72 LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



A Stiff line of country at the best of times from the Osiers to Dudbrook, 

 Messrs. C. and F. Green, with Bob Ball close up, rode across it in the most 

 reckless and dare-devil style. There was a momentary waver as they 

 crossed the first road. Swinging on again, a nasty gully and brook, followed 

 by a drop in and out of another road, did not deter the leaders a second, 

 though they were checked a moment near Dudbrook. A single hound, 

 however, never left the line, and we had a quick in and out over the Ha- Ha 

 in the Park, and then down to a flight of rails. How well I remember twenty 

 of us riding abreast coming at tliem together ! The huntsman, Messrs. 

 C. Green and R. Ball, landed over neck and neck, while Mr. F. Green 

 cleared the lot in front of us all, his horse, though a " Highflyer," having 

 stopped dead short ; the next fence, a real blind hole, brought his cousin, 

 Mr. C. Green, to grief in the field, where the " whoop " over the drain wit- 

 nessed the finish of this rattling twenty-five minutes. 



Wednesday, December 5th, will be remembered as the day the Duke 

 and Duchess of Albany graced the meet at Easton Lodge. One of the 

 three foxes found m the High Woods took a line by Hylands and over 

 to Olives before bemg lost near Garnetts. 



Ten days later, December 15th, our hounds not being out owing to the 

 serious illness of Lady Selwin Ibbetson, several of us, including Messrs. 

 C. E. Green, Waters, Miller, Bagot and R. Ball, rode to Hutton Hall to 

 meet the Essex Union. I cannot say that I was fascinated with Mr. 

 Carnegy's style of hunting, for he wouldn't lift hounds a yard, consequently 

 a run from a covert near Shenfield in the afternoon, which commenced 

 briskly enough, resolved itself into a very slow procession across country, 

 and an airy nothing before we reached Galley W^ood Common at 4 p.m. 



This sport, however, was considerably better than fell to our lot two 

 days later, for driving out with Major Tait to Little Hadham to meet the 

 Puckeridge we had our journey in vain, a sprinkling of snow on the ground 

 having kept hounds in kennel. Nothing, however, would satisfy the 

 Major's ardour but a gallop with staghounds, so to meet Mr. Henry Petre 

 at Chalk End he drove me to Willingale the next day. The following 

 among others turned up : Messrs. A. Suart, Tyndale White, R. Ball, 

 Bagot, C. Pelly, A. R. Steele, H. E. Jones, Teddy Tufnell, H. Stevenson, 

 Tippler, Harrison and Henry Lawrence, V.S. There was a capital scent, 

 but considerable difficulty in getting out of a green lane which hounds had 

 suddenly left at an early stage of the gallop. After twenty minutes at best 

 pace they were stopped, but starting again they soon got a view, and fairly 

 raced for the next thirty-five minutes through W^illingale, capturing their 

 deer in a pond near the King William. Some half dozen, viz., Messrs. 

 Jones, Lawrence, Tufnell, R. Ball and Harrison were in the first flight, and 

 unless a man were well mounted he had no chance whatever. 



Almost a week's rest before going out again, and then hounds met 

 at the Axe and Compasses, December 22nd. After finding a fox in Screens 

 which hounds could not force out of covert, Mr. Gibson refreshed the 

 whole field at his house, and under his persuasion hounds were thrown 

 into Screens again. This time they fairly hustled their fox out, and we 

 were rewarded by a capital fifty-three minutes via Spains Wood, "Willingale 

 and Berners Wood. 



Those who were out on Monday, December 24th, 1883, with the Essex 

 Hounds and saw the runs, must have spent a very happy Christmas Eve. 

 There was a good deal of fog in the early part of the morning, but it 

 gradually lifted as we jogged towards the meet at Nasing Common, the 

 glistening drops on the hedgerows causing misgivings about scent to some 

 of us. But who can account for scent ? Some very ingenious theories 



