OLD CRAWLEY S ADVICE 



I8l 



miles further on). I left home at ii o'clock with the intention of 

 joining the stag ; it was intensely cold and I could hardly keep warm 

 jogging. The wind was due east, a quarter in which our fox hounds 

 generally run ; I could not therefore help longing to be with them. 



However, as I neared Harlow, I thought that I would stop and call in 

 and see old Crawley, who had always up to the previous season ridden 

 the huntsman's second horse, and who was considered to be the finest 

 second horseman in Essex. With a splendid knowledge of the country, 

 and an intuitive instinct of a fox's point, rarely if ever jumping a 

 fence, he always turned up when wanted. I found poor old Crawley 

 upstairs in bed, where he had been confined for two months with 

 bronchitis, but the sparkle came back in his eye and his face beamed 

 with animation as he described the country from Hatfield Heath to Row 



Row Wood (Mr. Poole counts twenty) 



Wood and wound up by saying, " If you do not find them at Row Wood 

 at 2 p.m. you will not find them at all." And " mind you do not miss 

 them both," were his parting words. 



Jogging steadily on, I passed by Row Wood at 1-30; 30 minutes later 

 it was the scene of a maddening rush, the pent-up energy of some 150 

 keen riders seeking vent for a long, tedious, fruitless draw; 1-30 I said. 

 Row Wood; 10 minutes later, just as hounds were being thrown into 

 Broomshaw Bury, I met them ; they had not found, and the field were 

 by no means in cheerful spirits. Now were old Crawley's words to come 

 true, for it was 2 o'clock and the hounds were hustling a fox round Row 

 Wood, where we were all penned in a corner, and it was a very doubtful 

 choice which side of the wood to take, as the ringing view holloa " gone 

 away ! " from the first whip came floating towards us. With Mr. Tyndale 

 White and several others I went the wrong side, nothing but a very 

 convenient road and slight check above Hatfield Broad Oak enabling us 



