ANECDOTE OF HIS FATHER. 15 



And yet the late Sir Henry Peyton and his son,* the 

 present baronet, were incontestably first-rate riders as well 

 as sportsmen. 



Nimrod, speaking of the Peytons, places the father in the 

 front rank, and after describing his good qualities, remarks 

 that nothing more is wanting to complete the portrait of a 

 perfect horseman ; while of the son, he says : " I scarcely 

 know in what terms to speak of him. Were I to declare 

 that from all I have seen and all I have read of him 

 he is the boldest and best horseman England ever pro- 

 duced, I should be afraid of looking upon the wall and 

 seeing Assheton Smith, John White,t and half a score more 

 crack names staring me in the face, and ' Hold hard, Nim- 

 rod,' in big letters. But, really, taking him over the 

 country and over the course, he must be as near excel- 

 lence as human ability and physical energies can place any 

 one."t 



On another occasion, although of course long subse- 

 quently to his leaving Oxford, Mr. Smith's father said that 

 he went on a visit to his son, then residing at Quorndon 

 Hall and keeping the hounds ; Mr. Smith, sen., was 

 mounted on a splendid horse belonging to his son, and they 

 had a splendid burst over the cream of the country, with a 

 whoop at the end. While Tom Smith was holding up the 

 fox to throw into the hounds. Lord Alvanley observed, 

 " How I wish your father had seen this finish." " Depend 

 upon it he has," replied Tom Smith, without looking up ; 

 "and I advanced," related the old squire, who told the 

 anecdote himself, " and made his lordship a low bow." 



" Was your father a good rider 1 " asked a neighbour 



* A writer in the Sporting Magazine, October, 1834, signing himself 

 " A Eambler in Green," calls Mr. Peyton " the best horseman in 

 England." 



t " What a one Captain White's Merry Lad was for rails in a corner, 

 he popped over for all the world like a deer ! " — Silk and Scarlet, 



t "Hunting Reminiscences," p. 267. 



