56 PEACTICAL HINTS FOR HUNTING NOVICES. 



confidence on the following morning, and was never 

 carried to covert more comfortably. But when hounds 

 went to draw he was quite another animal, and for the 

 next two hours I was the most miserable man in the 

 field. The horse tried to bolt, backed, kicked and reared, 

 and it was more owing to good luck than anything else 

 that I did not have a nasty accident. About one 

 o'clock I found the second horses, and with them was 

 my friend's stud groom on a pony. I told him what I 

 thought of the horse I had been riding, and he, in 

 somewhat supercilious tones, hinted that there was 

 nothing wrong with the horse, but that I could not ride 

 him. Well, I frankly admit that he was too much 

 for me, but, still, he had not bolted or got rid of me in 

 two hours, and so I suggested that the stud groom 

 should take him in hand himself. He at once fell in 

 \\ith the suggestion, and changed on to the horse just 

 as hounds were crossing the lane where we stood. In 

 a moment the horse was oft' with him, and I have a 

 recollection of standing on an eminence and watcliing 

 the pair go out of sight nearly a mile off, and no more 

 of the stud groom was seen that day. Similar instances 

 of harness horses being bad hunters I could give by 

 the score, and, on the whole, I am greatly inclined to 

 think that the new beginner should avoid them at a 

 costs, unless, indeed, he knows that some particular 

 harness horse is really quiet when taken out 

 hunting. 



To secure even a small measure of enjoyment in his 

 earliest hunting days the novice must be mounted 

 on a quiet nag, and this he is most likely to find in a 

 livery stable. If he is quickly suited and gets through 



