A NOVICE'S EXPERIENCES OF MEATH 13 



enougli to turn up their noses at water at first offer. 

 Even here, methinks, horses are not immaculate. A loud 

 iiop proclaimed that Irish horses are not all alike trust- 

 worthy ; and right and left there sounded splash, splash, 

 as if of a school of seals taking the water. 



Personally, I confess to the keenest possible sense of 

 gratitude and relief on finding myself on the bcyaut — 

 having neither ridden over any one in front of me, nor 

 been overtaken in mid-air by any one behind. What 

 must have been the fate of some of the earliest plungers 

 I still shudder to think. It made the danger no more 

 sublime, nor the situation less threatening, though the 

 scene gained undoubtedly in picturesqueness and pos- 

 sibly romance, that at each of the first half-dozen banks 

 and brooks (for it was a very watery region) there was 

 clustered a bevy of fair wreckers intent upon securing 

 all the sport and excitement that might be got. These 

 had driven down after the deer-cart, and, with a know- 

 ledge of the game that I have yet to acquire, had followed 

 the course of the stag till they had fixed upon such points 

 of vantage as could best show them (from a new reading) 

 all the fun of the fair. There they stood, almost flagging 

 out the course, till hounds ran fence after fence to their 

 midst, and the phalanx of horsemen rode devotedly to 

 its doom. Surely the dainty dames of Caesar's amphi- 

 theatre never watched the contest more excitedly, nor 

 turned their thumbs downwards more unrelentingly, than 

 these who now clapped their hands and waved their 

 handkerchiefs as each competitor came to earth, or water. 

 By twos and threes and fours the latter fell. The banks 

 and ditches were grassy and ill-defined ; and never, in a 

 somewhat varied experience of big fields and free catas- 

 trophe, have I seen half so many croppers in the same 

 space of time. In a strong timber and stake-and-bound 

 country it might have meant half-a-dozen collar-bones. 

 Here it involved many muddy coats and several loose 

 horses. The country folk eagerly caught and returned 

 most of these last ; but I can still see a well-built dun 

 hunter taking every fence among the tail hounds for at 

 least a mile. The country was wet enough almost for 



