Part 20

The encouragement given to farmers to breed horses of the best description, the high prices paid to them for hay, oats, beans, and straw; the sums of money expended for the purchase or rent of hunting-boxes, lodgings, stables, carriage-houses, &c., added to a variety of other incidental expenses, large and small, amount to a grand total which it would be less easy to underrate than exaggerate.

But besides the sums which hunting-men, by maintaining from eight to fourteen hunters, with grooms and strappers in proportion, distribute in their various localities, in almost every county men of rank and fortune step forward to support, more or less at their own private cost, a huntsman, one or two whips, hounds, and a stable full of horses, for the recreation and amusement of the community.

With this generous object in view, the late Sir Richard Sutton, for many years, spent about 10,000l. a-year in maintaining two packs of hounds and a stud of about fifty horses, for which he readily paid enormous prices.

In any portion of the globe, except the United Kingdom, the price of dog-flesh in England would appear utterly incomprehensible. In 1812 Lord Middleton gave 1200 guineas for the pack he purchased. When Mr. Warde gave up the Craven country Mr. Horlock paid him 2000 guineas for his hounds; while Lord Suffield coolly handed over to Mr. Lambton 3000 guineas for his pack without seeing them. To Mr. Conyers the master of the Tedworth hounds offered for "Bashful" 100 guineas; and for another bitch, called "Careful," 400 guineas, or 10,080 francs; a sum which, in any village in France, would be considered for a peasant girl--though neither bashful nor careful--a splendid marriage portion.

Before Sir Richard's death, Lord Alford, Lord Hopetoun, Lord Southampton, and, since his decease, Lord Stamford, who keeps seventy horses, have come forward to bestow upon the hunting counties around them the same noble and munificent assistance which, on a smaller scale, is as liberally given in many other localities; and yet, without one minute item, the sum total of the enjoyment, the recreation, the health, the good fellowship, the hard riding, the enormous sums of money distributed over the United Kingdom to maintain that ancient, royal, loyal, noble, and national sport which seriatim we have endeavoured to describe would suddenly be annihilated, were we but to lose that tiny unclean beast, that dishonest little miscreant that everybody abuses--+The Fox.+

Ille Jacet.

But the scene suddenly shifts,----a small cracked bell in a violent hurry rings,----the slight shuffling of a few running-away feet is heard,----the green curtain which scarcely half a minute ago had dropped slowly rises,----and in the centre of the little stage there now appears, reposing by itself, a white wicker cradle containing a new-born baby, who will rapidly grow before our readers into a character intimately connected with the sayings and doings, the scenes and incidents we are endeavouring to describe.

To prevent the poor animal escaping from his doom, the hounds were made to surround the mouth of the drain before the order was given to "lift up the sluice."

On the words being uttered the eyes of all the riders who encircled the pack were, of course, concentrated on one point. A slight noise was heard, some dead sticks appeared, followed by a violent rush of water, in the midst of which, rolled up like an immense hedgehog, appeared the fox, who no sooner got into daylight, than, before a hound could snap hold of him, he jumped to the left, and, at almost the same instant, popping through the only little hole in the thick hedge that bounded the drain, burst away, distanced the pack of enemies, quadruped and biped, that followed him, and thus escaped a death from which nothing but his extraordinary quickness and determination could have saved him.]

+Thomas Assheton Smith,+

Born in Queen Anne Street, Cavendish Square, London, on the 2nd of August, 1776, was the grandson of Thomas Assheton, Esq., of Ashley Hall, near Bowden, in Cheshire, who assumed the name of Smith on the death of his uncle, Captain William Smith, son of the Right Honourable John Smith, Speaker of the House of Commons in the first two Parliaments of Queen Anne, and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the preceding reign.

As Shakespeare, in his immortal history of the Seven Ages of Man, briefly described the first as "the infant, mewling, &c., in its nurse's arms," so of the childhood of Tom Smith the only occurrence we are enabled to record is that his mother, one day, found him lying on his nurse's lap, gasping like a tench just landed from a pond.

"What's the matter with the child?" she eagerly inquired.

"Nothin," replied the calm nurse; "he's doing nicely."

As regarded the present tense, this answer was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Had, however, the question been "What has been the matter with him?" with the same grammatical accuracy the reply would have been, "If you please, Ma'am, he has just thrown up a large pin," which, unperceived, he had managed to swallow.

On his reaching the second age of man--that is to say, when he was but seven years old--he was sent "with his satchel and shining morning face" to Eton, where, on his arrival, he found himself the youngest boy in the school.

