IIO LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



" Ah ! give me a sportsman, in him you will find 

 A sweet combination of merits combined, 

 A friendship the same to the end." 



Phili.i'Otts Williams. 



No one in Essex offers you a heartier welcome when hounds meet at 

 his house than Mr. George Hart. There is no meet in the county I hke 

 better than one at Canes, whether it be with fox, stag, or hare. Little 

 fear, then, of refusing the following invitation, which reached me by hand 

 on the vSaturday — 



Mr. Quake's Harriers, 

 to-day, 

 Thorn wood Common, 

 Canes, 1 1 o'clock. 



Saturday, December i^th, 1896. 



And to the meet we went. A deluge of rain had fallen in the night, 

 accompanied by a violent gale from S.S.E., which at Brighton had swept 

 away the old chain pier, but beyond flooding the fields with water, turning 

 the ditches into brooks, and the brooks into rivers, there was little local 

 evidence of its force ; but we were glad to crowd into the stackyard to 

 escape the remaining squalls, while Mr. Jerrard seized the opportunity of 

 taking a group of the Master and his hounds. 



v\t the meet, in addition to the Master, his daughters, Mr. Costerton, 

 Mr. George Hart and his two sons, we had the pleasure of noticing Mrs. 

 Bowlby and the three Miss Bowlbys, who ride so well, Mrs. Gerald 

 Buxton, Miss T. Buxton, Mrs. W. Sewell and Miss Dorothy Sewell, Miss 

 Steele, Mrs. Redwood, Mr. Horner, Mr. Harrison, Mr. P. M. Evans, Mr. 

 Radford, Mr. Howard, Mr. Avila, Mr. A. Sewell, Mr. Walter Jerrard, 

 Master R. Willis ; on wheels. Miss Madeline Yerburgh and Miss Mildred 

 Stokes. 



Mr. Quare has a very efficient first lieutenant in Mr. Costerton, who, 

 although he has only one arm, goes like a bird, and is always with the 

 hounds, which he loves. Maiden is no whit behind him in keenness and 

 capacity, and is a workman across country, and must be a very reliable 

 man at home if the excellent condition of the hounds is any criterion of 

 what can be done by care and attention. But there is an old adage, " Good 

 masters make good servants " ; so we are not surprised to hear of the 

 excellent sport Mr. Quare is having with his pack, and the hearty welcome 

 which is extended to him on every side, and which on a very recent 

 occasion was further marked by his being made the recipient, at the hands 

 of one of the Masters of the Essex Fox Hounds (Mr. E. S. Bowlby), 

 of a beautiful silver horn, subscribed for and given by some of the many 

 admirers of the able way in which he hunted his beagles in the past, and 

 the brilliant manner in which he now sustains the traditions of the historic 

 pack so long and so memorably connected with the names of the late Mr. 

 Henry Vigne and the present Master of the Puckeridge Hounds (Mr. E. 

 Barclay). Mr. Hart had no intention of allowing us to spend a morning 

 in the forest, for in the three grass fields near Duck-lane (fields which 

 provided the late Mr. Vigne with hares that afforded him some of his most 

 brilliant runs) he had a shrewd suspicion we should find, and he was 

 right. 



A hare jumping up in view in Barn field, hounds settled to run hard ; 

 the Secretary''- of the Essex Stag Hounds, together with Mr. Avila and Mr. 

 Evans, getting to work at once as they charged the rails beyond the ditch 

 in the first fence. Mr. Costerton, Mr. Howard on his grey (another good 



* Mr. Harrison. 



