MODERN BEAGLING 229 



hardly credible that such good sport can be had under such natural, 

 not to say primitive, conditions in the British Islands of these days. 

 Most men who must stay at home and yet wish to get clear of 

 civilisation, succeed only by putting to sea in yachts of small tonnage 

 and working their way round the coast without professional assist- 

 ance. The two sorts of life have, by the way, much in common, 

 including the need for a very good temper when several men dispense 

 with the conventions and live au naturel at very close quarters." 



As a matter of personal history it is not perhaps irrelevant to 

 say that N. 0. Walker, who is now a Director of " Pickfords," and 

 has a house on the water's edge in Portsmouth Harbour, where 

 his firm has some coasting trade in motor barges, has become a 

 keen and capable amateur sailor-man, and is skipper and owner of 

 the Wild Duck. The following is from a letter of his : — 



" I wonder who is now living round Shelford. J. B. Close of 

 course left some time ago, and has just died. His house, when I 

 was up, used to be a great rendezvous on Sundays for boating and 

 beao-lins men, and one Bagnall used to live at Little Shelford, a 

 great man for spaniels. But I have not seen him for years. [F. 

 Bacrnall is still at Little Shellbrd. — F. C. K.] He married a Miss 

 Dunn, whose brother used to receive 

 us at Little Shelford in my days, 

 when we hunted the country round 

 the Monument between Little Shel- 

 ford and Newton." 



All beagling round the Shelfords 

 is now given up, as there are now too 

 many hares. J. B. Close was an old 

 rowing Blue, who came up to coach 

 First Trinity and take them head. ,. 



He was of the cheeriest, and had a 



wonderful voice when coaching which would have been perfect for 

 cheering hounds. He was a shortish, heavily built man, and used to 

 ride his own huge hunters on the tow-path. I was myself also 

 coaching boats at that time, and caricatures of us both appeared in 

 the Granta and are here reproduced. 



