43^ LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



bank before jumping the ditch into a green lane, when he came 

 galloping by, and looking up to me sung out, " Why don't you 

 ride now ? " and continued his career down the lane. I jumped 

 into the lane and soon overhauled him, and as I passed him 

 reminded him that he had now challenged me to ride, and 

 therefore must not blame me for going ahead. 



Just before the next fence we had a slight check, and on 

 hitting it off, my little filly jumped it cleverly, and turning 

 immediately to the right I happened to pass right in front of 

 our Rev. Master as he was making his second unsuccessful 

 attempt to get over, and giving him a significant smile rode on, 

 and was not again troubled with his company. 



As we approached the brook at Stanford Rivers, the 

 huntsnian and the majority turned away from the hounds to 

 avoid it. I rode down to it with Edward Ind and one or 

 two others. It was a deep, nasty, treacherous place; Ind and 

 another got over with difficulty, and I then essayed it with 

 my filly. She jumped well at it, and I hoped to have got 

 safely over, but the treacherous bank, weakened already by 

 the two horses which had landed over it, gave way, and after 

 a struggle during which I managed to roll myself over her off 

 shoulder on to the grass and kept hold of her head, she dropped 

 back into the brook, but the support I gave her enabled her 

 to keep upon her legs instead of going backwards. 



Poor little thing ! her head was far below my feet, and her 

 eye had quite a piteous expression, as if looking to me for 

 assistance in her unwonted danger and difficulty. It was 

 evidently hopeless to get her out on the right side, and I 

 paused to let her get her wind, when up came George Heatley 

 and very kindly caught her as she emerged on the wrong side. 

 I recrossed the brook by means of a convenient tree trunk, 

 remounted, and then (as usual in such cases) we discovered a 

 good place barely fifty yards off. Ten minutes after this 

 mishap the hounds ran into their fox in the open in Navestock 

 Park. Howard was first up, taking the fox from the hounds. 



April i6th, i860. Ingatestone Hall. "Quiet day to finish" 

 was the significant announcement on the card of the Staghounds, 

 and the injunction was observed for a moderate and select field 

 assembled in the quadrangle of the old hall, and the foot 

 people were not too numerous or obtrusive. The morning had 

 been cloudy, and I had been out early at Holbrooks, giving 

 their first lesson at fences to my two two-year olds " Red Deer" 

 and "Woodpecker," with "Exmoor" to set them a proper 

 example and beginning, and very well they acquitted them- 



