78 THE TEINITY FOOT BEAGLES 



each hound cost one shilling a week, and in another that they cost 

 two. Mr. Rouse Ball says that they paid ten shillings (!) a week each, 

 which was, as he himself says, expensive ; but it included the cost of 

 their conveyance to the meet in an open, two-wheeled market cart, 

 with no other shelter than a pig-net. 



The hounds took their pension at one part of this period at the 

 Merton Arms, opposite Magdalene, and at another at the Plough and 

 Harrow, Madingley Eoad. There is some uncertainty as to details — 

 my informants have only their memories to rely on — so that sometimes 

 statements are conflicting.^ Under such circumstances it is supposed 

 to be a historian's duty to exercise his critical faculties in sifting the 

 evidence ; but this I do not propose to do. On the contrary, I shall 

 content myself, like Uncle Remus, by giving you the annals of this 

 uneventful time " as they was gun ter me." The discrepancies are 

 quite small, and the reader may enjoy exercising his own wits upon 

 their " reconciliation." 



When Mr. Currey gave up his work at Trinity and became 

 H.M. Inspector of Schools, the Mastership seems to have gone into 

 " Commission " for a season — W. H. Rodwell hunting the hounds and 

 of course acting as Master. The arrangement was probably beneficial, 

 as, once a tradition is formed, it has a better chance of establishing 

 itself under an oligarchy than under a monarchy. 



The subjoined letter from H. C. Howard, who became Master in 

 the year following, is our evidence. It was written in 1895, and there- 

 fore presumably to K. Walker, who was then Master, or rather hunts- 

 man, as the Mastership was again in Commission at that time, and 

 there was then an attempt to get a history of T.F.B. written, wliich, 

 however, came to nothing. 



Letter from H. C. How^ard 



Greystoke Castle, Penrith, 

 May 12, 1895. 



Dear Sir — I am sorry to have been some time replying to your 



letter, but have been away from home. I cannot quite recollect 



1 Mine host of the Plough and Harrow, Mr. Free, sen., wlio drove the hounds out 

 in the van for many years, and whose son now does so, says that the hounds -were 

 never kept there, but always at the Merton Arms. 



