WATER JUMPING. 55 



ment of encountering provided always that he knows 

 his horse to be, what is justly called, "good at water" 

 On the other hand, it would be quite impossible to 

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

 heart would gradually collapse, as it approached the very 

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

 at ivater" 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 stiff, 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 (until by a good 

 rider it has been unbewitched) he appears to conceive to 



