The first true sign of spring is the last hunt of the season, the last meet, the last stirrup cup, the last frantic baying of the hounds, the last maelstrom of horses' heels on a cobbled yard, the last flash of hunting pink on a Kildare field. The hunt is not about hunting: it is a celebration of the vagaries of groups of animals and their masters, pitted against the wiles of nature, in which the latter usually wins.
Hunts are so very satisfying because they involve the union of the first two animals which mankind tamed, domesticated and formed personal unions with. In horses and dogs we created dysfunctional versions of the wild animal: wolves that did not kill sheep but nipped their ankles, which did not eat the dead bird but returned with it intact; horses which did not try to kill the carnivore astride their back but which obeyed it, which accepted the bit in the mouth, the harness and the gruelling plough.
Dogs and horses have been merely bred to possess qualities which resemble human virtues. We perpetuated and refined the DNA of the wolf-descendent whose face registered human qualities, which retained the puppy-qualities of licking, of dependency, of affection; but the wolf which remained a wolf was left to the wild or was killed. And as for the proto-horse that would not be broken, we simply ate it.
The hunting pack is probably the closest to the wolf that the domesticated dog is allowed to revert to. Wolfhound, borzoi, beagle - wolves would recognise them and hail them as kin. But they are not wolves. They heed the whip and hear the horn and know the voice of their master. And most of all, they love the chase; and as hounds are cousins to the wolf, so "chase" is an etymological cousin to "catch" and "capture". For there is a quarry, and the quarry is a fox, the most artful animal of all. And all else being equal, the fox will get away.
So the Kildares gathered at The Thatch pub in Ballymore Eustace the other day for the last hunt of the season, with field-master Charlie O'Reilly resplendent in the blood-red jacket which sports the euphemism of "pink".
The priceless quintessence of country life assembles at a hunt meet: animals and humans milling in sociable circles, a general air of careless affability, as one tries to put names on faces one hasn't seen in a year.
This is perhaps the only occasion when there is merit to hot punch as it warms the blood and makes the brain just a little giddy. The wine, the cloves, the cinnamon, the diced fruit, the clean air - yes, barely past eleven, but with still a nip in the air, I think I will have a second glass of that, thank you. Plates of sizzling sausages circulate. The approaching hounds start baying as they scent the hunters; then they pour into the yard, a grey and cream stream, babbling, sniffing and enquiring, their blood up, the nostrils aquiver. Around them, wheeling in expectation, the polished buttocks of the horses shine like soldiers' toecaps.
A trump from the horn, and horses, hounds and humans all pour away, leaving behind them a ghost town of abandoned horse-boxes and lorries, to draw the first covert, in the parkland near Barrettstown Castle. The foxhounds in all their giddy stupidity gallop into a break just as a smirking fox emerges, to double back behind them, before leaning against a tree and lighting a slightly amused cigarette.
The horn again, and the hounds erupt from the drawn cover in an auburn tide, a concerted score of anuses beneath raised tails scampering after the scent of the now vanished fox, the whippers-in cantering in their wake, the riders in an obedient, bobbing stream behind them, all to disappear over the brow of a hill.
The neighbouring promontories provide the perfect place to follow the hunt, as in the distance Wicklow's snow-clad peaks shine like sailing icebergs.
The yelp of the hounds echoes across the fields, the hunting horn shrieks, the huntsmen's scarlet jacket serving as markers of their progress across the dun countryside, like barium in blood. But then the vast countryside soon swallows the hunt, and even the declamatory pinks vanish. The sounds of the hunt depart, and the fields revert to the bleating of lambs and their fretful mothers. We measure our seasons in animal rites. The hounds are put in kennels as spring arrives, and there they yearn for the shortening days and the falling leaves and the departing swallows, twitching in their sleep as they once again scent the spore of that wily old dog fox from Elverstown covert.
The horses are stabled, and impatiently paw their straw to return to the field. Evenings stretch, the cowslips burst into colour along our hedgerows and the first of our bird visitors from Africa start doing the rounds of the estate agents. Seven months must pass before we can again sip the stirrup-cup, listen to the companionable noise of hoof on stone and the enquiring babble of hounds. However, at a certain time of life, seven months pass like seven weeks once did; and between now and the next meet of the Kildares lie the brief illusion of spring and summer, mere gossamer in the path of a tractor.
A sobering thing, time, for when all is said and done, in all its utter evanescence, it is the only thing which lies between us and the grave.