84 THE ETON COLLEGE HUNT. 



Station to find out if there were any restrictions about hunting. 

 They were decidedly vague about the whole affair, but advised 

 me to write to the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to find 

 out if a permit was necessary or not. This I did, and on 

 receiving no answer from them I got leave to go up to Town 

 and stir them up a bit. When I got there I was told that I 

 could collect the hounds from unmuzzled areas, but as we were in 

 a special area we were on no account to hunt them. 



*' This at first seemed to be the final stroke of bad luck against 

 the hunt, and at that time there was apparently no chance of 

 restarting them in the Easter Half, owing to the fact that there 

 would be no person left who knew anything about the country. 

 But nothing daunted I decided to collect the pack here, because, 

 if the muzzling order came off in January, as was expected, they 

 would be ready for hunting. 



*' When I started to collect them, I discovered that I could 

 only get very few here owing to the accursed muzzling order, and 

 also to certain unaccountable circumstances. ' Bellman,' 

 * Cautious ' and ' Comrade ' were in muzzled areas and could not 

 be shifted. ' Bruiser ' had died a natural death. Mrs. Barnard 

 had knocked * Spinster ' on the head, as she had grown too old 

 and fat. The hound * Rambler,' which had been adopted by 

 Champion in 1916, walked away as curiously as he had come. 

 But the final blow came when I heard that a boy, Gage, had 

 sent out to Germany both 'Caroline' and ' Grappler,' as he 

 thought the E.C.H. had finally stopped. This naturally 

 reduced the pack considerably, and, had it not been for the 

 kindness of Mr. St. George, we could never have hoped to carry 

 on. Mr. St. George, whose son was killed in France, and had 

 been a whip in 1912, presented the hunt with two young couple 

 by ' Whitby ' out of ' Melody,' both of which had formerly 

 belonged to the E.C.H. and had been given to him. If these 

 shape as well in the field as they do in the kennels, we ought to 

 be able to carry on till better times come. 



*'*Havvy' (the late Mr. R. S. de Havilland) managed to 

 persuade Glyn to stay on for one more Half so as to be Master. 

 He is the last of the old stagers. I mean by that that he is the 

 last person who was noticeable before the hounds were stopped 

 in 1917. I wish him the best of luck, though I fear he will have 

 a tough job. Floreant canes Etonenses.''^ 



And so, in the following January, some two hundred 

 Etonians were once more treated to the delights of beagling after 

 a lapse of three years since Parker hunted the E.C.H. It was 

 not a good season so far as regards kills. How could it have 



