The Essex Union. 315 



end of this capital cover^ and away they go at a 

 racing pace, and no mistake. It is a case of "the 

 devil take the hindmost/^ now, and the hounds slip 

 away liked greased lightning, bending to the left, 

 crossing the Warley Hoad, and going in the direction 

 of Brentwood. Thinking to be double cunning, I 

 took a line of my own, in order to avoid a deep-riding 

 field, and got into difficulties at an early period in 

 this feeble attempt to cut in, instead of sticking to 

 the hounds, as I ought to have done, and as, in fact, 

 every fellow ought to do. So verily I had my reward, 

 for I found myself pounded in a corner in close prox- 

 imity to a large farmyard, with locked gates, and in 

 a moment of desperation I crammed the gallant grey 

 aforesaid at a yawner, and landed safely on a dunghill ; 

 but before I had time to extricate myself from the 

 mazes of the rickyards and get into the road the 

 hounds had gone from my gaze like a beautiful dream, 

 and I sought for them vainly by meadow and stream 

 —if I may be allowed to slightly plagiarise a poet who 

 in some such fashion sighed his regrets at the loss of 

 his ladylove. The Essex Union have had grand sport 

 of late. A fortnight since, finding an afternoon fox, 

 they ran him for fifty minutes at a racing pace, killing 

 him in the open ; and on Saturday last, after running 

 for some time, the pack divided, six couples with one 

 of the whips getting away with one fox, running him 

 a burster and killing him in the open ; whilst Mr. 

 White and the remainder of the hounds went away 

 with another, and also ran into him in the open, and 

 after an equally good run breaking him up in a work- 

 manlike style. The Essex Union is one of the 

 countries,^' within easy reach of the Londoners, that 



