Chapter V: Part 5

For the foregoing reasons, if a man during summer rides his hunters, he will see a variety of fences which, as he quietly ruminates, he will pronounce to himself to be impracticable, simply because he can both see and feel that they are greater than the powers he is bestriding; and yet, when the trees are leafless and the hounds running, if he happens on the same horse to come to these very fences, he crosses them without the smallest thought or difficulty--not because _he_ is excited (for the cooler he rides the better he will go), but because, while the height and breadth of each fence have not since he last saw them increased, the physical powers of his horse, developed by hunting, have been, to say the least, doubled. The scales which in summer had turned against him now preponderate in his favour; and accordingly Prudence, who but a few months before, with uplifted hand, had sternly warned him to "_beware_!" with smiling face and joyous aspect now beckons to him to "_Come on_!"

The feats which the mere skin and bones of a horse can perform during hunting are surprising. The comparatively small shin-bone of his hind legs will, without receiving the smallest blemish, smash any ordinary description of dry oak or elm-rail, and occasionally shiver the top of a five-barred gate, and yet, strange to say, though the frail bone so often fractures the timber, the timber is never able to fracture the frail bone, which, generally speaking, receives not the smallest injury from the conflict. Again, when even a singed horse at great speed has forced his way through a high, strong, spiteful-looking thorn-hedge, frightening almost into hysterics the poor little "bull-finch" that is sitting there, he almost invariably passes through the ordeal with his skin perfectly uncut, and often not even scratched!--nay, a horse going at great speed may be thrown head over heels by a wire fence without receiving from it the smallest blemish!

The trifling facts we have just stated will, we believe, not only explain the courage and physical powers of a hunter, but the difficulty of describing to non-hunting readers, without an appearance of exaggeration, the feats which, during a run, he can without danger or difficulty perform; for, instead of boasting about a large fence, it is an indisputable fact that it is infinitely safer for the horse, and consequently for his rider, than a little one, at which almost all their worst accidents occur: indeed when a liberal landlord, for the benefit of his tenants, cuts through their fields a series of narrow deep drains, to be loosely filled up with earth, it is good-humouredly said by hunting men, that he is "_collar-boning_" them!

And now it is an extraordinary truth that the excitement which the horse feels in simply witnessing the chase of one set of animals after another, seems to pervade every living creature on the surface of the globe. In savage life, the whole object, occupation, and enjoyment of man, whenever he is not engaged in war, consists in catching and killing almost any of the creatures that inhabit the wilderness through which he roams. In a drop of putrid water a microscope informs us that animalcules of all shapes and sizes, with the same malice prepense, are hunting and slaying each other. The 600 boys at Eton, if collected together, would resolve readily among themselves to receive with decorum, and no doubt with youthful dignity, any great personages about to honour them with a visit; and yet, while the grand procession was approaching them, or even just after it had arrived, if a rat were to run about among them, all their good intentions in one moment would be destroyed.

During the grand reviews in France of the Allied armies under the command of Wellington, although the British troops had behaved steadily enough at Waterloo, it was found that the presence and authority of "the Iron Duke" were utterly unable to keep them immoveable as soon as the hares began to jump up among them. Nay, at Inkerman, while the battle was raging, several men of the Guards were observed by their officers suddenly to cease firing at the Russians, who were close to them, in order to "_prog_" with their bayonets a poor little scared hare that was running among their feet!

In like manner, although the Anglo-Saxon race are proverbially phlegmatic (a word described by Johnson to mean "dull; cold; frigid"), yet no sooner do they hear, in the language of Shakspeare,

"The musical confusion
Of hounds and echo in conjunction,"

than the windows of manufactories are crowded with pale eager faces, the lanes, paths, and fields become dotted with the feet and ankles of people of various classes and ages, whose eyes are all straining to get a glimpse of the run. If Dolly be among them, her cow, wherever she may be, is quite as curious as herself.

As the fox, who has distanced his pursuers, lightly canters along the hedge-side of a large grass field, the sheep instantly not only congregate to stare at him, but for a considerable time remain spell-bound, gazing in the direction of his course. Herds of bullocks with noses almost touching the ground, and with long straight tails slanting upwards, jump sometimes into the air, and sometimes sideways, with joy. As soon as the hounds appear, the timid sheep instantly follow them, and accordingly, almost before the leading rider can make for and get through perhaps the only gap in an impracticable fence, eighty or a hundred of these "muttons," with fat, throbbing, jolting sides, rush to and block up the little passage, in and around which they stand, forming a dense mass of panting wool, on which no blow from a hunting-whip or from a hedge-stake produces the slightest effect; and thus the whole field of gentlemen sportsmen, to their utter disgust, are completely stopped. "_I had no idea_," lisps a very young hard-riding dandy, in as feminine and drawling a voice as he can concoct, "_I really hadn't the +SLIGHTEST+ idea, before, that sheep were such ---- fools_!" But their offspring are, in their generation, no wiser. A poor little lamb, almost just born, the instant it sees the hounds, will not only leave its mother to follow them, but under the legs of a crowd of horses--that if they can possibly avoid it will never tread upon it--canters along, until, its weak knees and lungs failing, it reels, and is left lying on its side, apparently dead.

