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CORNELL
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

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LABORATORY
OF ORNITHOLOGY
LIBRARY

Gift of
WAGKLIAM DUNLAP SARGENT
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SPORTS AND PASTIME

OF

 

BY

THOMAS MILLER.

With Cuenty-une Sllustrations,

By HARRISON WEIR, JULIAN PORTCH, &. |

LONDON: DARTON & CO., HOLBORN HILL.
Nut
OPN GENT

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CONTENTS.

ANCIENT BRITISH HUNTERS ........cecceecccccttcceseeseene 1

STAG HUNTING | woscsssissssocee cose sievetvarcassnueevieviwerscetsessears 15
OLD: FOREST LAWS, siseses-cesvostacanssssnsereulavevcsturvseodvangerev vee 28
HAWKING. ....... ens Nas dg cloae ve age’ SeacissesleDeu sabe pees sate AGieNe ead veb'ssagedey 41
ARCHERY ea scaccevssaicvens sat sesseurteest usecvtvetseereerscadechsstsensaursepeeees 55
COUNTRY FEASTS AND FAIRS ou........eee cee ceeeetsaneeeeeeeee 69
SHOOTING WATER-FOWL, ETC. ..........00.. wang sdoudedeeessiaweces 83
HORSE RACING. ...ccccccccccescsscsseceeeecccesesssesnencccsssseenee ssa scsepenee 98
FOX HUNTING sisccssssscusasssaessinsssvepseaasavavacevaerevagenetacnswsneaaacee 111
HARE COURSING, ETC............. Tay daseesdscziousivesiloevs-ede pevduicenyens 123
ANGLING. .....ccse ceccsssensrssseneeenecceetanseseeasennecessesenacssaeesesegenee 135
FIISTORY OF HAWKING. .nccccssscecseeseecceerecceeneerecrseraeanensonees 146
HARVEST HOME .........ceesecsnescseereeeeee cre eecees soinsstesalexotsealasie saves 158

CHRISTMAS SPORTS ........ waa sag seangustonss igvseeeeaeva asec svereateavess 172
 

L—ANCIENT BRITISH HUNTERS,

In ancient times, long before our island was invaded
by the Romans, the early Britons were renowned

B
2 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

hunters, and had such a famous breed of dogs, that
many of them were taken over to Rome by the generals
who served under Julius Cesar. England was at this
time half-covered with immense forests, in which the
maned bison—a black, savage wild bull—the grim wolf,
wild boar, and enormous stags, with horns that often
measured thirteen feet across, abounded. These, with
the exception of the wolf, formed the principal food of
our British forefathers. The huge black wild bulls,
with manes like lions, have been extinct in England
for many long centuries; and all we now know of
them is through digging up their remains out of bogs
or other soil, which (through the stems of trees, black-
ened acorns and nuts that are discovered) bears the
marks of having been formerly forest land. As these
old British inhabitants lived in forests, and built
themselves rude wattled huts of branches, which they
roofed with reeds—for there were miles of wide marshes,
often covered with water, on the borders of which reeds
grew plentifully, as, of course, they still do in similar
places—they were surrounded by these savage animals,
and therefore were compelled to wage war with them

for their own protection, as well as to obtain a supply
of food.
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 3

Thus we see how natural it is for all savage races to
become hunters. They might, indeed, choose to subsist
on roots and berries, but there would be little chance
of obtaining even them without falling in with wild
beasts, which do not prefer to live on berries, and are
ready to prove the fact by devouring the first man they
can overpower. Thus the savage has to become a hunter
not only to obtain food for himself, but that he may
not himself become food; and as (to go back to our
ancient Briton) his spear-head and hatchet were only
made of sharp stone or flint, he would soon discover that
he only had a poor chance of coming off conqueror in an.
encounter with the formidable monsters surrounding
him (I forgot to mention that large bears also existed in
England at this time), and therefore he would speedily
set about inventing something to ensnare them. Having
observed how powerless these wild beasts were if by any
chance they fell into a pit or chasm, the savage’s first
attempt to capture them would naturally be by digging
pitfalls across the tracks they were in the habit of
frequenting. This pit he would cover over with light
branches, and on these thinly strew reeds, earth, grass,
or leaves, so as to make the ground appear undis-

turbed.
4 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

So the maned bison, grisly bear, grim wolf, and
tusked wild boar, were captured by these early British
hunters long before the bow was in use, the net woven,
or any of the various means devised by which beasts of
the chase were afterwards captured; and if the pitfall
was certainly the simplest snare, it was also very effective.
The wolf, sneaking and crouching at the bottom of the
hole, became an easy mark for the heavy clubs of the
Britons, or even for the stones which children could
fling in upon him; and the bull, roaring and foaming,
had not a single chance of escape or revenge when once
he found himself floundering in this situation.

But the Britons had other devices: they made nooses,
or snares of twisted willows and hazels ; fastened baits to
the springing branches of trees, which they pegged down ;
and, being elastic, no sooner was the twisted withe
gnawed to which the bait was secured than the branch
sprang back to its former place, drawing tight the open
noose, and leaving the bear or wolf hanging by the neck.
Beside these methods of capturing beasts of the chase,
they made use of their powerful dogs; and the old
British wolf-hound, which is now extinct, or nearly so,
was one of the noblest dogs that ever awoke the forest

echoes with his cry. They also used hunting-spears,
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 5

‘bows and arrows; but of course they must have made
some little progress in civilization before they had come
to use such weapons—as they were, to some extent,
improvements upon the primitive pitfall and the simple
snare—means of capture which would be adopted by any
intelligent country boy without any instructor, and which
we have often seen used by village lads while tending
cattle in the fields, or scaring the birds away from the
corn. So natural, indeed, are these means of capture
to all countries and all times, that we are not surprised
to find mention of them in the earlier chapters of the
Bible. How the dog was first reclaimed by man and
taught to hunt, is not recorded ; but we know that the
dog will breed with the wolf, and hence naturalists have
concluded that it is a species of that animal, and formerly
ran wild about our ancient forests. As a proof of this, it
is well known that if dogs which have been domesticated
are again left to run wild, they will, in the course of
time, produce a breed which bears a close resemblance
to the wolf.

That wolves were originally caught in pits is clearly
shown by some of the oldest written documents that are
extant. For instance, there is a Saxon charter, or grant,

describing the boundaries of an estate that belonged to
6 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

a rich Saxon landholder some twelve hundred years
ago, and in it the boundary lines are marked, “by the
old oak up to the wolf-pits, from thence to the hoary
apple-tree, and up to the edge of the beck.” Beck is
the old Soxon word for a brook, or water-course.

The boy that lived in those days passed an existence
such as you can scarcely conceive. Lying down at night
on his bed of leaves or skins, within the rude forest
hut which his father had erected, he heard the wolves
howling, the bears roaring, wild boars sharpening their
tusks on the stems of the trees, and the great black
bison, chased. by the wolves, bellowing with all his
might, as, with glaring eyes, he went thundering through
the thicket. Perhaps he would come full tilt against the
thatched shed, overturning it; and you would consider
yourself a lucky fellow then if able to make your escape
up a tree. Nor even there, perhaps, would you have
been safe ; for on looking down you might have chanced
to see a great brown British bear close upon your heels,
or have beheld a grim wild boar, his white tusks shining
in the moonlight, walking round and round, and turning
up his little red savage eyes every now and then, to see if
you were coming down. A few such nocturnal disturb-

ances as these, however, would, as you grew up, have
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 7

inspired you with the spirit of the hunter, and made you
eager to grapple with the beasts of the forest, were it
only to protect your greenwood home from danger—to
say nothing of the pleasures of dining off the carcase of
your shaggy foe, and of making yourself a stout vest from
his hide.

We have but few records of these ancient British
hunters. We look into the barrows or mounds that cover
their uncoffined bones, and all we find are a few weapons
‘of stone or flint (whether for war or for the chase), and
sometimes the remains of the faithful dog that was
buried with them. And these are all; for we know but
little more about them than we do of the builders of that
mysterious circle of Druidical remains at Stonehenge.
‘That the horses they rode were fleet, their dogs strong
and courageous, and they themselves brave of heart and
valiant in the field, we have Roman history to prove;
and with the few notices of their habits and customs
which the records of their conquerors contain, we must
be content.

And brave hunters they must have been to have
attacked such formidable animals as the maned bisons,
grey wolves, grisly bears, and wild boars ; for the bison

was larger than the oxen of the present day, and bore on
8 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

his head such sharp and long horns as have never since
been seen in England. When attacked, he would trample
to death both men and dogs beneath his ponderous hoofs.
What our Saxon ancestors called “the grey wolf of the
wold,” was also a terrible beast to encounter; and in
winter he would quit the forests, preying upon men and
cattle wherever he met them, and very often the whole
country for miles around would be aroused to hunt the
savage brutes. Within the last four hundred years, there
were wolves in England; and but little more than three
hundred years ago, five wolves were killed in- Scotland
in one day.
So formidable was the wolf in England at one period,
that what were called wolf-towers stood in lonely and
out-of-the-way places, near the borders of forests. These
towers were ascended by a stair, so that those who were
pursued. by wolves had to make for one of these retreats
With all possible speed; and if they were fortunate
enough to gain the tower and close the door, they might
amuse themselves till help came by looking over the wall
at the herd of hungry wolves howling and gnashing their
teeth below. Several of these towers used to stand near
the wolds of Yorkshire. One of our Saxon kings did

much towards clearing England of these noxious crea-
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 9

tures, by levying a tribute of wolves’ heads on the
Britons, whom he had conquered. Nevertheless, there
were wolves in this country hundreds of years after his
reign, as I have said; and I could fill pages by telling
you where and when they were hunted and slain, almost
up to the time of Henry VIII.

All we know about the bears that once inhabited
England is through the bones that have been dug up
in different places, and at various times. These- prove
the British bear to have been one of the largest that ever
existed. What is called the British cave bear had teeth
as large and sharp as those of a tiger, and he must have
been the most formidable opponent our forefathers had
to deal with. Mr. Yarrel describes this cave bear as a
terrible monster ; and some of the poetical fragments left
us by the ancient Welsh bards describe the combats of
the early Britons with this forest foe.

The chase of the wild boar was attended with great
danger, as he not uncommonly succeeded in ripping open
the sides of both dogs and horses with his sharp project-
ing tusks. Many a hunter has he slain when charged on
foot, tearing him open, and thrusting his savage snout
into the wound. When the hunter attacked the wild
boar on foot, he met him full in front, grasping the
10 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

strong boar-spear tightly in his hand; and as the mon-
ster generally thundered along with his head down and
his eyes looking behind at his pursuers, he would often
run headlong upon the boar-spear, and so be slain with-
out further straggle. But it was not always safe for the
hunter to confront him, especially if the beast happened
to be an old boar rushing along at a rapid rate ; for then
the chances were that both spear and man would be
borne down, breaking the shaft and rending the hunter.
The only chance of escape for him then was to step aside,
and, if he could, wound the boar in the flank—for he
plunged along with such speed that he could not stop
himself suddenly. From this circumstance, also, the
hunter sometimes escaped by throwing. himself flat on
the ground, and leaving the boar to pass over him. Very
often, again, a boar would wrest ‘the spear from the
hunter’s grasp, snapping the shaft asunder with his sharp
tusks as easily as he -would break through a rotten
branch. Happy for the hunter if he did not next feel
these tusks in his side; for wherever they entered, the
brute ploughed his way up with his strong neck, laying
the wound wide open, and churning the foam through
his teeth all the time, while his angry little eyes flashed
red.
OF MERRY ENGLAND.. 11

Besides the war waged by the hunters, there were
terrible battles in those old forests between the beasts
that sheltered therein. Wild boars would attack one
another, and fight until one of them was slain. Wolves
~ would pursue the noble stag, or, pressed by hunger, even
attack the gigantic bisons. These also fought with one
another, of which we have strange proof. Among some
remains of these animals the horn of one was found
firmly wedged between the bones of another, where the
fatal blow was struck. The probability is, that, after
this blow, the animals, too exhausted to extricate them-
selves, fell together, and died of wounds and want.
Similar instances have been known in which the antlers
of quarrelsome stags became locked together ; when they
died of starvation, face to face.

The last of the race of British wild cattle was kept in
Chillingham Park, some years ago, and are described in

>

Gilpin’s “Forest Scenery ;” and although they were
not the old British bisons with the shaggy mane, they
belonged to a tribe of horned cattle that formerly ran
wild in our forests. Up to the last, they would hide
their calves in the thickets, and attack any person who
ventured near them. Their mode of offence was not to

rush upon an intruder all at once, but running off at
12 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

first, they returned again and again, drawing nearer
every time they advanced, and so narrowing the circles
they moved in as they became enraged; until, at last,
they made a bold dash, with a thundering roar, and,
unless the intruder was fortunate enough to escape,
gored him and trampled him beneath their hoofs.

The bison still exists in some parts of Russia. There
are a great many places in England still named after the
wild boar, on account of having harboured those animals
in ancient times. And many documents are in existence
which make mention of localities that were ravaged by
the wolf; and some of our forefathers held lands on
condition that they should devote so many days in the
year to wolf-hunting, the number of dogs and men they
were to keep for that purpose being specified in the
deed of gift.

Hunting, in ancient times, then, was a very different
affair from what is called hunting in the present day.
Now it is little better than an exciting ride over the
country; then the huntsman went to the field, or rather
the forest, somewhat as a soldier goes to battle, for he
had real perils to encounter, and did not always return
alive. Again, it was a long day’s journey through some

of these forests. From sunrise to sunset the horseman
OF MERRY ENGLAND, 13

would be ever moving through this long land of trees,
before he reached the opposite bounds of the wood; and
he might sometimes travel all day long and never see a
human creature—his only company being wild birds and
beasts of the chase. Such a forest was Andredswold,
or Andreceaster, as it is sometimes spelt, which Was
thirty miles wide. On the border of this forest a terrible
battle was fought between the ancient Britons and
the Saxons. It lasted three days; and one of the old
chroniclers remarks that not a beast of the chase was
seen for months after within several miles of where this
dreadful conflict took place. On this occasion the Saxons
burnt down the whole forest-town in which the Britons
dwelt.

As the early Britons only grew a little corn, they
were compelled to trust to the chase for their chief
subsistence; and if the beasts they ate were plentiful, we
must bear in mind that they had a larger extent of
forest to wander over, and were, therefore, more difficult
to capture. Besides, the hunter was likely enough to
meet a stubborn opponent while in pursuit of deer—a
wolf on the same ground, perhaps, and was compelled
to fight it out with him before he could follow his game.

Then there was the terrible wild cat, savage as a tiger, to
14 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

encounter. Some of these abound in our forests in the
present day. Here we find them with martins, polecats,
foumarts, weasels, the badger, and many another animal
that does not fear the face of man, for some of them
when attacked will retaliate; while, as for game, many of
them are the most expert hunters that ever entered a
wood.

So much for our old British forefathers, their forests,
and their game. In the next chapter I shall tell of
stag-hunting; then of falconry; and so on through all
our English sports in forest, field, and fen.
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 15

 

IL—STAG-HUNTING.

We now pass from the chase of the wolf and the wild

boar, and the more savage sports of the early Britons,
16 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

Saxons, and Danes, to the period when hunting became
the great amusement of kings and nobles. At this time
stern laws were passed for preserving beasts of the chase ;
and the life of a stag was valued more highly than that of
a poor man, for the latter was punished with death if
found guilty of killing a hart proclaimed within the
boundary of the forest. But to this subject I shall
devote a whole chapter, after having described stag-
hunting.

There was something wild and grand about the chase
in those grim old times, when feudal fortresses frowned
above the great forest trees, which threw their dark
shadows over long miles of country, and all this wild
land of trees rang to the bellowing of thousands of wild
deer. Then the chase was followed by kings or by nobles
with all their array of foresters and retainers, who, in
liveries of green and gold, gaudy as laburnum trees in
full blossom, swept through thicket and glade to the
sound of horns, the baying of hounds, and the tramp of
horses ; while the hind, startled as she lay beside her
fawns, couched close amid the fan-like leaves of the fern ;
and the antlered monarch sprang up from among the
heather, shook the dew from his side, looked around,

sniffed the air to detect the quarter from whence his foes
OF MERRY BNGLAND. 17

approached, then dashed ahead with the speed of light
into the dark green solitudes of the forest.

Then the chase was followed through glen and glade,
dell and dingle, by lonesome windings of the thicket,
where, at other times, no sound but the voices of wild
beasts and birds was heard, or the roaring of the wind
among the trees, or the low murmuring of the forest-
brook, as it flowed on through chequered light and shade.
For there were spots in these dreamy old woods, where
a deep twilight ever reigned—twilight caused by the
trees that rose high one above another, branch over-
shadowing branch, until all below was dim green dark-
ness, and you could not see what flowers bloomed beneath
the buried underwood. Past these solitudes the hunter
rode, and the hounds went baying in pursuit of the pant-
ing stag, who sometimes broke his horns through the
speed with which he dashed among the overhanging
branches. And lovely ladies, who have been dead and
buried long centuries ago, quitted their strong castles
and old feudal halls, and galloped with the cavalcade
through the green forest-paths in pursuit of the deer.
Nor was the broad river shunned by these bold hunters,
who drew not the rein before the steep hill-side, nor
slackened the bridle in the heart of the thorny thicket.

C
18 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

The monarch himself often headed the chase, and was in
as much danger of being struck by a random arrow as
any of his followers. Such a fate, all the world knows,
befell William Rufus, who was slain by an arrow while
hunting in the New Forest.

Then the forests were infested by fearless outlaws—
men of Saxon descent—who looked upon the Norman
lords as their natural enemies, and, when they had a
chance of shooting a shaft unseen, drew their bow-strings
with a will, and sent an arrow twanging into the heart
of some usurping lord. Many a Saxon shaft was thus
aimed at Norman hearts in those turbulent times, when
Might thrust Right aside; when he who had the strong-
est arm took possession, and bade the rightful owner to
displace him if he could.

And again, these old Norman barons were constantly
quarrelling amongst themselves, and not unfrequently
would one waylay another while hunting in the woods,
capture him, carry him off to his feudal stronghold, and
keep him there until he either paid heavy ransom or gave
up some long-disputed claim. You remember the fine old
ballad of “ Chevy Chase,” and how many brave fellows
fell on both sides in a quarrel which arose between Percy

and Douglas from the right of hunting deer.
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 19

But I will now describe a stag-hunt in the olden time,
and try to paint such a picture in words that the whole
scene shall appear. before you.

On the morning of the chase, all the retainers and
attendants of the king or baron, known by the names of
verdurers, regarders, agisters, woodwards, and forest-
keepers, with as many assistants as were required, would
assemble, and surround the forest, so as to drive back the
deer that might attempt to escape into the open country
during the alarm caused by the dogs and hunters. Near
the entrance selected by those who intended following

‘the chase the hunters and their followers would be seen,
some holding the strong stag-hounds in the straining
leashes, others keeping a tight hold of the reins of horses
whose riders had not yet arrived, while the spirited
steeds kept pawing the ground with their feet, jerking
and arching their beautiful necks, and champing the bit
impatiently, while they flecked with foam the idlevs
gazing on. Now and then some great strong hound
would break his leash before the signal was given for
unloosing the dogs, and rush into the forest in pursuit of
the deer, and then there would be a clamorous cry, and a
rush made by the keepers to re-capture him. Added to
this, there would be the shouting of those who surrounded
20 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

the forest as they drove back the deer that attempted to
escape.

At length the hunting train would be seen moving
along from the neighbouring castle or lodge in the
distance, the haughty baron at the head, perhaps his
beautiful daughter by his side, mounted on a graceful
palfrey, and chatting to the lordly abbot, whose bridle
was hung with bells, which rang at every step taken by
his ambling nag; while all their steeds were richly
caparisoned. Some forester would then blow his hunting-
horn, as a signal that the cavalcade was at hand; and
the well-known sound would be answered by the neigh-
ing of steeds, the baying of dogs, and the voices of those
who surrounded the forest calling to one another. The
hounds, which had hitherto been lying idly on the green-
sward, would spring up, the steeds would prick up their
ears, while one or two of the hunters would disappear
among the trees with a few couples of the foremost
hounds, which would soon be heard baying far off among
the underwood. After a little time, three loud distinct
blasts would be blown by the belted hunter—a signal
that the deer was found; and at that summons, horses,
dogs, and hunters would dash like a whirlwind into the

forest. Newly risen from his couch of fern, the noble
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 21

hart would rush at full speed through the most intricate
parts of the forest, threading leafy mazes only known
to himself, dashing through the yielding hazels, which
would close again with a spring that would fell a stout
stripling to the earth, now pausing for a brief moment
with his antlered head erect to listen to his pursuers ;
then, finding their loud whoop and halloo drawing
nearer, hurrying off again with redoubled speed. Now
he would gallop along by the wild forest-brook at which
he had so many times quenched his thirst; but, though
his hot tongue hung out of his mouth, not daring to
pause an instant to drink, nor look down either at the
blue sky, the broad branches, or the beautiful flowers
mirrored in the stream, and which his own image for a
moment darkened, as he swept along.

Behold him now. The chase has continued for two
long hours; his mouth is black and dry, his tongue
hangs out, his eyes turned backward, as if measuring
the space that intervenes between him and his pursuers.
How heavily he seems to drag his weary limbs along !
You see he is longer passing over the shadow of a tree
and into the break of sunshine beyond, than he was when
he first sprang from his ferny couch ; and no marvel, for

he has run over many miles of weary forest-ground. The
22 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

hounds draw nearer; there are but three or four couples ;
all the rest have fallen off; some are lost in the forest
mazes ; only two or three horsemen are able to come up ;
the rest are far behind, in bowery hollows, deep dingles,
or briery thickets: their steeds foundered, their garments
torn, they could no longer keep up with the chase, which
is again far out of sight, for the noble stag has still
strength enough to keep ahead of his pursuers. Slower,
at longer intervals, the stems of the trees are passed ; for
we are now standing at the head of a long forest avenue,
up which the wearied chase is approaching. The former
swift flight of the poor stag is now changed into a slow,
heavy trot, as if it were a pain to him to drag one leg
before another. There are but three hounds in sight out
of all the number that started in pursuit when the day
was in its prime. Only one solitary horseman has been
able to keep up with these hounds, and he seems to rock
and reel from fatigue in his saddle like a drunkard, while
his steed is ready to founder at every step. You hear
the ringing of a solitary horn somewhere in the distance,
telling that another hunter is still on the track, though
far, far behind.

