RIDING RECOLLECTIONS 



for never letting them get, so to speak, out of 

 your reach. I repeat, as a general rule, but by 

 no means without exception. In Leicestershire 

 especially, foxes seem to scorn this fine old 

 principle, and will make their point with a stiff 

 breeze blowing in their teeth ; but on such 

 occasions they do not usually mean to go very 

 far, and the gallant veteran, with his white 

 tag, that gives you the run to be talked of 

 for years, is almost always a wind - sinker 

 from wold or woodland in an adjoining 

 hunt. 



Suppose, however, the day is perfectly calm, 

 and there seems no sufficient reason to prefer one 

 course to the other, should we go to right or left } 

 This is a matter in which neither precept nor 

 personal experience can avail. One man is as 

 sure to do right as the other to do wrong. There 

 is an intuitive perception, more animal than 

 human, of what we may call " the line of chase," 

 with which certain sportsmen are gifted by nature, 

 and which, I believe, would bring them up at 

 critical points of the finest and longest runs if 

 they came out hunting in a gig. This faculty, 

 where everything else is equal, causes A to ride 

 better than B, but is no less difficult to explain 

 than the instinct that guides an Indian on the 

 prairie or a swallow across the sea. It counsels 

 the lady in her carriage, or the old coachman 



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