rilE FOREST 165 



forest-riding : * So homeward I go through a labyrinth of 

 fir-stenis, and, what is worse, fir-stumps, which need both 

 my eyes and my horse's at everj^ moment. . . Now I plunge 

 into a gloomy dell wherein is no tinkling rivulet ever pure ; 

 but, instead, a bog hewn out into a chessboard of squares 

 parted by narrow ditches some twenty feet apart. Blunder- 

 ing among the stems I go fetlock deep in peat, and jumping 

 at every third stride one of the said uncanny grips half 

 hidden in long hassock grass . . . out of it we shall be 

 soon. I see daylight ahead at last, bright between the dark 

 stems. Up a steep slope and over a bank which is not very 

 big, but, being composed of loose gravel and peat-mould, 

 gives down with me, nearly sending me head over heels in 

 the heather, and leaving me a sheer gap to scramble through 

 and out into the open moor.' 



I said just now that the forest was unpopular with the 

 riding men. They dislike the unfairness of its emergencies 

 and the certainty of its vicissitudes. A Jem Mason may be 

 cast in a pot-hole, a Jock Trotter flounder into a gobble- 

 cow bog, and the hidden prehistoric ruts, made nobody knows 

 how, leading nobody knows where, may at any moment 

 discountenance a Gambado. 



' It is these plaguy holes on the heath throw a horse 

 down,' observed Mr. Garth to a dear friend of mine,* after 

 watching him recover from one of those long-drawn-out 

 blunders that seem a lifetime to the rider. This is danger 

 unredeemed by distinction. Yet, assuming you escape all 

 the untoward possibilities of a forest run, it is a great 

 mistake to think that it is an easy thing to ride to. In 

 hunting jargon you must keep right at the tail of hounds. 

 A deer will hardly run the present fast foxhound pack 



' The late Mr. John Hargreaves of Maiden Early, for many years Master 

 of the South Berks. Mr. Hargreaves was in his real element amongst the 

 banks and ditches of the Hawthorn Hill country, and often came out with us on 

 a Friday. 



