BIOGRAPHIES IN A NUTSHELL 109 



was an impossibility. At first his scheme to promote 

 fox-hunting in the large wild woodlands of Hants 

 and Wilts met with little encouragement, and was 

 regarded as an act of madness. His own father 

 declared to a friend that he would prosecute him if 

 he attempted to draw his coverts. " No you won't," 

 replied the friend. " Why not ? " asked the Squire. 

 " Because you would only have to pay the costs on 

 both sides," was the rejoinder. Nothing daunted, 

 but rather made more determined by opposition, 

 Smith set to work with his usual energy. The foxes 

 were there, and he had brought the hounds to kill 

 them. Partly at his own expense, and partly by that 

 vehement persuasion which ensures conviction, rides 

 were formed in the big woods, and the country 

 became open for fox-hunting. On the death of his 

 father he moved to Tedworth Hall, which he restored 

 and enlarged. From that date the future of the 

 Tedworth Hunt was an assured fact. The Squire 

 continued to hunt the country till his death, which 

 took place at his Welsh seat, Vaenol, near Bangor, 

 in August, 1858, at the ripe age of eighty-two, when 

 he had been an M.F.H. for fifty-two years. 



During his career as an M.F.H, his best-known 

 hunt servants were Jack Shirley, ex-huntsman to 

 Lord Sefton, Dick Burton, Joe Harrison, and Tom 

 Wingfield; but the Squire invariably carried the horn 

 himself To the last he was as keen as in his young 

 days, regarding the ist of November as the day 

 when the woodlands were stripped for business. A 



