212 Hunting Countries of England. 



jumped without difficulty — five oat of six of them at 

 a fly, the remainder at a double effort, where a hedge- 

 grown bank has a ditch on either side. Here and 

 there, possibly, you may come across a fence of a 

 strength of build and a width of double ditch that 

 precludes an absolute jump — and in these you must be 

 content to seek a hole through which you may pop 

 from bank to bank on either side. The Bishopston 

 neighbourhood, for instance, will supply examples of 

 this nature. In the Vale you had best be mounted on 

 a bold, strong-jumping horse, of square build and on 

 short legs. Ugly looking places have often to be 

 faced; and a horse must have pluck and power to 

 carry you with true comfort. All over the Old Berk- 

 shire country you want a hunter : in the Vale you 

 must have a bold and active one. 



The Downs, as we have said, run along the 

 southern border of the Monday country, the Blowing 

 Stone is the meet just below them, on the edge of the 

 Vale, and immediately under the figure of the White 

 Horse — said to have been originally cut on the hillside 

 to commemorate a battle gained by King Alfred over 

 the Danes about a thousand years ago ; though by 

 many people it is supposed to have had a still earlier 

 origin. Legendary lore has not much to do with our 

 present subject ; but it is so insolubly wound up with 

 the locality under notice that it will not be out of 

 place to mention that at Compton they shew you 

 Wayland Smith's cave — wherein, tradition has it, the 

 invisible smith lived and worked. He would only 

 take sixpence for shoeing your horse ; and he would 

 only shoe him on his own terms, which were — that 



