MIGRATION IN THE FROST 203 



was happy enough to drop in for some admirable sport, 

 and dehghtful rides — where men had room to ride, had 

 there been three hundred of them, in place of thirty or so. 

 The Fethard district was the nominal area ; and the 

 first scurry of the day included the Fethard Steeplechase 

 Course — not the very worst of their ground, you may be 

 sure. As the meet (Coolmore) was close to bed and 

 breakfast, of course — in proper keeping with a nature 

 stubbornly undisciplined — I was late. The Master was 

 just throwing his hounds into covert. The field, knowing 

 their ground well, had posted themselves to the right of 

 the plantation, and, accordingly, were most of them left 

 behind. To the scream of the whip I saw Mr. Burke set 

 the famous Newtown at a first bank, and go off at score. 

 Of course I pinned my faith to the horn : and for the next 

 fifteen minutes, following Mr. Wyse, Capt. Redder, and 

 Mr. Croome, I saw a charming sample of quick and merry 

 fun. I have been now just sufficiently in Ireland no 

 longer to be astonished at anything. I accept the queer, 

 great fences because I see that other people get over them ; 

 and, as I have without exception been nobly treated as 

 to my mounts, I trust to their honour to get me over too. 

 Please do not consider this any bravado. Fancy the 

 alternative. There is no gate out of an Irish field, except 

 an occasional one that is padlocked. What would be the 

 ultimate destiny of a man who dared not jump out, and, 

 still worse, if he happened to be a stranger in the country ? 

 It is horrible to contemplate. No — you must jump in 

 Ireland. If you don't jump, you can't hunt ; and as I 

 ventured once before to put it — not, I confess, with 

 general acceptance on the part of elderly and influential 

 friends — if the same were the case in England, we should 

 have no overcrowded fields in the Shires. 



But of this Fethard country. You might have gone 

 fifty abreast — though the breastwork, I remember, was on 

 at least two occasions nearly six feet of smooth stone- 

 faced bank, and as slippery as glass till you reached the 

 more or less roomy summit. I confess I don't like those 

 perpendicular icebergs. I have never yet had the horse of 

 the country back on me : but I have very frequently and 



