HUNTS AND THEIR HISTORY 163 



him from the famous T. Assheton Smith — was one 

 of the best. Mr. Smith had but a scratch pack, an 

 inferior lot of horses, and rebellious servants, yet 

 he contrived to show capital sport, while he hunted 

 the hounds himself. If Lord Chesterfield had many 

 distractions and looked on the mastership as merely 

 an episode in his career of extravagance and pleasure, 

 Mr. Smith cared only for hunting. Yet he was a 

 scholar and a man of considerable ability, as his 

 books show, and " The Diary of a Huntsman " is 

 one of the most practical and useful books on the 

 science of hunting the fox that has ever been written. 

 The story of Mr. T. Smith's mastership of the 

 Pytchley reads like a romance. He accepted the 

 country at the request of a committee, of whom 

 Mr. George Payne of Sulby was the spokesman. 

 Negotiations to buy Lord Chesterfield's pack as a 

 whole failed, and Mr. Smith started the season of 1840 

 with a pack from which the best hounds had been 

 drafted for Lord Ducie. In addition, the Master had 

 a few hounds which he brought from Wales. Thus, 

 on the 29th of October Mr. Smith was ready to begin, 

 and planned a day's cub-hunting at Sywell Wood. 

 There are evidences that there had been complaints 

 of the conduct of the hunt servants, and they con- 

 firmed the bad opinion which had been expressed 

 of them by some members of the hunt by refusing 

 to go out in the morning. But the Master was equal 

 to the occasion. He told old Hayes, the feeder, 

 and Moody, a helper, in the stable who, as he knew, 

 had occasionally ridden a second horse, to get ready 

 to go with the hounds, and then went back to his 

 lodgings where he put on his red coat, and filled his 

 pockets with bread and biscuit to throw to the hounds 

 on their way to the covert. As he rode back with 



