264 LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



bolting through the forest trees — Mr. H. J. Miller and his son, 

 Mr. Rickett, Mr. Cockett, Mr. Doxat, Mr. Howard, of Ivy- 

 lands, Mr. F. Ball, Mrs. F. Ball on wheels enamelled the 

 colour of forofet-me-nots to match her costume ; Mrs. C. R. 

 Parkes on foot, also Mrs. W. Sewell on wheels, Mr. Gould, 

 Mr. F. McKenzie. Mr. L. Buxton, Mr. Seal and his nephew, 

 and a good many more who were strangers to me, though they 

 seemed perfectly at home in the forest. 



Mr. Ouare is never very hard upon late comers ; so by 1 1.30 

 you had only yourself to blame if you had not partaken, and 

 partaken freely, of all the good things that the proverbial 

 hospitality of Birch Hall provided. 



Shortly afterwards, after a hack of some fifteen minutes, we 

 arrived on the scene, where the busy terriers were at work in 

 the earths, and heard the piercing scream that proclaimed 

 Reynard's flight, and set all the field agog, as the hounds 

 streamed over the ride and disappeared in the depths of the 

 vast forest. Like a rocket on his big bay came Mr. Gerald 

 Buxton, carving his way through the crowd, who, in desperate 

 haste, were striking out for the shores of the Forest, the open 

 country for which hounds appeared to be pointing. Was not 

 the remembrance of the great run some fortnight previous 

 fresh upon their followers ? If Mr. G. Buxton rode hard (we 

 did not know at the time that he could not hold his horse). 

 Major Ricardo, on his grand grey, that won the Essex Welter 

 Point-to-Point, rode equally fiercely in his determination not to 

 lose sight of such a pilot ; and to keep two such luminaries in 

 view I did my best, but doing it found the youths on the 

 handy ponies constantly cutting in as, like eels, they slipped in 

 and out or ducked under the low forest trees. 



In breathless haste we reached the open, with straining eyes 

 we sought the vanished pack, and in the same plight came 

 Maiden, the huntsman, from another direction. He, too, had 

 lost his hounds. Not for him to wait and hesitate — a turn of 

 his bridle hand, and he was gone, to plunge once more into 

 the trackless forest, with a stronof followino-, and so men and 

 women rode in blind haste for another fifteen minutes. Anon 

 you came upon one whose judgment you would always sooner 

 rely upon than your own in matters venatic — first Mr. Harry 

 Sworder, then Mr. H. J. Miller, then the Major— all hound- 

 lost ; but the Master, with unerring instinct, had got to his 

 hounds, his horn was the signal that rang out sharp and clear 

 as near Copped Hall gates we once more hit off the hounds, 

 and again made for the open country, to enter it beyond Birch 



