Transcriber’s Note

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A list of corrections is found at the end of the text.

The following less common character was used:

• ⁂ asterism

RIDING RECOLLECTIONS.

BY
G. J. WHYTE-MELVILLE.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY EDGAR GIBERNE.

FIFTH EDITION.

LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
1878.

[All Rights Reserved.]

LONDON:
R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,
BREAD STREET HILL.

Dedicated,
ON BEHALF OF “THE BRIDLED AND SADDLED,”
TO THE
“BOOTED AND SPURRED.”

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

The Dorsetshire farmer’s plan of teaching horses to jump timber [8]

“If he should drop his hind legs, shoot yourself off over his shoulders in an instant, with a fast hold of the bridle, at which tug hard, even though you may not have regained your legs” [32]

“Lastly, when it gets upon Bachelor, or Benedict, or Othello, or any other high-flyer with a suggestive name, it sails away close, often too close, to the hounds leaving brothers, husbands, even admirers, hopelessly in the rear” (Frontispiece) [123]

“Perhaps we find an easy place under a tree, with an overhanging branch, and sidle daintily up to it, bending the body and lowering the head as we creep through, to the admiration of an indiscreet friend on a rash horse who spoils a good hat and utters an evil execration, while trying to follow our example” [138]

“When we canter anxiously up to a sign-post where four roads meet, with a fresh and eager horse indeed, but not the wildest notion towards which point of the compass we should direct his energies, we can but stop to listen, take counsel of a countryman, &c.” [193]

At bay [208]

“‘Come up horse!’ and having admonished that faithful servant with a dig in the ribs from his horn, blows half-a-dozen shrill blasts in quick succession, sticks the instrument, I shudder to confess it, in his boot, and proceeds to hustle his old white nag at the best pace he can command in the wake of his favourites” [225]

“The King of the Golden Mines” [242]

RIDING RECOLLECTIONS.

RIDING RECOLLECTIONS.

As in the choice of a horse and a wife a man must please himself, ignoring the opinion and advice of friends, so in the governing of each it is unwise to follow out any fixed system of discipline. Much depends on temper, education, mutual understanding and surrounding circumstances. Courage must not be heated to recklessness, caution should be implied rather than exhibited, and confidence is simply a question of time and place. It is as difficult to explain by precept or demonstrate by example how force, balance, and persuasion ought to be combined in horsemanship, as to teach the art of floating in the water or swimming on the back. Practice in either case alone makes perfect, and he is the most apt pupil who brings to his lesson a good opinion of his own powers and implicit reliance on that which carries him. Trust the element or the animal and you ride aloft superior to danger; but with misgiving comes confusion, effort, breathlessness, possibly collapse and defeat. Morally and physically, there is no creature so nervous as a man out of his depth.

In offering the following pages to the public, the writer begs emphatically to disclaim any intention of laying down the law on such a subject as horsemanship. Every man who wears spurs believes himself more or less an adept in the art of riding; and it would be the height of presumption for one who has studied that art as a pleasure and not a profession to dictate for the ignorant, or enter the lists of argument with the wise. All he can lay claim to is a certain amount of experience, the result of many happy hours spent with the noble animal under him, of some uncomfortable minutes when mutual indiscretion has caused that position to be reversed.

If the few hints he can offer should prove serviceable to the beginner he will feel amply rewarded, and will only ask to be kindly remembered hereafter in the hour of triumph when the tyro of a riding-school has become the pride of a hunting-field,—judicious, cool, daring, and skilful—light of hand, firm of seat, thoroughly at home in the saddle, a very Centaur

“Encorpsed and demi-natured
With the brave beast.”

CHAPTER I.
KINDNESS.

In our dealings with the brute creation, it cannot be too much insisted on that mutual confidence is only to be established by mutual good-will. The perceptions of the beast must be raised to their highest standard, and there is no such enemy to intelligence as fear. Reward should be as the daily food it eats, punishment as the medicine administered on rare occasions, unwillingly, and but when absolute necessity demands. The horse is of all domestic animals most susceptible to anything like discomfort or ill-usage. Its nervous system, sensitive and highly strung, is capable of daring effort under excitement, but collapses utterly in any new and strange situation, as if paralysed by apprehensions of the unknown. Can anything be more helpless than the young horse you take out hunting the first time he finds himself in a bog? Compare his frantic struggles and sudden prostration with the discreet conduct of an Exmoor pony in the same predicament. The one terrified by unaccustomed danger, and relying instinctively on the speed that seems his natural refuge, plunges wildly forward, sinks to his girths, his shoulders, finally unseats his rider, and settles down, without further exertion, in the stupid apathy of despair.

The other, born and bred in the wild west country, picking its scanty keep from a foal off the treacherous surface of a Devonshire moor, either refuses altogether to trust the quagmire, or shortens its stride, collects its energies, chooses the soundest tufts that afford foothold, and failing these, flaps its way out on its side, to scramble into safety with scarce a quiver or a snort. It has been there before! Herein lies the whole secret. Some day your young one will be as calm, as wise, as tractable. Alas! that when his discretion has reached its prime his legs begin to fail!

Therefore cultivate his intellect—I use the word advisedly—even before you enter on the development of his physical powers. Nature and good keep will provide for these, but to make him man’s willing friend and partner you must give him the advantage of man’s company and man’s instruction. From the day you slip a halter over his ears he should be encouraged to look to you, like a child, for all his little wants and simple pleasures. He should come cantering up from the farthest corner of the paddock when he hears your voice, should ask to have his nose rubbed, his head stroked, his neck patted, with those honest, pleading looks which make the confidence of a dumb creature so touching; and before a roller has been put on his back, or a snaffle in his mouth he should be convinced that everything you do to him is right, and that it is impossible for you, his best friend, to cause him the least uneasiness or harm.

I once owned a mare that would push her nose into my pockets in search of bread and sugar, would lick my face and hands like a dog, or suffer me to cling to any part of her limbs and body while she stood perfectly motionless. On one occasion, when I hung in the stirrup after a fall, she never stirred on rising, till by a succession of laborious and ludicrous efforts I could swing myself back into the saddle, with my foot still fast, though hounds were running hard and she loved hunting dearly in her heart. As a friend remarked at the time, “The little mare seems very fond of you, or there might have been a bother!”

Now this affection was but the result of petting, sugar, kind and encouraging words, particularly at her fences, and a rigid abstinence from abuse of the bridle and the spur. I shall presently have something to say about both these instruments, but I may remark in the mean time that many more horses than people suppose will cross a country safely with a loose rein. The late Colonel William Greenwood, one of the finest riders in the world, might be seen out hunting with a single curb-bridle, such as is called “a hard-and-sharp” and commonly used only in the streets of London or the Park. The present Lord Spencer, of whom it is enough to say that he hunts one pack of his own hounds in Northamptonshire, and is always in the same field with them, never seems to have a horse pull, or until it is tired, even lean on his hand. I have watched both these gentlemen intently to learn their secret, but I regret to say without avail.

This, however, is not the present question. Long before a bridle is fitted on the colt’s head he should have so thoroughly learned the habit of obedience, that it has become a second instinct, and to do what is required of him seems as natural as to eat when he is hungry or lie down when he wants to sleep.

