CHRISTMASSING 57 



safety and comfort later on — these casualties were pro- 

 vocative of less mortification, and of less merciless chaff 

 than if they had been accorded to the masters themselves. 

 Indeed, the worst that happened was the breakage of one 

 of those half-pint flasks that go nowadays to complete the 

 caparison of a second-horseman, and the spilling of so 

 much full-coloured port down the young man's leathers, 

 giving him a ghastly, mutilated appearance for the rest of 

 the day. 



And, gentlemen, if you would spare your friends alarm 

 and anxiety, do not, I implore you, wear red hatstrings 

 on a rainy day. The effect, as you may have noticed for 

 yourselves, is nothing less than horrible ! They look 

 very smart and pretty in the sunshine, these miniature 

 cables of vermilion and gold ; but, when rain-soaked, the 

 vermilion has a way of separating itself from the gold, 

 with the result that the wearer's neck and collar appear 

 to be streaming with blood ! It was not till I had 

 hurried up to one of my intimates, and he turned a 

 bright, untroubled face to my question, " What have you 

 done to your neck?" that I made sure that he was not 

 half decapitated. 



Whether or no the pleasures of a fair day's hunting 

 are much discounted by a twenty-mile ride afterward 

 is a matter that depends to a certain extent upon the 

 man, but a good deal more upon the horse that has to 

 carry him home. To some men the long, perhaps 

 solitary journey involves no fatigue nor even boredom. 

 I remember a Tailbyite friend once remarking quite un- 

 concernedly, as he bade me good night and turned for 

 Market Harboro', " The third time this week that I 

 have had to ride over twenty miles home, finishing 

 with that Welham Lane ! " But he was, as his nom de 

 guerre implied, a man whose frame was tough as seasoned 

 oak, far tougher than the good ash rails that gave him 

 his pseudonym. And the Harboro' men were noted in 

 those days for pounding homeward as hard and relent- 

 lessly as through the day they had ridden the country 

 in competition with the Meltonians. 



A starry night, even if it lightens and varies the way, 



