Of the relics of such a forest we were soon to have a pleasing view. From Dunmow to Bishop Stortford, as one of the guide-books has it, there is nothing of interest. We followed this high road along the railway, which did not make for beauty, for some four miles until, climbing a slight acclivity, we were at Takeley, where the church is said to possess a very fine Perpendicular font-cover. Such minutiæ, however, are not for the motorist. There we turned sharply to the left and, passing along the brow of a gentle hill for three miles, we were at Hatfield Broad Oak, amid true forest scenery of wide stretches of turf bordered by wild woodland. Whether the storied oak, carefully fenced around, still stands, this deponent is not absolutely prepared to avouch; but his eye was arrested by a tree which would certainly serve well to represent it. It was good going hence, among charming sylvan scenery, through Hatfield Heath to Harlow, for five miles, and at Harlow, as at Hatfield Heath or at Takeley for that matter, we might have run to the right a little and so have struck the most eastern of the two main roads from Cambridge to London. But we were out to see the country; so we stuck to the byways, well worthy of following for their own sakes and for ours, and we had our reward in a pretty picture. Passing along an unfenced road, having broad stretches of turf backed by woodlands on either side, we saw in the distance the pink coats of three or four riders, and soon we were going slowly and gingerly past a staunch pack of hounds returning to kennel under the charge of huntsman and whips after their day's sport. They were good horses, workmanlike hounds, a thoroughly characteristic English sight and one which, somehow or other, one never sees from a train, partly perhaps because masters of hounds are prone, for obvious reasons, to avoid the vicinity of railways as much as possible. This little spectacle was secured by making a detour from Harlow almost to Chipping Ongar, and High Ongar and thence back to Epping, from which we returned to London as nearly as might be by the route taken on our outward journey. This involved a few more miles of travelling than by the main road, but it produced a very good general impression of the character of the forest country. It is an impression well worth treasuring in remembrance. It also produced an abiding respect for Mrs. Coleman's topographical memory. Not once or twice but many times was this lady able to point out the right turning and to save us from going astray. Once only did she fail, and that was after we had entered the continuous houses of London. The failure was but the exception proving the rule; indeed it may not even have been that; for the din of the streets may have drowned her warning voice. Be that as it may the return to London was not quite so artistic in point of route as the exit had been.