184 THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER. 



he has measured his horses' pluck by his own, and ridden at 

 hundreds of non-feasible places, with the chance of getting over 

 them somehow." 



Again: "No man," says Dick Christian, "that ever 

 came into Leicestershire could beat Mr. Smith I do not 

 care what any of them say ;" while " The Druid," in ' Silk 

 and Scarlet/ after giving some very interesting anecdotes 

 of Tom Smith, says of him, " However hasty in temper 

 and action he might be in the field or on the nags, he 

 was the mightiest hunter that ever ' rode across Belvoir's 

 sweet vale ' or wore a horn at his saddle-bow." 



" His wonderful influence," he adds, " over his hunters was 

 strongly exemplified at another time, but in rather a different 

 manner. He had mounted a friend, who complained of having 

 nothing to ride, on his celebrated horse Cicero. The hounds were 

 running breast-high across the big pasture lands of Leicestershire, 

 and Cicero was carrying his rider like a bird, when a strong flight 

 of rails had almost too ugly an aspect of height, strength, and 

 newness for the liking of our friend on his 'mount.' The keen 

 eye of Assheton Smith, as he rode beside him, at once discerned 

 that he had no relish for the timber, and seeing that he was likely 

 to make the horse refuse, he cried out, ' Come up, Cicero I ' His 

 well-known voice had at once the desired effect; but Cicero's 

 rider, by whom the performance was not intended, left his l seat ' 

 vacant, fortunately without any other result than a roll upon the 

 grass." 



"I have said," remarks Nimrod, "that Mr. Smith's make and 

 shape, together with a fine bridle-hand, have assisted him in rising 

 to perfection as a horseman." 



" I once saw," relates a friend, " a fine specimen of Mr. Smith's 

 hand and nerve in the going off of a frost, when the lone was not 

 quite out of the ground. We were running a fox hard over Sails- 



