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 be 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 ? ' ' They 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 