This result is to be attained in a longer or shorter time, according to different tempers, but the first and most important step is surely gained when we have succeeded in winning that affection which nurses and children call “cupboard love.” Like many amiable characters on two legs, the quadruped is shy of acquaintances but genial with friends. Make him understand that you are his best and wisest, that all you do conduces to his comfort and happiness, be careful at first not to deceive or disappoint him, and you will find his reasoning powers quite strong enough to grasp the relations of cause and effect.

In a month or six weeks he will come to your call, and follow you about like a dog. Soon he will let you lift his feet, handle him all over, pull his tail, and lean your weight on any part of his body, without alarm or resentment. When thoroughly familiar with your face, your voice, and the motions of your limbs, you may back him with perfect safety, and he will move as soberly under you in any place to which he is accustomed as the oldest horse in your stable.

Do not forget, however, that education should be gradual as moon-rise, perceptible, not in progress, but result. I recollect one morning riding to covert with a Dorsetshire farmer whose horses, bred at home, were celebrated as timber-jumpers even in that most timber-jumping of countries. I asked him how they arrived at this proficiency without breaking somebody’s neck, and he imparted his plan.

The colt, it seemed, ran loose from a yearling in the owner’s straw-yard, but fed in a lofty out-house, across the door of which was placed a single tough ashen bar that would not break under a bullock. This was laid on the ground till the young one had grown thoroughly accustomed to it, and then raised very gradually to such a height as was less trouble to jump than clamber over. At three feet the two-year old thought no more of the obstacle than a girl does of her skipping-rope. After that, it was heightened an inch every week, and it needs no ready reckoner to tell us at the end of six months how formidable a leap the animal voluntarily negotiated three times a day. “It’s never put no higher,” continued my informant; “I’m an old man now, and that’s good enough for me.”

I should think it was! A horse that can leap five feet of timber in cold blood is not likely to be pounded, while still unblown, in any part of England I have yet seen.

Now the Dorsetshire farmer’s system was sound, and based on common sense. As you bend the twig so grows the tree, therefore prepare your pupil from the first for the purpose you intend him to serve hereafter. An Arab foal, as we know, brought up in the Bedouin’s tent, like another child, among the Bedouin’s children, is the most docile of its kind, and I cannot but think that if he lived in our houses and we took as much notice of him, the horse would prove quite as sagacious as the dog; but we must never forget that to harshness or intimidation he is the most sensitive of creatures, and even when in fault should be rather cautioned than reproved.

An ounce of illustration is worth a pound of argument, and the following example best conveys the spirit in which our brave and willing servant should be treated by his lord.

Many years ago, when he hunted the Cottesmore country, Sir Richard Sutton’s hounds had been running hard from Glooston Wood along the valley under Cranehoe by Slawston to Holt. After thirty minutes or so over this beautiful, but exceedingly stiff line, their heads went up, and they came to a check, possibly from their own dash and eagerness, certainly, at that pace and amongst those fences, not from being overridden.

“Turn ’em, Ben!” exclaimed Sir Richard, with a dirty coat, and Hotspur in a lather, but determined not to lose a moment in getting after his fox. “Yes, Sir Richard,” answered Morgan, running his horse without a moment’s hesitation at a flight of double-posts and rails, with a ditch in the middle and one on each side! The good grey, having gone in front from the find, was perhaps a little blown, and dropping his hind legs in the farthest ditch, rolled very handsomely into the next field. “It’s not your fault, old man!” said Ben, patting his favourite on the neck as they rose together in mutual good-will, adding in the same breath, while he leapt to the saddle, and Tranby acknowledged the line—“Forrard on, Sir Richard!—Hoic together, hoic! You’ll have him directly, my beauties! He’s a Quorn fox, and he’ll do you good!”

I had always considered Ben Morgan an unusually fine rider. For the first time, I began to understand why his horse never failed to carry him so willingly and so well.

I do not remember whether Dick Webster was out with us that day, but I am sure if he was he has not forgotten it, and I mention him as another example of daring horsemanship combined with an imperturbable good humour, almost verging on buffoonery, which seems to accept the most dangerous falls as enhancing the fun afforded by a delightful game of romps. His annual exhibition of prowess at the Islington horse show has made his shrewd comical face so familiar to the public that his name, without farther comment, is enough to recall the presence and bearing of the man—his quips and cranks and merry jests, his shrill whistle and ready smile, his strong seat and light, skilful hand, but above all his untiring patience and unfailing kindness with the most restive and refractory of pupils. Dick, like many other good fellows, is not so young as he was, but he will probably be an unequalled rider at eighty, and I am quite sure that if he lives to the age of Methuselah, the extreme of senile irritability will never provoke him to lose his temper with a horse.

Presence of mind under difficulties is the one quality that in riding makes all the difference between getting off with a scramble and going down with a fall. If unvaried kindness has taught your horse to place confidence in his rider, he will have his wits about him, and provide for your safety as for his own. When left to himself, and not flurried by the fear of punishment, even an inexperienced hunter makes surprising efforts to keep on his legs, and it is not too much to say that while his wind lasts, the veteran is almost as difficult to catch tripping as a cat. I have known horses drop their hind legs on places scarcely affording foothold for a goat, but in all such feats they have been ridden by a lover of the animal, who trusts it implicitly, and rules by kindness rather than fear.

I will not deny that there are cases in which the suaviter in modo must be supplemented by the fortiter in re. Still the insubordination of ignorance is never wholly inexcusable, and great discretion must be used in repressing even the most violent of outbreaks. If severity is absolutely required, be sure to temper justice with mercy, remembering that, in brute natures at least, the more you spare the rod, the less you spoil the child!

CHAPTER II.
COERCION.

I recollect, in years gone by, an old and pleasant comrade used to declare that “to be in a rage was almost as contemptible as to be in a funk!” Doubtless the passion of anger, though less despised than that of fear, is so far derogatory to the dignity of man that it deprives him temporarily of reason, the very quality which confers sovereignty over the brute. When a magician is without his talisman the slaves he used to rule will do his bidding no longer. When we say of such a one that he has “lost his head,” we no more expect him to steer a judicious course than a ship that has lost her rudder. Both are the prey of circumstances—at the mercy of winds and waves. Therefore, however hard you are compelled to hit, be sure to keep your temper. Strike in perfect good-humour, and in the right place. Many people cannot encounter resistance of any kind without anger, even a difference of opinion in conversation is sufficient to rouse their bile; but such are seldom winners in argument or in fight. Let them also leave education alone. Nature never meant them to teach the young idea how to shoot or hunt, or do anything else!

It is the cold-blooded and sagacious wrestler who takes the prize, the calm and imperturbable player who wins the game. In all struggles for supremacy, excitement only produces flurry, and flurry means defeat.

Who ever saw Mr. Anstruther Thompson in a passion, though, like every other huntsman and master of hounds, he must often have found his temper sorely tried? And yet, when punishment is absolutely necessary to extort obedience from the equine rebel, no man can administer it more severely, either from the saddle or the box. But whether double-thonging a restive wheeler, or “having it out” with a resolute buck-jumper, the operation is performed with the same pleasant smile, and when one of the adversaries preserves calmness and common sense, the fight is soon over, and the victory gained.

