MR. C. E. RIDLEY S GORSE IS DRAWN FOR THE FIRST TIME 99 



A falter on the plough, a check but no checkmate, a reuniting of the 

 pieces on the board — wire enquiries from our pink-clad secretary, satis- 

 factory answers, and so after Mr. Avila and j\Ir. Guy Gilbey over the 

 razor-banked fences to the Forest to surmise not amiss that the hard-riding 

 tenant of Theydon Hall Farm was bestriding a clinker which in the 

 Gaynes Park stables had made her mark. Did you vote ? Did you wish ? 

 Did you fear the run over as you cantered through the Forest rides and 

 turned up the Ongar Road for Rough Talleys ? Did you cross the line at 

 once, or take a return ticket with Bailey down the meadow Ongar- wards ? 

 Did you hope a good fox would live for another day as they bustled him 

 over the line in Rough Talleys and threw up in the plough beyond near 

 the butts, and had you a stern chase to Weald Coppice to find Bailey there 

 with his hounds, and a beaten fox just in front of them vouched for by Air. 

 Bosley, of Weald Coppice fame ? Five minutes ahead of hounds when he 

 was viewed near Canes, Mr. George Hart, hat in air, the clue ; the grass 

 towards Duck Lane the line, and after you, Mr. Hart, an ex-master's 

 formula and key to success — as hounds swung over the wide ditch for 

 Weald Coppice again. 



You could hardly have got into that grass field on the right of Weald 

 Coppice, Capt. Bruce, without your chance and the rails, and you joined 

 us over a roller of briar-growth, ditch guarded, without hesitation, as down 

 the stubble for the lower Forest the hounds drove ahead to turn right- 

 handed across a well-fenced farm, and admit of our hardest welter* trying 

 his fourth horse over a razor bank as ]Mr. G. Harris, hat m hand, pointed 

 the line to Weald Coppice for the last time, and Easterby caught the 

 death-note quicker than anyone as he leapt off his horse and made for the 

 centre of the wood, Mr. Bosley taking the fox from the hounds. One 

 hour and thirty minutes had this fox stood up, and the last forty-five had 

 been hound work every minute of it, from the time Rough Talleys was 

 left. Let me make my peace with the bicyclists, for a prettier picture than 

 that which greeted me as I rode meetwards on the memorable \\'ednesday, 

 November nth, I have no wish to gaze on: up the gentle incline he 

 trundled the pair of wheels, while she deftly arranged the neat straw which, 

 in the act of dismounting, had tilted half an inch. 



Of Saturday's fog and rain, and a Pleshey and splashy meet, I have 

 little to tell you. A Saturday throng, a bumper gathering, Mr. Ridley 

 out to see his new gorse, the future covert of the hunt, drawn for the first 

 time — a great absence of scent — a great if not greater desideratum than 

 the animal itself if you want to have sport, as true to-day as in the years 

 gone by when Cecil penned his records of the chase. 



Mr. Pemberton-Barnes, you will be delighted to hear, we found a rare 

 litter in Bower Wood, on Monday, November i6th, a litter which, although 

 never routed in the cub-hunting season, showed a knowledge of the country 

 which could only have been acquired in many a midnight foray ; and, 

 further, a proper regard for their own safety and the feelings of the Hunt 

 to prevent their keeping any of us waiting, for a brace went off at once, 

 and a pretty start it was, and to see it and the Essex Hounds at work for 

 the first time this season came Mr. F. Green and Miss AL Green, and Miss 

 AL Glyn and Miss Jones. Right through the Bower Wood and by Bower 

 House was the line selected to the well laurelled paths that surround 

 Havering-atte-Bower, whose hospitable owner we sadly learnt was too 

 unwell to be with us, but who nevertheless would not allow the day to 



* Mr. C. E. Green got to the bottom of his own horses and finished up on a kennel horse. 



