i6o Sportsmen Parsons in Peace and War 



afterwards, and it was heart-failure that killed him eventually. 



He was faithful to the Heythrop all through his hunting 

 career, and never hunted with any other pack except Captain 

 Evans's harriers when a small boy. He was hunting with the 

 Heythrop before even Mr. Albert Brassey began his long 

 mastership in 1873. The country, the pack, the people, he 

 loved them all. To him a hound was a beautiful and wonderful 

 thing, and he walked Heythrop puppies for thirty years, suffering 

 the unending worries of their presence about the vicarage 

 uncomplainingly. Like so many regular puppy-walkers, he was 

 most unlucky in the matter of winning prizes at the puppy 

 shows, and never won a cup until the year before his death, when 

 he took second prize for dog-hounds with " Vanguard ; " he was 

 very pleased, and in responding to the toast of the successful 

 walkers he wound up by saying, " I have had so many happy 

 days with the Heythrop, that if I could walk the whole pack I 

 would be pleased to do so." 



There is no doubt that hunting does create a sentimental 

 affection that other sports do not. The keen shooting man does 

 not feel it. If he hears shots they do not awaken in him the 

 strong emotions the old hunting man feels when he hears the 

 cry of hounds after years of absence. I think if anyone shares 

 his feelings it may be the fisherman on hearing the babble of 

 some once-loved trout-stream. 



Like his horses, Mr. Lockwood was not showy, and rather 

 despised matters of dress in the hunting-field. Epochs such as 

 the advent of the cut-away pink coat or the lesser affairs of 

 square or rounded corners to coat skirts left him cold. His 

 clothes were always strictly utilitarian, and his tall hat seldom 

 free from the concertina marks of some bygone fall. 



The type of man that religiously sticks to his own country 

 and never hunted in any other was more common in the last 

 generation than in this. One of his axioms was, that all that is 

 best in horseflesh is usually to be found between fourteen and 

 fifteen hands in height. Naturally, after a lifetime spent in one 

 hunt, his knowledge of the country was profound and he was 

 credited with the legendary power of knowing the run of every 

 fox in the country. He often left the house at four o'clock in 

 the morning for some distant cub-hunting meet long after he 

 had ceased to be by any means a young man, and he said he 



