22 LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



liked an ugly fall over some rails and a wide ditch ; but the horse lost nothing 

 in my estimation in the process, for had he not been carrying his owner 

 to the front all day ? Another gentleman :f in pink had real bad luck, for his 

 horse, not content with wedging himself heels up in a very narrow ditch 

 (costing his owner considerably over a sovereign before he was set up on 

 all fours), had the ill manners, when hacking home, to come down and 

 blister his knees. Altogether, bar these contretemps, it was a day full of 

 incident and pleasure ; in fact, an old-fashioned Monday. 



Sandwiched in between this and the day of which I have more to say 

 presently came Wednesday and Friday. Of the first it may be related 

 that it was freely described on all sides as having been a disappointing day. 

 This I can readily credit ; unless you plugged round Parndon Wood three 

 times with hounds you could have had no idea where they had been, nor 

 have seen them when they emerged from the breakers sailing over the 

 smooth waters beyond ; but it was heaven while it lasted, and the two 

 ladies, Mrs. Arkwright and Miss Jones, were of the lucky few who saw 

 hounds flying up wind to Maries ; grass every yard of it, and the pace idtra. 

 The horse that will stand the battering through the deep and muddy rides 

 of Parndon Woods and Galley Hills must have uncommonly good legs. 

 You'll not gainsay it if you will pay a visit to your stable after one of 

 these woodland days and compare with previous experience after a day 

 in the open. If Wednesday was a bad scenting day, Friday was an excep- 

 tionally good one, for hounds scored one of the most brilliant runs on 

 record from Brockleys. Running for one hour and ten minntes in a thick 

 fog, without the semblance of a chec^, they killed their fox. No wonder that 

 there were only three besides the huntsman and Jack Turner who saw it, 

 viz., Mr. Newman Gilbey, Mr. Pemberton Barnes, and Col. Gardiner, the 

 horses of the two latter being reduced to a trot. Mr. Myfield and another 

 farmer nicked in just before they killed. As for the rest of the field, they 

 were either lost in the fog, came down, or their horses were cooked. 



Now for Monday ! My Monday ! Your Monday ! the 6th of January, 

 1896, at Dagenham. We were a very happy little band, I can tell you ; 

 with a strong leaven of schoolboys and a good sprinkling of some of our 

 fairest and prettiest ladies ; and we came out to find a fox, and kill a fox, 

 in spite of all the gloomy prognostications of the croakers. Hunt breakfasts 

 may be dying out — the reason not far to seek — but the hospitality which 

 Mr. Sands extends to all comers remains the same as of yore, and for the 

 second time this season we all gladly accepted what was so freely offered^ 

 and there are worse things, let me tell you, than cherry or orange brandy 

 when the wind has been steadily blowing from the east for three conse- 

 cutive days and a dull leaden sky o'er head. 



To Dagenham Woods and coverts adjoining in which foxes are known 

 to exist. They had been seen on the Saturday previous. We shall find 

 them one of these days when some of the Roothing Skimmers are toasting 

 their toes at their firesides, or wading through their City accounts. To 

 make things lively, someone halloaed a hare. If Mr. Barclay had been 

 out I am afraid that he would have turned green with jealousy when he saw 

 the keen and brilliant way the bitches ran her. Small blame to them ! for 

 the huntsman laid them on to the line, in good faith, at the double. But 

 how about the man who halloaed ? What ought to be done to him ? No, 

 really, Capt. B., I can't produce it here, though I grant what you said was 

 very much to the point. 



Now, it could not have been less than two miles by the chain to 

 Dagenham (the scene of the morning's meet), from the point Jack suc- 



X Mr. Ford Barclay. 



