144 THE BARB AND THE BRIDLE. 



a degree as to the line he takes for his fair compagnon de chasse, is 

 oftentimes far too modest to check her exuberant riding, and the 

 consequence is, many an anathema — not loud, but deep — is bestowed 

 upon both by exasperated masters and huntsmen. 



Unlike the professional riding master, a first-rate pilot — such, I 

 mean, as is paid for his services — though well behaved and respectful, 

 is likely enough to lack much education, except such as he has 

 received in the saddle or on practical farming matters ; and his awe 

 of a lady, properly so called, is so considerable as to preclude his 

 exercise of the fortiter in re altogether, no matter how much his 

 charge is unwittingly infringing the rules of sport. 



I saw an amusing instance of this not long ago. A lady, the 

 widow of a wealthy civil servant in India, having returned to her 

 native land laden with the riches of the East, being still young and 

 excessively fond of riding, purchased a stud of first-class hunters^ 

 took a nice little hunting box in Leicestershire for the season, and 

 engaged the services of a very good man to pilot her. As a rule every 

 lady rides in India — some of them ride very well ; but a rattling 

 gallop at gun fire, in the morning, over the racecourse at Ghindee or 

 Bangalore, is quite a diiferent matter to a gallop with the Pytchlej 

 hounds. The " Bebe sahib" (great lady) had no idea, mounted as 

 she was, of anybody or anything (bar the fox) being in front of her. 

 And be it known to those who have never been in India that " great 

 ladies" there are ''bad to talk to," being in the habit pretty much 

 of paying very little attention to anything in the way of counsel 

 coming from their subordinates. Our Indian widow was no 

 exception. So she did all sorts of outrageous things in the field in 

 riding in among the hounds — and, indeed, before them — to the 

 disgust of the master and everybody else, including her pilot, who in 

 her case was certainly no mentor — but the latter was too well paid 

 to risk offending the peccant lady ; he ventured a gentle hint or two, 

 and, being snubbed, gave it up for a bad job. 



He was so severely rated, however, by the masters of hounds in 

 the district — one of whom declared he would take them home 

 directly he saw the lady and her pilot with them — that the latter 

 was fairly at his wits' end to know how to keep the too dashing 



