Joyce Stranger's 'The Running Foxes' 1965

Hammond, Hammond & Company first edition - 1965

I enjoyed this, as it was a different approach from the other books on foxes I have recently read. I am not sure as to the reader-age it was pitched at, but I think anyone from ten years' old to their nineties would appreciate the clear, straightforward writing.

The novel is not just a story about foxes and fox hunting, but it is the tale of countrymen and women and the way that they lived in the small, fictitious village of Hortonmere in Cumberland. In the Lake District, foxhunting was a much more personal and intimate affair. There, the men owned their own individual hounds and hunted on foot, climbing the fells and the peaks and the screes above Horton Water. The author, with a fine and empathetic eye for both countryside, animals and humans, successfully creates a compelling story about a vixen and her two surviving male cubs - Rusty and Rufus - enmeshed with tales of their hunters and their hunted. As the Preface states, there are men who hunt for the joy of leading their hounds, not caring if the day ends with a 'gone to earth' at dark, when the fox is left free...the fox is a killer, and often a thief, but even those farmers with most cause to hate him, speak with grudging admiration.

Perhaps the main character of the story is Jasper Ayepenny, aged 86 and (almost forcibly) retired from the Hunt due to his age. Jasper farmed in a small way...chickens and ducks fought the bare ground for a living. Five cows found meagre grazing on the grass at the edge of the peat bog. A one-eyed terrier and a ginger cat fought for the hearth-rug, and Jasper, at the beginning of that winter, was at odds with everyone.  His old terrier, Skim, is similarly out of sorts. He had once been one of the most daring Hunt terriers, but, like his master, he was old, and the younger men had no time for him. Another forced retirement. In fact, it is pathos writ large. Skim and his master, although regularly ignored in the local pub, the Black Swan - run by a kindly matriarch Mrs. Jones (a homely woman with an applebun face) - are both hauled out of bed to effect the rescue of two other hounds trapped down a badger's sett. Mauled by a vicious boar badger, Skim succumbs to his throat injury Beyond the farm the slope fell away to the mere, where rocks lay tumbled on the shore, and a line of dark trees edged the far away bare hill. A thread of foaming water slid down the rock face. A heron flew low, and landed, waiting for fish. There was silence, broken only by the desolate call of the curlew and the appalling sounds of the old dog's struggle to safety. Skim dies in Jasper's arms and is carried home to lie on his master's knee throughout the rest of the night. There Ned Foley found him when he came at lunchtime, and it was he who broke the earth beyond the wall and took the lifeless body and covered it with gentle hands. 

Jasper is saved from further depression, thanks to the thoughtfulness of his old friend Ned Foley, who lived in a little hut on the fells above Hortonmere. Three walls were made of odd pieces of corrugated iron, picked up on a dark night from a far-away scrapyard and brought home by the hang-headed pony and ramshackle cart that he occasionally used to collect rags and bones and scrap. Ned gets Jasper to look after a baby otter - much to the disgust of Jasper's fierce, one-eared, ginger Tom cat, Stalker.

The local vet, Dai Jones was a hot-tempered little Welshman who loved animals more than he did people, a trait that found him disfavour with the owners of pampered poodles and miniature pekingese. He was strongly supported by his wife Sheila, who had spent eight years working in a zoo, and who was his soul-mate. Farmers sent her ailing lambs, sickly pups, and even weakly piglets Kittens sent to be put down invariably found a home, and stray dogs, a lame goat, a trapped badger, and an abandoned fawn lived in the barns and outhouses...The vet also saved Rusty and Rufus' mother's life, stopping her dying from septicemia. Moreover, Dai finds another dog (his master had gone to jail for ten years!) for Jasper, a setter whom the old man names Ranger. 

