366 The Post and the Paddock. 



Dash me ! what a go I once saw with him ! We was 

 out with the Belvoir hounds, Sir James Musgrave and 

 me at the tail of the hounds, going for Langar, before 

 we got to the Smite. We were in the middle field that 

 goes down to the Smite. I says, " Sir James, here's the 

 Smite, will you have it ?" " We must have it," he 

 says. Mr. Lumley he comes up between us, and at 

 it he goes. He jumped the water, but he couldn't get 

 through the bulfinch on the other side : backards he 

 comes. I couldn't see him or the horse. Sir James 

 shouts, " He'll be drowned, Dick," when up he comes 

 again. I catched his horse, and out he wades, as wet 

 and as black as my hat. Well he gets on to his horse 

 as plucky as ever, just as he was ; off he gets, runs 

 back again ; I didn't know for my life what he was 

 at. Blame me, if he didn't dive in, head foremost, to 

 find his right stirrup ; he fishes it out of five-feet water, 

 buckles it on, and over he goes again. He got through 

 the bulfinch that time, and they killed the fox at 

 Colston Bassett. Well, some of the gentlemen gave 

 him their flask, and they persuaded him to gallop back 

 to Belvoir and change. That'ull be nigh twenty years 

 since : I met him some four years after, when Mr. 

 Foljambe's hounds met at Grove, and I says, " Do 

 you recollect the Smite, sir?" "That I do ; I 

 should like such a ducking again." So I told all 

 the gentlemen about it : how amused they were ! I 

 never saw such a thing in my born days. Well, 

 I can't beat that, so I must go now ; they'll be 

 waiting up for me. If I think of anything more, I'll 

 send and tell you. And with these words the 

 Professor and I parted. 



And so our history of horn and hound, the racer 

 and the starting-post, and 'their countless devotees of 

 every shade and hue, has come to an end at last. A 



