NERVE 129 



country stop at nothing. His own country, too, 

 is a very big one, one of the stiffest I know, yet 

 there is he always to be seen in the same field with 

 hounds, "always in front, and often alone." He 

 will ride anything, no matter how unhandy, and 

 they all go well with him. I have hunted with 

 him in his own and in other countries, and in the 

 other countries he has been quite another man. 

 In fact, though they were much easier countries to 

 cross than his own, he has never been conspicuously 

 in front. It cannot, in his case, be that "familiarity 

 breeds contempt," though that may well be the 

 case with the ordinary sportsman who goes well in 

 a certain kind of country. What the reason is I 

 will leave for my readers to guess at ; it is beyond 

 me, and I can only state that such is the fact. 



A man of a very different type is one who goes 

 well in all countries ; a man 



To whom naught comes amiss, 

 One horse or another, that country or this, 

 Through falls or bad starts who undauntedly still 

 Rides up to the motto, " Be with them I will." 



Such a man we all know, and perhaps the very best 

 man I am acquainted with, take him all round and 

 in any and every country, claims that he is one of 

 the most nervous men alive. He says that he sees 

 every fence, and is always glad when he finds him- 

 self at the other side ; though a fine horseman, he 

 hates a fresh horse, and I have heard him "wonder 

 what this brute is going to do next." Yet he will 

 get on to anything, and ride over any country, be 

 it what it will, and right up in front all the way. 

 Were he not the most unassuming man alive, I 

 should put his claim of nervousness down to affecta- 



K 



