Hunting with Hounds. 377 



their mounts ; and a fall with a done-out beast is always 

 peculiarly disagreeable. Most falls, however, do no harm 

 whatever to either horse or rider, and after they have 

 picked themselves up and shaken themselves, the couple 

 ought to be able to go on just as well as ever. Of course 

 a man who wishes to keep in the first flight must expect 

 to face a certain number of tumbles ; but even he will 

 probably not be hurt at all, and he can avoid many a 

 mishap by easing up his horse whenever he can that is, 

 by always taking a gap when possible, going at the lowest 

 panel of every fence, and not calling on his animal for all 

 there is in him unless it cannot possibly be avoided. It 

 must be remembered that hard riding is a very different 

 thing from good riding ; though a good rider to hounds 

 must also at times ride hard. 



Cross-country riding in the rough is not a difficult 

 thing to learn ; always provided the would-be learner is 

 gifted with or has acquired a fairly stout heart, for a con- 

 stitutionally timid person is out of place in the hunting 

 field. A really finished cross-country rider, a man who 

 combines hand and seat, heart and head, is of course rare ; 

 the standard is too high for most of us to hope to reach. 

 But it is comparatively easy to acquire a light hand and a 

 capacity to sit fairly well down in the saddle ; and when 

 a man has once got these, he will find no especial difficulty 

 in following the hounds on a trained hunter. 



Fox-hunting is a great sport, but it is as foolish to make 

 a fetish of it as it is to decry it. The fox is hunted merely 

 because there is no larger game to follow. As long as 

 wolves, deer, or antelope remain in the land, and in a country 



