2 SPORTING REMINISCENCES 



something small before she gave me a saddle. 

 She could ride anything herself and spent her 

 days on wild two and three year olds which tied 

 themselves into knots as they bucked in the early 

 mornings. 



In her hunting days, before she married, there 

 were only two ladies riding across country, the 

 County Limerick Hounds, Lady Humble and 

 herself. Later Miss Massey made a third. 



I am afraid I was born to love horses too well. 

 How much my patient ass endured I never like 

 to think of. With Peter, a youth who followed me 

 at a gasping trot, I was always off somewhere. 

 Without Peter I was also off, but not so decor- 

 ously. I can recall the day now, I was seven 

 then, when I saw one of the jennets tied up in 

 the yard, and immediately took it away. 



It was a very spirited and willing jennet, but 

 its efforts to jump the boggy garden trench, a 

 small ditch with crumbling peaty edges, were not 

 crowned with success. When my father came out 

 after the men's dinner hour, the jennet did not, 

 and it was hay-making time. 



Where was it ? Had Miss Dora seen it ? 



Miss Dora in a very small voice thought that 

 she had . . . quite lately . . . where ? "At the 

 bottom of the boggy garden trench, Papa. It is 

 lying in the cool there " 



"What a very peculiar place for a jennet to 

 Stray tg," 



