ICO REMINISCENCES, ETC. 



" Will you not wait for Captain Coldstream 1 " said an 

 officious yeoman, as Mr. Smith was moving on to draw 

 Clatford Oakcuts. " I have had three hundred captains 

 out before now, sir," was the response, "but never better 

 sport for it." 



On another occasion, he exclaimed, " Why do you lie 

 there, howling and exposing yourself?" addressing a rustic, 

 whom his horse had slightly kicked. " My dear Tom," 

 remarked his more feeling friend, Mr. Henry Pierrepont, 

 "the man is hurt, and why so rough to him ?" "On 

 yrindple^' rejoined the squire ; " if I had int'ied him, he 

 would have been there for a week, but now you see he is 

 up and well already." 



During the winter of 1815, or the following spring, in a 

 run from Barkby Holt, while in the heat of the chase, 

 Parson B., a well-known character in those days, fell in 

 taking a large fence. A bold dragoon coming too quickly 

 after him, drove out of the body of the reverend divine 

 what little wind was left in it, by making a stepping-stone 

 of the prostrate man. Mr. Smith, who beheld this trans- 

 gression, instantly attacked the offender in no measured 

 terms, when he excused himself by saying that it was not 

 his fault, but that of his horse, as he had on only a snaffle 

 bridle. " Then, sir, the sooner you go home and get a 

 double one the better," replied the Nimrod of unques- 

 tioned authority ; thus giving good advice to every 

 one who could trust himself to a single rein instead of two. 



" I like to see Squire Smith with the horn on his saddle," 

 said Marsh, the sporting shoemaker ; " for he does things 

 as should he. If he kills a fox, he kills hira, and if he loses 

 him he loses him. He does not do as Ben Foot (the Craven 

 huntsman) does — go muttering after him all day long, and 

 worriting him to death at last." Persons in Marsh's 

 sphere of life form a very accurate estimate of men and 

 things, and as they can feel no jealousy, there is no faintness 

 in their praise. 



