CHAFFEV COLLIN S RUN 255 



inviting archway under it was guarded by a sinuous and serpentine brook. 

 Some called it a river, others a yard-arm of the sea ; but steep and rotten 

 were the banks, and deep and murky flowed the stream, and few showed a 

 disposition to have a cut at it. But Mr. Tweed, riding " Woodside," was 

 not to be denied, and, taking it in his stride, landed handsomely over, only 

 to fall back as the rotten bank gave way, causing him a mauvais qiiat d'heuvc 

 trying to recover his horse. He deserved a better fate. 



The knowing ones never left Bailey, for if there is a way in and out of 

 any brook in Essex, he is the one to find it ; and they were well rewarded, 

 for he soon discovered one. On your luck in getting your turn to follow 

 him entirely depended your place for the rest of the run. Capt. Wilson, 

 Mr. Arkwright, Mr. Sewell, and Miss Buxton were among the first six who 

 got over. Mr. Caldecott, on a horse that had the legs of most of us, made 

 for a bridge, and was the first to catch hounds as they led us over a nice 

 country, easily fenced, to Mr. Ind's house, Coombe Lodge.* Mr. Caldecott 

 again got away with a few leading hounds that kept to tlie line ; but, after 

 leaving the park behind, Bailey had to " throw up the sponge " and confess 

 himself beaten by a rare good fox that had done the six-mile point in forty 

 minutes. Such, I am assured, was the time and the distance. Mr. Calde- 

 cott was in his element, leading the van, as he always does in the Dagen- 

 ham country ; and he will have to be a bold man and well mounted who 

 will throw down the gauntlet to him in his happy hunting ground. All, 

 however, were delighted with the run, for all got a cut in either at the start 

 or the finish. 



Meeting at Shonks Mill on Monday, February 5th. No one could catch 

 Mr. A. J. Tweed, who was riding his horse " Woodside," in the screamev 

 we had from Mr. Christy's cabbages to the big woods. How your horse 

 was blowing, Mr. Jones, as we scrambled through the fence into the Toot 

 Hill road together, but not worse than the grey cob ; but they had 

 recovered their winds by the time the fox had been marked to. ground at 

 the Rifle-butts. 



Saturday, February 24th, brought together a large field, the greater 

 part of whom were doomed to disappointment, as covert after covert was 

 drawn blank, and carefully drawn, too. Likely fields were cracked up ; 

 thatched sheds and ancient elms, the assured haunt of well-known foxes, 

 proved equally abortive ; no wonder, then, that there was hardly anyone 

 left to lead the forlorn hope to try a few rough fields, as at four p.m. horses' 

 heads were turned kennelwards. Sir Evelyn Wood, V.C., had gone, Major 

 Riddell and Mr. Tresham Gilbey had trains to catch, and Mr. and Mrs. 

 Bowlby, and 150 more of those who had assembled with the disappearance 

 of the frost at White Roothing, had taken their departure. 



Only twenty, or perhaps thirty, remained to tell the tale, or to take part 

 in the stirring gallop that commenced at five minutes past four with the 

 " toot, toot," of the Master's horn, as the keen eye of Mr. Chaffey Collin 

 detected the thief of the world, the robber of hen roosts, stealing out at the 

 bottom end of a long straggling field at the back of Hatfield town. There 

 was no time, much as you would have desired it, to take it easy over the 

 first deep stubble, as Bailey, with lightning speed, clapped the hounds for- 

 ward. Still less was there room for hesitation as you reached the boundary 

 fence — a wide and rotten banked ditch, that landed you into the three grass 

 meadows down which the bitches were racing. Single file we clattered over 

 the wooden bridge, Mr. Gurney Sheppard with the lead ; a gate into the 

 road at the end of the meadow, a man in the act of opening it, Mr. Sheppard 



Mr. Ind was standing near the lodge gates as we galloped past, and cheerily he waved 



