Devonshire Characters and Strange Events

TWO HUNTING PARSONS

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, few counties in England produced such a crop of hunting parsons as did Devonshire. They were in force for the first fifty years. In 1831 Henry Phillpotts was consecrated Bishop of Exeter. Shortly after, as he was driving with his chaplain on the way to a Confirmation, a fox-hunt passed by in full halloo.

“Dear me!” exclaimed his lordship; “what a number of black coats among the hunters. Has there been some great bereavement in the neighbourhood?”

“My lord,” replied the chaplain, “the only bereavement these black-coated sportsmen suffer from is not being able to appear in pink.”

There were, it was computed, in the diocese of Exeter a score of incumbents who kept their packs; there must have been over a hundred parsons who hunted regularly two or three days in the week, and as many more who would have done so had their means allowed them to keep hunters.

There is no objection to be made to a parson following the hounds occasionally; the sport is more manly than that which engrosses so many young clerics nowadays, dawdling about with ladies on lawn-tennis grounds or at croquet. But those early days of last century hunting was with many the main pursuit of their life, and clerical duties were neglected or perfunctorily performed.

There was no high standard of clerical life prevalent, but what standard there was was not lived up to. These parsonic sportsmen were as profoundly ignorant of the doctrines of the Faith they were commissioned to teach, as any child in a low form in a National School. As was sung of one – typical —

There is but one patch of false colour in this song, that which represents the hunting parson as strong in the pulpit.

Society – hunting society especially – in North Devon was coarse to an exceptional degree. One who knew it intimately wrote to me: “It was a strange ungodly company, parsons included, and that not so very long ago. North Devon society in Jack Russell’s day was peculiar – so peculiar that no one now would believe readily that half a century ago such life could be – but I was in the thick of it. It was not creditable to any one, but it was so general that the rascality of it was mitigated by consent.”

The hunting parson was, as said, not strong in the pulpit except in voice. But Jack Russell, of Swymbridge, was an exception.

He had a fine, sonorous voice, good delivery, and some eloquence. The Bishop of Exeter, Dr. Phillpotts, heard him on one occasion, and said to a lady, a connexion of Mr. Russell, “That was really a capital sermon.” “Ah! my lord,” she replied, “you have only heard him in the wood – you should hear him in pig-skin giving the view-halloo!”

Bishop Phillpotts came to the diocese resolved to suppress the hunting and sporting of his clergy, but found it impossible to do so. His efforts were wrongly directed; the hunting put down would not have altered the propensities of his clergy. He could not convert them to earnest and devoted parish priests. Thus hearts could not be reached. It was only as this class of men died out that a better type could be introduced. The Bishop sent for Mr. Russell, of Swymbridge.

“I understand that you keep hounds, and that your curate hunts with you. Will you give up your hounds?”

“No, my lord, I decline to do so.”

He then turned to the curate, Sleeman, and said, “Your licence, sir, I revoke; and I only regret that the law does not enable me to deal with the graver offender of the two.”

“I am very happy to find you can’t, my lord,” said Russell. “And may I ask, if you revoke Mr. Sleeman’s licence, who is to take the duty at Landkey, my other parish, next Sunday?”

“Mr. Sleeman may do it.”

“And who the following Sunday?”

“Mr. Sleeman again,” replied the Bishop, “if by that time you have not secured another curate.”

“I shall take no steps to do so, my lord; and, moreover, shall be very cautious as to whom I admit into my charges,” replied Russell.

Finally Mr. Sleeman removed to Whitchurch, a family living, to which he succeeded on the death of his father, and Bishop Phillpotts had to swallow the bitter pill of instituting him to it. I remember Mr. Sleeman as rector, hunting, shooting, dancing at every ball, and differing from a layman by his white tie, a capital judge of horses, and possessor of an excellent cellar.

When Parson Jack Russell was over eighty he started keeping a pack of harriers. The then Bishop of Exeter sent for him.

“Mr. Russell, I hear you have got a pack of hounds. Is it so?”

“It is. I won’t deny it, my lord.”

