190 THE HOESE AND HIS EIDER. " 



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

 easterly wind, not a cloud 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 Eockingham 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 



