THE DRUID 



59 



find how excited he used to be as his hat went to the back of 

 his head and he screamed the " who-whooj) ! " over some fox 

 he had handled ! On one occasion, late in the season —perhayxs 

 I ought not to tell it, but the Colonel will foroive me — he 

 screamed too soon, whcni, after running a fox to ground in 

 Weald Coppice, it was decided to dig- with()ut the precaution 

 of taking hounds away ; the moment the fox was dug down 

 to, out came the Colonel's holloa, when the hounds rushed in 

 and killed two vixens. 



The Hunt breakfast at Goldings to fmish the season was 

 not the only good thing we missed when the Colonel, on the 

 score of health, had to give up hunting, for the Hunt lost the 

 personality of one of its staunchest and most powerful friends, 

 and the Master an aide-de-camp in checking forward young 

 thrusters that could ill be dispensed with. 



The Druid 



"The Druid." A perfect specimen of the luultuiii in pai^jo 

 was one of the four best hunters ever owned by that well- 

 known thruster to hounds. Colonel Samuel Howard, C.B., of 

 (foldings, Loughton. After making his mark in Essex during 

 the season 1872 and 1873 never once putting a foot wrong- — 

 and those who knew the Colonel in those halcyon days will 

 appreciate what this means, for his horses were always asked 

 to go the shortest way — he went into Surrey, and became in 

 the hands of a cousin of the Colonel's one of the leading 

 horses with the Surrey Stag and the Old Surrey Fox-hounds, 

 frequently hopping over timber which no one else could 

 tackle. That the Colonel parted with him with great reluc- 

 tance is as certainly true as that most of us would give our 

 ears to possess one like him. 



