252 FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES 



head from a fence, and never seemed weary or un- 

 willing when hounds ran. There was the first polo 

 pony that never refused to go into a scrimmage or to 

 go up to the ball ; could run leader or tandem ; do a 

 day with hounds ; or win a galloway race as required ; 

 and was a hack that trod on air. There was a stolid 

 mare from Ireland, that never made but one mistake, 

 never jumped an inch higher than need be nor wasted 

 her strength, but whom no double in the Vale of 

 Aylesbury could daunt. There was the Irish cob, who 

 hunted on a plough country every Monday for a season, 

 was never far from hounds, and seldom had less than 

 sixteen miles home at night. There was Grey Miranda, 

 sweetest of polo ponies and keenest of leaders in a 

 tandem. At her own pace, a hard canter, which 

 people said was a gallop, she was hard to beat as a 

 leader. Many more there are, which I have almost 

 forgotten, but which did their work honestly and 

 passed away. It was and is, however, the mares that 

 leave the brightest recollections of past pleasures with 

 them. Nor do I doubt that this passage will stir up 

 many a memory in the minds of readers of this book. 

 Now we have arrived at this point that, while to 

 describe a Leicestershire hunter is impossible, as any 

 one will see who goes to a meet and notes the variety 

 of horses assembled there, there are certain qualities 

 without which a horse is useless in that country. In 

 the first place, he must be fast. This is a pitfall into 

 which many of us have fallen in the past, and which 

 will entrap many more men in the future, for people 

 do not realise how fast hounds travel on the grass 

 with an even moderate scent nor how very much 

 faster they go than in countries where the average 

 pace is reduced at not infrequent intervals by ploughed 

 fields. That the hounds in Leicestershire are better 



