Breeding of Hunters. 28 1 



out of the great maestro's mouth, and he had resumed 

 his conversation, when a hare jumped up before his 

 own hounds, which were reputed the steadiest in the 



world, and away they went. " Lucky for me, , I 



answered that man as I did," were his first words as 

 he returned with the rioters, after a hard two miles' 

 gallop. 



Assheton was christened after his owner's dis- 

 tinguished predecessor at Quorn, whose name will 

 always be associated with his gallantest of chestnuts, 

 Jack-a-Lantern. Jack was a wonderfully compact 

 horse, of moderate substance, not much over fifteen 

 and a half, rather cow-hocked, and a very handy and 

 quick jumper of every description of fence. There 

 used to be a sort of magic sympathy between the two. 

 Mr. Smith, who always seemed to teach his horses to 

 throw themselves sideways over their fences, would 

 trot along, with the reins carelessly held in his left 

 hand, and waving with his right to the hounds at a 

 cast, and Jack would take him over fence after fence, 

 as they came, such as would have stopped nine-tenths 

 of a field in a run, while he never once seemed to 

 take his eye off the hounds. He was one of the most 

 careless of roadsters, and though generally so gentle 

 that a child could have ridden him, he was at odd 

 times, if he was at all ruffled, perfectly ungovernable. 

 It is on record that just as the fox broke away from 

 Burbidge Wood, he took the bit in his teeth, and 

 dashed off for a couple of miles in exactly the oppo- 

 site direction, before his owner could get a pull at 

 him. This he did with quite as much apparent gusto 

 as the late Mr. Musters, who delighted, whenever he 

 did not like the *' thrusting-scoundrel" look of his 

 field, to blow his hounds out of cover, and to go as 

 straight as a crow for another some five miles off; 

 thus not only shaking off three-fourths of his field for 

 the day, but deluding several of the rest into a belief 

 that they had a very fast thing. On one occasion, in 



