Giants of the Past 183 



It was a stile, bank, and hedge, and a liberal 

 allowance of water on the far side. Down came 

 the Squire on Screw-driver, and took it in his 

 stroke. This did not so much surprise us, but 

 what did was, that he never once turned round to 

 look at it ; whereas, had one of our fellows got 

 over it, he would have looked at it for a week 

 and talked of it for a year." 



His notion of a huntsman was that he should 

 always be with his hounds. On this principle he 

 invariably acted ; for he well knew that unless a 

 master of fox-hounds, hunting them himself, had 

 head, hand, and heart, and could be close to his 

 hounds when they were close to their fox, he could 

 not do his duty as it should be done. One day 

 when he had the Quorndon, after a sharp affair 

 of forty minutes, the fox, quite beaten, ran into a 

 small covert with a lane half round it. The field 

 kept the lane, the Squire exclaiming : " They will 

 have him in five minutes ! " leapt into the adjoining 

 paddock, at the further end of which there was a 

 tremendously thick bull-fincher. Unused to denial, 

 he rode at it, and fell with his horse on a heap of 

 rough stones on the other side, tearing his white 

 cords most piteously. He was up again in a 

 moment, and as unconcerned as if he had fallen 

 out of his arm-chair, and did kill his fox within 

 five minutes. Mr. Smith had a great contempt 

 for a man who attempted to hunt a pack of fox- 

 hounds and could not ride to them ; and he never 

 scrupled to express his opinion whenever any such 

 instances came under his own observation, as no 

 man was more fairly entitled to do. . . . 



It is well known what a number of brooks there 

 are in the Quorn and Belvoir counties. Mr. Smith 

 once charged the river Welland, which divides the 



