“Our great difficulty was the shortness of the time at our disposal. ‘After 12,’ the interval between 11 o’clock school and dinner at 2, after allowing for time spent in changing, we seldom saw even an hour’s actual hunting. Too short a time for beagles to run down a hare. ‘After 4,’ from Chapel to lock-up, was little better, especially as hares always made it a rule to run away from home, compelling us often to whip off in order to get back in time. One of my most abiding recollections is that of long trots back from the parts beyond Langley and Slough to get back to Absence. “Pound adopted a scheme of his own of hunting in the morning. With one or two choice spirits he would arrange that we should be early at the ‘Saying Lesson,’ then the invariable early school, thus getting away soon after 7.30, run across to the ‘Dolphin’ at Slough (which stood on the site of Aldin House where old John Hawtrey subsequently flourished), breakfast on beer and biscuits and hunt until it was time to get back to 11 o’clock school. That gave us a good two hours’ actual hunting, and we began killing hares pretty often. “I was Pound’s first whip and principal coadjutor for two years, and it nearly killed me! In fact I was sent home in the middle of the Summer Half of 1866 supposed to be threatened with consumption. Tindal and Gosset were whips, and subsequently Armitstead, who was a very fine cross-country runner, and at Oxford an oar of some repute. “Of the 1867 season I have no recollection. I was not allowed to run for reasons of health, and I cannot even remember the name of the Master; possibly this was the year of amalgamation.” Here is the first run recorded in the Journal Book: “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.”