“Well, Mr. Russell, it seems to me rather unsuitable for a clergyman to keep a pack. I do not ask you to give up hunting, for I know it would not be possible for you to exist without that. But will you, to oblige me, give up the pack?”

“Do y’ ask it as a personal favour, my lord?”

“Yes, Mr. Russell, as a personal favour.”

“Very well, then, my lord, I will.”

“Thank you, thank you.” The Bishop, moved by his readiness, held out his hand. “Give me your hand, Mr. Russell; you are – you really are – a good fellow.”

Jack Russell gave his great fist to the Bishop, who pressed it warmly. As they thus stood hand in hand, Jack said —

“I won’t deceive you – not for the world, my lord. I’ll give up the pack sure enough – but Mrs. Russell will keep it instead of me.”

The Bishop dropped his hand.

On one occasion Bishop Phillpotts met Froude, vicar of Knowstone. “I hear, Mr. Froude, that you keep a pack of harriers.”

“Then you’ve heard wrong, my lord. It is the pack that keeps me.”

“I do not understand.”

“They stock my larder with hares. You don’t suppose I should have hares on my table unless they were caught for me? There’s no butcher for miles and miles, and I can’t get a joint but once in a fortnight. Forced to eat hares; and they must be caught to be eaten.”

The Bishop then said to Froude: “I hear, sir, but I can hardly credit it, that you invite men to your house and keep them drinking and then fighting in your parlour.”

“My lord, you are misinformed. Don’t believe a word of it. When they begin to fight and takes off their coats, I turns ’em out into the churchyard.”

John Boyce, rector of Sherwell, wishing to have a day’s hunting with the staghounds on the Porlock side of Exmoor, told his clerk to give notice in the morning that there would be no service in the afternoon in the church, as he was going off to hunt with Sir Thomas Acland over the moor on the following day. The mandate was obeyed to the letter, the clerk making the announcement in the following terms: —

“This is to give notiss – there be no sarvice to this church this arternoon; cos maester be a-going over the moor a stag-hunting wi’ Sir Thomas.”

At Stockleigh Pomeroy parish, the rector, Roupe Ilbert, desired his clerk to inform the congregation that there would be one service only on the Sunday in that church for a month, as he was going to take duty at Stockleigh English alternately with his own. The clerk did so in these words: “This is vor to give notiss – there’ll be no sarvice to thes church but wance a wick, as maester’s a-going to sarve t’other Stockleigh and this church to all etarnity.”

On one occasion, as the congregation were assembling for divine service in a church where Mr. Russell was ministering, a man stood on the churchyard hedge, with the band of his hat stuck round with silver spoons, bawling out, “Plaize to tak’ notiss – Thaise zix zilver spunes to be wrastled vor next Thursday, at Poughill, and all ginlemen wrastlers will receive vair play.” The man, with the spoons in his hat, then entered the church, went up to the singing gallery, and hung it on a peg, from which it was perfectly visible to the parson and the greater part of the congregation during service.

It was customary in those portions of Devon which were not regularly hunted, for the church bell to be rung when a fox had been discovered, so as to assemble all hands to kill it.

On one occasion, at Welcombe, snow lying deep on the ground, the clergyman was reading the second lesson, when a man opened the church door and shouted in, “I’ve a got un!” and immediately withdrew. At once up rose all the men in the congregation and followed him, and within a couple of hours brought into the village inn a fine old fox, dug out and murdered in cold blood.

Of the whole tribe of fox-hunting, hare-hunting, otter-hunting, dancing parsons, Jack Russell was the best in every way.

I was travelling outside the coach one day to Exeter, and two farmers were by me on the seat behind the driver. Their talk was on this occasion, not of bullocks, but of parsons. One of them came from Swymbridge, the other from a certain parish that I shall not name, and whose rector we will call Rattenbury. The latter told a story of Rattenbury that cannot be repeated, indicating incredible grossness in an Englishman, impossible in a gentleman. “Aye there!” retorted the sheep of Parson Jack’s flock. “Our man b’aint like that at all. He be main fond o’ dogs, I allows; he likes his bottle o’ port, I grant you that; but he’s a proper gentleman and a Christian; and I reckon your passon be neither one nor t’other.”

