COERCION 



Exhaust, therefore, all your knowledge of 

 woodcraft to get away on good terms with the 

 hounds. The wildest romp in a rush of horses 

 is often perfectly temperate and amenable when 

 called on to cut out the work. Should you, by 

 ill luck, find yourself behind others in the first 

 field, avoid, if possible, following any one of 

 them over the first fence. Even though it be 

 somewhat black and forbidding, choose a fresh 

 place ; so free a horse as yours will jump the 

 more carefully that his attention is not distracted 

 by a leader, and there is the further consideration, 

 based on common humanity, that your leader 

 might fall when too late for you to stop. No 

 man is in so false a position as he who rides 

 over a friend in the hunting - field, except the 

 friend ! 



Take your own line. If you be not afraid to 

 gallop and the hounds run on, you will probably 

 find it plain sailing till they check. Should a 

 brook laugh in your face,, of no unreasonable 

 dimensions, you may charge it with confidence ; 

 a rash horse usually jumps width, and there will 

 be plenty of "room to ride" on the far side. It 

 takes but a few feet of water to decimate a field. 

 I may here observe that, if, as they cross, you 

 see the hounds leap at it, even though they fall 

 short, you may be sure the distance from bank 

 to bank is within the compass of a hunter's stride. 



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