1856] THE SECOND WILL SMITH. 85 



one season, when my brother William was re-engaged to hunt the 

 hounds, but does not give up his farm, his son William being placed in 

 it as foreman. 



Thos. Smith, 



Brigg, November 12th, 1863. 



The Second Will Smith. 



The following is an account of a day with the 

 Brocklesby in the middle of the last century, gleaned 

 from the Illustrated London News for November 15th, 

 1856, at which time the second Will Smith was huntsman. 



" But time is vip, and away we trot — leaving the woods of Limber for the 

 present — to one of the regular Wold coverts, a square of artificial gorse of several 

 acres, surrounded by a turf bank and ditch, and outside again bj' fields of the 

 ancient turf of the moorlands. Li go the hounds at a word, without a straggler; 

 and while they make the gorse alive with their lashing sterns, there is no fear of 

 our being left behind for want of seeing which way they go, for there is neither 

 plantation nor hedge of any account to screen us. And tliere is no fear either of 

 the fox being stupidly headed, for the field all know their business, and are fully 

 agi-eed, as old friends should be, on the probable line. 



" We skip the preliminary anxieties, and, of course, find a fox — there is no 

 instance of drawing blank on paper. A very faint tally-away, and cap held uj). 

 by a fresh-complexioned, iron-grey, bullet-headed old gentleman of sixteen stone, 

 mounted on a four-year-old, brought the pack out in a minute from the far end of 

 the covert ; and we were soon going, holding hard, over a newly ploughed field, 

 looking out sharp for the next open gate ; but it was at the wrong corner, and by 

 the time we had reached the middle of the fifty acres, a young farmer in scarlet, 

 as upright as a dart, showed the way over a new rail in the middle of a six-foot 

 quickset. Our nag, ' Leicestershire,' needed no spurring, but took it pleasantly, 

 with a hop, skip, and jump ; and by the time we had settled into the pace the 

 other side, the senior on the four-year-old was alongside, crying, ' Push along, 

 sir, push along, or they'll run clean away from you ! The fences are all fair on 

 the line we're going ! ' And so they were — hedges thick, but jumpable enough, 

 yet needing a hunter for all that, especially as the big fields warmed up the pace 

 amazingly; and as the majority of the farmers out were riding young ones, 

 destined for finished hunters in the pasture counties, there was above an average 

 of resolution in the style of going at the fences. The ground, naturally drained 

 by chalk subsoil, fortunately rode light ; but presently we pass the edge of the 

 Wolds, held on through some thin plantations over the demesne grass of a squire's 

 house, then on a bit of unreclaimed heath, where a flock of sheep brought us to a 

 few minutes' check. With the help of a veteran of the hunt, who had been 

 riding well up, a cast forward set us going again, and brought us, still running 

 hard, away from the Wolds to low ground of new enclosures, all grass, fenced in 

 by ditch and new double undeniable rails. As we had a good view of the style of 



