176 SPORTING STORIES 



were a reckless rider it was the author of Barchester 

 Towers. He tells us in his Autobiography that, being 

 short-sighted, " I have either to follow someone or ride at a 

 fence with the full conviction that I may be either going 

 into a horse-pond or a gravel-pit. I have jumped into 

 both the one and the other." And he adds : " Few have 

 investigated more closely than I have done the depth and 

 breadth and water-holding capacities of an Essex ditch. 

 It will, I think, be accorded to me by Essex men that I 

 have ridden hard ; I am very heavy, and have never ridden 

 expensive horses. I am also getting old now for such 

 work, being so stiff that I cannot get upon my horse 

 without the aid of a block or bank. Yet I ride after the 

 same fashion, determined to be ahead, hating the roads 

 and with a feeling that life cannot with all its riches have 

 given me anything better than when I have gone through 

 a long run to the finish." 



That is a fine, breezy tribute to the invigorating effects 

 of fox-hunting ; and let it be borne in mind that Anthony 

 TroUope hunted in that reckless style for thirty years and 

 never had a bone in his body broken. 



