Thomas Bosley in Wealdhall Coppii 



CHAPTER XII. 



T. Bosley — Weald Hall Coppice — Frozen Out — The Fox and his Enemies — Bandy 

 at Elsenham — Essex v. Puckevidge Hunt — E. Ethelston — The Break up of 

 the Great Frost of '95 — The Ice Carnival — Really good going, Sir ! — W. Sims 

 Horner — A Root Ditch — Poles Wood— One, Two, Three, over they come — 

 Jugged Hare at Sewald's Hall — The Influenza Cure — Bosley s Fox — In or 

 Over is Mr. Lobh's Motto — Fourteen all told — The old Guard — Pyrgo Wood — 

 Riding away from Hounds — Leonard Pelly — The usual blank at Forest Hall — 

 No Commoner, surely ! — Splash of Rain — Brick Kilns again - Full cry from 

 Man Wood — Essex for ever — Diana to the front — Moor Hall — 4. C. Oldham — 

 A Good Finish. 



THE diary of a frozen-out foxhunter, uninteresting as it may be, is all I 

 have to offer for the week ending February 9th. Can anything be 

 more aggravating to the hunting enthusiast than to see, day after 

 day, almost week after week, slipping by in the cold clutches of the frost 

 demon, and the prospect of relief from his tyranny as remote as the cer- 

 tainty that February, the very best of all the hunting months, is being 

 irrevocably lost. Tcnipus fugit, and. in the rush and press of business, or_ in 

 the giddy pursuit of other amusements, we almost forget about hunting 

 altogether, unless reminded by a glimpse of hounds and their pink-clad 

 custodians at exercise down the country lanes from which all familiar 

 landmarks have been effectually erased by the snow. 



Then the flood of memory comes rushing back, giving rise to many 

 thoughts, many suggestions, most of them pleasant, but some the reverse. 

 There can be nothing agreeable about barbed wire, which has the ugly 

 knack of twisting itself into the retrospect of hunting incidents, with as 

 much ease, and far more persistence, than it can be maintained in a fence. 

 Have you— have any of us— done anything at all to mitigate this growing 

 abomination in the interval of our enforced idleness? Have you flagged a 

 yard of it out ? Have you been successful in getting a yard of it taken 

 down ? If so, you will ride with a clearer conscience and a greater zest 

 when the frost disappears. 



