LONG POINTS AND THE HEYTHROP. 211 



somewhere between Takeley aud Dunmow, and the funny 

 part of it was that hounds were not running, but were merely 

 going quietly from covert to covert. It must have been in 

 the spring, for there was a field of standing corn, and the 

 riders, in single file, all went round by the hea-dland — which 

 was a very narrow one. Suddenly a horse ridden by a lady 

 began to plunge, and, catching my horse on the quarters, the 

 latter gradually slipped down into a deep, dry ditch. I never 

 even came off, nor did the horse lose his legs, but we were at the 

 tail of the procession, and there was no one near who knew 

 the run of that particular ditch. The upshot was that I rode 

 up and down this ditch, aud others which joined it, for three- 

 quarters of an hour before I found myself on level ground 

 again, and when I emerged not a sign of the hunt was visible 

 and I did not find hounds for another hour. But horses, 

 after a little experience, jump these Roothing ditches freely, 

 and many have a firm take off and landing, though there is 

 often a short growth of twigs on either bank above the ditch. 

 I only saw the Essex very occasionally in 1897 and the fol- 

 lowing year, and always on the eastern, generally north- 

 eastern side of their country, but 1 frequently was with the 

 Puckeridge when they were at coverts mutual to the two hunts 

 and when they ran into the Essex country. 



Curiously enough I did not see the Puckeridge country 

 until many years after I had wanted to hunt in it. I knew 

 it was principally plough, but I had read, many years ago, 

 a short account in (I think) one of " The Druid's " books of 

 how Mr. Nicholas Parry had run a fox from the centre of 

 his country to Sandy in Bedfordshire, and I felt that where 

 such a run was possible the country could not be a bad one. 

 After that I used to study it carefully from the train window 

 during many journeys between London and Newmarket, for 

 I may explain that the Great Eastern Railway enters the 

 Puckeridge country after crossing the river Lea, a mile or 

 two north of Broxboume, and goes right up its eastern side 

 to Great Chesterford, beyond which the line enters the Cam- 

 bridgeshire country. What I particularly noticed was that 

 the whole district seemed to be remarkably open, and that 

 as far as one could judge from the window of a railway train 

 the enclosures were large, and mostly arable, but with a 



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