+Cruelty of Hunting Considered.+

Over the closed eyes, panting flank, and exhausted frame of this tiny, innocent, and yet seduced orphan, who had never known its father, and has just lost its mother, we will venture to offer to our readers a very few remarks on the strange dissolving view that has just vanished, or rather galloped, from their sight.

"It's just," said Andrew Fairservice to Frank Osbaldistone,
"amaist as silly as our auld daft laird here and his gomerils
o' sons, wi' his huntsmen and his hounds, and his hunting
cattle and horns, riding haill days after a bit beast that
winna weigh sax punds when they hae catched it."

To the foregoing observation it might also have been added, that in the extraordinary exertions we have described, the pleasures enjoyed by the "bit beast" in being hunted, when compared with those of the two or three hundred animals, human, equine, and canine, that are hunting him, are as disproportionate as is his weight when compared to the sum total of theirs.

"_No_!" said the haughty Countess of ---- to an aged huntsman, who, cap in hand, had humbly invited her ladyship to do him the honour to come and see his hounds, "_No! I dislike everything belonging to hunting--it is so cruel_."

"+Cruel+!!" replied the old man, with apparent astonishment, "_why, my lady, it can't possibly be +CRUEL+, for_," logically holding up three fingers in succession,

"_We all knows that the +GENTLEMEN+ like it_,

"_And we all knows that the +HOSSES+ like it_,

"_And we all knows that the +HOUNDS+ like it_,

"_And_," after a long pause, "_none on us, my lady, can know for certain, that the +FOXES+ don't like it_."

It may strongly be suspected, however, that they do not enjoy being hunted to death, and consequently that the operation, whenever and wherever it is performed, is, to a certain degree, an act of cruelty; which it is only hypocritical to vindicate by pretending to argue that Puggy has been sentenced to death to expiate his sins; for if, instead of robbing a hen roost, it had been his habit to come in all weathers secretly to sit on its nests to help and hatch the chickens, "_The Times_" newspaper would have advertised "hunting appointments" which would have been as numerously attended,--the hounds would have thrown off with the same punctuality,--and men and horses would have ridden just as eagerly and as gallantly to be in at the death of the saint as of a sinner, whose destruction all barn-door fowls, geese, turkeys, pheasants, and rabbits in his neighbourhood would certainly not be disposed to regret.

As regards, however, the hunted animal, as well as the creatures that hunt him, we will observe that the sufferings of a fox that is eaten up by hounds are probably not much greater and possibly a little less than those of the poor worm that on our hook catches the fish,--of the fish that catches the worm,--of the live eels that we skin,--or of the sheep and bullocks that are every day in thousands driven foot-sore to our slaughter-houses.

If our Arthingworth fox had taken in "_The Times_," the Waterloo covert, after all the preparations we have described, would most certainly have been drawn "blank." But while undertakers in scarlet, in black, and in brown coats, were expending many thousand pounds in preparations for his funeral, he, totally unconscious of them, was creeping within it, in the rude health and perfect happiness he had enjoyed in Leicestershire, his native county.

All of a sudden he hears disagreeable sounds, and encounters unpleasant smells, that sentence him without delay "to return to the place from whence he came." With elastic limbs, and a stout heart to propel them, "away" he starts. Everything he does evinces extraordinary resolution, determination, and courage. While the high-bred hounds that are following him over-top every hedge, _he_ dashes through their boughs, thorns, and briars, as straight as an arrow from a bow. When, on reaching the "earth" he has been making for, he finds that it is stopped, instead of weakly dwelling there, "_away_" he again starts for some other cunning hidingplace. As he proceeds, his wind, but not his courage, fails him, until, on the pack approaching him, though any one of them would have yelped piteously had but one of his toes been caught in a trap, yet, so soon as the leading hound comes up, he pitches into him, and when the infuriated pack rush in upon him, he invariably dies in the midst of them, without the utterance of the smallest moan, sigh, or sound. In fact, within the breasts of all who have pursued him there does not exist a braver heart than that over which the huntsman, cracking his whip to keep the hounds at bay from it, is triumphantly crying "+Whoo-oop!+"[H]

+The Lamb and the Fox+.

But the plot of our drama thickens. For on the green carpet of our little theatre, on which so many actors have been performing, there now lie tragically before us, as it were side by side, the body of a swooned lamb, and the carcase of a dead fox. Let us therefore for a moment place each into one of the scales of Justice, to weigh the relative specific gravities of these two tiny emblems--the one of innocence, the other of guilt--as regards their utility to man.

When a lamb has been nursed, reared, fattened, and killed, its quarters afford say four good dinners, or possibly one dish only at four great dinners, and as soon as, either above stairs or below, his bones have been cleanly picked, the history of his usefulness is at an end. But the benefits which a fox confers upon his country would, though stewed down for hours, require very many more dishes to contain them.

If an individual migrates in search of happiness, he not only may travel many a weary mile without attaining it, but sooner or later, foot-sore, leg-wearied, and dejected, he will be sure to discover that a very small proportion of the trouble, time, and money he has expended would have procured for him at home contentment or peace of mind, the greatest of all earthly blessings. For truly may it be said, that there exists nothing in a garden or in a field more easy to cultivate than domestic happiness, composed, as we all know, of innumerable small fibres, which, by the laws of Nature, taking root in every direction, attach a man, like Gulliver in the island of Lilliput, to the ground on which he has happened to take rest.

