158 RIDING FOR LADIES. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



MANAGING REFUSERS. 



Riding refusers is unprofitable work for ladles, yet 

 nothing seems to be more general in every hunting-field. 

 I firmly believe that men ground their well-known objec- 

 tions to ladies hunting chiefly on this very thing, — nor is 

 it altogether to be wondered at. What, for instance, can 

 be more annoying to a well-mounted straight-going hunter 

 than to have a lady get in front of him at a fence — the 

 only negotiable spot in it, perhaps — and keep him and a 

 number of others back, though hounds are running in 

 the next field, while she whips, and kicks, and jags the 

 mouth of a horse that is determined not to have it .-* Of 

 course the rule in all such cases is that the rider of the 

 refuser shall at once pull off and suffer the rest of the field 

 to go by ; but ladies never seem to remember that it applies 

 to them, or ought at least to do so, quite as much as to 

 their brethren or pilots, and so they resolutely hold the 

 place, dragging first with one rein and then the other, and 

 shouting " Go on " with great apparent bravery, while the 

 horse dances and sidles, and shows every tooth in his head, 

 owing to the continued drag upon his mouth, and dis- 

 gusted horsemen turn away with very naughty expressions 



