FOX AND HOUND 



the court were one, that a man may be able to 

 ride in Leicestershire, and yet not able to ride in 

 the forest. It is one thing to race over grass, light 

 or heavy, seeing a mile ahead of you, and coming 

 up to a fence which, however huge, is honest, 

 and another to ride where we are going now. 



* If you will pay money enough for your horses ; 

 if you will keep them in racing condition ; and 

 having done so simply stick on (being of course a 

 valiant man and true), then you can ride grass, and 



** Drink delight of batde with your peers," 



or those of the realm in Leicestershire, Rutland, 

 or Northampton. But here more is wanted, and 

 yet not so much. Not so much, because the pace 

 is seldom as great ; but more, because you are in 

 continual petty danger, requiring continued thought, 

 promptitude, experience. There it is the best horse 

 who wins ; but here it is the shrewdest man. 

 Therefore, let him who is fearful and faint-hearted 

 keep to the rides ; and not only he but he who 

 has a hot horse ; he who has no hand ; he who has 

 no heel, or a horse who knows not what heel 

 means ; for this riding is more like Australian bush- 

 coursing, or Bombay hog-hunting, than the pursuit 

 of the wily animal over a civilized country, as it 

 appears in Leech's inimitable caricatures. . . . 



* . . . Racing, indeed ; for as Reinecke gallops up 

 the narrow heather-fringed pathway, he brushes oflF 



42 



