FALSE PROniETS 28 I 



In by the utter absence of any sport, no wonder that Its keenest 

 adherents grew slack ; no wonder that farmers crrunibled to see 

 hounds without followers, and that there were not wanting those 

 who went so far as to declare that hunting in the Essex country 

 was on the wane. But like the dull grey sunrise that proclaims 

 the approaching triumph of the day, so was the season's gloomy 

 birth but the harbinger of its ultimate and its unqualified 

 success. Did time permit, space would not allow that I should 

 enter into any lengthy dissertation or review of the chief 

 events of the past season. I must therefore content myself, 

 after giving a brief account of the last day I was out with these 

 hounds, the last but one on which they took the field, by merely 

 jotting down in index fashion the days on which I was fortunate 

 enough to be out, and upon which memory loves to linger. 



You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will, 

 But the scent of the roses will cling round it still. 



Wednesday, March 28th, was the penultimate day I have alluded to, a 

 day on which the butterfly-catchers were abroad, for the sun shone out of a 

 cloudless sky and summer scarce deigned to wait for gentle spring. It was 

 a day for a picnic, a day for sauntering in the deep coombs and shady dells 

 of the forest, anything but a day for foxhunting, and many doubtless found 

 their way to the lawn meet at Birch Hall with no other motive in view. 

 Straw hats, mufti costumes, were surely pardonable on such a day, or, 

 'faith, there would have been many sinners. 



Deep as the belief of Essex men may be in the woodland craft of 

 their huntsman Bailey, yet in this wild unexplored forest the neat brown 

 uniform of Mr. Barclay's chief aide-de-camp, young Will Hurrell, was a 

 welcome addition to the menage. Born and bred a forest lad, early 

 instructed in the mysteries of venery by a most capable father, the postman 

 on his round, the policeman on his beat, are not more famihar with their 

 paths than he is with every nook and glade of this wide -stretching forest, 

 his nursery, his home. Every corner has a name, every clump of trees an 

 appellation, and not a glade or a ride but has its distinguishing marks, and 

 were he by my side I would tell you in what order we drew through these 

 sylvan glades, by Debden side, and Luffman's Earths, by Monk Wood, 

 Wake Valley, and the deep coombs of Woodridden. 



He is not; so I must content myself with saying that only half our 

 number went with us in the open — alas, only to gaze at, not to ride over, 

 the scene of last Wednesday's exploits, as seen from Poplar Shaw. Half 

 only could have been with us when the deep-throated hounds opened on 

 the line of a travelling fox in one of the wildest parts of the forest, and less 

 than half saw'the great yellow fox steal out of the drain behind Golding's 

 Hill. Ah, if he had launched out into the open country ! I might have 

 had a run to chronicle, and Bailey one scalp less at his saddle bow. 



For a few brief hot minutes the woods echoed with the deep chorus 

 of the great dog hounds as keen for blood they raced him from glade to 

 glade. Then near the reservoir, close to his old haunts, came the smothered 

 growl, the whoop ; the gaping rustics were satisfied. Poultry keepers will 

 sleep o' nights, and two at least of Britain's sons were blooded. 



