io8 CENTURY OF ENGLISH FOX-HUNTING 



Mr. Musters' pack of Colwick Hall, Notts, for 

 £ 1,000; and afterwards bought largely from the 

 kennels of Sir Richard Sutton, Sir Thomas Boughey, 

 and the Duke of Grafton. His love for hounds in 

 the hunting - field amounted to a passion, yet he 

 rarely entered his kennels, nor even rode home with 

 his hounds after the business of the day was over. 



In 1816 Tom Smith moved to the Burton country, 

 which he hunted till 1824, and in 1826 he went to 

 Panton, near Andover. On the 29th of October, 1827, 

 he married Maria, second daughter of Mr. William 

 Webber, of Bingfield Lodge, Berkshire. He is 

 reported to have said that his sport in Hampshire 

 not only equalled but far exceeded any that he 

 had had in Leicestershire. This statement has been 

 much cavilled at, and it has been insinuated that 

 he was beginning to lose his nerve. But Smith 

 never lost his nerve till the hour of his death, and 

 nervous insufficiency was to him an unknown 

 quantity which he could not understand. The 

 truth is that when he moved to Hampshire he 

 had completed his fiftieth year, and would in the 

 ordinary course of nature soon bear upon his 

 shoulders the responsibilities which it would be 

 impossible for him to attend to in Leicestershire. 

 Besides, it must be remembered that he was a 

 comparative stranger in Leicestershire, while in 

 Hampshire he was the heir of the Squire of 

 Tedworth. 



But for Tom Smith to live without fox-hunting 



