292 MANAGEMENT OF HOUNDS. 



violence nearly across the road ; and this time he was 

 really hurt, and obliged to confess it. Having v^aited 

 until it was ascertained that no bones were broken, 

 although he was most seriously bruised, I prevailed upon 

 him to go quietly home. 



We hear of men riding for a fall, and it may be one 

 way of getting to the other side of a fence ; but I must 

 plead my ignorance in not being able, either to see the 

 fun of the thing, or the necessity for it. The multiplicity 

 of falls in a season may be proof of hard riding and in- 

 domitable courage, but it argues nothing for good horse- 

 manship. He who can ride quietly and well to hounds 

 without them has the greatest claim to the character of 

 a really good performer over country. Accidents will 

 happen in the best regulated families, and every man 

 must expect to embrace mother earth occasionally ; but 

 riding a horse, when blown, at an impracticable fence, 

 is, in my humble opinion, a great piece of folly. 1 have 

 ridden as hard as any man in my youthful days, and, 

 when riding only about ten stone, used to prefer taking 

 gates to any other fence. 



In our vale country banks with double ditches pre- 

 vailed, and I think the heavy weights across this country 

 could hold their way quite as well as the light ones, if 

 not better. A good workman, of 13 or 14 stcfne, on a 

 powerful horse, will get over or through stiff bounds or 

 hedges, where a light weight would be nearly torn out 

 of his saddle ; and in charging an upright quickset of 

 seven or eight years' growth, it requires power and 

 strength to get through that which it is impossible to 

 jump over, the sticks only bending to let one through 

 and then closing after. 



