BIOGRAPHIES IN A NUTSHELL 107 



risk his neck. He loved to boast about the number 

 of masks his hounds had accounted for, but only on 

 two occasions did he mention his own riding. The 

 first was when he said that he could get over any 

 fence in the Harborough country with a fall ; the 

 second was when he told a friend, who had advised 

 him to use a martingale with a certain horse, that 

 his left hand was his martingale. He jumped 

 seemingly impossible places with the sole purpose 

 of being with hounds. No man probably had more 

 falls. Once he had eight falls in a single run, and 

 then was the only man in at the death. Yet he 

 was only seriously hurt twice in his life. However, 

 I have been unable to discover a single instance 

 of his " larking," i.e. jumping big places for the 

 mere fun of talking about them afterwards. Perhaps 

 the fact which speaks most for his horsemanship 

 is that, until he went into Hampshire, he rarely gave 

 more than fifty pounds for a horse, while his rivals 

 in the hunting-field were generally indifferent to 

 the prices which they gave. Thus Mr. Tom Edge 

 was once offered fifty pounds by Lord Middleton for 

 a mount from a particular covert on a horse named 

 Gayman, supposed in his day to be the best horse 

 that ever crossed Leicestershire. The truth appears 

 to be that whatever was under Mr. Smith had to 

 go, and the sympathy which he knew existed 

 between himself and his horse made him indifferent 

 about his mount. But in regard to hounds he was 

 most particular. He bought at first the pick of 



