74 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. 



Essex and Suffolk," he wrote, "have had a brilliant season, 

 except Conyers's, who has persisted season after season, in 

 defiance of every advice, and one, would think, common 

 sense, in keeping on poor old Holmes, who really ought to 

 have been consigned, at least ten years ago, to a snug 

 cottage and sinecure pension for the remainder of his days." 

 Tradition has assigned to Holmes a fate very different 

 from that sketched out by the above -quoted critic. The 

 story has been told how, on going down one night into the 

 kennel to quiet hounds while fighting (he having at the time 

 nothing on but his shirt and top boots), they first savaged 

 him, and then ate him clean up, save his bones, boots and 

 whip, which were found next morning on search being 

 made for the missing huntsman. As this gruesome story 

 has been told of at least a dozen other hunts, it may happily 

 be dismissed as mythical, though it was confidently related 

 in Essex within forty years of the time when Holmes was 

 hunting the hounds. The absurdity of the story is possibly 

 shown by the fact of its having been so often related in 

 proof of the theory that the hounds did not know the hunts- 

 man or whipper-in, for it has been told of both function- 

 aries, when not habited in a red coat, as though it were the 

 custom for hunt servants to wear pink all day and every 

 day ; but as eminent O.C.'s are represented wearing wig 



