LIFE AND DEATH 



^61 



occurred to-day. 'Tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true that, while 

 we were enjoying ourselves in this fashion, a scene very different was being 

 enacted over the Border, and a day that began in joy and gladness 

 ended in black sorrow. For young Bill Hurrell, son of the late Mr. 

 Vigne's famous huntsman, and first whipper-in to the Puckeridge Hunt, 

 lay dead in the Quinn brook, with no witness of the sad end other than one 

 hound who watched faithfully by him and growled fiercely at the first 

 intruder on the sad scene. Stunned from a fall towards the end of a very 

 stirring run, young Will met a painless death ere any rescue could reacli 

 him, and while the brook ran whispering on with its sad story to the sea, 

 the heavy clouds and dank atmosphere shrouded as joyous a spirit and 

 warm-hearted a lad as ever cheered or rated hound. His loss will be deeply 



High Roothing Street 



felt far outside the circle of the Puckeridge Hunt ; for who is there — 

 Squire, Farmer, or Hedger — who knew young Bill and did not like and 

 have a good word for him. The hearts of all hunting men who knew 

 him or his aged father will beat in deep sympathy for the survivor and 

 the young wife that is left behind. 



If a stranger wanted to sample the Roothings of Essex, and the ditches 

 that form such a marked feature of this fine plough country, he could 

 hardly select a better meet than the old-fashioned and picturesque village 

 of High Roothing Street ; for some of the most famous coverts in the 

 Roothing country are reached from this fixture, and some of the deepest 

 and blindest ditches in Essex must be crossed in a stirring gallop from 

 Garnett's or Dobb's Woods. No wonder then that men who never miss 

 a Saturday's hunt — come fine, come wet, come fog, or wind — look eagerly 

 forward to a meet in this fine, wild, sporting country. 



