THE FATTER THEV ARE THE BETTER THEY GO 43 



An untried deer, fat as butter — the fatter they are the better they go; 

 perhaps you didn't know that, my charming young lady — was given the 

 usual law, and a capital view we fox-hunters got of him (stag-hunters 

 never look), as, with proud disdain he trod the ling, inhaled the breeze, and 

 cantering up to the fence, leisurely topped it, and disappeared. As he ran 

 up the hill by the side of Mr. C. Fitch's plantation, at the top of which, 

 unknown to us, he had harboured, and here, as we rode to hounds, at a fast 

 hand-gallop, we came up to him. In full view of the pack he broke covert, 

 and running through Knightsland (we went through the bridle gate three at 

 a time), crossed the road to the right of the keeper's lodge, getting on the 

 grass beyond Berwick Lane. Hounds went a splitter, I can tell you, from 

 here to the end of the run at Kelvedon Common, running in view all the 

 way. We could hold hounds, and only just hold them, as they flew by Mr. 

 Freeman's and raced down to the river, but by the time we had followed 

 Messrs. Waltham, Sworder and Avila over the ford, they were lost to sight, 

 to memory dear — in other words, they had gone, flown, vanished into thin 

 air, our only clue to recovery being a distant halloa, or a solitary hedger 

 frantically waving his arms as he indicated the line hounds and their quarry 

 had taken. 



Clear of the ford, we galloped on without drawing rein : 



"The bay he leaned against the bit and slugged his head above, 

 But the red mare played with the snaffle bars, as a maiden plays with a glove." 



Messrs. Waltham and Sworder leading, and so over the rails into the 

 Navestock Springs and out over some more, we stretched away for Dud- 

 brook over clean galloping pastures of soundest turf. Why did we fumble 

 at that gate out of the second one, Mr. Sworder ? I agree with you that it 

 lost us the remainder of the gallop, for as it flew open i\Ir. Sheffield 

 Neave had swung over the rails at the side, and he immediately turned 

 sharp to the left, his quick ear having caught the sound of hounds running 

 in that direction. The bullocks galloping towards Xavestock Hall on the 

 right pointed to a clue, and led to defeat, for true as it might have been, as 

 we subsequently ascertained it was, that the deer had turned to the right 

 for the lake, he never soiled, and came back at such a pace, being closely 

 pressed by hounds, that he was already coming along behind the belt of 

 trees running down to Mr. Stiell's house at the time we were hesitating 

 which side to go. 



The Master, Mr. Waltham, and i\Ir. Pemberton-Barnes caught hounds 

 as they swept over the road and the pastures for Bois Hall. Mr. Waltham, 

 however, pulled up, having vowed before he started only to go for a few 

 miles, as he wanted his horse for ^Monday; but had he known how very 

 soon the deer would be taken he would most certainly have held on. The 

 whole thing must have been over in about thirty minutes ; the end I did 

 not see ; having got on the road and being hopelessly out of it, I resigned 

 myself to my fate. Those, however, who had taken an equally bad turn and 

 who went galloping on after Messrs. Sworder and Avila, came up in time 

 for the capture. 



Now, from Kelvedon Common, Xavestock, to Galley Hill, Waltham 

 Abbey, is a far cry ; but at 4.30 I found myself riding to harriers in full 

 chorus in that country, and learnt all about the day's sport they had had 

 from their meet at IMead Gate, Nasing, in the early morning. A long 

 day, with plenty of hares and very little scent until the afternoon, the 

 common verdict. But, by general consent, a very nice little run over the 

 grass at the close of the proceedings. 



Foxhounds at North Weald. — No scent and no sport in the morning 



