46 REMINISCENCES, ETC. 



were running into tlieir fox in an orchard on the top of a 

 hill at Rolleston (Mr. Greene's). Up the hill, in his usual 

 place, rode the squire, when some very formidable posts 

 and rails met him, which Jack-o'-Lantern got over without 

 a fall by breaking the top rail. "' Yon may guess what sort 

 of fence it was," said Davy, " when I tell you not a man 

 would face it even then." 



" Nothing ever turned Mr. Smith. If you had come near 

 the Coplow, I would have shown you that big ravine he 

 jumped ; twelve feet perpendicular, blame me, if it isn't, 

 and twenty-one across ; it has been nearly the same these 

 forty years. They had brought their fox nearly a miie and 

 a half from the Coplow, and he went to ground in the 

 very next field. He was riding Guildford, a very hard 

 puller, and go he would. The biggest fence he ever 

 jumped in Leicestershire was a bullock fence and hedge 

 with ditch and back rails, near Rolleston ; he was on 

 Jack-o'-Lantern." '•' 



Besides Jack-o'-Lantern, the squire had at that time 

 some other capital horses, and among them Filch, Gadsby, 

 and Gift. The last-named was, in fact, a gift from Long 

 Wellesley, who said that no man could see a run on him. 

 " He only wants a rider," said Tom Smith. " Will you 

 ride him, then, at Glen Goss?" rejoined Long Wellesley. 

 " Willingly," exclaimed the squire ; and, as usual, picked 

 up the fox, after getting eight falls over gates, when Long 

 Wellesley begged his acceptance of him. 



The history of the education of Jack-o'-Lantern was thus 

 related by Tom Edge, an intimate friend of the squire, and 

 for many years, as has been already mentioned, his mess- 

 mate at Quorn : " We were riding to covert through a line 

 of bridle gates, when we came to a new double oaken post 

 and rail fence. ' This is just the place to make my colt a 

 good timber jumper,' said the squire, ' so you shut the gate, 



* Dick Cliii.'.tiuii, in " 8ilk and Scarlet," p. 57. 



