The Rev. S. D. Lockwood 159 



history and spent hours in studying the ways of birds and 

 beasts, only drawing the Hne at things that crawl, such as 

 beetles, which he did not like. He would go his gentle way like 

 this from Monday until Friday, and then on Saturday he would 

 go out with the Heythrop and ride " like the dickens," as I 

 have heard it expressed, and as though he had a spare neck in 

 each pocket. 



No one who had not seen him on a horse would have taken 

 him for a sportsman, nor was he one except in his love for 

 hunting ; once on a horse he was a different man. The book- 

 worm was transformed into the hardest of hard-riding top- 

 sawyers whenever he drew on his well-worn hunting-boots and 

 sallied out on one of the odd-looking screws he bought cheap and 

 schooled into useful hunters for his own. use. 



An awe-stricken sportsman, after watching him take the 

 locked railway -gates of a level crossing as an in-and-out jump, 

 once ventured to murmur his congratulations, but the vicar's 

 only reply was, " Well, you needn't tell my wife about it ! " 



Even on the best of mounts one might be forgiven for 

 avoiding such stout and high gates as the railway companies 

 affect, especially with steel rails to land on, and the second gate 

 to take practically from a stand ; but when it is remembered 

 that he nearly always rode little horses that some people would 

 unhesitatingly call screws, it becomes a noteworthy feat, but 

 quite in keeping with his usual methods. His mount in the 

 photograph of him is typical. A finer example of an ewe neck 

 could not be found outside the pictures of Rossetti's damsels. 



" If you want to see sport, you must be where hounds are," 

 was his hunting motto, and he consistently lived up to it. In a 

 magazine article published some years ago on the members of 

 the Heythrop hunt, there is a reference to him. " We must 

 not omit to mention the Rev. Davis Lockwood of King- 

 ham, of whom it is said that he can get over a bigger place on a 

 small horse than any member of the field." 



Strangers out with the Heythrop were often advised to take 

 the old parson, wearing the out-of-date tall hat and old cord 

 breeches, as a pilot, but very few ever managed to do it success- 

 fully. He was fortunate in only having one really bad fall in 

 his life, and that was in 1898, when he broke four ribs and also 

 probably injured his heart, for he often complained of it 



