Hssbcton Sinitb loi 



hunters with the assistance of a chair, he would ride at 

 a foot-pace up and down those broad walks with a friend 

 beside him to cheer him. But that time did not come 

 until the veteran sportsman had passed fourscore. Up 

 to his eightieth year Assheton Smith showed no sign 

 of mental or physical decay, and he sat as erect in the 

 saddle as he had done any time for seventy years. 

 Only a few months before he completed his eightieth 

 year he had. three heavy falls in one day, when out 

 with the Tedworth, yet seemed as little shaken as if he 

 had been but a hard-riding undergraduate. 



But in the September of 1856 he had an alarming 

 seizure, which, coupled with troublesome asthma, pro- 

 strated him terribly. Yet so wonderful were his powers 

 of recuperation that within an hour of that appalling 

 seizure, which had left him gasping for breath and 

 apparently at death's door, he was in the saddle canter- 

 ing gaily down the avenue. Nevertheless, that attack 

 had seriously weakened him ; he was never again the 

 same man. His straight back was bent, his keen eye 

 grew dim, and when the Tedworth had their opening 

 meet on the ist of November 1857, for the first time 

 since the formation of the Hunt, the master was not 

 there in scarlet to head them. He rode up in black, for, 

 said he, sadly and seriously, ' If I had worn my hunting 

 gear, and the pack should observe that I could not 

 follow them, they would show their sorrow by refusing 

 to hunt a fox.' A universal gloom fell over the field as 

 the squire, after a last wistful look at his old heroes 

 of the kennels and the stable, turned and went back 

 to the, Hall, shivering and shrinking from the cold 

 November air. And so, for the first time the Tedworth 

 went hunting without their master. 



