HOW WE FALL— AND HOW PREVENT IT. 201 



But of falling — and to this subject at all events I have given 

 diverse and multiplied trial ; and have good hopes of continuing 

 the series for many a year to come* For let a man once ex- 

 perience for long enough the false enjoyment of a total im- 

 munity from falls, a cropper will surely become a matter of 

 dread, and his personal safety will occupy his mind far more 

 engrossingly than the sport which is the nominal object of his 

 outing. Now in the district in which I am told off to hunt I 

 see many falls accepted — very often courted. And latterly I 

 have learned to sum them up into two classes, each typical of 

 the country that occasions them. In the light and woolly arable 

 into which so much of the soil directly south of Weedon 

 naturally resolves itself, there are as many loose horses daily to 

 be seen as ever in the strongest area of grass over which the 

 Pytchley flyers disport themselves. But in the one scene they 

 roll casually and easily, in the other they turn over with a 

 bound and impetus that will make the fall remembered. And, 

 oddly enough, the better horses are often entrapped to tumble 

 in the former, while in the latter the animal comes down only 

 because he is not good enough to stand up. In other words, a 

 second-class but skilful horse will do well in the one country, 

 while in the other he is not nearly so pleasant a mount as a 

 half-taught performer of higher calibre and more resolution. 

 The most elastic of horsemen can scarcely assert with truth that 

 a fall of any description is an enjoyable addition to his day's 

 pleasuring ; but it remains a matter of taste, and is quite open 

 to argument, as to whether a smasher on the grass or a shaker 

 on the plough is the lesser evil. 



Wednesday, December 22nd. — Looks less like skating, and 

 more like an open and merry Christmas than the past week gave 

 reason to expect. Skating is no more in my line than it is in that 

 of an earth stopper : so I can pretend to no regrets on that head. 

 Besides, with a prescience begotten perhaps of last winter's frosty 

 experience, I had organised an alternative occupation, much 

 more in keeping with my training and with the narrowed view 

 through which I am content to regard and concentrate all that 



