374 LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



(After describing- a very merry day's sport from a Leaden 

 Roothing meet on Monday, November 19th, during which 

 Button, on his grey, went Hke a sportsman, and Rolt, on his 

 chestnut, rode as if he Hked the fun, as did Coope, Edward 

 Round, Household and Joddrell, Mr. Vickerman notes that 

 four and a-half brace of foxes were moved (two of them 

 Irishmen, turned down by Sir J. Tyrell in Lord's), and that 

 he had never seen so many foxes in the Roothings. And that 

 the season had not only opened well but promised to continue 

 so, though it was tantalising to have so many horses laid up 

 with trivial accidents while there was the promise of sport. 



Mr. Vickerman's horses must soon have recovered, for on 

 Monday, November 26th, the following entry occurs) : — 

 Another brush, and with my other new horse, seems to show 

 that fortune, which has of late been all against me, has this 

 season taken a turn in my favour. Success was the more 

 pleasing to-day from being mounted on " Peep o' Day " for the 

 second time only with hounds, though I have had him for a 

 twelvemonth, and a game and plucky little fellow he is (though 

 not little after all, for it is his compactness which gives him 

 that appearance), feeling like a castle under me, and yet able to 

 gallop like the wind and skim a yawner like a swallow. 



The fixture was at Mr. Williams', close to Row Wood, of 

 which covert he is proprietor, and who has recently married a 

 nice little wife, fond of horses and huntino- and to whom he 

 introduced me as the taker of the brush on Saturday week. 

 After waiting in the cold until the Squire came up in his 

 brougham (he was too unwell to ride), getting away up wind, 

 with a fox, they ran him to ground in ten minutes. After 

 capping for this performance we drew Waters Grove, Bam- 

 borough Springs and Bromsted, and were about leaving the 

 latter Springs when up came some men with our hunted fox in 

 a sack. A subscription for the men was then made and the fox 

 turned clown close to Bromsted Springs (after a very good 

 run), the fox was pulled down within a dozen yards of Mr. 

 Vickerman ; next came Joe Reeve on his chestnut, for which 

 he asked ^300, and then Cassidy, who had been riding in 

 expectation of a turn in the other direction, and after him Joe 

 and two or three others, and Will on "Tomboy," a splendid 

 jumper, but who never could go, and was now unnerved and 

 about used up. As Mr. Vickerman gave the first whip, Joe, 

 his customary half-sovereign on taking the brush, he observed 

 "that if his recent luck continued he would be ruined before 

 the season was over," &c., &c. 



