THE FOREST 169 



good ones too, have a sort of high, romping action at these 

 times which I never approved of. On a scent a hound 

 should streak along. 



And now as to horses in the forest. The horses, I 

 think, are cleverer than the men. I have seen wild, light- 

 headed horses never put a foot wrong. They make their 

 riders and themselves hot, cross and uncomfortable ; but, in 

 apparently constant jeopardy, they seem to enjoy the same 

 sort of protection which Providence is said to accord to 

 drunken men in railway accidents. But it is difficult to say 

 how a horse will carry you in the forest. I had a black horse 

 called William which I rode for three seasons with the 

 Queen's Hounds, and which I always rode a good deal 

 during the forest hunting. William, now the favourite of 

 a friend of mine, is a very free horse in the open, childishly 

 fond of galloping and jumping, and indeed, unless ridden in 

 front, he ' pleasantly tightens the rein,' to quote a dealer's 

 euphemism ; but in the more gloomy and mysterious parts 

 of the forest, or in deep, suspicious-looking heather, William 

 would always go behind his bridle, ringing a sort of tune on 

 his bit at an extravagantly actioned trot. At such times he 

 seemed to have laid upon himself a self-denying" ordinance, 

 neither to catch hold nor to gallop until things were more 

 like what he was used to. This kind of pace has two 

 objections : it does not get you on very fast, and it gives you 

 a tremendous cropper if anything goes wrong. I have a 

 lively recollection of William, when conscientiously escalad- 

 ing an ineligible bit of riding ground near Minley, being 

 betrayed in a thicket of rhododendrons ; even his shoulders 

 could not save us — to use an expression of that noted 

 horseman, Dick Christian, he fell 'like a clot.' 



I had another horse called Agitator, by Bepublican ; he 

 was own brother to Doneraile, and had won one or two 

 steeplechases himself. Agitator was a charming hunter. 



