Run like stink

I would say that five years ago I had never heard the expression, "run like stink."  Now, I've seen it in a few books and I hear it occasionally.  Is it an old expression that's been revived?  Is it a fairly new expression?

Excerpt from Diary of a Fox-Hunting Man by Terence Carroll.

Brian not to be drawn on his assessment of scenting conditions, but looking quite genial. Mixed pack and his favourite number, 19 1/2 couple -- he reckons it's the extra odd one that catches the fox! Trays of drinks floating about but no sign of money changing hands that I could see. Take it somebody settled up but 'the pace was too good to enquire'. Off on the dot and a nice easy jog to the Lowdown piggeries. Slight breeze and great white clouds scudding across blue sky. Really beautiful day, so nothing for the field to moan about. A text-book draw in the gorse above Stratton, hounds in almost constant view and a fox soon unkenneled. With high chicken wire in front of us, everybody was wondering whether we'd have to go left or right and a fair few were edging surreptitiously to the left in anticipation.  They'd seen Brian take hounds through the gate to the left and assumed that was the only way through the wire. O ye of little faith! When we took off the field split into two halves, with hounds going like stink -- a proper cry. The ones who went with me to the right were miles better off. If the others had taken the trouble to keep their eyes open they'd have seen the new Hunt rails to the right. An easy pop and half a mile saved, while they were all struggling with the gate and ended up going in the wrong direction. They were probably following fat Percy, a know-all who knows bugger-all if ever there was one.

Excerpt from A Long Way to Go An Anglo-Irsih Near-Tragedy by Marigold Armitage.

We jogged off in a clattering, chattering cavalcade across the fields to Speke. A slight wind from the north was beginning to blow the rain away and here and there patches of a cold and washy blue showed between the gray, amorphous cloud.  It was getting colder.

"Be a hell of a scent this evening," said Mike cheerfully.  "Any time ground's hotter'n air you'll see 'em run like stink."

Poodle said darling Mike, so optimistic always, she had thought it quite the other way round, Freddy had always said . . .

Any argument about what constitutes good scenting conditions is inconclusive and not infrequently heated, for somebody has always seen hounds running like stink in weather and over ground that somebody else has proclaimed to be utterly hopeless, might as well go home.  Scent is as mysterious as God and causes almost as much controversy among its devotees.

It's pretty clear what the expression means:  running fast or hard. But what's the derivation?  Simply the fact that strong, unpleasant odors seem to spread rapidly?  Expressions like this usually call up a visual image.  Running like a scared cat.  Or a scalded cat.  Run like a rabbit.

It certainly feels more satisfying to say, "They ran like stink."  It's sort of like saying, "That man is dumb as a box of rocks."  Or, "The ground was slick as snot."

Feathering and sterns

One can't describe feathering without first defining sterns. A dog may wag his tail but a hound waves or quivers his stern. As usual, a good, useful definition comes from the Duke of Beaufort in his book, Fox-Hunting.

When hounds take a sudden and much more active interest they are said to feather. They move more quickly and their noses seem to be glued to the ground, their sterns moving furiously from side to side. With any luck, immediately afterwards you may expect to see the pack sweep away on the line.

And another excellent point is made by Peter Holt in The Keen Foxhunter's Miscellany.

Feather: The quivering stern (tail) of a hound when he scents his quarry but is not certain enough to give tongue.

I would argue that Holt makes it sound as though the quivering stern of the hound is a feather when "to feather" is a verb but that's neither here nor there.  The point is that the hound scents his quarry but not sufficiently to give tongue (or throw his voice or open).  In the hunt field you will see some hounds that are clearly trailing or tracking something and they'll cover a good bit of ground, feathering the whole time but never opening.  Is this simply an insufficiency of scent?  Is it a lack of confidence?  Is it jealousy and an attempt to sneak away with a good head start on the line?  Any one of those is possible.

