Staghotinds 7 3 



country. The "fields" are enormous, but, 

 generally speaking, there is plenty of room 

 at the fences. AVhen I was last there, and 

 following this splendid pack, which, by the 

 way, was started in 1839, Fred Cox was 

 still hunting them, and despite the manifold 

 injuries he has sustained in falls innumerable, 

 which have made his seat on a horse cramped 

 and unnatural, was always with his hounds. 

 Mark Howcutt was then first whip, and a 

 bolder cross-country horseman I never want 

 to see. He was going then, and goes now, 

 as hard as we happy youths did at the age of 

 eighteen or twenty, when we "feared notliin' 

 COS we knowed nothin','' as old Jem Hills, 

 the huntsman of the Heythrop, used to put it. 

 Some fine runs fall to the lot of the con- 

 stant follower of the Essex Staghounds, espe- 

 cially when they fly across the open Eoothings. 

 The plough is light riding— almost as light as 

 grass — and it would take a very big " field " 

 indeed to cause any crowding at the big open 

 ditches. You can "have" them pretty much 

 where you like, and there is no need to follow 



