THE BARB AND THE BRIDLE. , 143 



adopt any siiggestioa which tends to their well doing, I therefore 

 venture to point one or two matters which I trust will be found 

 useful. 



In the first place, when the hounds have settled to their fox and 

 people have shaken themselves into their places, the fair rider in 

 her early essays in the field should bestow her principal attention 

 upon the animal, upon ^vhich depends much of her sport. With a 

 ^ood man by her side, she will run no risk from thrusting neigh- 

 bours, and although she cannot too soon begin to have " one eye 

 for the hounds and another for the horse," it is the latter w^hich 

 demands all her energies. The whole business is exciting. The 

 genuine dash, the vigour, the reality, that is so striking to a novice 

 when hounds come crashing out of covert, through an old wattle, 

 or bounding over a strong fence; the up-ending and plunging of 

 impatient young horses, the brilliant throng of fashionable eques- 

 trians, the rattle of the turf under the horses' feet as they stride 

 away — all these, or any of them, are quite sufficient to warm up 

 even old blood, and are certain to send that of the young going at 

 such a pace that all rule and method in riding is very apt to be 

 forgotten, or thrust aside in the eager desire " to be first." 



It is just at tliis critical moment that I w^ould advise my fair 

 readers to lay to heart the necessity of controlling their excitement, 

 because it is at such a time that a horse, especially at the beginning 

 of the season (if allowed), -will "take out of himself" just what he 

 wdll want hereafter, assuming a stout fox that means business to be 

 to the front. A soothing w^ord or two, and " making much" of the 

 excited steed, will generally cause him to settle in his stride and cease 

 romping ; whereas, if the rider is excited as well as the horse, we have 

 oil upon fire at once. Again, it cannot be too forcibly impressed 

 upon ladies riding with hounds that the latter require plenty of room 

 to rrork. 



" Place aux dames " is a rule rigidly observed by gentlemen in the 

 hunting field Room for the hounds should form an equally invio- 

 lable law with ladies in the same place. And it is the more necessary 

 to impress this upon beginners, because many a first-rate man who 

 pilots ladies, although bold as a lion over a country, and cautious to 



