BORCH'S FALCONRY - english
The ancient sport of falconry was my favourite hobby in the days when I was active enough to follow my hawks either on foot or on horseback. For many years I maintained the largest establishment of trained hawks in Europe, with two falconers and the usual complement of hawks, horses and dogs. My earliest mentor in this sport was that celebrated old sportsman, Major Fisher, of the Castle at Stroud in Gloucestershire, and the greatest falconer of his day. With three falconers and a splendid team of peregrine falcones we hawked together, for many seasons, rooks on Salisbury Plain, and grouse on a charming moor at Riddlehamhope in Northumberland. Fisher's head falconer in those days was James Rutford, and he was undoubtedly then the best of our English professional falconers. My head falconer then was Thomas Allen, a man who managed to make humour out of most things.
Trained hawks are not often seen in these days travelling by train, and usually are the means of collectin a crowd of curious people when they appear at a station. On one occasion whan we arrived at Waterloo Station, I saw Allen surrounded by a big crowd, and being bombarded with the usual questions re the hawks. One inquisitive old lady, on seeing the hawks sitting on the cadge (a square wooden frame on legs) with their plumed hoods of many colours, went up to Allen and said: "Please tell me what are those pretty birds, and what do you do with them?" At which he replied: "Well, mam, these are performing cockatoos, and we are going to give a performance to-night at the Alhambra." And the old lady went off vowing that she must certainly go to see them. I turst, however, she did not do so that evening, as we were leaving by the night train for the North.
Evidently our falconers were an attraction to the local village lasses where we carried on our sport, for well I remember, on entering the village of Tilshead where we went to hawk rooks in spring on the Wiltshire downs, this is what I heard. An old woman, on seeing our cavalcade coming up the village street, called our loudly to a smiling wench in the garden and said: "Come in, our Sue, here come they hawkers agen. They don't care whose daughters they be arter. They be here to-day and gone to-morrer! Come in, our Sue."
I once had a well-known Irish falconer, Edward Dwyer, who insisted on training a golden eagle to fly at hares. With difficulty we obtained a young from an eyrie in Scotland. On its arrival in a hamper Dwyer proceeded to take the bird from it, wearing an ordinary hawking glove. But he had underestimated the strength of his new pupil, which promptly drove its talons through the glove and locked them well into the flesh of his hands. Now as he was alone and could not release the grip with one hand, he had to walk some distance to the stables with the eagle still gripping his hand, until he was released with the help of two grooms.
After the usual amount of weeks of patient training it was decided to try the eagle at a hare in the open. Having started a hare in a grass field the eagle was cast off at it, and away it went after the hare. Not far off was a field of high turnips, and into this the hare went. As it dashed through the turnips, kicking up the leaves behind it, the eagle kept making pounces at these leaves, ending by seizing them or a turnip in its claws, only to look round and see the hare still going ahead. After several attemps like this the bird took a turn or two round in the air, and suddenly set off at a gook pace.
On the far side of the field was a shepherd hacking up turnips for his sheep, and not apparently having seen what was going on at the ogher end of the field. The eagle, on seeing this man, and probably excited by the movement of his coloured shirt-sleeves, made a bee line for the man, and, coming up behind him, pounced on his stooping back. Now what that wretched man imagined had happened I don't know, but I imagine he thought the devil had come to take him before his time. Anyhow, he started to run and yell and roll on the ground in order to rid himself on the unknown peril. I imagine also that he must have suffered considerably pain before he managed to beat off the eagle. But in those days a sovereign went a long way to heal injuries, and luckily the man did not go mad, as I verily believe som men would have done under those conditions.
In the year 1899 I took hawks over to Spa in Belgium during the great Concours Hippique there, and gave a number of exhibition flights on the moors near Malmédy; and we managed also to get up a falconer's contest between some continental falconers and myself. Finally, when the bataille des fleurs took place, I sent my falcons and falconer in the procession in a carriage decorated with flowers, and they won the prize.
It is not generally known that in those days, and even to-day, English grouse are to be found on the moors near Malmédy, but, after several attempts, I was able to introduce them, and get them acclimatized on the moors of the Duc D'Arenberg there, late in the last century.
In the summer of 1902 my frined Prince Z. Odescalchi asked me to introduce falconry into Hungary. So I started off with a man named Best and another man, both of whom had been trained under my falconer, T. Allen, and with us we took some half a dozen trained peregrines to Thuzer in Hungary. There we had most wonderful sport on the plains, and incidentallly it led to my being invited to some of the finest shoots in Hungary. One of the best of these shoots was at Tot Megyer, the home of Count Louis Karolyi. There it was no uncommon thing for us to average 100 brace per day of partridges to each gun in the party. The splendour and lavishness with which one was entertained by those hospitable Hungarian nobility was a thing never to be forgotten, and it made me sad in later years to go as a soldier through those districts at the end of the Great War, and see the evastation wrought by war and peace-makers in what was some of the nicest people in the world.
