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Hang the calf at the back of the flesh room and spray it blue so it can’t go for people to eat. There’s a dozen carcasses in here but we’ll get through all those before they go bad. Easy. Cold, see? Even in midsummer it’s always cold in the flesh room ’cos of the thick walls and turf roof.

Mostly it’s horses this year. Been a bad winter and feeding an old horse is no way to spend money. There’s a couple of late calves too small to make it by the time the snow come, a few ponies off the moor and Jack Biggins’s best old milker, Bubbles. Brought her in himself, he did, and said she’d always liked to watch the hunt go by. Daft old bugger! But he didn’t want her going off to Brown’s, see, where they treat ’em so bad. Likely old Bubbles thought her was coming in to be milked! Down the concrete slope, a pat between the eyes, a kind word. No bother.

I go back into the big shed and collect the leftovers of the calf – the hocks, the hoofs, the hide, the head – and put ’em in the incinerator. Time was we’d sell the hides to the tanneries at Porlock or Swimbridge, but now everything that’s leather comes from China or India ten times as cheap. We’re nothing now, England. All we got left now is our traditions, and there’s those what would like to see them gone too, and us all living like Russians.

I hose down the shed, then sharpen up another knife and take down old Bubbles. The hounds know the sound of the second knife sharpening and start to sing, so I join ’em: The hocks, the hoofs, the hide, the head, the hocks, the hoofs, the hide, the head …

I put chunks of the old milker in a wheelbarrow and take her out to the yards and throw her over the gates. The hounds stop singing and start eating. The older ones eat first: the pups learn that fast. Only Milo tries it on, and I have to wade in there with the whip and pull his teeth out of General’s shoulder. Him’ll be a fine dog, Milo, but he needs a lot of arse-kicking. The whole litter’s turned out a bit bolshy, as it happens. That’s Rufus for you. Finest sire in four counties, but him do get some growlers and some nippers. Rick and Rosie like a sly nip when they’re walked. That’s why they go out coupled with Drifter and Sandy – them two’ll put any pup in its place quick enough. Nothing like being bit hard by a bigger hound you’re chained to, to teach you some manners. By next winter them’ll be as good as anything the Blacklands ever had.

There’s a car coming up the lane. Not expecting visitors.

John Took got out of his Range Rover and lit a cigarette against the biting wind. He wasn’t looking forward to this.

He’d inherited Bob Coffin. The bow-legged huntsman had come in a package deal with the sixty-odd hounds that had become his when he’d taken on the role of Blacklands Master three years before. If John Took could have chosen, he’d have picked a huntsman with a bit more stature. Someone who looked well in a white coat and bowler hat at the county hound show. Possibly not quite so much like Neanderthal Ice-cream Man.

The kennelman, Nigel, would have fitted the bill, but what could he do? Nigel was only twenty-eight and Coffin had been the Blacklands huntsman for almost forty years. Even Took had known enough not to rock a forty-year-old boat. Not here on the moor, anyway.

At least he kept the place clean. Never a bit of straw out of place, never a speck of blood in the big shed, never a turd in the cement runs. And he never complained about the cottage that came with the job, even though the hunt hadn’t spent money on it in thirty years. Took assumed Coffin did any repairs himself, and never asked about the cost.

He turned out good hounds, too, Took had to give him that. Hounds well bred for the idiosyncrasies of Exmoor, big and strong enough to fight their way through gorse, wire and flooded rivers, but light enough behind to keep going all day over hilly terrain.

It was a shame. Really it was. They were all going to suffer.

He heard a gate latch and Coffin emerged from the yards and touched his cap. It was feudal, but Took rather liked it.

‘Bob,’ he said.

‘Mr Took.’

Took had a final drag and stamped on his cigarette.

‘Bad news, I’m afraid, Bob.’

Bob Coffin’s expression didn’t change. Like a sheep’s.

‘We’ve worked out the merger with the Midmoor.’

Coffin nodded, waiting for more.

‘We’ll have joint Masters, and their whipper-in has agreed to go part-time with Alistair Farrell. But I’m afraid we’ll lose the name.’

This was a bitter blow. Took could tell by the way Coffin almost blinked. There’d been a Blacklands Hunt on Exmoor for a hundred and forty-odd years. Never fashionable, but there.

‘The good news,’ Took continued more cheerfully, ‘is that Malcolm Bidgood has room for one more in kennels—’

‘Huntsman?’

‘Assistant huntsman.’