MR. FRANK BALL TO THE RESCUE 323 



No occasion to dilate on the preliminary performance of a 

 hunting run over a rough country after a fine but cunning- fox 

 from Dagenham Wood ; but a case of necessity to hurry back 

 over the two slippery bridges, and up the hill by the side of 

 Beech Wood, as Jack, on the right, had viewed him away, 

 Left-handed you started with hounds on easy terms ; right- 

 handed you had to ride to catch them, for ere you started the 

 whip's grey was already jumping into the wood, and if you 

 had missed the spot you would have missed the run ; for by 

 the time you had cleared the covert hounds were a field to the 

 good and over the road, and flying down the grass lane 

 beyond for the Romford Vale, and horses were being sent at 

 the banks in steeplechase form. 



A lucky turn to the left just short of Gidea Hall, for those 

 who had got away badly, another turn to the left, over three 

 upstanding fences — never go for a gate Jack when they 

 are running like that. A wide stretch of open country before 

 us, all grass, sloping gently down hill, and rising again where 

 a high bullfinch cut the horizon. The huntsman was the first 

 to pierce it, and Mr. Caldecott left his hat in the thorns ; down 

 hill again, and over the drop to the left. Miss Oliver unluckily 

 came down, and she had to scramble up the next hairy bank 

 on foot in pursuit of her dun and the hounds, who were at 

 fault for a moment, near the Grange Farm. 



But moments are precious in a. run like this, and I am 

 afraid she never caught hounds again, though Mr. Frank Ball 

 caught her cob : over the Gallow road they ran on like smoke, 

 and only those who were as close to them as the Master, 

 huntsman, Messrs. Tyndale White, father and son, Mr. Price, 

 or Mr. Horner, sen., could possibly see them, for the mist 

 grew denser as the run went on, and the steam f 1^0 ni the horses 

 hung in the fences, as the game of follow-my-leader began to 

 be played in a very intricate country. About a mile of this 

 to a wood below Dagenham, Mr. White, sen., going to the 

 right with a large following, while Mr. Horner and a few 

 more of us stuck to the son and the huntsman, as they dropped 

 over the small brook into the corner of the wood, and squeezed 

 out through the trees. Two more fields, all up hill, and we 

 were in Dagenham covert with the sunk rails on our left. If 

 you didn't turn over them at once with the huntsman, young- 

 Mr. White and the Master, you were out of the hunt, and if 

 you didn't follow Jack pretty sharp, as he rode to the music 

 of the hounds (for you could not see a field in front of you), 

 you would have arrived at Rochetts a little too late to see. 



