CHAPTER XX 



ee O 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?" 



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



DURING the number of years that are included in these Remin- 

 iscences, it is extraordinary how few fatal, or even serious 

 accidents have come under my immediate observation, whether 

 from horse or gun. This is remarkable when the reader con- 

 siders 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, ignorantly 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 can, or, as the phrase runs 

 now, " to cut 'em all down. 1 ' 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 struggle to right 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 bar of a stiff gate, and pitches his 



