THERE ARE WORSE THINGS THAN A BLANK DAY 9 



of the rain, is better far than the fog and smoke of London Town. The 

 compulsory fast does you no harm either, for we have not yet gone in for 

 the shooter's lunch. No need for electric baths (which the doctors say 

 are so good for enlarged hearts) when you have the electric shock of half-a- 

 dozen false alarms peculiar to any blank day. 



Who led the rush at Loughton Shaws, which swept us along with 

 irresistible force only to find Bailey quietly jogging along in front of his 

 hounds, everyone trying to look as if he hadn't done it — the wish in every 

 case the father of the thought that set the machinery in motion. Oh for 

 the enthusiasm of the Trinity youth''' who voted the two jumps between 

 Loughton Shaws and the Theydon-road the best thing of the whole day. 

 I could not agree, but would not deny him. Nay, rather the instinctive 

 timorousness belonging to middle-age sought other consolation in the 

 leisuiely march across country, affording as it did such good insight of the 

 best way in and quickest way out of many a covert to be treasured up for 

 future use. 



Even on a blank day you must jump occasionally, but young Mr. Tyn- 

 dale White and old Mr. New (nothing disrespectful, you know) managed to 

 find a useful short cut into Hainault Forest en route to the Colonel's coverts, 

 and missed the trappy bank with ditch beyond which brought several to 

 grief on our previous visit. A good many eyed the Colonel's black rails 

 in a hungry manner when the lock of the gate failed to yield to the blows 

 from a stirrup iron. Mr. Mugleston went so far as to say that his cob 

 would do them. Regard for his neck, to say nothing of the rails, 

 repressed the rising inclination to ask for ocular demonstration, for if, as 

 Stella says in the play of "Mrs. Ponderbury's Past," "Men are men in 

 the country," in these days of barbed wire rails are rails, not to be larked 

 over with impunity when hounds are not running. 



Perhaps the best thing of the whole day was the bold bid Mr. C. E. 

 Green, who in the absence of Mr. Arkwright was in charge, made to save 

 it. Loughton Shaws blank ; at 3 p.m. he gave the order Weald Coppice. 

 It didn't come off, but if it had, one, and one lady only, would have been 

 there to tell the tale. Miss Margaret Green. Luckily blank days are few 

 and far between in our country, otherwise our hounds would soon become 

 as wild as hawks. 



We are undoubtedly having all our best sport on Wednesdays. 



Take Wednesday, December i8th, at Epping Green. What a merry 

 day it was, probably affording more enjoyment to more people than any 

 other day this season. I don't think I came across man or woman, boy or 

 maiden, who had not enjoyed at least one of the three runs which fell to 

 our share. For they all like a romp on the grass, and we romped on the 

 grass all day. 



So quick did hounds get away with the first fox from Nasing Coppice 

 that thirty or forty of us were left badly behind, and had not Mr. Ark- 

 wright been very quick of hearing we might all very easily have shared 

 the same fate, for the hounds were not in covert a minute before they were 

 away at the bottom and running like smoke, and then, swinging up hill to 

 the farm, checked in the corner, and checked again near the farm buildings. 

 A man on the hill waving his arm in the direction the fox had taken gave 

 Bailey the cue, and they raced for Deer Park, throwing everyone 

 hopelessly out who held to the right. Leaving Shatter Bushes behind, 

 they sunk the hill for the brook, by which time the field were somewhat 

 spread-eagled, the bungle Mr. Price made at the gate helping to do it. 



* Mr. R. Bury. 



