41^ 



LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



line towards Pleshey hounds kept steadily moving. The game had now 

 commenced ; the ball was really set rolling, and men were falhng in all 

 directions and letting their horses go. Mr. Buckmaster skilfully caught 

 one and restored him to his panting owner, for ploughs are heavy even 

 in Bartley's best. Where did hounds throw up ? Who can say ? But 

 many affirm that it was an old fox who in about thirty minutes managed 

 to give Bailey and his pack the slip. Next, hounds running like smoke 

 for" three fields with a fresh fox from Israel's, and coming to an 

 unaccountable check in the road. Last, but best of all, a fox from 

 some turnips below the same covert, standing up for sixty minutes in a 

 long, twisting, puzzling run, to fall a victim at 2 p.m. to a pack that 

 deserved him, Mr. Steele and Mr. Green, of Parndon, and Mr. Horner, 

 of Walthamstow, having among those in at the death, one of the longest 

 rides home. 



A. R. Steele's favourite hunter 



Ah ! A day in the Pleshey country is a delightful experience ; the 

 finest nerve tonic in the world. Foxes abound, for there are some keen 

 and good sportsmen who look to them, and in whose company it is a 

 pleasure and an honour to charge side by side over the wide ditches, 

 which, free from wire, make this one of the happiest and safest hunting- 

 grounds in the whole of England. 



A bad photo, of a g'ood horse, taken at his worst in rough 

 summer condition, big in belly, low in muscle, and looking", as 

 Mr. Steele wrote me, as bad as possible ; but for eight seasons 

 this good brown horse, standing 16-2, carried Mr. Steele 

 brilliantly to the; front with the I'^ssex Hounds two days a 

 week, and occasionally, mark it \ (; Mellonians, a third day ; 



