IN THE OLDEN TIME.
197
" The chase being done, mov'd by friendship's control,
The Doctor 13 invites to his cheer ;
With humanity ever the guide of his soul,
He begged for the life of the deer.
" The favor was granted, the buck-cart in view,
We drew the faint beast from his lair ;
And sent him to Hale End to join with the crew,
Once more of their comforts to share.
" Now the horns fill'd the air with new strains of delight,
And no longer desirous to roam ;
To save from the shades of the quick coming night,
The hunters rode merrily home."
Our jovial poet then sings of the delights of a now almost
forgotten, "sport," Badger Hunting, as once practised in Epping
Forest:—
" Badger Hunting in Essex.
" At the back of Old Waltham stands high the King's Oak,
Once kept by Sam Greatorex, a true-hearted fellow,
Some neighbours were met there to laugh, drink, and smoke,
To lighten the heart and to make the head mellow.
" Our tapster was lord of a warren beside,
Long robbed by a badger that wandered by night,
Which had forced him that morning a trap to provide,
In the hope he might usher the culprit to light.
" The guests being pleased at all Philpot had done,
Agreed one and all to attend the event ;
To rise the next morning before the bright sun
And haste to examine what Fortune had sent.
" At the grey of the morn, ere Aurora was seen,
We were rous'd from our beds of repose ;
And being refresh'd with a mug on the green,
Went to look for our game-killing foes.
" The warren was near, something less than a mile;
Our landlord, who longed for the warrener's sport,
Was witty, and sang us a song to beguile
The time we'd to lose in the needful resort.
" At length we arriv'd where the rabbits abound,
As each scamper'd away to his burrow, or gap ;
But, more to divert us, we presently found
A swinging old badger secure in the trap.
" We bagg'd him in haste, and return'd whence we came,
'Twere folly a moment of time to delay ;
The terriers that follow'd were all of true game,
So we bore him all jocund in triumph away.
13 Dr. Fothergill, of East Ham.