190 THE SPORT OF KINGS 



stand it, is, in my humble opinion, a healthy 

 sign. There is the lady bruiser, she who is 

 described in the words of a well-known writer 

 as " a nice girl enough when she is sitting in a 

 chair, but when she is hunting she crosses you 

 at your fences and jumps on you when you are 

 down." Fortunately ladies of this stamp are few 

 and far between, but when they are to be met 

 with they are unfortunately more objectionable 

 than their brothers of the same class. For they 

 are more reckless, they think that they can commit 

 sins against the ordinary canons of hunting law 

 without being brought to book, and that their 

 sex protects them from the scolding they so 

 thoroughly deserve. Sometimes it does and some- 

 times it does not, as you shall hear. I have a 

 lively recollection of being charged when in mid-air 

 by an enterprising young lady who had bucketed 

 her horse till she had lost control of him, and of 

 both horses rolling over me, and also of the fact 

 that the young lady received all the sympathy, 

 though she was uninjured, whilst I was unable to 

 get any hunting for some days. Another instance 

 of a lady " cutting in " came under my notice. 

 Hounds had been running hard for some thirty 

 minutes over a big country ; it was early in the 

 season, the ditches were full of grass and very blind, 

 and anything like taking a liberty with a fence 

 meant almost certain disaster. A man, well known 

 in every country in which he has hunted — and he 

 has hunted in a great many — as a bold and fearless 

 rider, was going well, as usual, and close on his 

 heels came a fearless young lady, who raced her 

 horse past him when he was within two or three 

 lengths of the fence and jumped at it sideways 



