RIDING OVER THE SHIRES 219 



the first fence is altogether unjumpable and a gate 

 the only outlet, and this perhaps a narrow hunting 

 gate. With the agonising sense that hounds are 

 running farther away every moment, you find your- 

 self in the midst of a too eager throng. You push 

 your way in, hoping that there is not, or that there 

 ought not to be, a bit of red ribbon in the tail of the 

 horse in front. At last your chance comes. You 

 shoot from the muddy gateway into the field and, 

 it may be, are rejoiced to find that the pack has 

 checked in the next field and that there was no hurry 

 after all. 



Luckily, in most cases, hounds take a perceptible 

 time to get clear of the covert ; r\dge and furrow 

 will soon steady the wildest horse that can be ridden 

 at all ; and not all fences are impossible. But, with 

 everything in your favour, there wiir always be four 

 or five who will be alongside hounds when you struggle 

 up. These will nearly always be the same men, 

 for they will have taken a line of their own, a thing 

 which no amount of instruction can make any one 

 able to do. It is, indeed, a combination of a faculty 

 of horsemanship, knowledge of the country, pluck, 

 judgment and experience, together with a good 

 horse that can and will jump not only when, but 

 also where, you want him to do so. 



Yet there are places which no one can get through 

 quickly, whatever his qualifications. Such is the 

 bottom between Burton Overy and Carlton Curlieu, 

 and there is another somewhere near Tilton ; the 

 Manton brook below Manton Gorse, and the second 

 fence from Glooston Wood on the way to Keythorpe. 

 Some of the bottoms can only be penetrated at one 

 place and then but by a narrow slippery path, with 

 a steep scramble on the far side of the muddy stream. 



