328 LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



After losino- our fox, we drew on to a covert belono-ino- to 

 the Puckeridge Hounds, called " The Jock," and thence to 

 Ouendon Woods, &c., &c. We returned home by way of 

 Henhain, Elsenham, Takely Gate, Canfield and the King 

 William, making quite 25 miles from the place where we 

 left the hounds ; making a long clay for horses and men. 

 " Carlo w " trotted home in his usual gallant and untiring style, 

 and must have gone between 80 to 100 miles by the time he 

 reached his stable soon after 9 o'clock. 



(A little later, in his attempt to have a day or two with the 

 Heythrop, Mr. Vickerman laments his failure in the following 

 strain) : — 



" Falls." 



My ill luck has certainly pursued me so far this season in 

 every particular. To select the first week's frost for the period 

 of sending horses anci men 150 miles from home is quite in 

 keeping with the rest of my fortune during the season, and to 

 hurt myself at every fall is of the same calendar, and very 

 different to my first season in Essex, 1843-44, when little 

 " Chancellor's " pluck and indiscretion, added to my own eager- 

 ness used to give me so many falls, from which I escaped so 

 well that they used to joke me by saying that I ought to take 

 out a patent for my discovery of the art of falling without 

 hurting oneself. Before then, in the riding school at Paris 

 when putting " Un Cheval Mechant " at the bar, who had 

 probably never gone over a broomstick before, I recollect the 

 Frenchman remarking that I knew how to tumble. 



Soames, Peters, Roberts, Hobson, Wood, and Littler were 

 among the party who assembled at the Sun and Whalebone on 

 Saturday, March 29th, to meet Sam Adams's pack of stag- 

 hounds. After runnino- throuoh Brick Kilns and Man Wood, 

 they entered on the best part of the run, going as hard as they 

 could go, only four with the hounds, Hobson, myself and two 

 farmers. In the course of this part of the run one of the latter 

 was a few yards in advance of me and we came to an ugly 

 fence, uninviting in itself, but rendered worse by a 7-00/ ditch 

 placed on the near side of the fence in such a position as to 

 give the chances in favour of your going neatly into the yawner 

 on the off-side. Observing the young farmer to hesitate and 

 waver on the selection of his spot, I shouted to him energeti- 

 cally "For Heaven's sake, sir, ride straight ; " but unheeding 

 my caution he crossed before me, went askew at the fence, his 

 horse making a mistake at the root ditch and both lay sprawl- 

 ing on the other side. I was never so frightened before, at the 



