154 THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER. 



ment to a horse caused by the presence of hounds creates 

 in his physical powers as wide a difference as exists be- 

 tween those of the two nags just described. The old, 

 jaded, worn-out, '*' groggy " hunter, who came hobbling 

 out of his stable, and who has been fumbling and blunder- 

 ing under his groom along the road, no sooner reaches the 

 covert side than, like a lion " shaking the dew-drops from 

 his shaggy mane," he in a moment casts away the ills 

 which flesh is heir to in short, his prostrated powers 

 suddenly revive ; and accordingly it is on record, that 

 in one of the severest runs with staghounds ever known 

 in Essex, the leading horse was aged, twenty-two. Again, 

 on the road, when a horse has travelled thirty or forty 

 miles, he usually becomes more or less tired ; whereas, 

 during the ten or twelve hours that a hunter is out of 

 his stable, he will, with the utmost cheerfulness, besides 

 trotting more than that distance on the road, follow the 

 hounds for many hours across a heavy country and large 

 fences ; and as it is well known that, in harness, a horse 

 is less fatigued by trotting before a carriage on a hard 

 macadamized road for forty miles than in dragging it 

 through an earth road for ten, it would appear almost 

 fabulous to state how many miles on the road, or espe- 

 cially on dry turf, could be performed by the amount of 

 excitement, activity, and strength expended by a hunter 

 during a long and severe day's work. 