The other locals, such as Josh Johnson, a giant of a man; Jim Turner, a tiny fair-haired man with a thin, ferrety face and blue eyes that watered whenever he went out of doors; Rob Hinney, a thickset, red-faced man who was a cowman and whose American cousin descends on the village in one of the many well-described episodes; Jo Needler, a tiny man, dapper and miserable; Charlie Dee, a big bull of a man who bred bantams; Bess Logan, who hated the Hunt and more than once 'hid' foxes in her parlour as they ran for their lives; and the old Huntsman, who sympathised with Jasper as he was also nearly 'past it'. All these are lovingly described and given real flesh and blood by the author. Closely aligned with them are their dogs - Bella, Flier, Painter (an oddly bred beast with ears too short, legs a shade too long, and a wretchedly-shaped muzzle), Swiftsure and Madam (an undersized bitch with more humour than cunning). The author knows her animals. The fell-hound is like no other, for fell hunting is something on its own. A light hound can run well and jump high, and if his body is neat and his legs short, he can tuck them in and race over obstacles in high clean leaps, as if he were travelling over level ground, and with as little effort.

The three foxes (and a little vixen won by Rusty at the end of the novel) are fitted firmly into this small environment, their lives intertwined with other wild and domestic animals and the humans who lived in the village and on its outskirts. The reader watches as the vixen trains her sons to wallow in a midden to disguise their scent; to mesmerise rabbits; to double-back on their trails and use streams to minimise being followed by the Hunt. Finally, we leave both humans and foxes - Jasper, with Nell, the otter, Stalker the tom, and Ranger the setter, watching out of the window as Rusty pays court to the newly-arrived vixen and Rufus flees to find new pastures and, perhaps, a mate for himself far away in new hunting grounds.

The old man slept, knowing that tradition would never die as long as an English villager had a hound or a fox laired up on the hill. Rufus loped wearily westward, alone, Rusty and his new-found mate curled up, cheek against cheek and slept in the heather as dawn silvered Hortonmere and the sun stippled the fells and touched the sleeping foxes with burnished glory.

Eustace Grenville Murray's 'Men of the Second Empire' 1872

Smith, Elder and Co. first edition - 1872

In 1871, Eustace Grenville Murray's (possibly most famous) novel, The Member for Paris: a Tale of the Second Empire, was published (see my Blog of 29th April, 2023). As I mentioned then, Murray wrote countless sketches and essays for both the English and American papers in the same period. He was particularly adept at circulating private gossip, mainly by the use of hint and innuendo. One of the papers he wrote for was the Pall Mall Gazette. This book of sketches first appeared in that journal. In his Preface, the author states that he wrote, at a time when the Second Empire, after a seventeen years' gallop, much too fast to last, was rapidly nearing the brink which everybody saw except itself. Not that bystanders actually perceived that the particular brink over which the Second Empire would disappear was to be the Prussian one; but it was only a choice of brinks. Count Bismarck, Garibaldi and Henry Rochefort stood up ahead like three posts marked "Dangerous" to warn of the roads where lay the German, Roman, and Revolutionary ravines...

The rest of this sixteen page Preface shines a forensic light on the politics and personnel of the 1868-1870 period, highlighting figures such as Rouher, Gambetta, Baudin, Forcade de la Roquette, Emile Ollivier and other long-forgotten names, and focusing very much on Napoleon III - much to the latter's disadvantage. He might either have attempted a new coup d'état, or accepted constitutionalism frankly. He preferred doing neither, but prolonging a hybrid state of things that was neither freedom nor tyranny, though it comprised all the disadvantages of both. Murray castigates Napoleon III, in particular, for his indecision, wavering where he should have been firm. He ends his Preface with a withering appraisal of both Napoleons: The glorious results of the first Bonaparte's reign may be summed up in two lines - a million French men slain, two invasions, three provinces lost, and a hundred million pounds tagged on to the national debt; and the second Bonaparte's legacy is not less commendable: "Two provinces lost, a Communist revolution, and the national debt increased by five hundred million pounds!" Some legacy.

I must admit not knowing enough about the characters of the Second Empire, so I was regularly confused as to whether Murray's personnel being skewered were fictional or real! There are twenty chapters, or sketches, starting with "L'Homme du Deux Decembre" and taking in such as The Imperialist Senator, The Paris Priest, The Opposition Deputy, The Country Mayor, The Field Marshal, The Private Soldier and The Journalist. Some of Murray's trademark satirical comments I thoroughly enjoyed. Here are a few:

The Imperialist Senator, M. de Parapluie (in English - umbrella) is one of the race of persons who distinguish themselves like mushrooms, by rising unobserved, and nobody knows how...occasionally he is obliged to say "No", a word which sits as ill upon his constantly affirmative lips as a frown upon the usually smooth, unruffled surface of his brow.