It is not every man, however, who possesses this gentleman’s iron nerve and powerful frame. For most of us, it is well to remember, before engaging in such contests, that defeat is absolute ruin. We must be prepared to fight it out to the bitter end, and if we are not sure of our own firmness, either mental or physical it is well to temporise, and try to win by diplomacy the terms we dare not wrest by force. If the latter alternative must needs be accepted, in this as in most stand-up fights, it will be found that the first blow is half the battle. The rider should take his horse short by the head and let him have two or three stingers with a cutting whip—not more—particularly, if on a thorough-bred one, as low down the flanks as can be reached, administered without warning, and in quick succession, sitting back as prepared for the plunge into the air that will inevitably follow, keeping his horse’s head well-up the while to prevent buck-jumping. He should then turn the animal round and round half-a-dozen times, till it is confused, and start it off at speed in any direction where there is room for a gallop. Blown, startled, and intimidated, he will in all probability find his pupil perfectly amenable to reason when he pulls up, and should then coax and soothe him into an equable frame of mind once more. Such, however, is an extreme case. It is far better to avoid the ultima ratio. In equitation, as in matrimony, there should never arise “the first quarrel.” Obedience, in horses, ought to be a matter of habit, contracted so imperceptibly that its acquirement can scarcely be called a lesson.

This is why the hunting-field is such a good school for leaping. Horses of every kind are prompted by some unaccountable impulse to follow a pack of hounds, and the beginner finds himself voluntarily performing feats of activity and daring, in accordance with the will of his rider, which no coercion from the latter would have induced him to attempt. Flushed with success, and if fortunate enough to escape a fall, confident in his lately-discovered powers, he finds a new pleasure in their exercise, and, most precious of qualities in a hunter, grows “fond of jumping.”

The same result is to be attained at home, but is far more gradual, requiring the exercise of much care, patience, and perseverance.

Nevertheless, when we consider the inconvenience created by the vagaries of young horses in the hunting field, to hounds, sportsmen, ladies, pedestrians, and their own riders, we must admit that the Irish system is best, and that a colt, to use the favourite expression, should have been trained into “an accomplished lepper,” before he is asked to carry a sportsman through a run.

Mr. Rarey, no doubt, thoroughly understood the nature of the animal with which he had to deal. His system was but a convenient application of our principle, viz., Judicious coercion, so employed that the brute obeys the man without knowing why. When forced to the earth, and compelled to remain there, apparently by the mere volition of a creature so much smaller and feebler than itself, it seemed to acknowledge some mysterious and over-mastering power such as the disciples of Mesmer profess to exercise on their believers, and this, in truth, is the whole secret of man’s dominion over the beasts of the field. It is founded, to speak practically, on reason in both, the larger share being apportioned to the weaker frame. If by terror or resentment, the result of injudicious severity, that reason becomes obscured in the stronger animal, we have a maniac to deal with, possessing the strength of ten human beings, over whom we have lost our only shadow of control! Where is our supremacy then? It existed but in the imagination of the beast, for which, so long as it never tried to break the bond, a silken thread was as strong as an iron chain.

Perhaps this is the theory of all government, but with the conduct and coercion of mankind we have at present nothing to do.

There is a peculiarity in horses that none who spend much time in the saddle can have failed to notice. It is the readiness with which all accommodate themselves to a rider who succeeds in subjugating one. Some men possess a faculty, impossible to explain, of establishing a good understanding from the moment they place themselves in the saddle. It can hardly be called hand, for I have seen consummate horsemen, notably Mr. Lovell, of the New Forest, who have lost an arm; nor seat, or how could Colonel Fraser, late of the 11th Hussars, be one of the best heavy-weights over such a country as Meath, with a broken and contracted thigh? Certainly not nerve, for there are few fields too scanty to furnish examples of men who possess every quality of horsemanship except daring. What is it then? I cannot tell, but if you are fortunate enough to possess it, whether you weigh ten stone or twenty, you will be able to mount yourself fifty pounds cheaper than anybody else in the market! Be it an impulse of nature, or a result of education, there is a tendency in every horse to make vigorous efforts at the shortest notice in obedience to the inclination of a rider’s body or the pressure of his limbs. Such indications are of the utmost service in an emergency, and to offer them at the happy moment is a crucial test of horsemanship. Thus races are “snatched out of the fire,” as it is termed, “by riding,” and this is the quality that, where judgment, patience, and knowledge of pace are equal, renders one jockey superior to the rest. It enables a proficient also to clear those large fences that, in our grazing districts especially, appear impracticable to the uninitiated, as if the horse borrowed muscular energy, no less than mental courage, from the resolution of his rider. On the racecourse and in the hunting field, Custance, the well-known jockey, possesses this quality in the highest degree. The same determined strength in the saddle, that had done him such good service amongst the bullfinches and “oxers” of his native Rutland, applied at the happy moment, secured on a great occasion his celebrated victory with King Lud.

There are two kinds of hunters that require coercion in following hounds, and he is indeed a master of his art who feels equally at home on each. The one must be steered, the other smuggled over a country. As he is never comfortable but in front, we will take the rash horse first.

Let us suppose you have not ridden him before, that you like his appearance, his action, all his qualities except his boundless ambition, that you are in a practicable country, as seems only fair, and about to draw a covert affording every prospect of a run. Before you put your foot in the stirrup be sure to examine his bit—not one groom in a hundred knows how to bridle a horse properly—and remember that on the fitting of this important article depends your success, your enjoyment, perhaps your safety, during the day. Horses, like servants, will never let their master be happy if they are uncomfortable themselves. See that your headstall is long enough, so that the pressure may lie on the bars of the horse’s mouth and not crumple up the corners of his lips, like a gag. The curb-chain will probably be too tight, also the throat-lash; if so, loosen both, and with your own hands; it is a pleasant way of making acquaintance, and may perhaps prepossess him in your favour. If he wears a nose-band it will be time enough to take it off when you find he shows impatience of the restriction by shaking his head, changing his leg frequently, or reaching unjustifiably at the rein.

I am prejudiced against the nose-band. I frankly admit a man in a minority of one must be wrong, but I never rode a horse in my life that, to my own feeling, did not go more comfortably when I took it off.

Look also to your girths. For a fractious temper they are very irritating when drawn too tight, while with good shape and a breast-plate, there is little danger of their not being tight enough. When these preliminaries have been carefully gone through mount nimbly to the saddle, and take the first opportunity of feeling your new friend’s mouth and paces in trot, canter, and gallop. Here, too, though in general it should be avoided for many reasons, social, agricultural, and personal, a little “larking” is not wholly inexcusable. It will promote cordiality between man and beast. The latter, as we are considering him, is sure to be fond of jumping, and to ride him over a fence or two away from other horses in cold blood will create in his mind the very desirable impression that you are of a daring spirit, determined to be in front.