The busy hive of the United Kingdom, we all know, is divided into cells, in each of which, at this moment, a raw material is being converted by labour into some particular description of manufactured goods. In one cell, a Minister of State is concocting, from crude evidence, a speech, a budget, or a despatch. In another cell, a young woman, with a protuberant cushion on her lap, covered by an intricate pattern, marked by pins with heads of various colours, is as indefatigably labouring for the welfare of her country by twirling, twisting, and twiddling innumerable bobbins of fine thread into Honiton lace. In other cells, workpeople are converting broadcloth into clothes, leather into shoes, horse-hair into wigs, medicine into pills, lead into bullets, brass and tin into cannon, iron into rifles, alkali and grease into soap. Within what is called a "scrap-mill," by the power of steam, controlled by a single man, broken bolts, bars, nuts, nails, screw-pins, &c., are made to revolve, until by rumbling, tumbling, rubbing, scrubbing, bruising, beating, hustling, and jostling each other, all are turned out clean and bright, fit to be welded together for any purpose that may be required.

At Eton, by a similar process, about 600 boys of all sizes and shapes--red-haired, white-haired, black-haired; long-legged, short-legged, bandy-legged; splay-footed, pigeon-toed; proud, humble, noisy, silent, good-humoured, spiteful, brave, timid, pale-faced, sallow-faced, freckled and rosy-cheeked, weak and strong, clever and stupid, pliable and pigheaded--yet all controlled by that unwritten, immutable, imperishable code of honour which, like a halo, has always illuminated their play-ground and their school, are hustled together on water, in water, under water, and out of water, until, when the door of their scrap-mill is opened--although their minds and bodies are as dissimilar as ever--they all turn out polished gentlemen, prepared to encounter those hardships, dangers, vicissitudes, difficulties, and, above all, base temptations in life, which high-bred principles are so especially well adapted to resist.

For eleven years Tom Smith remained at this school, where he acquired a taste for classical literature, which characterised him through life. Pope, Shakespeare, and Horace, from which he used to quote long passages, were his favourite authors; he could also, without pressure, spout out the whole of the Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard. But what reigned at the back of his head and in the citadel of his heart was an ardent love for athletic exercises of any description, especially for cricket and boating. He was also, throughout his whole life, affectionately attached to fighting; and Etonians, old and young, to this day, record, as one of the severest contests in the history of youthful pugilism, the desperate battle he fought with Jack Musters, a kindred spirit, of whom it has been said that he could do seven things--namely, ride, fence, fight, swim, shoot, play at cricket and at tennis--as well as any man in Europe. His pugilistic propensity, which appeared so early, was conspicuous throughout his life. While hunting in Leicestershire he was prevailed upon to stand for the borough of Nottingham. On proceeding to the poll, he found not only the town placarded with "No foxhunting M.P.," but a guy in a red coat, tailed by a fox's brush, burning in effigy of him before the hustings. His appearance there elicited tremendous yells and hootings, which apparently no authority could subdue, until, with a stentorian voice, heard above the uproar, Tom Smith exclaimed, "Gentlemen! as you refuse to hear my political principles, be so kind as to listen to these few words: I'll fight any man among ye, little or big, and will have a round with him now for love!" In an instant, as if by magic, yells and groans were converted into rounds of cheers, demonstrating the strange stuff, be it good, bad, or indifferent, that Englishmen are made of.

On another occasion, while riding down the Gallowtree Gate, in Leicester, he struck the horse of a coal-heaver, who, in return, cut him sharply across the face. Smith jumped immediately from his horse, and the driver from his cart, the latter doffing his smock-frock, the former buttoning his coat and turning up his sleeves. The conflict was desperate; and from a fellow weighing fourteen stone, and standing six feet high, he was receiving severe punishment, when, by constables and a crowd of people, the combatants were separated. "You shall hear from me again!" said Smith to his gallant smutty antagonist. True to his word, the next morning the squire's groom was seen inquiring where the coal-heaver lived. On finding the man, whose face, like his master's, had received some heavy bruises, he said to him, "Mr. Smith has sent me to give you this sovereign, and to tell you you're the best man that ever stood before him." "God bless his honour!" replied the man, "and thank him a thousand times."

When Tom Smith was at Eton, fighting had not cropped to the surface of a schoolfellow and friend who in after life, known by the name of +Wellington+, greatly distinguished himself in this world by seeking and by gaining pitched battles. "I suppose, Smith," said the old silver-haired Duke to him, one day, in London, "you've done now with fighting?" "Oh, yes," replied Smith, then in his sixtieth year, "I've quite given that up; but----" suddenly correcting himself, he added, "I'll fight yet any man of my age."

At Chapmansford, when upwards of seventy, a rough country fellow, before a large field of sportsmen, threw a stone at one of the hounds of the old squire, who instantly struck him with his hunting whip. "You daren't do that if you were off your horse," said the man. The words were hardly out of the clodhopper's mouth when (in the seventh age of man) Smith stood before him, with a pair of fists clenched in his face, in so pugilistic an attitude that the fellow took to his heels, and, amidst the jeers of his comrades, ran away.

