The Rev. S. D. Lock wood i6i 



found as much pleasure in cubbing as in the full-blown sport of 

 December or January. 



His extraordinary keenness made him one of the most 

 remarkable figures the Heythrop country has ever produced. 

 He belonged to the little band of enthusiasts that exists in most 

 countries, who really do not care whether they finish a day five 

 miles from home or fifteen, and stay out with the pack to the 

 bitter end, even at the most distant meets. 



Returning from hunting one afternoon after the pack had 

 lost, he was amazed to see a fox — perhaps the hunted one — 

 asleep on the mat at the back door of the vicarage. After 

 contemplating this unusual spectacle for some moments he 

 softly dismounted and stole round the house to fetch his little 

 daughter to see it, but when they returned the fox was gone. 

 Those who know anything about foxes will agree that this is an 

 extraordinary story. It seems to me that it must have been a 

 case of suggestion : his mind had been running on foxes in 

 general, and the lost one in particular, and this absolutely 

 life-like illusion of a sleeping fox on the door-mat was the result. 

 If so it was a very strange example of this sort of thing, for it 

 was not a glimpse, but a sustained picture that was there all 

 the time he was dismounting, and part of the time he was tip- 

 toeing round to look for the child. This explanation was often 

 put to him, but he would never accept it, and was always firmly 

 convinced that he had seen an actual fox. Of course, on logical 

 grounds it is impossible to say that a fox will not come and fall 

 asleep on the door-mat in the middle of the afternoon, but it 

 seems almost incredible in practice. There is the story, any- 

 how, and the knowledgable ones of the Psychical Research 

 Society can judge the matter, if suggestion comes within the 

 scope of their investigations. 



I always believed implicitly that if you brought up a child 

 in the way it should go, as soon as it was old enough it would do 

 the other thing, but this belief has been shaken by the records 

 of the Lockwood family, for both Mr. Lockwood's father and 

 grandfather were good parsons and hard riders to hounds in 

 their day. His father was vicar of Kingham for many years, 

 and when he died, in 1880, Mr. Lockwood succeeded him at 

 rather a trying time, for the uprising of the farm-labourers under 

 the now forgotten Joseph Arch was still in progress. 



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