192 SPORTING REMINISCENCES 



the big bank in the bottoms, and how he himself 

 riding too wide, had been wired up. 



His intense behef in himself makes many people 

 believe in him for a time, though all his thrusting 

 is done while hounds are in covert or hunting 

 slowly. There are two or three of him as a rule 

 in every hunt. 



Comes another loud-voiced type, the man of 

 excuses. He generally comes out in pink, and 

 almost always on a big common horse, one of 

 that old-fashioned sort which can jump but must 

 not be pressed. It is a worthy type missing few 

 days, an honest supporter of fox-hunting, and 

 very often a man who once went well. He jostles 

 you horribly — if you go near him — at the first 

 gap, he rides like a demon up the first field and he 

 is gone, gone until at a check or at the end he 

 turns up blown and cheerful and tells everyone 

 what happened. 



Gad, he was fairly away and hounds swung 

 from him. Or he met that cursed strand of wire 

 on to the road and had to go back and round. A 

 someone fell just under his nose and there was 

 his hunt finished and over. 



He too believes in himself. Believes, or perhaps 

 only tries to believe, that he means to ride every 

 hunt and only bad fortune holds him back. At 

 home he enlarges on it, his grooms listen respect- 

 fully to the oft-repeated tale, or to the happier 

 accounts when hounds run slowly, and the man of 