Take him, however, up to his leap as slow as he will permit—if possible at a trot. Even should he break into a canter and become impetuous at last, there is no space for a violent rush in three strides, during which you must hold him in a firm, equable grasp. As he leaves the ground give him his head, he cannot have “too much rope,” till he lands again, when, as soon as possible, you should pull him back to a trot, handling him delicately, soothing him with voice and gesture, treating the whole affair as the simplest matter of course. Do not bring him again over the same place, rather take him on for two or three fields in a line parallel to the hounds. By the time they are put into covert you will have established a mutual understanding, and found out how much you dislike one another at the worst! It is well now to avoid the crowd, but beware of taking up a position by yourself where you may head the fox! No man can ride in good-humour under a sense of guilt, and you must be good-humoured with such a mount as you have under you to-day.

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.

At timber, I would not have you quite so confident. When, as in Leicestershire, it is set fairly in line with the fence and there is a good take-off, your horse, however impetuous, may leap it with impunity in his stroke, but should the ground be poached by cattle, or dip as you come to it, beware of too great hurry. The feat ought then to be accomplished calmly and collectedly at a trot, the horse taking his time, so to speak, from the motions of his rider, and jumping, as it is called, “to his hand.” Now when man and horse are at variance on so important a matter as pace, the one is almost sure to interfere at the wrong moment, the other to take off too soon or get too close under his leap; in either case the animal is more likely to rise at a fence than a rail, and if unsuccessful in clearing it a binder is less dangerous to flirt with than a bar. Lord Wilton seems to me to ride at timber a turn slower than usual, Lord Grey a turn faster. Whether father and son differ in theory I am unable to say, I can only affirm that both are undeniable in practice. Mr. Fellowes of Shottisham, perhaps the best of his day, and Mr. Gilmour, facile princeps, almost walk up to this kind of leap; Colonel, now General Pearson, known for so many seasons as “the flying Captain,” charges it like a squadron of Sikh cavalry; Captain Arthur Smith pulls back to a trot; Lord Carington scarcely shortens the stride of his gallop. Who shall decide between such professors? Much depends on circumstances, more perhaps on horses. Assheton Smith used to throw the reins on a hunter’s neck when rising at a gate, and say,—“Take care of yourself, you brute!”—whereas the celebrated Lord Jersey, who gave me this information of his old friend’s style, held his own bridle in a vice at such emergencies, and both usually got safe over! Perhaps the logical deduction from these conflicting examples should be not to jump timber at all!

But the rash horse is by this time getting tired, and now, if you would avoid a casualty, you must temper valour with discretion, and ride him as skilfully as you can.

He has probably carried you well and pleasantly during the few happy moments that intervened between freshness and fatigue; now he is beginning to pull again, but in a more set and determined manner than at first. He does not collect himself so readily, and wants to go faster than ever at his fences, if you would let him. This careless, rushing style threatens a downfall, and to counteract it will require the exercise of your utmost skill. Carry his head for him, since he seems to require it, and endeavour, by main force if necessary, to bring him to his leaps with his hind legs under him. Half-beaten horses measure distance with great accuracy, and “lob” over very large places, when properly ridden. If, notwithstanding all your precautions, he persists in going on his shoulders, blundering through his places, and labouring across ridge and furrow like a boat in a heavy sea, take advantage of the first lane you find, and voting the run nearly over, make up your mind to view the rest of it in safety from the hard road!

Ride the same horse again at the first opportunity, and, if sound enough to come out in his turn, a month’s open weather will probably make him a very pleasant mount.

The “slug,” a thorough-bred one, we will say, with capital hind-ribs, lop ears, and a lazy eye, must be managed on a very different system from the foregoing. You need not be so particular about his bridle, for the coercion in this case is of impulsion rather than restraint, but I would advise you to select a useful cutting-whip, stiff and strong enough to push a gate. Not that you must use it freely—one or two “reminders” at the right moment, and an occasional flourish, ought to carry you through the day. Be sure, too, that you strike underhanded, and not in front of your own body, lest you take his eye off at the critical moment when your horse is measuring his leap. The best riders prefer such an instrument to the spurs, as a stimulant to increased pace and momentary exertion.

You will have little trouble with this kind of hunter while hounds are drawing. He will seem only too happy to stand still, and you may sit amongst your friends in the middle ride, smoking, joking, and holding forth to your heart’s content. But, like the fox, you will find your troubles begin with the cheering holloa of “Gone away!”

On your present mount, instead of avoiding the crowd, I should advise you to keep in the very midst of the torrent that, pent up in covert, rushes down the main ride to choke a narrow handgate, and overflow the adjoining field. Emerging from the jaws of their inconvenient egress, they will scatter, like a row of beads when the string breaks, and while the majority incline to right or left, regardless of the line of chase as compared with that of safety, some half dozen are sure to single themselves out, and ride straight after the hounds.

Select one of these, a determined horseman, whom you know to be mounted on an experienced hunter; give him plenty of room—fifty yards at least—and ride his line, nothing doubting, fence for fence, till your horse’s blood is up, and your own too. I cannot enough insist on a jealous care of your leader’s safety, and a little consideration for his prejudices. The boldest sportsmen are exceedingly touchy about being ridden over, and not without reason. There is something unpleasantly suggestive in the bit, and teeth, and tongue of an open mouth at your ear; while your own horse, quivering high in air, makes the discovery that he has not allowed margin enough for the yawner under his nose! It is little less inexcusable to pick a man’s pocket than to ride in it; and no apology can exonerate so flagrant an assault as to land on him when down. Reflect, also, that a hunter, after the effort to clear his fence, often loses foothold, particularly over ridge and furrow, in the second or third stride, and falls at the very moment a follower would suppose he was safe over. Therefore, do not begin for yourself till your leader is twenty yards into the next field when you may harden your heart, set your muscles, and give your horse to understand, by seat and manner, that it must be in, through, or over.

Beware, however, of hurrying him off his legs. Ride him resolutely, indeed, but in a short, contracted stride; slower in proportion to the unwillingness he betrays, so as to hold him in a vice, and squeeze him up to the brink of his task, when, forbidden to turn from it, he will probably make his effort in self-defence, and take you somehow to the other side. Not one hunter in a hundred can jump in good form when going at speed; it is the perfection of equine prowess, resulting from great quickness and the confidence of much experience. An arrant refuser usually puts on the steam of his own accord, like a confirmed rusher, and wheels to right or left at the last moment, with an activity that, displayed in a better cause, would be beyond praise. The rider, too, has more command of his horse, when forced up to the bit in a slow canter, than at any other pace.

Thoroughbred horses, until their education is complete, are apt to get very close to their fences, preferring, as it would seem, to go into them on this side rather than the other. It is not a style that inspires confidence; yet these crafty, careful creatures are safer than they seem, and from jumping in a collected form, with their hind-legs under them, extricate themselves with surprising address from difficulties that, after a little more tuition, they will never be in. They are really less afraid of their fences, and consequently less flurried, than the wilful, impetuous brute that loses its equanimity from the moment it catches sight of an obstacle, and miscalculating its distance, in sheer nervousness—most fatal error of all—takes off too soon.

