Tally Ho Ancient and modern came into amusing conflict the
other day, and I had a good view of it from my study-window, which faces across the valley from the brow of a mid-Weald hill. Disturbed by cries, the tooting of a tin trumpet, the thudding of hooves and the baying of hounds, I looked out and saw the Hunt tumbling past the house, followed by a rabble of cars, cycles and pedestrians. They filled the lane, and rolled through it like the Severn Bore rushing up to Bridgwater.
Only once before, in eleven years, have I seen the Hunt in this neigh- bourhood. Here the countryside is too confined for this care-free sport. Hop-gardens full of poles and wire, fruit-orchards where mounted folk would be likely to meet the fate of Absolom, close copses of sweet chestnut—these make the terrain difficult, if not treacherous, for fox- hunting.
Nevertheless, heic they were, following the red-coat and the trumpet. I felt they had a somewhat self-conscious, a belated, look, as though aware of being in the wrong place, and out-moded. The hounds were few and in low spirits. This mood became almost defeatism when the fox led them to a newly planted apple-orchard (formerly a sloping corn- field) in which four men and a tractor were laying land-drains. The tractor had been at work since sun-up, droning and straining. It was fitted with a cor,trivance that ploughed a narrow trench two feet deep, turning the soil up and over a chute, tugging at the task, as slow and inevitable as a slug. The field was a shambles, or becoming so, criss- crossed with trenches, a scale-model of a scene in Flanders in 1916.
The Hunt halted, and went into a huddled conference. The tractor ignored the assembly, and its serfs followed it, feeding the land-drains into the trenches Then suddenly the fox was sighted running up the other side of the lane, having veered away from the excavations. Tho trumpet tooted, a hound gave mouth, the hooves clattered, the cars revved up, and the Hunt was on again. Down the lane they bobbed and pedalled and hummed, and with a distant cry the horses took a gate and were coursing up the opposite slope half a mile away. I thought 1 heard the voice of the immortal Mr. Jorrocks in the diminishing babble.
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