Were we to wander back into the forest, along the

tracks which the hunters followed when the stag first
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 23

broke from his covert, we should see here a noble hound
lame and panting, there a riderless horse that had foun-
dered in the entangling underwood, a dog masterless, a
hunter, whose steed was dead, plodding his way on foot,
his only guide the course of the sun or the bark of the
trees ; for while on one side they were clean and pure,
the other side was covered with moss and lichen, which
signs enabled him to distinguish the north from the
south. But see, a couple of the strongest hounds have
reached the exhausted stag; they have scarcely strength
enough left to tug at his throat, nor has the noble animal
power to butt at them with his antlers, both breathing
alike heavily. At length the hunter alights; he plunges
tthe blade of his buck-handled knife into the throat of
the dying stag, and, sounding three blasts on his horn,
called in the language of the chase the “death mot,” the
hunt is ended.

Sometimes the hunting-knife was placed in the hands
of the baron’s fair daughter, and she gave the noble hart
his death-blow ; for in those stormy times English ladies
were taught to look on blood without blenching ; and
‘when a wounded knight was borne, bleeding, from the
battlements, while the castle was besieged, it was by

ladies’ hands that his wounds were dressed, and they
24 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

were ever foremost to administer to his comforts, or to
smooth his dying pillow, although they were bold-hearted
enough, at the bidding of some loving Nimrod, to plunge
the deadly knife into the poor exhausted and dying
deer, whose throat the savage stag-hounds had already
‘mangled.

Having alluded to what was called the language of the
chase, it may be as well to state that the early hunters
had peculiar phrases by which they named animals when
single, and distinguished them when together in groups—
thus, you have heard of a herd of deer and a flock of
sheep; but if you saw a lot of wolves, badgers, foxes,
wild cats, asses, horses, or bears together, you would
never think of calling them a rout of wolves, a cete of
badgers, a skulk of foxes, a chowder of wild cats, a pace
of asses, a harras of horses, or a sloth of bears, as they
were called by the old English hunters. I may also as well
tell you that they divided the beasts of the chase into
four classes, in the foremost of which they placed the stag,
hare, wolf, and wild boar; in the second class, the buck,
doe, fox, martin, and wild roe; in the third, the badger,
wild cat, and otter; and, in the fourth, the foumart,
weasel, rat, stoat, pole-cat, and squirrel. When beasts of

the chase retired to rest or shelter, these hunters had
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 25

peculiar terms of their own by which to mark such
positions: thus, a hart was said to be harboured; a
buck, lodged; a roebuck, bedded; a hare, formed; and
a rabbit, set; and any one at all pretending to a know-
ledge of hunting would have been laughed at had he
spoken in any other than these old-accepted phrases.

Nor should I omit to mention that the horns of a full-
grown stag weigh full twenty-four pounds, and that this
heavy mass grows in about ten weeks. The stag sheds its
horns every year, and on the year following that his head
is adorned with new antlers. The bottom knob of a stag’s
‘horns, or that which rests on his head, is called the burr ;
the principal stem, or that which runs up, and out of
which all the branches shoot, is called the beam ; and each
of these divisions or branches has a name; such as the
brow-antler—that is, the lower one; the bez-antler, which
is the second; the royal and the sur-royal, which are the
two topmost branches; and by these marks the age of a
stag is easily known. The young of a stag is first called
a caly; when his horns begin to appear, they name him
a knobber; when he has attained his fourth year, he
is known as a stag-gard; but he must reach his fifth
year, when his horns have shot out the royal, or third

branch, before he arrives at the honour of being called
26 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

a stag; after this, in his sixth year, the topmost branch,
called the sub-royal or crown, makes its appearance, and
then he becomes a hart: his dignity is fullblown—he
wears his last laurel. There was but one more honour
left for him, and that was to be hunted by a king, and
make his escape, then he was called a “hart-proclaimed ;”
and whoever killed him after this was, if discovered,
punished with death. Now, as in a large forest there
would be sure to be a many harts whose antlers wore
the crown, or sub-royal branch, on the summits, how
were the poor countrymen, whose dogs happened to kill a
stag, to know the one which the king had hunted, after
it had made its escape? It is true enough that the
officers of the forest went round and read the proclamation
at the porches of the village churches, and at the market
crosses of the neighbouring town, stating that the king
had hunted’ a hart, which had escaped from the forest,
and was then running no one knew whither, somewhere
about the outside of the forest boundary, or in the wide,
uninclosed, and open country; but as to size, colour, or
any peculiar mark, we may be sure they were never near
enough to observe anything of the kind, or he would not
have escaped. How, then, could he be known from any

other hart that might make his escape during the alarm
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 27

caused by the shouting of the hunters, the tramp of the
horses, and the baying of the dogs? The answer is plain;
but in my next chapter I shall enter more fully into the
nature of these old forest laws; and convince you that
if, according to the old ballad, it was “merrye walkyng
in the fayre forest,” it was scarcely safe to do anything

beyond walking,
28 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

 

III—OLD FOREST LAWS.

You will better understand the freedom Englishmen

now enjoy, when you have read what I have here
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 29

written about the cruel and oppressive Forest Laws
enforced a few hundred years ago. I have already said
that those who lived beside these large old forests, and
who kept dogs, were compelled to keep the claws of the
dogs ‘cut, so that they might not be able to seize and hold
the deer. The following are the very words of the law in
question relating to such dogs.

“Three claws (says this old law) of the fore-feet shall
be cut off by the skin, by setting one of the dog’s fore-
feet upon a piece of wood eight inches thick and a foot
square, and then setting a chisel of two inches breadth
upon the three claws of the dog’s fore-foot, and striking
them off (no doubt with a mallet) at one blow: and this
is the manner of laming dogs, so that they may not hunt
or hurt the deer, or other beasts of the chase.”

Picture in your mind the poor dog, muzzled to keep
him from biting the forest-officer, who had to cut his
claws off—the man himself, perhaps, as fond of dogs as
you are, yet compelled to carry the law into execution—
you can fancy you see the poor dog, with his foot placed
on the thick block of wood—you see the sharp edge of
the broad chisel shine as it is placed across his foot, and
hear the blow struck, and there lie his claws. You feel

so indignant that while were it not returning “evil for
30 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

evil”—which We are forbidden to do—you could almost
find it in your heart to place the ranger’s nose there, and
take a good half inch off the end of it.

Nor did these old Forest Laws, which fell with so cruel
a hand on dogs, spare man; for, as I have before stated,
if he was found guilty of killing a deer, which the king
had hunted, and allowed to escape, he was punished with
death. Now it no doubt sometimes happened, that the
stag which the monarch had made proclamation about at
the village churches, and by the crosses in the old market
towns, might come in the night, and get into some poor
man’s little corn-field, and eat up his corn while it was
growing, and that the dogs which he kept to guard his
property might, in driving the stag off in the night, kill
it. Ifso, and the dogs could be proved to belong to that
man, he would be dragged before the Forest Court, and
sentence of death passed upon him; and if even he was
fortunate enough to have his life spared, his property
would be taken from him, and he would have to endure
a long imprisonment. It was by such laws as this that
many of the Normans got the estates of the poor Saxons
into their hands, after the latter had become ‘the sworn
subjects of William the Conqueror, for no man was safe

that held lands near these forests; nor were the forest-limits
OF MERRY ENGLAND. él

very clearly defined, for forest-boundaries were not
marked like parks of the present day, with walls, palings,
or even hedges or ditches. Here stood some remarkable
tree, and perhaps half a mile off some other object, it
might be another large tree, a mill, a deer-shed, a stream,
or hunting-lodge, and all within this unmarked line on
the one side was forest-land, and if anyone was found
within this indefinite boundary he was punished. The
line could only be drawn by the eye in many cases; and
just fancy some forest-keeper who had a grudge against
any poor cottager, who dwelt beside the forest, what
could he not do? Supposing the cottager’s cow, or pigs,
wandered into or near the forest, the owner must not go
in quest of them within the forbidden limits! and you
will see how easy it was for the keeper to say that he
saw them in forest-boundaries, when they were not there
at all.

No man, excepting the Forest-keepers, was allowed to
enter the forest on any account at certain seasons of the
year, nor could he cut down a tree if it stood on his own
freehold, and his land happened to lie near the forest
boundary, neither could he build himself a house or erect
even a little shed, on his own estate, because, says this

oppressive law, “buildings are wont to startle and
382 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

frighten the deer.’ And you all of you have read in
some History of England or another, that William the
Conqueror destroyed numbers of villages, and levelled
many old Saxon churches to the ground, when he made
himself great hunting-forests, or marked out lands which
he called by that name, so that there might only be
solitude and silence where he kept his herds of deer.
No man was allowed to go into these forests after
unset, nor before sunrise, though the roads from one
town to another, and from village to hamlet, stretched
through these forests, and they could not be reached any
other way, unless the traveller went many weary miles
out of his road. No man could dig a ditch or plant a
hedge on his own freehold, without obtaining permission
from the Forest-court, or the baron, who lived in the
neighbouring castle, and hunted in the forest, and who
had his dungeons deeper down than the bed of the watery
moat, ever ready to put in those who dared to question
his power. If the harvest-field lay near the forest bound-
ary, no one must bring a dog with him to keep watch
over his basket and bottle, unless the animal’s fore-claws
were cut off No person living near the chase was
allowed to keep a bow or arrow in his cottage, or any

other instrument that would destroy deer. Neither was
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 33

a man allowed to cut the fern, gorse, or any other under-
wood, on his freehold, because it formed a shelter for
deer, so that if his crops were overrun with brambles and
thorns, he dare not clear the land. Every boy, as soon
as he was twelve years of age, was made to take a solemn
oath that he would neither break the Forest Laws nor
injure the deer, but to the utmost of his power protect
the beasts of the chase; and as there were but few schools
in those days, and most of the churches in the neighbour-
hood of these forests were destroyed, you can readily
imagine that these poor English boys understood but
very little of the solemnity of the oath they were forced
to take.

You can also understand how unpopular such laws
must have been among the peasantry who lived near to
these dreaded forests, for everyone was at the mercy of
the keepers, and, no doubt, many a boy got into trouble
unaware when he went out for a stroll, and entered the
forest boundary without knowing it; for how could he
tell where the imaginary line began or where it ended,
when there was neither fence, hedge, nor ditch? It is bad
enough now if a boy lives near to a cross-grained, over-
particular country squire, who will allow no one to go
either nutting or blackberrying in his woods, nor even

D
84 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

permit a poor old woman to gather a faggot of fallen and
rotten sticks; but it was worse in these dark old times,
for there were no newspapers to tell the whole wide
world of the cruel and oppressive acts committed by the
justices of these Forest-courts, and sanctioned by the
Norman barons. Then again, many of these poor people
were serfs or slaves, and when the estate changed hands
were sold with it, men, women, and children, like a flock
of sheep; neither was the penalty for killing these poor
people anything near so severe as the punishment for
slaying a deer, for if a man was murdered who was not a
freeman, the payment of a few shillings was considered a
sufficient atonement for shedding his blood, while the
killing of a deer, as I have shown you, was punished with
death; while for slaying a wild-boar a man was sen-
tenced to lose both his eyes.

John of Salisbury, an old historian who lived seven
hundred years ago, says, “Hunting and hawking are
esteemed the most honourable employments, and most
excellent virtues, by our nobility; and they think it the
height of worldly felicity to spend the whole of their
time in these diversions; accordingly, they prepare for
them with more solicitude, expense, and parade, than

they do for war; and pursue the beasts of the chase
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 35

with greater fury than they do the enemies of their
country. By constantly following this way of life, they
lose much of their humanity, and become as savage
nearly as the very brutes they hunt. Husbandmen, with
their harmless herds and flocks, are driven from their
well-cultured fields, their meadows, and their pastures,
that the beasts of the chase may range in them without
interruption.” Nor is this the darkest side of the picture
drawn by this old English historian, who painted what
his own eyes had, no doubt, many a time looked upon ;
for in further speaking of these savage Norman barons,
he says to his oppressed countrymen, who were Saxons
like himself, “If one of these great merciless hunters
should pass by your habitation, bring forth hastily all
the refreshment you have in your house, or that you can
readily buy, or borrow from your neighbours, that you
may not be involved in ruin, or even accused of treason.”

When you become acquainted with what, for want of a
better and more expressive name, I must call the History
of the People of this period—for the great fault of too
many of our historians is, that they only write about
what kings said and did, and not what their subjects
suffered—when, I say, you understand more of this

domestic history, you will not be surprised at the retalia-’
36 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

tion of the oppressed Saxons. It was nothing unusual
in those days to find a Norman forest-keeper, or even the
baron himself, dead in the underwood, shot through the
heart in some bowery hollow, or wounded and bleeding
amid the brown fern and yellow gorse, while the hand
was hidden which had dealt the death-blow, and no
reward offered could bring to light the assassin. Such
oppressive laws maddened the poor people, and they cared
not what they did to rid the land of their tyrants. These
deeds in those days were really not so wrong as they
would be in our own; for then the Norman was still the
Saxon’s enemy; and the peasant remembered that the
old owners of the soil never passed such cruel laws as
the Normans, nor ruled over them with such an iron
hand. Besides, the rude men of these savage times knew
but little of the grand golden rule which bids us “return
good for evil;” and to the liberty-loving spirit of the
peasantry of that time we owe much of our present free-
dom. For these kings and barons could not always agree,
and when they fell out and fought, the subjects took
instant advantage of the quarrel, fighting for the barons
against the king if the king were the greatest tyrant, or
for the barons against the king if they could get any

extension of freedom in return for their blood; and so
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 37

step by step did our rude forefathers fight for the free-
dom which, during the struggles of many long centuries,
has at last descended to us.

Hawks were as stringently protectd as deer by the old
Forest Laws, and though my next chapter will be on
hawking, the laws relating to these birds of prey will be
more in place here. Only persons of the highest rank
were allowed to keep hawks; if a hawk was lost, the
person finding it was compelled to give notice to the
sheriff of the shire, or one of the forest-officers, and if he
neglected to do this he had to pay a heavy penalty.
After the sheriff had proclaimed the finding of the bird
at the market-crosses and through the villages once a
month, for four months, and the rightful owner did not
then appear to claim it, the sheriff could keep the bird.
Anyone found robbing the nest of the hawk and taking
out the eggs, was imprisoned for twelve months, if even
the eggs were taken from a tree on the estate which wa,
his own freehold. A good hawk in those days was some-
times sold for as much as a hundred pounds, and when
I tell you that a hundred pounds was equal in value to
more than a thousand pounds in the present day, you
will see what immense sums were sacrificed in the pur-

chase of hawks, and understand -why such sévere laws
38 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

were made to protect them. Even the church launched
its thunders against those who stole hawks, for it is on
record that in the reign of Edward the Third, the Bishop
of Ely excommunicated certain persons for stealing a
hawk that was sitting on her perch in the cloisters of
Bermondsey Abbey in Southwark. The sentence of ex-
communication was regarded in those times as the
severest, hardly excepting death, that could be passed ;
‘since thus the church, in its arrogance, declared that. the
person sentenced should never enter heaven, while it
took care he should never be happy on earth, The
church cursed all who gave the excommunicated person
either meat, drink, clothes, or shelter. It was considered
no crime to kill such a person, and if he died he was not
permitted to be buried in consecrated ground—no bell
tolled for his death, no prayers were read over his
remains, but he was left to decay by the way-side where
he fell, until some one came and threw a few shovels full
of earth over his body.

Unless I assured you that what I have here written is
on record, that all men familiar with our ancient history
and laws know such things did occur and are true, you
could not believe that a bishop would dare to stand in a

church and issue such a sentence as this against some of
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 39

the poor, ignorant inhabitants of Bermondsey for stealing
one of his hawks. The bird was perched in the cloisters
of the old Abbey, and this, no doubt, would allow him to
call the robbery sacrilege, and, as the hawk was his own,
of course he would not spare the offenders. The dignita-
ries of the church were in those times much addicted to
the pleasures of the chase—hawking, &c.—as, indeed, a
hundred years ago the country rector and the curate
were among the maddest huntsmen of their time. But
at the day of which I speak, a law was passed prohibiting
the “inferior” clergy from the pleasures of the field.
This law says, “No priest or clerk not possessed of a
benefice of the yearly amount of ten pounds shall keep a
: greyhound, or any other dog for the purpose of hunting,
neither shall they use ferrets, snares, nets, hare-pipes,
cords, or other engines to take or destroy the deer, hares,
or rabbits.” The penalty was one year’s imprisonment.
As I have before given you the old terms used in
hunting, I shall here, before commencing my description
of hawking, give you the names they applied to birds in
the plural, as a conclusion to this, I fear, rather dry
chapter. An assembly of herons was called a sege of
herons; the same term was applied to bitterns. When

they saw a number of swans, crows, or curlews together,
40 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

they were called a sege. Then these old sportsmen go on
with a dopping of sheldrakes, a spring of teals, a covert
of cootes, a gogele of geese, a bodelynge of ducks, a sord
or sute of mallards, a muster of peacocks, a nye of phea-
sants, a bevy of quails, a covey of partridges, a congrega-
tion of plovers, a flight of doves, a dule of turtles, a walk
of snipes, a fall of woodcocks, a brogd of hens, a building
of rooks, a murmuration of starlings, an exaltation of
larks, a flight of swallows, a host of sparrows, a watch of
nightingales, and a charm of goldfinches. A few of these
ancient terms are still preserved. and made use of, but
the word “ flock” is more commonly used than any other

in describing a large number of birds.
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 41

 

‘ IV.—HAWKING.

HawKkInNe was a popular sport no longer ago than the
time of the Commonwealth, though it was then shorn of
much of the splendour that attended it when followed by

our ancient kings and old nobility. The falconer was
42 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

as great a man as the head-huntsman at this period, and
had as many assistants to look after his hawks as the
other has to aid him in the management of his hounds.
Ladies carried hawks to the field perched on their hands,
which were covered with hawking-gloves, to prevent the
sharp talons of the bird from injuring them; straps of
leather called jesses were fastened to the legs of the
falcon, at the bottom of which were knots that slipped
through the fingers, thus enabling them either to hold
the bird securely, or throw it loose in a moment, for the
jesses were so formed as to slip off when the straps were
relaxed. The falcon’s legs were adorned with bells
(generally of silver), which were fastened on leather
rings, and great pains were taken to select such bells as
had a soft melodious tone. A pleasant sound it must
have been to have heard those sweet silver bells jingling
high up among the clouds, and a pretty sight to have
watched the beautiful upturned faces of England’s early
daughters, as they looked at the hawks, and shaded the
sunshine from their bright eyes, with their hands. Alas!
the wallflower now blooms on the mouldering walls of
the ruined castles in which they dwelt, and many a
forgotten harvest has been reaped off what were then
old forest lands.
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 43

The best hawk-bells were made at Milan and Dort,
and large sums were paid for them. Hawking was often
followed on horseback, though the falconers and atten-
dants were generally on foot, and carried long leaping-
poles in their hands to enable them to spring over the
streams and ditches, for the neighbourhood of rivers was
the favourite haunt of the heron—or heron sue, as these
sportsmen called this bird. We read in old books now
very scarce, of the hawk flying up above the quarry (or
the bird it was in pursuit of) until the broad-winged
falcon appeared to the eye of the beholder in size no
larger than a lark, and how, when she had soared above
the game, she came down plump, like a stone. Then
having overshot her mark, and missed the poor bird she
was about to strike, how she quickly recovered herself,
and soared up again, the game meantime screaming with
affright, and labouring hard to soar higher than the
hawk, as they both winged their way high up towards
the blue dome of heaven. But the strong winged hawk
would keep on beating his way against the wind, while
the gamle went with the wind, and so the hawk would
make his steep ascent without floating a yard from his
perpendicular flight, until he had towered high above his

screaming victim— which we can fancy looking with
44 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

eyes turned upward, and knowing that it was all over
with him; for there would be neither bush nor tree to
shelter under—nothing between the broad face of heaven
and the poor condemned bird.

The hawk has reached an altitude lofty enough from
which to descend and strike the fatal blow. The distance
between himself and the doomed bird is gained in a
moment or two; he has only to open his wings, and the
breeze will bear him along, until he hovers as truly
above his mark as the sightspot of a rifle, levelled by a
practised eye, covers the prey. You cannot see him
descend, for the act is sudden as lightning; all you seem
to witness is one bird falling through the air, for his
talons are deep in the quarry, and they come with a low
“thud” on the earth, though the shock shakes not a claw
out of the body of the dying bird.

Water-fowl appear to have been the favourite game
which hawks were trained to pursue, and in many of the
ancient illustrations which have been preserved even so
far back as the days of the Saxons, we see rude sketches
of hawking parties beside rivers and lakes, for England
in those early times abounded in marshes and rivers,
many of which have long ago been drained; though at

the remote period of which I am now writing there were
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 45

leagues of bogs and swamps, vast sheets of water bordered
with sword-like flags, feathery reeds, and black-tufted
bullrushes, amid which thousands of wild fowl sheltered.
These birds it would not be easy to reach, for there were
no “murderous guns” in those old grey years, and a
sportsman must have got very near to have hit the
game with an arrow. And many a one, more intent
upon watching the flight of the hawks than looking to
their steps, would, tumble headlong into these water-
courses, and kick and splash about among the reeds, to
the great amusement of those who stood on firm land,
especially if the unfortunate had been (as we moderns
call it) “showing off” and trying to win the notice of
the fair ladies who were seated on their ambling palfreys,
calling the hawks which were perched on their wrists all
kinds of endearing names, and after casting them loose,
blowing their silver whistles as a signal for the falcons
to return.

