Handley Cross Revisited
A Saber, A Glass and a Reliable Mount
It had the makings of a decent story.
A friend who was long-time huntsman with the Loudoun-Fauquier Hounds, prevailed on me to join him some Sunday morning in the chase vehicle. With a recent knee replacement, he was not riding as much as he once did.
I had neither equestrian nor hunt experience myself, although there was, many generations back, a branch of the family who had bred Blackhawk Morgans in Vermont.
The same had replaced the sorry Federal stock provided to local counties in 1861, with 108 expensive Morgans upon which a Cavalry Company was organized for service in Virginia.
Frankly, the family military history was of little interest until I found myself with acreage not far from battlefields seen by previous eyes 1861-1865.
It was not through an interest in history, but a growing involvement with the Virginia wine industry that brought it finally into focus.
Many of the farms where I had trained as a viticulturalist and winemaker in northern Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley, were the exact sites of specific battles in which that cavalry Company was engaged.
***
The walkie-talkie in the console between Larry and me crackled.
I tried not to overwhelm him with pedestrian or stupid questions, but I was keen to learn as much as I could from him, an iconic figure in Hunt meets in this immediate area.
Before the developers came and the adjacent subdivisions were built, the same Hunt had ridden across our farm with our blessings and encouragement. It added color tyo the surroundings.
In fact, the nineteenth stone spring house that came with the acreage and old house, had fallen, literally, in to disrepair. While the walls held, the raised seam roof had long since collapsed into the upper floor and cellar.
Since the previous owners had not be able to repair or demolish it, it had been surrounded with a safety fence with a Keep Out sign. As we got to know the hunt community and the previous family, it turned out that the ruin had been the refuge where local foxes hid to escape the dogs and horses as they thundered by.
***
“…turn them around at Thunder Run…” I heard the invisible Huntsman communicate to his whippers-in while Larry listened in, leaning in toward the static. The pack was not loud but from our hilltop perch, I could hear the baying of hounds and an occasional off-key toot on the huntsman’s horn down somewhere among the leafless sycamore trees that line every stream in this part of Virginia.
“Larry,” I asked, not knowing how soon he would re-start the engine on the massive white GMC chase vehicle. “OK if I step out and get a few pictures?”
“Sure!” he laughed.
I almost fell out as I climbed down: the running board on the truck was a few feet above the ground.
The stories, names, places, technical primers, and gossip came thick and fast throughout the morning.
“Larry, better write these stories down, now,” I cautioned. “If you don’t I will…”
***