84 THE TRINITY FOOT BEAGLES 



But what became of the hare ? Here there is room for great 

 freedom of opinion. She might have gone to ground in one of the 

 staircases, to ultimately make a Sunday dinner for some bedder or 

 gyp. Or she may have got through and turned into King's, and so 

 back over another bridge, or she may have swum the river and so 

 escaped by Scholar's Meadow to open country, or some long-haired 

 Eabian — or whatever answered to a Fabian in those days — may there 

 have screened her from the brutal attentions of an embryo Squire- 

 archy, or (and this would have been poetic justice indeed !) she may 

 have run into the Clare kitchens and so found her way to High 

 Table to be eaten by the Master and Fellows ! Who can tell ? 



After writing the above there came another letter from Mr. 

 Wardale as follows : — 



Letter 



Clare College, March 1, 1912. 



Deak Sir — I asked our College Butler, who has been here since 

 1866 and has an extraordinary memory for old stories about the 

 College, whether he remembered about the Beagles and the hunt in 

 Clare. He at once replied, " Yes ! It must have been thirty-five or 

 forty years ago they hilled (!) the hare in the Master's garden across 

 the river, and the Master was terribly angry about it." 



I asked him whether the huntsman requested leave to pursue 

 the hare, and he said that the hounds were eating it when the 

 Master came out. I am interested, and you will, I think, be so also, 

 as it agrees with the suggestion which I made in my letter to you as 

 to the scene of the incident. — Believe me, yours sincerely, 



(Signed) T. E. Wardale. 



Now what are we to make of this ? " What the Butler saw " was 

 clearly that which Mr. Cropper describes, but they did not see eye to 

 eye, for the Butler saw it in the Master's garden and also the hare 

 Ijeing " broken up," whereas the original narrative places it in the 

 Court, and laments that the hare was not brought to hand. The 

 whole episode, or rather the telling of it, makes a most interesting 



