ROWLAND HUNT AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 45 



school cap and muffler, with dark knickerbockers and stockings 

 of very varied designs, with the rather picturesque brown velvet 

 Norfolk jacket as a quite distinctive feature. 

 Mr. Gerard Streatfeild writes : 



"Your letter recalls an excellent season and many happy 

 recollections. The year I was whip (Beach master) the master 

 and whips assumed the velveteen coat as uniform for the first 

 time. Rupert Anderson the previous season (master, E. K. 

 Douglas), one of the whips, wore a velveteen coat throughout the 

 season and was duly admired ; so much so that Archie Beach 

 copied it for the hunt the next season, and it has stuck. At the 

 end of the season we secured two bag-foxes from (I think) 

 Leadenhall Market. The result was not brilliant, the first 

 getting away from hounds and getting into Stoke Park, which 

 at that time was strictly preserved for game, and we heard a good 

 deal on the matter; the second fox refused to run at all and 

 finally took refuge behind a stable gate in Dorney Village, and I 

 have a lively recollection of being told off to collect him from 

 thence, no pleasant job as he was very nasty ; he was returned to 

 his bag, and what his ultimate fate was I fail to remember. 



" Dan Lascelles (Hon. D. H. Lascelles) carried a whip most of 

 the season, as Hawke (Lord Hawke) did not come out much as 

 he was anxious to win the School Steeplechase, and thought 

 beagling might make him stale. Hawke was offered the master- 

 ship before Beach, but declined the honour and selected being 

 first whip." 



On the very first day that Beach took out the beagles a hare 

 began to swim the river with half the pack behind her. She was 

 brought to land by a man in a boat and was killed shortly 

 afterwards. 



Beach was one of the few masters who entered in the Beagle 

 Book the names of those who ran well. On one occasion the 

 name of Aikman occurs, now Col. Robertson-Aikman, who has 

 been Master of Foxhounds for five and Harriers for twenty-two 

 years. He won more of the prizes for harriers at Peterborough 

 Hound Show than any one else, and his sideboard is covered with 



CUDS. 



Of the Eton Masters at this time, Mr. Vidal, Mr. Cockshott, 

 Mr. Marindin and Mr. Bourchier were very kind, the two former 

 on more than one occasion obtaining leave for bill-days, i.e. a 

 bill off boys' dinner and Absence. Mr. Vidal left Eton in 1881, 

 much to the regret of everyone concerned with the E.C.H. A 

 more loyal supporter of beagling at Eton than he could not have. 



