THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



necessary for a single leap upon a solid surface ; but there is 

 still another requisite for motions which take place in fluids, 

 which the horse does not possess. The body being entirely 

 surrounded by these media, would find an equal resistance on 

 all sides ; and the velocity acquired by striking the fluid 

 posteriorly, would soon be overcome by the quantity that must 

 be displaced anteriorly, if the animal had not the power of 

 considerably diminishing its surface immediately after it has 

 struck the fluid — which power, also, the horse has not. I 

 certainly was indebted for the preservation of some of my 

 limbs, perhaps my life, for an exertion of this sort, which 

 enabled my horse to clear a sawpit that was on the landing 

 side of a fence I rode at. One who saw me exclaimed — " Why 

 did you not look before you leaped ? " when a wag answered 

 him in the words of Horace — " Nemo mortalium omnibus lioris 

 sawpit!' ' 



The next pack visited by our hero was that of Sir Richard 

 Puleston, who hunted parts of Cheshire, Shropshire, and North 

 Wales, and his object for so doing was this : — he had been 

 informed, by more than one good judge, that Sir Richard was 

 an excellent breeder of foxhounds ; in fact, that he had done 

 much towards ridding them of those coarse points which, 

 whilst they disfigured them, were found not to be essential to 

 strength and endurance, but evidently impediments to speed. 

 Then he had another motive for visiting Sir Richard's pack. 

 He was at that time one of the very few masters of foxhounds 

 who hunted his own hounds, and, as he hoped some day or 

 another to hunt a pack himself, he was anxious to see a gentle- 

 man placed in that difiicult and trying situation. Nor was he 

 disappointed in Sir Richard, who exhibited very good judgment 

 in his casts, and drew for his fox in a manner very much to his 

 taste. Had he, indeed, ridden a little nearer to his hounds in 

 chase, he would have called him a first-rate huntsman. The 

 next pack, however, which our young sportsman went to see, 

 on his tour, were hunted by quite a first-rate huntsman, and 

 also in the character of a gentleman. We allude to Mr. 

 Musters, who at that time hunted one of the best of the 

 midland counties with very great eclat. He combined, in the 

 opinion of our hero, every possible requisite for his task. He 

 was a beautiful and bold horseman ; with a voice musically 

 melodious ; with the eye of a hawk to his hounds and countr}^, 



352 