A cynic may sneer at the rich man who, with his own hands, and with bent back, sows flowers to deck his path, and who plants trees to grace shrubberies to harbour the birds that are to sing to him. He may despise him for delving and digging, for carpentering, lathe-turning, and for other labour which a paid workman could infinitely better perform. But if this labour sweetens the cup of human existence, by giving that health to the body, which invigorates the mind for its studies--in short, if this mixture of physical and mental exertion results in producing contentment, the labourer, however high his rank, without deigning to revile the philosopher, may justly return thanks to that Almighty Power which, by such simple means, has enabled him, by dulcifying his "domum," to produce for himself domestic happiness.

As, however, what is good for the parts must also be beneficial for the whole, it must be evident that, in spite of the sneers of the cynic, it is equally wise for a people to foster and encourage among themselves any description of healthy recreation or amusement that may have the effect of creating among the community not only a friendly acquaintance with each other, but an indissoluble attachment to "the land they live in." Indeed, if this salutary precaution were to be neglected, lamentable consequences must ensue; for, like two merchants dealing in the same article, so do Virtue and Vice strenuously compete against one another, by each, at the same moment, offering to mankind, pleasures for sale.

The great cities of the Continent, especially Paris, in this respect possess powerful attractions, which, unless they were to be neutralized or rather counteracted by national attachments of still greater power, would inevitably drain from the United Kingdom, especially from the country, a large proportion of those wealthy classes whose presence, expenditure, and charity have proved so beneficial to their respective neighbourhoods. In like manner, as Nature abhors a vacuum, so, if the affluent among the middle and lower classes, with a little money and leisure on hand, were to find themselves without some wholesome recreation, it is proverbial that a certain sable personage, who delights in idleness, would very soon, in his own service and in his own peculiar way, "set them to work."

But however wise it may be for an individual within his own precincts to create recreation to suit his particular palate, it is not so very easy to concoct any amusement that shall be pleasing to the taste of many ranks of the community as well as be generally beneficial to the whole.

A public racket-court or fives-court can only contain a very small party.

The far-famed national game of cricket (the stock in trade of which consists of a ball, some bats, half-a-dozen stumps, and eleven players) is adapted only to that bright, joyous, sunshiny half of the year, which, with its flowers and fruits, hardly requires to be enlivened, leaving the dreary months of winter totally unprovided with amusement.

What therefore, _pro bono publico_, we require is to invent, if possible, some description of national recreation which, in all weathers, shall concentrate in groups over the whole superficies of the kingdom, people of all conditions, from the highest ranks down to the lowest, to join together in a healthy, manly, harmless sport, requiring coolness, good temper, science, and resolution: and lastly, which shall manure, or top-dress, the entire surface of the country by broad-casting over it, annually, a large amount of gold, silver, and copper.

Now the invention of hunting produces all these beneficial results. At the appointed meet, classes in ordinary life as distinctly separated from each other as the various castes in India, first assemble together, and then, during a good run, are jostled together in lumps, and by bumps, which, by collision, produce many a spark of generous feeling that, under ordinary circumstances, could not possibly have been elicited. For instance, not very long ago, during a run in Leicestershire, a well-dressed, good-looking young stranger was seen to pull up, dismount, and run to the assistance of an old man lying under a horse that was struggling violently above him. In extricating the prisoner the liberator was repeatedly kicked. However, although his flesh and coat were cut, and a silver flask flattened in his breast-pocket, he resolutely effected his object and then cantered away. "_Who's that?_" said a gentleman to a farmer who had gallantly assisted in the extrication. "_I don't know his name,_" was the reply, "_but, whoever he is, he stuck to him like a +RIGHT GOOD 'UN!+_" About a month afterwards it transpired that the "right good 'un," who had risked his life to help one he never before saw, and whom probably he will never see again, was Lord C., now Marquis of H., and heir to the dukedom of D. In the hunting field, unfettered by prescriptive rights or privileges, the head and heart of man rise or sink to that level, whatever it may be, that intrinsically is their due. In short, irrespective of parentage, education, or income, any rider may assume whatever position he can take, and, so long as he leads, no one can prevent his wearing the honours, whatever they may be, of the day.

Hunting is generally accused of being a very dangerous amusement, and yet by medical returns it might easily be demonstrated that it is not so injurious to a man's health or so fatal to his life as going to a succession of balls, or especially of good dinners; in fact, there can be no doubt that a London season blanches, per cent. per annum, more cheeks, and requires more physic and more coffins, than a hunting season.

