368 



CHAPTER XIX. 



" oil Death, thy scythe hath not descended even, 

 Where one unmitigated sinner falls, 

 The young, the gentle, good, and fair are given, 

 The blow that e'en the stoutest heart appals. 

 If thy fell mission rests in heav'nly powers, 

 Why not the weeds, instead of all the flowers ?" 



Last of the New Forest Deer. — G. F. B. 



During the number of years that are included in 

 these Reminiscences, it is extraordinary how few fatal, 

 or even serious, accidents have come under my imme- 

 diate observation, whether from horse or gun. This 

 is remarkable when the reader considers how many 

 men go out hunting who have neither seat nor hand 

 on horseback, and who are not aware of their danger, 

 and therefore are, in a proportionate extreme, igno- 

 rantly daring. How many there are who appear on 

 horseback, whose very timidity and nervousness alone 

 bring them into peril ; and what numbers who force 

 horses along, who have no knowledge of the services 

 required of them, or who, on good and well-trained 

 horses, ride at each other in a resolution not to be 

 " set" at a fence, and to set all others, if they ca7i, or 

 as the phrase runs now, " to cut 'em all down." The 

 steady or portly gentleman's rouse from a lethargic 

 trot on a high road, when his cob pitches on his 

 nose, and in the struo-gle to riofht himself receives the 

 fourth button of his rider's waistcoat on his ears, as 

 said rider goes out of the saddle, on and off the horse's 

 head to the flints or gravel beneath, is a thousand 

 times more dangerous than when a steed hits the top 