When the hawking party set out, it was followed by
the falconer, who carried the birds on a light frame
which was either of a square or round form, and was
fastened from his shoulders while he walked along in the
centre of the group of birds perched around him. They

were always hooded before being turned loose, nor was
46 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

the hood withdrawn from their eyes until the game was
found, and started. The names of these hawks were the
ger-falcon, tercel, the falcon-gentle, the tercel-gentle,
falcon of the rock, falcon peregrine, bustard, sacre,
sacret, the lanere and the laneret, the merlin, hobby,
gos-hawk, sparrow-hawk, musket, and the kestrel, with
several others—each by their restless actions telling how
eager they were to escape, as they felt the fresh country
breeze ruffling their plumage, so different from the close
air of the mews in which they had been kept. The
proud merlin would hold his head aside, listening to
every sound, and clamorous to soar where he could feel
the warm sunshine on his outspread wings. Then a
heron would start up, his long legs hanging out behind,
as he soared above the assembled cavalcade with some-
thing like a look of defiance, clearing the tall tree tops,
and flapping his way among the clouds. Pride not
thyself too much on those broad white wings, beautiful
bird! for the fell pursuer is near at hand. See, his hood
is slipped off—he is no longer blindfolded—and now,
though thou art swifter than the wind, he will speedily
overtake thee. See, he makes a circle or two in the air,
as if to feel his wings, though really to feel at what rate
the breeze is blowing, and what sail he must hoist to
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 47

overtake thee. Anon he beats the air with his wings,
seeming to take no note of thee, but soaring higher and
higher, as if in an opposite direction. Beware of him;
it is altitude he aspires to, and when he once finds that
he is the higher, he will lessen the distance between you
with a few flappings of his strong broad wings, before
thou hast time to turn round and wing thy way an
arrow’s flight from where he hovers. Now he is high
above thee, though still some distance off. See, he
turns! he no longer flies against the wind, but comes
with it, sudden as a thunderbolt. And now he is over
thee ; and no skilful workman can make surer of striking
the nail-head with the hammer, than he can of striking
thee down in his descent. And now, poor heron, thou
art beginning to descend. Alas! it is too late; for the
speed and strength of the thunderbolt is in his wing, and
his talons will be driven into thee ere one can say “It
lightens.” The deed is done, and in a few seconds thou
wilt be as dead as Pharaoh and all his host.

Sometimes, however, the heron would turn suddenly
round in its descent, and receive the hawk on its long,
pointed beak, which would run through the body of the
falcon like a sharp sword. But this was very rare, for

the stroke of the hawk was sudden as that of a bullet,
48 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

and the heron must have turned before he began to
descend, to do this.

As I have before stated, the buildings in which
hawks were kept were called mews, and the name is
still retained, though such places are now generally used
for stables and coach-houses.

Having already given you the names of most of these
hawks, I shall now describe their qualities, and show
how one was more valuable than another, on account of
the different game it pursued. The species most valued
was the peregrine falcon, a daring bird, attacking the
fiercest quarry, regardless of its size, yet disdaining to
prey upon anything it did not meet in the free open
air. Borne to the earth, the peregrine would strike his
beak into the most vital parts of its victim. It was in
vain for the poor prisoner to attempt an escape when
once within the grasp of those powerful talons. And
then the head and neck—the favourite parts which this
lordly hawk fed upon—were devoured in a few moments,
the body being left for meaner birds to feed upon. The
strong wings of this powerful hawk terminate in a point,
and are so long that when folded they reach to the end
of his tail, so that you can imagine what a width they
are when unfolded. It is said that this bird could fly
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 49

with the wind three miles within a minute. The upper
part of its plumage is of a dusky brownish black, and in
many places it is beautifully speckled.

The ger-falcon is also another bold bird; and when
hawking was a common sport amongst the nobility,
enormous sums were paid for this falcon, as it was
unequalled for attacking such large and fierce game as
cranes and herons, birds swift of flight, but unable to
soar beside this quick cloud-cleaver, who captured its
prey by outsoaring them, then descending with the
velocity of a thunderbolt.

The hobby was one of the smallest of the falcon-
tribe, and was generally flown at larks and such small
game. And so daring is this hawk, that even in the
present day it will frequently dash down upon caged
birds exposed at open windows; and sometimes*it has
broken through the glass and alighted on the cage,
killing the bird within, though there have been several
persons in the room. The hobby was mostly used for
frightening the birds that cowered upon the ground,
as they would not rise while they saw such an anta-
gonist in the air, and thus the fowlers were enabled
to throw the net more easily over the game; for this
was another method they had of capturing birds at this-

E
50 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

remote period. The hobby is a strong bird on the wing,
and can fly scores of miles without resting, though when
full grown it seldom weighs more than seven ounces.

The kestrel is about the same size, and is one of the
most beautiful of our English hawks; and I dare say
hundreds of you know this bird, through having seen
it hovering stationary in the air, then dropping down
like a stone. It is so sharp-sighted, that though to us
it looks but little larger than a bee when it’ is high up in
the air, yet from that immense altitude it can see the
smallest bird in bush or tree, or on the ground, and on it
the kestrel will drop down with the speed of thought.

But who does not know the sparrow-hawk? This
is a falcon all have seen or heard of, especially those
who have lived in the country, for there is hardly a wood
but he builds in. He may be seen hovering above a
farm-yard, then speed down like lightning and pick up a
chicken. The deed is done quicker than the eye can
follow the act ; and he is up and off again, with the little
chicken fast in his sharp talons, before the old hen has
time to raise an alarm, or get out a single “cackle.”
Sometimes the same sparrow-hawk has been known to
visit some old wife’s chickens every day, until he has

carried off a whole brood. He is so lazy, too, that
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 51

naturalists say he will sooner take possession of another
bird’s nest than build one for himself.

The next of these daring marauders is the kite; or
glede, as it is called by country people; this hawk
frequently weighs between two and three pounds, and
thinks no more of pouncing upon a young hare or rabbit
than the sparrow-hawk does of carrying off a chicken.
Wherever prey is to be had, there the kite will venture
when impelled by hunger, even upon the threshold of
the farm-house, when the owner is standing by. Kites
have even stood to be killed rather than resign the game
once seized upon. The eggs of this hawk are quite as
large as those laid by the common farm-yard hen; and
the wings of the full-grown kite, when outspread, often
measure as much as five or six feet from tip to tip. For
strength it is only surpassed by the eagle.

You now see that bird was trained to prey upon bird,
just as dogs were brought up to chase and destroy other
animals; and that as one dog was used to hunt the stag,
another the fox, and a third the hare, so were hawks
taught to bring down the heron, crane, and bittern, the
lesser ones striking at larks and such small birds, and
all in each degree killing the quarry it was best suited
for. In those days a nobleman seldom made a journey
52 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

without carrying his hawks with him, for amusement on
the road ; for there were no carriages in those days, and
if there had been there were no roads for them to travel
on, nothing but bridle-paths, excepting here and there
an old highway made by the Romans. Goods were
conveyed from town to town on the backs of pack-horses,
in dorsers, as the hampers were called. The “Pack-
horse,” and the “ Hore and Dorsers,” are still public-
house signs in the present day, and may often be seen in
old market-towns.

King Edward III. was so fond of hawking that he
could not go to war without taking his hawks with him,
so that when he was not fighting he amused himself with
flying his falcons at birds. It is on record that when he
invaded France he had with him thirty falconers, each
mounted on his horse, and they were pretty constantly,
employed in looking after the king’s hawks. Seldom a
day passed but he went to the river to fly his falcons
at whatever game he could find. The grand falconer was
always a nobleman, and his office was to accompany the
king whenever and wherever he went forth hawking.
No more becoming present could be offered to a king
than first-rate falcons, and so fond were Norman nobles
of their hounds and hawks, that there is an old poem
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 53

printed by Pynson in 1508 (written, no doubt, long
before that period) which states that they came into
church with the falcons on their fists and the hounds
yelping at their heels. I quote the following lines,
which I have modernised :—

Into the church then comes another sot,
Without devotion, fretting up and down,
All to be seen and show his gaudy coat,
With sparrow-hawk on his fist, or falcon,
Or else a cuckoo ; wearing out his shoes,
Before the altar up and down he’ll wander,
Having no more devotion than a gander.
In comes another, his hounds at his tail,
With lines and leashes and such like baggage ;
His dogs bark, and so without fail

Trouble the whole church by their outrage.

Had this been done in one of the abbeys or monas-
teries, the abbot or prior would no doubt have excom-
municated the offenders, no matter how high their rank.
A poor parish priest would have to endure such profana-
tion and keep silent.

Our forefathers were very superstitious. Although
they quailed not before the bravest foemen in the field,
they would start at a shadow, and turn pale at the croak-

ing of a raven or the hooting of an owl.
54 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

The following is the ceremony to be performed for a
sick hawk; and you can fancy one of our brave fore-
fathers who had perhaps fought at Cressy or Agincourt
repeating it. It is from an old work on hawking. “On
the morrow-tide, when thou goest out hawking, say, ‘In
the name of the Lord, the birds of heaven shall be
beneath thy feet.” Also if the hawk be hurt by the
heron, say, ‘The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of
David, has conquered. Hallelujah.” What the poor
‘heron was to have said over him when wounded is not
mentioned. This is not the only instance of such strange
devotions. In an old work on angling there are short
prayers which the angler is to repeat; and there is an

old saying, “If you swear you'll catch no fish.”
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 55

    
   

V.—ARCHERY.

HE bow is an old English weapon,

and, like the gun in the present day, did service both in
56° SPORTS AND PASTIMES

war and peace ; being a formidable instrument in battle,
and of great use in the rural sports and amusements of
the people. English history scarcely records @ victory in
ancient times in which our British bowmen do not stand
out prominently, often turning the tide of battle by their
ell-long shafts, and shooting so rapidly that the air
seemed darkened through their dense shower of arrows.
According to the old ballads and ancient legends, the
English archers could split in two a taper willow wand at
the space of four hundred yards, bring down a wild-goose
on the wing with an arrow at a distance that made the
bird appear no bigger than a lark; while William
Cloudeslie cleft an apple which he placed on the head of
his little son with an arrow at “six-score paces,” causing
the king, who was a spectator, to exclaim, “God forbid
that thou shouldst shoot at me.”

In the high turrets of old ruined castles, you may
sometimes see narrow openings or windows, through
which you cannot do more than thrust your arm; these
were called “arrow-slits,” and the archers within shot at
the besiegers below when the castle was attacked. But
so skilled were the assailants, that they could send an
arrow whizzing through one of those narrow loop-holes,
though they stood on the opposite side of the moat,

and had to shoot against the wind. Even a letter
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 57

affixed to an arrow they would deliver through this
confined space, though there was not an inch to spare
on either side, and the slightest graze would have driven
the missive out of its intended course. Some of these
old bowmen could have split the wings of a butterfly
with a shaft, as it sat like a folded pea-blossom swing-
ing on the flowers. These bows were as tall as the
men who bore them, for it was considered necessary that
an archer should have a bow his own height, as he was
believed to have a better command: over it; while the
arrows were the length of a “cloth-yard,” and such were
those that made direful havoc at the field of Agincourt.
Yew was the favourite wood for making bows, though ash
was often used, while the strings were made of hemp, and
sometimes gut, and very commonly of what was called
“wick leather,” which no doubt was hide prepared in
some peculiar manner. The arrow was generally feathered.
with plumes from the wing of a grey-goose; and in the
far-famed old ballad of “Chevy Chase,” an English archer
hits Montgomery in the breast with such true and deadly
aim, that
The grey goose wing that was thereon
In his heart-blood was wet.

Sometimes the nobles feathered their arrows with the
58 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

plumes of peacocks, no doubt on account of the daz-
zling colours, which gave a gaudy look to their quivers
when they marched forth in holiday costume; for we
cannot imagine that such gorgeous feathers were used
at any other time, saving when enjoying their rural
sports.

The use of the bow was considered necessary in
the education of a young gentleman, and to be a
good arch almost ranked next to that of being a
perfect man-at-arms. Ladies were also taught to
shoot with the bow; and our stout old Queen Eliza-
beth, who when vexed would not hesitate about
giving any one of her nobles such a box on the ear
as made him reel again, once killed four deer with
her own arrows at Cowdery Park in Sussex; Mar-
garet, the daughter of Henry VII, was also expert
at drawing the bow, and killed her buck in Alnwick
Park.

But these ancient ladies sometimes aimed at higher
game; and one of the daughters of Sir Thomas Multon of
Gilsland, who was not exactly a beauty, took up a bow
and arrow because her intended husband hesitated about
going into the chapel of the castle to marry her, and gave

him his choice—either to receive her or the arrow. She
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 59

was so good a markswoman, that he put the best face on

the matter, and while
‘Vowing he would ne’er consent, consented.

I must, however, tell you that these female deer-slayers
did not kill their game fairly while the herd was bound-
ing freely through the wide forests, but had them driven
into inclosures, where, surrounded by the hunters, they
had about as much chance of escaping as a flock of sheep
would ina pen. Robin Hood and his merry men would
have scorned to have drawn a bow-string at deer so
placed, and held him craven who did not shoot when the
herd in full flight went scampering through the glades and
thickets of old Sherwood Forest ; and as for Maid Marian,
she would as soon have shot one of her own nut-brown
babies, as hurled a shaft at a stag so unfairly situated.

There are plenty of fair archeressess in England in
the present day, we doubt not, who could drive an arrow
into a stag at the distance of a score paces, though we
question if one could be found cruel enough to do so.
Miss Multon of Gilsland was the best shot after all, for
she captured her deer without inflicting so much as a
flesh-wound.

You will find in many old towns some locality bear-
60 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

ing the name of Butts—thus on the Surrey side of
London there is Newington Butts; and all these places
derive their names through the butts or targets at which
the archers practised being erected on such spots. But
this old custom was so neglected in the reign of Ed-
ward III. as to cause that monarch to send a letter to
the sheriffs of London complaining that the practice of
archery was laid aside, and the laws enforcing it dis-
obeyed. He therefore commanded them to see that at
leisure hours and holidays the young men of London—
iestead of wasting their time in useless and unlawful
games—should be compelled to practise shooting at the
butts with bows and arrows; and if they neglected such
useful recreation, the penalty was imprisonment during
the king’s pleasure. It was, however, necessary to issue
a similar mandate in the reign of Edward IV., in which
every Englishman was commanded to have a long bow of
his own height, and that butts should be erected on the
outskirts of every town, at which the inhabitants were to
shoot on all feast days and other holidays, or to pay a
penalty of one halfpenny for every omission. A half-
penny, be it remembered, went a long way in those days,
and purchased as much or more than sixpence would

now; so that if the fines were enforced all through
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 61

England, and many defaulters were found, a good sum
must have been added to the king’s exchequer. Even
the Lord Mayor and the sheriffs of London went in pro-
cession to the fields where Finsbury now stands, and
joined the citizens in shooting at the butts about the
time Bartholomew fair was held. But London kept in-
ereasing ; where there were formerly fields, houses were
erected, and the fat aldermen and “greasy citizens” (the
last two words are Shakspere’s) complained that they had
to go farther off every year to practise; and if they had
eaten a good dinner before. starting—for the Corporation
of London were always first-rate trenchermen—capital
hands at using their knives, whatever they might have
been with their bows, for I dare be sworn they could hit.
their mouths much better than they could the butts,
this, puffing and blowing did not at all suit their cor-
porations, so they cried out for more room nearer their
old city halls. Then there was another act passed to pull
down and level and fill up the ditches, and make the
same room and in the same places for the practice of
archery as there had been in the days of Henry VIII.
How they got on I cannot tell you, but I believe that on
inquiry it was discovered that numbers who had com-
plained of the distance they had to go to the butts had
62 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

been the first to encroach and build on the old archery
grounds, so you may guess what sort of a reform there
would be when it came to touch the pockets of the
Corporation !

A father was compelled to teach his children the
art of shooting with the bow as soon as they had
attained the age of seven years; and masters were also
bound to keep bows and arrows for their apprentices
to practise with at all convenient seasons. Just fancy
what a shower of arrows there must have been in every
hole and corner of old London in those days! What
sort of an aim could you expect master Jackey, aged
seven, to have? Why he would be more likely to stick
the arrow in the leg of his venerable father than not.
There was nothing but accidents happening ; nobody
could be safe but those who wore armour ; there could
hardly have been a cat but what had an arrow-wound,
and scarcely a dog but had had his dart. And no
matter what injury the young rascals did, if they only
cried “ Fast” before discharging their arrows ; the party
shot could obtain no redress, for such was the law. I
should think masters were pretty civil to their appren-
tices in those days; if not, it was easy enough to cry

“Fast,” and give them “ pepper” at the same time,
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 63

And now I shall proceed to quote such directions as
were given to archers two hundred years ago, when
England was proud of her bowmen, and the victories
of Cressy and Agincourt were still talked about among
the old homesteads of Britain.

“ An archer should stand fairly and uprightly with
his body, his left foot at a convenient distance before
his right; holding the bow by the middle, with his
left arm stretched out, and with the three first fingers
and the thumb of the right hand upon the lower part
of the arrow affixed to the string of the bow. In the
second place, a proper attention must be paid to the
nocking —that is, properly placing the notch at the
bottom of the arrow on the bow-string—to do which
the notch of the arrow should rest between the fore-
finger and the middle finger of the right hand. The
shaft of the arrow below the feathers ought to be rested
upon the knuckle of the fore-finger of the left hand ;
the arrow to be drawn to the head and then discharged
at once, without allowing it to press beyond the moment
on the bow-string.”

In ancient times the arrow was shot by drawing the
pow-string to the right breast; but so far back as the
time of Elizabeth this plan of holding the bow was
64 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

changed, and the method adopted as practised now, of
elevating the bow to the right ear. A good archer has
a clear sight, a steady hand; he is able to measure
distance pretty accurately with his eye, knows what
allowance to make for the wind, and knows how to
take advantage of it, understands the weight and com-
pass of his arrows, and is always as cool as courage
itself. Roger Ascham, who wrote a work on archery
three hundred years ago, advises those who look. more
at the end of the arrow than the mark aimed at, to
shoot at night, at lights placed some distance off, so
that they may not look at their arrows. But there are
no such archers now as there were in former days, for
in the time of Henry VIII it was enacted that no
person who had attained the age of twenty-four years
should shoot at a mark unless it was placed two hundred
and twenty yards off. And Carew, speaking of the
Cornish archers, says: “The shaft was a cloth-yard in
length, and the marks twenty-four score paces off —
equal to four hundred and eighty yards—at which
distance they could pierce any ordinary armour” But
there was in the above-named king’s reign an archer
who could hit a mark at a great distance while standing

on one leg, and with his other foot doubled up, and
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 65

stuck in the bosom of his jerkin; and for this feat he
was nick-named Foot-in-Bosom. Another archer, named
Arundel, could shoot an arrow between two and three
hundred yards, either with his right or left hand; or,
holding the bow backward, discharge it from behind his
head. Bow-kneed Bruce is said to have knocked a
sparrow off the spire of Boston church with a bolt—
but he drew a “long-bow.”

When we consider that no other weapon could be
used at any distance in battle excepting the bow—for
slingers of stones were rarely employed saving in sieges
—we see at. once the utility of the bow before gunpowder
was invented. Even armour was but little protection
against these formidable weapons; and as we are well
aware that few saving knights and their retainers were
clothed in mail, the chief body of an army would carry
nothing saving a shield that could ward off the stroke
of an arrow shot from a distance of four hundred yards.
Besides, these ancient bowmen could shoot their shafts
into the air with such accuracy that they would plunge
point downward into the hindmost ranks of the enemy,
while the armed knights were engaged hand to hand
at the point of the battle. We read of victories won
through arrows sticking the enemy in the face; and

F
66 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

Harold, the last of the Saxon kings, fell pierced by an
arrow through the brain, in the field of Hastings, when
William the Bastard conquered England. Nor was it
until after the Norman invasion that archery became so
famous in our island; many a hard-fought field was then
won by British bowmen, and the yeomen of England
stood second to none in the use of this terrible weapon.
Perhaps there are no instruments of destruction more
ancient than the bow and sling, or more commonly used
in early warfare. They are frequently mentioned in the
early chapters of the Bible, and were known to ancient
nations whose names alone have survived Time’s obli-
terating finger. We find arrow-heads of flint in the
graves of those who have left no other record of their
existence, excepting the few bones that lie scattered
amid the remains of those rude weapons, and which
were perhaps used centuries before the Roman trumpets
echoed across our island shores.

At what period the arbalist or cross-bow was first
used in England is not recorded, though the general
belief is that it was not known among the Normans,
who had settled down in this country, before the thir-
teenth century. But our early chronicles make mention

of this formidable weapon ; and the lion-hearted King
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 67

of England, Richard the First, was no doubt wounded
by an arrow shot from a cross-bow, while besieging
Chulezun. The cross-bows were not, however, so effec-
tive at the battle of Cressy as the old-fashioned English
long-bows, for we read that previous to the battle a
sharp shower of rain had fallen, which wet the cross-bow
strings of the enemy, and rendered them of no effect.
But this shower did no injury to our English long-bow
strings, excepting to make them tighter, and so enabling
the bowmen to send their arrows deeper into the hearts
of the enemy. The cross-bow was more frequently used
at sieges and sea-fights than pitched battles on land.
When the great difference in the value of money is
considered, it will be seen that a really good bow cost
a pretty large sum in the olden time, for one made of
the best foreign yew could not be purchased for less than
six shillings and eightpence, while an inferior one was
valued at half that amount; and these prices, let it be
borne in mind, were affixed by Act of Parliament. There
was a peculiar kind of arrow used as a signal, which
made a loud whistling noise as it flew through the air
in the night, and this sound is said to have been
produced by holes made through the head, and they

were known as signal-arrows.
68 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

I can only add, as a conclusion, that very valuable
prizes were often given in ancient times to the best
archers, who shot against one another for gold and silver
arrows, chains of gold, pipes of wine, fat bucks, &c, and
that you will find in “ Robin Hood’s Garland” a collec-
tion of poems recording the exploits of that famous
outlaw and his followers, and how the Sheriff of Not-

tingham, at a great mustering of archers,

Did cry a full fair play,

That all the best archers of the north
Should come upon a day ;

And that he who shot the best
The prize should bear away.

