14 THE ETON COLLEGE HUNT, 



*' Lewis went to Merton ; rather distinguished himself there 

 as a rider — Merton being then a hunting College — and died 

 suddenly- in his room there in 1869. 



*' In 1865 A. J. Pound became Master. Pound was a 

 remarkable character — intellectually rather below the average, 

 but endowed with some originality and an exceedingly strong 

 will. I have sometimes doubted whether he was quite ' right ' ; 

 he looked at the world and mankind from a point of view entirely 

 his own, and made no effort to adapt himself to convention of 

 any kind. But he was thoroughly honest and straightforward ; 

 the kindest and most faithful of friends. 



" He subsequently went to the Bar, the last profession for 

 which he was fitted, was for a time a magistrate in British 

 Guiana, married an American, and latterly fell into pecuniary 

 difficulties and took his own life. 



" His eldest son is a distinguished sailor. 



" Pound took up the Beagles seriously. He got together 

 quite a decent little pack, and began to hunt hares 

 regularly. 



*' 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. Tinda.l and Gosset were whips, and 

 subsequently Armitstead, who was a very fine cross-countrj^ 

 runner, and at Oxford an oar of some repute. 



