HUNTING, AND KIDING TO HOUNDS. 51 



country, and, if I remember rightly (I was not 

 tliere to see), the horse took a line of private road, 

 interspersed with high five-barred gates. At full 

 speed he took them all without stirring his lady 

 in the saddle, and without causing her to lose her 

 discretion or her determination to exert her power 

 at the right time, whenever that might arrive. 

 The right time came, and the horse at last knew 

 his lady as '^the water knew its lord," and found 

 that, wild as he had been, even his temper coidd 

 be tamed by an unshaken and unruffled gentleness, 

 that, while it caressed, subdued all coarser ebul- 

 litions of violence. She rode her horse Avithout 

 reproach or fear. If, then, ladies arc to ride, and 

 ride in 2)erfcct safety, they must have practice 

 other than is to be found in a humdrum ridina*- 

 school or in Rotten Row ; and they cannot have a 

 better field day in Avhieli to drill themselves to 

 efficiency in horsemanship than the hunting field 

 affords. 



As long as ladies do not forget themselves, no 

 man alive, be he vulgar, forward, well-educated or 

 refined, will cease to remember what is so justly 

 due to them; and time- wide as my experience has 

 been, I have never seen cause to regret a lady's 



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