When you are familiar with a pack, it's obvious when they're feathering.  Different hounds and different kinds of hounds may be more difficult to read.  The rest of the pack has no trouble reading each other.  When an older strike hound starts feathering, some of the other hounds will respond almost as though he or she had opened.  Some will rush to the spot to find that scent.

Here's one example of the term "feathering" that I find just slightly odd; from HELP by Rupert Isaacson as it appeared in Covertside.

A cool wind, moist with a promise of rain, tickles your horse's flanks. He stamps, tosses his head. You hear the pack, none yet giving tongue, feathering through the yellow winter grasses at the edge of the thicket. You sense what's about to happen. You horse's ears flick forward. He sees the quarry break cover before you do, surges forward, and as one the pack breaks into glorious song . . .

Occasionally, enough hounds will be working and feathering at the same time and they'll make enough noise that you can hear them moving through a covert.  I guess it depends on the covert.  Or maybe the size of the pack?  Frequently at this stage the pack is well spread through the covert and they don't make an audible presence.  Sometimes you'll hear a sporadic crackling as they work an area.  And feathering is different than just working an area -- the hounds' activity is intense and focused.  Usually, if enough hounds are in one area and all feathering, one of them will pick up the scent and open.  It's just not likely that a lot of hounds can get enough scent to feather without one of them getting enough scent to open.  At least that's what I think at this moment, on this day.

'osses

Shall we have something about horses? This is supposed to be about foxhunting and horses are supposed to be merely a conveyance. In reality, horses are the biggest obstacle to a newbie's adoption of the sport of foxhunting. In the United States, foot following and car following are almost nonexistent. That's too bad but that's how it is.

It would be interesting to be able to compare the number of people for whom the riding aspect is a deterrent against the number of people for whom the riding aspect is the motivation. It probably balances out pretty evenly.

As you might imagine, plenty has been written on this topic. Actually horsemanship as related to the hunt field is much too broad a category. Let's start with "too much horse" which is a very typical problem, as described in Diary of a Fox-Hunting Man by Terence Carroll.

The 'over-horsed' tend to be newcomers to hunting, from urban backgrounds.  They've taken riding lessons, become pretty proficient, and are keen to get up and go.  They want to go hunting in order to ride, and why not?  It's a great sport and their subscriptions help to maintain it.  Some, however, would be well-advised to put aside vanity, which demands a best-part Thoroughbred, and settle for a more accommodating beast.

If they looked about them at almost any Meet, they'd see men and women riding well into evident later life.  Exceptional people hunt in their eighties, and the reason they have survived is that, throughout their hunting careers, they have matched their mounts to their physical abilities.  As veterans, they are content to ride steady, kind, sensible, bomb-proof horses that know the job and won't gallop off with them or drop them on their heads. 
That's the sort to end your hunting days.
And to start them.

Ah, yes, sometimes referred to as little old ladies' horses. In older English novels they were referred to as confidential hunters and what a winning description that is.  [Wouldn't the derivation of that be interesting.  I'm clueless.]  Here it is as used by John Welcome in Mr.Merston's Money.

Pastmaster, when he came out, proved to be a big horse of a nondescript bay colour with a kind head and a wise eye.  He stood there without bother or fuss, glancing about him and taking an intelligent interest in the varied life of the yard.  He looked exactly what he was -- a County Corway confidential hunter, who had crossed the country season after season without a fall, who knew all there was to know about his job and a bit more besides.

And one more confidential hunter from A Long Way to Go: An Anglo-Irish Near-Tragedy by Marigold Armitage.

It was at this rather confused moment that hound voices suddenly rang together like a peal of bells from far down the road.
"Christ!" said Roger . . . "Listen!" We stood silent, our eyes popping.
A pause. Then one hound speaking.
"That really is Reveller."
Then the triumphant chorus clamouring out again, shaking the cold air. Then the long, wild crying of the horn. The chills began in my spine, the thumping of the blood.
"Oh," said Gillian faintly, "I always feel like that woman in Somerville and Ross, who cried."
Roger seized her ankle and put her up on to the brown animal, who looked suddenly less confidential.
"They must have picked up an outlier -- they can't have got to Drumanagh. God help you now if they run away from you."