I will now suppose that in the wake of your pilot you have negotiated two or three fences with some expenditure of nerve and temper, but without a refusal or a fall. The cutting-whip has been applied, and the result, perhaps, was disappointing, for it is an uncertain remedy, though, in my opinion, preferable to the spur. Your horse has shown great leaping powers in the distances he has covered without the momentum of speed, and has doubled an on-and-off with a precision not excelled by your leader himself. If he would but jump in his stride, you feel you have a hunter under you. Should the country be favourable, now is the time to teach him this accomplishment, while his limbs are supple and his spirit roused. If he seems willing to face them, let him take his fences in his own way; do not force or hurry him, but keep fast hold of his head without varying the pressure of hand or limb by a hairsbreadth; the least uncertainty of finger or inequality of seat will spoil it all. Should the ditch be towards him, he will jump from a stand, or nearly so, but, to your surprise, will land safe in the next field. If it is on the far side, he will show more confidence, and will perhaps swing over the whole with something of an effort in his canter. A foot or two of extra width may cause him to drop a hind-leg, or even bring him on his nose;—so much the better! no admonition of yours would have proved as effectual a warning—he will take good care to cover distance enough next time. Dispense with your leader now, if you are pretty close to the hounds, for your horse is gathering confidence with every stride. He can gallop, of course, and is good through dirt—it is also understood that he is fit to go; there are not many in a season, but let us suppose you have dropped into a run; if he carries you well to the finish, he will be a hunter from to-day.

After some five and twenty minutes, you will find him going with more dash and freedom, as his neighbours begin to tire. You may now ride him at timber without scruple, when not too high, but avoid a rail that looks as if it would break. To find out he may tamper with such an obstacle is the most dangerous discovery a hunter can make. You should send him at it pretty quick, lest he get too near to rise, and refuse at the last moment. He may not do it in the best of form, but whether he chances it in his gallop, or bucks over like a deer, or hoists himself sideways all in a heap, with his tail against your hat, at this kind of fence this kind of horse is most unlikely to fall.

The same may be said of a brook. If he is within a fair distance of the hounds, and you see by the expression of his ears and crest that he is watching them with ardent interest, ride him boldly at water should it be necessary. It is quite possible he may jump it in his stride from bank to bank, without a moment’s hesitation. It is equally possible he may stop short on the bank, with lowered head and crouching quarters as if prepared to drink, or dive, or decline. He will do none of these. Sit still, give him his head, keep close into your saddle, not moving so much as an eyelash, and it is more than probable that he will jump the stream standing, and reach the other side, with a scramble and a flounder at the worst!

If he should drop his hind-legs, shoot yourself off over his shoulders in an instant, with a fast hold of the bridle, at which tug hard; even though you may not have regained your legs. A very slight help now will enable him to extricate himself, but if he is allowed to subside into the gulf, it may take a team of cart horses to drag him out.

When in the saddle again give him a timely pull; after the struggle you will be delighted with each other, and have every prospect of going on triumphantly to the end.

I have here endeavoured to describe the different methods of coercion by which two opposite natures may be induced to exert themselves on our behalf in the chase. Every horse inclines, more or less, to one or other extreme I have cited as an example. A perfect hunter has preserved the good qualities of each without the faults, but how many perfect hunters do any of us ride in our lives? The chestnut is as fast as the wind, stout and honest, a safe and gallant fencer, but too light a mouth makes him difficult to handle at blind and cramped places; the bay can leap like a deer, and climb like a goat, invincible at doubles, and unrivalled at rails, but, as bold Lord Cardigan said of an equally accomplished animal, “it takes him a long time to get from one bit of timber to another!” While the brown, even faster than the chestnut, even safer than the bay, would be the best, as he is the pleasantest hunter in the world—only nothing will induce him to go near a brook!

It is only by exertion of a skill that is the embodiment of thought in action, by application of a science founded on reason, experience and analogy, that we can approach perfection in our noble four-footed friend. Common-sense will do much, kindness more, coercion very little, yet we are not to forget that man is the master; that the hand, however light, must be strong, the heel, however lively, must be resolute; and that when persuasion, best of all inducements, seems to fail, we must not shrink from the timely application of force.

CHAPTER III.
THE USE OF THE BRIDLE.

The late Mr. Maxse, celebrated some fifty years ago for a fineness of hand that enabled him to cross Leicestershire with fewer falls than any other sportsman of fifteen stone who rode equally straight, used to profess much comical impatience with the insensibility of his servants to this useful quality. He was once seen explaining what he meant to his coachman with a silk-handkerchief passed round a post.

“Pull at it!” said the master. “Does it pull at you?”

“Yes, sir,” answered the servant, grinning.

“Slack it off then. Does it pull at you now?”

“No, sir.”

“Well then, you double-distilled fool, can’t you see that your horses are like that post? If you don’t pull at them they won’t pull at you!”

Now it seems to me that in riding and driving also, what we want to teach our horses is, that when we pull at them they are not to pull at us, and this understanding is only to be attained by a delicacy of touch, a harmony of intention, and a give-and-take concord, that for lack of a better we express by the term “hand.” Like the fingering of a pianoforte, this desirable quality seems rather a gift than an acquirement, and its rarity has no doubt given rise to the multiplicity of inventions with which man’s ingenuity endeavours to supply the want of manual skill.

It was the theory of a celebrated Yorkshire sportsman, the well-known Mr. Fairfax, that “Every horse is a hunter if you don’t throw him down with the bridle!” and I have always understood his style of riding was in perfect accordance with this daring profession of faith. The instrument, however, though no doubt producing ten falls, where it prevents one, is in so far a necessary evil, that we are helpless without it, and when skilfully used in conjunction with legs, knees, and body by a consummate horseman, would seem to convey the man’s intentions to the beast through some subtle agency, mysterious and almost rapid as thought. It is impossible to define the nature of that sympathy which exists between a well-bitted horse and his rider, they seem actuated by a common impulse, and it is to promote or create this mutual understanding that so many remarkable conceits, generally painful, have been dignified with the name of bridles. In the saddle-room of any hunting-man may be found at least a dozen of these, but you will probably learn on inquiry, that three or four at most are all he keeps in use. It must be a stud of strangely-varying mouths and tempers which, the snaffle, gag, Pelham, and double-bridle are insufficient to humour and control.

As it seems from the oldest representations known of men on horseback, to have been the earliest in use, we will take the snaffle first.

This bit, the invention of common-sense going straight to its object, while lying easily on the tongue and bars of a horse’s mouth, and affording control without pain, is perfection of its kind. It causes no annoyance and consequently no alarm to the unbroken colt, champing and churning freely at the new plaything between his jaws; on it the highly trained charger bears pleasantly and lightly, to “change his leg,”—“passage”—or “shoulder in,” at the slightest inflection of a rider’s hand; the hunter leans against it for support in deep ground; and the race-horse allows it to hold him together at nearly full-speed without contracting his stride, or by fighting with the restriction, wasting any of his gallop in the air. It answers its purpose admirably so long as it remains in the proper place, but not a moment longer. Directly a horse by sticking out his nose can shift this pressure to his lips and teeth, it affords no more control than a halter. With head up, and mouth open, he can go how and where he will. In such a predicament only an experienced horseman has the skill to give him such an amount of liberty without license as cajoles him into dropping again to his bridle, before he breaks away. Once off at speed, with the conviction that he is master, however ludicrous in appearance, the affair is serious enough in fact.

