292 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



averse to an occasional roll, you will be far safer among \ 

 the gates and bridle-roads of the countries that owe so 

 much of their destructive popularity to these facilities. Oh, 

 that we had to move about the shires of Old England with- 

 out gates and without wire (the latter condition being a very 

 possible corollary to the former). We should then have ; 

 the same peaceful little fields that they have in county 

 Tipperary, where, believe me, Saxon brethren, they ride j 

 over quite as many big fences during a cool, unexcited | 

 progress from covert to covert as during any time of the 

 day. A day's hunting in Tipperary involves more jumping 

 than very many of you allow yourselves in a week,, an 

 assertion that I feel myself at this moment of writing (after 

 two days' hunting upon mere cub-hunting condition) able 

 emphatically to endorse in my own person. My back 

 fairly aches with the double, treble, often quadruple jerk 

 that belongs to jumping these many-varied banks. To the 

 average Englishman, accustomed to sit down and to sit 

 back, as long as his horsemanship permits him, while his 

 horse flies easily from field to field, there is something 

 strangely complicated in what takes place beneath him 

 during the negotiation of a Tipperary bank-and-ditch. 

 The going up and the going on are comparatively smooth, 

 though often, I assert, very wonderful, a six or seven feet 

 bank being not "at all uncommon. But what happens next 

 depends entirely upon what form the fence may be found 

 to take on the farther side, and upon what measure your 

 horse may adopt towards completing his jump. He will 

 almost invariably give you the idea that he is bent upon 

 coming neck-and-crop into the next field, though he 

 seldom carries out his threat, even though a second ditch 

 be choked with the grass and brambles of October. But, 

 while avoiding the collapse that seems so imminent, he 

 changes his legs perhaps once, perhaps two or three times 

 in succession, and finally, just as you have given up your- 

 self wholly for lost, he gives a back kick that carries 

 him well on to ierra firma, and yourself possibly on to his 

 ears, while every joint in your backbone calls out to you 

 that you were born and taught to ride in England. 



What may you be doing in England ? Have you had 