In 1794 Tom Smith quitted Eton to become a gentleman commoner at Christ Church, Oxford, where, with great diligence and assiduity, he hunted regularly in Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire,--became a fearless swimmer,--learnt to pull a sturdy oar on the Isis,--was a good shot and billiard-player,--and excelled as a batsman in the cricket-field on Cowley Marsh and Bullingdon. On leaving the University he became a member of the Marylebone Club and a regular attendant at Lord's during the summer; he was also a member of the Royal Yacht Club. Mr. Smith's love for science and shipbuilding induced him to build several sailing and steam yachts. He considered himself to be the practical originator of the wave line, and, by the advice of the Duke of Wellington, he submitted to the First Lord of the Admiralty some important hints for improving the construction of gunboats. In autumn, winter, and spring, he instinctively "went to the dogs," or, as in sporting phraseology it is termed, "took to hunting," so eagerly, that in 1800, when only twenty-four years old, he was signalized in song as a daring rider in that celebrated run from Billesden Coplow, in which but four gentlemen, with Jack Raven the Whip, were able to live with the hounds.

In 1806 he succeeded Lord Foley at Quorn, and for ten years hunted Leicestershire with first-rate hounds, for a portion of which he had paid to Mr. Musters 1000 guineas, until, in 1816, he took the place of Mr. Osbaldiston in Lincolnshire, where he hunted the Burton country for eight years. He then, ceasing for two years to be a master of hounds, hunted with the Duke of Rutland and in the neighbouring counties until 1826, when, taking up his residence at Penton Lodge, he created for himself a new country between Andover and Salisbury. In 1830--two years after the death of his father, from whom he inherited a very large fortune--he removed to Tedworth, which he had lately rebuilt with magnificent kennels, and stables in which every hunter had a loose box. In these stables he had often as many as fifty horses, all in first-rate condition. For thirty-two years he hunted the Tedworth country without ever asking for subscriptions of any sort or kind. All he begged of the landowners and of those who hunted with him was to preserve foxes to enable him to kill them. At his meets his friend and guest the late Duke of Wellington often attended. In stature Mr. Smith was about 5 feet 10 inches high, athletic, well-proportioned, muscular, but slight. His weight was between eleven and twelve stone. With a highly-intelligent but resolute countenance, containing (as was observed of it) "a dash of the bulldog," he had plain features. "That fellow Jack Musters," Tom Smith used to say, "spoilt +my+ beauty." For several years, though his name was seldom found in the debates, he represented in Parliament Carnarvonshire and Andover; and in 1832, in consequence of the riots which took place in that year, he raised, at his own expense, a corps of yeomanry cavalry, reviewed by the Duke of Wellington, the troopers of which were chiefly his own tenants or farmers of the neighbourhood. For upwards of fifty seasons he continued to be the master of hounds, until, after having been in his saddle for seventy years, the boy who in 1783 went to Eton when he was seven years old, died at Vaenol on the 9th of September, 1858, aged eighty-two.

At the earnest request of his widow, Sir John E. Eardley-Wilmot (assisted by extracts from the 'Field' newspaper), with considerable spirit and ability, has lately compiled a series of graphic incidents and sketches, forming altogether a memoir--or, as he terms them, 'Reminiscences'--of the life of one whom Napoleon I. addressed as "le premier chasseur d'Angleterre," and who was also called by the Parisians "le grand chasseur +Smit+." From this volume we shall now submit to our readers a few extracts.

"Lord Foley," wrote 'Nimrod,' "was succeeded in the possession of the Quorn hounds by that most conspicuous sportsman of modern times, Thomas Assheton Smith. As combining the character of a skilful sportsman with that of a desperate horseman, perhaps his parallel is not to be found; and his name will be handed down to posterity as a specimen of enthusiastic zeal in one individual pursuit, very rarely equalled. From the first day of the season to the last he was always the same man, the same desperate fellow over a country, and unquestionably possessing, on every occasion and at every hour of the day, the most bulldog nerve ever exhibited in the saddle. His motto was, 'I'll be with my hounds;' and all those who have seen him in the field must acknowledge he made no vain boast of his prowess. His falls were countless; and no wonder, for he rode at places which he knew no horse could leap over; but his object was to get, one way or the other, into the field with his hounds. As a horseman, however, he has ever been super-excellent. He sits in his saddle as if he were part of his horse, and his seat displays vast power over his frame. In addition to his power his hand is equal to Chifney's, and the advantage he experiences from it may be gleaned from the following expression. Being seen one day hunting his hounds on Radical, always a difficult, but at that time a more than commonly difficult, horse to ride, he was asked by a friend why he did not put a martingale on him, to give him more power over his mouth. 'Thank ye,' he replied, 'but my left hand shall be my martingale.'"

His fame and success in Lincolnshire were as great as at Quorn. The Melton men followed him, knowing they were sure of good sport wherever he went, although scarcely one of them was quite prepared for the formidable drains or dykes in the Burton Hunt. Shortly after their arrival there, they found a fox near the kennels that crossed a dyke called the Tilla. Tom Smith, the only one who rode at it, got in, but over, leaving behind him fourteen of the Meltonians floundering in the water at the same time, which so cooled their ardour that, excepting Sir H. Goodricke, gallant David Baird, and one or two others, they soon returned to Melton.

Mr. Delmé Ratcliffe, in his work on the 'Noble Science of Fox-hunting,' describes Tom Smith as follows:--