148 reminiscences; etc. 



wanting may, however, mar tlie other three. But this was not 

 so with Mr. Smith. He was fully master of the details and 

 minutise of the sport, and his judgment was equal to his 

 couraf^e. His observation was so quick, and his intuitive 

 knowledge of the animal he pursued so ready, that he never 

 hesitated a moment at a check what to do, and always could 

 sive a good reason for what he did. " Quickness of deci- 

 sion," observes an excellent judge, " is the life and soul of 

 fox-hunting." Mr. Maxse was heard to say, that the reason 

 why Mr. Smith showed such famous sport in Leicestershire 

 was, that when his hounds came to a check, he would just 

 as soon ride over any high gate or tremendous fence, if he 

 thought that the scent lay that way, as make his cast over 

 the open field.* 



" As a huntsman," said one who well knew what a com- 

 bination of qualities is necessary for the attainment of ex- 

 cellence in that department of the science of fox-hunting, 

 " I fearlessly put ]Mr. Smith in the first class. He has even 

 to this day'' (in 1841, when the squire was sixty-five years 

 old) " all the requisites to make him such : zeal, quickness 

 of perception, untiring perseverance, a ready judgment when 

 in difficulty, and horsemanship quite unequalled for daring 

 and duration by any man of this or any other age. For 

 example, what said his brother-sportsmen of him only last 

 season in Lincolnshire 1 Why, that there was no man who 

 could get over, or out of when in, the wide and deep 

 drains of that country, so cleverly as Tom Smith did. When 

 too wide to be cleared, as I was informed by an eye-witness, 

 he would force his horse into them diagonally, then, alight- 

 ing from his saddle and scrambling up the bank, he would 

 pull his horse after him ; and this when past his grand 

 climacteric." t 



* ** The first thing and sine qtid non of a huntsman is to ride up to 

 his head hounds." — Bfxkford, p. 177. 



t Nimrod's *' Hunting Reminiscences," p. 298. 



