170 PINK AND SCARLET 



Shoes all right ? — Yes. Then draw up his girths, 

 tender the yokel who has been walking him about a 

 shilling, and march. 



Is he sound i* — Yes. Then we had better jog 

 along between six and seven miles an hour, and so 

 get him home to his food, which, we may be sure, 

 he wants a deal more than we do ours, as soon as 

 possible. 



There seems to be no doubt that, as a rule, it is 

 the long time that he is without food that takes it 

 out of a horse during a day's hunting, as much as, 

 if not more than, the actual work he does. We 

 told our groom on p. 39 that a horse's stomach is 

 small, and that he therefore wants food often. Let 

 us not forget this now, and do anything on the way 

 home to keep his nose out of the manger longer 

 than necessary. Whyte-Melville tells us about 

 jumping off his back and walking up and down the 

 hills, and also about getting him some gruel if we 

 have far to go, and there is no need to say more 

 about these. Jogging up to the meet, we naturally 

 took the grass at the side of the road whenever 

 possible, and our horse seemed to like it. Now 

 that he is tired it will be very different, and if we give 

 him his head, we shall invariably find that he chooses 

 the smoothest and hardest part of the road, probably 

 the middle. This is natural, and just what we 

 should do ourselves after a day's shooting, so let 

 him have his way, unless he has lost a shoe, in 

 which case it is well to keep on the soft until we can 

 get one tacked on. 