But he that shot must shoot his best,-
Farthest, fair, and low,

At a pair of goodly butts,
Under the green-wood shaw.

And a right good arrow he should have,
The shaft of silver white,

The head and feathers of rich red gold,
In England none is like.

And when they came to Nottingham,
The butts were fair and long,

And thrice Robin Hood did shoot,
And he always cleft the wand.
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 69

   
      

i}
f

    
 
 

\ VI.—COUNTRY FEASTS WRG Fe,
AND FAIRS. i

Airs, feasts, wakes, church-ales, or by what-
soever names these English merry-makings
are known, are of ancient date, and many of them may

be traced as far back as the times of the Saxons.

4
70 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

Wake—the name is still retained in many country
places—signifies a country feast; and was originally held
on the day the village church was dedicated to religious
worship, or on the birthday of the saint it was called
after. Thus you will see that what had its origin at
first in a religious ceremony at last dwindled down to
a rustic festivity; that, instead of erecting booths and
tents with the boughs of trees around the churches, and
therein praying and keeping up the wakes or vigils as
directed, “they fell to singing and dancing,” says an old
author, “with harping and piping, gluttony and sin.”
And the less holy the wakes became, the more popular
they were, as the merriment increased; for, although the
priests cursed with bell, book, and candle, the people

ate and drank, sang and danced, and made themselves
| merry, in spite of abbot or prior.

Finding that such uproars rendered “ night hideous,”
these meetings were ordered at last to take place by day,
so that there might be a better view of what took place;
and then the whole character of the thing was altered.
Instead of beads, crosses, and trumpery relics being sold,
as heretofore, only by the priests, the sturdy pedlar came
trudging up with his pack, exposed his wares, and, as

Shakspere has described him, sang aloud—
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 71

Lawn as white as driven snow,
Cypress black as e’er was crow,
Gloves as sweet as damask roses,
Masks for faces and for noses,
Bugle bracelet, necklace amber,
. Perfume for a lady’s chamber,

Golden quoifs and stomachers,
For my lads to give my dears,

Will you buy any tape,

Or lace for your cape?

Any silk, any thread,

Any toys for your head?

With him came the ballad-singer, chanting many
an old ditty that has been lost and forgotten centuries
ago. Maskers and mummers followed— dancing dogs
and bears—monkeys that could play no end of tricks—
until by degrees the wake attained what Ben Jonson ,
has so admirably described in his play entitled “ Bartho-
lomew Fair,” and some resemblance to which may still
be seen in the fairs and feasts of the present day.

But there are now no cudgel-players, but few wrestling
matches, and as for fvot-ball, that is played all the year
round in some places. Pitching the bar, and throwing
the stone or hammer, is a common enough sport at all
country feasts; so are quoits, and many similar games.

The “Spectator” makes mention of a whistling match,
72 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

and says the prize was one guinea, to be conferred
upon the ablest whistler—that is, he that could whistle
clearest, and go through his tune without laughing, to
which at the same time he was provoked by the antic
postures of a merry-andrew, who was to stand upon
the stage, and play his tricks in the eye of the performer.
There was also a yawning or gaping match for a Cheshire
cheese; and he that yawned the widest, and produced
the greatest number of natural yawns or gapes from the
spectators, obtained the cheese. What laughter such
silly amusements must have caused !

Hunting the pig is also a common sport at country
fairs, though not so many prizes of that kind are given
now as there were formerly. The pig must be caught
and held for a given time by the tail; but not only was
the tail cut down to a mere stump, but what little did
remain was so covered with soap, that you might as
well hope to retain an eel in a well-oiled hand as to
keep fast hold of the pig, when caught, for half-a-dozen
brief seconds. Added to which, it is considered fair for
every competitor, and every looker-on, and every cur
that comes to a fair, to shout, clap their hands, bark,
and make the most hideous noises while the holder of

the pig grasps the slippery and soapy stump; so that,
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 73

before the two minutes have expired which he must
retain the pig, with one hand, to win, the grunter is off
again, as if a thousand imps were after his heels.

Shying at live cocks was one of the cruel amusements
formerly practised at wakes and fairs, but more especially
at Shrovetide; but this barbarous custom, along with
that of bull and badger-baiting, has long ago fallen
into disuse (excepting, perhaps, badger-baiting), and
would now be punished if practised. Cock-fighting is
also rarely heard of; though cock-pits, in which these
spirited birds fought matches for immense sums of money,
were formerly almost as plentiful as ale-houses. Dog
fights are still frequent, though not so common as they
were at country fairs in my boyish days.

Jumping in sacks is fine fun, as only the heads of
the competitors are exposed, the sacks being tied fast
round their necks, into which all the rest of their bodies
are put; thus, as both legs and arms are in the sack, he
who tumbles has no more chance of getting up again
by his own exertions than a log of wood. Sometimes
the racers or jumpers jostle one another, and the whole
lot are down at once, when they have to be picked up,
carried to the starting-point, and again renew the contest.

Now and then some quiet, simple-looking country fellow,
74 _ SPORTS AND PASTIMES

who has no doubt had a good deal of private practice,
will give his companions a wide berth, and, jumping
along in short leaps, like a sparrow, reach the goal
with ease, while his rivals are floundering on the ground,
and waiting to be picked up.

But grinning through a horse’s collar always awoke
the greatest laughter, and they were generally the ugliest
fellows in the neighbourhood who aspired to win the
prize. Oh, how they did roll thcir eyes, open their
mouths, and distort their naturally ugly features, as
first one face appeared, then another, in the same collar!
while the gaping rustics roared again as they looked,
delighted, on each fresh and more hideous contortion.

Eating hot hasty-pudding was another feat that
afforded great amusement at country fairs—he who first
emptied his dish being the winner of the prize. The
hasty-pudding was turned out of the iron pot as hot as
it could be made. Each dish or basin (all being of a
size) was filled to the brim ; and at a given signal the
three competitors commenced, with nothing but their
tongues and fingers, as spoons were not allowed to be
used. Into the pudding went one fellow’s finger, and,
finding it scalding, boiling hot, he had his finger out and

into his mouth before you could say “Jack Robinson ;”
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 75

and then, with awful countenance, he would shake the
suffering member as he groaned again with pain. A
second competitor would stoop down and try what he
could do with the tip of his tongue; but you soon saw
him shaking his head, as if he didn’t like it at all.
A third, more cautious than the other two, would keep
on blowing his dish, and touching it very gingerly with
the tip of his finger, managing to get off from time to
time the skim or film, which was always the coolest ; and
though he seemed to make the slowest progress, yet he
very often finished first, for he took care not to scald his
throat, so that his capabilities were good to the last. It
was, after all, a painful exhibition ; and, though I laughed
as heartily as any of my companions, I was glad to get away,
and look at something else unaccompanied by torture.
Climbing the greasy pole had none of these drawbacks,
for when the aspirants slid down they alighted on their
feet, and, if even they tumbled, there was plenty of saw-
dust to fall down upon. There was the new hat, flaunt-
ing with gaudy-coloured ribbons, looking so temptingly
down from the top of the slender pole, while scores of
eager eyes were turned up to the envied prize, and many
conjectures formed as to who would bring it down. Then

a few urchins would climb up a little way, and come
76 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

down again with a rattle, their waistcoat, jacket-sleeves,
or smock-frocks smeared with the soft-soap and grease
which covered the pole, and almost made it as slippery as
glass. Perhaps the baker’s apprentice would be the next
to venture, having just filled all his pockets with flour, so
that he might dust his way up. But all would be of no
use; for so thickly would the grease adhere to his hands
and clothes, that he would descend at last like a ship
when it is launched, and all the fastenings are knocked
away. He had, however, cleared the way to a certain
height for the next aspirant ; and up to where the young
baker had left his mark was, to the next persevering
climber, pretty easy of ascent. Very often as many as
twenty or thirty would try for the hat, until at last the
climbers—by the voices of the lookers-on—would be
limited to three or four, and then the struggle became
more interesting, as at every ascent the competitors
approached nearer the prize; and sometimes one would
purchase another’s turn for a few pence, in the hope of
gaining the hat that time—a hope not always realized.
Still, there was always exhibited, on the part of the
spectators, a sympathy for him who had made the most
attempts, and the delight was universal if at last he
became the victor.
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 77

Then there were the stalls with all their wonderful
toys, surrounded by children whose eyes became round
and prominent through staring. Oh, what a noise they
made with their tin trumpets, tiny drums, penny rattles,
dogs that squealed, whistles that fairly went through
your ears, organs that played only one tune, and little
fiddles that hadn’t a tune in them at all, though they
added their din to the deafening confusion! Ah! there
are no such Jacks-in-boxes now; they don’t seem to
jump up so great a height, nor to go in and come out:
so quickly as they did in my boyish days. The old
cobblers who stitch, and the old women who churn,
do not move their elbows and arms so nimbly as they
seemed to do when I bought and broke them to see
where their moving powers were hidden. The spots
on the wooden horses are not so large and round, neither
are their legs so thick and straight, nor the nails that
their manes and tails were hammered on with, so big
as they seemed to be in my younger days. Hundred-
jointed Jack, who, when we pulled a string, used to
separate his chest from his stomach, his head from
his neck, and his legs and arms from his body, is
only natural: now; and such rude toys as were for-

merly sold” at these country fairs would not be looked
78 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

at by the boys of this trading, railway, and electric
age.

And those large rows of gingerbread stalls! I have.
never eaten the whole alphabet since those days, when
I used to swallow A and B at a mouthful, and finish
with Z and & Many a gingerbread king did we then
behead, eating up his horse and saddle like winking;
also the tinsel, which was called royal gold. The
imagination and fancy which gave such lively ideas
4o the forms of gingerbread are dead and gone, and
there is nothing now left but round, monstrous ginger-
bread-nuts, for the glory of Old Grantham is departed.

Then there were the conjurors. I wish the Wizard
of the North had kept the secrets of his art to himself;
for there was somewhat of awe and mystery about a
man of whom it was believed that he had sold him-
self to Old Scratch, so that he might, for a given
number of years, be the king of all the conjurors.
Such a fellow would put a brick under your hat and
change it to a living guinea-pig; and you had no doubt
that he could have produced a real roaring lion if he
had chosen. He would put flax into his mouth and
breathe fire; but that you did not so much wonder

at, considering his warm connexions. What need had
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 79

he to keep hens, who could draw as many eggs as he
liked out of an empty bag? Professor Anderson has
spoiled all our faith in diablerie by making these
wonderful tricks as easy to do as putting on a glove,
and as plainly to be seen as the nose on a boy’s face.
Then there was the great giant, who, the showman
avowed, could hardly have found room to have stood
up in under the Tower of Babel—who used to swear
that his legs were so long they went three times round
the caravan, and then had to be tucked under him to
be out of the way. Next was the fat boy, who looked
in the painting outside as if he had been fed all his
life on. prize bullocks, and weaned on rich marrow-
bones. The showman said there was but another like
him in the world, and that the two were so big they
had to be brought over in three ships. There was also
the dwarf, so small that the showman who trumpeted
his diminutiveness would pull a tiny snuff-box out of
his waistcoat pocket, and, showing it to us, say that
were the dwarf to be put in it, he would never find
his way out again unless he had a lantern; and some
of the simple country folk, who stood listening with
open mouths, would exclaim, “Bless me! what a mite

17?

he must be
80 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

Then there was the sheep with three heads, and
the calf with no head at all; the pig that had all run
into legs of pork, and the cat whose tail was a real
kitten; to say nothing of the green, fiery, flying dra-
gon, which had been caught in a net two miles high,
just as it was going into its den down the mouth of
Mount Etna. Some said it was made of wood, and
painted; but how came it to smell so strongly of brim-
stone ?

Then there was sure to be a recruiting party, with
drums beating and fifes playing, and the serjeant
strutting at the head with a real drawn sword in his

’’ the old wives would exclaim

hands. “ Lawks-a-mercy
with uplifted hands, “what a sight of blood that sword
must have spilt! It makes one tremble a’most only to
look at it.” Then Johnny, who had had a few words
with his sweetheart, and had got “a sup of drink in
his yead, would ‘list, “hey, that he would,” and go to
‘the wars, and get killed as quick as possible, since he
couldn’t have “his Polly dear.” Then Polly would rush
out to prevent him, and Polly’s mother would follow
with her pattens in her hand, and Polly’s little brother,
who held the cotton umbrella, would drink up all the
ale, and eat up all the gingerbread, as soon as they
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 81

quitted the village alehouse; and there would be “sich
a-getting up-stairs’’ before they were able to coax
Johnny in again as you “never did see.”

I need not tell you that there was sure to be Punch
and Judy and the dancing dogs. The peep-show, in
which, “if you looked to the right, you saw the Duke
of Wellington on horsey-backey ; and if you looked to
the left, you saw Napoleon Bonaparte on footey-backey,”
according to the showman’s description; while the old
woman poured a quart of water over some kind of glass-
work, as she exclaimed, “Behold them here dreadful
falls of the Nigher-garry (Niagara), where lions wot gets
in is washed down like soapsuds, and whaleses has no
more chance of getting out nor a nigger.” Then there
was the “Death of Nelson,” in wax-work—“ A-laying
with the cannon-ball in his mouth, as natural as life,
wot stopped his wital powers, all aboard on the Wictory.”
That the rustics rushed in to see. But I have not space
to tell you all about the “wild-beast shows,” and the
tradition, so firmly believed in when I was a boy, of the
man who, when his head was in the lion’s mouth, felt
as if he didn’t much mind it, while he exclaimed, “Does
he wag his tail? Does he erect his mane?” and who,
when the affrighted spectators said, “Yes !—yes!” had

G
82 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

just time to utter, “Then I’m a dead man, and no
mistake,” and pop went his head off, and down the
lion’s throat it rolled, as readily as you would swallow
a gooseberry. The ballad singers; the tables with white
cocks and black cocks; the knock-’em-downs, at which
we shied three sticks a-penny, and seldom got anything ;
the swings that went very high, and made us feel very
ill; the round-abouts we rode upon, mounted on wooden
horses, with many another wonder, and many another
folly, I have not room enough to describe; for to tell
you all I know about them would be to fill up the whole
book, at the sacrifice of the knowledge it contains, and
which is calculated to make you wiser men than ever

your simple-minded forefathers were.
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 83

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VIL—SHOOTING WATER-FOWL, GROUSE,
PARTRIDGES, PHEASANTS, &e.

Now I will shift the scene, and carry you away to

the wild water-courses and melancholy meres which run
84 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

and expand over wide marshes and reedy fens, where
the bittern booms, and that solitary fisherman, the heron,
stands silent for hours; while the tufted plover flies with
a wailing sound over the lonely landscape. In the low
fens of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, where wild-
fowl are most plentiful, there are hundreds of acres of
land covered only with reeds, rushes, and broad water-
flags, between which deep sluices boil and murmur, as
they hasten on with headlong speed to empty themselves
into some neighbouring river. As the deep waters roll
and tear along, they rock the black bullrushes and the
tufted reeds, and give a wavy and dreamy motion to
the overhanging willows, under which the wild-fowl
shooter glides noiseless as death, making no more sound
as he drops his little paddle into the deep, sullen water,
than an eagle, whose scream is hushed, does while
cleaving a cloud. Here and there ever keeps rising
the full-fed mallard, with its head and neck of the
richest velvet green ; of the delicious teal, which only
to mention sets the mouth watering; while clouds of
lapwings and plovers sweep above the far-stretching
leagues of rushes; and sometimes the wild swan springs

up like a sheeted ghost amid the solitude, and flaps

The clouds away in playful scorn,
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 85

And if you get into these wild marshes, my boys, you
must make up your mind patiently to endure cold and
wet, and be content to feed on what you carry with
you, As for dress, the nearer you approach a sea-
fisherman in that the better: you must wear huge
water-boots, if you wish to keep your feet and legs
dry ; and, if you never put on flannel before, you will
find how necessary it becomes, and will soon learn to
wear it when you have turned wild-fowl shooter. Then
you must learn to move about silent almost as a cloud,
for even the drip of the water from the paddle will
sometimes startle these quick-eared birds; indeed, when
you are drawing near their haunts, the paddle must
not be used at all, but the punt be worked along by
clutching at the willows and reeds, and so moving the
boat as you keep shifting your hand-hold. The dawn
of morning and the moonlight of evening must also be
taken advantage of, as many of these wild birds only
feed at such periods.

And now we will try a shot at yonder heron, which
seems standing, as if in a brown study, on the little
rounding ledge that projects beyond the background of
reeds. That bird will stand for hours motionless as a

monument, fixed as a mile-stone, so still that the young
86 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

fry swim to and fro over his shadow in the water. He
appears to regard them not, although his bright, piercing
eye is awake to every motion, for well does he know
that their full-grown fathers and mothers will soon
venture amongst them, to see how they are behaving
themselves. Mr. Heron is right; anon they come, when,
quick as thought, the father of the Fry family is in his
long bill, and sent down “red lane” with a gulp that must
astonish him. The dear old mother, who is struggling
under the heron’s feet, follows the remains of her beloved
husband ; then a few plump sons and daughters go “the
way of all fish ;’ and now, as he has taken away life
enough, we will see how he likes lead.

Bang! there he goes—he little dreamed we were
so near at hand; his rich plumes are already dabbled
with mud. Keep back the dog, unless you want the
bill of the dying heron to be driven through his brain.
You know not what danger there is in approaching
him—his dying struggles are like a giant’s; were you
near enough, and he had the chance, he would plunge
his keen bill into you with as much force as the arm
of a strong man would drive a dagger into your body.
The only safety is in holding him as we do now, with

one foot planted on his neck, like a conqueror of old.
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 87

That shot at the heron has startled all the wild-fowl
for a full mile round, so we must make our way deeper
into the fen through these extensive ranks of rushes.
We are now in a spot likely enough to be the haunt of
wild ducks, which you all know how to tell from tame
ducks, through their having black feet. We must keep
the dogs behind when we land here, for they will be
more useful in fetching than finding. Here comes a
cloud of ducks, with their heads against the wind, and
very fortunate we are to meet with them flying so low.
Aim a little ahead. There you go, my beauties, head
foremost, and your sleek-breasted dames are following
you, topsy-turvy. What a scattering of beautiful plumage!
Where was there ever an emerald richer in colour than
that mallard’s neck? Look also at this ring of plumage
white as the choicest ivory. Ah, Ponto! you may wag
your tail; you feel none of the qualms that we then
felt, while handling the beautiful creatures which we
‘have just killed.

All diving birds are hard to shoot, for they are so
quick of sight, that the instant the flash of the gun
is seen, they are under water. This is what wild-fowl
shooters call “ducking the flash ;” and the surest plan
to kill is to aim under instead of at them.
88 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

Widgeon and dun-birds are now so common, that I
need hardly stop to tell you of the means adopted for
their capture. Decoys are generally used; and, in one
large pond in Essex, as many dun-birds were taken at
one “drop” as filled a waggon; and so densely were
the birds crowded together in the pens, that the very
weight of the poles and nets which fell upon them
squeezed the undermost birds quite flat, as they lay
upon each other, like herrings in a barrel.

To shoot a water-hen or a water-rat is generally the
first ambition of a fen-boy as soon as he is trusted with
a gun; for both are rapid divers, and so quick of hearing
(at least, so we boys were taught to believe), that they
caught even the sound of our breathing.

As to the pecuit, or plover—which you all know
through the beautiful plume of feathers he has on his
head—he is almost as difficult to hit as a knat; he goes
about on the wing with almost as many jerks and darts
as a butterfly, and only one of Paddy’s guns—that is
made for shooting round three corners at once—is likely
to hit him.

There are scores of other water-fowl which I have
not space to describe, such as teals, god-wits, coots,
water-rails, bitterns, and a whole host beside, which I
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 89

dare say many of you have heard of or read about.
Although rook-shooting does not strictly come under the
head of field-sports, yet it affords as much amusement
to our homely farmers as the more aristocratic pastimes
do the gentry. The best time to shoot young rooks is
when they have quitted their nests, yet dare not as yet
essay any further flight than from one branch to another;
and this they do not always accomplish in safety, but
sometimes miss their footing, when down they come,
head over heels—a kind of a cross between tumbling and
flying, in which they often hit their poor little heads
rather hard, as if they knew that they were journeying
towards the land of rook-pies, and that it was not of
much cousequence as to which way they took. Cross-
bows, bolt-bows, air-guns, and all other sorts of guns,
are used in rook-shooting, and many a lad, with a good
aim, will knock a few young rooks off the branches with
stones, when no other weapons are to be had. Still
it requires a tolerable good marksman, if the trees are
high, to pick off one of those little lumps of increasing
blackness, which are so much like the knot of a tree
that, unless they chance to open their mouths and gape,
you can hardly tell at a first glance which is wood and
which is rook, Then what a “to-do” there is amongst
90 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

the old rooks while you are shooting at their blessed
black babbies. No doubt, in their own language, they
call the rook-shooters all the “murderous villains *
they can “lay their tongues to.” How the country boys
enjoy the sport, rushing in to pick up the young rooks
when they have fallen, or, if they can, catching them.
in their hats and caps before they come to the ground.
In short, rook-shooting in spring is looked upon as a
rural holiday, for the’ farmers and proprietors of the
rookeries care not how many are killed, wrongfully
believing that they do only harm. This, however, is
a great mistake; for there are many instances on record
that, where rookeries have _been destroyed, the corn,
which had never before been injured, has been devoured
by insects the year following that in which the rookeries
were emptied. To such an extent have these ravages
been carried on by the cockchafer, in neighbourhoods
where this insect was seldom seen when rooks abounded,
that whole fields have been desolated, and not a single
ear of corn left to reap. Here, surely, is a plea strong
enough for the preservation of rookeries.

