262 FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES 



ranges from 150 guineas up to 450, Anything above 

 that is a fancy price for an exceptionally gifted animal, 

 or at least one that has a reputation of the highest 

 class, or combines quality and weight-carrying power 

 in an unusual degree. If the horses are bought from 

 dealers or at repositories, as you find the opportunity, 

 from 150 to 250 or 300 is about a fair price for a fourteen- 

 stone horse practically sound and suitable for the 

 country. Light-weight horses and those with certain 

 failings can be bought for less money, and I have 

 known from personal experience a stableful of brilliant 

 and useful crocks to average ninety-six guineas at 

 the end of October. Such horses we may buy be- 

 cause our purse compels us, but no one would choose 

 them deliberately. Yet they are probably the best 

 for those who cannot afford to buy the well-bred, 

 accomplished hunter which is most suitable for the 

 Shires. Three or four such have I known which had 

 each their good times. One was a raking thorough- 

 bred that could fly his fences and beat most horses for 

 twenty minutes, but needed a fifty-acre field to turn 

 in. Another had a complicated buck ; while a third, 

 a thoroughbred mare, made a noise that literally " did 

 not stop her," but then no bit would do so either ; 

 while the fourth was a nervous horse in a crowd, but 

 a wonderful galloper and fencer that no human being 

 could hold for ten minutes or so. When he had, so 

 to speak, blown off the steam, he became a pleasant, 

 safe, and much-enduring mount. But his owner has 

 confessed to me that the anticipation of riding him 

 until the critical ten minutes were over was not an 

 additional cause of appetite at breakfast. No one 

 who is not obliged should ride horses like this. The 

 way of the screw-driver, like that of transgressors, is 

 hard. Many of us have to follow it, but its diffi- 



