354 LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



man's projected stay at Melton was cut short, but he came in 

 for a great day with the Cottesmore from Langham on 

 Wednesday, November i8th.) We proceeded to the far- 

 famed covert called Ranksborough Gorse. The last time I 

 was here, February, 1S44, the Gorse was six or eight feet 

 high ; to-day it was only a foot high, and so short, sharp and 

 impervious, that the hounds seemed afraid to face it, &c. The 

 diary winds up : — As one's last day it was satisfactory to hear 

 the Huntsman and most of the hard riders declare that it was 

 the best clay they had this season, that it was a day worth a 

 whole season, and that they feared it would be long before 

 they had another run equally good over such a country. 



December 21st. A Fyfield meet suddenly altered to 

 Blackmore. This is one of Conyers' besetting sins and caused 

 general dissatisfaction and incovenience and a clay's " row." 

 Many who had come from a distance, like the " Myers," found 

 that they had gone live or six miles further than was necessary 

 only to return, and Thos. Hodgson did not get his horse at 

 all. After a debate as to the comparative merits of the High 

 Woods and other places, we drew Horsley Park, Moor Hall, 

 Skreens, Barnish Witneys, and lastly some little coverts near 

 to Grinsted Wood, and finished with a " blank day." Vexa- 

 tious enough, after ten days frost and with two such horses 

 out as "Cognac" and "Champagne," and both so fit to go. 

 "Conyers' " Hunt certainly gets slower and more slow, the men 

 worse mounted than ever, the hounds less spirited even than 

 usual and the field thinner. Conyers complains that he neither 

 has foxes nor subscriptions, that of the latter only two have 

 been paid this season, and made an earnest appeal to me for 

 mine, which it seems has not appeared in his banker's book, 

 though paid in October. 



Morgan declares he shall be ruined with the few foxes killed 

 and the small caps when a death occurs, &c. Conyers has now 

 quarrelled with Colvin, his largest subscriber and a very good- 

 natured fellow, and to-morrow he makes a bye-day to draw 

 his covert of Galley Hills, expressly, he declared, to kill his 

 " pheasants and hares." 



(In a good run with the Puckeridge, Mr. Parry's, on 

 February 22nd, 1847, "Cognac" distinguished himself over 

 a very big fence, necessitating putting on the steam, and a 

 sharp pull up on the other side as hounds checked, eliciting 

 the remark from Simpson, the Huntsman, " Look at that 

 gentleman ! that's the way to pull up. I wish every one would 

 do so." This discrimination of Simpson's brought him half 