Grouse is seldom found in any, quantity, except in
Scotland, where it frequents moist covers—especially the.

black grouse—-and lower situations than that chosen
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 91

 

BLACK GROUSE.

by the red grouse, for it is fond of heaths and moorlands,

where the berries of ling are plentiful. But the red
92 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

grouse is believed to be a true British bird, and has never,
I believe, been found on the Continent. Once it was
plentiful in Yorkshire, and there above forty brace have
been shot during a short morning by a single individual.
There are some extensive moors in Westmoreland
where grouse abound, many of these wilds stretching to
a distance of thirty or forty miles ; and unless a stranger
has a keen eye and a retentive memory of landmarks,
he will be likely enough, while shooting in these
solitudes, if he is not provided with a pocket compass,
when night comes, to take up his lodging on the cold
ground, if he ventures too far without a guide. The
ptarmigan, or white grouse, is only to be met with in
the highlands of Scotland, appearing to be fond of cold
situations; its flavour is considered inferior to that of
the red grouse. The grouse localities in Scotland let for
high rentals, nor are they always well stocked. There
have been loud clamours lately respecting a deficiency
of grouse, nor do we think the facility of railway tra-
velling at all likely to lessen the outcry; for hundreds
will, no doubt, now rush to the moors, whom time and
the expense of the journey formerly kept at home. To
those who are wealthy, and can afford to encamp on

the Scottish moors, attended by their servants, and
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 93

surrounded with all the “good things” conducive to the
comforting of the outer and inner man, grouse-shooting
is a most princely amusement. There they can “eat,
drink, and make merry,” take healthful exercise by day,
and enjoy sound sleep under their canvas roof at night,
without experiencing any greater trouble than that of
having had a bad day’s sport ; for these wild and path-
less moors are splendid hunting grounds, where the
eagle is heard screaming overhead, while the solitary
red-deer stands sentinel on some neighbouring summit,
just as his antlered forefathers did above a thousand
years ago.

In partridge-shooting, a sportsman, if at all ac-
quainted with the ground, generally knows where to
“prick” for his covey, having often noticed where the
birds alight and feed. Once on the spot, if game be
pretty plentiful, it will not be long before the dogs are
seen to remain stationary. The marker will also have
his eyes on the scattered covey the moment the trigger
is pulled, though sometimes, after alighting, they will
run full fifty or a hundred yards through the stubble,
but this will not mislead you if your dogs and men
understand their work. Sometimes, however, a covey

parts; and if you have two dogs, they will each follow
94 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

a division, and then point their own game. Then you

must, in the words of the old song,

Make yourself happy with either
While the other dear charmer’s away.

No true sportsman will follow the same birds many
times in one day, but allow them to rest and recover
themselves from the alarm, for they soon regain con-
fidence, and rarely fly their haunts for long, though
they may have lost a few members of the family.

The ptarmigan is another game bird not to be.
passed over. Early in spring ptarmigans separate and
pair. The nest is a slight hollow, scantily strewn with
a few twigs and blades of grass. The eggs are of a
regular oval form, about an inch and a half in length
and an inch across, of a yellowish white or reddish
colour, blotched and spotted with dark brown. The
young run about immediately after leaving the shell,
and from the commencement are so nimble and expert
at concealing themselves, that a person who accidentally
falls in with a flock very seldom succeeds in capturing
one.

Next comes the pheasant, which, as you all know,

is a very beautiful bird. His eyes look as if set in
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 95

 

PTARMIGANS.
96 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

rubies, so richly coloured in the scarlet rim with which
they are encircled, while a dark patch of purple feathers
relieves them underneath. The head and neck assume
such a variety of gaudy hues, when seen in the shifting
light, that it is almost impossible to tell where the blue
or purple begins, or the rich ever-varying green ends.
I have more than once seen this magnificent bird spring
suddenly up and fly across an open forest glade in the
summer sunshine, and as the blaze of light fell full
upon it, the plumage seemed as if formed of every
imaginable hue of gold, green, purple, violet, and
crimson, all barred and flecked, and speckled with rich
umbery brown and glossy black, far more splendid than
the richest robes ever worn by an eastern monarch, when
he came forth glittering in all his “barbaric pearl and
gold.” When the King of Lydia was seated on his
golden throne and covered with priceless jewels, he asked
the wise Solon if he had ever beheld anything that
equalled the splendour with which he was surrounded?
“The plumage of the pheasant exceeds it all,” was the
answer of the great philosopher.

Yet against this beautiful bird, almost more than
any other, is brought the murderous system of battue-

shooting. We do believe that many English gentlemen
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 97

have set their faces against this unfair practice of
sporting of late, which is really no better than converting
the woods and preserves into a wholesale slaughter-house.
The poor birds have no chance of escaping when a dozen
barrels are aimed at them from every direction. It is
as cruel a system, in our eye, as the once barbarous
custom of pinning a cock to the ground at Shrovetide;
and shying at it with heavy sticks; for if the bird is
missed by one, it is sure to be hit by another. It is

a cowardly system of killing game, un-English, and
unmanly.
98 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

 

  

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VIIL—HORSE-RACING.

Tur horse is the most beautiful animal on the face
of the earth. Look at his eye—his head—his splendid
neck—exquisitely formed body—the symmetry of his
legs—his flowing mane and tail; and though he has
not the majesty of the lion, nor the soft expression of
the deer, yet, taking him altogether, there is no other
animal so beautiful. All noble-minded boys love dogs

and horses—all our English monarchs have delighted in
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 99

them, for on the horse they followed the chase, and,
armed from head to heel, they were borne by the bold
charger into thickest ranks of battle. Beautiful ladies,
with their tresses streaming out in the wind, and their
scarfs “blown in an arch,” never looked so lovely as
when mounted on a graceful palfrey; for it was then
that

Each gave each a double charm,
Like pearls upon an Ethiop’s arm.

Then there is “the speed of light” in the exquisite
limbs of the race-horse. He seems to spurn the earth
as he plants his fiery hoofs on it; and you can almost
fancy that, were it not for what Sir Isaac Newton
calls “ attraction,” the noble animal would shoot off
without a pause into the immensity of space. You
have all heard of Eclipse, and the wonders he per-
formed, and have some of you been on a race-course,
and witnessed the noble struggle with “bated breath”
as they threw out their length of limb like gaunt grey-
hounds, and “drank up the wind” in their arrowy
flight! Puritanical pleasure-hating people tell us that
racing is wicked. I don’t believe it. It is a fine, noble,
ancient English sport; and that horses enjoy it, you

need only look at them when loose in some large field
100 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

or wide common, and then you will see that they are
at times as fond of racing as you yourselves are of
running against each other, only for the love of trying
your strength and speed.

But it is not of modern racing that I now write;
I want to carry you into the past, to show you how
races were conducted in ancient times, and so bring
you down to our own day.

England was celebrated from the earliest period
for its horses; they are praised by the old Roman
historians, and you all know what havoc the war-
chariots of the ancient Britons made among Cesar’s
legions. Nor can there be any doubt—from the fossil
remains that have been discovered—that the horse
roamed free through our island ages before we have
any record of its being in the possession of man. From
a very early period’ we find that great value was set
upon a good horse, and that horses were brought across
the sea when navigation was in its infancy; for so
early as the reign of Athelstan, the Saxon, we find
mention of a present of “running horses” that was
sent to him from France. In the time of Edward III,
a swift horse was valued at twenty marks, or nearly

fourteen pounds of the money of that day—an immense
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 10]

sum when compared with the price of other things at
that period, when a sheep might be purchased for six-
pence. King Richard of the Lion-heart is said to have
had in his possession, when leading the Crusaders

against Saladin, a horse so valuable that

Not for a thousand pounds in gold
Would he his noble steed have sold.

One of the most gentlemanly accomplishments of
the olden time was considered to be skill in riding
and managing a horse—indeed, it was often thought
more of than a display of dexterity in the use of war-
weapons. That men should be proud of the speed and
beauty of their horses is very natural—also that
disputes would arise as to which was the swiftest, and
this could alone be decided by racing or running them
against each other.

I will now give you the origin of horse-racing in
England, at as early a period as I find it on record,
which is in the reign of Henry II. You all remember
this king, and the struggle he had with Thomas-a-
Becket—his love of fair Rosamond, and how she was
poisoned by Queen Eleanor in the Bower of Wood-
stock? I like to keep. all these old events before your
102. — SPORTS AND PASTIMES

eyes, as they carry you back to the period I am now
speaking of, and make you for the time forget the
out-of-door, work-a-day world. An old English author,-
whose name is Fitz Stephen, lived in the reign of this
Henry II., and he has written more about the London
of that day than any other author; and, among other
things, has left us a description of the races that took
place at Smithfield, which I here give you in his own
words, though I must first tell you that Smithfield was
the great horse-market of London in his time, and that
“the races seem to have arisen through those who had
horses to sell matching them against each other. But
judge for yourselves, for here are his very words,
according to the best translation by Dr. Pegge :—

“When a race is to be run by this sort of horses,
and perhaps by others, which also in their kind are
strong and fleet, a shout is immediately raised, and
the common horses are ordered to withdraw out of the
way.” (This you see was the ancient way of clearing
the race-course.) “Three jockeys, or sometimes only
two—just as the match is made—prepare themselves
for the contest: such as being used to ride know how
to manage their horses with judgment ; the grand point

is, to prevent a competitor from getting before them.
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 103°

The horses, on their part, are not without emulation ;
they tremble and are impatient, and are continually in
motion. At last, the signal once given, they start, and
devour the course, hurrying along with unremitting
velocity. The riders, inspired with the thoughts of
applause and the hopes of victory, clap spurs to their
willing horses, brandish their whips, and cheer them
with their cries.”

What stakes were run for in the reign of Henry IL,
when Smithfield market was a race-course, Fitz Stephen
- does not tell us; but I find that a silver bell was given
at an early period as a prize for the winning horse.
Hence probably has arisen the old proverb-like saying,
still retained, of “bearing away the bell.” The saddle-
makers in the old city of Chester—a town famous
for its ancient pageants—were some centuries ago in
the habit of giving a prize of a silver bell to the owner
of the horse that won. The first mention I find made
of a racing cup is at Stamford, in Lincolnshire, and
this prize was raised by subscription amongst the
nobility and gentry in the neighbourhood, who held
their races in the month of March. Croydon was
celebrated for its races in the reign of James I,
though none are now held there; and mention is
104 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

made of the races falling off at this place, through
one of King James’s favourite courtiers having been
horsewhipped on the course. In the time of Charles IL,
the high-sheriff of Chester entered a Barbary horse,
which he had borrowed, for the plate ; and because
he was master of the course, he refused to allow the
horses of two other gentlemen which were likely to
win to be entered—thus he won the plate unfairly,
“which,” says a writer of the period, “caused all the
gentry to relinquish our races ever since.” So you
see there was what is called “jockeying” (which is
another name for roguery) almost as soon as racing
came into fashion; and if anything has progressed it
is this “sharping,” though there are hundreds of high-
minded and honourable men who bet on horse-racing,
and would scorn to take any mean advantage. Indeed,
were there no prizes to contend for, racing would soon
be at an end, and the breed of race-horses become
extinct. Even the old Puritanical authors, though they
condemned “ cards, dice, vain plays, interludes, and
other idle pastimes,” approved of horse-racing as “yield-
ing good exercise.” That eccentric genius Burton, in
his “ Anatomy of Melancholy “—a work which you

ought to read when you are young men, for it is a
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 105

mine stored with deep thought —says “ Horse-races are
desports of great men, good in themselves, though many
gentlemen by such means gallop quite out of their
fortunes.” This holds true in the present day.

It will be seen from the authorities I have already
quoted, that horse-racing. was originally practised for
the sake of exercise, and trying the strength and speed
of one horse against another in friendly rivalship—
the owners or their servants generally riding their own
horses or placing their own grooms in the saddle.
Betting as it is followed in the present day was then
unknown, and when practised it was generally by the
owner of the horse and his own neighbours, who
backed their own opinion in opposition to some rival
squire, whose horse entered the field. It followed
naturally enough that these friendly contests soon
attracted a large audience—that the squire’s tenants
and the humble villagers were interested on the side
of their employers, and that those holding land under
the lord of the manor were as eager that their side
should win; and so in time the race-course would
become crowded—town rivalling village, and city town,
and turning out all their populace to witness the

races. Then, instead of a silver bell, the prizes to be
106 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

run for were enhanced in value, and silver and gold
cups were given; and as these were shown with pride
by the winners, and became heirlooms, the spirit of
emulation would strengthen, and old families would
breed horses at any cost, so that they also might win
the same kind of prizes, and have their gold and silver
cups to boast of.

It was during the reign of James I. that races
became very popular, and were established in many
places-where races had never before been held. They
were at this time called bell-courses, on account of
the prize run for ‘being generally, as I have said, a
silver bell. “At the latter end of the reign of
Charles I.,” says Strutt, “races were held in Hyde
Park and at Newmarket.” After the Restoration,
horse-racing was revived and much encouraged by
Charles IL, who frequently honoured this pastime
with his presence. For his own amusement, when he
resided at Windsor, he appointed races to be held in
Datchet-mead. At Newmarket, where it is said he
entered horses and ran them in his own name, he
established a house for his better accommodation ; and
also occasionally visited other places where horse-races
were held. It was about this time that bells were
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 107

 

converted into cups or bowls, or some other pieces of

plate, which were usually valued at one hundred
guineas each; and upon these trophies of victory the
exploits and pedigrees of the most successful horses
were commonly engraved.

William of Orange was also a patronizer of this
pastime, and established an- academy for riding; and.
his queen not only continued the bounty of her pre-
decessors, but added several pieces of plate to the
108 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

former donations. Geeorge I. also encouraged horse-
racing by giving a hundred guineas to be run for. In
a paper called The Post Boy the following advertisement
appeared about one hundred and fifty years ago:—
“On the ninth of October will be run for, on Coleshill
Heath, in Warwickshire, a plate of six hundred guineas
value. Three heats. By any horse, mare, or gelding
that has not won above the value of five pounds; the
winning horse to be sold for ten pounds; to carry ten
stone weight if fourteen hands high—if above or under,
to carry or be allowed weight for inches, and to be
entered on the fifth at the Swan, in Coleshill, by six
in the evening. Also a plate of less value to be run
for by asses.” No doubt the donkey-race would afford
more fun than that run by the nobler animals.
Donkey-races are still common at country fairs and
village feasts, the prize generally being a new bridle
or saddle. Donkeys, as you all know, are at times
very obstinate; and it so happens at these races that
they now and then refuse to move at all, or, perhaps,
when only within a few yards of the winning-post, they
stop suddenly, or begin to move backwards, or, worse
than all, give an “eh-haw,” then down with their

heads and up with their hind heels, and overhead goes
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 109

Master Jack, a little nearer to the prize than he was
before he was flung. Now and then half a dozen
country lads will close round the donkey, and by their
united strength compel him to go ahead, whether he
likes it not. Then there will be a cry of “Foul play,”
which the umpire perhaps overrules, for everything is
considered fair in donkey-racing. Sometimes a donkey
will take the bit in his mouth, and I know not what
into his head, and, turning round, gallop off with a
speed that would easily have won the prize, providing
he had advanced at the same rate towards it at which
he hastened from it.

Bloomfield, in a beautiful poem entitled “Richard

and Kate,’ makes mention of the donkey-races, which
he says were

More famed for laughter than for speed.

I did intend saying something about the sweating
down and dieting of jockeys, to reduce them to a
certain weight; but on a second consideration, I am
afraid that an account of tne dry toast and weak tea
they are compelled to live upon—the vast number of
blankets that are thrown upon them in bed, and the

quantity of great coats they are forced to take exercise
110 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

in while walking a given number of miles every day,
until they are reduced to the proper weight—I think
all this, if fully entered into, would interest you but
little more than the simple summary I have here

given.
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 111

 

IX—FOX HUNTING.

Ir is a beautiful sight, and one that may be often
looked upon in the country, to see an assembly of
horsemen in their scarlet coats riding leisurely about
some extensive heath, or beside copse, wood, or “spinney,”
while the hounds are drawn up ready to enter the
cover in search of the fox; to see little groups of
horsemen riding or conversing together; or some distant

red coat approaching—now seen, now hidden, between
112 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

an opening in the trees or hedgerows; or some lady,
on her ambling palfrey, who has come to see the
hounds throw off, and add such a colour to her cheeks
as makes her look as if she fed on roses. Meantime,
the hounds express their impatience by whining and
looking up at the huntsman, until he at last gives the

\??

signal, exclaiming “ Eu-in, Eu-in—there, dogs!” when
into the covert they leap, through all kinds of picturesque
places, their black and white bodies contrasting beau-
tifully with the withered fern through which they
rush, the grey fence they overleap, the gorse bushes
they go winding amongst, and the moss-covered stems
of the trees they pass, until all are lost to the eye;
while the practised huntsman listens with his head
aside for the cry of the opening hound, which proclaims
aloud that the fox is found.

Many huntsmen are too fond of having their hounds
at the horse’s heels, and it is a modern fashion for the
hunters and whippers-in to ride into the cover, and
by their noise, in some measure, to find the fox for
their hounds; but this plan, says an old sportsman,
is apt to render hounds bad drawers, independent of
the great chance of stubbing the horses, which, in a

strong cover, too often occurs, without needlessly courting
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 113

the danger. It is liable, also, where there are but few
finders, to have a fox found by them, which goes down
the wind, and they are heard of no more that day.
Besides, hounds never get so well or so soon together
as when they spread the cover. Nor can there be any
doubt, that if hounds will draw of themselves, it is better
to let them do so, for it is the duty of every huntsman
to save his horse from the sharp thorn bushes, forked
brambles, and piercing gorse, which tear the horse’s
skin, enter his feet and legs, and make him restive all
the day after, if nothing worse happen; and every
boy knows that the kind nature of a man is never more
strongly displayed than in the kindness he shows to
dumb animals.

All eye, all ear, the head huntsman draws up beside
the cover; he knows the voice of a skirter from that
of a well-trained and stanch hound. All is for a time
again silent; there is not a false babbler in the pack.
Listen ! now you hear them open! one bark is followed
by another: then the whole pack join in the cry, like
the crash of a band of musicians. The fox is found;

but he is in no hurry to start, though

He often takes leave, but is loth to depart,

I
114 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

for he must have a skulk or two somewhere to mislead
the hounds and obtain a good start. Hark! that was
the “Tally-ho! tua-loo! away! away!” He is seen
making off from the cover, and now the chase com-
mences. We see the first hound leap the low fence and
clear the covert; he pauses for a moment, obtains the
scent, then throws back the joyous cry; while another
and another still succeed, each baying to his companion,
who flings the tidings behind him, but has not time
to stay, until at last it reaches the farthest hound,
and on they all rush like a mob when the cry of “Stop
thief!” is heard. Now the hounds are drawn together,
and away they go, over hedge and ditch, clearing every-
thing at a bound, for the whippers-in have done their
work well, and not a dog lingers in the wake. The
head huntsman keeps well up with the leading hounds.
Now the old fat squire is thrown into the hedge, and
one hardly knows which is the reddest, the hips of
the wild rose or his own “jolly nose.” The young
lady’s veil has caught in the branch of the tree which
overhung the hedge she cleared in such gallant
style, and now streams out like a banner in the breeze.
Now a new-booted young farmer attempts to clear a

“nasty-looking: fence,” which everyone hitherto has
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 115

wisely shunned, and, like a “ vaulting ambition,” he
comes down head foremost, breaks his horse’s knees,
ploughs up the earth with his head, and gets laughed
at for his “fool-hardiness.” Now the old farmer, who
is at work in his fields, places his hands in his pockets,
mutters a few deep curses to himself while calculating
the cost of spoiled crops and broken fences, which
he will have to lose and repair, without getting, as he
says, “a blessed copper for the loss.” Now a group of
famished pedestrians, who came to see the “hounds
throw off,” invade the first turnip field they reach, and,
looking with hungry eyes on the sheep, think of gipsies,
wood fires, and huge pots suspended from three stakes;
simmering in green lanes. What would they not give
for a “sniff” of one now !—just a little of the lid lifted
up. Ah! cold turnips—teeth on edge, bah! Now little
boys run to open gates for timid horsemen, and, if a
few pence are not thrown to them, begin to whistle a
long, low, desponding air, which sounds like something
between “Pop goes the weazel” and “Away with
melancholy,” while they kick about the dead leaves
dreadfully. Now some old publican, whose house stands
on a distant eminence, hopes that the fox may be

killed near his door, or that some gentleman may be
116 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

brought in with a broken collar-bone, whom it may
be dangerous to remove for three months at least. He
also reckons upon a great call for his real foreign
cheroots, the leaf of which was grown on British soil, and,
when unfolded, looks more like lettuce than a live nigger.
Now a check occurs, and some of the horsemen swear,
while others feel thankful that their horses are blown;
and those who have lost their hats tie handkerchiefs
around their heads, which do not at all add to their
gentility, so far as appearances go; and those who have
been thrown, though they wince a little and look
rather pale, try to smile, and say they “don’t mind it
no more than winking.” Now the gentleman who
broke the knees of his hunter, which cost a good
hundred guineas, comes up biting his whip, and look-
ing as if he didn’t at all like it, while he exclaims
“Capital good sport to-day ;” for many of them may now
sing—
“Gone away! in sad earnest the peals are commencing ;
Here a farmer and steed promiscuously roll ;
There a Leicestershire blade, on a glutton for fencing,
Takes a bullfinch and breaks a buck’s neck in a hole.
‘My lad! pull that stake out—whoay! gently! od rot it,’
(While the mare’s in a fidget, the man’s in a fright.)