Many centuries elapsed, and a good deal of unpleasant riding must have been endured, before the snaffle was supplemented with a martingale. Judging from the Elgin Marbles, this useful invention seems to have been wholly unknown to the Greeks. Though the men’s figures are perfect in seat and attitude through the whole of that spirited frieze which adorned the Parthenon, not one of their horses carries its head in the right place. The ancient Greek seems to have relied on strength rather than cunning, in his dealings with the noble animal, and though he sat down on it like a workman, must have found considerable difficulty in guiding his beast the way he wanted to go.

But with a martingale, the most insubordinate soon discover that they cannot rid themselves of control. It keeps their heads down in a position that enables the bit to act on the mouth, and if they must needs pull, obliges them to pull against that most sensitive part called the bars. There is no escape—bend their necks they must, and to bend their necks means to acknowledge a master and do homage to the rider’s will.

It is a well-known fact, and I can attest it by my own experience, that a twisted snaffle with a martingale will hold a runaway when every other bridle fails; but to guide or stop an animal by the exercise of bodily strength is not horsemanship, and to saw at its mouth for the purpose cannot be expected to promote that sympathy of desire and intention which we understand by the term.

If we look at the sporting prints of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers, as delineated, early in the present century, we observe that nine out of every ten hunters were ridden in plain snaffle bridles, and we ask ourselves if our progenitors bred more docile beasts, or were these drinkers of port wine, bolder, stronger, and better horsemen than their descendants. Without entering on the vexed question of comparative merit in hounds, hunters, pace, country and sport, at an interval of more than two generations, I think I can find a reason, and it seems to me simply this.

Most of these hunting pictures are representations of the chase in our midland counties, notably Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, then only partially inclosed; boundary fences of large properties were few and far between, straggling also, and ill-made-up, the high thorn hedges that now call forth so much bold and so much timid riding, either did not exist, or were of such tender growth as required protection by a low rail on each side, and a sportsman, with flying coat-tails, doubling these obstacles neatly, at his own pace, forms a favourite subject for the artist of the time. Twenty or thirty horsemen, at most, comprised the field; in such an expanse of free country there must have been plenty of room to ride, and we all know how soon a horse becomes amenable to control on a moor or an open down. The surface too was undrained, and a few furlongs bring the hardest puller to reason when he goes in over his fetlocks every stride. Hand and heel are the two great auxiliaries of the equestrian, but our grandfathers, I imagine, made less use of the bridle than the spur.

With increased facilities for locomotion, in the improvement of roads and coaches, hunting, always the English gentleman’s favourite pastime, became a fashion for every one who could afford to keep a horse, and men thought little of twelve hours spent in the mail on a dark winter’s night in order to meet hounds next day. The numbers attending a favourite fixture began to multiply, second horses were introduced, so that long before the use of railways scarlet coats mustered by tens as to-day by fifties, and the crowd, as it is called, became a recognized impediment to the enjoyments of the day.

Meantime fences were growing in height and thickness; an improved system of farming subdivided the fields and partitioned them off for pastoral or agricultural purposes; the hunter was called upon to collect himself, and jump at short notice, with a frequency that roused his mettle to the utmost, and this too in a rush of his fellow-creatures, urging, jostling, crossing him in the first five minutes at every turn.

Under such conditions it became indispensable to have him in perfect control, and that excellent invention, the double-bridle, came into general use.

I suppose I need hardly explain to my reader that it loses none of the advantages belonging to the snaffle, while it gains in the powerful leverage of the curb a restraint few horses are resolute enough to defy. In skilful hands, varying, yet harmonising, the manipulation of both, as a musician plays treble and bass on the pianoforte, it would seem to connect the rider’s thought with the horse’s movement, as if an electric chain passed through wrist, and finger, and mouth, from the head of the one to the heart of the other. The bearing and touch of this instrument can be so varied as to admit of a continual change in the degree of liberty and control, of that give-and-take which is the whole secret of comfortable progression. While the bridoon or snaffle-rein is tightened, the horse may stretch his neck to the utmost, without losing that confidence in the moral support of his rider’s hand which is so encouraging to him if unaccompanied by pain. When the curb is brought into play, he bends his neck at its pressure to a position that brings his hind-legs under his own body and his rider’s weight, from which collected form alone can his greatest efforts be made. Have your curb-bit sufficiently powerful, if not high in the port, at any rate long in the cheek, your bridoon as thick as your saddler can be induced to send it. With the first you bring a horse’s head into the right place, with the second, if smooth and very thick, you keep it there, in perfect comfort to the animal, and consequently to yourself. A thin bridoon, and I have seen them mere wires, only cuts, chafes, and irritates, causing more pain and consequently more resistance, than the curb itself. I have already mentioned the fineness of Mr. Lovell’s hand (alas! that he has but one), and I was induced by this gentleman to try a plan of his own invention, which, with his delicate manipulation, he found to be a success. Instead of the usual bridoon, he rode with a double strap of leather, exactly the width of a bridle-rein, and twice its thickness, resting where the snaffle ordinarily lies, on the horse’s tongue and bars. With his touch it answered admirably, with mine, perhaps because I used the leather more roughly than the metal, it seemed the severer of the two. But a badly-broken horse, and half the hunters we ride have scarcely been taught their alphabet, will perhaps try to avoid the restraint of a curb by throwing his head up at the critical moment when you want to steady him for a difficulty. If you have a firm seat, perfectly independent of the bridle,—and do not be too sure of this, until you have tried the experiment of sitting a leap with nothing to hold on by—you may call in the assistance of the running-martingale, slipping your curb-rein, which should be made to unbuckle, through its rings. Your curb, I repeat, contrary to the usual practice, and not your snaffle. I will soon explain why.

The horse has so docile a nature, that he would always rather do right than wrong, if he can only be taught to distinguish one from the other; therefore, have all your restrictive power on the same engine. Directly he gives to your hand, by affording him more liberty you show him that he has met your wishes, and done what you asked. If you put the martingale on your bridoon rein you can no longer indicate approval. To avoid its control he must lean on the discomfort of his curb, and it puzzles no less than it discourages him, to find that every effort to please you is met, one way or the other, by restraint. So much for his convenience; now for your own. I will suppose you are using the common hunting martingale, attached to the breast-plate of your saddle, not to its girths. Be careful that the rings are too small to slip over those of the curb-bit; you will be in an awkward predicament if, after rising at a fence, your horse in the moment that he tries to extend himself finds his nose tied down to his knees.

