HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 167 



and stopped all who did not mean genuine 

 hard going. Twenty-six horses crossed it, 

 one of them ridden by a lady. A mile or so 

 farther on, before there had been a chance 

 for much tailing, we came to a five-bar gate, 

 out of a road a jump of just four feet five 

 inches from the take-off. Up to this, of 

 course, we went one at a time, at a trot or 

 hand-gallop, and twenty-five horses cleared it 

 in succession without a single refusal and with 

 but one mistake. Owing to the severity of 

 the pace, combined with the average height 

 of the timber (although no one fence was of 

 phenomenally noteworthy proportions), a good 

 many falls took place, resulting in an unusu- 

 ally large percentage of accidents. The mas- 

 ter partly dislocated one knee, another man 

 broke two ribs, and another the present 

 writer broke his arm. However, almost all 

 of us managed'to struggle through to the end 

 in time to see the death. 



On this occasion I owed my broken arm to 

 the fact that my horse, a solemn animal origin- 

 ally taken out of a buggy, though a very clever 

 fencer, was too coarse to gallop alongside the 

 blooded beasts against which he was pitted. 

 But he was so easy in his gaits, and so quiet, 

 being ridden with only a snaffle, that there 

 was no difficulty in following to the end of 

 the run. I had divers adventures on this 

 horse. Once I tried a pair of so-called 

 " safety " stirrups, which speedily fell out, and 

 I had to ride through the run without any, at 

 the cost of several tumbles. Much the best 



