The Horse and His Rider

by Sir Francis Bond Head

"And yet," says Sir J. Eardley Wilmot, "notwithstanding the gallant manner in which he always rode, never turning from any fence that intervened between him and his hounds, he never had a horse drop dead under him, or die from the effects of a severe day's riding. It is also a fact well recorded that he was never known to strike a horse unfairly. 'How is it,' asked a friend, 'that horses and hounds seem never to provoke you?' 'They are brutes, and know no better, but men do,' was the reply."

The most extraordinary hunter in his stable, "Ayston," was pigeon-toed, and so bad a hack, that he had to be led to covert; and yet at no time would his master have taken a thousand guineas for him.

After the famous Billesden Coplow run, in which Tom Smith maintained so prominent a place, he sold the horse he that day rode, called Furze-cutter, for which he had given 26l., to Lord Clonbrock for 400l.

The Rev. Francis Dyson, now rector of Creeklande, on being ordained, was appointed to assist his father, the clergyman at Tedworth:—

"Mr. Smith," says Sir J. Eardley Wilmot, "was so pleased with his first sermon, that, on coming out of church, he slapped the young curate on the back, and said, 'Well done, Frank! you shall have a mount on Rory O'More next Thursday.' Young Dyson had many a run afterwards out of the squire's stables, for his performances in the field pleased as much as those in the pulpit.

"Once, when the hounds were running short with a sinking fox, a person clad in a long black coat, and evidently thinking scorn of the fun, inquired of the Whip what the dogs were then doing. 'Why, Sir,' said Dick Burton, throwing a keen glance down the inquirer's person, 'they are preaching his funeral sermon.'"

In 1840 Tom Smith proposed to pay a visit to his old friend Sir Richard Sutton, whose hunting had been stopped by a severe accident. On hearing of this movement, Mr. Greene of Rolleston, who had been one of his best pupils in his Leicestershire days, requested him, in his way to Lincolnshire, to bring his hounds once more into his old country, Mr. Hodgson, who then hunted Leicestershire, having handsomely placed the best meet at his disposal. The veteran, for he was then sixty-four, accepted the challenge, bringing with him eighteen couples of his finest hounds, of great substance, open-chested, and in splendid condition.

"It would be vain," writes Sir J. Eardley Wilmot, "to endeavour to commemorate the scene which took place when Tom Smith, surrounded by his hounds, met the field at Shankton Holt on Friday, the 20th of March. More than two thousand horsemen, one-third of whom appeared in pink, were assembled. Men of the highest birth and station, men who had served their country with deeds of most daring gallantry by sea and land, men who in political or social life were the most brilliant in repute, thronged to do honour to the first fox-hunter of the day. They had come from remote counties, and more were pouring in along the grassy slopes and vales, or skirting the well-known gorse covers. As Dick Christian remarked, 'the first lot were at Shankton Holt when the tail end wern't out of Rolleston gates.' Cold must have been the heart of him who could behold without joyous emotion the crowds of grey-headed horsemen hurrying forward to shake hands with their old friend and fellow-sportsman, each calling vividly to memory some scene where he had acted the most conspicuous part. More than twenty years had rolled away since he had resigned the lead in that magnificent country. There had been splendid riders since his day; and while time had thinned the ranks of the veterans, younger men had either achieved or were achieving fame—Frank Holyoake, now Sir Francis Goodricke, well known for his splendid feats on Brilliant; Colonel Lowther, Lord Wilton, Lord Archibald Seymour, George Payne, Little[I] Gilmour, Lord Gardner, George Anson, and a host of sportsmen, well deserving the reputation they had won, yet all strangers to the doings of this hero of the Quorn, except through anecdotes familiar to them as 'household words.' In addition to these were a very goodly display of carriages-and-four filled with ladies, and pedestrians without number. The hounds with Dick Burton were drawn up on the lawn, while the vast group of horsemen formed a circle, with the carriages and assembled crowd outside. After the friendly salutations were over, and their enthusiastic character astonished no one but the Illustrious Stranger[J] present, Mr. Smith took his hounds to Shankton Holt, where he drew only the bottom of the covert; thence to Norton Gorse, Stanton Wood, Glooston Wood, and Fallow Close, all blank. It was an unfavourable day for scent,—a bright sun with north-easterly wind, not a cloud to be seen, and the cold intense. A fox having been found by Mr. Hodgson, in Vowes Covert, as already stated, away went the hounds towards Horringhold, leaving Blaston to the right. Here Mr. Smith took a strong flight of rails into a road, quite like a 'young 'un.' The fox soon afterwards crossed the Welland, and went away for Rockingham Park, where, it being late, they whipped off."

From 1830 to 1856—that is to say, until Tom Smith had reached the age of eighty—with his indomitable energy and undaunted courage he continued to hunt his hounds at Tedworth, spending his summers at Vaenol on board his yacht. His head was as clear and his hand as firm as they had been twenty years ago. If he felt not quite well in a morning, plunging his head into cold water, he used to hold it there as long as he could, which he said always put him to rights. It is true he had curtailed his meets to four only a week, but on these days the farmers were delighted to see "the old Squire" vault on horseback, as usual, blow his horn while his horse was carrying him over a five-barred gate, and, with a loose rein, gallop down the sheep-fed hill-sides with all the alacrity of a boy. But although the hourglass of his existence appeared to be still as bright and clear as ever, the sand within the upper portion of the crystal was now running to its end. In September, 1856, while at his summer residence in North Wales, he was suddenly seized with an alarming attack of asthma, which, by the use of stimulants and by the assiduous attention of Mrs. Smith,—at this period herself in a very weak state of health,—was so far subdued that on one of his horses saddled appearing at the door—although five minutes before he had been gasping for breath on the sofa—he mounted the animal, and broke away, as if instinctively, to seek for himself a stronger stimulant than his physician could prescribe—the sight once again of his hounds.

"Although," writes Sir J. Eardley Wilmot, very feelingly, "he rallied from this attack in an astonishing manner, he was no longer the same man. The erect gait was bent, and the eagle eye had lost its lustre."

The able writer of 'Silk and Scarlet' gives the following graphic and affecting description of Tom Smith the last time he appeared at the meet with his hounds:—