The path wound its way up the fell side, twisting and turning as it sought the line of least resistance in its quest for the ridge and finally the trig point that marked the actual summit. Several hundred feet below the track and above the valley where the track began, a buzzard circled on a thermal originating from the big crag.
The path like the crag had over the centuries seen many things, Stone Age man had used the track to get to the veins of slate on an adjoining fell. Viking and Roman feet had followed the track to and from the nearby coast. Long pony trains carried produce over the track to the coast and its sea port. Finally, endless hordes of garishly dressed tourists added to the general erosion of the track. It began in the valley bottom, passed through an area of bog, soon left it behind, and that is where the erosion started. The higher up the fell, the thinner the soil, the greater the erosion. At the time all these thoughts passed me by, but looking back I can ascend the track from start to finish in my mind’s eye. I remember it so well because on one Christmas holiday morning, I saw a hunt which will long remain in my memory.
The day had begun with the usual coffee and small talk in the yard of the white-washed farm, which had stood for centuries and reflected a type of building now only a memory. Things began rather quickly with a dig in the ribs which caused me to spill the cup of coffee I was holding and almost drop the chunk of Christmas cake into the slurry in which I stood.
“Sisster theer,” my assailant said pointing up the fell side with his stick. My eyes followed the line and to my surprise saw a large fox lying just inside a bed of dead bracken.
The huntsman also saw the fox, and dropping the ramp of the hound trailer released the pack which raced up the fell through a gate held open by a follower.
The fox both saw and heard the hounds, and with a disdainful twitch of its brush took off straight up the fell side like a proverbial rocket amid a chorus of view halloas. It crested the fell, paused for a quick look back and then disappeared down into the next valley.
We climbed the ridge at various speeds, dependent on a variety of factors: age, fitness, and the quantity of alcohol consumed the previous evening. Ultimately we all arrived on the ridge. Some leaned on their walking sticks sucking in lungs full of air, shirts open to the waist. Others sat quietly on the grass easing their aching leg muscles and some just stood, one chap even lit his pipe.
Several hundred feet below a road snaked up the valley floor before gaining height and disappearing towards a village blocked from our view. A line of cars and Land Rovers were drawn up nose to tail. A line of hunt followers stood with their backs to us, appearing to be looking in the direction of some bracken beds which lay below a boulder field above which towered a formidable looking crag.
“Hey, look,” someone cried, indicating a figure separated from the main group and standing furtively against a wall, “Dick ….. from H….. Farm is having a pee; shame we can’t halloa the bugger.” Many were the pairs of binoculars trained on poor Dick. And the comments! Well….
While this was going on, the fox was running around the bracken beds with the pack in hot pursuit, seemingly oblivious to the danger. Tiring of the bracken beds, the fox moved up into the boulder field above but after a few minutes ran up the face of the big crag behind, jumping from ledge to ledge until having obtained an apparently impregnable position, it lay down on a narrow ledge and surveyed the excited pack beneath. A group of followers left the road and began the climb up to the crag. Well in the lead was Dick, as somebody put it, “traveling light!”
A while later the little group stood gazing up at the place where we assumed the fox had binked*. Arms could be sen throwing stones most of which returned the way they had come causing, much to our amusement, much ducking and diving in the group, and the odd howl from the marking pack.
“Total waste of time,” I said to no one in particular. “The whole crag face overhangs.”
Finally the fox tired of the proceedings and jumped and scrabbled its way to the top of the crag and onto the ridge, along which it proceeded to trot. A few hundred yards into its journey, however, headed by a party of walkers, it turned and descended into the valley it had just left. Someone halloaed, and the pack picked up the drag. Crossing the road, the fox narrowly missed being run over, climbed the steep fell side, but being pumped out was killed in front of us on the track we had ascended earlier, thus adding another small piece to the history of the ancient track.
The quiet click of the latch on the fell head gate caused a nearby sheep to look up from its grazing and, seeing no threat it, quickly resumed its endless cropping. Stepping onto the fell proper I looked around. There had been heavy dew in the night evident by the droplets of moisture clinging to a patch of rushes and glistening like diamonds in the rays of the weak winter sun. It would be before 9 am, the advertised time of the loose from the pub on the roadside a mile and a good several hundred feet below. The sunlight reflected off the cars parked up in the car park and others lining the road. There was no sound other than the wind coming in from my right. Turning, I leaned on the gate and looked back down the valley. Even with the aid of binoculars I could see I had it all to myself, although high above on the ridge I thought I saw figures moving among the rocks of a notorious borran. I turned my attention back to the pub and was rewarded by the sight of the huntsman, whipper-in, and my host standing on the doorstep surrounded by the pack.
I gazed up the remainder of the valley, wondering where to go and sit quietly to watch the hunt. My eyes and binoculars were drawn to a movement near a deep rocky ghyll away to my right.
A fell fox in hard condition could be seen slipping quietly away, heading for the next valley where he thought he would get some peace and quiet away from hounds. What he didn’t know was that another fell pack was having a week’s hunting in the adjoining valley! This had come about because when the fixtures were planned ale had been involved, and no one had realised until too late.
The fox disappeared into the ghyll. I moved the glasses to the top and was rewarded a couple of minutes later with the sight of him emerging. He paused, glanced back, and with a swish of his tail dropped out of view into the next valley.
The other hunt had spent the previous week in their valley. Hunting four days, the fox population had been well exercised with a couple in the category of “the sick, the lame, and the lazy” taken out, plus two more who were just unlucky. In actual fact more or less the entire fox population having had enough had decamped en-mass for places unknown. Today was Saturday at the end of the week’s visit and the big crowd many of whom had contributed to the huntsman’s cap were expecting sport.
The morning had worn on and the pack and followers had wandered hither and thither finding nothing. The vocal encouragement of the huntsman echoed back from the crags growing in volume until the hunt secretary was heard to say, “I’d rather hear a little more of the hounds and less of the huntsman, as another Try on echoed on the wind.
As I had seen, the fox had disappeared into the next valley and out of my sight. What happened next I learned later in the pub. The fox was seen by a shepherd as it slipped into the valley. His resulting halloa had attracted the hounds to the fox and within a few minutes they had hit the line and a screaming hunt ensued. According to the shepherd, the fox had turned and “gone back ower to thy side with a rocket up its arse,” and the full weight of the pack close behind.
Initially I heard and saw nothing due to the bulk of the fell, but then I heard hounds running, quietly at first but increasing in volume. I looked back up the valley and was rewarded with the sight of the other pack cresting the ridge and coming my way, the fox not far ahead. The hunt in “my valley” hadn’t been doing too well either, but the cry of the incoming hounds drew the attention of “our” pack who flew to them. Now, about forty hounds were chasing the flagging fox.
It was over in a flash and somebody began to halloa, the sound carried down to where I stood. High above me the dispersing packs confirmed what I already knew. In the pub afterwards, the followers of the packs could not agree whose hound caught the fox so they claimed half each and, with honour satisfied, walked home while the morning settled in over the eastern fells.
* Binked: To seek refuge on a rock face
Posted January 5, 2017
For more of Ron Black’s work, visit his website dedicated to preserving the history, culture, stories, and songs of Lakeland hunting.