3S 



LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



Alva. Succeedino- to his father's fine estates of Hallinobury 



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Place in Essex and Culverthorpe Hall in Lincolnshire in 1831, 

 during his long lifetime he always evinced the warmest interest 

 in all that pertained to hunting not only in Essex, but over the 

 border, for his fine coverts in Takeley Forest were equally 

 accessible then, as they are now, to the Puckeridge and the 

 Essex Hounds. It is fairly safe to assume that, as long as 

 a Houblon reigns at Hallingbury Place, fox-hunting will 

 flourish and endure in one of the fairest portions of the country 

 over which the Essex Hounds are privileged to hunt. 



Which will you have, my masters ? The run in the fog, as far back 

 as Monday week — when we met at Epping Long Green, and hounds ran 

 clean away from the huntsman and many who pride themselves upon never getting left 

 behind — or the following Wednesday, a Fyfield fixture, "when the field ran 

 aivay from the hounds ; or shall I devote my energies to the description of a 

 day in a country which, as a rule, is set apart for Monday's delectation, but 

 which, in honour of the guests who had danced in "the morn " at Havering 

 House, was chosen as the venue for Friday, the last day in January ? In 

 no case will my story be a long one; in any, it might have been better. 



Let me start with the Monday, and you must go back to the 27th 

 January, if you would follow me out. It was a typical scenting day for 

 Essex — perhaps for any county— an easterly wind, laden with Scotch 

 mist. The draw, for the fixture, an unusual one, " Nasing Coppice " 

 generally having the first visit paid to it. Nothing like changing the 

 method of drawing for a fox from a particular meet ; it brings people up to 

 the scratch, and offers no premium to those who like to play 'possum, and hang 

 about covers waiting for hounds to come up. The find was a quick one, as 

 we clustered at the top of the hill in the road that runs down between the 

 two woods that rejoice in the name of " Balls Hill Woods." Hounds never 

 opened, in fact they were hardly in covert, before Jack's keen glance de- 

 tected a fox stealing off in the direction of the Coppice. It took the 

 huntsman very little time to jump out of the road, whisk over the next 

 fence, clear the wood, and lay on his hounds, and the hounds even less to 

 run clean out of sight. 



My word ! how they flung to it on the grass, as they swept down one 

 field with a will, cleared the fence in the dip, and disappeared through the 

 one on the rising ground. In blind confidence, pinning our faith on Nasing 

 Coppice, we all started to ride wide of them, with the exception of Mr. 

 Peel, who rode in their wake ; but we wheeled sharp to their cry as hounds 

 bore slightly left-handed, and found Mr. Peel blocking about the only 

 available spot in the fence, as his horse refused. We had to grope our 

 way like children in the dark. For wire, barbed wire, flourishes and 

 grows in rank profusion in these upland pastures, and never ivas there an occa- 

 sion for more dash and more devilry to he shoivn by those who fain ivould have been 

 with hounds. For not only were they running on like wildjire, but the mist on 

 the hill grew thicker, and like dim, fleeting shadows, hounds were rapidly 

 leaving us. There was little politeness at Mr. Peel's gap : a hasty look to 

 see if the next man would jump on you was about all I can tell you ; and 

 the first man that came down had a horse land on each side of him as his 

 own galloped on in the fog to slip his reins off the post he was hung upon, 

 and disappear like a phantom in the mist. 



Like a bird on the wing the huntsman was now flying on for the 



