426 LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



If your horse wanted a pipe-opener he certainly got it before the woods 

 were left behind. The rides were nearly hock deep, for even the brick-dry 

 clay of Parndon Coverts has at last yielded to the incessant rains and is 

 now as plastic as putty and sticky as bird-lime, and yet there is no help for 

 it unless you would chance your luck, and heading the fox at the same 

 time, you must plug up and down the rides within hearing distance at least 

 of the hounds. In big woods it is surely fair to follow hounds while they 

 draw, provided you give plenty of room, say 200 yards at least, to the 

 huntsman. We learn this in Essex, we practise this in other counties, and 

 the result is that we read how only two days previously, while hunting with 

 Lord Willoughby de Broke's noted hounds, out of eight people who saw 

 the good run from the wooded heights of Shuckburgh (what pleasant 

 memories that name conjures up), four were representatives of the Essex 

 county — Lady Warwick, Capt. and Mrs. Breeks, and ^Ir. H. Blyth — the 

 rest of the field, we are told, were picnicking. 



But there was no picnicking about Parndon on Saturday last, but 

 scatter and splash to be with hounds as they crossed Epping Green for a 

 dart over the grass, only to have the cup dashed from our lips, when 

 we had touched Maries, by a fox that turned and went a strong line of 

 his own down wind towards Roydon, leaving no clue that hounds could 

 unravel. Oh, what a long dreary draw ; oh what a long, long trot, before 

 we got back to fox-land once more, to coverts too that had been shot 

 through only a few days previously ! But in Harlow Park there was a 

 yellow fox, and a right merry gallop he gave us ; for the pastures that 

 surround Sewalds Hall always carry a scent, and the bitch pack screamed 

 up them, taking full advantage of the hover and delay caused by the brook. 

 On past the farm buildings the leaders, led by Mr. Ford Barclay, would 

 not touch the gate, but whisked over the thorn fence and rode straight 

 on in the wake of hounds, catching them easily as the enclosures 

 grew smaller. Over the road at the back of Mr. Lucking's farm, and 

 over the road in front of the roadside inn — why did hounds throw up as we 

 charged in line over the next fence ? and where did he go ? May we solve 

 the problem and guess the riddle when next Harlow Park awakes from 

 its slumbers ! 



Monday, December 2nd, Passingford Bridge. — Whether you managed 

 to extract any fun out of this particular day's sport would entirely 

 depend upon your temperament, or perhaps, to be really accurate, the 

 state of your liver. If you wanted a shake up without the risk of jumping 

 nasty fences, the opportunity was afforded, and in good company all day 

 you might ha\e noted easily all that was done without jumping a stick. If 

 you lilce being jumped on or crossed when going at a fence, you could 

 hardly complain that the chance was not given you, though you might not 

 so readily admit the fog as an excuse. If you like to see a fox killed 

 without getting out of your carriage at the meet, you had only to sit 

 tight, and hey, presto ! the thing was done. If you like to see covert 

 alter covert, and mile after mile of country traversed without finding a fox, 

 well, Monday last i^'as no exception to n'liat has, after all, so far proved the rule in 

 the Monday country this season. If you like hunting Bailey instead of the fox, 

 your vaulting ambition would not have o'erleaped itself, as he held hounds 

 forward without a scrap of scent for about twenty minutes from Church 

 Wood, Stondon. If you like catching a lady's horse you need not 

 have been baulked in so laudable a desire, but you would have had to 

 be very nippy to cut out Mr. Horner and Mr. Lee, who captured and 

 restored two riderless steeds." And, finally, if you like getting home by 



* Mrs. Redwood and Mrs. Upton's. 



