A coon FINISH 385 



any extent, for Mr. Oldham, during the many seasons he rode 

 him, went as straight as the crow flies. Not even Mr. 

 Oldham's brother-in-law, Mr. Giles, could get him down, 

 though I remember seeing him do his best at a brook just 

 below Ongar Park Woods, coming away from that covert, at a 

 place where most of the field were hung up. The chestnut 

 safely negotiated it, though the tree stumps and overhanging 

 briars and deep chasm would have puzzled a schoolboy in a 

 paper chase. 



Nineteen clear minutes hounds raced their fox across 

 the cream of the Roothings without the semblance of a 

 check, at such a pace that he could never make a point, nor 

 yet complete the circle, though at one time it looked odds 

 on Harlow Park, until Jim Cockayne, the old vSurrey hunts- 

 man, mounted now on Mr. Charrington's bay, viewed him 

 stealing along by the belt of trees near Thrushes Bush. 

 Hounds required no lifting, no cheering on, only riding at in 

 the form Mr. Edwards was sending his long-tailed bay along, 

 if you meant to be with them ; and who, out of this lot, didn't ? 

 The Master, Mr. C. Green, Mr. H. Fowler, Mr. T. R. Hull, 

 Mr, Charrington, Mr. C. Collin, Mr. H. Sworder, Mr. Edwards, 

 Mr. G. Sewell, Mr. Newman Gilbey, Mr. Bevan (and who 

 else ?) were with us at Matching Park besides the staff when 

 we found. My word ! there was a row among the pigs as 

 hounds unbuttoned the waistcoat of this dog fox in the middle 

 of the farm yard ; no mistake about his sex, nor of the indica- 

 tive glow on the happy faces of those who had revelled in this 

 rapid burst — the finishing touch of a capital day on the plough. 



25 



