“The E.C.H. met for the first time this season at the kennels. There was a large muster. The hounds were laid on in a wheat field of Gough’s adjoining the S.W.R. and ran at a tremendous pace down the grass meadows, crossing the S.W.R. and into Datchet plantation, in the plough beyond which a check ensued, which allowed time for the remainder of the field to get up with hounds. Some cold hunting now ensued, but hitting the scent off in one of Cantrell’s fields near Ditton Park they carried it at a great pace as if for Langley Church. The pace however was too good, and they ran into him in a field adjoining the London Road.
“After an interval of about ten minutes the hounds were laid on in a field adjoining Ditton Park, and, the scent having considerably improved, it was but few could live with them. The fencing here was very severe, numerous being the purls, and some stiff water-jumps intervened to cool the ardour of gentlemen who were too ambitious of shewing in the front. It was evident from the terrific pace they were now holding that nothing could live before them. And it was not long before they ran into their prey just as he was crossing the Upton Road.”
There is a complaint at the end of the field pressing on the pack, “and that there was far more noise than is consistent with the decorum of the hunting field.”
Here is a merry account:
“The running of the hounds could be seen all the way from Riding Court up to the Langley Road, and it was pronounced by all to be faultless. While a drag was being sent back two fields were drawn blank. The hounds, having been laid on, ran from Langley Broom down to Datchet Wood. The way in which they swung their own casts was the admiration of all beholders. ‘Hark! forrard!’ was again the cry as they bowled like marbles over the crest of the hill, making the welkin ring with their melody. When in the bottom they bent to the left; each hound scoring to the cry, as with the pack at her heels puss sought the friendly coverts of Ditton Park, having crossed the line which the drag had taken in full sight of the hounds. The huntsman and first whip, kindly assisted by Mr. Lewis, soon got the hounds out again. Home was now the word, and home we went after genuine sport, the field declaring that the only doubt was which was the better run of the two.”
The Beagling Book of this period abounds in quotations from the inimitable Mr. Jorrocks.
“Better to rove in fields for health unbought
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught,”
is a very true maxim, and Lewis has very aptly applied it to Beagling. Even as early as Thackeray’s season, however, they killed one wild hare after a good run. But a drag was the usual order, and it was poor sport really for boys especially because hounds ran as if glued to the scent. Occasionally this was varied with a rabbit, but just as the hare almost invariably escaped, so did the rabbit almost invariably succumb before two fields had been crossed.