64 



LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



of Maries Wood. Copped Hall keepers in luck. A brace (foxes not keepers) 

 in Orange \Vood, and another in the adjoining covert of Ball Hill, ought to 

 frank them to the keepers' dinner. Headed by the vociferous shouts of the 

 tenant of this farm — "Gill's Farm" — the fox broke away on the opposite 

 side, past the Homestead; and hounds simply flew over the grass to the 

 Keeper's Lodge, and only those who put on the break as hounds streaked 

 down the two long, narrow meadows by the side of the spinney, or who 

 followed immediately those who retraced their steps when the fox doubled 

 back, could claim to have seen any more of this run, for from this point 

 there was no time to dwell a moment, no time to open a gate. As hounds 



Donald Gregory on "Kathleen" 



raced over the pastures by Hunter's Hall fences came thick and fast. 

 After you, if you please, Miss Buxton, over the blind ditch and rotten tree- 

 stump on the far side ; and again by leave, after you, over the fence, 

 out of the stackyard, and a merry race over the next three fields to the 

 Gregory -nun -Cook corner, for this is where one of them came to grief, I 

 am told. Certainly the ditch was wide and the landing boggy by that 

 cottage in Hunters Hall Lane. One after the other and the upstanding 

 corner one, Mr. Chapman, if you would miss a couple and have the next 

 after — Jack, Bailey, and Mr. Jones — and find the Heavies, as represented by 



