Hssbeton Stnltb 105 



hardly ever known to dig a fox, and would not have a 

 terrier in his kennel. ' Let a good fox save himself 

 any way he can,' he used to say, and would never let a 

 stout-goer be disturbed after he went to earth. But he 

 has been known to have a ' dirty, ringing rascal,' dug out 

 and thrown to the hounds. His average of kills for 

 those thirty-two seasons was fifty brace — in one event- 

 ful season his hounds brought seventy brace of foxes to 

 hand. He always carried about with him a favourite 

 pocket-knife with which he used to say he had cut off 

 fifteen hundred brushes. Vulpicide was to him a crime 

 for which death itself was too lenient a penalty. And 

 his wife used to tell how, on one occasion, he terrified all 

 the ladies at the breakfast-table by dropping the news- 

 paper with an exclamation of horror. ' What has 

 happened ? ' they cried, expecting to hear of some awful 

 European calamity. ' Happened,' he groaned, looking 

 over his spectacles solemnly, ' why, by Jove ! a dog fox 

 has been burned to death in a barn ! ' 



His temper was choleric and frequently got him into 

 trouble. During the railway panic of 1845 a London 

 solicitor determined to serve a writ on Mr Assheton 

 Smith for a bill of costs connected with surveying, etc., 

 for a new line to be called the Worcester and Porthdyn- 

 llaen Railway. The Master of the Tedworth was staying 

 at his town house in Hyde Park Gardens, and was in 

 blissful ignorance of the plot being hatched against him, 

 when the footman, not understanding the business of 

 the caller, showed him into his master's study. When 

 the attorney's clerk, with the cheek of his class, served the 

 writ, Assheton Smith rose in his wrath, and, though in 

 his seventieth year, promptly knocked the emissary of 

 the law down. The man rose to his feet, and seeing that 