John Russell was born in December, 1796. His father was rector of Iddesleigh, in North Devon, and at the same time of Southill, near Callington, in Cornwall, one of the fattest livings in that county, the rectory and church distant three miles from the town of Callington, that is in the parish. A curate on a small stipend was sent to serve Iddesleigh, Mr. Russell settling into the spacious rectory of Southill, large as a manor-house, and with extensive grounds and gardens.

Young John was sent to school at Blundell’s, at Tiverton, under Dr. Richards, a good teacher, but a very severe disciplinarian. At Blundell’s, Russell and another boy, named Bovey, kept a scratch pack of hounds. Having received a hint that this had reached the ears of Dr. Richards, he collected his share of the pack and sent them off to his father. Next day he was summoned to the master’s desk.

“Russell,” said the Doctor, “I hear that you have some hounds. Is it true?”

“No, sir,” answered Russell; “I have not a dog in the neighbourhood.”

“You never told me a lie, so I believe you. Bovey, come here. You have some hounds, I understand?”

“Well, sir, a few – but they are little ones.”

“Oh! you have, have you? Then I shall expel you the school.”

And expelled he was, Russell coming off scatheless.

John Russell was ordained deacon in 1819, on nomination to the curacy of Georgenympton, near Southmolton, and there he kept otter hounds. In 1830 he married Penelope, daughter of Admiral Bury, a lady with a good deal of money, all of which, or nearly all, Parson Jack managed in process of years to get rid of – £50,000, which went, not in giving her pleasure, but on his own sporting amusements.

Russell thought that in horse-dealing, as in love and war, all things are lawful. It so happened that Parson Froude wanted a horse, and he asked his dear friend, Russell, if he knew where he could find one that was suitable. “Would my brown horse do?” asked Russell. “I want to sell him, because the hunting season is over, and I have too many horses. Come into town on Saturday and dine with me in the middle of the day, and see the horse. If you like him, you can have him, and if you do not, there is no harm done.”

On Saturday, into Southmolton came Froude. Russell lived there, as he was curate of Georgenympton, near by. Froude stabled his horse at the lower end of the town. He was suspicious even of a friend, so, instead of going to Russell’s lodging, he went to his stable and found the door locked. This circumstance made him more suspicious than ever, and, looking round, he saw a man on a ladder, from which he was thatching a cottage. He called to him for assistance, shifted the ladder to the stable, ascended, and went by the “tallet” door into the loft. He got down the steps inside, opened the window, and carefully inspected the horse, which he found to be suffering in both eyes from incipient cataract. He climbed back, got down the ladder, and shutting the window, went into a shop to have his coat brushed before he rang his friend’s door-bell. The door was opened by Russell himself, who saluted him with:

“You are early, Froude. Come across to the bank with me for a moment, if you do not mind.”

In the street was standing a Combmartin cart laden with early vegetables, and between the shafts was an old pony, stone blind, with glassy eyeballs. Froude paused, lifted the pony’s head, turned its face to the light, looked at the white eyeballs, and remarked: “How blessed plenty blind horses are in this town just now, Jack.”

Not another word was said. The dinner was eaten, the bottle of port wine was consumed, and Froude rode home without having been asked to see the brown horse. Russell knew that the game was up, and that his little plan for making his friend view the horse after he had dined, and not before, had lamentably failed.35

But that was the way with them. Froude would have dealt with his best friend in the same manner over horses.

One who knew him intimately writes: “Russell was an iron man. I have known other specimens, but Russell was the hardest of all in constitution. He was kindly enough and liberal in his dealings with his people; but if it came to selling him, or even to lending him, a horse, or buying what he was pleased to call his famous terriers, the case was different – it was after the morality of North Devon. He was a wonderful courtier where ladies were concerned, and with them he was very popular. He was no fool, but very capable, only a man who was too much given to outdoor sports to read, or even to keep himself currently informed.

