Hound

“ The quiet life of the woods is undisturbed; for the voice of the hound is only an echo, not unlike the far-off tolling of a slow-swinging bell. The leaves stir as a wood mouse scurries from his stump; an acorn rattles down ”

“ But then the long-drawn bay of the hound would come from the bottoms ahead, and he would hurry to the summons, his face flushed and eager. The music of the dog running, the sound of the shots, and his own triumphant yells started many an echo among the silent frosted hills that day. He came home with enough meat to last a week—six rabbits. ”

“ With life full-beaming her vain wiles betrayed.
At distance draw thy pack, let all be hushed,
No clamour loud, no frantic joy be heard,
Lest the wild hound run gadding o'er the plain
Untractable, nor hear thy chiding voice.
Now gently put her off; see how direct
To her known mews she flies! Here, huntsman, bring
(But without hurry) all thy jolly hounds,
And calmly lay them in. ”

“ Hound after hound leaps on to the tall wall, halts a brief second, his form outlined against the bright blue sky, then disappears, and faint, long-drawn-out voices are all we have of a mountain fox-hunt. ”

“ In short, he was one of those who lie still and wait, like the crafty pointer dogs that creep along the grass, hunting out game for others to shoot down for them, and devouring the spoil with a keener relish than the noble hound that makes the forest ring as he plunges upon his prey. ”

“ I had known several highly-trained hounds, and famous bird dogs, though my ideal of canine perfection was that marvel of sagacity, the shepherd dog. Still, my first love among dogs had been a noble old hound, who, though sightless from age, would follow a rabbit better than any young dog was capable of doing. The scent of powder brought back his lost youth. Let him hear the loading of a gun,—or the mere rattle of a shot-pouch was enough,—he would break out into the wildest gambols, dashing hither and yon, in an ecstasy of delight. ”

“ This is thoroughly a winter sound,—this voice of the hound upon the mountain,—and one that is music to many ears. The long, trumpet-like bay, heard for a mile or more,—now faintly back in the deep recesses of the mountain,—now distinct, but still faint, as the hound comes over some prominent point, and the wind favors,—anon entirely lost in the gully,—then breaking out again much nearer, and growing more and more pronounced as the dog approaches, till, when he comes around the brow of the mountain, directly above you, the barking is loud and sharp. ”

“ Oft babbling errs, by wiser age reprov’d;
How niggard of his strength, the wise old hound
Hangs in the rear, till some important point
Rouse all his diligence, or till the Chase
Sinking he finds: then to the head he springs,
With thirst of glory fir’d, and wins the prize.
Huntsman, take heed; they stop in full career!
Yon crowding flocks, that at a distance gaze,
Have haply foil’d the turf. See! that old hound,
How busily he works, but dares not trust
His doubtful sense; draw yet a wider ring. ”

“ Imagine the difficulty of breaking in a young hound for elk-hunting when the jungles are swarming with such a list of vermin! The better the pup the more he will persevere in hunting everything that he can possibly find; and with such a variety of animals, some of which have the most enticing scent, it is a source of endless trouble in teaching a young hound what to limit and what to avoid.
It is curious to witness the sagacity of the old hounds in joining or despising the opening note of a newcomer. ”

“ Two strange hounds, meeting for the first time, behave as civilly toward each other as if two men. I know a hound that has an ancient, wrinkled, human, far-away look that reminds one of the bust of Homer among the Elgin marbles. He looks like the mountains toward which his heart yearns so much. ”

“ He felt, in the first place, that if the noble hound came out, wagging its tail with pleasure, to lick the hand of its beloved master—that hand would fall in palsied impotence before it could do the awful deed. ”

“ The hound is represented in his best and noblest aspect: all the forces of his being seem concentrated in loving anxiety. It is as if suffering brought out in the dog's nature those higher qualities by which he is allied to human beings. His countenance is intensely expressive yet thoroughly canine. Every line of the drawing brings out the dog's character,—the squat of the haunches, the position of the legs far apart, the rising of the hair on the crest of the back, the droop of the head, the flattening of the tail.
The broad collar with the ring is a symbol of his subjection. ”

