8 LEA\^ES FROM A HUNTINc; DIARY 



roaster Brook or getting a start in a quick tiling from Harlow 

 Park. 



Coming up into Essex about the end of the long frost of 

 1878-9, when the ground for weeks had been thickly covered 

 with snow, one certainly found the country at its best — scent 

 good, foxes running straight and the ditches clear ; but the very 

 clearness of the ditches made them appear to a beginner black 

 anci ividc, and it is hard to say which was the more astonished, 

 the horse or the rider. 



Luckily, the animal I owned then (without my knowing it) 

 was an extraordinary good one, with a good turn of speed, 

 which on one occasion, November ist, 1878, the last day of 

 cubbing, had enabled her to be one of a little band of eight,* 

 who, out of a large Nottinghamshire field, saw the finish of a 

 \ery good twenty minutes, over a very strong line of country 

 in an afternoon burst from Bridgeford Gorse, in the South 

 Notts country, by Plum tree to Raucliffe Wood and Bunny 

 Park, in the Ouorn country (the wall saved the fox). She com- 

 bined with speed sufficient boldness to enable her to jump 

 the flying fences of the Rufford, South Notts, and Meynell 

 countries, after such exponents of the art of getting over them 

 as Mr. Egerton (Master of the Rufford at that time), Mr. 

 Mappin, Mr. Chandos Pole and the Rev. Dick Fitz Herbert 

 and his sister, for where they went she could generally follow. 

 She derived from her early training in Wales the cleverness 

 of a cat ; but though taking to banks like a duck to water, the 

 chtches fairly puzzled her at first, and she used to jump 

 unnecessarily high and big over them. 



There was safety in this, as although she would occasionally 

 whip round like lightning on the very brink of a ditch (my own 

 fault, for I was always a bad jockey) and deposit me at the 

 bottom of it, I can only recall one occasion on which she 

 actually got in herself. This, however, has been kept ever 

 fresh in my memory by the frequency with which I have since 

 been chaffed about my ddbut in Essex, as sans hat, sans stirrup 

 leather, we were seen to disappear into what one has now learnt 

 to respect as the Weald Brook, which, with its steep, rugged 

 bank, is almost as deceptive as a Pytchley bottom. 



This was in PY-bruary, '79, in a good run from Matching 

 Park to North W'eald, when as old Dobson, who was then 



"-■= The Master, Mr. Lancelot Rolleston, his huntsman, G. Shepherd, and 

 Mr. Bob Hewett were there. The late Mr. N. Charlton got down. The 

 others I cannot recall. 



