IRISH HUNTERS. 153 



the young one, getting close under it, clears the whole 

 out of a trot, with the elasticity and the very action 

 of a deer. Presently some frightful chasm has to be 

 encountered, wide enough for a brook, deep enough 

 for a ravine, boggy of approach, faced with stone, and 

 offering about as awkward an appearance as ever 

 defeated a good man on his best hunter and bade 

 him go to look for a better place. 



Our friend in the bad hat, who knows what he is 

 about, rides at this " yawner " a turn slower than would 

 most Englishmen, and with a lighter hand on his 

 horse's mouth, though his legs and knees are keeping 

 the pupil well into its bridle, and, should the latter 

 want to refuse, or "renage," as they say in Ireland, 

 a disgrace of which it has not the remotest idea, there 

 is a slip of ground-ash' in the man's fingers ready to 

 administer " a refresher " on its flank. " Did ye draw 

 now ? " asks an Irishman when his friend is describing 

 how he accomplished some extraordinary feat in leap- 

 ing, and the expression, derived from an obsolete 

 custom of sticking the cutting-whip upright in the 

 boot, so that it has come to mean punishment from 

 that instrument, is nearly always answered " I did 

 not!" Light as a fairy, our young, but experienced 

 hunter dances down to the gulf, and leaves it behind 