‘Do just stand aside, sir, and let me come at it.’
‘Forward ! forward! my boys! he’s away to the right.’ ”
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 117

I must let you be indebted to that famous sportsman,
Mr. Beckford, for a description of the death of the fox,
for he writes like one who has “been in at the death,”
as sportsmen phrase it, many a time. “Hark! they
halloo! Ay, there he goes! It is nearly over with
him: had the hounds caught view, he must have died.
He will hardly reach the cover. See how they gain
upon him at every stroke! It is an admirable race,
yet the cover (underwood) saves him. Now, be quiet,
and he cannot escape us; we have the wind of the
hounds, and he cannot be better placed. How short he
runs! he is now in the very strongest part of the cover.
What a crash! every hound is in, and every hound is
running for him. That was a quick turn! Again,
another ; he’s put to his last shifts. Now little Mischief
is at his heels, and death is not far off. Ha! they all
stop at once—all silent; and yet no earth is open, so
well has our old earth-stopper done his work. Listen!
now they are at him again. Did you hear that hound
catch him? They overran the scent, and the fox had
laid down behind him. Now, Mr. Fox, look to yourself!
How quick they all give their tongues! Little Dread-
nought, how he works him! The terriers, too, they are

now squeaking at him. How close Vengeance pursues—
118 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

she is a terrible little hound for pressing in: it is just
up with him. What a crash they make! the whole wood
resounds! That turn was very short. There, now!
Ay, now they have him! Whoo hoop!” This is an
admirable description: you fancy you are looking into
the covert or thicket all the time, and can see what
is going on ; you seem to know every dog that is named
—Mischief, Dreadnought, and that terrible little Ven-
geance, that presses so closely upon the poor fox. And
yet, somehow, after all, we cannot help feeling sorry
for poor Reynard.

Mention is here made of the earth-stopper, and I
must tell you something about him, for without his
labour there would be very little sport in fox-hunting,
for he is a picturesque and nocturnal character. Poor
old fellow! the night before a hunt—rain, blow, or snow
—there is no bed for him, for out he must turn, with
his little pony, his terriers, spade and mattocks, and stop
up every hole, or earth, that the fox would be likely to
get into; and this he must do while Reynard is out
feeding, so that when the poor fox returns home, towards
morning, no matter how many houses or holes he may
have, he finds them all closed or shut, so that there is

only the wood for him to shelter in. Sometimes the
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 119

old earth-stopper has to travel miles before his night’s
work is finished; and it is only in the middle of the
night that his work can be done, for were he to stop
up the holes earlier in the evening or towards morning,
he would be more likely than not to shut up the fox
in the earth, instead of keeping him above ground, and
then there would be no hunting were Reynard fastened
up in his house. This is why the earth-stopper does his
work in the dead of night, and it is his business to
become acquainted with every hole which the fox hides
in, and, while the fox is out feeding (for it only feeds
in the night), to stop up all these earths, as they are
called, with thorns, furze-bushes, stones, or whatever lies
nearest at hand to block up a hole with, so that, during
the hunt on the following day, he may not be able to
run to earth and baffle the hounds. And many a cold
winter’s night is the old earth-stopper out following this
cheerless occupation. I know there are many boys who
are not admirers of fox-hunting, who would rather see
his black feet pattering over the forest leaves than look
at him pursued by hounds and horsemen; and I must
say that I admire such amiable feeling, though, having
been brought up in the country, I have a great love for

all kinds of rural sports. True enough, he is a thief;
120 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

but then his parents were the same before him, and he
never was taught better; and there are hundreds of
lesser vermin that are as big thieves as he is. But the
she-fox is a most affectionate mother, and has been seen
to run off with a cub in her mouth, to save it, when the
hounds have been in close pursuit, thus boldly endan-
gering her own life to save her young. Such an act as
this makes one forgive the robbery of any number of
hen-roosts. When the fox sleeps, he coils himself up
like a dog. He has a great objection to light, and but
few animals can see better in the dark than he does.
The fox has often run as much as twenty-five miles
without a check, and has sometimes kept the lead of
the hounds for a long hour and a half. The shifts and
tricks to which he has recourse, to baffle his pursuers,
are marvellous. e

But I must end my description of fox-hunting by
stating that, after the fox is killed, he is generally
seized by one of the huntsmen, who cuts off his tail
and feet—sometimes his head too—then throws his
carcass to the dogs. Formerly the body of the fox was
suspended from the branch of some tree, at the foot of
which the hounds congregated, and chanted such a dirge

around the hung-up carcass of poor Reynard as must
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 121

have been the very reverse of dulcet music, and very
trying to the ears of a sensitive man. What a scram-
ble is there amongst the hounds to get a bite at his
poor body! Each one tries to get a mouthful; but,

 

like all the rest of what are called the good things
of this world, the biggest blackguards amongst the
hounds, that will tear, and rend, and bite even their
own brothers and sisters if they approach too near,
get the most—and so it always was. The work of
destruction seldom lasts more than three or four

minutes, and at the end of that time all they leave of
122 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

the poor fox you might put in your eye, and not see
a pin the worse for it after, for they would eat his
brush if it were left! “As hungry as a fox-hound” is

an old saying.
OF MERRY ENGLAND, 123

 

X.—HARE COURSING, RABBIT, OTTER, AND
SQUIRREL HUNTING.

Hare coursina on a fine sharp frosty day is a
glorious recreation; but to enjoy it thoroughly, there
ought not to be any snow on the ground. It is a sport
that both horsemen and pedestrians can enter into, as
the turnings are often made within sight in an open
country, though had I my choice I should select a wild
wide heath, if hares abounded there, studded with gorse,
124 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

fern, and bramble bushes, so as to give poor puss a better
chance of turning. I dare say you all know that hare
coursing is a classical sport, and was followed by the
ancient Greeks and Romans.

If you love dogs, just cast your eye over that brace
of greyhounds in the leash. Did you ever see anything
more beautiful? The speed of thought is in their limbs
—no antelope was ever lighter of foot, no doe more
graceful, no race-horse so beautifully built for running.
Look at their fore legs! they are as straight as arrows—
their loins bent like a bow, their necks elastic as a
swan’s, their ears long and soft as a lady’s silken: purse,
their head sharp as a snake’s, their eyes bold, bright,
prominent, and beautiful as a mountain maiden’s, and
their chests broad and full as a lion’s. When at full
speed, they cover the ground like the taper shadow of
a graceful flower, tapering off into nothingness at the

extremity of the tail,

Fine by degrees and beautifully less.

Then that fawn colour. What an excellent eye that
Quakeress must have had who had it imitated and woven
into a silk dress! But the sport commences. Hush!
hark! that “So ho!” comes from the finder, and there,
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 125

by Jove! the hare goes—a true racer by the build of her,
as you can see by her stealing away without appearing
to be at all alarmed. The judge has his eye on her, and
he will at least give her forescore yards for a start, and
well can he measure the ground with his eye, I can tell
you. Look how steadily both dogs bear at the collar,
and now the word “Go” is uttered, and the dogs are off
together—nose to nose, and ear to ear—there is scarcely
the difference ofan inch between them at starting. Now
the hare pricks up her ears—she caught the halloo given
when the slipper started them, and she feels not so easy
now as she did when she first stole away. How the
hounds gain upon her! how they cover the ground!
They seem to touch her—one has overshot himself, and
she is turned; he must have been some distance ahead
to keep the lead as he still does—had it not been so,
he would have driven the hare into the mouth of the
other greyhound which is marked with the blue collar.
See, she is making back to the covert from whence she
first started—this the inside dog perceives by the short
cut he is making; but that is hardly fair, Mr. Grey-
hound, though you will gain a point by your policy.
Well done! he has got the lead by that manceuvre, and
blue collar is now behind, though he has followed her
126 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

fairly and not missed a yard of the ground she went
over, excepting when he overshot himself. HurrahT
blue-collar now gains on the other dog, and see he has
turned the hare again; he is the swiftest and the
stoutest dog, and at that speed such sudden turning
must be dreadfully distressing—-no race-horse in the
world could jerk round so instantly, and it is done, too,
before one could say, “It lightens.’ Now they are
doubling back—there are fences for you—saw you ever
so clear a leap? That was no wrench, but a fair turn,
and is the third blue-collar has made. But where is the
hare making off to? to yonder high old hawthorn fence,
where no doubt she has a run only known to herself,
and by which she will escape, perhaps, unless the gap
is large enough for the hounds to creep through aft er
her. That old, high, thick, dark hawthorn hedge has
never been cut within the memory of living man, and
there is neither horse nor dog in the world able to
clear it. It is as I expected; she has escaped—there
is no hill, and there the course is ended—the point’s
in favour of blue-collar, for he has won, whether the
prize be a silver collar, cup, or five hundred pounds.
Perhaps I may as well tell you, that the terms used in

coursing are, “A go by, a cote, a turn, a wrench, a
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 127

tripping, a jerking, and a hill of merit ;” but as I should
have to write a very dry page to make you understand
these terms, you had better see a match of hare cours-
ing, and some kind sportsman will tell you all about
them while the hounds are running.

I now come to rabbit-hunting, and must set out by
stating that no animal is so useful in driving the rabbit
from its burrow as the ferret; but to do this, you must
bear in mind that the ferret must be muzzled—for if
he isn’t, he will make a hole in the rabbit’s neck,
and suck every drop of blood out of him as certainly
as he has got a tooth in his head; and after having
gorged himself, go to sleep in the burrow and never
come out again until aroused by hunger.

Some sew up the mouths of their ferrets while
employed in driving out the rabbits; but this is an
unnecessary, as well as a cruel precaution, and the
following is a better plan.

Take a piece of soft string, not too thin, and tie
it round the neck of the ferret, close to the head, leaving
loose two longish ends—then take another piece of
string, tie it round the under jaw, passing it under
the tongue and bringing it round over the upper jaw,
then tying it there, and leaving the ends long. This
128 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

will keep the mouth of the ferret closed. Then bring
the four ends of the string together, and tie them in
one tight knot at the top of the head; this will prevent
the string from slipping, will give the ferret no pain
at all, and cause him to hunt just as well as if he was
not muzzled. I suppose I need not say that it would
be quite as well not to put your fingers into his mouth
any more than you can help while completing this
operation, for he’s not to be depended on. The female
ferret sometimes devours her young (a brood of which
generally numbers from six to nine), of which she has
two broods a-year, Few are aware what a plague
rabbits would be, unless kept under. Like the locusts
of old, it would eat up “every green thing,” were it not
destroyed by man and preyed upon by birds and beasts.
To see the havoc the rabbit makes among even the
hardy gorse one need not journey farther from London
than Epping Forest. But it is amongst the young corn
and young trees that their destructive powers are most
serious, as they devour the one and bark the other,
and prevent it from ever becoming valuable as timber.
A rabbit warren is a perfect subterraneous town, ful
of hollow and bending streets, through the mazes of
which the lithe-bodied ferret weazel is well adapted
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 329

to wind its way and drive out the destructive populace
when their inroads on the neighbouring fields become
serious. It is on record that a town in Spain was
once undermined and destroyed through their burrows.
Their favourite time of feeding is in the evening twi-
light—though they may be seen abroad during all hours
of the day.

Daniel, in his “ Rural Sports,” says, “ Rabbits will
breed at six months old, bear seven times annually,
and bring five young ones each time. Supposing this
to happen regularly during the space of four years,
and that three of the five young at each kindle are
females, the increase will be 478,062. A calculation
-has been made from eight young at each of the seven
kindles, amounting to 1,274,840; but that is much
too high, for the wild rabbit was never known to
have eight at two successive kindles. Under the
first statement, being overstocked with these animals
might justly be feared; but man, birds, and beasts
of prey make great devastation among them.” The
rabbit, like most animals that burrow in the earth,
has more than one entrance and exit to his house,
and it may be readily imagined how unceremoniously

he hastens to escape from his front or back door when
K
130 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

the ferret is in possession. That is the moment for the
sportsman to take aim, for the darting of no animal
is so quick as that of the rabbit; the gun must be
ready raised and the finger on the trigger when he
appears, or he is across the path and off amongst the
windings of the furze and gorse bushes before the eye
can follow him. Care must also be taken not to hit
the ferret, which is likely enough to be close upon
the scent of the rabbit.

Squirrel hunting is a favourite sport amongst country
boys during autumn and winter, for when the leaves
have fallen from the trees this beautiful and graceful
little animal may be seen bounding merrily from branch
to branch, or sitting contentedly on some moss-covered
bough, holding the ripe brown nuts in his fore paws,
while enjoying his woodland repast. What shouting
and hallooing, and tearing of clothes, and losing of
shoes, and getting entangled amongst the briars is there ©
amongst the boys while hunting him! and no sooner
has some little fellow, after much labour, climbed up
the tree on which the squirrel is perched, than, just
as the boy is about to extend his hand, and, as he
thinks, seize his prize by the fine bushy tail, then, at

one leap, and without any apparent effort, out leaps
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 131

the squirrel into the next tree, and all the climbing
has to recommence again. It is only while leaping
from branch to branch, when the squirrel sometimes
misses his footing, and falls to the ground, that there
is any chance of capturing him. Then it is that a
dozen hats come off like one, while every boy is anxious
to catch or cover the squirrel; and many a hat-crown
is driven in amid the eager scramble, while endeavour-
ing to seize him, and sometimes he bites awfully. There
are very few birds that make more beautiful nests
than squirrels. The moss and leaves, and the fibres of
trees, are all neatly interwoven together, and generally
placed so artfully at the fork of some branch as to
look more like a knot of the tree itself than a nest;
neither is there any little animal that pays more
attention to its young than the squirrel, for although
they are “kindled” about the middle of June, the old
ones never quit them until the following spring.

Next comes otter hunting, and having treated on
this, I think there are no more sports connected with
animals that I shall have need to dwell upon.

In former times, the huntsmen sallied forth arrayed
in vests of green, braided with scarlet; their caps of

far encircled with bands of gold, and surmounted with
132 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

ostrich plumes; boots much of the fashion of those
known to modern hunting fields, reaching to the tops
of the thighs, and waterproof, encased their lower
limbs, and were ornamented with gold or silver tassels.
Their spears were also embellished with carving and
costly mountings: the whole set out of the higher
classes engaged in these water huntings being of a very
* picturesque and imposing character. Towards the latter
end of the last century, otter hunting was one of the
most popular of our field sports, and the list of
establishments supported for its pursuit would have
probably outnumbered those devoted to hunting in any
of its other forms. Regular packs of otter hounds were
kept in almost every parish, and an otter pole was
as common an instrument in a peasant’s hand as a
walking stick. It was much more simple than the spear
now in use; it was merely a stick of straight ash
shod with a common iron barb head, or a fork of two
prongs, also arrow-headed. With these weapons in their
hands, and a motley group of these miscellaneous curs
at their heels, the village rustics would hie them to.
the neighbouring streams, to share, in humble imitation
of their. betters, the mushela lutea of the naturalist.

But otter hunting is now fast dying away, though it
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 133

is still kept up in parts of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
Mr. Macgillivray informs us that Mr. Lomaire hunted
the Dumfriesshire rivers in 1833, 1834, and 1835; and
that Lord John Scott keeps a pack of otter hounds for
the streams of Roxburghshire. “The modern otter
spear,” says Craven, “is an article of some artistical
pretensions. It is, like its predecessor, a long, flexible,
ashen pole, but headed with a barb somewhat scien-
tifically constructed ; the smaller end of the pole being
bared and fitted with a counter sink (a ferrule, screw,
and collar), a spring barb is screwed to it. The barb
is so constructed that, being driven into the hide
of the quarry, it expands, and gives out two hooks,
which effectually prevent the hold of the spear being
destroyed by any efforts of the animal to release itself.”
In England but few otter packs exist, but a splendid
run is occasionally enjoyed. Thus, on September 14,
1841, the Haworth and Stockton otter hounds commenced
running on the river Tees at Dinsdale Spa fish locks,
and on the first day terminated at Low Middleton
Deeps, where the otter was seized, but again set at
liberty, and hunted till dark. The chase was renewed
next day at Dinsdale-bridge, when, after another glorious

run, the otter was seized. His length was four feet two
134 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

inches and a half; and, taking the time occupied during
both days, fifteen hours were devoted to the chase—
a circumstance unparalleled in the annals of otter

hunting.

 
ta

“May asi baci pany gD

 
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 135

XI—ANGLING.

Wuat boy has not been an angler—has not tried
to hook, at least, a sticklebat, which seems only made
either for the food of other fishes, or to furnish amuse-
ment for boys? “I know not,” says quaint old Izaak
Walton, in his “Angler,” “where he dwells in winter,
nor what he is good for in summer.” Was ever poor
fish so summarily dismissed? It is as if the old author
said “that he was like a chip in porridge, neither good
nor harm.” But the poor despised sticklebat is a great
ornament to a glass globe, if he is fit for nothing
beside; his colours are splendid, and if the water is
changed every day, he will live in his glass prison-house
for two or three years, much safer than he would do in
his native river, for in his crystal bowl he will find no
voracious pike ready to devour him. The minnow, which
first appears in March, although so small, has a flavour
equal to many of our more celebrated fish, especially
when fried with cowslips, primroses, the yellow of eggs,
and fresh butter—a receipt given by honest Izaak Walton ;
and a more poetical dish it would be difficult to imagine
—pity he did not recommend a squeeze of fresh pearly

dew-drops, just to give it a finishing flavour. Every boy
136 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

knows that a small red worm is a sufficient bait for a
minnow, and that three or four hooks may be used at
a time, and that each is likely enough to have a fish
appended to it when the line is drawn up. What boy
does not know the bull head, or miller’s thumb, with its
immense head, large mouth, and spiny teeth, and which,
though anything but pleasant to look upon, forms an
excellent dish? He is very fond of hiding under a stone,
and if a worm is dropped down gently beside it, ten to
one he drops down upon it before you have time to
say “Jack Robinson,” for he never stops to consider a
moment about the matter; nor is he at all particular.
whether or not the hook is wholly concealed, though it is
as well to make sure, while you are about it. The loach
is a long fish, and has neither scales nor teeth, though he
is bearded like a barbel; he is often used as a bait for
eels, and is not half such good eating as the gudgeon, for
the latter is really a handsome fish, being broad in the
middle, and possessing a beautifully marked tail and
back fin; he is to be caught with either a worm or a
gentle or paste, but bear in mind that the bait must
touch the ground, and this you will easily ascertain,
through the float not cocking up. The gudgeon is fond
of a gravelly soil. You all know the bleak or whiting;
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 137

it is constantly on the move, is about six inches long,
with large eyes, a small beautiful head, silvery gills, and
a back of a green mackerel-like colour. The bleak is a
famous fly-catcher, and, from his rapid motion, has been
called the water-swallow. You may sometimes pull out
a whole family of these fish if you have hooks enough on
your line; as for baits, I do believe he would bite at
anything offered him, from a brickbat to a barn door.
The dace, dart, shallow dace—for its name is legion—is
a fast breeder, and during summer is as fond of playing
on the surface of the water as a May-fly; it is found in
most of our rivers, and seems to prefer those that are
oftenest swept with currents and eddies, but in very cold
weather it likes a snug warm hole—if there is any differ-
ence in the temperature of apartments under water—or
likes to lie under the shelter of a willow or water-flag
root, or make its bed at the base of a tufted bullrush,
where it covers itself with a nice thick blanket of mud,
and, for aught I know, is “ pretty well off for soap ;” its
body is longish, the back of a pale green colour, varied
with dusky marks, while the belly has a silvery appear-
ance, and the fins wear a pale reddish tinge; it will
_ swallow almost any bait in spring, for neither worms,

larve of beetles, grubs, caterpillars, gentles, or water-
138 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

snails come amiss to it; it is a very quick biter, and
requires to be struck suddenly, almost at the very instant
you see the float dip; good strong tackle must also be
used, for he is the very devil to pull. Roach-fishing so
nearly resembles that of angling for dace, that I need
not dwell upon it, though I cannot pass on without
mentioning that beautiful golden circle which surrounds
the eye of the roach, and:the rich red fins, which are
unlike any other red in the world; it affords excellent
sport, and is often caught two or three pounds in weight.
The bream, with its arched back, forked tail,. large eyes,
and rich:golden colour (when in good condition), is a shy
fish to hook, and a good angler will take care not to let
his shadow fall on the water when trying to capture this
retiring gentleman. A warm cloudy day is ‘the best for
fishing for bream, and no mure tempting bait can be
offered him than a red worm; but he is as fond of
sucking his bait as a child is of its pap, and it requires
a quick eye to know when he has got it in his mouth ;
still, you must not be too eager, for if you hurry him,
out of his mouth the bait goes, and off he shoots ; while
on the other hand, if you wait until the float dips deep
down, you will find all the bait gone, and Mr. Bream
bolted also. Should you not hook him when you strike,
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 139

 
140 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

be sure and examine your bait before venturing again ;
for you will generally find that what a bream, no doubt,
considers all the goodness, is gone out of it after he has
taken his departure, for he has finished up all the
gravy.

