300 T.EA\KS FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



covered fifteen miles of country, the farthest points touched 

 half that distance. Only one other covert was disturbed during- 

 the day. Pyrgo Wood, and it provided as good a hunting run 

 of 40 minutes as one could wish to see. Away over the park 

 in a straight line for Col. Lockwood's coverts, skirting Big 

 \\^:)od, and just touching Cranes, they turned sharp to the 

 right and reached Curtis' Mill Green before hounds were 

 whipped off No one asked for any more ; nobody wanted it. 

 None, however, who, homeward bound passed Tawney Hall, 

 refused the hospitality of one who, in spite of a young horse 

 and two rattling- falls, saw as much as anyone else of the great 

 run, if he did not see more. 



Ah ! if we could always choose the right day ! What pleasant reading 

 would the most prosaic diary afford ; no blank days to remember, no 

 twisting, ringing runs to record. Take Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, last 

 week. Who went out on Wednesday to Fyfield, when the very elements 

 seemed to combine to destroy all chances of sport, and reached home, 

 without reflecting that it was a day wasted, a day thrown away ? Yet 

 I know one man* who enjoyed himself, in spite of being drenched to the 

 skin and foot-sore and weary from a twenty-mile walk ; for a sight of 

 the scenes in which in the years gone by he had so often participated 

 yielded a pleasure known only to those Vv'hose lines are cast in the close 

 atmosphere of crowded towns. 



Friday, " Great Easton," was a day fit for the gods — a day which 

 saw the reel of sport freely unwind, and its golden threads worked into 

 the warp and woof of three of the choicest patterns, such as only the 

 deft fingering of the huntsman and the lady pack of the Essex Hounds 

 could possibly have accomplished. What say you ? Two runs of thirty-five 

 minutes each as hard as hounds could race, winding up with one at a 

 similar pace with a kill in the open. " Ah ! where is the heart wishing 

 more ? " 



WHiat a lottery ! Wednesday, Friday, Saturday — and the middle one, 

 for those who ha\e tasted the sweets of life, and have got over the first 

 l)lush of youth in the field of sport, the only one worth lecording. 



Saturday, November 17th, Harlow. Sweet mingles with bitter, and 

 bitter with sweet ; but alas ! the empty stall shall tell a tale of all bitter to 

 one who makes a friend of his horse — the partner in our sport who gives 

 everything and asks nothing in return. Do we all — do any of us — treat our 

 horses as they deserve ? But Saturday, at any rate, was a day of sunshine 

 above, a day of mud and water beneath, but a day on which the pent-up 

 exuberance of a Saturday field (to my thinking, worse than a Pytchley 

 Wednesday) could not expend itself with a home-running fox. No ! 

 though the line, after he had quitted Mark Hall and its precincts, and 

 had left Barnsleys behind, was lengthened out into an oblong mile, with 

 a dozen at the most, who rode the inside circle at its head. 



In Leicestershire the first fence, more often than not will decide your 

 place in a run. It rarely so happens in Essex ; but the first fence from 

 Barnsleys, in this hot sliarp scurry, proved the exception, settling most of 

 those who had not drawn rein, after leaving Mark Hall, before rounding the 

 wood. The sun glinted fiercely through the only weak spot in the fence, 



* Rev. G. Ward Saunders. 