“His voice was not unmusical, but tremendous. He was far too shrewd to be ever foolish in church. I was in the county somewhere about 1848–9, and there was a Bishop’s Visitation at Southmolton, and Russell was asked to preach. Then the clergy, churchwardens, etc., dined together at the ‘George,’ and after dinner the Bishop rose, and, with his silvery voice, thanked the preacher of the day, and, in the name of all those present, begged him to publish his admirable discourse for their benefit.

“Bishop Phillpotts, I may say, was diabolically astute and well-informed, and dangerous to match.

“Then up rose Russell, with head thrown back, and said: ‘My lord, I rejoice that so good a judge should pronounce my performance profitable. But I cannot oblige your lordship and publish, because that discourse is already in print. My lord, when I was requested to preach to-day I naturally turned to see what others before me had thought it advisable to say on similar occasions; and, chancing on a discourse by an Irish clergyman of long ago, I shared your lordship’s sentiments of admiration, and feeling myself incapable of doing better than the author, I was determined, my lord, that if, to-day, I could give no better fare, at least my audience should have no worse. My lord, the sermon is not original.’

“There was not a man in the room but knew that the Bishop had endeavoured to trap their man. And that he had extricated himself gave vast delight, manifested by the way in which the glasses leaped from the tables, as the churchwardens banged the boards.”

Russell was not a heavy drinker. No one ever saw him drunk. Usually he only brought out a bottle of port after he had killed his fox. On all other occasions gin and water was produced before going to bed. But if not intemperate in that way, he could and did use strong language in the hunting-field – as strong as any of the yeomen and farmers.

He was ubiquitous. Whenever there was a wrestling match, distance was nothing to him, or a horse fair, or a stag-hunt. Mentioning stag-hunts recalls the story of a parson on the fringe of Exmoor, who had been out with the hounds, and had the hunters in his church on Sunday morning. The Psalm given out was “As pants the hart for cooling streams,” and his text was “Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah, and we found it in the wood.”

From Southmolton John Russell moved to Iddesleigh, appointed there by his father, who surrendered to him the income of the living.

He was now somewhat out of the ring of his former associates, and had to make, and contrived to make, fresh friends in the neighbourhood of Hatherleigh. But it was not one where there were many squires, and the clergy were too poor to keep packs. Moreover, that tract of country was rarely hunted at all, and Russell determined to make it his own special happy hunting ground. There were, however, difficulties in the way. The people did not sympathize. The farmers were indisposed to favour his scheme, and of resident sporting squires there were none at all.

It had long been the practice of the natives to kill a fox whenever and however they could catch him; and Russell had not been long at Iddesleigh when one day his ear caught the sound of a church bell, rung in a jangling fashion and with more than usual clamour. It was the signal that a fox had been tracked to ground or balled into a brake; and the bell summoned every man who possessed a pickaxe, a gun, or a terrier to hasten to the spot and lend a hand in destroying the noxious animal. This practice he had to interrupt and put an end to.

A letter of Russell’s thus describes his first adventure with a party bent on murdering a fox in his new country: —

“During the winter of the first year I was at Iddesleigh, the snow at the time lying deep on the ground, a native – Bartholomew, alias Bat, Anstey – came to me and said, ‘Hatherleigh bell is a-ringing, sir.’ ‘Ringing for what?’ I asked, with a strong misgiving as to the cause of it. ‘Well, sir, they’ve a-tracked a fox in somewhere; and they’ve a-sot the bell a-going to collect the people to shoot un.’ ‘Come, Bat, speak out like a man,’ I replied, ‘and tell me where it is.’ ‘In Middlecot Earths, sir; just over the Ockment.’

“I was soon on the spot with about ten couple of my little hounds, and found standing around the earths about a hundred fellows, headed, I am almost ashamed to say, by two gentlemen – Mr. Veale, of Passaford, and Mr. Morris, of Fishley. I remonstrated with these gentlemen, and told them plainly that if they would leave the earths, and preserve foxes for me, I would show them more sport with my little pack in one day than they would see in a whole year by destroying the gallant animal in so un-English a way.

