126 " DOGGIE SMITH." 



enough they were, streaming down the hill of a large 

 meadow heading straight for the railway. Not a soul was 

 with them, till presently one man in scarlet, who must 

 have pounded the field and done something big East 

 Langton way came pounding along someway behind the 

 hounds. There was no getting over the railway, so the 

 horseman made a detour to the right, and put his gee 

 at a stake-bound fence on the side of the road where I 

 was standing. The rider was Captain Arthur Smith of 

 the Carabineers, one of the hardest men to hounds that 

 ever crossed a horse, and known to all sportsmen as 

 ' Doggie.' Just as good between the flags as he was with 

 hounds, he has won no fewer than four Grand National 

 Hunt Chases, betv/een 1864 and 1880. Though 74, he is 

 as hale and hearty as ever, and still holds his own with the 

 best, and bravest in the hunting field. I remember seeing 

 him win every race but one on the card at a Burrough Hill 

 meeting many years ago, when he lived at Melton with the 

 Behrens brothers, Horatio and Julias. Lots of men can 

 go well to hounds on perfect horses but ' Doggie ' could 

 ' get there ' and stay there on almost anything. May his 

 shadow never grow less, and when T last saw him a few 

 weeks back grouse ' shooting ' in the Army and Navy stores, 

 I am happy to say it showed no tendency to do so. He 

 now resides near Horsham. 



The Billesdon Hunt has been, fortunately, fairly free 

 from fatal casualties, only two or three that I can call to 

 mind for the moment. Many members of the Hunt will 

 remember poor Lord Somerville, who came to a tragic end 

 in November 1868. He was only twenty-nine when he was 

 killed. Reserved in manner, he was one of the earliest 

 cigarette smokers that I remember in the hunting field. 

 He came over with dear old Parson Davenport, from 

 Skeffington, to dine with my people at Foxton very shortly 

 before the fatal accident. My old friend, the late Capt. 

 F. J. King, — King of Kirby Gate fame, better known as 

 " Terror " King — in his interesting recollections of " Half 



