i8 FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES 



How wild those bitches were too sometimes, but oh, 

 how they raced when there was a scent. I can re- 

 member forty minutes one afternoon — but that would 

 be a digression, though I plead guilty to still feeling 

 the charm of those Oxford days. Lord Valentia and 

 the Bicester would also help to teach him to ride ; and 

 the reader will note how the training bore fruit, how 

 the quick resolve enabled him to obtain a start, how 

 by putting on pace at the right moment he cleared the 

 yawning bottom, how he took a pull on the plough, 

 and how he steadied his horse at the brook. The very 

 first place is only given to those who have the know- 

 ledge and have had the training. Hunting was a 

 second nature to young Rapid, and such men we can 

 never beat, for they will always have the best of a good 

 thing. These men have fewer falls than others. 

 Indeed, considering the fences they ride over and the 

 pace they go, we are inclined to believe that the top- 

 'o-the-hunt is the safest place. To well mounted men 

 who have horsemanship enough, the Shires, then, will 

 be the paradise of hunting. 



Strange to say, the other class who have more fun 

 here than elsewhere, are those who never jump. If 

 these will ride handy horses that can stay in a hilly 

 country, are quick on their legs and can gallop fast, 

 such unambitious folk can see much. They will, how- 

 ever, have to work hard, to learn the country and to 

 be handy with gates, and, like their betters, be able 

 to make up their minds quickly. I have said they 

 will have to work hard, for, though Leicestershire is 

 the best-gated country in England, nevertheless 

 hounds, or rather foxes, will not always take the line 

 of least resistance to our progress. So the riders must 

 diverge from the true line of the chase sometimes to 

 avoid fences, and then gallop their best to get back to 



