1 68 CENTURY OF ENGLISH FOX-HUNTING 



never a " thrusting scoundrel," He said to " The 

 Druid," " It's not the big fences I'm afraid of. I 

 never go near 'em, but it's the Httle 'uns I'm afraid 

 of." But Dick was the last man in the world to 

 turn his horse's head from a fence when he had 

 once put him at it. Writing about the accom- 

 plishments of the hunting-field, " The Druid," in 

 Silk and Scarlet, pays this tribute to Dick Chris- 

 tian : "A gentleman who practically explains all the 

 above accomplishments to the great edification of 

 young horses, and the no less astonishment of weak 

 minds." 



It is much to be regretted that Dick never entered 

 for the authorship stakes, for he could have given us 

 more information about hunters than any man who 

 has ever put pen to paper. But the boy who played 

 truant from the school where they taught the three 

 R.'s in order to attend the school where they taught 

 horsemanship was not likely to devote his energies 

 to literature in later life. I am informed that he had 

 a supreme contempt for hunting journalism, though 

 he had a warm affection for Mr. Dixon, alias " The 

 Druid," to whom he gave some particulars of his 

 life, when, in his seventy-eighth year, he was re- 

 siding at Norton by Bessingborough. These par- 

 ticulars were published in Silk and Scarlet, but are 

 too voluminous for me to analyse in these pages. 

 However, I cannot refrain from quoting his opinion 

 in regard to hunters : " Give me 'em lengthy, short- 

 legged for Leicestershire. I wouldn't have 'em no 



