My first day with the Staghounds was on Christmas Eve and I find the following entry in my diary: “Coshford; Packman’s Green.
Perfect hunting day; came on wet about 2:30. Turned out at Hazelpits Farm and ran well to Wissenden, then on by Chartley Church and Henhurst down the hill and on towards Applestead. Took deer (‘Miss Masterful’) about 2. Nine-mile point. Harkaway in good form. Took a toss over a stile toward the end. Very nice country, especially the first bit.” From this concise account it may seem as if I had already mastered the Coshford topography, but I suspect that my source of information was a paragraph in a local paper.
I cannot remember how I made myself acquainted with the name of the deer which provided the nine-mile point. But in any case, how much is taken for granted and left unrecorded in that shorthand description? And how helpful it would have been now if I had written an accurately observed and detailed narrative of the day. But since the object of these pages is to supply that deficiency I must make my reminiscent deductions as best I can. And those words from my diary do seem worth commenting on—symbolic as they are of the equestrian equilibrium on which my unseasoned character was trying to pattern itself. I wrote myself down that evening as I wanted myself to be—a hard-bitten hunting man, self-possessed in his localized knowingness and stag-hunting jargon. The words might well have been penned by a middle-aged sheep-farmer, or even by Mr. “Gus” Gimling himself. “Took a toss over a stile” is the only human touch. But taking tosses was incidental to the glory of being a hard rider. What I ought to have written was—that I couldn’t make up my mind whether to go at it or not, and the man behind me shouted “go on if you’re going,” so I felt flustered and let Harkaway rush at it anyhow and then jerked his mouth just as he was taking off, and he didn’t really fall, but only pecked badly and chucked me over his head and then stood quite still waiting for me to scramble up again, and altogether it was rather an inglorious exhibition, and thank goodness Stephen wasn’t there to see it. For though Stephen and I always made a joke out of every toss we took, it wouldn’t have suited my dignity if he’d told me in cold blood that I was still a jolly rotten rider—the tacit assumption being that my falls were entirely due to my thrusting intrepidity.
It will be noticed that no mention is made of the method by which “Miss Masterful” was “taken,” although I had witnessed that performance for the first time in my life. As far as I can recollect, Miss M. having decided that the show had lasted long enough, plunged into a small pond and stood there with only her small head appearing above the muddy water. Raucous ratings and loud whip-crackings restrained the baying hounds from splashing in after her, and then genial Mr. Gimling, assisted by one of the whiskered wiseacres of the hunt (in a weather-stained black coat which came nearly down to his knees, white cord breeches, black butcher-boots, and very long spurs), began to get busy with a long rope. After Miss M. had eluded their attempts several times they succeeded in lassooing her head and she was persuaded to emerge from the pond. She was then frogmarched away to a farm building, where she awaited the arrival of her conveyance, which was cruising about the country and usually put in an appearance much earlier than might have been expected.
It can also be inferred from my diary that the weather “came on wet” as soon as I’d started my ten-mile ride back to the railway-station and Harkaway’s horsebox, and that the supporters of the Coshford Hunt departed in different directions wishing one another a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. It may also be inferred that poor Miss Masterful sweated and shivered in the barn with heaving sides and frightened eyes. It did not occur to me to sympathize with her as I stood at the entrance to watch them tie her up. I only wondered how far I was from the station and my poached eggs for tea. Any sympathy I had was reserved for Harkaway, who looked as if he’d had more galloping than was good for him. But when I was jogging back by Chartley Church, with my coat collar turned up and the rain soaking my knees, I chuckled to myself as I thought of an amusing incident which had happened earlier in the day.
We were galloping full-tilt along a road just outside a cosy village. An angry-faced old parson was leaning over his garden gate, and as we clattered past he shook his fist at us and shouted “Brutes! brutes!” in a loud unclerical voice. Excited and elated as I was, I turned in the saddle and waved my whip derisively at him. Silly old buffer! And what a contrast to that jolly sporting parson in a low-crowned top-hat who went so well and came up and talked to me so nicely while Miss Masterful was being hauled out of the pond!
I have analysed the orthodox entry in my diary more fully than I had intended. But how lifelessly I recover the breathing reality of which those words are the only relics. The night before hunting: the anxious wonderings about the weather; lying awake for a while with busy thoughts about tomorrow that grow blurred with the beginning of an untroubled sleep. And then Miriam battering on the door with “it’s twenty to seven, sir,” and the first look at the quiet morning greyness, and the undefinable feeling
