370 KEMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



bulfinch, or black-looking hedge that you cannot see 

 through, coninig ; you must choose between it and 

 the gate ; you select that which you have a fancy for; 

 and if it is the gate, you lessen your speed a little, 

 not to over-pace the horse, and risk his getting either 

 too near for a rise, or taking off too far from it ; but 

 if the bulfinch must be had, keep to your speed, or 

 you won't get through with impetus enough to clear 

 the ditch beyond. When resolutely ridden, the horse 

 is aware, as soon as the rider, of what he has to do ; 

 and the instant the mind is made up, it is beautiful 

 to feel between your knees the ample swell, or heave, 

 of the round deep ribs beneath you, caused by the 

 lon<r breath the horse fetches, to catch his wind for 

 the exertion. I Lave, on Brutus and Jack, felt a girth 

 snap in the action, when I had not previously run 

 my hand over them, to feel that they were not in the 

 least too tio-ht. A hed2:e is reached with the ditch to 

 you, and neither you nor 3^our horse expect anything 

 on the other side ; but at the moment of the spring, 

 and while in the air, and about to land as you think, 

 a second wide yawning ditch lies beneath. The 

 gallant horse then must get out of the scrape in one 

 of two waj's ; either you feel him expand as if he 

 were flying, sending out his shoulders to such an ex- 

 tent that I have known Brutus and Jack snap their 

 breastplates ; or the horse, if he feels he can't thus 

 cover the unexpected width, must drop his hinder 

 legs, and kick the bank witli force enough to give him 

 a second spring. I have known Brutus kick a hard- 

 bound wattled hedge with his hinder legs, and gain 

 enough additional impetus to clear the second ditch ; 

 and once, over the River Brent, feeling that it was im- 

 possible to leap from bank to bank, he went in and out. 



