features. He looks every inch a soldier. The tanned face and parched skin suggest frontier fighting: the scar on the brow confirms it.

Facing the mullioned window, on Sir Bevil’s right is Squire Tremenheere of Lanover, the hardest rider of the hunt; next him is the Major of the C.C. battery, whose neighbour is the popular member for the Land’s End Division; next him is a shipowner whose vessels are on every sea; the veteran with silvery hair and twinkling eyes has been purser of a tin-mine for nearly half a century; the man with the long black beard is the village doctor, and a kind friend to the poor; below him sit half a score farmers, and a good time they are having.

“This be a good drop o’ zider,” says the weather-beaten crofter who sits facing a portrait of Sir Richard Grenville. “Gos’t home,” said the eldest tenant on the estate, “Tedden no zider: but caal ’en what you like, ’tes a drop of the raal auld stingo.”

The aristocratic old gentleman, tête-à-tête with Lady Elizabeth, is Sir Lopes Carminowe, who knows every gate, gap and fox-earth in Penwith. Need it be said that the little wizened-face man with laughing eyes, whose wit is as dry as the champagne, is the legal adviser of those whom he is tickling with forensic anecdotes? The parson is the recipient of much chaff and banter; but with eyes sparkling under his shaggy brows and in the best of humour he is cutting about him with his sharp-edged tongue to the discomfiture of his assailants. Says Sir Bevil, “The parson reminds me of the Cavalier in the picture who has brought down half a dozen of the enemy and is looking round for more.”

Breakfast over, the gay company passed out of the Castle, mounted their restive horses and rode away to the covert by the lake. The Cairn that overlooked it was covered with pedestrians who, like spectators in a theatre, were waiting for the play to begin. Does any one doubt that the sporting instinct is strong in Englishmen? Observe that poor old man in clean smock-frock and white beaver. This is Dick Hal. He can’t see very well, but he would like to hear the cry of the hounds once more. He began earthstopping the year Bonaparte died at St Helena, and this morning a little child has led him to the Cairn that he might perchance hear the music he loved so well. And it seemed probable, so rarely had the brake been found tenantless, that he and the rest, younger and noisier in their expectation of sport, would not be disappointed.

The cry of the huntsman in the bottoms at once hushes the hum of the crowd. Ears strain to catch the first whimper, and eager eyes search every yard of open ground to view the stealthy movements of a fox. Under the shelter of a boulder, apart from the crowd, sits Jim Roscruge, the old mining pioneer, and near him a man in velveteen coat and sealskin cap who looks the incarnation of vigilance.

Surely we have seen that cheery face before—it’s Andrew the Earthstopper, looking little the worse for his night’s adventures. The leading hounds had come through the brake. “Saams to me,” says Roscruge, “that Nute drawed a bit too quick like. A fox’ll sometimes lie as close as a sittin’ perthridge.” “May be you’re right: but Joe Nute do knaw ’es work, and, lor’, what moosic’s in the voice of un! Harkee! ... Grand, edna you? Saam time I niver seed the brake drawed blank but wance afore.”

The field began to move slowly to the next cover whilst the hounds ran through some crofts where the furze was thin.

“Wild country this, Tresillian,” said the Major of Sir Bevil’s old battery as they rode along side by side.

“Yes, it’s more or less like this all the way to Dartmoor, heather and gorse on the surface, tin and copper underground. It’s the backbone of the county in more sense than one.”

“And Lyonnesse must be somewhere near?”

“That,” said Sir Bevil, smiling, “is the submerged land between the Land’s End and the Scillies. Scientists, confound ’em, are trying to prove that the sea has covered it since the Creation. What right have they got to meddle with our traditions? They’ll be saying next that the letters^[1] on the Men Scryfa—it’s in a croft over that ridge facing us—have been cut out by the action of the weather on the granite.”

“Well, Andrew,” said Sir Bevil as he rode up, “where do you think we may find to-day?”

“I caan’t hardly tell, sir,” said he, keeping pace with the horse; “but at daybreak this morning I balled a fox”—at this Sir Bevil pulled up his horse,—“on that bit o’ soft ground under Ding Dong on the Quoit side, and seys I to missel, me shaver es moast likely kennelled in that bit o’ snug fuzze to the lew side of the stennack.”

“Very well, we will draw that next and drop back to Boswortha if we do not find,” added Sir Bevil as he rode away to give instructions to the huntsman.

“Come ust on, Jim, best foot foremost, or the draw’ll be over afore we get theere.” They gained the crest of a rise overlooking the cover just as the huntsman, who was now afoot with the hounds around him, was about to draw it.

“Wheere ded ee light on they theere prents of the fox, An’rew?”

“Do ee saa thet big bunch o’ rooshes anigh the pool, away ahead of the rock touchin’ the Squire?”

“Iss sure.”

“Well, they’re close handy to un, laystwise I reckin so: ’twas by the furst glim o’ day I seed ’em.”