Those are three wonderful books.  For snow days.  Jumping back to the notion of folks being "over-horsed," it's not only the beginners although almost every beginning foxhunter is overhorsed.  Other people, who ought to know better, persist in acquiring unsuitable horses.  I've never understood this but I think they honestly don't know there is another option.  And some people create this effect in their horses.  I am not a great rider so I hesitate to comment on anyone's riding skills but there certainly are horses who are fine with one rider and . . . not fine with another.  Some of us learn these facts of life (the horse must go like a half-dead plug under normal circumstances in order to be at all manageable in the hunt field) and some of us seem to never learn.


Hey!  If everyone else buys the super-charged models, that will leave more of the little-old-lady models for me!

Capping

There has certainly been plenty written about this topic! Let's start with a little history in an excerpt from Diary of a Fox-Hunting Man by Terence Carroll.

Capping visitors is a fairly recent practice. In long-ago days when autocratic rich country gentlemen maintained packs of hounds at their own expense and for their own amusement, allowing the field to follow for nothing, it was the Huntsman who capped the followers, at the kill. . . . In fact, this delay also allowed time for the stragglers in the field to catch up and swell the contributions to the Huntsman's reward for the kill. This was what would be called today one of his 'perks'.

'Woo-oop,' the Huntsman would cry, holding out his cap for golden sovereigns to chink into it. Today's Hunt secretaries are rather more restrained, but their zeal for capping is undiminished.

One has to wonder how many visitors hung back or disappeared simply to avoid paying a fee.  Any time one reads about foxhunting there are always characters who had to be tracked down and shamed into paying.  The sport would not have survived if those were anything but a tiny minority of foxhunters.

One more historical tidbit from Lure of the Chase by Michael Sinclair-Smith.

A mile out of town the huntsman turned off the road and took his hounds into a pasture. The master who was just a few yards behind pulled up and two senior members dismounted and walked over to the gateway where they stood each side with their caps held out. Their job was to collect the cap, the fee non-members have to pay for a day’s hunting.
. . . .
When all the cap money was collected, the huntsman took his hounds and went ahead to the next pasture where he encouraged them into the hedgerow and drew along it. Right away the hounds hit the scent of the drag and took off running, letting out their distinctive cry as if they were on the line of a live fox.

That is from a work of fiction and I wonder if it ever happened that way.  Everything else I've read has the Secretary scurrying around collecting capping fees prior to the start or even tracking down people in the hunt field after hunting has started.  The method described certainly sounds like a sure-fire success.

Here's some more modern advice from the Chagrin Valley Hunt website.

If you wish to hunt and are unfamiliar with The Chagrin Valley Hunt, please contact the Honorary Hunt Secretary Carol Horner Donaldson 440-338-8703 or hunterscreekfarm@msn.com or one of the Masters, at least a day prior to the fixture date of choice. The Masters must know in advance if visitors are expected in order to plan the morning. When Members of the Field bring guests, or professionals bring cappers, these riders are their host's responsibilities. When inviting company, please check the fixture card, as some meets may be more appropriate for your guests than others.
Capping Fees. . .
Capping privileges are extended to guests who hunt with Chagrin less than four times a season. Fees are $75 per hunt for adults and $25 for children ($20 for active Pony Clubbers). Please have capper's name and address noted on the outside of an envelope with the exact cap amount in cash or check inside. Make checks payable to Chagrin Valley Hunt. During a busy hunt morning making change or giving credit is nearly impossible. When arriving at the meet and as soon as possible, hand the envelope to the Field Secretary Mrs. Larry (Carol) Smith.

In perusing various hunt club websites, it's simply astounding how uniformly guests are asked to submit their capping fees in envelopes.  And many include a request for a signed waiver.  Even more astounding is how seldom this happens.  Equally astounding is how many folks will wait until they and everyone else are on their horses and then pull a folded up check out of their pocket and waive it around at a variety of people.