“ An old hound, bound to the spot by the talismanic phrase, "Guard him!"—a duty from which only death itself could lure him—sat bolt-upright by the prostrate figure, and looked now with sleepy eyes and cavernous yawns at the departing guests, and now became preternaturally vigilant, and uttered wistful wheezes of despair and envy as the hopeful gambols of the young dogs about the munching fiddler caught his attention. ”

“ He is a large hound, as he well needs to be, for the "varmint" who is his customary quarry is the wildest, most vicious, and, for its size, the most powerful of all British wild animals, the inveterate poacher of our salmon streams, and consequently to be mercilessly slaughtered, although always in sporting fashion. To be equal to such prey, the hound must have a Bulldog's courage, a Newfoundland's strength in water, a Pointer's nose, a Retriever's sagacity, the stamina of the Foxhound, the patience of a Beagle, the intelligence of a Collie. ”

“ Nothing is a greater disgrace to the MASTER, the HUNTSMAN, or the pack, than to see a parcel of straggling tail hounds, labouring in vain; except a leading hound loaded with a leaden necklace, to restrain his speed, and depress the instinctive impulse of his nature to a level with those who are not his equals. ”

“ When two or three days had passed and the black hound had recovered his strength, Rufe took him into the woods with our own dog and put them both upon the track of a deer.
The black hound followed the track steadily, but he uttered no bark, confining himself to a low, excited whimpering. Even when the game was roused and the hot scent gave ardor to the pursuing dogs, the black hound did not join in the frantic baying of his companion. ”

“ To make matters worse, an old hound howled dismally on the door-step, only stopping occasionally to paw at the iron latch and to whimper for the master whose unsteady footsteps he had followed for thirteen years. ”

“ In all our adventures I do not know that I have ever seen a more strange sight than this impassive and still dignified figure crouching froglike upon the ground and goading to a wilder exhibition of passion the maddened hound, which ramped and raged in front of him, by all manner of ingenious and calculated cruelty. ”

“ The veteran hound is one great record of a thousand fights, his tawny hide seamed and knotted with the marks of many a tusk, but he is as reckless now as he was when a puppy; and dearly as his master loves his old hound’s pluck, he would give a great deal to see a little of that discretion mixed with it which might save his favourite from an untimely end. ”

“ I sprang to my feet, my inert hand grasping my pistol, my mind paralyzed by the dreadful shape which had sprung out upon us from the shadows of the fog. A hound it was, an enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen. Fire burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed with a smouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap were outlined in flickering flame. Never in the delirious dream of a disordered brain could anything more savage, more appalling, more hellish be conceived than that dark form and savage face which broke upon us out of the wall of fog. ”

“ So every day the hound would be sent to Finn, having his chain of ridges of red gold around his neck, and he would go three times around Finn, and three times he would put his tongue upon him. And to the people that were nearest to the hound when he came into the house it would seem like as if a vat of mead was being strained, and to others there would come the sweet smell of an apple garden. ”

“ Let us admire, as much as you please, the certainty with which a hound takes a spring into a third way, as soon as he finds by his nose that the game he pursues has left no scent in the other two. Let us admire the hind, who, they say, throws a good way off her young fawn, into some hidden place, that the hounds may not find him out by the scent of his strain. ”

“ The rural policeman went out, and came back with the hound, who looked eagerly up from one face to the other, then, seeing Davy, came to him and stood against him, still looking around with that expression of melancholy on his face that a hound dog always wears except when he is in action. ”

“ The back and ribs, are strong, and the former of great length, the stern, is gaily carried, like that of Hounds in general, and when the Hound is on the scent of game, this portion of his body gets extremely animated, and tells me, in my own Hounds, when they have struck a fresh, or cold, scent, and I even know when the foremost Hound will give tongue! ”

“ When hounds come to a check, not a horse should move, not a voice should be heard: every hound is eagerly employed, exerting all his powers for a recovery of the scent, in which, if not officiously obstructed, they will most probably soon succeed. ”

“ With formidable groves of pointed horns.
Soon as the hound's fierce clamour strikes his ear,
He throws his arms behind, and owns his fear;
Sweeps o'er the unprinted grass, the wind outflies;—
Hounds, horses, hunters, horns, still sound along the skies;
Fierce as a storm they pour along the plain; 790
Their lively chief still foremost of the train;
With unremitting ardour leads the chace;—
He, trembling, safety seeks in every place;
Drives through the thicket, scales the lofty steep;
Bounds o'er the hills, or darts through valleys deep ”