How little danger, instead of how much, belongs to hunting, is daily proved by, comparatively speaking, the impunity with which inexperienced people join in the chase. If a crowd of 150 or 200 persons of all ages and shapes, none of whom had ever before been in a boat, were all of a sudden, say during Christmas holidays, to dress themselves like tars, and then compete with sailors in every sort of weather, the chances, or rather the certainty, would be, that, without any disparagement to the art of boating, at least half of them would be drowned from sheer ignorance and inexperience. Again, if an eccentric gentleman in London, making his coachman stand up behind his carriage, were to require his footman to drive it, the vehicle, before it could reach the Opera-house, would probably be either smashed or upset; and yet, its fate would not be admitted as proving that it is dangerous to drive. In fact, it is a common proverb, that, in order to be proficient in any trade, it is necessary to be first duly apprenticed to it. But in the hunting-field no education at all is deemed requisite. And, accordingly, so soon as a young man, "gentle or simple" (though oftener simple than gentle), can get hold of money, he buys a stud of horses and hacks, hires grooms, orders three or four scarlet coats with the appurtenances thereto, goes to Melton, makes his formal appearance at a crack meet, and his informal disappearance into the first brook, or on the other side of the first fence he comes to, and yet, "_Oh! +PRAY+ catch that horse if you please!_" is usually the only result, repeated over and over again without injury to anybody. Now, if people who really have never learned to ride, mounted on young horses who have never learned to hunt, can thus attempt to follow hounds without damaging much more than their clothes, it _ought_ to follow that an experienced rider on a clever hunter has, at all events, not more danger to apprehend than other people are liable to, who ride solely on hard roads, on which a horse is very apt to travel carelessly, and always falls heavily. Will Williamson, now upwards of eighty years of age, who has been huntsman to the Duke of Buccleugh for more than fifty years, and whose worst accident was lately caused by being overturned in a dog-cart, still follows his hounds; and, in like manner, in every part of the kingdom are to be found old men who, with very little to complain about, have been hunting from their boyhood, and occasionally from their childhood.

Charles Payne, the huntsman of the Pytchley, was much damaged by being thrown out of a gig; while, a short time ago, his head whip, who had fearlessly crossed almost every fence in Northamptonshire, dislocated his shoulder by slipping off a little deal table. The gallant master of the Tedworth hounds was severely injured in his conservatory; the huntsman of the Surrey fox-hounds within his house by a fall. Lastly, it may truly be asserted, that, in hunting, more accidents occur from over caution in riders than from a combination of boldness and judgment; indeed, if hunters could but speak, they would often whisper to their riders, "_If you keep taking such affectionate care of +MY HEAD+, you'll throw me +DOWN+._"

The encouragement given to farmers to breed horses of the best description, the high prices paid to them for hay, oats, beans, and straw; the sums of money expended for the purchase or rent of hunting-boxes, lodgings, stables, carriage-houses, &c., added to a variety of other incidental expenses, large and small, amount to a grand total which it would be less easy to underrate than exaggerate.

But besides the sums which hunting-men, by maintaining from eight to fourteen hunters, with grooms and strappers in proportion, distribute in their various localities, in almost every county men of rank and fortune step forward to support, more or less at their own private cost, a huntsman, one or two whips, hounds, and a stable full of horses, for the recreation and amusement of the community.

With this generous object in view, the late Sir Richard Sutton, for many years, spent about 10,000_l._ a-year in maintaining two packs of hounds and a stud of about fifty horses, for which he readily paid enormous prices.

In any portion of the globe, except the United Kingdom, the price of dog-flesh in England would appear utterly incomprehensible. In 1812 Lord Middleton gave 1200 guineas for the pack he purchased. When Mr. Warde gave up the Craven country Mr. Horlock paid him 2000 guineas for his hounds; while Lord Suffield coolly handed over to Mr. Lambton 3000 guineas for his pack without seeing them. To Mr. Conyers the master of the Tedworth hounds offered for "Bashful" 100 guineas; and for another bitch, called "Careful," 400 guineas, or 10,080 francs; a sum which, in any village in France, would be considered for a peasant girl--though neither bashful nor careful--a splendid marriage portion.

Before Sir Richard's death, Lord Alford, Lord Hopetoun, Lord Southampton, and, since his decease, Lord Stamford, who keeps seventy horses, have come forward to bestow upon the hunting counties around them the same noble and munificent assistance which, on a smaller scale, is as liberally given in many other localities; and yet, without one minute item, the sum total of the enjoyment, the recreation, the health, the good fellowship, the hard riding, the enormous sums of money distributed over the United Kingdom to maintain that ancient, royal, loyal, noble, and national sport which seriatim we have endeavoured to describe would suddenly be annihilated, were we but to lose that tiny unclean beast, that dishonest little miscreant that everybody abuses--+The Fox.+

Ille Jacet.

But the scene suddenly shifts,----a small cracked bell in a violent hurry rings,----the slight shuffling of a few running-away feet is heard,----the green curtain which scarcely half a minute ago had dropped slowly rises,----and in the centre of the little stage there now appears, reposing by itself, a white wicker cradle containing a new-born baby, who will rapidly grow before our readers into a character intimately connected with the sayings and doings, the scenes and incidents we are endeavouring to describe.

[Footnote H: Some seasons ago the master of the Pytchley determined "to give to the hounds" a fox that had run to ground in a narrow culvert communicating with the Reservoir at Maidwell.

To prevent the poor animal escaping from his doom, the hounds were made to surround the mouth of the drain before the order was given to "lift up the sluice."

On the words being uttered the eyes of all the riders who encircled the pack were, of course, concentrated on one point. A slight noise was heard, some dead sticks appeared, followed by a violent rush of water, in the midst of which, rolled up like an immense hedgehog, appeared the fox, who no sooner got into daylight, than, before a hound could snap hold of him, he jumped to the left, and, at almost the same instant, popping through the only little hole in the thick hedge that bounded the drain, burst away, distanced the pack of enemies, quadruped and biped, that followed him, and thus escaped a death from which nothing but his extraordinary quickness and determination could have saved him.]