The Paris Priest, M. de Vernis (in English, varnish): his cassock is of cloth so fine that it might all be passed through a wedding ring. He wears black silk stockings, patent leather shoes, cuffs and collars of cambric. His hat is always new, and he never goes out without black kid gloves for which he pays six francs the pair, and which he puts on three times at the most.

The Country Priest, M. le Curé Chausson (in English - slipper): Monseigneur, I have substituted a plate for a bag in the usual church collections on Sunday. I have been led to this step by finding that parishioners put more into the plate where their offertories can be seen than they did into the bag, which ensured a sort of secrecy. The last time I made use of the bag I found that there were many farthings in it, together with six brass buttons and a haricot bean. The bean, Monseigneur, I believe to have been the mayor's. That man, I regret to say, is capable of anything.

The Imperialist Deputy, M. Pavé de l'Ours (in English - paving stone): at his election M. Pavé pledged himself to two things - firstly, to vote always with his conscience; and secondly, to vote invariably with the Government... he contracted with King Bungo of Dahomey to furnish trousers to the troops of the Nudi Islands, who had never worn any before...

The Official Candidate - M. de Bois Réglisse (English - liquorice wood) was not at all an unpleasant man...it was he who had given the marble bust of the Emperor to the town-hall, and the stone bust of the Empress to the town hospital, and the bronze bust of the Prince Imperial to the local school... during the eleven years that he sat for Bombeville he invariably gave his vote in "favour of peace and plenty", which is another way of saying that he voted for the Crimean, Italian, Chinese, and Mexican expeditions, and consistently supported every annual increase in taxation.

The French are beings of impulse compounded in equal doses of rashness and vanity.

The Journalist - with him there is no respect of persons. The senator, the prelate, the field-marshal, the Imperialist deputy, the Opposition deputy, are all one in his eyes. He looks upon them as figures raised aloft by Providence for him to fire shots at. Friend or foe, reactionary or liberal, it scarcely matters a rush; they are people in power, that is enough. The mission of a journalist is to shoot, that of men in office to be shot at. Surely, this was Murray's self portrait.

I read these sketches in short bursts - they were very much aimed at separate journal readings. To read the whole lot in one would have meant losing their bite.

I now just have Volume One of Murray's Side Lights on English History: Sketches from Life Social & Satirical (1881) to read. These were written in safety from Paris. and include sections on Flirts and Semi-Detached Wives! Perhaps, it was fortuitous that the author died on 20th December that same year.

G.P.R. James' 'Russell: A Tale of the Reign of Charles II' 1847

 

Smith, Elder and Co. first edition - 1847

Of all the  author's novels I have read so far - some ten of them - this has been the most 'political'. James goes into some depth to explain the incidents and personnel behind what became known as the Rye House Plot, in the last years of Charles II's reign. In 1678, the so-called Popish Plot - a fictitious Catholic conspiracy to murder the king, fire the City and enthrone the Roman Catholic duke of York, with the aid of French and Irish troops - whose authors were the scoundrels Titus Oates and Israel Tongue, led to some 35 victims being judicially murdered, including the Roman Catholic Primate of Ireland. A Test Act that same year led to the exclusion of Roman Catholics from Parliament and the Whigs made use of the occasion to introduce Exclusion Bills. The aim was to exclude the duke of York from the succession; however, Charles twice dissolved Parliament to forestall the bills being passed. After the failure of the Exclusion Bills, Whig extremists and old Cromwellians planned to murder the king and his brother, on their return from Newmarket, near Rye House, Hertfordshire. The royal brothers left early and spoiled the plan. The plot was betrayed and many of the conspirators executed. These included Algernon Sidney and Lord Russell, who were not actively involved.

Charles II's reign is given short shrift by the author: it is perfectly inconceivable the mass of corrupt scheming which was to be found in England during the reign of the second Charles. It was not alone in the court or the cabinet, or the courts of law, or the houses of Parliament, but in every mansion, and in almost every family in the land...everyone was plotting to gain some end - power, gold, station, love, honour, fame - and all by tortuous paths, by cunning, trick, artifice, knavery, violence; but rarely violence where corruption would do. There was no shame; for, from the king to the link-boy, every one knew his neighbour to be a rogue, and there was no such thing as morals in the back parlour to shame the vice in the state drawing-room.

