40 REMINISCENCES, ETC. 



ploughs towards Grafton. One of the sportsmen, Mr. 

 Hawkins, viewed our fox emerginf!: from the Vale on to the 

 grass downs towards CoUingbaurne Woods, some way ahead. 

 Some of them cut across, and got on to these downs, and 

 had a steady pull at their horses. Meanwhile the squire, as 

 usual, was riding as honest as a schoolboy in the "Vale with 

 his hounds. Presently they came up with the horsemen on 

 the turf, and old Ayston cut down every nag among them 

 in fair galloping across the downs, notwithstanding his 

 previous episode in South Grove and the Vale." At 

 another time this same gallant animal cleared the deer 

 hurdles in Conholt Park, nearly six feet high, and pounded 



the field. Mr. F , who had ample opportunities of 



forming a judgment, says, " he was, in my humble opinion, 

 the very best hunter I ever saw ; " and an old sportsma-n 

 observed in his hearing, " that the man did not live who 

 could make a fence sufficiently strong to stop Ayston, with 

 the squire on his back, and with a fox sinking before his 

 hounds." It was with Ayston, that the squire astonished 

 the natives on his visit to Lord Moreton, when he took 

 with him his capital huntsman and whipper-in, Dick 

 Burton and Tom Day. Ayston tripped on one occasion 

 when he was going to covert, and Mr. Philip Pierrepont, 

 who was alongside of him, said to Mr. Smith, " If I were 

 you, Tom, I would ride that horse no more." " It I were 

 going to ride for my life," was the answer, " I would ride 

 him and no other." The village of Ayston, in Leicester- 

 shire, from which this favourite hunter was called, is in the 

 best hunting part of the country. 



Mr. Smith used to relate the following anecdote of the 

 purchase of one of his best horses, but whose name, how- 

 ever, is not recorded : — " When I had the hounds in 

 Leicestershire, an Irishman rode up one morning to meet 

 them on a splendid horse. I saw directly he could not 

 ride; and as one of my whips was on a slow one, but a 

 capital fencer, I ofiered him the whip's horse to ride for the 