Below them lay a stretch of marshy ground fed by some bubbling springs. Rills trickled along channels in the peaty ground, sparkling here and there between tussocks of rush and withered grass, losing themselves in a vivid green patch that fringed a chattering trout-stream. On the higher side, nestling under shelter of a craggy ridge, was about an acre of furze with a big dimple in it where yellow blooms lingered.

The scarlet coats of the riders gave a few dashes of warmth to the grey expanse of boulder-strewn moor.

Sir Bevil watched the hounds as they drew up wind, the big chestnut with its pricked ears seeming as intent as his rider. Their shadow lay almost motionless aslant the lichen-covered rock. The working of the pack was easily seen, save where the ground dipped around a pool or boggy growth luxuriated. Flushed by hound or crack of whip, a woodcock rose and dropped in some withes a furlong away. Still there was no sign of the fox, no view holloa, not a whimper. The idler hounds lapped the tempting water, seemingly heedless of the huntsman’s voice.

“I’m afeard o’ my saul ’tes blank, Jim; hounds don’t saam to maake nawthin’ of un.”

“Nawthin’ at all, scent’s gone along wi’ the frost. But don’t ee go and upset yoursel’ about et, ’tes noane of your fault.”

Amongst the members of the hunt, disposed in little groups behind Sir Bevil, the green of the bog and the gleam of the rippling water showing between them, expectation drooped, and the little cares of life that a whimper would have kept to the crupper, seizing their opportunity, began to steal back to their owners.

The doctor’s eyes wandered to the lonely cottage; the shipowner found himself thinking of the fall in freights, the miner of the drop in tin; and even the red-whiskered farmer was wondering whether the ten-score pig hanging by the heels in his outhouse would fetch 4¾d. or 5d. a lb. on the next market day.

Suddenly Troubadour, the most reliable hound of the pack, threw up his nose as he whiffed the tainted air.

“He’s got un, Jim. See how eh crosses the line o’ scent see-saw like. ’Pend upon et, ’tes a find.”

The hound now left the edge of the cover near the bog and worked round its upper side. Losing the scent he came back, recovered it, threw his tongue and dashed into the brake.

“Thet’s what I do caal rason in a dog,” whispered Andrew, whilst his restless eyes watched every point of escape for a view of the fox.

In a moment the pack rallied to the trusted voice of Troubadour, and the furze was soon alive with waving sterns.

“What moosic, Jim! Look out, slyboots’ll be gone in a twinklin’.”

“Theere’s the fox staling away along by them theere brembles.”

“I caan’t see un,” said Roscruge. And truly none but a trained eye like Andrew’s, which saw a suspicion of brown here and a tell-tale movement of tangled growth beyond, could mark the course of the sly varmint. It had eluded the gaze of the whippers-in. Grasping the situation, Andrew ran to where he last saw the fox and gave a loud tally-ho.

Then all was stir: the field seemed electrified. Shipowner, miner, farmer, ay and squire, parson, soldier and whipper-in, each forgot his worries—for who has none?—and black care lay in the wake of the hunt.

“Lor’, how they do race,” said Andrew as the hounds, with a burst of music, streamed across the heather. “The fox is maakin’ for cleff. Desperate plaace thet; but as luck will have et the tide is out.” The hunt was now lost to view, but with his hand raised to shade his eyes he kept looking towards the Galver....

“They’re crossin’ the sky line. Do ee see ’em, Jim?”

“Iss, and ef I baan’t mistaken, the white hoss es laast as usual.”

Tregellas had been busy in the cattle-shed since early morning, and now, having put a double feed in the troughs and filled the racks with sweet-smelling hay, was about to leave work and put on his Sunday-best, after the custom of Feast Day, that his appearance might do credit to his side of the parish when he sauntered past the critical eyes of the girls of Churchtown.

Just then Driver, who had been curled up in the straw dreaming of summer days amongst the moorland cattle, pricked his ears, rose to his feet, jumped the half-door, and barked furiously.

“What’s thet?” said Tregellas as the music of the pack awoke the echoes of the cliffs. “Why ’tes the hounds in full cry sure ’nuff.” Out of the byre he rushed and climbed the turf rick near the pig’s crow, hoping to get a view of the hunt. The passing chase was one of the few excitements of his dull life; and next to a sly glance at the girl of his heart the sight of a fox before hounds was what he loved most.

His eager eyes searched the rugged hillside and swept the open sward lying between it and the cliff. A sea-gull skimming its pinnacled edge drew his gaze that way. It was only for an instant; yet when he looked round again, the fox with an easy stride was crossing the springy turf where in summer thrift blooms, and discovering dips in the ground where human eye found none, with lithe movement was making for his earth near the foot of the cliffs. “Lor’, what a beety! how eh do move over the ground that steelthy like! What a broosh! Wonder ef he’s the saame varmint as killed the auld gander.”

Thrice before the fox had stood before hounds, and the last time he had but narrowly escaped with his life. Less than a year ago, it was in the month of March, they had found him on the sunny cliffs where Lamorna overlooks the ocean, and the great run he gave that day from sea to sea is still vivid in the memory of the hunt.