CHAPTER XX 



RIDING OVER A COUNTRY 



Someone has said somewhere that every English- 

 man thinks it is right to be able to ride and to 

 know something about horses, and that if a 

 foreigner were to question his ability in this 

 direction he would resent it bitterly. The author 

 of the remark was evidently a man of keen 

 observation ; Englishmen tacitly claim for them- 

 selves that they -we. facile princeps in the noble art 

 of horsemanship — 



Bring Spaniard or Mexican, Cossack or Gaul, 

 We've a Dick in our village will ride round 'em all, 



is the way they complacently sum up the situation. 

 And to a certain extent they are right. In no 

 country under the sun is horsemanship for the 

 pure love of it carried on as it is in the British 

 Islands, and certainly in no country under the sun 

 are such risks run in the more or less successful 

 endeavour " to witch the world with noble horse- 

 manship." 



How that spirit of sport has come to be a part 

 of the national characteristics, how it has grown 

 with the nation's growth and strengthened with 

 its strength, is beyond the scope of the present 

 chapter. Suffice it to say that it has done so, and 



