148 LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



touched before it is apparent that our fox has gone hurrying back from 

 whence he came. Mrs. Stout's farm is passed on the right, the Cobbin 

 brook crossed, re-crossed and crossed again, and the field is fairly spread- 

 eagled by the time Warlies is reached, and our fox marked to ground. 



A few minutes suffice for all to come up, and separate groups of three, 

 four, and five discuss this good run of 55 minutes : the spade completes 

 what hounds have nearly done, the fox comes out a wreck, and is eaten to 

 appease the poultry owners of these parts. A brief, pleasant scurry to 

 Pinnacles brings the day to a close. In a very slow hunting run from 

 Blackmore, on Monday, December 5th, in which a fox found in the High 

 Woods was pushed through Ingatestone and killed near Writtle Park at 

 the end of i hr. 20 min., we note that among many others who had 

 croppers, owing to the sun being in their eyes, was the Mate on his chestnut 

 horse, and that Mrs. R. Lockwood, riding her pony " Lady Sandy," was 

 not one of the unfortunate many who were left behind in Parson Springs, 

 but saw the run and the finish, 



Wednesday, December 14th. — The Kennels, wind S.W. Another record 

 of a bad day's sport ; no luck again. Men's thoughts began to turn 

 towards stag hunting. 



The season so far has been a very good one for stagging in Essex. 

 Last Saturday's run is only typical of the sort of thing these hounds have 

 had nearly every time they have been out. It was a good day, a clinker — 

 as I think you will allow when you hear that without any roadwork or 

 view of their deer hounds ran hard for one lionv and forty minutes over the 

 very cveam of Essex, scoring a fourteen-mile point as the crow flies before 

 they were baffled by the network of wires in the neighbourhood of the 

 Royal Gunpowder Works at Waltham. 



At 12-30 that priceless hind. Miss Thoby, was uncarted at Matching 

 Green, and ten minutes later fifty horsemen were riding desperately keen 

 after the nine couple of hounds that were flinging eagerly forward, 

 leaping the Roothing ditches in their stride. Two roads were crossed in 

 rapid succession, and with the wind on her right flank our quarry headed 

 for the Lavers. 



The pace was too good to notice any landmark before Magdalen Laver 

 Rectory was viewed on our right ; away past Sewalds Hall, and the 

 remaining ten miles were nearly all on the grass. Nearing Mr. Hart's 

 farm the Master's horse whipped round at some rails, but followed the 

 lead of a man on a chesnut, who was riding right up to the hounds. As 

 we clustered in the road while hounds were working the line out over 

 it we noticed that the ranks of the followers had become visibly 

 thinned. 



On over Mr. Hart's wheat, and we reached the Rundells steeple- 

 chase course. Miss Jones, who had been piloted by her father right in 

 the van up to this point, unfortunately came to grief over a big drop, but 

 with no worse luck than loss of place. Not so Mr. Neave's popular and 

 hard-thrusting secretary, Mr. Suart, who, I hear, at the same time had the 

 misfortune to kill his horse. 



But, still and silent as a dream, hounds sped over the grass, crossing 

 the Harlow-road near the Cross Keys. Little Maries was passed on the 

 right without the slightest check. Over Mr. Kemsley's farm in a pelting 

 hailstorm hounds hunted steadily on, and the Epping road was crossed just 

 below the Vicarage, Mr. Walmsley leading the way in and out of it, for 

 the deer had gone on. On, still on, was the cry. Orange Wood was left on 

 our right, and the narrow plantation running up from the keeper's house 

 threaded to the musical cry of hounds. Mr. Neave, showing the way in 



