AND MORE GRAFTON. 



277 



second to none. Let me not be misunderstood. Gate-handling 

 is as much a point of skill in riding to hounds where gates have 

 to be used as is ever the power of jump or the faculty of gallop 



and, indeed, is of far more importance, inasmuch as on its 

 acquirement depends not merely the success of our own progress 

 but the sport and convenience of others. I will volunteer no 

 sermon and I can conscientiously disclaim any personal super- 

 excellence in gate-handling. But I confess and protest that I 

 hate to see a man gallop up to a gate without casting a look at 

 its method of latching, or at the direction of its swing nor yet 

 change his whip hand until he is fairly on it, or even has his 

 horse pulled right athwart its opening, while fifty anxious men 

 and women are depending for their start upon his celerity. 

 Still less is it pleasing to see one comer after another let a 

 crowded gate slam to, from sheer inability to hold it as they 

 pass. A single slammed gate has cost many and many a good 

 man all share in a gallop. To-day we suffered chiefly from the 

 complication of excessively narrow gates, an unusual number 

 of kicking horses, and an extraordinary proportion of men who 

 went a-fishing with their crops sometimes with the wrong 



