“Colnbrook Cross Roads. We drew the Island blank but found directly we got outside it and ran well along the side of Richings Park, which she threaded and broke again for the Colne, which she crossed and then recrossed, causing very difficult hunting. Then having got some way before us she began a series of tricks enough to puzzle Old Nick himself, but old Limber seemed to understand her dodges, and it was wonderful to see the way he picked out her doubles and then brought the whole pack round him in a second with one of his well-known notes so welcome to hounds as well as huntsman. We went on thus very slowly for some way when luckily our hare got up again and we got on better terms; but we soon got on to some black fallow and they had to hunt every yard and at last to be lifted on to some grass, where they hit it off again and ran nearly back to the plantation, where she turned round and lay down by the Colne. She got up in view, and they ran well for some little time. But getting on to some black fallow again, they could not even own the line, so Hunt lifted them over and they soon took it up on the other side and ran pretty well over a road and round a pretty big field, where we again viewed her, and this time she went decidedly groggy. She ran some way down a road (bless the roads!) and we had a little difficulty, but we soon got on her in a wheat field, where we viewed her, and she had been joined by another hare. This was a bad job, and Hunt felt rather up a tree. However he halloed to inform the fresh hare of our arrival. Accordingly, when they got to the ditch at the bottom, they separated, and Hunt by a great effort just managed to whip them off the fresh hare, and as our old hare had stopped behind a tree, not being able to get over the ditch, when Hunt got over it he found Mr. Portal at the bottom of the ditch (it was about four feet deep), having got hold of the hare, with the pack worrying and tearing at the hare on top of him. The pack also were most of them in the ditch, and we had quite a job to get him out. Why on earth the hounds did not bite him nobody knew, for he wouldn’t loose the hare and neither would the hounds, so we had to pull the whole boiling up together. He luckily escaped with a scratch or two, and looked very lovely when he appeared looking rather as if his clothes were made of damp mud. The time was 2 hours 25 minutes. An excellent performance for hounds, huntsman and whips, for not only was the scent execrably bad on the fallows, but the hare was one of the strongest and biggest ‘whatever was seen,’ as Mr. Jorrocks would say. It was quite the finest hare Hunt ever killed.”
ROWLAND HUNT (CENTRE) WITH HIS WHIPS AND HOUNDS.
E. K. Douglas (the late Canon E. K. Douglas, of Cheveley, Newmarket) closed the Journal Book of this good season with the following remarks:
“This ended the season of 1877, one of which the E.C.H. may be justly proud and which we can hardly ever expect to be equalled. No less than seventeen hares were killed and almost every day we enjoyed a thoroughly good run. We cannot praise too highly the exertions of Mr. Hunt, the Master, to whose wonderful skill and pluck the excellent sport enjoyed throughout the two seasons in which he carried the horn is entirely due. His loss cannot be too deeply deplored, while the E.C.H. owe their thanks to Mr. Portal for his untiring energy in the field.
“Owing to the exertions of Rowland Hunt the pack of 1877 was brought into a most efficient condition, and by judicious selection and drafts the foundation of an excellent pack has been made, which it will be the duty of future Masters to maintain.”
One other great reform is due to Rowland Hunt. He realised the necessity of increasing the subscribers, and consequently he obtained leave for 120 instead of 70 boys to run with the beagles. When this limit of 120 became obsolete I cannot ascertain, but no such limit exists to-day.
And now for Lock. Probably he was about the most unconventional kennel huntsman that ever existed. He was short and fat and kept a Turkish Bath in the High Street. How Hunt discovered his capacities for keeping a pack of hounds is a mystery, for he was always to be found in his premises attired in a very brief pair of scarlet bathing drawers.
Lock was quite a character. He grew to have a wonderful knowledge of the country. He seldom went out of a walk and yet always seemed to find his way to the kill. When he was out beagling was the only time when he doffed his bathing drawers and substituted a pair of brown knickerbockers. The hounds were very fond of him. According to up-to-date ideas he did not do them well, but he did his best and kept hounds fairly fit throughout the season. The kennels themselves were rather a ramshackle construction, and not really fit for housing a pack of hounds. But they were an improvement on the old ones, especially as the hounds only spent three months in the year there; and they were considered sufficient by many capable masters right up to the time when the twin Grenfells, those two great Etonians who as every one knows fell in the service of their country, took upon themselves the task of erecting new and up-to-date kennels.