Next come trout, and, as there are so many of this
species, I shall only mention the common one, which
generally runs from twelve to fifteen inches in length,
is of a dirty yellow colour, brownish on the back, and
spotted ; he is to be seen almost everywhere. Nothing
does he like better in spring than a worm; he is as
fond of it as a boy at school is of “tips.” When angling
for him you must keep out of sight; once show your
shadow, and he is gone. As soon as you have landed a
trout, kill him at once; one blow on the head will
“ cook his goose :” this is better than leaving him gasping
out of the water ; beside, when once caught, he must die,
and the quicker he has. a taste of death the better he
will eat for it. This may seem cruel—so it is to kill
anything—but until we all turn vegetarians such deeds
must be done. The grayling is rather less than the
trout, is fond of clear, rapid streams, especially such as
flow from hilly countries ; it is a most beautifully formed

fish, with a small head, prominent eyes, which are circled
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 141

with a rim of silvery hue; small teeth; the head of a
dusky colour, and the gills of a bright green, which in
time become black ; while the back has a blueish tinge,
and the sides a fine golden grey, richly spotted; it is a
most rapid swimmer, is here and there in a moment, and
may be caught all the winter through. For bait use
worms, grubs, or anything of the kind that can be got,
for it is not very particular as to what bait it takes ; and
I can tell you the flavour of this fish is “not to be
sneezed at.” :

But I must leave off here to tell you something about
fly-fishing ; for any stupid dolt can angle; but fly-fishing
is a science, and one that requires a good deal of practice
before one can become perfect at it. I almost despair of
initiating you into the art and mystery of manufacturing
flies ; it is all hackle and cackle, red dun and dead dun,
oak fly and choke fly, grey lake and May drake, and
leaves the mouth after the enunciation as if one had
tried the flavour of each; we feel a kind of feathery
huskiness in the throat, such as a boy might feel after
dreaming that he had breakfasted off a feather bed. But
there are plenty of cheap works sold, in which you will
find easy instructions for making artificial flies, and to

these I must refer you.
142 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

A fly-fisher must have a sure eye and a steady hand,
so as to be able to throw the fly upon the exact spot on
which his eye is fixed; and these qualities can only be
obtained by much patience and great perseverance; he
must also be able to use either hand, not only to take
advantage of the wind, from whichever point it may
blow, but also to save one hand from tiring, and the
wrist from being sprained, as it would be were all the
work done by one hand. A beginner should always
commence practice by throwing against the wind. The
instant a fish seizes the fly, he should be struck, for no
sooner do his jaws close upon the artificial bait than he
discovers the mistake, and “blows” it out of his mouth ;
for he no more mistakes the hardness of the hook than
we should were we to attempt to bite a stone peach,
however much it might deceive the eye. A strike may,
however, be so quick as to draw the fly out of his mouth
before his jaws have closed, though this very rarely
happens. “After a fish is struck,” says the “ Encyclo-
pedia of Rural Sports,” “if it be of a tolerable size,
immediately throw up the point of the rod, and if the
fish give signs of being a heavy one, then actually force
the butt of it so forward as to carry the point of it over

the shoulder, which will transfer the strain on the line
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 143

to the elasticity of the joints of the rod; and this
direction must be pursued until the fish be sufficiently
exhausted for landing. We may also take occasion to
caution the angler never to let a fish strike towards the
weeds, nor up nor across the stream, but, if possible,
down the stream only, keeping his head high up in
the current, to tire and drown him ; likewise avoid
letting your shadow, as well as that of your rod, fall
on the water when fishing.”

A salmon weighing fifty-four pounds has been taken
in Scotland with an artificial fly ; and splendid must have
been the tackle to land such a monster, especially if he
sulked and lay like a stone at the bottom of the river,
with the hook in his mouth, as he sometimes will after
he has been struck, and finds that he cannot escape.
There is no help for it then but to throw in stones as
near as you can to where he lurks without hitting him.
Neither ought a salmon-fisher ever to be without his
gaff or landing net. ‘“ We remember well,” says Mr. Blane,
in the work just quoted, “to have seen a gentleman, but
unknown to us, who, although he seemed to handle his
tackle well, and, indeed, threw a beautiful line, as it is
called, yet with single gut he struck and was playing a
very heavy fish, without having either landing net or

L
144 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

gaff hook. We saw that an hour or two would be spent
ere he could be landed, without some assistance and
much manceuvring. We enjoined him to be patient, in
which he acquiesced, and suffered the fish to sulkily
settle himself in the bed of the river without disturbance
for ten minutes, as though sulking with his sore mouth
and his incapability of swallowing his prey. A few shakes
ef the line rather roused him, but it was not until some
heavy stones were thrown towards his bed that he again
got him afloat. The captor drew him in with much
judgment, keeping the line stretched over him, but not.
sufficiently to allow even his flounderings to disengage it.
It was now that the fisher saw in full force his negligence
in having come out without either gaff or landing net—
indeed, the landing net would hardly answer his purpose,
so much did the banks hang over the water; but after
many efforts our gaff was fastened into his shoulders,
and by its means he was with our assistance, added to
that of the angler, safely landed on shore.” But in our
limited space we cannot convey to our readers a tithe of
the information which it is necessary to possess to be a
good practitioner in the art of fly-fishing. Still there
are many who are never able to do more than “whip”

or “flay” the water, who never can attain the art of
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 145

dropping the fly upon the water as softly as if a real
insect had alighted of its own accord; for to throw a
fly on the water upon the exact spot selected requires
something like the same skilful measuring of distance
as it does to hit the bull’s eye in a target when the
mark aimed at shows but little larger than a small pearl
button: but all this is to be attained by practice, and

clever lad will never give in until he is thoroughly

master of his craft, whatever that may be.
146

 

SPORTS AND PASTIMES

XIL—HISTORY OF HAWKING.

Wuenever the romances of chivalry describe their

respective heroes, hawking and hunting are always
pointed out as pursuits in which they invariably ex-
celled, and in their histories we find the knight’s hawk
and hound cherished by him with a pride and care

scarcely inferior to that bestowed on his gallant destrere,
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 147

his faithful companion in travel and in battle. And we
perceive that the heroes of history are celebrated for
precisely similar qualifications to those of the heroes of
romance; that the knight laments his hard captivity
not merely because the feast and the tournament no
longer claim his presence, but because his “hounds run
masterless,” and his falcon has almost forgotten his call ;
and the baron looks with almost less pride on his broad
lands and fair castle than on his “raches and stag-
hounds” and his well-manned falcons, each of which
were a present for a prince to make and a monarch to
receive. And this passion for field sports pursued the
“man of worship” to his very tomb. Hawks and hounds
were specifically bequeathed to friends or benefactors,
and the knight reposed beneath his canopy of “taber-
nacle worke” with falcon on his wrist and hound at his
feet.

Writers on hawking mostly. place the invention of
the sport about the time of King Arthur. Now, as the
date of King Arthur’s days is generally supposed to
have been either in the fourth or fifth century, they
may not be far from the truth. Within a century or
two after this, falconry seems to have been in general

use. A King of Kent begged from a friend abroad two
148 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

falcons, of “such skill and courage as to attack cranes
willingly, and, seizing them, throw them on the ground.”
He continues: “He makes this request because there
were few hawks of that kind in Kent.” Bishop Boni-
face sent as a present a hawk and two falcons to a
friend ; there are instances, too, of Saxons leaving hawks
by will; and one of the Kings of the Heptarchy liberates
some lands “ from those who carry with them hawks or
falcons, horses or dogs.”

Falconry was in high estimation at the court of the
King of Wales, for we find there that the fourth officer
‘of the king’s household was the master of the hawks,
that “he occupied the fourth place from the king at
the royal table, but was not permitted to drink more
than three times, lest he should be intoxicated and
neglect his birds. He had the management of the hawks,
and the direction of the people employed in hawking ;
when he had been very successful in his sport, the king
was obliged by law and custom to rise up to receive him
when he entered, and even, on some occasions, to hold
his stirrup !’ From this it would appear that, among
the Welsh, the falconer had not merely the entire charge
of the mews, but the entire charge of procuring the game,
and that, consequently, the delights of “hawkynge by
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 149

the rivere syde” were unknown to the “royal race of
Cadwallader.”

Wales seems at this period to have possessed a fine
breed of hawks, for Malmesbury tells us that “ Ethelstan
made North Wales furnish him with as many dogs as
he chose, whose scent-pursuing noses might explore the
haunts and coverts of the deer, and birds, who knew how
to hunt others along the sky.” The finest and largest
falcons, however, came from Norway.

Among the Saxons hawking seems to have been
pursued almost as it was in later times, and many of
their kings were expert falconers. King Alfred is
represented as having excelled in this sport, and the
timid, weak-minded Edward the Confessor “took the
greatest possible delight to follow a pack of swift hounds,
or to attend the flight of hawks taught to pursue and
catch their kindred birds.” Still it was reserved for the
Normans to raise falconry almost to the dignity of a
science, and to give almost as minute and careful
instructions for educating and preserving the hawk, as
for tending and instructing the heir of the family. Ina
Saxon dialogue the:inquirer says—‘ Have you a hawk?”
“T have.” “Can you tame them?” “TI can; what use

would they be to me if I could not?” “How do you
150 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

feed them?” “They feed themselves and me in winter,
and in spring I let them fly to the woods.” “And why
do you let them fly from you when tame?” “Because
I will not feed them in summer, as they eat too much.”
Scornfully, indeed, would the Norman falconer have
looked upon hawks “manned” so carelessly and so
rudely as these must have been, and, doubtless, the
Saxon sunk far lower in the estimation of his haughty
victor, when he found how inferior he was in the noble
and princely arts of hawking and hunting.

It it most probable that falconry, strictly so to speak,
originated among the Normans, for nearly all the words
appropriated to this sport are old French. The mews,
from muer, to cage; to man the hawk, from manier, to
break in; cast the hawk, from casser, to discharge, to
throw off; and so in like manner, the terms creance,
bewits, jesses, are derived from the same source. The
first instance in which the hawk is seen borne on the
wrist, too, is in the Bayeux tapestry. Harold holds his
apparently by the feet; but the falcon borne by the
Count Guy, of Ponthieu, in the same tapestry, is
furnished with both collar and jesses; neither, however,
wears the hawking glove, although the birds are repre-

sented as large as a moderately sized turkey. This is,
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 151

probably, an error of the fair embroiderers, as even the
“falcon of the rock” could scarcely have attained so
enormous a size. In two drawings in Montfaucon,
copied from an illumination of the close of the 11th
century, and representing Robert and William, the
two elder sons of the Conqueror, the hawking glove is
first seen.

And truly an expensive pursuit was hawking, for
hawks were birds of high value, and required much care
and an expensive diet. All the treatises on hawking
insist on the importance of giving hawks none but the
purest water, and feeding them on the freshest raw
meat—two articles of subsistence very frequently of
difficult attainment in the baron’s castle, where salt
mutton formed the staple winter provision, and where
good ale was far more plentiful than pure spring water
It is difficult to ascertain what was the general price
of a good falcon during the middle ages, but it is certain
that it was very high; for, in the early part of Edward
IIL’s reign, the King of Scotland sent him a falcon
gentle, which he graciously received, and gave the
falconer who brought it forty shillings—a sum equivalent
to forty or fifty pounds in the present day.

At a much later period, the prices for these favourite
152 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

birds seem. to have been enormous: the gos hawk and
tassel hawk were often sold for one hundred marks in the
reign of James I.; and Sir Thomas Monson, in the same
reign, is reported to have given no less than one thousand
pounds for a cast (pair) of hawks. To this expense was
added that of a numerous menye, under the direction of
the chief falconer, to attend to the different departments
of the mews; for these birds had to be supplied with
fresh water several times in the course of the day, to be
taken out too and flown, as close confinement to their
cages was considered to injure their health, and to be fed
continually. Nor was this all; to break in a hawk
(“‘man” is the technical term), it was to be kept waking
the whole. night; and thus, in addition to his other
labour, the falconer had not unfrequently to keep watch
until dawn, with the refractory bird on his hand; for
thus does a MS. of the 14th century direct us “to drawe
a hawke on the fiste, and rule her at alle poyntes.” “At,
nyghte goe to the mew, and take her fayre and easily,
juste as she sitteth on her perche: put on her jesses and
belles, and loke that ye nether jesse be an inche larger
than the farther, for batyng, then sette her on your fyste,
and beare her alle nighte.” No wonder was it that

falconers had high wages; yet, notwithstanding, their
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 153

situation seems not to have been a favourite one among
those who liked but little to do:

I woulde not be a serving-man
To carry the cloke-bag stille,

Nor woulde I be a falconer,
The greedy hawkes to fille,

says the old song, and truly; for keeping persons in
constant employment, few places were better adapted
than the mews.

The falcon seems to have been subject to many
disorders, and particularly to weak eyes;.and it is
ludicrous to observe with what grave importance the
writers on hawking discuss the various kinds of diseases,
and their respective remedies. Of all these, charms,
composed of texts from the Psalms and Gospels, seem
to have been considered most efficacious. “After the
hawke hathe beene ille,” says dame Juliana Berners;
a devoted votary of hawking, “on the morrowe, when
thou goest out hawkynge, say, ‘In the name of the
Lorde, the fowle of heaven shall be under thy feet;’
also, if he be bitte, say, ‘He whom the wicked man
dothe bynde, the Lorde shall set free at his cominge,’ ”
And gallantly bedecked were these beautiful birds when
154 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

transferred from their perch to the glove, whether to be
unhooded to fly at the game, or merely to be borne as
appendages of high rank, on solemn or festive occasions.
There was the collar, often of fine enamelled work, or
the most delicate gold filagree, the hood of silk knitting,
sometimes exquisitely embroidered, the bells suspended
from the bewits (leathern rings round each leg), mostly
of neatly wrought silver. The glove, too, on which the
bird sat, was of thick white leather, richly embroidered
(sometimes even adorned with jewels), and made to reach
no higher than the wrist on the inside of the hand,
while, on the outside, it covered the arm nearly to the
elbow, that the bird, at the word of command, might
retreat from the wrist up the arm, and thus leave the
hand at liberty. Nor was it surprising that “menne of
worshippe,” and high-born dames, were unwilling ever to
appear in public without their attendant bird; for the
species of hawk indicated the rank of the bearer: and
for one of the lower gentry to have assumed the falcon
which was appropriated to one of high rank, would have
been an offence as unpardonable as that of assuming his
armorial bearings.

“Ther ben three hawkes belonging to an emperour,”

says the before-mentioned MS, “an egkil, a matour, and
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 155

a millour; a ger-falcon and a tarselet for a kynge; a
falcon gentle for a prince; a falcon of the rocke for
a duke; a falcon peregrine for an earl; a sacret for a
knyghte ; a lanere for a squier; a merlin for a ladye;
a sparrowe-hawke for a priest.”

When the falcon was carried abroad for sport, the
jesses (thin straps of leather attached to the legs, by
which she was held on the hand) were made shorter,
that they might not impede her flight; and, unless
she were a well-practised bird, a long silken thread,
termed a creance, was attached to the bewits, by means
of which she could soar as high as was necessary, and be
again reclaimed. The hawks were mostly hooded until
the game was sprung, the hood was then removed, the
creance unwound, and the bird cast off the hand. All
kinds of birds, from the quail and pigeon to the crane
and heron, were the prey of the falcon—for the lesser
species, the spaniel was used in the same manner he is at
the present day, and when the covey rose the falcon was
thrown off.

A well-educated hawk was always expected to bring
down the best bird, uninjured either by her strong beak
or sharp talons; the prey was then taken from her,

and she was returned to her station on the wrist, until
156 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

another covey rose, when she was again cast off. For
the large species of birds, larger dogs, more resembling
pointers, were used; and for some kinds of these no
dogs were required, the attendant followers, instead,
shouted and threw stones into the lake or river, to rouse
the game. “The favourite bird of chase was the heron,
whose peculiar flight is not horizontal, like that of field
birds, but perpendicular. It is wont to rise to a great
height on finding itself the object of pursuit, while the
hawk, using equal efforts to out-tower it, at length gains
the advantage, swoops upon the heron with prodigious
force, and strikes it to the ground. This amusement
could, therefore, be viewed without the spectators moving
far from the river’s side; and from this circumstance
it was called the ‘mystery of rivers.” And it was with
a noble train that the barons and princes of the middle
ages pursued this noblest and most favourite species of
hawking; nor was war itself permitted to set aside this
princely sport. When Edward ITI. invaded France, he
was constantly attended by thirty falconers on horseback,
and “every day he hunted or went to the river.”

Such is a slight sketch of a pursuit which was the
solace and delight of the high-born for more than five

centuries. Like archery, it dates its decline from the
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 157

period of the general adoption of fire-arms;-and, like
archery, from being a sport highest of any in the
estimation of our forefathers, it has sunk almost into

oblivion.
158 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

 

XIIL—HARVEST HOME AND SHEEP-SHEARING
FEASTS.

My descriptions of these old English festivities
will extend to something beyond the mere eating and
drinking which was, and is still, carried to excess at
these rural feasts, though they are now on the wane,
and will abound more in pictures of country scenes,
such as may still be witnessed at many a thorp, grange,
hamlet, and village in the present day. There are few
pleasanter sounds to be met with in a country walk

than those of the bleating of sheep and lambs—especially
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 159

when varied by the tinkling of the sheep-bells, as it
falls upon the ear softened by distance, or comes floating
from a green valley to the ear of him who is a wanderer
on the sunny slope of the hill-side.

But a sheep-washing is a busy scene; and, although
the poor woolly animals do not seem to like the water
at all, like many dirty boys you wot of, yet they make
but little noise while in it, and they are capital
swimmers. You reach some pond or brook, and there
the poor sheep are penned up; those that are unwashed
making as loud a bleating as their dripping companions
who have been soused head over ears two or three times.
You see some little sturdy country lad trying, with all
his strength, to force a sheep into the water—into which
Mr. Mutton is resolved not to go if he can help it—and
sometimes a headstrong old tup is almost too much
for young Master Jack, and the youngster is compelled
to call for assistance, or, perhaps, the sheep, seeing it
is useless contending, will yield sooner than was expected,
and drop into the water unawares, carrying the boy,
who still clings to his fleece, with him, and then there
is loud laughing amongst the spectators.

Once in the water, there are two or three men ready
to seize the sheep; the first man lays hold of his dirty

M
160 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

wool and rolls him over and over, then leaves the sheep
to swim for it, and the poor animal turns his nose
towards the shore, thinking, no doubt, it is all over,
when a second man seizes him, gives him another
rolly-polly, and, while the sheep shakes his head as
if he liked it less and less, and begins to strike out
again for dry land, he finds himself in the clutches
of a third man, who is also standing midwaist in water.
I dare say the sheep, if he knows anything about the
dusky old gentleman, begins to wish you know who had
the whole lot of them, and the barking dogs to boot,
for there is generally a strongish mustering of all the
curs in the village at a sheep-washing. But that is his
last ablution ; he is then left to swim for it, and a pretty
“Ba! ba!” he kicks up, I can tell you, when he finds
his trotters once more treading the green grass. Or,
perhaps, the sheep is what we may venture to call one of
the fair sex, and has a little family of her own—a
Master or Miss Lamb, as the case may be—who, seeing
the highly respectable mother in so unusual and deplor-
able a plight, comes up with a “Bless me! wherever
can you have been? Why, I declare I’m afraid to
touch you! Have the teetotallers been laying hands
on you, compelling you to take the pledge, or what:
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 161

is it?” But all the worthy bearer of undressed mutton
chops can answer is, “Ba! ba!” as she wends her way
towards the rest of the unwilling bathers.

But there is a greater
surprise than this in
store for the very amia-
ble young lambs, as their
venerable mother has to
undergo another opera-
tion, in which, instead
of only washing her, they
clip all her wool off, and
render her such an ob-
ject, that even her own

brother would hardly

 

know her again. Where there are large sheep farms,
they take off the huge barn doors, and as many as a
score clippers at once will be seen shearing sheep on
these immense doors. But you have read all about
these matters in those very learned works which begin
with, “The sheep goes ba, and is good to eat, and makes
good broth for John Jones, when he, the said John, has
a bad cold,,and the wool makes clothes, which keep

John Jones nice and warm, when he is a good boy. Was
162 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

it not good to send us sheep that make such nice meat and
broth, and such out-and-out toggery ?”

. “Well, if Mrs. Sheep only cut a sorry figure before,
when her laundress sent her home with all her clothes
on her back, just as they were taken out of the wash,
so to speak, without even so much as wringing them,
you may guess what an appearance she makes when
turned out almost as bald as a bladder of lard. “Why,
bless me!” says young Master Lamb, as he comes up
smelling about his cropped and silly-looking parent,
“this is worse than the other go, and that was bad
enough, goodrtess knows! ,Why, they haven’t left you
a bit of fleece to cover yourself withal. I never saw
such a guy in my life as they have made of you. Let
us get out of sight as quick as possible, and while you
get a bit of something to eat, for you look both thin
and hungry, I'll look out for the thickest and warmest
bush I can find to shelter you from the cold, and take
possession of it, for I see another sheep coming up that
those hard-hearted shearers have made as great a fright
as yourself.”

