34 REMINISCENCES, ETC. 



tect. While the plans were being prepared by the surveyor 

 whom he employed to carry out his designs, the professional 

 adviser said it was not possible to retain the old dining- 

 room as it stood ; but Mr. Smith was firm, and said it must 

 be done ; he drew a plan of his own, and accordingly it re- 

 mains to commemorate the architectural skill of its late owner. 

 But the chief improvement, which it is our business to 

 narrate, was the metamorphosis of that formerly intractable 

 woodland country about Tedworth into a fine fox-hunting 

 district. The quick eye of Mr. Smith had long perceived 

 the vacancy between the New Forest and the Craven coun- 

 try," and he now began to put his long-cherished designs 

 into execution. Before his time, except during AYarde's 

 solitary month, no hound had ever opened in those big 

 chases, from year's end to year's end. During his residence 

 at Penton, the country had not been preserved long enough^ 

 always to insure a find, and the patience of the master had 

 been often severely tried in drawing during a whole morn- 

 ing. Occasionally a two-o'clock fox would give them a ride 

 home by the light of the moon ; for, when he was found, he 

 was very likely to be — 



" A traveller, a stranger, stout, gallant, and shy, 

 With his earths ten miles oflF, and those earths in his eye." 



A tale is still told with glee by the veterans of that 

 sporting district, and listened to with instinctive dread by the 

 cock-tails. It relates, that a " straight-necked wild'un," 

 found at Doyly, ran to the other side of Newbury ; that he 

 was lost at dusk in some old buildings ; that they left oflF 

 twenty-two miles from home j that the horses were all 

 knocked up ; and that the squire borrowed a pony at the 

 George Inn, at Hurstbourne Tarrant (where he left his 

 beaten nag), the owner of the animal at the same time 



* Mr. Warde being asked what were the boundaries of the Craven 

 country, replied, " It is a simple triangle, bounded by London, Oxford, 

 and Bath." Rather a latitudinarian definition. 



