30 In Scarlet and Silk 



I am sure, readily understand that unless I 

 were prepared to immediately emigrate I 

 dare not mention her name ! — who is seventy- 

 five, and the year before last broke her thigh 

 riding over a fence. It must have required 

 pretty good nerve to have braved the perils 

 of the chase after that, at her age, and she 

 is hunting this season in one of the home 

 counties. 



Mr. Robert Bird was another wonderful 

 example of " keeping young." He used to go 

 right well, not merely potter along, in the Fitz- 

 william country — which takes some doing, by 

 the way — until he was past eighty ; and I see 

 that Custance, in his interesting "Riding 

 Recollections," states that this good sports- 

 man offered to run any horse in the Fitz- 

 william Hunt for ^^50, 12 st. 7 lbs. each, 

 owners up, the challenger being then of the 

 age of seventy-eight ! And is it not matter 

 of history, engraved in every fox-hunter's 

 heart, how the immortal " Squire of Ted- 

 worth," Thomas Assheton Smith, " the best 

 and hardest rider England ever saw," accord- 



