Hunt “Runners.” III. “Harry” and Sellars

No better tribute to the scope of the runner’s usefulness could be put forth than the fact that he is running with us to-day. As might be expected, quite a little band of scarlet-coated runners live within easy reach of Melton and Oakham, a privileged area in which sport with one or other of the four Leicestershire packs may be seen on six days of the week. Theirs is a hard life at best, and were they not thoroughly endued with the spirit for sport, they could not for long follow their calling; but the runner of the rising generation has not the enthusiasm of a former generation. As for reminiscences, his begin and end with the week’s sport; as for the future, he hopes the going will not be any heavier in the coming week.

The journey to covert through the characteristic Leicestershire gates, across grass fields and cow pastures, is the runner’s opportunity to be useful; at the meet the possession by the great majority of hunting men of second horsemen render his services less in demand than they used to be. The hunt runner is not the character he was in our forefathers’ day; but there are still uses for him in certain districts. At the present time both the Quorn and the Cottesmore have recognised men to lead their terriers, and perform other functions. With the Belvoir a runner may be seen joining the hunt on a Leicestershire day, but he is more or less “on his own”; for if a terrier is out it is running with the pack or led by a second horseman. So far as the Lincolnshire side of the Belvoir country is concerned, it is no country for runners; the area traversed is very wide, and the going is much too heavy to let a man on foot keep in touch with a well-mounted hunt. The same applies to the Blankney country, where we never remember seeing a runner on any occasion; the Blankney Hunt terrier is always carried by one of the second horsemen, slung in a game-bag so that he can be brought on the scene at the shortest notice.

When Lord Lonsdale instituted his memorable reign as master of the Quorn in 1893, he organised every detail of his staff, from Tom Firr in leathers and swan-necked spurs, to the hunt runners carrying the very latest pattern of bolting apparatus. No commander-in-chief of an army ever entered on a plan of campaign better found in every department, and the result was entirely satisfactory for sport, good runs, with a fox at the finish, being the order of things. On the opening day of that season at Kirby Gate, we had the good fortune to be one of the field mounted by Mr. James Hornsby, who then lived at Stapleford Park. Amongst the crowd at the meet, the figure of Harry the runner came in for general observation. He turned out in scarlet coat of a texture not too heavy; white flannel knickerbockers, black stockings, and a well-groomed hunting cap. He led a couple of varminty wire-haired terriers of the celebrated Lonsdale breed, and strapped to his back was a patent sapper’s spade with pick, made of the best steel. Thus equipped, Harry appears in one of the Quorn series of hunt pictures by Major Giles, which depicts hounds marking to ground in one of the characteristic hills typical of the woodland side of Leicestershire. With Harry was another runner, a strong athletic young fellow with a heavy moustache, who carried a bolting apparatus in the shape of thirty-five feet of piping with a brush at the end of it, not unlike that used by chimney-sweeps. Known to the hunt department as Sunny Marlow, he has always worked with Harry.

On the occasion before us, contrary to custom, the first draw was Welby Fishponds, instead of Gartree Hill, and we were marshalled by the field master, Mr. Lancelot Lowther, a field away whilst hounds drew covert. At last the silver whistles proclaimed hounds away on the back of a fox, and the cavalcade swept down the hillside. After a hunt of about an hour, with a somewhat catchy scent, and a blind line of country that laid the field out like ninepins, hounds marked to ground over a drain between Old Dalby Wood and Sixhills. Before we had been there five minutes, Harry was on the scene with his apparatus and terriers. Unstrapping the spade, he took off his coat, and putting his back into the work, he cut the sods out in double quick time. It was a characteristic shallow Leicestershire drain, running across a grass field, and crowning down into it, a terrier was put in at the far end. This moved the fox, and Alfred Earp, the whipper-in, was ready to seize him by the brush as he tried to slip further up. Wriggling like an eel at arm’s length, he was flung adrift, and the pack coursing the length of a field, rolled him over—the first fox of the season.

An official Quorn runner must be a good hand with the spade, for he gets many a rough day’s work in the off season digging out badgers, which abound in high Leicestershire. As most people know, badgers are very untidy neighbours for a fox covert, working out the earths so that stopping out becomes an increased difficulty. Very often digging out a badger earth may mean a week or two of solid work, for badgers go very deep, often among the roots of trees. As a rule the soil is light and sandy, working well; where badgers have been imported into clay soil districts to work out earths for foxes, they have at first opportunity migrated to districts where the digging suited them better. This last autumn one of the hunt runners told us that after some very hard digging they got hold of three badgers whose combined weight turned the scale at a hundredweight, the largest measuring 3 ft. 10 in. in length. The badgers are killed, and their skins sent in to the Master of the Hunt as trophies.

Since Captain Forester undertook the mastership last season, Harry has again, we understand, become a paid member of the staff as in Lord Lonsdale’s time. If the two men are not seen running with the Hunt on the same day, the one is pretty sure to be stopping earths in another district for next day.

A runner with the Cottesmore has to put a great deal of travelling into a day’s hunting when the fixture is wide of Oakham; on Mondays and Thursdays an average journey to the meet is from twelve to fifteen miles, with no chance of a lift by rail. Sellars, who has been runner for the best part of twenty seasons, tells us that he frequently starts from Oakham, with his terriers, at eight o’clock in the morning, to reach such fixtures as Castle Bytham, Holywell Hall, Stocken-Hall, or Clipsham, by eleven. Fortunately at the end of the day, hounds work back towards Oakham, so that when they whip off the runner is nearer his well-earned supper. Sellars is a well-set-up, active fellow, who relies on his own energies to carry him through, and where the heart is keen for sport it is astonishing what a man can accomplish. A younger runner to-day of shorter build lessens his labours by using a bicycle, which certainly gives him an advantage in districts where the roads serve. But Sellars has ridden to hounds in his time second horseman, as far back as when William Neil carried the horn, and he is hardly likely to adopt the “wheel.” In his cap, scarlet coat and leggings, he is the typical, sharp-featured runner, in hard condition to go all day, perfectly at home in the country, which he knows by heart.

With the respectful manner of one who has been in touch with hunting all his life, Sellars is not a great talker; he is a silent admirer of all connected with the Cottesmore Hunt, in which his sun rises and sets. During the hunting season there is plenty of work to be had between times in the shape of badger digging and earth stopping, besides taking a turn as beater when there is shooting going on in the district. The hay and corn harvest gives every available hand the chance of a fair day’s work for good pay, the farmers then finding the Hunt runners employment.

Sellars calls to mind the memories of a long succession of brilliant Cottesmore Hunt servants: mentioning William Neil and his famous first whip, Jimmy Goddard, who was the beau ideal of a horseman, and hung a boot better than most. The long service of George Gillson, as huntsman for the best part of twenty years, was remarkable for consistent and good sport, very popular with the countryside. A whipper-in who had a long tenure of service at that time was George Jull, who remained on for a season or two under Arthur Thatcher, and then went to Ireland. Amongst the many occasions that Sellars has helped to extricate horse and rider after a fall, he calls to mind an incident when Jull came such a crumpler, that he had to be conveyed by the Hunt runner to the nearest farmhouse.

Sellars was one of those who rendered first aid when Colonel Little took a bad fall this season, his horse rolling over him with serious consequences. A runner, if he is worth his salt, must be ready for any emergency, from rendering “first aid” to handling a fox or leading an unwilling hound. Very often his duties are in the track of the hunt, shutting gates and collecting strayed stock, so that he must be included amongst those who further sport by repairing mistakes of the careless.