"FEESHER" PEASE AND "JUDY" CAER-ELLISON 173 



The truth is that we were in those days extremely, almost 

 morbidly, sensitive of being regarded as having any connection with 

 any form of athletics, and the appearance of a stray member of the 

 " Hare and Hounds," a paper-chasing athletic club, set all our defen- 

 sive bristles erect in half a minute. He might be a magnificent 

 runner and keep with the hounds all the way, but we would observe 

 that he knew nothing of skirting, or of saving himself by any know- 

 ledge of the shifts of a hunted hare ; his running was fine running, 

 perhaps, but it wasn't running to hounds, so he was felt to be no 

 sportsman and therefore to merit no trophy. Beagling is hunting, 

 and we went out not for exercise but to see hounds hunt hares, and 

 to learn as much of the business as we could, including the names 

 and characters of individual hounds; the exercise of running was a 

 quite subordinate consideration, though, as a matter of lact, we ran 

 strenuously. I don't think we could have put the feeling into words, 

 but that was what the plain cashmere scarf symbolised ! 



About this time some one invented the hunting stock, which 

 served exactly the same purpose, both symboHc and utilitarian, as 

 the plain scarf, and it was much smarter and more horsey, and we 

 began to wear them, and also breeches of a more equestrian cut. 

 BeagHng is, as you must never forget, hunting, and hunting is horsey, 

 therefore a beagler is horsey, although he does his hunting afoot.^ 

 Moreover, the more horsey one looked the more completely one was 

 dissociated from the mere athlete. Such strict yet unwritten sump- 

 tuary laws are signs of youth, and of course everyone actively connected 

 with T.F.B. is quite young. Even myself, the historian, and Bob 

 Eloate, the Kennelman, were quite young twenty and odd years ago. 



One episode must be recorded from Pease's year. We ran from 

 Hauxton or somewhere to Foulmire, where there was nothing to eat 

 at the inn and we ravenous, so we raided the family at tea, and 

 G. A. MiUer took bread and jam with biles in it out of a child's hand 

 and ate it. We were also very short of tobacco, and had a long tramp 

 home, so we shared out what we had as carefully as shipwrecked 

 mariners. 



' If the T.F.B. hunt gets up races, they are not cross-country runs, but jioiut to 

 point races on horseback. 



