92 Mnge of tbe ir^utitlng^f ielD 



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." ' 



Dick Christian, one of the hardest riders that ever sat 

 in the saddle, in one of his delightful yarns with the 

 ' Druid ' in ' Silk and Scarlet,' pays this tribute to the 

 straight-going of ' Tom Smith.' 



' Nothing ever turned Mr Smith. If you had come 

 near the Coplow, I would have shown you that big 

 ravine he jumped — twelve feet perpendicular, blame me 

 if it isn't, and twenty-one across ; it has been nearly the 

 same these forty years. They had brought their fox 

 nearly a mile and a half from the Coplow, and he went 

 to ground in the very next field. Mr Smith was riding 

 Guildford, a very hard puller, and go he would. The 

 biggest fence he ever jumped in Leicestershire was a 

 bullock fence and hedge with ditch and back rails, near 

 Rolleston ; he was on Jack-o'-Lantern.' 



And a still higher tribute to Assheton Smith's horse- 

 manship is contained in the following anecdote related 

 by Mr Davy, whose prowess has been recorded by 

 ' Nimrod,' and of whom Mr Smith said, ' he was the only 

 man of whose riding I was ever jealous.' A large field 

 were assembled at Ashby Pastures, and a fox went 

 away with the pack close at his brush. A long green 

 drive ran parallel with the fields, down which all the 

 horsemen rode save one. A high blackthorn hedge 

 screened the hounds from their view, and they were 

 riding for hard life. All at once some horse was heard 

 on the same side as the hounds, rattling over the gates 

 and crashing through the bullfinches at such a pace 

 that Davy and another remarked, ' Some fellow's horse 

 has purled him and run away.' The illusion, however, 