“Impressed, apparently, by what I had said, both gentlemen instantly bade me good morning, turned on their heels, and left the place; while a few shillings distributed among the rest, by way of compensation for the disappointment I had caused them, induced them to disperse and leave me almost the sole occupant of the situation.

“Then, after waiting half an hour near the spot, I turned my head towards home; but before I arrived there I met a man open-mouthed, bawling out, ‘They’ve a-tracked a fox into Brimblecombe, for I hear the Dowland bell a-going.’

“So off I went to Dowland in post-haste; found out where the fox was lying, turned him out of a furze-bush, ran him one hour and forty minutes – a blaze of scent all the way – and took him up alive before the hounds on the very earths I had so lately quitted; where, unfortunately for him, a couple of scoundrels had remained on the watch, and had consequently headed him short back from that stronghold.”

But Russell had not yet finished with the fox-killers, for he says: “The very next day after the run from Brimblecombe, a man came to Iddesleigh on purpose to inform me that the bell was going at Beaford, and that a fox had been traced into a brake near that hamlet. The brake, in reality, though not far from Iddesleigh, was in Mr. Glubb’s country; but feeling sure that the necessity of the case would justify the encroachment, I let out the hounds at once, and hurried to the spot with all speed.

“On arriving at the brake I found only one man near it; and he, placed there as sentinel, was guarding it from disturbance with a watchful eye. I asked him to tell me where the fox was, but he gave me a very impertinent answer. Pulling out half a crown, I said, ‘There, my man, I’d have given you that if you had told me where he was.’ The fellow’s eye positively sparkled at sight of the silver. ‘Let me have it, then,’ he replied, ‘and I will show you where he is to a yard.’

“I ran that fox an hour, and lost him near where he was found. Then, just as I was calling the hounds away to go home, down came a crowd of men, women, and children to see this fox murdered. Many of them had brought their loaded guns, were full of beer, and eager for the fray. And when they discovered that I had disturbed their fox, as they were pleased to designate him, their language was anything but choice.

“A strapping young fellow, one of the principal farmers in the parish, came up to me and said, ‘Who are you, sir, to come here and spoil our sport?’ ‘You would have spoiled mine,’ I replied, ‘if you could.’ ‘We’ll shoot them foxes whenever we can – that I’ll promise you,’ he said in an angry tone. At that moment one of the hounds began to howl. I looked round, saw she was in pain, and asked in a threatening manner, ‘Who kicked that hound?’

“No one spoke for half a minute, when a little boy said, pointing to another, ‘That boy kicked her.’ ‘Did he?’ I exclaimed. ‘Then ’tis lucky for him that he is a little boy.’ ‘Why?’ said the farmer with whom I had been previously talking. ‘Because,’ I replied, ‘if a man had kicked her I would have horse-whipped him on the spot.’ ‘You would find that a difficult job if you tried it,’ was his curt answer. I jumped off my horse, threw down my whip, and said, ‘Who’s the man to prevent me?’

“Not a word was spoken. I stood my ground, and one by one the crowd retired, the young farmer amongst the number; and from that day forward I secured for myself not only the goodwill and co-operation but the friendship of some of the best fox-preservers that the county of Devon has ever seen.”

I have thought it as well to let Mr. Russell tell his own story. If the reader considers this a dignified scene for a clergyman to be engaged in I beg to differ from him. In 1832, after he had been six years at Iddesleigh, Mr. Russell moved to Tordown, a lone country house in the parish of Swymbridge, and in 1833, the perpetual curacy of Swymbridge and Landkey becoming vacant, he was appointed to the benefice by the Dean of Exeter, and there he remained almost till his death.

“When I was inducted,” wrote he, “to this incumbency there was only one service here every Sunday – morning and evening alternately with Landkey – whereas now, I am thankful to say, we have four services every Sunday in Swymbridge alone.”

This shows that Parson Jack was not a mere mighty hunter before the Lord. He was a sincerely good man up to his lights, and never neglected a duty for the sake of a gallop after his hounds.

When he lost Mr. Sleeman he advertised for another curate in the North Devon Journal. “Wanted a curate for Swymbridge; must be a gentleman of moderate and orthodox views.”