As for the sheep-shearing feast, you will find an
admirable description of one in Shakspeare’s “ Winter’s

Tale,’ in which the clown says, “Let me see what I
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 163

am to buy for our sheep-shearing feast. Three pound
of sugar, five pound of ‘rice. What will this sister
of mine do with rice? But my father hath made her
mistress of the feast, and she lays it on. She hath
made me four and twenty nosegays for the shearers,
three men—song-men all—and very good ones, but
they are most of them ‘tenors’ and basses; but one
Puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes.
I must have saffron to colour the warden pies (pears
called wardens), mace, dates, nutmegs seven, a race or
two of ginger—but that I may beg—four pounds of
prunes, and as many raisins o’ the sun.” But furmity,
made of boiled wheat, milk, sugar, and currants, was
an old standard dish at the speep-shearing feasts in
my boyish days, and sometimes there would be as many
as half a dozen of us at once seated round a large wooden
bowl of it, eating one against the other as fast as ever
we could carry the wooden spoon to our mouths. I
do not think it was always done by accident, but some-
how two or three faces were generally smeared all over
with furmity long before the wooden bow! was emptied.
Sheep-shearing feasts are very ancient, and are
frequently mentioned in the Holy Bible, in connexion

with the names of Saul and David.
164 SPORTS AND PASTIMES -

A beautiful lady stooping to gather flowers, with
the wind blowing back her ringlets, makes a pretty
picture. Hop-picking, with the golden bines dropping
in every fanciful form around the moving figures, is a
scene to be pleasantly remembered; but, for beauty
of colour, and picturesque effect, I prefer a corn-field
at harvest time, with its sun-tanned reapers, stooping
gleaners, and creaking waggons piled high with yellow
sheaves. Many a time, while sauntering along the
green English lanes during the in-gathering of harvest,
have I heard the loud “Huzza!” in the distance, which
has proclaimed that the reapers were bringing home the
last load, and were about to rest from their labours, and
enjoy the merry feast of harvest home. Herrick, who
lived in Shakspeare’s time, has left us a capital descrip-
tion of this scene, showing how the “rural younglings,”
as he calls the boys and girls, run shouting, “ with
garments rent,” after the last load; while others were
so delighted that they “stroked” the sheaves. But I
will quote some half a score lines from this excellent
old poet, who wrote the song of “Cherry Ripe,” which
is often sung in the present day.

The following lines are from his “ Hock-cart” or

harvest home :—
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 165

About the cart hear how the rout

Of rural younglings raise the shout,
Pressing before, some coming after,

Those with a shout, and these with laughter.
Some bless the cart, some kiss the sheaves,
Some prank them up with oaken leaves,
Same pat the thill (shaft) horse, some with great
Devotion stroke the home-borne wheat;
While other rustics, less attent

To prayer than to merriment,

Run after with their garments rent.

The hedges which hem in the green lane take tol
from the high-piled waggon as it passes, for the over-
hanging boughs catch the sheaves, and many an ear of
corn is hung in the branches, which the busy birds
will soon pick as clean and empty as the most expert
thresher can make them with his noisy flail Now
it reaches the village, and all the inhabitants rush
out to look at and welcome home the last load;
for the horses are decorated with bunches of corn and
flowers, and the last sheaf which was gathered is placed
upright at the top of the waggon, and made gay with
ribbons and heather, woodbine, and wild thyme, and
long trails of convolvulus, with many others, which
are the last flowers of summer. Out rushes the burly

blacksmith, with his great voice, like the bass of a
166 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

church organ—his broad, black, bear-like chest, bare—
huzzaing with all his might as he swings the big hammer
round his head with as much ease as if it were a light
cane. Ay, you should see him drink a horn of ale!
it almost seems to “hiss” as it goes down his hot
parched throat, as if quenching the fiery sparks he had
swallowed while beating the red-hot iron. Beside him
is the little knock-kneed tailor, with his voice and
pale face, making all the noise he can; and as he
knows that his lungs are weak, he has brought out his
shears, which ke keeps “snap-snapping” as he holds them
over his head with one hand, while with the other he
pulls up the stockings which are dangling about his heels,

Stooping and toothless age, with shaking hand raised
to the ear to catch the sound, is also there, resting
beside the moss-covered garden pailings, and holding
some little grandchild by the hand; and will, when
the waggon has passed, while seated in the wicker chair
in the chimney corner, talk over the harvest homes
which those dim horny eyes have looked upon long
years ago, and some of them such as Hentzner saw in
the days of Elizabeth, and of which he says, “As we
were returning to our inn (near Windsor), we happened

to meet some country people celebrating their harvest
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 167

home. Their last load of corn they had crowned with
flowers, and had, besides, an image richly dressed, which,
perhaps, represented Ceres; this they kept moving about,
while the men and maid servants rode through the streets
on the waggon, and shouted as loud as they could,
until they reached the barn.” Another old writer says,
“The country people welcome harvest home by making
a figure of corn, round which the men and women dance
and sing, accompanied by pipe and tabor.” Now many
who have laboured in the fields return home to put on
their holiday attire, only leaving the waggoner and a
couple of men to pile up and get in the last load, and
wait in the harvest field until their fellow-labourers
come back in Sunday costume. When they return, the
procession is formed at the gate of the field, and
generally the prettiest girl in the village, clothed in
white, is seated on one of the horses, as harvest queen,
her straw hat wreatled with corn, while she carries a
bunch of wheat in her hand, bound round with ribbons
and flowers. Then onward comes the waggon, amid the
loud huzzas of old and young; the village fiddler, if
no other musician can be found, heading the procession
and scraping away in the harvest sunshine, which is

hot enough to melt the rosin on his bow. At the
168 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

village alehouses flags are hung out, for the reapers
have been’ good customers there, and have had some
scores of gallons of ale sent into the harvest field, besides
what the wealthy farmer allowed them; and the land-
lord, who stands at the door, knows that the day which
follows the harvest feast will be a holiday, so he shouts
and welcomes home the last load, or, perhaps, brings
out a large brown jug of strong ale to quench the thirst
of the reapers, who are almost hoarse with shouting,
and nearly choked with dust through dancing—though
kicking up a dust would better describe their motion—
in the procession. On they go, ram-jam, like so many
paviors—Jacky, in his hob-nailed boots, who dances with
as much grace as an elephant, wiping his brow on his
shirt-sleeve, and declaring “It’s warmish work, and
a’most as hard as shearing ;” while Betty exclaims, “I’m
all of a muck-sweat,” as she finds her clothes sticking to
her back. All the rustics are out, all the cottages are
empty, and little chubby children are trying to dance
n the villiage street, while the one-eyed fiddler plays
some old-fashioned country tune as he heads the proces-
sion of harvest home.

A little farther up the village, and there stands the
large farm-house. The wide gates that lead into the
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 169

vast stack-yard are thrown open. The number of huge
corn-ricks bespeaks the wealth of the owner, and,
together with the rows of hay-stacks, tells of the
hundreds of acres he farms. And see! there he stands,
in his top-boots, and his blue coat, with his hat in his
hand, and his portly and good-looking dame, in her
best attire, hanging on his arm, and smiling welcome
to all comers. And now the waggon is drawn up beside
the last corn-stack; the sheaves are thrown on it in
a few minutes, for all are ready to lend a helping
hand, as they are well aware that the ample feast
is spread out in the large barn, where there is plenty
for all.

The last shout is given—the final “huzza” which
ends the loud “three times three ”*—and some of them,
declaring that “they feel a little peckish,” enter, and
begin to demolish the mountain of beef, ham, mutton,
and vegetables, under which the barn doors groan, for
nothing less would serve for tables for such a multitude.
Then come plum-puddings, and cheese cakes, while
barrels of ale are broached, which were brewed long ago,
with a few extra strikes of malt in the brewing, so that,
as the jolly farmer said, “they might have a sup of

summut good at the harvest home.” King Lear, when
170 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

seeking a little ease for his great grief, says, “ Undo me
a button, I pray thee;” and our gormandising rustics
are compelled to have resource to the same relief, by
unloosening their waistcoats, as they exclaim, “I h’ve
eaten and drunken till I’m nearly bursten!” but,
regardless of self-combustion, they go on eating and
drinking again, until their skins are as tight as a
drum head, and their eyes begin to project from their
heads like the eyes of lobsters. Eating, drinking,
singing, and smoking are, in their opinion, the very
height of human enjoyment, and when they can follow
it no longer they finish by lying down and sleeping
in the sun.

I trust the following description ‘of an old country
wife, bustling about at a sheep-shearing feast, while
waiting upon and welcoming her guests, will give you
much pleasure in the perusal, especially as it was written
by our great Shakspeare, and is, no doubt, drawn from
the life—from some farmer’s wife he knew, and had,
no doubt, sat a guest at her board at the sheep-shearing
feast of Stratford-on-Avon, or some village in the neigh-
bourhood. It is from his “Winter’s Tale,” which I have
before made mention of, and is addressed by the Shep-
herd to the pretty Perdita.
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 171

When my old wife liv’d, upon
This day she was both pantler, butler, cook;
Both dame and servant; welcomed all; served all;
Would sing her song and dance her turn; now here,
At the upper end o’ the table, now i’ the middle;
On his shoulder, and his; her face o’ fire
With labour; and the thing she took to quench it,
She would to each one sip.

This is the very highest of word-painting. You see
it more distinctly than you could in a picture, though
executed by the ablest artist. How she moves about,
curtseying here and serving there, now seen at one
end of the table, then at the other, leaning on the
shoulder of this guest to speak a few kind words to
him, then hurrying off to address some new comer.
And, above all, pray notice the few apt words in which
Shakspeare describes all this; bear them in your
memory, and, when you sit down to write, try to say
what you wish to put down in some such curt, happy, and
picturesque language, and, in after days, you will feel

thankful that I have pointed out this beautiful passage.
172 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

 

XIV.—CHRISTMAS SPORTS.

For long centuries Christmas has been distinguished
from all other English festivals as the great season of
merrymaking—the crowning holiday of the year, and
more devoted than any other to in-door sports and
pastimes. For centuries all the silver-toned bells of
England—from grey old abbey, high-towered cathedral,
ancient minster, and lowly church—have rung in merry
Christmas ; city repeating the welcome tidings to town,
while walled town and battlemented burgh sent from
tower and spire the joyful proclamation through wide-
spreading thorp, straggling village, upland hamlet, and

far away to lonely grange and isolated cottage, and every
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 173

far-off habitation of man. And those bells, that call to
one another from tower and spire, link themselves to
solemn associations in a reflective mind, carrying our
thoughts to the fields of Bethlehem and the Godchild
that once laid in the lowly manger, while white-winged
angels anthemed in His birth to the listening shepherds,
who kept watch over their flocks by night. Let us not,
then, amid our Christmas sports, forget Him whom
this welcome season is held in memory of; nor, while
amusing ourselves with light literature or harmless
games, omit to read a few of those beautiful chapters
in the New Testament, either at morning or night,
which describe the birth of our Redeemer. Nor must
I omit making mention of Milton’s beautiful “Ode on
the Nativity,’ which I trust you will all read.

And now the yule log is on the fire, and a ruddy
light is thrown on the deep crimson of the holly-berries,
whose dark, bright, armed leaves give a summer look
to the apartment ; while the misletoe hangs over every
door, so that the girls cannot pass to or fro without
paying that toll which youth is permitted, by old custom,
to take at this merry season of the year; what shall
the game be—blind-man’s buff? Clear away the table,

then, and place the chairs one upon another, with the
174 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

table-leaf to the.fire, remember, so that there may be no
accident to mar our merriment; and bear in mind, that
it is not fair play to get between the table-leaf and
the fire. The very youngest of our brothers and sisters
can join in this old English game: and it is selfish to
select only such sports as they cannot become sharers of.
Its ancient name is “hoodman-blind ;” and when hoods
were worn by both men and women—centuries before
hats and caps were so common as they now are—the
hood was reversed, placed hind-before, and was, no
doubt, a much surer way of blinding the player than
that now adopted—for we have seen Charley try to
catch his pretty cousin Caroline, by chasing her behind
chairs and into all sorts of corners, to our strong
conviction that he was not half so well blinded as
he ought to have been. Some said he could see through
the black silk handkerchief; others that it ought to
have been tied clean over his nose, for that when he
looked down he could see her feet, wherever she moved;
and Charley had often been heard to say that she had
the prettiest foot and ankle he had ever seen. But there
he goes, head over heels across a chair, tearing off
Caroline’s gown-skirt in his fall, as he clutches it in the

hope of saving himself. Now, that is what I call
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 175

retributive justice; for she threw down the chair for
him to stumble over, and, if he has grazed his knees, she
suffers under a torn dress, and must retire until one of
the maids darns up the rent. But now the mirth and.
glee grow “fast and furious,” for Hoodman-blind has
imprisoned three or four of the youngest boys in a
corner, and can place his hand on whichever he likes.
Into what a small compass they have forced themselves !
But the one behind has the wall at his back, and, taking
advantage of so good a purchase, he sends his three
laughing companions sprawling on the floor, and is
himself caught through their having fallen, as his
shoulder is the first that is grasped by Blindman-buff
—so that he must now submit to be hooded.

But now let us play the old-fashioned game of
“Forfeits” with a wooden trencher; and to do this
properly we must all sit round the room—if on the
floor, all the better, as it is then rather more difficult
to get up than merely rising from a chair. The middle of
the room must be clear, so that there may be plenty of
space to spin the trencker in, and room enough for those
to run forward and catch it (before it falls) whose names
are called, as they have to “ forfeit,” unless they seize the
trencher while it is spinning. No one, of course, can

N
176 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

tell who will be called upon to catch it until the name
is proclaimed by the Spinner of the Trencher, who
generally takes care not to name anyone until it appears
ready to fall; so that all are on the alert, and it is not
at all unusual for three or four to spring up at once.
Now this is a real Christmas game in which both boys
and girls can join. Indeed, there is but little fun unless
the young ladies are present. Now the trencher is
spinning, and the name of Arthur Anderson is called ; it
falls before he catches it, and he gives up as forfeit his
pencil-case. Mary Melrose fares no better, for, in her
over-eagerness, she hurls the trencher down at the first
touch instead of catching it with both hands; she has no
pockets in her dress, so must take off her coral necklace.
Master Smith, who has pockets, but nothing in them, has
forfeited his necktie; and pretty Julia Johnson her large
_comb, so that she is compelled to join in the game with
her beautiful long hair falling down her neck, and
tumbling every now and then over her eyes, that glitter
through the waving tresses like stars between the
interstices of clouds.

But see how the forfeits have accumulated! the
table is fairly covered with them, and now they must be

redeemed. I know there is some kind of a secret
-

OF MERRY ENGLAND. 177

understanding between the pretty gipsy who kneels with
her face buried in the lap of the laughing girl that holds
up the forfeits, one after another, in her taper fingers,
and asks the prostrate oracle what he or she must do to
redeem “this pretty thing, this very pretty thing? and.
that she who kneels can tell as well to whom it belongs
as if she raised her laughing eyes and looked at it. Now
that pocket-handkerchief was forfeited by Smitherkins,
who always looks as silly as a sheep, and appears as
if he was unable to say “boo” to a goose; as to looking
a pretty girl in the face, I verily believe he would
faint away at only the naming of such a thing. And
now he is sentenced to kiss that beautiful romp, Julia
Johnson, through the tongs, and see! with a wicked
curtsey, she presents him with the very tongs, and
throws back the long hair from her sweet face, lest
it should, as she says, get into his mouth and choke
him. Look at him! he fairly trembles as he stands
up, white as a sheet, with his face between the open
tongs. He shuts his eyes—he cannot look at her—he
opens his mouth as if he were about to bite her; and
see, quick as thought, she seizes her grandmother’s
lap-dog, and pug gets the kiss on his cold black nose,
while all the room rings with laughter.
178 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

Next comes Master Peter, who looks as stiff and
straight as if he had swallowed a poker—breathe it
not, but there is a whisper that “he wears stays.” What
will they do to punish him, I wonder?

Master Peter, like a Mussulman at the tomb of the
Prophet, must kneel down and touch the hearth-rug
thrice with his forehead, or forfeit the silk purse with
its contents. How will he do it? His trousers fit
almost as tight as his skin, and are strapped down so
straitly that it is impossible to bend his knees without
bursting them.

He makes the attempt, however; bang go the buttons,
crack go the straps, while his forehead comes down with
such force, that, were it not for the hearth-rug, I would
wager a stick of horseradish against a whole sirloin, that
in the morning there would be a bump as large as a
Dorking hen’s egg. And now Master Wilson must
stand on the table with a candle in each hand, and
whistle “God save the Queen” without’ smiling, to
redeem his forfeit. And this he must do while all
the boys are making faces at him, and some playing
tricks on their companions—which he, from his elevation,
alone can. see—reading the paper just pinned on that

conceited youth’s collar, on which is written, “I’m a
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 179

conceited ass.” How can he either whistle, or keep
even a grave countenance, while witnessing such
“goings on?”

Listen to Master Jackson’s challenge: he will under-
take to tell whatever any boy may think or wish,
providing said boy will first whisper such thoughts or
wishes to Julia Johnson.

“Tt is impossible!” half a dozen voices exclaim, and
one or two look down suspiciously at Master Jackson’s
feet, to see if he has got hoofs like him “you wot of.”
George Greenwood whispers the first wish into the
listening ear of pretty Julia, and Master Jackson
guesses right, although Julia mentioned many other
wishes before she gave utterance to the right one.
And how was it done? they had no communication—
Miss Julia sat at one end of the long table and Master
Jackson at the other—a great deal too far off for him
to hear a single word of what Greenwood whispered.
I'll tell you, and then you will see it is as easy as letting
the fire go out, and that, you well know, is no trouble.

Of course, Julia must be a confederate. Well,
supposing she touches her nose with her finger before
commencing, or her hair with her hand—the first

signifies that she will mention the name of some bird,
180 SPORTS AND PaSTIMES

the second the name of some animal, before giving
utterance to the wish or thought whispered into her ear
by George Greenwood. Thus, if she touched her nose,
though she might name fifty things before she mentioned
the name of any bird, yet if she said, “ Does he wish
he had a white pigeon? Master Jackson would know
that the next question she put would be the one to
which he must answer in the affirmative, which, if you
remember (she having touched her hair) said, “ Does
he wish for a long-tailed pony?” the answer was
“No.” But when, with same little confusion, she next
said, “Does he wish he may have me for a wife?”

> and Miss Caroline pouted

Jackson answered, “ Yes ;’
her pretty lips, for she had always looked upon George
as her little sweetheart, and so he paid her back in her
own coin for romping so much with her cousin Charley,
and taking so little notice of him as she did, by making
her a little bit jealous.

But now I will describe a new game of forfeits, in
which there is no cessation, but where bays and girls
will be kept incessantly on the move, and have to keep
their thoughts about them, as every time I name a
flower of any kind, those who beforehand bear the names

of the flowers agreed upon, must instantly jump up,
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 181

run across the room, and change places with the flower
previously named. And if this does not keep you in
good exercise, I'll eat my old boots. Now, I first tell
you what you must be; you, miss, “ Rose,” you “ Verbena,”
you “ Lily,” you “ Violet.” I think I have given all you
young ladies names. Now, young gentlemen, as a
gardener cannot work without tools, you must be
“ Rake,” you “Spade,” you “ Watering-pot,” you “ Knife,”
you “Bags,” to tie the flowers I gather together, and
every time I name one or another of them, you must,
as I said, jump up, run across the room, and change
places with the one before mentioned; and as I shall
be troubled with insects too, like all other gardeners,
why you will be “Earwig,’ you “ Caterpillar,” you
“Snail,” for you were always a slow boy. And now, I
hope each and all will remember the names agreed
upon. Very well; if you are ready, so am I—so, gentle-
men and ladies, be prepared with forfeits, for I assure
you I expect a great many, unless you move with
something like railroad speed, and have much better
memories than I dare give you credit for. Look round,
Greenwood; you are “ Garden ” mind.

As I was one day in my Garden, sometimes busying

myself with my Hoe, Rake, and Spade—now cutting
182 SPORTS AND PASTIMES

a Rose, gathering a little Mignionette, or admiring the
beauty of one of my choice Geraniums, a little lady of
very pleasing manners came up, and asked me to be
good enough to cut her a bouquet ; when, just as I took
out my Knife, she gave such a scream as made me jump
again. “Oh, deary me!” said she, “I am almost
frightened to death to see such a number of Bees,
Wasps, Earwigs, Caterpillars, Snails, Wire-worms, Slow-
worms, Earth-worms, Glow-worms, Blind-worms, Beetles,
Crickets, and Wood-lice !”

“Did the lady speak as quick as that ?”

To be sure she did—so all you who were insects pay
your forfeits—for you were nearly all out. Now you
young ladies who are flowers need not laugh, for it will
be your turn next, and I can tell you the little lady
gave her orders very quick. After she had recovered
a little from her fright, and while I was removing my
Hoe, Rake, and Watering-pan, she said—

“Don’t let me hurry you, sir; but if you have
them, I want you to cut me one flower only of a sort,
and be sure and let it contain Lily, Stock, Rose, Car-
nation, Sweet-William, Daisy, Pansy, Mignionette,
London-Pride, Hollyhock, Fuschia, Verbena, Geranium,

Orcus, Anemone, and let them be free of Snails, Earwigs,
OF MERRY ENGLAND. 183

Flies, Grubs, Beetles, Crickets, Worms, Gnats, Spiders,
which get into every Rose, Stock, Pansy, Knife, Water-pot,
Lily ; and on each Spade, Hoe, Rake—”

What must I stop for? Not room for you? All
mixed together? Then you must all pay forfeits—
Insects, Implements, and Flowers. I repeated the
names no quicker than the little lady in green gave
her orders. Hot, are you? I dare say; and if I must
stop to let you rest, why I must, though I have not
yet named half the flowers she ordered, nor enumerated
a third of the insects that frightened her.

Redeem your forfeits. Youth is the time to be
merry—and the day will come, when, like me, you. will
sit by the Christmas-hearth, and, glancing backward,
recall those faces upturned beneath the misletoe, the
merry laugh under the holly—while the wine, more
ruddy than its berries, sparkled on the board, as jest
and song flew round, from lips long since cold, silent,
and dead. Not that we have such Christmases now
as Washington Irving describes, “when the old halls of
castles and manor-houses were thrown open at daylight ;
when the tables were covered with brawn and beef, and
humming ale; when the harp and the carol resounded
all day long, and when rich and poor were alike welcome

0
184 SPORTS AND PASTIMES OF MERRY ENGLAND.

to enter and make merry.” Still we have our sports and
Christmas cheer, and many a happy in-door amusement
which was unknown to our rude forefathers. So, in
the language of honest Thomas Tusser, whose poems
were printed exactly three hundred years ago, I will
conclude with—

At Christmas be merry, and thank God for all,
And feast thy poor neighbour—the great with the small.

FINIS.

 

Printed by W. tL. COX, 5, Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields.