Champion always has a circle of boys clustered round him on Sunday after twelves, and it is one of the greatest pleasures I know at Eton to go to the kennels and talk hunting with him. Once after a good run early in the present season I had to go and tell a farmer about some cattle which had broken through a fence in the Ditton country, and I reached the kennels just in time to see hounds fed after hunting. Afterwards I had tea with the Champions, and a very good tea too, and when I got up to go home I found a beautiful ripe apple ready for me to take. We yarned all the time, and he told me of his Yorkshire days and then of the time he was with a pack of bassets, “that ’ud run an old woman down a path; I’ve see’d ’em do it, Sir,” and then also he mentioned the accident that put an end to his fox-hunting career and which did not occur when actually hunting. It must have been a great blow to him, especially as he was the eldest son of so great a huntsman; but he is devoted to beagling now, and takes an immense pride in his hounds.
Champion, when he was young, was an excellent runner and won a great many long distance races. To-day he scarcely ever goes out of a walk, but he is always viewing the hunted hare and is almost always in at the kill. He knows the run of the hares so well that he is continually getting very useful views.
A TYPICAL INCIDENT.
The other day I went to the kennels to try and get him to yarn about the Grenfells. He was not to be drawn, however, and was much too full of the defeat of Tishy in the Cesarewitch for me to secure many stories. At last I asked him how they behaved to each other.
“Ah, there you have me puzzled,” said Champion. “I never knew what to make of ’em. They used to curse each other somethin’ awful before every one. But they were good friends at heart, I believe.”
It was singularly hard luck that Francis Grenfell should have been prevented from beagling after the first three weeks of the Half by a bad attack of bronchitis. It was typical of his generous manly nature to say that “being twins it was only right that we should be first and second and that I should hunt my share and then fall ill and give him his. Throughout he has been my right hand, and to him as much as to me is due the honour of having built new kennels to start the hunt on such a firm footing.”
Grenfell’s other two whips were E. B. Denison and H. K. Longman, son of the Master of the E.C.H. in 1870 and 1871. To him belongs the distinction of being the only Master of the E.C.H. who has been the son of a former Master, with the exception of S. A. Parker, Master in 1917, son of A. E. Parker, Master in 1882 and 1883. Grenfell’s actual season calls for no particular comment. No more does that of H. K. Longman, who succeeded him in office. In fact this season was the worst so far as regards kills since the new pack was obtained, with the exception of the 1920 season when the kennels contained only six couples of old hounds. However, at the end of the Easter Half, 1900, there was a balance of about £300.
It was extremely fortunate that Longman should have been succeeded by R. G. Howard-Vyse (now Col.), the son of the Master and owner of the Stoke Place Beagles. Mr. Howard-Vyse (the father) took the champion cup at Peterborough many times with his beagles, and before Christmas had the right of hunting over the same country as the E.C.H. His son hunted the E.C.H. for two seasons and did much to improve the pack. During his Mastership he obtained leave from the Head Master to hunt first from St. Andrew’s Day (Nov. 30th) and then from Nov. 15th.[7] He also made arrangements with his father, who was always exceedingly kind to the E.C.H. and never made any objections to their hunting previous to Christmas, arranging his meets so as to avoid clashing with them.