152 THE BARB AND THE BRIDLE. 



close carriage on rail or road, and a good foot warmer at the bottom 

 of the carriage ; and if there has been much rain, riding home on 

 horseback is by far the safest plan. I have frequently ridden home 

 sixteen and eighteen miles after dark with a lady whom I had the 

 honour of escorting on her hunting excursions, sometimes in very 

 bad weather, and I can safely say that, rain, snow, or sleet, she 

 never took cold. After leaving the hounds my first care was always 

 to make for some hospitable farmhouse near the road, or in default 

 thereof, some decent roadside inn, where we could have the horse's 

 legs well washed, and the lady's waterproof carefully put on if there 

 was rain about. I always carried for her a second pair of dry knee 

 boots, carefully folded up in a waterproof havresack. These boots 

 were made with cork soles within and without, and, as such boots 

 are easUy carried by any man who pilots a lady (of course I don't 

 mean the pilot who rides in scarlet), I specially recommend them to 

 consideration. The most difficult thing after riding a long day's 

 hunting, in which, now and again, a good deal of it will be in wet 

 weather, is to keep the feet warm. Throughout all the rest of the 

 system the circulation may be kept going by the exercise even 

 of slow steady trotting ; but the wet, clammy boot, thoroughly 

 saturated, it may be, by more than one dash through a swollen 

 rivulet, strikes cold and imcomfortable in the stirrup iron even to a 

 man, who has a better opportunity of counteracting it by the use of 

 alcoholic or vinous stimulants. It is therefore highly conducive to a 

 lady's comfort after her gallop with hounds, if she has far to go 

 home, to change her boots ; and this, with a little care and foresight 

 on the part of her attendant, can always be accomplished. With a 

 dry pair of boots, a good waterproof overcoat, and a cambric hand- 

 kerchief tied round her neck, a lady may defy the worst weather in 

 returning from hunting. 



A word now about second horsemen, in a country like this, where 

 the Jiahitu^s of it know tolerably well, if hunting is to be done in a 

 certain district, that a fox, given certain conditions of wind, is most 

 likely to make for certain points, and that if a covert is drawn 

 blank, the next draw will be in a certain locality, it is not difficult 

 for a good second horseman to be ready at hand when the lady 



