REV. T. H. R. PEMBERTON PUTS IN AN APPEARANCE 



149 



and maybe a wiser man, I retraced my steps towards Albyns, not expecting 

 to see homids again until after lunch. I had played my stake and lost, and 

 "Jenkins" — that's my other horse — was proportionately disgusted, and 

 wouldn't stand still a second to listen to the halloa that came floating back 

 through the mist across Albyns Park. To turn in at the lodge gate and 

 gallop at best pace across it "Jenkins" was nothing loth, and then looming 

 out through the mist, pressing frantically forward, the chase swept past, 

 Mr. C. E. Ridley on his grey, in company with a well known foUower of 

 the Essex Union, being landmark enough to make for ; but they were all 

 behind, for the leaders were already gathered in the road near the Osiers, 

 through which the huntsman was casting. 



Joining the throng, trying hard to appear as if I had been with them the 

 whole time, one learnt that they had had quite a nice spin, Mr. D. Christy, 



^ X^ 



Passingford Bridge 



jun., anxiously inquiring whether I had been ill lately, as I looked so bad 

 (so heavy about the eyes, his expression I think); but he quite understood 

 it when the situation was explained, for a keen fox-hunter quite appreciates 

 the sensations that you go through when hounds have disappeared — those 

 of the angler who has lost his salmon, or the cricketer who has made his O. 

 But his cheerful society, a trot back to the Green, and the sight of a figure, 

 one of the most welcome in the Hunt, on a mottled horse, his first appear- 

 ance at the covert side for two years, was so soothing, the crash of music, 

 as the big dogs opened out on the drag of a fox, so exhilarating, that all 

 traces of the late disappointment had vanished ere out through the blue 

 mist o'er the bonnie green fields, Mr. Cockett shoving open a gate out of a 

 lane on the west side of the covert, we sped after the big dogs which were 

 lashing forward at best pace over as rough a line as you shall pick, search 



