8 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



is not more natural ; indeed, these paths might well 

 be described as the woodman's or the keeper's run in 

 their origin, though later they may be trimmed for 

 the sake of the fox-hunt. I remember hearing for 

 this kind of fact is in the oral history of an old land- 

 family like ours that the larger and broader paths 

 and rides were cut and grubbed simply for the hunter. 

 This was Assheton Smith himself. Few, if any, who 

 once followed him among these oaks and underwoods 

 are now alive to tell of it. But I can recall one or 

 two who were with the man of iron. There was the 

 sporting villager, a very distinct figure of our child- 

 hood, who had tales to tell of the stern hunter. This 

 village worthy believed in two things perhaps above all 

 else by which countryside and folk could thrive good 

 red meat, and the merry sound of horn and galloping 

 hoof ; quite an honest belief, though partly mixed up 

 with his livelihood, for he was the butcher. The grey 

 or dappled grey which he long rode I can just recall 

 by an odd freak of memory, and that he had a sort of 

 scornful pity for weaklings who could not buy butcher's 

 meat. The other was a pastor, who lived by the noble 

 grey ridge of down to the north. This man, too, 

 loved hound and horn, and I believe he had ridden 

 with Nimrod. But somehow I have carried a memory 

 of him as one who might have figured better in " The 

 Excursion " than in the rush and colour of the hunt ; 

 perhaps because he was a very quiet man in manner 

 and in dress, and because I can just recall part of a 



