190 THE HOKSE AND HIS EIDER. ' 



was an unfavourable day for scent, — a briglit sun with north- 

 easterly wind, not a cl9ud to be seen, and the cold intense. A fox 

 having been found by Mr. Hodgson, in Vowes Covert, as already 

 stated, away went the hounds towards Horringhold, leaving Blaston 

 to the right. Here Mr. Smith took a strong flight of rails into a 

 road, quite like a ' young 'un.' The fox soon afterwards crossed the 

 Welland, and went away for Rockingham Park, where, it being late, 

 they whipped off." 



From 1830 to 1856 — that is to say, until Tom Smith 



had reached the age of eighty — with his indomitable 



energy and undaunted courage he continued to hunt his 



hounds at Tedworth, spending his summers at Vaenol 



on board his yacht. His head was as clear and his hand 



as firm as they had been twenty years ago. If he felt not 



quite well in a morning, plunging his head into cold 



water, he used to hold it there as long as he could, which 



he said always put him to rights. It is true he had 



curtailed his meets to four only a week, but on these 



days the farmers were delighted to see " the old Squire" 



vault on horseback, as usual, blow his horn while his 



horse was carrying him over a five-barred gate, and, with 



a loose rein, gallop down the sheep-fed hill-sides with all 



the alacrity of a boy. But although the hourglass of his 



existence appeared to be still as bright and clear as 



ever, the sand within the upper portion of the crystal 



was now running to its end. In September, 1856, while 



at his summer residence in North Wales, he was suddenly 



seized with an alarming attack of asthma, which, by the 



