THE SURREY DEER, "SNOWSTORM' 407 



the coverts they intended to draw, and rode on towards 

 Garnetts, hit them off while in full cry, running on to 

 Dunmow High Woods, and Lord Maynard's Park, and from 

 there to Prior's Wood, where a leash of foxes were afoot which 

 saved our hunted fox. 



Greaves must have been pleased with the day, for he was 

 irate in the morning, and with good reason, at the want of 

 foxes and the warnings off he had encountered in the 

 Roothings, and was announcing that he must call the sub- 

 scribers together, and tell them that the country would not suit 

 him unless there was an improvement in the state of things. 



It was very agreeable to see the old country again which 

 looked as delightfully wide and yet not flat, after cramped and 

 hilly Surrey; to behold old faces seen only in pleasant meetings, 

 and therefore calling up pleasurable associations, and to find 

 every one apparently well pleased to see me again. There 

 were also many new faces, while the establishment being new, 

 tended to dispel the charm of having gone back on the dial 

 some years. The hounds looked well-bred and are said to be 

 fast, but do not seem very fond of drawing, and the men both 

 like sinewy Yorkshiremen, and are well mounted, but they do 

 not get over these peculiar fences like those who have served 

 a longer apprenticeship to them. 



East Grinstead and " Snowstorm " were the fixture and the 

 stag selected for the finish of the season, as they were last 

 year, though scarcely half the horsemen mustered this year as 

 compared with last, probably deterred by the hard state of 

 the ground. 



"Snowstorm" was uncarted in the same meadow and looked 

 like taking the same line, but presently inclined more to the 

 left before reaching the noted double fence, and crossed the 

 turnpike road. Plenty of timber coming in the line rendered 

 the field so select, that Metcalfe on his grey, and myself on the 

 " Clipper," were the only two with the hounds, the others forming 

 a very long tail. I soon found that the " Clipper " had the heels 

 of the grey, but some road work occurring we pulled back, and 

 George and a few others came up, as hounds checked at a 

 pond by a farmyard in which the Deer had taken refuge. 



Quitting the pond he again took to the enclosures, over a 

 line of timber jumps, at one of which Metcalfe kindly carried 

 away every rail, until we came to a green with a high hedge 

 and double ditch out of it. Heathcote's white horse refused 

 and put him neatly over his head. Baily's chestnut did it 

 cleverly ; the rest went round by the road, and the " Clipper" 



