TIIK ADMIRAL TO THE RESCUE 273 



It is a lovely comitiy, bay the li'ive, all grass, and it seems a thousand pities 

 that, for all practical purposes, for the past few years it has been lost to the 

 hunt. Let us hope, under the new, or rather the old, regime of the Arkwright 

 family, that we shall make more frequent visits to this part of the country, 

 as I think it is generally admitted that nothing so conduces to losing a 

 country as not drawing it. I remember the time well when we used to have 

 capital sport from the Rolls Park coverts, and not unfrequently ran through 

 Chigwell ; but now that part of the country is nothing more or less than a 

 rusty bird cage, for it is wired in in all directions. 



But what of the run from Beech Hill Park to the Forest ? As we 

 reached the top of the first grass field we got a capital view of the pack 

 running down the vale towards Waltham Abbey. To turn over the hedge 

 with the huntsman, Mr. Roddick, and Major Carter, into the same field 

 with hounds, seemed quite the most sensible thing, but parallel with them a 

 long stretch of grass, and no iron rails in front. Right or left-handed, which 

 would they turn ? The huntsman thought left, for he was coming back into 

 our meadow as fast as his horse would let him, for at first he whipped 

 obstinately round at the fence. By all that was unfortunate, hounds were 

 coming through on the left, and straight in front at the end of the long 

 meadow was a thick, forbidding-looking fence. Only one, I believe, took it, 

 as he always takes everything that comes, Mr. E. Caldecott, while the rest 

 sheered off a hundred yards to the left. 



In the meantime the pack, carrying a great head, were going very fast 

 pn their right. " Yo-onder he goes," shouted Bailey, as he got a view of the 

 varmint stealing over the grass in the distance, but hounds required no 

 cheering, but only sitting down to and riding at if you wished to see any- 

 thing of the fun. Straight on over the rails, and the first three took them 

 ^s they came — Mr. Caldecott, Mr. Price, and the huntsman — but the leaders 

 all pulled up at Arey Lane. Capt. Wilson was the first to slip in and out. 

 The Admiral did yeoman and herculean service, removing two locked gates 

 from their hinges, and we thanked him heartily as we rode through. A 

 man at the corner of the next fence warned us of wire, which glistened in 

 the sun in all its native and snaky hideousness. Squeezing through by 

 a tree, we were able to turn right-handed over the next fence towards the 

 hounds, who with breast-high scent were running in a bee line through the 

 two small plantations, Thompson's Spinneys, on the hill. 



Here one luckless rider, coming to grief at a trappy fence, went a purler 

 on to the plough beyond, but he quickly mounted again. Misfortunes 

 rarely come singly, it appears ; or was it his double we saw later in the day 

 wandering in the Forest inquiring pathetically for a steed which had un- 

 shipped him at our last fence, and disappeared in the trees ? N'impovte ! 

 no one was hurt, and a handy line of gates brought us to the hbunds as 

 they swung down the hill to the left and crossed the road by the cottages on 

 to the grass beyond. 



Up the road you could keep beside the leading dogs, who, coming in 

 again, turned to the right up the hill into Mr. Melles' covert, Fernhills — 

 where there was a check of some five or six minutes, allowing a few of the 

 stragglers to fall into line. We had done the 3 miles to this point in ten 

 minutes, so no time had been lost. From Fernhills there is a fine view 

 of the Lea Valley, and it is said parts of six counties can be seen. Bailey, 

 however, did not call our attention to this, but having hit off the line of his 

 fox (who had gone out at the top end across the plough) on the grass 

 beyond, we ran down hill by Springfield, where a flier narrowly missed 

 landing into the spring of that ilk. Over a few flying fences into the 

 Forest, across Almshouse and Blackbush Plains, and running to ground at 



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