My First Steeple-chaser. 87 



stood close into the church, while neat farmhouses and well-filled 

 stack-yards scattered around, bespoke the agricultural wealth of the 

 district. The village, of course, boasted its blacksmith's shop, its 

 pound, and its one public-house, the " Rutland Arms," where good 

 accommodation was to be obtained for man and horse, and whose 

 excellent loose boxes never stood empty on the night before a 

 Findon Toll-bar meet. As a man gazed from the hillside by the 

 church upon the valley below, his eye wandered over a panorama 

 such as few countries could display a panorama such as is never 

 seen out of merry England, and which stretched for miles over 

 perhaps the best agricultural as well as the best hunting country in 

 the world. The little river Swift which here dwindled to a brook, 

 but a brook of formidable dimensions wound its tortuous course 

 through rich meadows, which bounded it on either side ; while 

 ploughed fields of stiff, useful clay-land, and large enclosures of old 

 swarth, which had never been turned up by the plough within the 

 memory of man, separated by bull-finches, ox-fences, strong post- 

 and-rails, and splashed stake-and-bound growing blackthorn hedges, 

 with a ditch on each side, all formed the lean-ideal of a stiff hunt- 

 ing-country. 



The start for the steeple-chase was in a meadow close to the 

 village, and the brook, or river as it was called, which was the 

 third fence from the first flag, was here, perhaps, eighteen feet wide, 

 and eight to ten feet deep. After this the line went on over large 

 enclosures of grass and plough, with some excellent galloping ground 

 up to the flag, placed in a grass field about two miles distant, round 

 which the horses had to come ; and then back again over much the 

 same line of country, down to the brook again which, however, 

 was not nearly so wide on returning; and then on to the finish be- 

 tween two flags placed in the starting meadow, giving a straight 

 run-in of about four hundred yards from the last fence. The 

 whole line, including twenty-seven good hunting fences, and the 

 brook twice, was beautifully chosen j and as almost every man and 

 horse who went for the race knew the country well, and had crossed 

 the line some time or another with the hounds, it was a far more 



