TAKING A HEADER 245 



added the finishing touch to a chapter of misfortunes. To return home, 

 not knowing what had become of hounds, imagining you had missed the 

 run of a century, then do justice to your dinner, would have shown you 

 to be the happy possessor of a temperament which even a phlegmatic Boer 

 might have envied. 



We were spared putting our philosophy to that test. Mr. Tilling, 



Mr. Dawson, Mr. Bevan, Mr. Ridley, Miss , Miss , Mrs. , 



were we not ? Excuse my mentioning names, I know you don't like it. 



When we found a fox in the roots near Matching Park at 3 p.m. we had, 

 thanks to a clear sky, a considerable addition to our morning field, including 

 Mr., Mrs. and Miss Bowlby, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Ball, Rev. Austin 

 Oliver, Mr. L. Pelly and Miss Steele, just enough to put new life and add 

 a new zest to the consolation hunt from Matching Park, which the fox from 

 the roots so considerately gave us, not unmarked by incident approaching 

 the alarming when Mr. Head, master of the Canadian Wolf Hounds, pulled 

 in by the horse's bridle, to which he clung valiantly, disappeared under 

 water in the same pond where a valuable horse of Mr. Price's looked like 

 finding a watery grave. 



All's well that ends well, and a hot bath for the one and some good 

 linseed gruel for the other would put things ship-shape, we hope. 



Running by Mr. Symes, High Laver, hounds swung round High Laver 

 Hall, and hunted well up to Brick Kilns, and were whipped off in the dark 

 at Man Wood, after a real good but tiring day for horses. 



I can tell you of half-a-day in the Blackmore High Woods on Monday, 

 December 12th, when, in spite of blustering wind and a flashy scent, hounds 

 brought a fox to book that had never sought safety in the open, and a 

 promising run in the direction of Roxwell was nipped in the bud by a drain ; 

 not before Georgie Dawson had played the kind Samaritan and gone to the 

 rescue of Jack, who was temporarily placed hovs de combat by a fall out of 

 an early road. 



Not finding in Lady Grove, in company with several other members of 

 the one-horse brigade, we set out on the 14-mile track home, and reached 

 it ere the dark granite on the road became indistinguishable on a short 

 December's day. 



Wednesday, December 14th, at Tyler's Cross, was a day to be remem- 

 bered by all those who played the game, and played it fairly, on the grass 

 fields that link Parndon Woods to the Forest in the 5|-mile point hounds 

 made in forty minutes, ere they marked their fox to ground. 



Saturday following found no cavillers at the big ring of forty odd minutes 

 over the Roothings from Row Wood. 



And Monday last provided a day's sport that went to prove that Essex 

 foxes are not degenerating, or surely no unbroken line could have been 

 held from the Lower Forest to Belgium Springs in the afternoon gallop. 

 Unluckily, the day brought disaster to one of our most forward and most 

 modest riders''' in the loss of a valuable hunter, but the universal sympathy 

 extended to him should, methinks, make some amends for an experience 

 that everyone who hunts must, at some time or other, pass through, and for 

 which the rider is rarely to blame. 



Tuesday night we dreamt of skating, and woke up to find the country 

 ridable; and later on a bumper meet at Epping Green, Mrs. \\'ythes, Sir 

 Fowell Buxton, and Mr. Victor Buxton making their first appearance in 

 the hunting field this season. 



* John White. 