+Thomas Assheton Smith,+

Born in Queen Anne Street, Cavendish Square, London, on the 2nd of August, 1776, was the grandson of Thomas Assheton, Esq., of Ashley Hall, near Bowden, in Cheshire, who assumed the name of Smith on the death of his uncle, Captain William Smith, son of the Right Honourable John Smith, Speaker of the House of Commons in the first two Parliaments of Queen Anne, and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the preceding reign.

As Shakespeare, in his immortal history of the Seven Ages of Man, briefly described the first as "the infant, mewling, &c., in its nurse's arms," so of the childhood of Tom Smith the only occurrence we are enabled to record is that his mother, one day, found him lying on his nurse's lap, gasping like a tench just landed from a pond.

"_What's the matter with the child?_" she eagerly inquired.

"_Nothin_," replied the calm nurse; "_he's doing nicely_."

As regarded the present tense, this answer was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Had, however, the question been "What _has been_ the matter with him?" with the same grammatical accuracy the reply would have been, "If you please, Ma'am, he has just thrown up a large pin," which, unperceived, he had managed to swallow.

On his reaching the second age of man--that is to say, when he was but seven years old--he was sent "with his satchel and shining morning face" to Eton, where, on his arrival, he found himself the youngest boy in the school.

The busy hive of the United Kingdom, we all know, is divided into cells, in each of which, at this moment, a raw material is being converted by labour into some particular description of manufactured goods. In one cell, a Minister of State is concocting, from crude evidence, a speech, a budget, or a despatch. In another cell, a young woman, with a protuberant cushion on her lap, covered by an intricate pattern, marked by pins with heads of various colours, is as indefatigably labouring for the welfare of her country by twirling, twisting, and twiddling innumerable bobbins of fine thread into Honiton lace. In other cells, workpeople are converting broadcloth into clothes, leather into shoes, horse-hair into wigs, medicine into pills, lead into bullets, brass and tin into cannon, iron into rifles, alkali and grease into soap. Within what is called a "scrap-mill," by the power of steam, controlled by a single man, broken bolts, bars, nuts, nails, screw-pins, &c., are made to revolve, until by rumbling, tumbling, rubbing, scrubbing, bruising, beating, hustling, and jostling each other, all are turned out clean and bright, fit to be welded together for any purpose that may be required.

At Eton, by a similar process, about 600 boys of all sizes and shapes--red-haired, white-haired, black-haired; long-legged, short-legged, bandy-legged; splay-footed, pigeon-toed; proud, humble, noisy, silent, good-humoured, spiteful, brave, timid, pale-faced, sallow-faced, freckled and rosy-cheeked, weak and strong, clever and stupid, pliable and pigheaded--yet all controlled by that unwritten, immutable, imperishable code of _honour_ which, like a halo, has always illuminated their play-ground and their school, are hustled together on water, in water, under water, and out of water, until, when the door of their scrap-mill is opened--although their minds and bodies are as dissimilar as ever--they all turn out polished _gentlemen_, prepared to encounter those hardships, dangers, vicissitudes, difficulties, and, above all, base temptations in life, which high-bred principles are so especially well adapted to resist.

For eleven years Tom Smith remained at this school, where he acquired a taste for classical literature, which characterised him through life. Pope, Shakespeare, and Horace, from which he used to quote long passages, were his favourite authors; he could also, without pressure, spout out the whole of the Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard. But what reigned at the back of his head and in the citadel of his heart was an ardent love for athletic exercises of any description, especially for cricket and boating. He was also, throughout his whole life, affectionately attached to fighting; and Etonians, old and young, to this day, record, as one of the severest contests in the history of youthful pugilism, the desperate battle he fought with Jack Musters, a kindred spirit, of whom it has been said that he could do seven things--namely, ride, fence, fight, swim, shoot, play at cricket and at tennis--as well as any man in Europe. His pugilistic propensity, which appeared so early, was conspicuous throughout his life. While hunting in Leicestershire he was prevailed upon to stand for the borough of Nottingham. On proceeding to the poll, he found not only the town placarded with "No foxhunting M.P.," but a guy in a red coat, tailed by a fox's brush, burning in effigy of him before the hustings. His appearance there elicited tremendous yells and hootings, which apparently no authority could subdue, until, with a stentorian voice, heard above the uproar, Tom Smith exclaimed, "Gentlemen! as you refuse to hear my political principles, be so kind as to listen to these few words: _I'll fight any man among ye, little or big_, and will have a round with him now for love!" In an instant, as if by magic, yells and groans were converted into rounds of cheers, demonstrating the strange stuff, be it good, bad, or indifferent, that Englishmen are made of.

On another occasion, while riding down the Gallowtree Gate, in Leicester, he struck the horse of a coal-heaver, who, in return, cut him sharply across the face. Smith jumped immediately from his horse, and the driver from his cart, the latter doffing his smock-frock, the former buttoning his coat and turning up his sleeves. The conflict was desperate; and from a fellow weighing fourteen stone, and standing six feet high, he was receiving severe punishment, when, by constables and a crowd of people, the combatants were separated. "You shall hear from me again!" said Smith to his gallant smutty antagonist. True to his word, the next morning the squire's groom was seen inquiring where the coal-heaver lived. On finding the man, whose face, like his master's, had received some heavy bruises, he said to him, "Mr. Smith has sent me to give you this sovereign, and to tell you you're the best man that ever stood before him." "God bless his honour!" replied the man, "and thank him a thousand times."

