8o 



LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



in, and there being just a slight chance of hunting, Mr. Green 

 went to Dunmow with hounds. The roads were coated with 

 ice and snow, and the country, although rideable, was also 

 covered with snow. Mr. R. Y. Bevan, Mr. A. J. Edwards, 

 Mr. Caldwell and the Master, were the only people who trained 

 to Dunmow, and of these neither Mr. Bevan or Mr. Edwards 

 could get to the meet on account of the state of the roads. Mr. 

 Green and Mr. Caldwell managed it somehow. Needless to 

 add, no one else was there. Drawing Bendish, a rare old fox 

 went away at once, and in a blinding snowstorm gave them a 

 splitter to Finchingfield. The best horse, however, which Mr. 

 Caldwell ever possessed was an Irishman named " Elevator," 



Seymour Caldwell 



bought from Mr. Hames, of Leicester. He was a rare bold 

 jumper, and Mr. Caldwell won the Fox Hunters' Plate with him 

 from a large field ; sold afterwards to Captain Williams, R. H.A. 

 Whilst being trained by Adams, of Epsom, he did a record 

 jump over the open ditch, measured, Mr. Caldwell thinks, at 

 32 feet. It was on this horse that Mr. Caldwell jumped a very 

 wide brook between Curtis Mill Green and Colonel Lockwood's. 

 I know that the horse I was riding, " Black Fox," formerly the 

 property of Mr. Mosley Leigh, a pretty bold fencer as a rule, 

 wouldn't face it, but plumped in. Fortunately there was little 

 water, but a good gravelly bottom, and lots of room for walking 

 about. 



