304 LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



Our next find was at Galley Hills, which, as usual, was full of foxes. 

 Breaking the Monkhams end our fox took a very good line, going up the 

 hill and turning to the left for Obelisk Wood. Hounds ran very smartly to 

 Shatter Bushes. A field from the covert, hearing a splash, I looked round 

 and saw young Hull in the middle of a pond, luckily not a very deep one, 

 and he managed to scramble out the right side. Not dwelling a second in 

 these coverts hounds slipped along towards Nasing Coppice, and then 

 swung to the right towards Balls Hill, Mr. Gerald Buxton kindly demolish- 

 ing a hurdle with a bad take off, which most of the horses who came to it 

 were too blown to jump. 



One at a time over an awkward bottom, Mr. Sewell on his chestnut, 

 finding a place for himself on the left, we rose the hill and then galloped 

 down to the covert (Balls Hill) the gate out was securely fastened, and as 

 the huntsman and whip jumped off to unhinge it, the stranger on the bay 

 scrambled his way out of the covert and quickly found his own way in and 

 out of the road. Two or three fields further on, at Hunter's Hall, hounds 

 threw up, and although Bailey worked out a line as far as the old Church, 

 the fun was over, and there was time to exchange a lame horse for a sound 

 one before we went on to Nasing Coppice and Deer Park, to find in the 

 latter covert and run through Galley Hills to ground below Monkhams, 

 and spend a very pleasant hour or two on the grass country that stretches 

 below Hollyfield Hall to Galley Hills. 



The afternoon run from Latton Park on Wednesday, March 28, was 

 about the best (speaking personally) I had this season. 



Meeting at 12 o'clock at Moreton we went off at once to look for the 

 hero of the cabbage field, near Little Laver Mill, a fox that Mr. L, 

 Marriage informed me had already afforded three good gallops. 



It was curious to note the eagerness with which everyone closed up as 

 Bailey, blowing his horn, galloped up to the roots with his hounds. But 

 although the customer was not at home, we found him in the covert over the 

 road, the famous covert of Brick Kilns. Breaking the north side we 

 thought that we were in for a stinger as hounds flew along over the first 

 two fields. Mr. Young, Mr. Avila, Mr. C. Fitch, Mr. Swu-e, Mr. David 

 Christy, jun., on a recent purchase, a very likely looking bay horse, all eager 

 for a start as they followed the Huntsman sharp in and out of the Grange 

 drive. But although everything pointed to a good scent — easterly wind, 

 rising glass and ground saturated with the snow of overnight — hounds could 

 not work out the various twists, evidently on the wrong fox as a brace came 

 away from Brick Kilns, and too late they heard of the hero of previous runs 

 running through his old camping ground, the root field. The cast Bailey 

 made to get there must have taken in a couple of miles of country, done, 

 too, almost at a hand gallop, so fast did he go ; a waggoner's team doing a 

 bolt near High Laver causing no little excitement as we galloped down 

 the road. 



At Little Laver Mill in the morning we little expected to be at Galley 

 Hills (the scene of Monday's exploits) in the afternoon, the points some 

 fifteen miles apart. But how this came to pass you shall learn if you care 

 to read the following notes. Most of Monday's field were out with the 

 following additions : — 



Mr. Grossman, just back from the Meynell country, riding his wife's 

 beautiful black, which I believe on a recent occasion in a very fast fifty 

 minutes with the Meynell, ridden by her fair owner, tailed off every horse, 

 not excepting the four or five out of a large field who were able to keep 

 near the hounds for the first forty minutes. 



Miss Woodhouse, Mr. Weston Crocker, Rev. L. Capel-Cure and the 



