THOMAS ASSHETON SMITH. 187 



such a fall, that their respective heads were looking towards the 

 fence they had ridden at. Up rose both at the same time, as if 

 nothing very particular had happened. ' Now,' said Tom Smith, 

 'this will he the making of the horse.; just do as you did before, 

 and ride away.' Edge did so, and Jack flew the rails without 

 touching, and from that day was a first-rate timber fencer." 



Only on two occasions, while hunting, did Tom Smith 

 succeed in breaking a bone: once at Melton, when he 

 consoled himself by learning arithmetic from the pretty 

 damsel at the post-office ; and afterwards, when one of 

 his ribs was fractured, owing, as he said, to his having 

 a knife in his breast-pocket : — 



"And yet," says Sir J. Eardley Wilmot, " notwithstanding the 

 gallant manner in which he always rode, never turning from any 

 fence that intervened between him and his hounds, he never had 

 a horse drop dead under him, or die from the effects of a severe 

 day's riding. It is also a fact well recorded that he was never 

 known to strike a horse unfairly. ' How is it,' asked a friend, 

 * that horses and hounds seem never to provoke you ? ' ' Tliey are 

 brutes, and know no better, but men do,' was the reply." 



The most extraordinary hunter in his stable, " Ayston," 

 was pigeon-toed, and so bad a hack, that he had to be led 

 to covert; and yet at no time would his master have 

 taken a thousand guineas for him. 



After the famous Billesden Coplow run, in which 

 Tom Smith maintained so prominent a place, he sold the 

 horse he that day rode, called Furze-cutter, for which he 

 had given 26^., to Lord Clonbrock for 400/. 



The Eev. Francis Dyson, now rector of Creeklande, on 