The author's portrayal of Russell borders on the hagiographic: ...the popular orator, the firm unshrinking advocate of the people's rights, the stern and daring reprover of misused authority...

The honour and uprightness of Lord Russell was not to be suspected. Severe he might have shown himself - perhaps in the heat of party, unjust; but false, never. He was known to be generous too, kind and affectionate in private life...at all events, his honour might be trusted. 

After he is arrested on 26th June 1683, and put in the Tower of London, James assesses him as so complete a character perhaps the most perfect in history.

As with all of James' novels, there are plenty of other characters to entertain the reader. Charles Maldon, Lord Alcester and his devoted, but wronged, Henrietta Compton; Lord Francis de Vipont and Gertrude Ellerton, both fiercely in love with each other;  Sir William Ellerton, Gertrude's father and the Earl of Vipont, so different from his son Francis; Emmeline de Vipont and her once-thought-drowned suitor, Henry Maldon, the lawful Lord Alcester, who is disguised as a fantastic 'juggler' for much of the tale; Sir Algernon Sidney, the firebrand; Lady Howard, who steels herself for the tragedy to come. They all withstand inspection as believable people. True love ne-er ran smooth, or, at least, novels don't allow it to, but usually it wins in the end. Thus, Francis and Gertrude, Henry and Emmeline will unite after the problems faced in the past few years. The bad guys get their desserts, but the good ones also have to suffer this time.

Here are pen pictures of three of them:

Dick Myrtle - he was naturally inquisitive, and both naturally and habitually fond of enterprise; so that he was very careless of his own safety, and not very prudent in his own decisions; yet to do him but justice, he was keen, provident, and politic in the execution of his designs, however rashly they might be framed, and always more thoughtful in the service of others than in his own case.

the treacherous Lord Howard of Escrick - principle, without honour, corrupt in morals, nearly ruined in fortune, without attachments, gratitude, sincerity or affection (with) a repugnance to speaking the truth...

the scheming, amoral Sir Frederick Beltingham - he went boldly forward, with captivating and insinuating manners, subtle eloquence, and total want of principle, endeavouring, whenever he had the opportunity, to corrupt the mind...

James is nothing if he is not philosophising, however trite the matter might be.

Cares - Nor was it alone that sadness which comes from great and heavy misfortune, even long endured, but rather that of cares - knawing,[sic] small, diurnal, pitiful cares. The great misfortunes fall and crush, or are endured and cast off. It is the daily, anxious care that clings to the brain or heart, that sucks slowly like a vampire, till all be dry, the sources or mental and corporeal energy.

Idleness - I have nought on which to bestow my idleness. I cannot go to sleep, like a dog in its hutch; nor wash my face with my paws, like a cat in a window; nor lie snug in a hole, and look out without showing my nose, like a fox; nor sit with my legs bundled up under me, like a hare in her form. I have no way of amusing myself, I tell you, but to stay here and see you look grim and fierce, and eat the nails off your left hand, as if hay were not to be found in the market, and there were no thistles upon the common.  

Tyranny - anarchy lasts but a season, tyranny is perennial. It is the Upas tree which lives for centuries, spreading death over all that comes beneath its branches. I would rather die a thousand deaths than live one year a slave.

On of the problems with keeping so many balls (or characters) in the air, is that chapters have to hive off in another direction and, only some pages later, return to the former narrative. James knew this and actually commented on it in Chapter II of Volume II: the reader has been annoyed at our digress: the critic has pronounced it a fault to interrupt the narrative at an interesting point, in order to introduce an episodical conversation totally apart from the subject which preoccupied the mind. But, reader and critic, it was unavoidable, and of all the thousand ways which you point out for arranging the matter differently, there is not one which would have answered its purpose. I had a journey to perform, and was forced to perform it; nor have I delayed by the way, but spurring on my pad with relentless rowels, here I am again at the gloomy little inn...

