WATER JUMPING. 55 



ment of encountering — provided always that he knows 

 his horse to be, what is justly called, '^ good at water J^ 

 On the other hand, it would be quite impossible to 

 describe into how very small a compass the same man's 

 hear-t would gradually collapse, as it approached the very 

 same brook, on what is just as truly termed "a hrute 

 at water. ^^ In any other description of fence the rider, 

 if he has not ruined his horse's courage by vacillation of 

 hand or heart, may confidently rely that he will accom- 

 plish it for him if he can, and if it cannot be accom- 

 plished, that he will try to jump through or over it, or, 

 generally speaking, a good deal more than humanity 

 dares to ride at. 



If the bull-finch be too strong, the hunter may stick in 

 it, or forcing through it into the ditch on the other side, 

 may leave his owner hanging like a bird's-nest in its 

 branches. An ox-fence — composed of two ditches, a 

 bank, a pair of hedges, and a stifi", low, oak rail — may 

 altogether prove too broad to be cleared. Timber also 

 may be too high to be topped ; yet, in all these cases, 

 if the rider be but willing, the noble horse is always ready, 

 ay, eager, to do his very best, and many a broken back and 

 prostrate carcase, divested of its saddle and bridle, has been 

 the melancholy result ; and yet, with all this superabund- 

 ance of high courage, almost every horse instinctively dis- 

 likes to jump water, an element which (imtil by a good 

 rider it has been unbewitched) he appears to conceive to 



