26 Recollections of the Vme Hunt. 



stance. His answer amused me : ' Recollect it ! to be 

 sure, I do. Now, do you know, I never could make 

 out to this day, where that fox could have gone to ;' 

 as if he had been thinking of it ever since. 



I cannot put the date of my personal observation 

 of Mr. Chute's hounds later back than the season 

 1 8 1 3- 14, though I had been out with them occasionally 

 earlier. At that time, George Hickson had become 

 the huntsman. The first good run that I remember 

 was on the breaking up of the long frost of that 

 season, while the ground was still rotten, and the 

 snow lying on the north side of the fences ; but there 

 was a great scent. The meet was at Shothanger, 

 which was then a larger wood than it is now. After 

 a sharp, short burst in the morning, the hounds found 

 a second fox somewhere near Hannington ; went 

 down Freemantle Hill, over the common fields be- 

 tween Kingsclere and Wolverton, and, after two hours 

 very hard running, killed at Harridens. On that day 

 I first saw with hounds Mr. Thomas Smith, since so 

 well known as the head of the Hambledon, the Craven, 

 and the Pytcheley Hunts; one of the best riders, and 

 decidedly the ablest huntsman that I ever saw. He 

 was then a very young man, and probably did not 

 know an inch of the country, for he lived twenty miles 

 off, and chanced, I think, to be staying at the Vine ; 

 but his performances that day were worthy of his 

 future fame. He rode his grey mare straight down 

 Freemantle Hill, probably the safest way, but one 

 which no one else had nerve enough to attempt, as 

 the fourteen weeks' frost was not out of that northern 

 slope. Everyone else dismounted, and men and 

 horses were seen separately sliding down on their re- 



