At Fedamore in Co Limerick where Dorothea Conyers lived circa 1885, an extraordinary fox dwelt in the extensive gorse covert there. Mr. Nugent Humble, Master of the Co Limerick foxhounds, called it The Old Customer.
He was a very long, dark fox, and I really believe he liked being hunted. Day after day, he took hounds on the same lines―he had two―and seemed to beat them when he liked.
One hunt was over Fedamore Hill, across the Commogee River, at which the riding people had to make for the bridge, and as far as Cahi’r Gullamore, when he used to disappear. Hounds would run it to the wall there and no further. I believe he knew of some old hole in the wall. The other line was from the covert right across one lair, over the Corcass* into Grange, up to the old caves at Lough Gur―where he used to disappear. Of course, there was never anybody with hounds in Grange, as horses could not cross the Corcass.
I saw that fox myself turn and break one greyhound’s leg on our lawn. Someone loosed the brute, and the Old Customer took it quite coolly, twisted and snapped, and there was one greyhound less in the world.
He got me into very hot water once by his extraordinary behavior. The 3rd Hussars had a pack of drag hounds, and we were asked to lay one round Fedamore for them. We never laid it within five fields of the gorse. My brother and I chose the route and gave it to Peter the Faithful to run, but that ruffian fox must needs march out to be hunted.
Gleeson, the old covert keeper, declares that he “lepped above on the bank when he heard the dogs nisin an’ away with him to see what was up.”
This I cannot vouch for, but he crossed right in front of the hounds and led them his dance to Lough Gur, into which a Master on an exhausted horse toiled, asking me if this was my idea of a four-mile drag over a nice country. The Corcass was, of course, included in the Old Customer’s line. Several unwary people tried to cross and got bogged.
I, who was out on a carriage horse to look on and got to Grange by the road and quick as anyone, said nothing, but Mr. Nugent Humble said a good deal to me later on. I could never persuade him that we had not drawn the covert.
Hounds never killed the old fox. I suppose he died naturally or was retaliated by some brute of a greyhound.
When we left Fedamore, his meals of crows were curtailed, and he had no more peacock chicks to come and steal. All the foxes were honourable as to chickens and ducks, but peacock chicks were outside of their code of morals.
*Corcass: flat salt marsh along the bank of a tidal river
Posted January 27, 2022
An excerpt from Dorothea Conyers, Sporting Reminiscences, London, 1920