“On one occasion, when we had found at Turner’s Nurseries we ran the hare back, and found Lock very busy stopping up the holes in the fence, so that if she ran in she would find it difficult to get out.
“On another occasion we ran a hare dead beat into these same nurseries, and Lock stood quite still in the rows of young green trees, about 18 inches high and very thick, and as the hare came jumping along the rows, which she had to do as they were so thick, he hit at her, but mistimed it and missed her, much to his disgust.
“I was hunting the beagles one day when we ran a hare to the river about 50 yards above the Victoria Bridge. She plunged in, with every hound after her, and it was a very pretty sight to see hare and hounds all in the river together. She swam under the bridge, and they were gaining on her fast and were just about to catch her about 6 feet from the bank. Seeing this, I got hold of a bush with one hand and tried to save the hare with the other. I got hold of something by the ear, but when I pulled it out it was one of the hounds, and we never saw the hare again. I was disgusted, especially as I lost my hold and fell into the river, going clean under.”
Parker had hard luck in his second season owing to the floods, which are always liable to be bad in the low-lying Thames Valley. Indeed, during the great flood of 1894, Sayer, who now holds the post of verger in Chapel, swam across the road outside Baldwin’s Bec (then Mr. H. E. Luxmoore’s, now Mr. Stone’s) and back before breakfast on one pleasant November morning.
There is an amusing incident recorded by Lord Newtown-Butler. After meeting by invitation at Horton Manor they found a hare which successively swam both the Colne and the Brent. Of the latter river he says: “The cold water of the Brent proved no obstacle to the whips and several of the Field, who courageously plunging in swam across. One lucky individual got two young ladies to row him across.” This hare crossed two more streams, and was eventually abandoned owing to the owner of a nursery garden, into which hounds had run their beaten hare, turning the hounds off his land. The run lasted three hours.
On April 15th, 1886, there is recorded an interesting agreement with Lock, which throws some light on the financial management of the pack. Barnett agreed to the hunt paying Lock £84 for the keep and food of a pack between eighteen and twenty-two couples of hounds. This did not include extra expenses and only referred to the Easter Half. It also mentions that the expenses generally amount to nearly £40, which seems to show that Lock did very well considering he was only burdened with them for about twelve weeks.
Mr. Claud Luttrell, a prominent beagler in those times, writes:
“Barnard made me a whip after a long exercise with the beagles, with Harry Boden and myself whipping in; my hound language, which I had learnt from my father’s old huntsman Tom Sebright, decided Barnard in my favour, and the other two whips were Willoughby and Barnett.
“I am writing this letter with photographs of that year’s beagle group on the wall in front of me; Barnard has a hound called Landlord in his lap—a light-coloured hound who helped us to kill more hares than any other hound—wonderful nose and to drive like a foxhound. I have Gamble in my lap, and I can’t remember the names of the others who appear in the group; the prominent members of the hunt who are in the photograph are Guy Nickalls, R. C. Gosling and his brother Willie, Tattersall, Holland, Christian, Pechell, Green, Lord Montagu, Crum-Ewing, Dickinson, Vernon and Stratton.
“The beagles were kept at Lock’s Turkish Baths, and old Lock used to welcome us back at the end of the day in his bathing drawers—he had a huge stomach and wore very small drawers, so was rather an unconventional kennel huntsman in appearance, but the hounds were very fond of him, and his kennel management was excellent. His son, who was a famous runner, used to help him. The kennels were half way down the High Street, and the whips used to stand in the street ‘after 12’ practising cracking their whips, much to their own edification if not to that of the other frequenters of the street.