“ As he flung himself down on the brute's shaggy coat,
And watched the faint life in its quivering throat
Till it stopped quite at last. The black wolf had won,
And the death-hunted hound into cover had run.
[Pg 66]
But long ere the snow over graves softly fell,
Old Matthew was resting from labor as well;
While the cottage stood empty, yet back from the hill
The voice of the hound in the morn echoed still.
Anonymous.
[Pg 67]
A DOG AND A MAN
He was a dog,
But he stayed at home
And guarded the family night and day.
He was a dog
That didn't roam. ”

“ A fearful hound guards the house in front, pitiless, and he has a cruel trick. On those who go in he fawns with his tail and both his ears, but suffers them not to go out back again, but keeps watch and devours whomsoever he catches going out of the gates of strong Hades and awful Persephone. ”

“ A Hound, who in the days of his youth and strength had never yielded to any beast of the forest, encountered in his old age a boar in the chase. He seized him boldly by the ear, but could not retain his hold because of the decay of his teeth, so that the boar escaped. ”

“ With this exasperating feature of bear and lion chases I was familiar. Most hounds, when they struck a trail, could not tell in which direction the bear was traveling. A really fine hound, however, like Buffalo Jones' famous Don, or Scott Teague's Sampson or Haught's Old Dan, would grow suspicious of a scent that gradually cooled, and would eventually give it up. Young hounds would back-track game as far as possible. ”

“ Now and again his gaze would turn upon the hound behind him, and, on these occasions, the movement was evidently the result of some sudden, unpleasant thought, and had nothing to do with the sportsman’s watchfulness which makes him seek to discover, in the alert canine attitude, some keener instinct of the presence of game than is possessed by the human being. ”

“ However, no sooner does70 a hound, from laziness, or possibly from feeling that he has been sufficiently pricked by thorns, briars, and gorse, creep out for a few seconds before him, than—"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!"—the young horse pricks up his ears, stares intently at him, holds his breath, and, with a heart beating so hard that it may be not only heard but felt by the rider, he breaks out into a perspiration, which, on the appearance of a few more hounds, turns into foam as white as soap-suds. ”

“ And the Hound will be on the job till the end of the world afore he gets peace, no doubt, and them with ears to hear, may oft listen to a sound in the water like the rattling of a loom to this day; but 'tis no more than that poor devil-dog of a Knowles at his endless task. ”

“ They have now in a manner gained their point; they have surrounded us, they have compassed us in our steps, they track us wherever we go, follow us as close as the hound does the hare, and take all advantages against us, being both too many and too quick for us. ”

“ If the hound comes from hunting stock, he will hang to the trail with the other dog and he will only turn up with him but for some reason or another, should the young hound come back to you, "don't get mad and kick or beat him." ”

“ Suffer not your huntsman to take out a lame hound. If any are tender-footed, he will tell you, perhaps, that they will not mind it when they are out: probably they may not; but how will they be on the next day? A hound, not in condition to run, cannot be of much service to the pack ”

“ Acquire an eye to hounds, that is, learn to detect the [170] moment when the leading hound turns right or left, or, losing the scent, checks, or, catching it breast high, races away mute, “dropping his stem as straight as a tobacco-pipe.”
By thus studying the leading hounds instead of racing against your neighbours’ horses, you see how they turn, save many an angle, and are ready to pull up the moment the hounds throw up their heads.
Never let your anxiety to be forward induce you to press upon the hounds when they are hunting; nothing makes a huntsman more angry, or spoils sport more. ”

“ But, t’other way, no hound ’ll raelly fight a bear—hit takes a big severe dog to do that. Hounds has the best noses, and they’ll run a bear all day and night, and the next day, too; but they won’t never tree—they’re afeared to close in. Now, look at them dogs o’ mine. A cur ain’t got no dew-claws—them dogs has. My dogs can foller ary trail, same’s a hound; but they’ll run right in on the varmint, snappin’ and chawin’ and worryin’ him till he gits so mad you can hear his tushes pop half a mile. He cain’t run away—he haster stop every bit, and fight. ”