THE OlA) Gl'AUn 



375 



Didn't we see it, sir, when the bitch pack left Pyrgo Wood in the mid- 

 day sun to a screaming scent, and crossing the road flashed down the 

 side of a fence which none of the thrusters would tackle ? Didn't we 

 ride our hearts out trying to catch the man who, with four followers, had 

 grasped the situation in a moment, and never allowed the first easy 

 fence out of the road to entice him on the wrong path, but boldly 

 selecting a big place in the first two fences, secured a lead which no one 

 in Essex would have wrested from him had hounds held on instead of 

 coming to a check on the green ? No, it is not the first time we have 

 seen Mr. Ned Ball do the trick. I hope that it won't be the last, but it 

 makes me blush to write how I saw Messrs. E. C, F. T., M. C, R. L., 

 H. J,, H. P., L. H., L. A. — in fact, the whole alphabet three times over — 

 RIDING AWAY FROM HouxDs down a fence — thick, it is true, but quite 

 capable of having a hole knocked in it anywhere. Deeply I sympathised 

 with them in that splashy and muddy gallop down that long and boggy 







y 



Pyrgo Wood 



lane that led to Curtis Mill Green, where hounds had checked, for a 

 fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind. 



Is it true, Mr. R. Lockwood, that we are to be indebted to your good 

 offices for a gate into Hainault Forest, where hounds generally strike it ? 

 If so, we will drink your very good health. 



Hounds would need to have gone very fast and very straight to have 

 slipped away from last Saturday's field, for there was a very keen, hard- 

 riding, well-mounted band of pursuers of both sexes out, who were not 

 likely to be stopped by any fence to be met with in a race across the 

 Roothings, which were perhaps at their best on the day in question. The 

 ditches were clear, the going perfection ; it was tantalising not getting a 



