HUNTING IN THE MIDLANDS. 



'Jem Pike has just come round, gentlemen, to say that they will 

 be able to hunt to-day, after all : and as it's about starting time, 

 I think, gentlemen, I will, with your permission, order your 

 horses round.' 



The announcement, as it came to us over our breakfast at a 

 hostelry which I will call the Lion, in a market-town which I 

 will call Chipping Ongar — a highly convenient hunting rendez- 

 vous in the Midlands — was not a little welcome. Jem Pike was 

 the huntsman of the pack, and Jem Pike's message was an inti- 

 mation that the frost of last night had not destroyed our sport 

 for the day. The morning had broke in what Jem would call a 

 ' plaguey ugly fashion :' from an artistic point of view it had 

 been divine : for hunting purposes it had been execrable. A 

 thin coating of ice on one's bath indoors, a good stiff hoar frost 

 out, crystallised trees, and resonant roads — all this was season- 

 able, very, and ' pretty to look at, too.' But it was ' bad for 

 riding ;' and we had not come to the Lion at Chipping Ongar 

 in order to contemplate the beauties of Nature, but to brace our 

 nerves with the healthy excitement of the chase. Full of mis- 

 givings we descended to breakfast, in hunting toggery notwith- 

 standing. As the sun shone out with increased brilliance we 

 began to grow more cheerful. The frost, we said, was nothing, 

 and all trace cf it would be gone before noon. The waiter shook 

 his head dubiously, suggested that there was a good billiard- 

 table, and inquired as to the hour at which we would like to dine. 

 But the waiter, as the event proved, was wrong, and we were 

 still in the middle of breakfast when the message of the hunts- 

 man of the Chipping Ongar pack arrived — exactly what we had 

 each of us said. Of course the frost was nothing : we had known 

 as much ; and now the great thing was to get breakfast over, 

 and then ' to horse away.' 



After all there is nothing for comfort like the old-fashioned 

 hunting hotels, and unfortunately they are decreasing in number 

 every year. Still the Lion at Chipping Ongar remains ; and I 



