DOUBTP^UL MOUNTS ' 93 



Often at a narrowback during the run the leading 

 horse would scatter the soft surface-turf, leaving the bank 

 skinned to the bone. Other horses would then land as it 

 were upon a glacier, many of them balancing themselves 

 for a while upon their girths — till they could recover their 

 legs, or couldn't. "Let 'em alone" is, I fancy, the only 

 principle to apply either when they are essaying their 

 jump or when they miss it. Hence it is, possibly, that 

 ladies ride with safety over an Irish country. An Irish 

 horse thinks for himself, and will not be interrupted with 

 impunity. I wonder what an English-bred and English- 

 taught horse would have made of two such tasks as were 

 set to, and achieved by, almost every horse in to-day's 

 field. The one was a stone-faced drop of six feet into a 

 watercourse, the other nearly double that depth from an 

 almost perpendicular bank into a road ! He would pro- 

 bably have jumped off the top, with consequences that 

 you can imagine. Were I rich, and were all my horses 

 English, I would send every one of them to be educated 

 in Ireland, to be taught to think and taught to take care 

 of themselves — and of me. 



Make a note ; and thank me for another hint, brother- 

 Saxon. Bring out, for slow hunting, small change and 

 enough of it. "The price of a dhrink" is an appeal to yer 

 honour at every iron gate through which you may hope 

 to pass — and is one that you cannot well hope to with- 

 stand. Keep an outside cash-pocket for it : and in your 

 inner pouch have half a sovereign ready for the occasional 

 digging out of your horse from a ditch. 



CHAPTER XIV 



DOUBTFUL MOUNTS 



U^cdiicsday, March 23. — The Pytchley at Misterton — 

 Mr. Bamford welcoming them to breakfast, in open- 

 handed sympathy with their self-infiicted trial. By 9.45 

 a field of comfortable size had assembled : the rest were 

 at Lincoln, at Leamington, or else breakfasting at home. 



