i68 THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER 



saj, " it is as mucli as my neck is worth to part with 

 him." The fact was, the farmer was a most deter- 

 mined goer in the field, but a much harder one in 

 a public-house, and frequently when it was so dark 

 the horse could hardly see, and the master not at 

 all, he used to start off across the fields ; somehow 

 he stuck on, and the horse went home as straight as 

 a gunshot. I once saw him take a gate, with his 

 master on the saddle, and his arms most lovingly 

 round the horse's neck. I told him he would be 

 found one night, horse and all, in one of the Essex 

 ditches. " Nay," said he, " there is not a ditch in 

 the country we were not in, the first year I had 

 him ; he knows them too well now to get in again." ' 



The typical fox-hunter of the novelist is apt to 

 be very unlike the real article, unless the novelist 

 himself happens to be a hunting-man. Sometimes 

 we find a good description of a real fox-hunter, who 

 hunts for pure fun — such a one as the sporting 

 writer, ' Sylvanus,' has portrayed in the following 

 sketch : 



'Accompany us, then, reader, to the abode of 

 Joe Whitaker, Ramsdale House, on Nottingham 

 Forest, or the Duke of Limbs, as he was commonly 

 called from his immense size and strength. The 

 Duke kept a stud of four-legged friends, under the 

 guise of horseflesh, for his own and friends' especial 

 riding ; brutes seventeen hands high, rushing, hard- 

 mouthed, vicious devils, that no man durst mount 



