1 18 Recollections of the Vine Hunt. 



would differ from me on that point, though I am 

 aware that some would scruple to call him actually 

 the best huntsman, from thinking him too much in- 

 clined to hunt the fox himself, instead of letting his 

 hounds do it. I am not disposed to join in this charge. 

 There will always be differences of opinion as to the 

 amount of assistance which hounds require, and the 

 exact moment when they should be interfered with ; 

 and no doubt Mr. Smith, with his remarkable talent 

 for hunting, the rapidity of his decision, and the kind 

 of natural instinct by which he seemed to divine where 

 the fox was gone, must have been sometimes tempted 

 to take matters into his own hands earlier than others 

 would have done ; but I must say that, so long as 

 hounds were able to work, he would generally wait 

 very patiently upon them. I am inclined to think that 

 the accusation rested chiefly on the undeniable fact 

 that Mr. Smith coidd, and often did, kill his fox, and 

 show a certain kind of sport to his field on days when 

 hounds could do nothing of themselves, and when, 

 with any ordinary huntsman, nothing would have been 

 done. I once saw a remarkable instance of this from 

 Ashridge, near East Ilsley, when Mr. Smith kept on 

 the line of his fox for ten miles, and at last killed 

 him in the open, on a bleak windy day in March, with- 

 out scent enough to carry hounds across a single field. 

 The fox went nearly straight, through the Hampstead 

 Norris and Bradfield country, where the enclosures 

 were generally small, and bordered by hedgerows. 

 Mr. Smith, seeing how matters stood, lost no time in 

 suffering the hounds to attempt to hunt in the open, 

 but lifted them at once across every field, marking his 

 fox only at the fences, and hunting him through the 



