John Peel

For the sound of his horn woke me from my bed And the cry of his hounds, which he oft times led Peel's 'View Haloo!' would awaken the dead Or the fox from his lair in the morning. --CUMBERLAND HUNTING SONG In England and Virginia, Ireland and Ohio--wherever British or U. S. horsemen gather, people remembered that song last week, for cub hunting was over, formal fox hunting was beginning. Bank presidents set their alarm clocks for 5:30 a. m. Valets laid out scarlet coats and white breeches. Stalwart young women wore derby hats at dawn. In Britain sportsmen remembered John Peel and his song more than on other Octobers, for last week marked the looth anniversary of the day when one John Woodcock Graves, poet-fox hunter, first bawled "D'ye ken John Peel with his coat so gray"* in the cosy bar parlor of the Rising Sun Inn at Caldbeck, in the rough Cumberland hills. From the "Big Grass" county of Leicestershire, enthusiasts traveled north to Caldbeck, where Peel lies buried, to sing his song, to ride once more over the country that was his.

In Caldbeck churchyard the sentimental sportsmen, primed for song, were shocked to find that persons unknown had covered the historic tombstone of John Peel with sheet iron, obliterating his name, and the fox, hounds and horn graven thereon.

Angrily they demanded explanations from Caldbeck's vicar, the Rev. W. Hornsby.

"Well, frankly," said Vicar Hornsby, "I must say I do not regard John Peel as a hero, and I deplore his exaggerated and legendary reputation as a hunter. I ask you whether slaughtering thousands of innocent foxes is sufficient reason for exalting a man when nothing else can be put to his credit?"

At the next morning's meet of the Caldbeck hounds the velvet-capped huntsman of the pack called his hounds, and woke the echoes and stirred the Vicar's sleep with the original battered copper horn of John Peel himself.

*Gray, not "gay" was John Peel's coat. A simple fellside hunter, he never wore "pink."