THE RIDER. 



193 



of course, know well how to behave himself in such circum- 

 stances, but for the benefit of the less initiated, the more uni- 

 formly unambitious, a few simple rules may not be out of place. 

 The first advice we should be inclined to give to a stranger 

 in the land would be folloiv a leader — advice, we may observe 

 in passing, which holds good alike for those who intend ' going ' 

 as for those who do not. However experienced in the art of 

 road-riding a man may be — and an art be assured it is — how- 

 ever keen may be his eye for a country, it is tolerably clear 

 that if he has never been in that country and along those roads 

 before, there is likely to be disappointment somewhere before 

 the day is over. So long as the disappointment is individual 

 only it is of no particular moment — save to the individual. 

 But he who trots along strange roads in pursuit of his own 

 nose, knowing not where he is going, or, more important still, 

 where the fox is likely to be going, may not at all improbably 

 find himself sooner or later in the unenviable position of ' the 

 man who has headed the fox' — words which may hardly even 

 be written without a sense of unutterable misery and shame. 

 Even when by some untoward train of circumstances beyond 

 the best sportsman's control he finds himself in this humiliating 

 position he must expect scant mercy or justice. But when he 

 rides into it along a line of roads, when, in short, he has spoiled 

 other people's sport, as he will probably be told, because he 

 dare not share in it himself, then his case is desperate indeed. 

 ' Hanging,' as that eloquent nobleman Lord Scamperdale once 

 observed, ' is too good for him.' But we have said enough : it 

 is, indeed, a situation 



To be dreamed of, not to tell. 



The unaspiring adherent to Macadam will do well, then, to 

 provide himself with a leader, and he need never be at a loss to 

 find one. Every hunt has one or more skilful and well-trusted 

 pilots, who will be able to show him all the sport possible on 

 such conditions, without risking his own neck, or spoiling the 

 fun of others. Should he, however, by some mischance find 



o 



