BREEDING OF HUNTERS. 267 



three generations of Smiths before him, had so often, 

 rung out a death knell) was hushed for ever, while 

 he was still in his prime. Some of the elder branch 

 lie at Nettleton, and Will, "aged 56," is now the latest 

 tenant of that grey row of flat-stone graves in which 

 the rest, fathers and sons, huntsmen and whippers-in, 

 are garnered side by side near the chancel door at 

 Brocklesby. On that sad day he was riding a shifty 

 Waverley horse, and owing to a high thick hedge, was 

 unable to get to his hounds, as they had some cold 

 hunting up the ascent from Bradley Wood, towards 

 Barnoldby Church. " Holloa, my lad ! holloa !" he 

 shouted, to a lad in the distance, who had just 

 viewed the fox as he skirted the village, and his 

 " Yoick Ranter, boy !" as his favourite hound hit it off 

 up the hedge-side, still seems to sound in the ears of 

 the few who were up and heard it. It was the last 

 cheer he ever gave to hound, and it seemed strange 

 that the sad honour should fall on one of the blood 

 which has been the special pride and stay of the 

 Brocklesby pack. Over a small hedge, and into a 

 plot of garden ground he went ; but the leap out of 

 it, a rotten hedge with a ditch on the near side of it, 

 was to be his last. Will scarcely knew it was there, 

 as he kept his eye on the hounds who flew to Ranter 

 in the corner of the next field j his horse caught its 

 leg in a binder, and was drawn back so suddenly in 

 its drop, that he fell over on his head. He turned a 

 complete somersault, and lay on his back with his 

 arms and legs extended and powerless ; and when he 

 was picked up, perfectly black in the face, it was 

 found that dislocation of the vertebrae had brought 

 on paralysis in every limb. For nearly five days he 

 lived a complete death in life, with his mind and his 

 voice as clear as ever, and waiting calmly for his end. 

 His fall occurred just beneath the shade of Barnoldby 

 Church, in a field belonging to Mr. Nainby, at whose 

 house he died ; and we believe that before another 