Hungary is a country which is noted for its haunted castles, and, as I had never seen a ghost, I tried to do so on the occasion of one visit there. Happening to be staying in a house which was reputed to be hauted, I asked leave to be allowed to spend a night in the haunted room, and did so. But I asked my host if I had his permission to shoot at anything which came into my room at night if I did not like the look of it. This was explained at dinner before the butler and footmen, who were warned on pain of death not to enter that part of the castle after 10 p.m.
The room in question was in a tower of the castle, which was unoccupied, and the bedrooms were on the first floor, and approached by a stone staircase. I was told that the ghost could be heard walking up the stairs, and, entering one or other of the several rooms in the tower, the ghost would push and move the furniture about all over the place. Taking my gun and half a dozen cartridges, plenty of matches, and two candles as there were no other lights in the tower, I went to bed.
Now the room I was in had three doors in it, two of them leading into other rooms on either side. I heard nothingl, but awike feeling cold and, on lighting a candle, I saw the door by which I had entered the room was open. Thinking I had forgotten to close it properly I got out of bed and closed it; but as there were no keys I could not lock the doors.
Shortly after getting into bed again I felt the room getting cold once more, and on lighting the candle again I found another door, leading to one of the next roomms, was open. Once more I got up and losed this door. I admit thet by then I began to keep wide awake.
As nothing more happened for some time, I put out the candle and tried to sleep. But suddenly I heard the third door creaking and, on lighting the candle again, I saw this door slowly swinging open. I seized the gun and ran out into the other room, but could see nothing, or hear anything.
Finally, closing this door I frankly admit I kept my candle alight and myself awake for the rest of the night, and determined to shoot if I could see anything in the open doorway of either door. But nothing more happened, and as I was leaving next day I could not carry on my investigations, and shall never know what made those three doors open. It might have been only coincidence, and as such I have regarded it ever since.
A few days afterwards I met a dashing Hungarian cavalry officer, who said he had hunted haunted rooms all over Hungary, and had never seen a ghost because he had no frar of them. I told him of my experience and said: "If you had been in my place and if you had seen something come into your room, and if you had fired both barrels at it and the thing still remained there, what would you have done?" He said: "Well, I should have said to that thing: 'I don't know who you are, sir; but you are a cleverer man than I, and I don't believe you are a ghost.' "To which I replied: "Well, if you can do that you are a braver man than I am for, thinking that I am a fairly good shot, if I missed a thing twice at ten paces away, I verily believe I should throw the gun out of the window and jump after it." At which he laughed and said: "Don't you believe it! You would be too brave to do that." But I think he was wrong.
In those days of Hungary's prosperity we used to drive to a hawking or shooting party with a team of four milk-white horses, which was Prince Odescalchi's favourite colour for his horses, and at luncheon intervals a string band of Hungarians would regale us with wonderful music. Truly they did things in style at that time in Hungary.
Although I have elsewhere written more fully on this ancient sport, before leaving the subject of falconry I should like to say a few things about it. First then, although in my young days there were still a number om men who kept trained hawks, as one by one they passed over the great divide hardly anyone came forward to take their places. I lived to be the last survivor of the big falconers of the last century, and my falconer, Allen, lived to be the last of the great professional falconers. When the old Hawking Club at Lyndhurst came to an end, and the Hon. G. Lascelles who managed it retired, there was practically no one to carry on that old institution. However, a friend of mine, Captain G. Blaine, M.C., who I had started many years ago with a lot of trained hawks, and the falconer Best to whom I have referred, nobly came forward, and Blaine supported the Hawking Club for a long time practically at his own expense.
Blaine, in partnership with another old friend om mine, Captain K. Palmer, late 2nd Life Guards, kept up by far the finest hawking establishment of recent years. Not only did they show good sport on the Wiltshire downs, as we did in former years, but on the moors of Camster and Watten in Caithness they made bags of grouse which beat anything that Major Fisher and I, or any other falconers, had done in former years. As these bags have never been publicly recorded anywhere, I give a few of them now, for the benefit of future generations who may be interested in this finest and best of our old English sports and pastimes.
In 1913 at Barrogill Castle Moors they killed with hawks a bag of 406 grouse, 12 partridges and 7 various, a total of 425 head.
And again in 1922 on Camster and Watten they bagged just over 400 grouse besides other game.
These two seasons were both records for British falconers at grouse hawking.
BORCH'S FALCONRY - english