BAILEYS SKILL AS A HUNTSMAN 33 



From Shalesmore we have another tale to tell, the skill of our huntsman 

 revealed in another form. No longer on the grass, but cold-scenting plough, 

 with a falling glass and flashy scent, he brought off a splendid run of one 

 hour and fifty minutes. Taking us by Sir Charles Smith's coverts, and 

 Toot Hill, we reached Ongar Park, and here, I venture firmly but respect- 

 fully to tell the field, we should most probably have spent the rest of our 

 day, had we not possessed at the head of affairs a very keen Master, served 

 by an equally keen huntsman. How's that, you ask ? Why, Ongar Park 

 was full of foxes, who could have rung the changes very comfortably 

 without leaving its leafy precincts, and frittered away a short January 

 afternoon, and none of us have been any the wiser, and none of us to say it 

 was wrong. 



What did happen ? Why, I will tell you. A stout bold woodland fox 

 went away when hounds were ringing round the covert, setting his mask 

 for a journey over a rough, wild country that every minute would take 

 hounds further from kennels ; and without a moment's delay, as soon as 

 he could collect his hounds, the huntsman came flying after him, and we 

 embarked upon the joUiest hunt of the day — over a grand, if stiff country, 

 grass freely alternating with ploughed land. Leaving Greensted House on 

 our left, we crossed the Toot Hill Road, and passing by Berwick Farm, 

 through Kettlebury Springs, the pack ran most beautifully at a great pace 

 by the lane down to the river, crossing it near the mill. Into and through 

 Kelvedon Wood with a rare crash of music, they came away on the top 

 of their fox as he left the covert, and pushing him through the Menagerie, 

 he only just managed to shake off his pursuers in the chain of woods which 

 are bounded by Kelvedon Common. No one could regret that a fox who 

 had afforded us such sport escaped after as good a hunting run as one could 

 wish to see, bringing out as it did in such a prominent light the huntsman s 

 wonderful skill in making his casts; and it sent us all home in the most cheerful 

 frame of mind, which lost none of its glow from the hearty and generous 

 welcome so freely given at Marden Ash to tired horse and man. 



A day of such vivacity could scarcely fail to be marked by incidents of 

 varying form and colour. Our secretary's hat was a picture ; Mr. Cowee's 

 coat a study. But the man who didn't have at least one toss was the 

 exception rather than the rule on this particular day. I could mention lots 

 of names, but, as the Professor says in " Cinderella," " Those who live 

 in glass houses should pull down the blinds." 



With hounds and without. What a difference ! but fortunately one 

 that is hardly felt by the majority of those who make up an average field 

 and perfectly content three, four or five fields behind hounds, as long as 

 they can see some pink coats in front of them, go plodding on, jumping the 

 fences as they come, looking as jolly as sand boys when they turn up at the 

 checks. Happy mortals ! for without a shadow of a doubt they extract 

 more honey from the joys of the chase than ever falls to the share of the 

 minority, who if they are not with hounds, curse their luck and wish 

 themselves at home. And by being with hounds, I mean in the same field, 

 or at least never more than one wide of them, right or left. We have said 

 all this before — n'importe. 



Now, the majority of us were very delighted with the brilliant gallop 

 from Harlow Park ten days ago, on the occasion of the frost-postponed 

 12 o'clock meet at Thrushes Bush, but the majority of us never saw a yard 

 of it in the true acceptance of the term. We might have retrieved, as many 

 of us did, a bad start from Harlow Park, when hounds checked for an 

 instant in the grass field behind Mr. Lyall's house on Hastingwood 

 Common ; we might have seen Bailey knock a hole through the high bull- 



o VOL, II 