When Tom Smith was at Eton, fighting had not cropped to the surface of a schoolfellow and friend who in after life, known by the name of +Wellington+, greatly distinguished himself in this world by seeking and by gaining pitched battles. "I suppose, Smith," said the old silver-haired Duke to him, one day, in London, "you've done now with _fighting_?" "Oh, yes," replied Smith, then in his sixtieth year, "I've quite given that up; but----" suddenly correcting himself, he added, "I'll fight yet any man _of my age_."

At Chapmansford, when upwards of seventy, a rough country fellow, before a large field of sportsmen, threw a stone at one of the hounds of the old squire, who instantly struck him with his hunting whip. "You daren't do that if you were off your horse," said the man. The words were hardly out of the clodhopper's mouth when (in the seventh age of man) Smith stood before him, with a pair of fists clenched in his face, in so pugilistic an attitude that the fellow took to his heels, and, amidst the jeers of his comrades, ran away.

In 1794 Tom Smith quitted Eton to become a gentleman commoner at Christ Church, Oxford, where, with great diligence and assiduity, he hunted regularly in Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire,--became a fearless swimmer,--learnt to pull a sturdy oar on the Isis,--was a good shot and billiard-player,--and excelled as a batsman in the cricket-field on Cowley Marsh and Bullingdon. On leaving the University he became a member of the Marylebone Club and a regular attendant at Lord's during the summer; he was also a member of the Royal Yacht Club. Mr. Smith's love for science and shipbuilding induced him to build several sailing and steam yachts. He considered himself to be the practical originator of the wave line, and, by the advice of the Duke of Wellington, he submitted to the First Lord of the Admiralty some important hints for improving the construction of gunboats. In autumn, winter, and spring, he instinctively "went to the dogs," or, as in sporting phraseology it is termed, "took to hunting," so eagerly, that in 1800, when only twenty-four years old, he was signalized in song as a daring rider in that celebrated run from Billesden Coplow, in which but four gentlemen, with Jack Raven the Whip, were able to live with the hounds.

In 1806 he succeeded Lord Foley at Quorn, and for ten years hunted Leicestershire with first-rate hounds, for a portion of which he had paid to Mr. Musters 1000 guineas, until, in 1816, he took the place of Mr. Osbaldiston in Lincolnshire, where he hunted the Burton country for eight years. He then, ceasing for two years to be a master of hounds, hunted with the Duke of Rutland and in the neighbouring counties until 1826, when, taking up his residence at Penton Lodge, he created for himself a new country between Andover and Salisbury. In 1830--two years after the death of his father, from whom he inherited a very large fortune--he removed to Tedworth, which he had lately rebuilt with magnificent kennels, and stables in which every hunter had a loose box. In these stables he had often as many as fifty horses, all in first-rate condition. For thirty-two years he hunted the Tedworth country without ever asking for subscriptions of any sort or kind. All he begged of the landowners and of those who hunted with him was to _preserve_ foxes to enable him to kill them. At his meets his friend and guest the late Duke of Wellington often attended. In stature Mr. Smith was about 5 feet 10 inches high, athletic, well-proportioned, muscular, but slight. His weight was between eleven and twelve stone. With a highly-intelligent but resolute countenance, containing (as was observed of it) "a dash of the bulldog," he had plain features. "_That fellow Jack Musters_," Tom Smith used to say, "_spoilt +my+ beauty_." For several years, though his name was seldom found in the debates, he represented in Parliament Carnarvonshire and Andover; and in 1832, in consequence of the riots which took place in that year, he raised, at his own expense, a corps of yeomanry cavalry, reviewed by the Duke of Wellington, the troopers of which were chiefly his own tenants or farmers of the neighbourhood. For upwards of fifty seasons he continued to be the master of hounds, until, after having been in his saddle for seventy years, the boy who in 1783 went to Eton when he was seven years old, died at Vaenol on the 9th of September, 1858, aged eighty-two.

At the earnest request of his widow, Sir John E. Eardley-Wilmot (assisted by extracts from the 'Field' newspaper), with considerable spirit and ability, has lately compiled a series of graphic incidents and sketches, forming altogether a memoir--or, as he terms them, 'Reminiscences'--of the life of one whom Napoleon I. addressed as "_le premier chasseur d'Angleterre_," and who was also called by the Parisians "_le grand chasseur +Smit+._" From this volume we shall now submit to our readers a few extracts.