Neither must you shorten it too much at first; rather accustom your pupil gradually to its restraint, and remember that all horses are not shaped alike; some are so formed that they must needs carry their heads higher, and, as you choose to think, in a worse place than others. Tuition in all its branches cannot be too gradual, and nature, whether of man or beast, is less easily driven than led. The first consideration in riding is, no doubt, to make our horses do what we desire; but when this elementary object has been gained, it is of great importance to our comfort that they should accept our wishes as their own, persuaded that they exert themselves voluntarily in the service of their riders. For this it is essential to use such a bridle as they do not fear to meet, yet feel unwilling to disobey. Many high-couraged horses, with sensitive mouths, no uncommon combination, and often united to those propelling powers in hocks and quarters that are so valuable to a hunter, while they scorn restraint by the mild influence of the snaffle, fight tumultuously against the galling restriction of a curb. For these the scion of a noble family, that has produced many fine riders, invented a bridle, combining, as its enemies declare, the defects of both, to which he has given his name.

In England there seems a very general prejudice against the Pelham, whereas in Ireland we see it in constant use. Like other bridles of a peculiar nature it is adapted for peculiar horses; and I have myself had three or four excellent hunters that would not be persuaded to go comfortably in anything else.

I need hardly explain the construction of a Pelham. It consists of a single bit, smooth and jointed, like a common snaffle, but prolonged from the rings on either side to a cheek, having a second rein attached, which acts, by means of a curb-chain round the lower jaw, in the same manner, though to a modified extent, as the curb-rein of the usual hunting double-bridle, to which it bears an outward resemblance, and of which it seems a mild and feeble imitation. I have never to this day made out whether or not a keen young sportsman was amusing himself at my expense, when, looking at my horse’s head thus equipped, he asked the simple question: “Do you find it a good plan to have your snaffle and curb all in one?” I did find it a good plan with that particular horse, and at the risk of appearing egotistical I will explain why, by narrating the circumstances under which I first discovered his merits, illustrating as they do the special advantages of this unpopular implement.

The animal in question, thoroughbred, and amongst hunters exceedingly speedy, was unused to jumping when I purchased him, and from his unaffected delight in their society, I imagine had never seen hounds. He was active, however, high-couraged, and only too willing to be in front; but with a nervous, excitable temperament, and every inclination to pull hard, he had also a highly sensitive mouth. The double-bridle in which he began his experiences annoyed him sadly; he bounced, fretted, made himself thoroughly disagreeable, and our first day was a pleasure to neither of us. Next time I bethought me of putting on a Pelham, and the effect of its greater liberty seemed so satisfactory that to enhance it, I took the curb-chain off altogether. I was in the act of pocketing the links, when a straight-necked fox broke covert, pointing for a beautiful grass country, and the hounds came pouring out with a burning scent, not five hundred yards from his brush. I remounted pretty quick, but my thoroughbred one—in racing language, “a good beginner”—was quicker yet, and my feet were hardly in the stirrups, ere he had settled to his stride, and was flying along in rather too close proximity to the pack. Happily, there was plenty of room, and the hounds ran unusually hard, for my horse fairly broke away with me in the first field, and although he allowed me by main force to steady him a little at his fences, during ten minutes at least I know who was not master! He calmed, however, before the end of the burst, which was a very brilliant gallop, over a practicable country, and when I sent him home at two o’clock, I felt satisfied I had a game, good horse, that would soon make a capital hunter.

Now I am persuaded our timely escapade was of the utmost service. It gave him confidence in his rider’s hand; which, with this light Pelham bridle he found could inflict on him no pain, and only directed him the way he delighted to go. On his next appearance in the hunting-field, he was not afraid to submit to a little more restraint, and so by degrees, though I am bound to admit, the process took more than one season, he became a steady, temperate conveyance, answering the powerful conventional double-bridle with no less docility than the most sedate of his stable companions. We have seen a great deal of fun together since, but never such a game of romps as our first!

Why are so many brilliant horses difficult to ride? It ought not to be so. The truest shape entails the truest balance, consequently the smoothest paces and the best mouth. The fault is neither of form nor temper, but originates, if truth must be told, in the prejudices of the breaker, who will not vary his system to meet the requirements of different pupils. The best hunters have necessarily great power behind the saddle, causing them to move with their hind-legs so well under them, that they will not, and indeed cannot lean on the rider’s hand. This the breaker calls “facing their bit,” and the shyer they seem of that instrument, the harder he pulls. Up go their heads to avoid the pain, till that effort of self-defence becomes a habit, and it takes weeks of patience and fine horsemanship to undo the effects of unnecessary ill-usage for an hour.

Eastern horses, being broke from the first in the severest possible bits, all acquire this trick of throwing their noses in the air; but as they have never learned to pull, for the Oriental prides himself on riding with a “finger,” you need only give them an easy bridle and a martingale to make them go quietly and pleasantly, with heads in the right place, delighted to find control not necessarily accompanied by pain.

And this indeed is the whole object of our numerous inventions. A light-mouthed horse steered by a good rider, will cross a country safely and satisfactorily in a Pelham bridle, with a running martingale on the lower rein. It is only necessary to give him his head at his fences, that is to say, to let his mouth alone, the moment he leaves the ground. That the man he carries can hold a horse up, while landing, I believe to be a fallacy, that he gives him every chance in a difficulty by sitting well back and not interfering with his efforts to recover himself, I know to be a fact. The rider cannot keep too quiet till the last moment, when his own knee touches the ground, then, the sooner he parts company the better, turning his face towards his horse if possible, so as not to lose sight of the falling mass, and, above all, holding the bridle in his hand.

The last precaution cannot be insisted on too strongly. Not to mention the solecism of being afoot in boots and breeches during a run, and the cruel tax we inflict on some brother sportsman, who, being too good a fellow to leave us in the lurch, rides his own horse furlongs out of his line to go and catch ours, there is the further consideration of personal safety to life and limb. That is a very false position in which a man finds himself, when the animal is on its legs again, who cannot clear his foot from the stirrup, and has let his horse’s head go!

I believe too that a tenacious grasp on the reins saves many a broken collar-bone, as it cants the rider’s body round in the act of falling, so that the cushion of muscle behind it, rather than the point of his shoulder, is the first place to touch the ground; and no one who has ever been “pitched into” by a bigger boy at school can have forgotten that this part of the body takes punishment with the greatest impunity. But we are wandering from our subject. To hold on like grim death when down, seems an accomplishment little akin to the contents of a chapter professing to deal with the skilful use of the bridle.

The horse, except in peculiar cases, such as a stab with a sharp instrument, shrinks like other animals from pain. If he cannot avoid it in one way he will in another. When suffering under the pressure of his bit, he endeavours to escape the annoyance, according to the shape and setting on of his neck and shoulders, either by throwing his head up to the level of a rider’s eyes, or dashing it down between his own knees. The latter is by far the most pernicious manœuvre of the two, and to counteract it has been constructed the instrument we call “a gag.”

This is neither more nor less than another snaffle bit of which the head-stall and rein, instead of being separately attached to the rings, are in one piece running through a swivel, so that a leverage is obtained on the side of the mouth of such power as forces the horse’s head upwards to its proper level. In a gag and snaffle no horse can continue “boring,” as it is termed against his rider’s hand; in a gag and curb he is indeed a hard puller who will attempt to run away.