Which leads me to this from Fox-Hunting by the Duke of Beaufort.

Whatever happens, you must not be late for the Meet.  That may sound like unnecessary advice, but unfortunately it is not.  I find it a great nuisance having latecomers arriving from all sides, and I also think unpunctuality is extremely bad manners.  'Punctuality is the politeness of Princes' is by no means an idle saying for, when examined, it goes much deeper than is immediately obvious.  I have found that people who are not punctual are likely to be unreliable in many other ways; and unreliability in the hunting field is a serious fault.

Since lack of punctuality is a pet peeve of mine you will surely see this piece again.


But back to caps, capping, capping fees and appropriate usage.  Does one collect caps or capping fees?  Perhaps the capping fee is the amount charged and the actual money paid is a cap?  I have no idea.  I suspect it's never correct to refer to caps but only to capping fees but, once again, this is observed more often in the breech  . . .

Hounds in front

This picture, from Twelve Packs of Hounds by John Charlton, reminds me of the dictum that the hounds should always be in front of the huntsman. It's pretty clear in this picture that that's not the case. The rider in front is the huntsman with the hounds behind him followed by a whipper-in.

I have hunted behind a reasonable assortment of huntsmen, including a few from England, and I have never seen the pack in front of the huntsman.  Well, I've never seen it done well and on purpose. I've seen it attempted and badly executed. It might work for a particularly shy pack or a lazy one but keen, eager hounds (not to say hard-headed or independent ones) need to be kept behind the huntsman. He must be the leader, figuratively and physically, to keep the pack under control. He is "top dog," so to speak.

Just at the present time I can't find much specifying the huntsman should have his hounds in front of him. Perhaps that's because I don't believe that's correct and have not saved those excerpts. [Oh, yes, you're getting my opinions here. I usually only include opposing opinions for the sake of discussion, or on topics where I'm undecided or just plain bewildered.]

Excerpt from Hunting by Ear: The Sound-book Of Foxhunting by D. W. E. Brock.

The first order which hounds must learn to obey instantly is "Back" or "Byke", as it is usually pronounced. The second must be the "cancelling order" for the first -- namely the order telling them to trot on ahead again. For it is a cardinal rule of hunting, and hound management and manoeuvre, a rule upon which all experts agree, that hounds should spend the greater part of their time out of the kennel in front of the huntsman, whether it be on the road, drawing a covert, in chase, or when casting. "Back" should be an order used only in emergencies or as a precautionary measure: for instance, when turning out of a side road into a main traffic route. But it is obvious that until hounds will obey this order absolutely instantaneously it is unsafe to allow them to "trot on ahead".

Even in that example the last sentence rather contradicts the entire previous paragraph. Certainly some huntsmen are more casual about their hounds packing up than others. It's obvious that many factors come into play: the type of hounds, the abilities of the rest of the staff, and the nature of the countryside are just the obvious ones. This is one situation where the huntsman's opinion is put into action.

Excerpt from There Goes Charlie, A Rural Murder by Anne Fleming

Maggie and Eithne stood by the table laden with empty glasses and watched. It was a magnificent sight. First went the Whipper-in followed by the Huntsman with the bitch pack at his horse's heels, sterns waving, heads up; some black and tan, some lemon and white, some badger pied, most of them smooth but one or two rougher and more hairy, showing their Welsh breeding. Then came the Master followed by the field, more than a hundred of them, . . . their mounts dancing and tossing their heads, waiting for the signal to canter.

Excerpt from Irish Adventure: A Fox Hunter's Holiday by Margaret Cabell Self.

