252 HARE-HUNTING AND HARRIERS 



feet. It is a real pleasure — I speak as an old athlete 

 — to see a man going well over such a country, with 

 a good pack of foot-harriers. This form of running 

 is a considerably more severe trial than a jog trot 

 with a paper chase ; I have tested every possible 

 style of running, and I speak from experience. I like 

 to see a man run steadily after the clamorous pack, 

 keeping well within himself, taking each broad dyke 

 as it comes, and clearing it with a fine effort, and 

 keeping the while an eye on the line of the hare. When 

 hounds are really running hard on a good scenting 

 day — I speak of eighteen- or nineteen-inch harriers — 

 it is of course impossible for the finest long-distance 

 runner in England to keep within hail. The judi- 

 cious sportsman must, if he means to see the end, 

 cut off a corner now and again and swing across the 

 centre of the ring which the hare is almost inevitably 

 making. 



In such a country the man on foot is more than a 

 match for a good horse. These deep dykes are too 

 trappy to be ridden over, and the marshes of which 

 I write are practically never attempted by fox-hunters. 

 But even in more practicable country the good water- 

 jumper on foot is, at a wide brook, more than a match 

 usually for the average mounted man or woman. 

 Few horses are really fond of water, and steeple- 

 chasers, like Chandler (whose mythical thirty-nine 

 feet at Warwick by the way has never yet been satis- 

 factorily proved), are few and far between. Jack 

 Mytton and one or two others are said to have cleared 

 nine yards of water on exceptionally fine hunters. 

 I think such a feat is, for a real good horse — say, one 

 in ten thousand — and a very bold rider, quite possible, 

 but few mounted hunters indeed would make much 

 of a show against a good Sussex dyke-jumper who is 



