Steel
First published in the 1940’s, this story plays before the new hunting law of 1924 made coursing illegal in the Netherlands. A deplorable move, brought on by so called animal rights activists and the shooting people.
Amateur
Steel
I once bought a greyhound from England, from the industrial city of Wolverhampton, to be precise. I did not see the dog beforehand, only a bad if not deceiving photo of it which had led me to believe that it was a big 10-month-old animal “past distemper”. However it turned out to be a dog the size of a bull terrier with a matching disposition. I was unpleasantly surprised when it jumped out of the crate, so I immediately wrote to the seller. I had already paid half in advance, a considerable sum for me at that time, and I felt cheated, a feeling which in fact was unwarranted, as that kennel’s coursing hound was small but exceptionally strong and fierce. The seller, a rough and honest man, accused me of being a “German pig” by return mail, though I lived in Friesland which is a part of the Netherlands. A year later I sent him the remaining balance owed along with apologies. To my surprise, I received from him a younger pup for free, a rather unexpected gesture from an Englishman. But it proved not to be “past distemper” and died soon thereafter.
I had bought a hound for hunting and therefore trained him accordingly. Every day I gave him a pound of beef with a chunk of bread and as much milk as he wanted. He was allowed to run around freely, thus getting in everybody’s way, being cursed at and having things thrown at him. He caught ducks, chickens, tame rabbits and lambs and was given the whip until he stopped. He roamed meadows and fields through stubble and seedlings. He slept outdoors on a bed of ferns or in the shed, and he became as hard, fierce, fast and cunning as a hound of his blood should be. Once I illegally put him after a hare, and his breeding of so many generations did not let him down. He did not catch it, the wheat stood too high, and he ran his feet and nose open without success. But since then he knew what a hare was. I could see it in him. He scanned the land for it. He was not a terrier anymore but a hound, a devil on four legs with the eyes of a falcon.
People were laughing behind our backs when we showed up together at the season’s first meeting. Their hounds were big blunt beasts. But the grand old man of the club took one look at me and my hound and said: “I think there must be something to this”. And there was. He could not keep up on roughly ploughed clay. He had to jump too much, and his jumps were too short. But if the course shifted towards hard dry fields or roads, he was right up there with the rest of them. He was like a steel spring that found ever new force in its coils. He turned with the hare but turned faster. He made wrenches and turns and slipped under the fence if he could not jump over it. I’ve never seen him run down, he fought until the last bit of air left his lungs. Often he was the one who took the game with a snatch, rolling over his head with the hare in his jaws. The pole bearers (men carrying the poles used for jumping over ditches) cursed out loud when they saw my small hound do such big things. He was much more flexible than the big jumpers and coursers and as fierce as a weasel. An ordinary catch dog he used to be, but that was only in his first year; after that he learned quickly and soon acquired the manners of a hound that would look down on other dogs.
I have coursed with him for three seasons, until he crashed into a wall of clay that sun and wind had turned hard as stone, chasing after a hare that just slipped over. A noble death. I shed no tears. I am not sentimental, but I did give him an honest burial on the hill, in the front garden, where he had often laid looking across the fields. Why would one not bury one’s hounds as one buries one’s hunting mates?
Today I followed the coffin of Ale, the old poacher who was once my teacher. He was buried a poor man; there were only two other people at his funeral, his two sons, also as poor as church mice. I promised the coffin bearers an extra two and a half guilders if they carried the coffin around the cemetery one more time, just as they would for a farmer or a shopkeeper. I owed that to Ale.
Source: Brave Hond.