38 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND. 



of the chase were diversified by a pugilistic encounter or 

 two, arising from too vehement a desire to excel in the 

 display of horsemanship, or from the resentment of indig- 

 nation at being unhorsed and laughed at in the ardour of 

 the pursuit, the combatants were never seriously injured, 

 and a couple of black eyes and a bloody nose corrected the 

 exuberance of momentary excitement, and restored the 

 parties to reason. Easter Monday was a glorious day, not 

 only for that class of sportsmen with which, in the days 

 alluded to, Whitechapel and the northern districts of 

 London abounded, but to the whole class of bold riders 

 from every part of the town who could procure any thing 

 in the shape of a horse to ' carry them up to the hounds ;' 

 and fortunate, perhaps, it was for some of the quadrupeds 

 employed for that purpose that the hounds were tolerably 

 well fed, or for the moment more anxious for sport than 

 food, or it is much more than probable that the living 

 carrion which constituted on these occasions a large portion 

 of the ' field' would have furnished a hearty meal for the 

 canine participants in the ' day's diversion/ But be this 

 as it may, the sportsmen from Whitechapel were on this 

 eventful day joined by the sportsmen from all other parts 

 of London and Westminster. On that occasion even the 

 peripatetic commercials from Duke's Place and the regions 

 of St Mary Axe were seen mounted on capering steeds 

 careering to the scene of action, through Houndsditch, as 

 triumphant as Mordecai when honoured by Hainan in the 

 palmy days of their Hebrew ancestors. Tothill-fields or, 

 in the sporting phrase, Tothill-downs sent its contribu- 

 tion of ' rough-riders' to the chase ; and many a gallant 

 Rosinante, reserved for a season from the inexorable pole- 

 axe of the knackers of Loman's Pond and Bermondsey, 

 left the studs of the late Bill Gibbons and the celebrated 

 Caleb Baldwin to make use of their last legs in the forest- 

 glades of Epping. But it was not only on horseback that 

 the Actaeons of that day made their way to Fairmead 

 Bottom the ' venue,' as the lawyers call it, or the ' meet/ 

 as the mighty hunters before the Lord pronounce the 



