THE TED WORTH. 177 



a fox can hang ; consequently, go he must. Hounds generally 

 get a good start, and a very merry spin is the result, across a 

 country where there is nothing more formidable than a sheep- 

 hurdle to get over. In fact, it is like the Brighton Downs 

 •without the hills. 



All Mr. Smith's anticipations were amply fulfilled, and, so 

 far from being like many others who have gone from good 

 scenting countries into bad ones and failed, his sport was as 

 good in Hants and Wilts as ever it had been with the Quorn or 

 Burton, if not better. Here we have a plain proof that all 

 countries are capable of showing sport with fox-hounds, provided 

 you have only the right man to hunt them. 



It is now time that I M^ent more into the personal history of 

 Mr. Smith as connected witli the Tedworth country, and I may 

 say that he settled at Penton Lodge in 1826, being then fifty 

 years old, and, as was stated above, he got together a scratch 

 pack. The next year he bought Sir Eichard Sutton's hounds, 

 who made him a present of Eob Eoy, saying, " He may ride 

 him, but no one down there could." And truly enough he did 

 ride him, and beat Lord Kintore on him in a good run in the 

 Yale of White Horse, but he had soon become quiet in Mr. 

 Smith's hands. I should have said that, when he came to 

 Penton, he had two hounds of his original pack, Bounty and 

 vSoloman, to help him M-ith his draft lot. The next year his 

 father died, and his hunting establishment was removed to 

 Tedworth, and from that date the country may be said to have 

 been fairly established. His first whip at Penton was George 

 Gardener; but, when he got regularly to work at Tedworth, 

 Dick Burton, David Edwards, and Morris Hills were his whips. 

 Carter came w^hen he bought the Duke of Grafton's hounds, in 

 1842, and he had Tom Day and Charlton also during the thirty 

 years and upwards that he kept hounds at Tedworth. Cowley 

 was first whip in Carter's time, and Jack Pricker, who com- 

 menced riding second horse to the Squire, with whom he was as 

 great a favourite as little Will Burton had been in his younger 



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