"Lord Foley," wrote 'Nimrod,' "was succeeded in the possession
of the Quorn hounds by that most conspicuous sportsman of modern
times, Thomas Assheton Smith. As combining the character of a
skilful sportsman with that of a desperate horseman, perhaps
his parallel is not to be found; and his name will be handed
down to posterity as a specimen of enthusiastic zeal in one
individual pursuit, very rarely equalled. From the first day
of the season to the last he was always the same man, the
same desperate fellow over a country, and unquestionably
possessing, _on every occasion and at every hour of the day_,
the most bulldog nerve ever exhibited in the saddle. His motto
was, 'I'll be with my hounds;' and all those who have seen
him in the field must acknowledge he made no vain boast of
his prowess. His falls were countless; and no wonder, for he
rode at places which _he knew_ no horse could leap over; but
his object was to get, one way or the other, into the field
with his hounds. As a horseman, however, he has ever been
super-excellent. He sits in his saddle as if he were part of
his horse, and his seat displays vast power over his frame.
In addition to his power his hand is equal to Chifney's, and
the advantage he experiences from it may be gleaned from the
following expression. Being seen one day hunting his hounds
on Radical, always a difficult, but at that time a more than
commonly difficult, horse to ride, he was asked by a friend why
he did not put a martingale on him, to give him more power over
his mouth. 'Thank ye,' he replied, 'but my left hand shall be
_my_ martingale.'"

His fame and success in Lincolnshire were as great as at Quorn. The Melton men followed him, knowing they were sure of good sport wherever he went, although scarcely one of them was quite prepared for the formidable drains or dykes in the Burton Hunt. Shortly after their arrival there, they found a fox near the kennels that crossed a dyke called the Tilla. Tom Smith, the only one who rode at it, got in, but over, leaving behind him fourteen of the Meltonians floundering in the water at the same time, which so cooled their ardour that, excepting Sir H. Goodricke, gallant David Baird, and one or two others, they soon returned to Melton.

Mr. Delmé Ratcliffe, in his work on the 'Noble Science of Fox-hunting,' describes Tom Smith as follows:--

"I could nowhere find a more fitting model for the rising
generation of sportsmen.... He was an instance of the very
rare union of coolness and consummate skill as a huntsman,
combined with the impetuosity of a most desperate rider; and
not only was he the most determined of all riders, but equally
remarkable as a horseman.

"Now I am not going to give merely my own opinion of Mr. Thomas
Assheton Smith, as a horseman and rider to hounds, but shall
lay before my readers that of all the sporting world, at least
all who have seen him in the field; which is, that, taking him
from the first day's hunting of the season to the last, place
him on the best horse in his stable or on the worst, he is sure
to be with his hounds, and _close to them too_. In fact, he has
undoubtedly proved himself the best and hardest rider England
ever saw, and it would be vain in any man to dispute his title
to that character."

Again, says Mr. Apperley--

"Let us look at him in his saddle. Does he not look like a
workman? Observe how lightly he sits! No one could suppose
him to be a twelve-stone man. And what a firm hand he has on
his horses! How well he puts them at their fences, and what
chances he gives them to extricate themselves from any scrape
they may have gotten into! He never hurries them then; no man
ever saw Tom Smith ride fast at his fences, at least at large
ones (brooks excepted), let the pace be what it may; and what
a treat it is to see him jump water! His falls, to be sure,
have been innumerable; but what very hard-riding man does not
get falls? Hundreds of Mr. Smith's falls may be accounted for:
he has measured his horses' pluck by his own, and ridden
at hundreds of non-feasible places, with the chance of getting
over them somehow."

Again: "No man," says Dick Christian, "that ever came into Leicestershire could beat Mr. Smith--I do not care what any of them say;" while "The Druid," in 'Silk and Scarlet,' after giving some very interesting anecdotes of Tom Smith, says of him, "However hasty in temper and action he might be in the field or on the flags, he was the mightiest hunter that ever 'rode across Belvoir's sweet vale' or wore a horn at his saddle-bow."

"His wonderful influence," he adds, "over his hunters was
strongly exemplified at another time, but in rather a different
manner. He had mounted a friend, who complained of having
nothing to ride, on his celebrated horse Cicero. The hounds
were running breast-high across the big pasture lands of
Leicestershire, and Cicero was carrying his rider like a
bird, when a strong flight of rails had almost too ugly an
aspect of height, strength, and newness for the liking of our
friend on his 'mount.' The keen eye of Assheton Smith, as he
rode beside him, at once discerned that he had no relish for
the timber, and seeing that he was likely to make the horse
refuse, he cried out, '_Come up, Cicero!_' His well-known
voice had at once the desired effect; but Cicero's rider, by
whom the performance was not intended, left his 'seat' vacant,
fortunately without any other result than a roll upon the
grass."

"I have said," remarks Nimrod, "that Mr. Smith's make and
shape, together with a fine bridle-hand, have assisted him in
rising to perfection as a horseman."

"I once saw," relates a friend, "a fine specimen of Mr. Smith's
hand and nerve in the going off of a frost, when the _bone_
was not quite out of the ground. We were running a fox hard
over Salisbury Plain, when all at once his horse came on a
treacherous flat, greasy at top, as sportsmen say, but hard
and slippery underneath. The horse he rode was a hard puller,
and very violent, named Piccadilly; and the least check from
the bridle, when the animal began to blunder, would have to a
certainty made him slip up. Here the fine riding of the squire
shone conspicuously. He left his horse entirely alone, as if he
were swimming; and after floundering about and swerving for at
least a hundred yards, Piccadilly recovered himself, and went
on as if nothing had happened."

"At the end of a desperate run, he once charged the river
Welland, which divides the counties of Leicester, Northampton,
and Rutland, and is said to be altogether impracticable. The
knack he had of getting across water is to be attributed to his
resolute way of riding to hounds, by which his horses knew that
it was in vain to refuse whatever he might put them at."

