PROFITING BY EXPERIENCE. 247 



"it is as much as my neck is worth to part with 

 him." The fact was, the farmer was a determined 

 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 all, he used to 

 start off across the lields home : somehow he stuck 

 on, and the horse went home as straight as gun-shot. 

 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 some night, 

 horse and all, in some of the Essex ditches. " Nay," 

 says 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." 



I have endeavoured to prove, what I am bold 

 enough to say I know to be fact, that the action of 

 horses is to be wonderfully altered by placing them 

 in situations where they must alter it of themselves. 

 It would be an endless work to enumerate all the 

 imperfections of the horse, or the mode by which 

 they may be counteracted. A little exertion of 

 consideration will lead any man of common sense to 

 be able in most cases to ascertain the cause of the 

 deficiency : a little ingenuity will point out to him 

 the most probable mode of altering it : and a great 

 deal of patience and command of temper will gene- 

 rally succeed in effectually, or at all events in 

 partially, doing this. 



There is no horse which requires such variety of 

 action as the hunter. There is no doubt a peculiar 

 action that tends to get a horse along with the most 

 ease to himself in peculiar situations. Even with the 

 same hunt the country has often, we may say, two 

 faces. To come near London, for instance. With a 



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