I still have Arabella Stuart to read; and then, surely, I will be on the look out for more of the author's tales. Prolix, yes; worth reading; also yes.

R.D. Blackmore's 'Perlycross' 1894

 

Sampson Low, Marston, & Co. first one vol. edition - 1894

Perlycross was Richard Blackmore's penultimate novel (there was Fringilla: a Tale in Verse, the following year; Slain by the Doones: four short stories, also in 1895; and Dariel: a Romance of Surrey, in 1897, which was poorly received by Reviewers). The hamlet of Perlycross is based on the Devon village of Culmstock, where Blackmore's father had served as curate-in-charge some sixty years previously. As a boy, Blackmore had gone out many a time on a journey of solitary exploration. Memories of these trips are evident in descriptive passages in Perlycross. Kenneth Budd, in his short biography (1960) of the author, suggests that Perlycross was perhaps his finest work after Lorna Doone, and certainly one of the best pastoral novels in our language.  Budd admits that the plot is slender (similar to the sometimes threadbare plots in Blackmore's other novels) but he still praises the story as so clever and so observant a study of a little community that it reflects Blackmore at the height of his powers.                                                                

It is interesting that the Review in The Spectator (15 September 1894) maintained that It is certainly by no means a faultless book; we do not even consider it an impressive book in any ordinary sense of that epithet; but it is what we may call a noteworthy book, by which we mean that it is a book which no intelligent reader would think of regarding as a mere commonplace triviality of fiction. The reviewer went on to write that the reader would be struck by the imaginative and literary qualities which will always be rare.

The plot, set in 1835-6, hinges on the seeming disappearance of the body of Sir Thomas Waldron from a vault by the church and a false accusation of body-snatching against the young local doctor, James (Jemmy) Fox. In fact, Fox turns out to be one of a pair of heroes, the other being a young farmer, Frank Gilham, a loyal, manly fellow, the backbone of England. Another important character is the Rev. Philip Penniloe, long-time friend of Sir Thomas, (he is the subject of the very first sentence in the book), the gentle, elderly curate-in-charge, full of the milk of human kindness and with a too simple trust in human nature. One assumes, the author was remembering his father? Other, well-drawn characters include Sergeant Jakes, the village schoolmaster and one-armed survivor from the Peninsular wars. There are five females of some note: the widowed Lady Waldron, who hails from Spain and is continually comparing her native country to England, much to the latter's disadvantage. Thyatira Muggridge, Penniloe's housekeeper is regarded highly by her employer for her judgment and discretion, and the more so perhaps because she had been converted, by a stroke of his own readiness, from the doctrines of the "Antipaedo-Baptists" to those of the Church of England. Mrs. Tremlett, who Penniloe visits as she is near death. She is in bed, a very aged woman, of large frame and determined face, wearing a high yellow cap, and propped up by three coarse pillows...she had thick eyebrows, still as black as coal, and fierce gray eyes with some fire in them still, and a hooked nose that almost overhung a pointed chin...

Two younger women are the focus of Jemmy Fox and Frank Gilham's ardour. Respectively, they are Inez (Nicie) Waldron, the only daughter of Sir Thomas, who Jemmy has the hots for; and Jemmy's sister, Christie Fox, who Frank falls for. Nicie comes across as both timid and brave - she had not lost as yet the gentle and confiding manner, with the playful smile, and pleasant glance, which had earned, by offering them, good-will and tender interest. Christie is girl of strong opinions: I am not a coward - for a girl at least...I hate foreigners - as a rule I mean of course...She is of the militant Christian order, girt with the sword of the Spirit. A great deal of St. Peter, but not an atom of St. John. Thoroughly religious, according to her lights; and always in a flame of generosity. Her contempt for any littleness is something splendid...