One day when Smith was drawing for a fox on his famous horse Fire-King, he came to a precipitous bank at the end of a meadow, with a formidable drop into a hard road. "_You can't get out there, Sir_," said a civil farmer. "_I should like very much to see the place where +we+_" (patting Fire-King) "_cannot go_," was the reply, as down he rode, to the astonishment of the field.

"In falling," says Sir J. Eardley Wilmot, "he always contrived
to fall clear of his horse. The bridle-rein, which fell as
lightly as breeze of zephyr on his horse's neck, was then held
as in a vice. In some instances, with horses whom he knew well,
he would ride for a fall, where he knew it was not possible for
him to clear a fence. With Jack-o'-Lantern he was often known
to venture on this experiment, and he frequently said there was
not a field in Leicestershire in which he had not had a fall.
'I never see you in the Harborough country,' he observed to a
gentleman who occasionally hunted with the Quorn. 'I don't much
like your Harborough country,' replied the other, 'the fences
are so large.' 'Oh!' observed Mr. Smith, 'there is no place you
cannot get over with a fall.' To a young supporter of his pack,
who was constantly falling and _hurting_ himself, he said, 'All
who profess to ride should know _how_ to _fall_.'"

The author of 'Silk and Scarlet' says:--

"It was a great speech of Mr. Smith's, if ever he saw a horse
refuse with his Whips, '_Throw your +heart+ over, and your
horse will follow_.' He never rode fast at his fences. I have
heard him say scores of times, 'When a man rides at fences a
hundred miles an hour, _depend upon it he funks_.'"

Sir William Miles confirms this statement:--

"Mr. Smith," he remarks, "always said, '_Go slow at all fences,
except water_. It makes a horse know the use of his legs, and
by so riding he can put down a leg wherever it is wanted.'"

Long Wellesley had a horse which he declared no man could see a run on. "He only requires a _rider_," said the squire. "Will _you_ ride him, then, at Glen Gorse?" "Willingly!" replied Smith, who, after several falls, killing his fox, was presented with the animal, which he accordingly named "Gift."

The history of the education of Smith's favourite horse, Jack-o'-Lantern, is described as follows:--

"We were riding," said Tom Edge, "to covert through a line of
bridle-gates, when we came to a new double oaken post and rail
fence. 'This is just the place to make my colt a good timber
jumper,' said the squire; 'so you shut the gate, and ride away
fast.' This was no sooner done than the squire rode at the
rails, which Jack taking with his breast, gave both himself
and his rider such a fall, that their respective heads were
looking towards the fence they had ridden at. Up rose both at
the same time, as if nothing very particular had happened.
'Now,' said Tom Smith, 'this will be the _making_ of the horse;
just do as you did before, and ride away.' Edge did so, and
Jack flew the rails without touching, and from that day was a
first-rate timber fencer."

Only on two occasions, while hunting, did Tom Smith succeed in breaking a bone: once at Melton, when he consoled himself by learning arithmetic from the pretty damsel at the post-office; and afterwards, when one of his ribs was fractured, owing, as he said, to his having a knife in his breast-pocket:--

"And yet," says Sir J. Eardley Wilmot, "notwithstanding the
gallant manner in which he always rode, never turning from any
fence that intervened between him and his hounds, he never
had a horse drop dead under him, or die from the effects of a
severe day's riding. It is also a fact well recorded that he
was never known to strike a horse unfairly. 'How is it,' asked
a friend, 'that horses and hounds seem never to provoke you?'
'_They_ are brutes, and know no better, but _men_ do,' was the
reply."

The most extraordinary hunter in his stable, "Ayston," was pigeon-toed, and so bad a hack, that he had to be led to covert; and yet at no time would his master have taken a thousand guineas for him.

After the famous Billesden Coplow run, in which Tom Smith maintained so prominent a place, he sold the horse he that day rode, called Furze-cutter, for which he had given 26_l._, to Lord Clonbrock for 400_l_.

The Rev. Francis Dyson, now rector of Creeklande, on being ordained, was appointed to assist his father, the clergyman at Tedworth:--

"Mr. Smith," says Sir J. Eardley Wilmot, "was so pleased with
his first sermon, that, on coming out of church, he slapped
the young curate on the back, and said, 'Well done, Frank! you
shall have a mount on Rory O'More next Thursday.' Young Dyson
had many a run afterwards out of the squire's stables, for
his performances in the field pleased as much as those in the
pulpit.

"Once, when the hounds were running short with a sinking fox,
a person clad in a long black coat, and evidently thinking
scorn of the fun, inquired of the Whip what the _dogs were then
doing_. 'Why, Sir,' said Dick Burton, throwing a keen glance
down the inquirer's person, 'they are preaching his funeral
sermon.'"

In 1840 Tom Smith proposed to pay a visit to his old friend Sir Richard Sutton, whose hunting had been stopped by a severe accident. On hearing of this movement, Mr. Greene of Rolleston, who had been one of his best pupils in his Leicestershire days, requested him, in his way to Lincolnshire, to bring his hounds once more into his old country, Mr. Hodgson, who then hunted Leicestershire, having handsomely placed the best meet at his disposal. The veteran, for he was then sixty-four, accepted the challenge, bringing with him eighteen couples of his finest hounds, of great substance, open-chested, and in splendid condition.