2 LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



horse was sold by auction at Leicester, and I have heard that 

 Lady Warwick never regretted the purchase. 



Riding- good horses, she made good use of them, and when 

 hounds ran fast in Essex she was generally seen in the front : 

 in the words of the late Sir Charles Mordaunt and the 

 Hon. and Rev. W. R. Verney, authors of the soul-stirring 

 "Annals of the Warwickshire Hunt," we learn that in 1892 

 " Lady Warwick is a very strong and bold horsewoman, and 

 the horse has to go when she puts it at a fence." 



The Countess of Warwick's "Goldfinch" 



J-'roiii a painting by Lynwopd Palmer 



Monday, Blackmore, the gth. — The smallest field on record, not twenty 

 at the meet, never two score all day. The reason not far to seek. A 

 dense fog, which showed no signs of lifting at 9 a.m., sent all City men to 

 town. Willingale had played havoc with the one-horse brigade, and 

 Blackmore, in this young season, has already acquired an unenviable 

 notoriety for the paucity of its foxes. Why and wherefore, who knows ? 

 The place used to swarm with them. Col. Arkwright's covert at Thoby 

 was once a sure find. 



Perfectly sick of the whole thing. Blackmore blank, Lady Grove 

 tenantless. Col. Disney's coverts unoccupied by a single member of the 

 vulpine fraternity, Writtle Park a sealed book, for the shooters have not 

 yet had their say. At 2.15 we bade adieu to the chase, and good night 

 to all those who had for a moment been betrayed into a gallop by the sight 

 of a yellow cat at Thoby, and steered our way from Fryerning, several 

 gates having to be opened and shut before the high road was gained. To 

 this, and this alone, we owed our salvation, for by the time we had cleared 



