234 Cross Country with Horse and Hound 



from her. A man who rode in her style would be called 

 a reckless daredevil, and probably be run away with every 

 day he came out. The chances she takes successfully seem 

 to suggest a charmed life, or strengthen one's faith in the 

 good old doctrine of predestination. 



Occasionally a lady rider exhibits a bit of horsemanship, 

 but as a rule she is conspicuous for her lack of it, although, 

 amusingly enough, she does not know it, nor does her mount 

 seem to find it out. 



"Some day," once said a young hunting man to me, "there 

 will be a most horrible accident to a lady rider in the 

 hunting-field, though may I never be present to witness it. 

 She courts danger as she does admiration." 



" I have been expecting it for the last sixty years," said 

 an old hunting man to me in England, " but it never 

 comes." 



" She takes my breath away," remarked a friend of mine 



one day as we saw Miss F , a most welcome addition 



to the Genesee Valley Hunt, send her faithful grey at a 

 fence with a miry take-off and a big drop on the landing 

 side. It was an awful scramble, but the blood of Wa-wa- 

 zanda was in the old mare's veins. She had her own way, 

 entirely unhampered, and in time we regained our normal 

 respiration. 



The same woman who would jump upon a chair in 

 fright if a mouse ran across the room, or who would rather 

 die than bait a hook with a squirming angleworm, will 

 sail with apparently no concern at a stake-and-rider fence 

 with a ditch on the landing side that makes us shut our 

 eyes. They are enigmas, certainly. Their riding to 



