196 LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



you would arrive there with them, not to part company with your horse, 

 Mr. Rickett, but you asked a big question, even of one that boasts a 

 " Pedometer " for a sire, when you sent her at that thick bullfinch after 

 Mr. Jones and several more had indicated the gap. The mare can gallop, 

 for she reached the Coppice as soon as anyone. Mr. Arkwright, on 

 "Catapult," with a clear lead of those who had ridden the slope of the fields 

 with hounds, came striding up to the narrow handgate, closely followed by 

 the huntsman, and without dwelling a second, threaded their way through 

 the bushes by Nasing Coppice, and struck the dip of the green-lane beyond 

 as Jack's scream of " Awa-a-y " was heard! How the deuce did he get 

 there ? But Jack knows a thing or two, and glad we were to see him 

 back in the saddle again, and back in the place into which he always 

 drops when a travelling fox is in front of hounds with a burning scent. 



What a race there was for that sound headland that runs the whole 

 length of the Common, dipping up and down in gentle undulations like 

 the billowy swell on the broad Atlantic as, 300 yards below us over the ant 

 hills packed in a wedge like a flight of duck, the pack skimmed over this 

 good scenting ground at such a pace that no horse that has yet been foaled 

 could have lived in their wake for three miles. The Master was riding a 

 good one in " Catapult," the huntsman was on a clipper, Mr. Avila steering 

 a mare that can go, Mr. Jones astride the galloping " Princess," and yet, 

 although the hounds covered a lot more ground, they had the best of the 

 race until the fencing began. The leaders, the names I have given, with 

 the addition of Mr. Arkwright, Mr. Tyndale White, Mr. and Mrs. Cross- 

 man, reached the Parndon Road with hounds, and jumped out of it two 

 abreast, and in much the same order galloped the woodland inside the 

 wire that runs past the first wood, and caught a glimpse of black and white 

 as hounds flashed into the second, and, as luck would have it, changed 

 foxes in the third, coming to a check at the bottom end towards Netteswell. 

 'Twas a grand burst, and if there was little fencing there was a narrow 

 escape to record, as, taking the boundary fence of the Common on to Mr. 

 Ralph Palmer's land, that veteran, Mr. Archibald Peel, who never turns 

 aside for anything, went crashing through it, carrying its murderous coils 

 round his horse's legs into the field beyond, and emerging, viiyahile didu, 

 unscathed — the second time on this same estate that he has had such a 

 narrow escape. The pace was too good for any but the best horses. I 

 always fancied that "Joseph" could gallop. I know that he can stay ; but at 

 the end of the Common Mrs. Crossman,on her pony, shot past "Joe" as if 

 he was standing still. The pony ought to be called " The Little Wonder," 

 and should be worth 300 guineas for polo. 



The cry of hounds had driven a leash of foxes from the Parndon strong- 

 holds, so over Nasing Common for Galley Hills we wended our way, 

 turning up the muddy lane just beyond the Toll Gates, which is one of the 

 deepest morasses it has ever been my misfortune to flounder through, and 

 belongs, I believe, to the Corporation of London, by whom it was pur- 

 chased for the delectation of the citizens of London Town. It soon bids 

 fair to become impassable. With Jack's " Tally ho ! back," at the Monk- 

 hams end of Galley Hills, of the fox Mr. Grossman had just previously 

 viewed over the ride, and which hounds simply could not own, came a 

 vigorous " Gone away " over the Monkhams Lane, proclaiming the flight 

 of another, and after him went Bailey with lightning speed. In and out of 

 the lane, Mr. Jones nearly knocking the Hon. Secretary over, and "Joseph" 

 taking all advantage of the collision, another fence, and the water was 

 flying like the spray from the bows of an Atlantic liner as the field galloped 

 up the lane for Monkhams, Mr. Sworder on the left of it, hounds swinging 



