BANKS AND DITCHES 177 



But the best part of it — all about Wokingham and 

 Hawthorn Hill and Warren House — is quite a nice country 

 to ride over on an active horse, who ^oes up to his bank 

 with a flippant one, two, three, four, and his ears pricked and 

 jumps on and off it quick. And the banks are not big and 

 wide like some of the Blackinore Vale banks which consti- 

 tute quite a regular operation. When all goes well, you do 

 not get quite the same emotion as you do in a stake and 

 bound country, on a free horse. They are not to be had in any 

 on and off country. But, on the other hand, when all goes 

 wrong, you are not liable to the imperial crowners which 

 Mr. Sawyer watches his friends take in Market Harboro', 

 and which are so capitally rendered on the yellow back of 

 that most admirable and inspiring novel. You are much 

 more likely to sprain your ankle than to smash your hat ; 

 the very few falls I had were all of this latter sort, and I 

 cannot remember having ever been shot handsomely into 

 the middle of next week. Indeed, with the exception of 

 the railway gates of an occasional level crossing, and a 

 fair choice of well-protected deep cuttings, Bucks and Berks 

 only present average opportunities either for falls, or for 

 conspicuous exploits. Jack Mytton and men of his kidney 

 would find little to satisfy their ambition in the Queen's 

 country. 



Some few examples of punishment cheerfully taken by 

 the men of old time and of their ethics may serve to edify 

 the present and rising generation of horsemen. 



' No sympathy was like his,' says ]Mr. Mytton's biogra- 

 pher.^ It certainly found vent in unusual ways, for we read 

 of his knocking down his tutor and putting an eminent 

 horse-dealer to bed with two bulldogs and a bear, to say 



' He might have added his digestion. On one occasion he and a friend 

 consumed eighteen pounds of filbert nuts. At the close of the stance they 

 were ' up to their knees in nut-shells.' 



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