32 RIDING 



him, which a good horseman will very soon discover. Then, 

 again, circumstances alter cases. Take timber, for instance, at 

 a naked flight of rails in a field, or at a queer stile in a corner, 

 going slow is usually the preferable method, though some horses 

 gallop over timber as safely as others do it at a trot, and many 

 riders like going fast at it on the principle that you may break 

 what you may not clear ; but when there is a wide ditch on the 

 far side, or where the gleaming ox-rail is but the antecedent 

 of other blessings, unless a horse is .allowed some swing, his 

 chances of a safe deliverance are exceedingly remote. What- 

 ever applies to timber applies equally to walls, though these are 

 seldom supplemented by a ditch, owing to a merciful law of 

 nature which causes them to crumble into it, thus affording the 

 convenience of a wholesome gap, if not of an improvised bridge, 

 for the behoof of all comers, and the farmer, though he may be 

 willing enough to let the mounted trespassers out easily and so 

 be rid of them, does not see the fun of building dry walls and 

 then undermining them, an act of folly from which even the 

 idiot ' Balbus ' of our early Latin exercises would have refrained. 

 Sometimes, however, in stone-wall counties an impediment 

 is encountered such as that described by Lindsay Gordon in 

 his 'Legend of the Cottiswold,' perhaps the most spirited 

 rhymes that were ever written in record of a quick thing. 



The right-hand man to the left-hand said, 



As down to the vale we went, 

 ' Harden your heart like a millstone, Ned, 



And set your face as a flint ; 

 Solid and tall is the rasping wall 



That stretches before us yonder ; 

 You must have it at speed or not at all, 



'Twere better to halt than to ponder, 

 For the stream runs wide on the take-off side 



And washes the clay bank under ; 

 Here goes for a pull, 'tis a madman's ride, 



And a broken neck if you blunder.' 



The whole of the right-hand man's advice is excellent, and 



