198 HUNTING. 



he found himself between the legs of Tom Smith.' Certainly 

 no man ever put his theories into practice more zealously or 

 more successfully than he. For nearly fifty years of his life he 

 had been a master of hounds. When close upon his eightieth 

 year, old Tom Wingfield, who had been with him when he 

 hunted the Quorn, asked him whether he could manage ' them 

 there big places ' as well as he did ' in old Jack O'Lantern's 

 days,' and he could honestly answer, 'I hear no complaints, and 

 I believe my nerve is as good as ever.' Only two years before 

 he died he had no less than three falls in one day, and was 

 none the worse for them ! It has been computed that in the 

 heyday of his fame his average of falls was from sixty to seventy 

 a season, and he was never hurt but once ! His light weight, 

 his iron constitution, and temperate habits, served him well, of 

 course ; it may be admitted, too, that he was an exceptionally 

 lucky man. But his cool head, unshaken nerve, and thorough 

 knowledge of horses, had really enabled him, as one may say, to 

 reduce the art of falling to a science, though it would have 

 been difficult probably, for him or anybody, to formulate its 

 precepts in words. One of his favourite rules was, when he 

 fancied a fall was likely, always to put his horse at the fence 

 aslant^ so that, if his fancy was proved fact, the animal might 

 keep at least one leg free, and fall on its side clear of its rider. 

 Another famous follower of this rule was Mr. Greene, the 

 Squire of RoUeston, who in his youth had sat at the feet of 

 Mr. Smith. There are two other golden rules that the young 

 rider will do well to bear also in mind : never to part coinpany 

 with your liorsc till the last moment^ and never to leave go of the 

 reins. 



Granted, then, that the rider has this primal gift of courage, 

 and that he possesses both its component parts of pluck and 

 ?ierve, or, as they may be now elegantly called, valour and dis- 

 cretion, there remain to make him really a good man, seat, 

 hands, judgment. The combination of all three in their proper 

 degrees results in a perfect horseman. 



Of all these essentials the seat is the only one that can 



