198 LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



'Twas bad luck that our fox was headed, from the good hne he was taking 

 for Nasing Bury, back into the Big Woods. How beautifully hounds stuck 

 to his line, drove him from end to end, and forced him out at the Monkham 

 side, only those with them could tell, and when on the crest of Monkhams 

 Hill at the back of the Hall, we came to a check, the Master exclaimed, 

 " Is this the field ? " 



" Ilei mihi, qualis erat ! Quantum mutatus ab illo, 

 Ilectore, qui redit exuvias indutus Achilli." 



There were only six with hounds, the Master, " The Admiral," Mr. F. Ball, 

 Mr. H. Sworder, and Mr. Todhunter, whose face was covered with blood, 

 for he had had a nasty fall swinging down the hill for the valley below. 

 The Brothers Sewell came trotting up, and when we took to the country 

 beyond — Mr. Beale Colvin dropped from the clouds into his usual place in 

 the van — and again we started on the old line, a right good one of varied 

 fencing, towards Obelisk Wood. 



Checking in the road for a second that runs up to Galley Hills, we were 

 joined by several who had missed the hunt through the wood. Mr. C. E. 

 Ridley, Mr. N. Gilbey, and Mr. Grossman, the latter, with quick eye, 

 detecting a single hound running forward over the grass for the brook. 

 There was the fence out of the road, the gap newly done up, and too 

 thorny even for the Admiral's black, but he found us something lower 

 down. The huntsman popped through between some stumps, and Mr. 

 Sworder's black, after hanging fire, followed suit, while as for " Joseph," 

 after a dozen had gone, he became impatient and cut in in front of a lady, 

 and was just in time to splash through the ford, after the huntsman and 

 the Admiral, and drop into Honey Lane after the Master, when a man 

 with a bill-hook in his hand said, " No use going there ; it is all wire." 

 So away went nearly everyone up the lane, but at the bottom of the wired 

 fence there was a gate, and opposite to it another, and all in line of hounds, 

 and one fence only, before we jumped into the top end of Warlies Park, 

 over which hounds ran without a falter, leaving the house on the right. 



In the park men were halloaing, saying the fox had doubled back, and 

 although they were running with great dash, Easterby wanted to stop them 

 — they would have taken some turning. Running straight for Copped Hall 

 Green, there was Crawley in the road saying they were running heel, as 

 hounds dashed over the road into the park, but Crawley's fox and 

 Easterby's fox could not have been the same. My own impression is that 

 both were wrong, for when Bailey once more laid the hounds on after they 

 had been turned, not on the line, mind you, of the fox viewed nearly a 

 mile back over the park, but on Crawley's fox, they never ran with the 

 same dash, and so said Mr, C. E. Ridley ; and, having lost a shoe, he, with 

 Mr. and Mrs. Frank Ball, gave up at Claveringbury Farm. Hoping to 

 pick up the hunted fox, or rather one of them, for we must have had 

 several in front of us during the day, the huntsman carefully searched 

 Galley Hills. Keeping back in one of the rides to try and get a view, for 

 I was as anxious to kill as he was, I heard " gone-away " once more, and 

 galloping round the Monkhams end saw hounds running most beautifully 

 over the grass for Hollyfield Hall. A most sparkling little burst of fifteen 

 minutes over the marshes, ending near Galley Hills — few, very few indeed, 

 being left to see it— the Master, Mr. Arkwright, Mr. R. B. Colvin, Mr. G. 

 Buxton, Mr. Grossman, Mr. Todhunter, Mr. Newman Gilbey, and Dr. 

 Love. I mustn't forget the doctor, for I never lost sight of him after the 

 mare (why didn't I stick to " Joseph," he was not a bit done ?) had trodden 

 on my ribs or parted with him until when the game was all over he had 

 pronounced them intact. A friend in need is a friend indeed, and of all 