Other, more minor characters are well sketched: Joe Crang, the muddle-headed blacksmith; Harvey Tremlett the hugely-built unrepentant smuggler; Mrs. Gilham, Frank's mother; the fair and artless Tamar Haddon, mischievously leading Sergeant Jakes astray; the doctors Gronow wedded to fishing throughout the year - and Gowler, renowned in London for his expertise; Sir Henry Haggerstone whose lacklustre advances Christie spurns; old clerk Channing; the  long-awaited son of the deceased, now the new Sir Thomas Waldron. If plotting is not Blackmore's strong point, and this tale certainly wanders along the Devonian byways, then characterisation is exemplary. The great and protracted wrestling-match in  the village between the champions of Cornwall and Devon (Harvey Tremlett), which culminates in the collapse of the tent on everyone, who were all jumbled up together with mouths full of tallow, sawdust, pitch, and another fellow's toes, is superb. The author's skill at describing the countryside occurs regularly and to excellent effect. He can rightly be compared with Thomas Hardy: How admirable are Blackmore and Hardy wrote Gerard Manley Hopkins.

 

There are the usual pleasing touches of humour: Clever men always make one great mistake. They believe that no woman can command her tongue. If they had their own only half as well controlled, there would not be a tenth part of the mischief in the world... Travelling in a barren part of the Blackdown Hills - There is nothing to gratify (the wanderer) if he be an artist, nothing to interest him if his tastes are antiquarian, nothing to arouse his ardour, even though he were that happy and most ardent creature, a naturalist free from rheumatism... The gentleman glanced at her; he had no moustache to stroke - for only cavalry officers, and cads of the most pretentious upturn, as yet wore ginger hackles - a relief still to come in a downier age.

I have just looked up John Sutherland's comments about the novel in his The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction (1988), and he says it is Blackmore's most satisfying re-creation of village life.

I shall look out for Blackmore's Clara Vaughan (1864), Cradock Nowell (1866) and Alice Lorraine (1875) - probably not in their three-decker first editions, due to the expense. One day, I might even read Lorna Doone!

Sarah Hawkswood's 'Litany of Lies' 2024

 

Allison & Busby first paperback edition - 2024

A short Blog this time. This is the twelfth 'outing' for the author's  Lord Hugh Bradecote and Serjeant Catchpoll, although the subtitle should perhaps now be changed to - A Bradecote and Catchpoll and Walkelin Mystery. Hawkswood appears to be increasingly fond of the young Under Serjeant, and he is more than ever involved in the successful unveiling of this mystery, set in Evesham. 

There are few references to the fact that the series is placed in the period we know as 'The Anarchy'. We learn that Reginald Foliot, Abbot of Evesham was close kin to Miles of Gloucester, the late Earl of Hereford, and a nephew, Gilbert, was the ambitious Abbot of Gloucester. The lord Sheriff of Worcester, William de Beauchamp had given support to the Empress Maud after the Battle of Lincoln, and was still in communication with her. It is also mentioned that the infamous Geoffrey de Mandeville had two years earlier taken Ramsay Abbey and expelled its fraternity.

The story centres around the murder of the Abbot of Evesham's steward, Walter. His brother William is immediately appointed his successor, due to the office becoming almost hereditary to their family. Walter's young widow Maerwynn, just sixteen, had clearly had a tough time of an arranged marriage and her father, Wulfram Meduwyhra, is among the suspects. It appears that everyone in Evesham disliked the Steward, who had been overcharging, keeping the 'extra' for himself, and bullying them. Others are Hubert the Mason, Simon his son, and Adam the Welldelver, all of whom were engaged in sinking the new well in which the Steward had been found murdered. There is an old feud between Cuthbert, a 'walker' at a fulling yard (meaning he was the only one willing to trample in urine each day) and  Siward Mealtere. His son Oswald, a maltster, is high on the list of suspects. In the background is the feud between the abbey and the castellan of nearby Bengeworth Castle. The latter de Cormolain (with a history of mutual antagonism with Bradecote) and his henchman, Ansculf, have an unsavoury smell about them. There is quite a riveting end to the murderer, involving bees!

My fear is that the series is slightly running 'out of steam' - a similar problem occurred with Susanna Gregory's Matthew Bartholomew stories, which probably should have ended well before its 25th tale. There are only so many times medieval sleuths can retain one's interest, as the storylines tend to become repetitive. Unlike detectives in modern times, they operate on a tiny geographical canvas and their detective tools, inevitably, are few. I also felt that Bradecote and Catchpoll had slightly less detailed attention paid to their characters this time. I expect I shall still buy the thirteenth story, if there is to be one.