8 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



And space admits not of my dealing at any length with 

 the cheery items of the following day, when a much 

 larger field (and, may I add, a very smart body of riders) 

 assembled at Trim, for a gallop round the neighbourhood 

 of the town. Nor need I describe in detail the mingled 

 feelings that animate the ordinary stranger's breast as he 

 finds himself poised goatlike on each lofty bank, and as he 

 awaits his horse's pleasure to take him into the apparently 

 fathomless depths below. Happy for him, probably, that 

 at such times he has little or no voice in the direction 

 of his own destiny. He has taken his ticket ; and if, like 

 myself, he is lucky enough to have been consigned to a 

 first-class carriage, he may well rely upon being carried 

 safely to his destination. This much at least have I 

 already learned in Meath — that a horse possesses talent 

 and discrimination such as we of Middle England seldom 

 give him credit for, and that, at all events in Ireland, it is 

 necessary to let him exercise his powers altogether without 

 interference. 



CHAPTER II 



A novice's experiences of meath {continued) 



On the Thursday following, October 22, 1891, 1 was taken 

 to quite another section of the Meath country — to the 

 Master's thinking, and that of many of his most capable 

 supporters, the most sporting of all their territory. This 

 is to the north, and about a dozen miles from Navan, a 

 wide hilly country, not wholly unlike the Cottesmore. 

 How would you fancy it, though, men of Oakham, if you 

 woke one morning to find all your white gates done away 

 with or locked, and your hedges perched (but not cut- 

 and-laid, certainly) on broad stone-faced banks some six 

 feet in height, with a deep, deep ditch added on one side 

 or both ? This, I take it, is in the main the character of 

 the Mountainstown and Headstown district. Had I been 

 set down in it on foot or horseback a month ago, I 

 should have declared by all I fancied I knew about hunting 

 that this was a breakneck, impracticable country. Hear- 



