184 LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



wrong, for the fox sailed away by Matching Hall, a rare pace to Matching 

 Park ; thoroughly beat, ran a circle in the wood, and was pulled down in a 

 barn close to the covert, seventy minutes, a six to seven mile point, and 

 ten or eleven as hounds ran. I took a pad in commemoration of the run. 

 Mr. E. Barclay claimed the mask, and Mr. Tyndale White the brush. 



Among those who went right well tlirough the run were Messrs. Kemp, 

 Frank Ball, W. Sewell, G. Sewell, E. Barclay, Arkwright, R. Hill, and Miss 

 Morgan, in addition to the huntsman and whips. One of Mr. Charles 

 Green's Weald Coppice days, for after meeting at North Weald on Satur- 

 day, February 15th, when it rained without ceasing all day, and only a 

 moderate run came off with a good fox from the big wood to Stanford 

 Rivers, we left off at Weald Coppice, Messrs. H. E. Jones, W. and G. 

 Sewell, and H. J. Miller alone accompanying the Master. Foxes were now 

 beginning to travel, and with a little less law we should undoubtedly have 

 had a very good run with the journeyman from Brick Kilns by High Laver 

 Hall over Mr. James' Farm to Ongar Park. Just as they were moving off 

 from Belgium Springs I had the luck to view a fox in the open for them 

 (although the exertion necessary to attract the huntsman's attention lost 

 me my voice for a week), and we had a first class run by Wynter's Grange, 

 Rundells, Latton Park and Netteswell Cross, where we changed and got 

 back to Bays Grove, Mr. J. Pelly, Messrs. R. Ball and H. Fowler being 

 well to the front. We had a regular steeplechase from Harlow Park to the 

 Lower Forest through Gaynes Park up to Mr. Green's house on Wednes- 

 day, March 12th, and Mr. George Hart never sent in the bill for the five- 

 barred gate which the roan mare brought down, post and all, trying to 

 follow Mr. F. Green on his " Grey," and Mr. C. R. Doxat on " Polly " ; 

 but the best timber jumpers will fall occasionally. In the afternoon from 

 Parndon Woods to Pinnacles they ran equally fast, and we couldn't catch 

 the Mate and Mr. Roly Bevan. 



An Afternoon with Mr. Vigne's Harriers has charms of its own 

 which even the rival claims of the Foxhounds at Row Wood and the 

 Staghounds at Thornwood Common cannot equal. For in these days of 

 ever-increasing, ever harder riding fields, what a pleasure it is sometimes 

 to get away from the crowd and to watch hounds work in company with 

 a dozen genuine sportsmen. The Master very wisely keeps, and intends to 

 keep, his fixtures very quiet. What a wonder he is ! How very few of us will 

 ever see 84 summers, and fewer still who will be able to go through the 

 long days in the saddle which he seems to make nothing of. 



An important engagement prevented my attending the meet at Bell 

 Common in the morning, but fortune favoured a two-mile ride in the 

 afternoon, as I fell in with hounds near Theydon Garnon Church, on their 

 way to find another hare ; already they had had one clinking gallop across 

 the grass to the Forest at a great pace. Mr. T. J. Mills, of Garnish Hall, 

 on a three-year-old, put in an appearance at the same time. 



What a glorious afternoon it was ! The soft Favonian breeze seemed 

 to whisper of the coming spring, and to be telling Nature that it was time 

 that she woke out of her long winter's sleep. It w^as an afternoon in which 

 sound seemed to travel most distinctly and sight to be specially clear, and 

 every tree and fence stood out well defined. To breathe, to live, was a 

 pleasure ; but the cup that was offered to our lips was brimming over with 

 nectar. But a truce to this frivoling ; let me sketch, if only in bare outline, 

 what took place. 



Several fields were drawn without finding, including the one that 

 provided the great Pyrgo run of about a fortnight ago. Would that I had 

 been out ! The meet had been at Theydon Place in the morning, where the 