At a toot from the horn the Field sets forth to hack (ride) to the chosen covert. The Master, or Huntsman, if there is a professional Huntsman, goes first, followed by the hounds. On each flank and a little to the rear ride the two Whips, whose duty it is to prevent any riot (misbehavior) on the part of the hounds. When the covert side is reached, the members of the Field are told where they may stand. The Whips take up their position on either side of the covert to be drawn. Now hounds, encouraged by the Master, enter the covert (which may be a wooded patch or a patch of grass and undergrowth) to try to find Reynard and persuade him that he'll do better to run than to stay where he is. Only the Master carries a horn, but I was interested to note that in Ireland the Whips were equipped with whistles with which they can signal.

The illustration at the top of this entry used to be available, along with the full text of the book, from the Jorrocks.com website. It doesn't seem to be working any longer.

Switch off

This is just fascinating and I think this is the only time I've read anything like this.  It's a quote from Tony Leahy, MFH in Connecting with the Communal Mind: What Leahy Learned in Covertside (September 2007).

When a hunt is weakening, or you've done enough, don't let it dwindle and get messy. Don't keep losing ground. Stop. Regroup. Refresh. Turn the switch off. Then restart. In hindsight, there have probably been times when I've pushed my hounds too much. I've learned to balance perseverance with sensitivity to the situation.

At the Coal Valley trial, hounds had a good hunt, and then . . . they ran the line of a horse. It was the excitement -- their competitive edge. We stopped and stood in the field for ten minutes. Turned the switch off, then back on.

I had never thought about this in quite these terms. Certainly some huntsmen do this. Everyone in the Field thinks the huntsman sits on top of a hill in that cold January wind just to torment them. (And to cadge a drink.) Whether he's consciously "turning the switch off" and then restarting or not, it has that effect.

Even when that conscious decision isn't made, many packs stop periodically to make sure all the hounds are together. Sometimes hounds hang back in a covert; sometimes they shoot ahead to the next covert; sometimes young hounds are shy of moving around the Field. 

And other packs rush, rush, rush. The pressure of a well-mounted field in a well-foxed country is tremendous. Huntsmen want to show good sport but they've got to be able to ignore the Field and its expectations at least part of the time. Taking time at the right time will increase speed in the long run.

Draw vs Cast

Draw and cast are probably the terms most often used  incorrectly in all of foxhunting jargon.

The simplest explanation I've heard goes something like this. When the hounds are hunting for any fox (or substitute your choice of quarry), that's drawing. When hounds have been chasing a fox (again, substitute your choice of quarry), they lose the line, and they are searching for the line of that particular fox, that's casting.

The actual usage of the term cast seems fairly simple.

Hounds cast themselves.

The huntsman executed a classic cast.

The huntsman cast hounds forward.

I have never been quite clear on the actual usage of the term draw. It quickly becomes pretty awkward.

On the first draw of the day, something happened.

The first covert was drawn blank.

The first covert drawn was blank.

The huntsman reviewed the planned draw for the day.

In any case, this is where books can be invaluable and fiction is useful. In a nonfiction, how-to book on foxhunting, you may get rather stilted examples of excruciatingly correct usage. In fiction, the terminology reflects common usage of the time, or one would hope so.

Excerpt from Red Coats Galloping by John Welcome.

For a moment Jeremy sat quite still on the chestnut. Before him the little bunch of riders that comprised the field was gathered in the lee of a fence with Jimmy the Boy a few paces in front of them and apart, his horse drawn across a gap. The old green coat of Jimmy the Man could be seen moving slowly through the gorse covert. The occasional white flash of a hound showed against the gorse as the pack drew on. In the background, proud and purple and mysterious, the twin peaks of the Coolgibbin Hills brooded over them all. It was what Jeremy loved and lived for -- all of it, the tang of the winter air, the hounds searching for a fox and the voice of their huntsman cheering them, the feel of a good horse underneath him, and the promise of a good hunt before him . . .

Another excerpt from Red Coats Galloping by John Welcome

They were at fault in some cattle-stain where a farmyard ran down to meet a straggling, untidy-looking fence. The huntsman sat his steaming horse, allowing them to cast themselves.

Without doubt there will be more on these subjects.