Io5 LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



for pure fun and general light-heartedness an animal turns itself sideways 

 to make sure of the mark, it ought at least to carry the red, white and blue. 

 Personally I feel convinced that, although the ribbon is neat, and may be 

 fashionable, the card in the hat is far more easily seen, and when one sports 

 the red and another wears the card, you are apt, while looking for the one, 

 to receive a reminder of the other, all of which remarks go to show that it 

 is easy to write about what you feel. But perhaps I have no right to say a 

 word or hazard an opinion, since my friends all remind me the roan mare 

 always carried the red ensign (the first, I think, in Essex). 



N.B. — She never kicked anyone, as luck would have it. 



I spent a maiivais quart d'henve shortly after Mr. Bevan's hare had been 

 slain and eaten, trotting along the road between Spain's Wood, Willingale, 



Berners Wood 



and the Witney covert, for the hounds had slipped the majority of the 

 field — not all, as I had at first imagined, for as we clustered in the narrow 

 lane under the covert, and the first roar of hound music had subsided, 

 " Hare again " was freely ejaculated. Minute by minute went by, and 

 only those who were far back on the road had any notion that hounds were 

 away with a fox ; but the five minutes' start he had of them he made good 

 use of, and saved his brush in Witney Wood. Mr, Harry Sworder was one 

 of the lucky ones who got away, Mr. H. E. Jones and Mr. Giles two more. 

 How "Joseph " pulled down that road, and with what a dash " Dan Gingell " 

 came flying down it, only a pen of a Rusticus could do adequate justice to. 

 The scene now shifts to the muddy lane en route to Screens. As to 

 avoid it, Mr. Newman Gilbey put his horse at a bank covered with stakes, 

 the horse slipping, was soon struggling in the middle of them, but mar- 

 vellous to note, came off without a scratch, as having landed his rider in the 

 field, he came back into the lane. 



