28 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



touch a twig, for I turned in my saddle to see how he fared. 

 Jack-o'-Lantern had but one eye ; he was sixteen hands high, 

 and I believe as thorough-bred as Eclipse. He never seemed 

 to feel the loss of his eye when going across a country, for I 

 believe with his one eye he contrived to see more than most 

 horses with two. The only time I found the want of it was on 

 a towing path on a canal. He there ran my leg against a post, 

 and occasioned it some temporary damage. We ran a stag once 

 from Harlington Corner nearly to Guildford ; Jack went beauti- 

 fully, but fell lame at the end. Lame as he was, the dealer, Mr. 

 Robinson, offered me three hundred guineas for him, which I 

 refused. As to the speed of this horse, I need only say that I 

 tried it against a racehorse belonging to my friend, one of those 

 who has left a gap behind him not easily filled, the late Mr. 

 William Locke. Owners rode, and Jack carried the heaviest 

 weight, and beat the racehorse. To such an amount of speed 

 add the most perfect fencing, fast or slow, and an estimation 

 may be formed of Jack's capabilities. Anderson, one of the 

 dealers of that name who used to ride right well, and was often 

 out with me, called Jack's powers of going "flying." As to 

 these powers I can also appeal to Colonel Thomas Wood, of the 

 Guards, who was out with me when we enlarged a stag, I think 

 between Cranford and Harlington, and took him somewhere in 

 the Gerrard's Cross country. It was the day that Jack was 

 seriously injured by the stag, and I remember the complimentary 

 remark made by Colonel Wood on the way in which the horse 

 had gone. The injury Jack received on that day occurred in 

 this way : The hounds were running at the haunches of an 

 immensely powerful stag, his antlers left on to the length of a 

 foot, and were going at him full speed down a narrow lane 

 between two high banks, followed closely by me, that I might 

 be ready to save the deer. A turn in the lane shut the stag 

 and hounds for a moment from my view, in which short space 

 of time he turned back among the hounds and reversed his 

 course at the same tremendous pace. He came round the 

 corner of the lane again before I reached it, and I saw that a 



