The Eton College hunt : $b A short history of beagling at EtonCrossley, Anthony Crommelin
History
The Eton College hunt : $b A short history of beagling at Eton
Crossley, Anthony Crommelin
Beagling; Eton College Hunt -- History
“I think Lock looks after the hounds pretty well, but a Master must show
to Lock that he (the Master) intends to look after his pack, or Lock may
be inclined to impose.”—A. M. Grenfell, 1892.
“Care ought to be taken with Lock, who does not look after the hounds
satisfactorily, unless he is made to understand that he is _not_ boss of
the show.”—H. B. Creswell, 1894.
“As regards Lock and the hounds, I think there is not much fault to find.
The hounds were always in good condition, and I think he took a great
deal of trouble with them. The way to manage him is to make him clearly
understand that you are boss.”—G. Sanford Hodgson, 1895.
“Lock is very pig-headed!”—G. E. F. Ward, 1896.
“I entirely disagree with many former Masters, who say that Lock looks
after the hounds badly, and I am sure that no beagles could have been
fitter the whole season than these were. The only thing about him is
that he is a bit pig-headed and always wants to feed the hounds on
‘greaves.’”—R. Milvain, 1898.
However, it must be remembered that having no paddock adjoining the
kennels was a terrible drawback, and made the task of keeping hounds fit
and the kennels clean infinitely harder than it would otherwise have been.
Lock must have been an extraordinary character. He used to say to the
whips as they walked along the road: “Pop your whip, Sir; pop your whip,”
every other minute without any reason whatever. Another habit he had was
that of accusing any rustic he met at the end of any sort of a hunt of
“picking up the hare.” He used to threaten the unfortunate individual
with a whip, and the more boys he had round him at the time the more
insistent he was.
Here is an incident of R. A. Ward’s Mastership:
“Hounds bustled her through Mr. Taylor’s covert and were close behind
her, and would without doubt have repeated our feat of the previous week
of killing three hares in one day, when bang! was heard followed by a
volley of oaths from Lock, and we found a sportsman (?), Mr. Haynes by
name, had shot our hare in front of the hounds. Lock immediately called
upon the field to place our shooter in a duck pond which was near; but
the latter thought discretion the better part of valour, making off as
hard as he could go.”
Before we close this period there are two letters to be recorded, the
first from Mr. C. M. Black, first whip in 1896.
“I have been looking over old _Chronicles_ and old photographs—in fact,
to quote from J. K. S., I have been raking the glacier of years gone by,
but really I am afraid my rake has not produced anything very exciting. I
ran with the beagles for four seasons and was in the photograph for three
years. I don’t know whether you still have a photograph, but in my time
one was always taken of the Master, whips and a selection of the ‘first
flighters,’ and when fairly junior one was very pleased at being asked to
come up for the photograph.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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