XMAS EVE, 1883 JT^ 



about it have been propounded lately, but I do not think any of them 

 pretend to be infallible. Best to take your day when you can get it. Often 

 the most unpopular meets, and, to all appearances, the worst scenting days 

 afford the runs of the season. 



Nasing Coppice was first called upon, and rarely is it called on in vain ; 

 but its foxes are getting cunning, and do not wait to be found. Hounds 

 were hardly in before one was viewed away by a gallant colonel,* who with 

 a few of the right sort was feeling his way to hounds in a determined 

 manner over some blindish thorn fences and the delightful grass fields 

 which slope down to I-]all Hill, whither our fox was evidently making. 

 Few knew, and none heeded the covered drain open here and there in 

 the last grass field before reaching the wood. Mr. Lawrence's horse was 

 galloping loose as we surged up to the gate into the road bisecting Ball 

 Hill, on the far side of which the dog pack were already giving tongue. 

 Some twenty got through ; then one refractory horse closed it, causing 

 delay to many, which they have hard work to make up again. Hounds 

 were out and ran down the grass field towards Orange Wood ; the next 

 fence, a widish brook, with a staked hedge on the far side, would have taken 

 some doing; but hounds swung round before reaching it, as the fox had been 

 headed. A holloa in the direction of Ball Hill. What lovely music as they 

 got on the line again ! Some went to the right of the wood, but, strange 

 to say, in going right went wrong ; the majority followed Bailey to the left 

 down a steep grass field Intuitively they all turned away from an ugly 

 gully that presented itself at the bottom ; only here and there could it be 

 fiown. Hounds were over it, and so was a well-known heavy weight on a 

 grey; one or two others got over, but the rest made for a gate and struck 

 the bridge to the right over the Cobbins Brook into Spratt's hedgerow. 

 That was a critical time in the run, as a holloa back v/as given at that very 

 instant, and half the field went for it ; evidently some other fox had been 

 disturbed ; foxes seemed to be strangely on the alert that day. Do they 

 know when there is a scent ? Taking it through the keeper's' plantation, 

 hounds pressed up the grass field leading to Epping Bury farm, and hunted 

 slowly over some beans, which the field avoided with one consent, and 

 reached hounds again, by skirting the beans either to the left or right ; 

 those going to the right towards the forest-side had a decided advantage at 

 the next two fences. A drop into a grass field over a very blind ditch and 

 fence, and an up-jump out, a high razor bank with hedge on top and ditch 

 the far side, must have choked off a good many, as there were very few 

 with hounds as they ran across the next plough towards the Bury road. 



Skirting it to the right they ran over a very nice country, rather cramped 

 certainly, as fence succeeded fence towards the forest. " ' Ware wire," but 

 Bailey and Mr. Walmsley swept over it, where there was luckily a rail to 

 make horses rise in and out of a lane sharp. A chestnut, t which had been 

 going remarkably well, obstinately refused to jump out. Within a field of 

 the Forest, Bailey had a view of the hunted fox and clapped hounds on, 

 and they ran him into Griffin's Wood, a wood near New Farm, the last 

 fence being a forbidding looking drop. Hounds rattled their fox through 

 here back again full cry, and then were suddenly silent. He had evi- 

 dently laid up or gone to ground — luckily not the latter. Once more they 

 were on his track, and this time ran into him close to Col. Howard, who 

 at once jumped off his horse and took him from them, while Bailey was 

 galloping up the ride to them. Time, just forty-five minutes. No exception 



* Col. Howard. f Mr. A. Suart's " St. George." 



