lOO LEAVES FROiM A HUNTING DIARY 



pass without her servants dispensing cakes and ales as of yore from the 

 terraced lawn. In vain did Bailey dismount to assist his hounds as they 

 ran their fox in the shrubberies ; in vain did they drive him out and hunt 

 him back through the Bower Wood, for he managed without any difficvilty 

 to shake off his pursuers 



By Bedfords and Pyrgo Park to seek for another, Mr. Hussey on our 

 tracks with ready kodak. Mr. F. Green tells me that he is about the best 

 amateur photographer he knows, and that the views he has taken of the 

 Romford Golf Links for Messrs. Vertue and Co.'s coming publication, 

 " British Golf Links," edited by Horace Hutchinson, are simple superb. 

 Mr. F. Green is a capital raconteur, and the time passed pleasantly enough 

 in his company while the hounds were run through Pyrgo Wood before 

 trying Mrs. Mcintosh's gorse. Not finding, we sauntered leisurely to the 

 scenes of the great pheasant shoot of last week, the talk of the country-side 

 — 1,500 head in two days — and plenty of them left too, for they went 

 rocketing over our heads as the hounds were thrown into Broom Wood, 

 and no old cocks minus their tail feathers to prove that the colonel's friends 

 had not held straight. Mr. Tyndale White, Mr. H. J. Price, and Mr. 

 Loftus W. Arkwright were three of the colonel's neighbours who shared 

 in the sport, and after all this a capital show of foxes in the big wood, a 

 pheasant-fed customer fairly laughing at hounds as he stretched himself 

 out for a circle in the sunlight and a dash in the forest. 'Faith, it was a 

 quick thing at starting, and no one caught the Major on his chestnut as 

 he took his own line when the covert was left, and that without plunging 

 down the boggy ride after the huntsman and his following. Hounds had 

 lots of room, but they wanted their huntsman, Mr, Barclay tells me, when 

 they threw up at their first check after the circle back by Broom Wood. 



" And where, oh, where, was he ? 



With coat tails pinn'd by his horse's hoof, 

 And muddy, as muddy, could be." 



'Twas but a little bank that brought him down, but there he remained 

 till rescued by Mr. Green. Nor heeded he the warning cry of "'Ware 

 rabbit holes," as he put his roan at a bank from which half-a-dozen of us 

 had turned away, to get over safely, while we were blocked, of course, by 

 a man on a light chestnut coming down. But nearly every fence was 

 horse-embracing, and devoutly thankful not to have stubbed a good 

 animal in this mazy dance, we reached the Forest and left it again at the 

 bottom end on good terms, but with scent as catchy as the lane was narrow, 

 out of which your qnandam chestnut, Mr. Tilling, was not allowed to 

 refuse, but with the huntsman had to rejoin the road contingent who lost 

 hounds behind Knowles Hill. To Loughton Shaws ere the sun had set, 

 in the hope of a gallop over the grass, finished a day which, if marked by 

 no good run, it would have been hard to have beaten for sauntering and 

 picnicking in foggy November. 



There was no great rush to follow the huntsman into the deep rides of 

 Galley Hill Woods on Wednesday, the i8th, when we met at Nasing 

 Common, though a few hardy spirits plunged with him through the miry 

 glades to see hounds drag up and unkennel their fox, drive him in one 

 short circle through the upper woods, and kill him all too soon as he made a 

 flying leap into a pond close to the covert. After this, away with Bailey 

 for a mile gallop to see him lay his hounds on at Obelisk Wood, with 

 another Galley Hill fox gone with five minutes' law. A line to the Copped 

 Hall march was marked, not before hounds had divided and Mr. Swire had 

 been rescued from all but a watery grave, his horse having rolled back with 



