28 The Old Surrey Fox Hounds 



undoubted authority, thus sums up Tom Hills' qualifi- 

 cations : — 



" He was extremely sagacious, never hurried or bluster- 

 ing, but patient to a degree, though, when it was necessary 

 to go, no obstacle, single or double, was too big or broad 

 for him. He was perfect in his kennel management, a 

 painstaking, persevering huntsman, possessing a great 

 knowledge of that wily animal, the fox ; a famous man to 

 get on the line, and there to keep his hounds without 

 seeming pressure. Good in the Vale, though with sixteen 

 children, his nursery must naturally have been among the 

 c Hills.' He would account for his fox on the cold- 

 scenting steeps of Surrey, and would climb and gallop 

 down them with a lightness of hand and heart which bore 

 no inappropriate contrast to his walk in life. But he did 

 not shine across country only, for he could kill nineteen 

 out of twenty partridges with his old ten-bore c leaden 

 Dick' ; he could outwit a highwayman, and, whilst peace- 

 ful in all his tendencies, he could make an example of a 

 man heavier and younger than himself when a gross insult 

 had to be resented. He had an inexhaustible fund of 

 anecdote, a truthful memory, was never coarse, had friend- 

 ships firm and true, and for fifty years worked hard in 

 what, to him, was certainly a pleasurable occupation, until 

 the evening of his days set in ; and the last remaining ten 

 years were spent among the patrons and associates of his 

 early life and their immediate descendants." 



That is a perfectly accurate and unexaggerated tribute 

 to the memory of this great huntsman. Many good 