But with this bridle, adieu to all those delicacies of fingering which form the great charm of horsemanship, and are indeed the master touches of the art. A gag cannot be drawn gently through the mouth with hands parted and lowered on each side so as to “turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,” nor is the bull-headed beast that requires it one on which, without long and patient tuition, you may hope to “witch the world with noble horsemanship.” It is at best but a schoolmaster, and like the curbless Pelham in which my horse ran away with me, only a step in the right direction towards such willing obedience as we require. Something has been gained when our horse learns we have power to control him; much when he finds that power exerted for his own advantage.

I would ride mine in a chain-cable if by no other means I could make him understand that he must submit to my will, hoping always eventually to substitute for it a silken thread.

All bridles, by whatever names they may be called, are but the contrivances of a government that depends for authority on concealment of its weakness. Hard hands will inevitably make hard pullers, but to the animal intellect a force still untested is a force not lightly to be defied. The loose rein argues confidence, and even the brute understands that confidence is an attribute of power.

Change your bridle over and over again, till you find one that suits your hand, rather, I should say, that suits your horse’s mouth. Do not, however, be too well satisfied with a first essay. He may go delightfully to-day in a bit that he will learn how to counteract by to-morrow. Nevertheless, a long step has been made in the right direction when he has carried you pleasantly if only for an hour. Should that period have been passed in following hounds, it is worth a whole week’s education under less exciting conditions. A horse becomes best acquainted with his rider in those situations that call forth most care and circumspection from both.

Broken ground, fords, morasses, dark nights, all tend to mutual good understanding, but forty minutes over an inclosed country establishes the partnership of man and beast on such relations of confidence as much subsequent indiscretion fails to efface. The same excitement that rouses his courage seems to sharpen his faculties and clear his brain. It is wonderful how soon he begins to understand your meaning as conveyed literally from “hand to mouth,” how cautiously he picks his steps amongst stubs or rabbit-holes, when the loosened rein warns him he must look out for himself, how boldly he quickens his stride and collects his energies for the fence he is approaching, when he feels grip and grasp tighten on back and bridle, conscious that you mean to “catch hold of his head and send him at it!” while loving you all the better for this energy of yours that stimulates his own.

And now we come to a question admitting of no little discussion, inasmuch as those practitioners differ widely who are best capable of forming an opinion. The advocates of the loose rein, who though outnumbered at the covert-side, are not always in a minority when the hounds run, maintain that a hunter never acquits himself so well as while let completely alone; their adversaries, on the other hand, protest that the first principle of equitation, is to keep fast hold of your horse’s head at all times and under all circumstances. “You pull him into his fences,” argues Finger. “You will never pull him out of them,” answers Fist. “Get into a bucket and try to lift yourself by the handles!” rejoins Finger, quoting from an apposite illustration of Colonel Greenwood’s, as accomplished a horseman as his brother, also a colonel, whose fine handling I have already mentioned. “A horse isn’t a bucket,” returns Fist, triumphantly; “why, directly you let his head go does he stop in a race, refuse a brook, or stumble when tired on the road?”

It is a thousand pities that he cannot tell us which of the two systems he prefers himself. We may argue from theory, but can only judge by practice; and must draw our inferences rather from personal experience than the subtlest reasoning of the schools.

Now if all horses were broke by such masters of the art as General Lawrenson and Mr. Mackenzie Greaves, riders who combine the strength and freedom of the hunting field with the scientific exercise of hands and limbs, as taught in the haute école, so obedient would they become to our gestures, nay, to the inflection of our bodies, that they might be trusted over the strongest lordship in Leicestershire with their heads quite loose, or, for that matter, with no bridle at all. But equine education is usually conducted on a very different system to that of Monsieur Baucher, or either of the above-named gentlemen. From colthood horses have been taught to understand, paradoxically enough, that a dead pull against the jaws means, “Go on, and be hanged to you, till I alter the pressure as a hint for you to stop.”

It certainly seems common sense, that when we tug at a horse’s bridle he should oblige us by coming to a halt, yet, in his fast paces, we find the pull produces a precisely contrary effect; and for this habit, which during the process of breaking has become a second nature, we must make strong allowances, particularly in the hurry and excitement of crossing a country after a pack of hounds.

It has happened to most of us, no doubt, at some period to have owned a favourite, whose mouth was so fine, temper so perfect, courage so reliable, and who had so learned to accommodate pace and action to our lightest indications, that when thus mounted we felt we could go tit-tupping over a country with slackened rein and toe in stirrup, as if cantering in the Park. As we near our fence, a little more forbidding, perhaps, than common, every stride seems timed like clockwork, and, unwilling to interfere with such perfect mechanism, we drop our hand, trusting wholly in the honour of our horse. At the very last stride the traitor refuses, and whisks round. “Et tu brute!” we exclaim—“Are you also a brute?”—and catching him vigorously by the head, we ram him again at the obstacle to fly over it like a bird. Early associations had prevailed, and our stanch friend disappointed us, not from cowardice, temper, nor incapacity, but only from the influence of an education based on principles contrary to common sense.

The great art of horsemanship, then, is to find out what the animal requires of us, and to meet its wishes, even its prejudices, half-way. Cool with the rash, and daring with the cautious, it is wise to retain the semblance, at least, of a self-possession superior to casualties, and equal to any emergency, from a refusal to a fall. Though “give and take” is the very first principle of handling, too sudden a variation of pressure has a tendency to confuse and flurry a hunter, whether in the gallop or when collecting itself for the leap. If you have been holding a horse hard by the head, to let him go in the last stride is very apt to make him run into his fence; while, if you have been riding with a light hand and loosened rein, a “chuck under the chin” at an inopportune moment distracts his attention, and causes him to drop short. “How did you get your fall?” is a common question in the hunting-field. If the partner at one end of the bridle could speak, how often would he answer, “Through bad riding;” when the partner at the other dishonestly replies, “The brute didn’t jump high enough, or far enough, that was all.” It is well for the most brilliant reputations that the noble animal is generous as he is brave, and silent as he is wise.

I have already observed there are many more kinds of bridles than those just mentioned. Major Dwyer’s, notably, of which the principle is an exact fitting of bridoon and curb-bits to the horse’s mouth, seems to give general satisfaction; and Lord Gardner, whose opinion none are likely to dispute, stamps it with his approval. I confess, however, to a preference for the old-fashioned double-bridles, such as are called respectively the Dunchurch, Nos. 1 and 2, being persuaded that these will meet the requirements of nine horses out of ten that have any business in the hunting-field. The first, very large, powerful, and of stronger leverage than the second, should be used with discretion, but, in good hands, is an instrument against which the most resolute puller, if he insists on fighting with it, must contend in vain. Thus tackled, and ridden by such a horseman as Mr. Angerstein, for instance, of Weeting, in Norfolk, I do not believe there are half-a-dozen hunters in England that could get the mastery. Whilst living in Northamptonshire I remember he owned a determined runaway, not inappropriately called “Hard Bargain,” that in this bridle he could turn and twist like a pony. I have no doubt he has not forgotten the horse, nor a capital run from Misterton, in which, with his usual kindness, he lent him thus bridled to a friend.

I have seen horses go very pleasantly in what I believe is called the half-moon bit, of which the bridoon, having no joint, is shaped so as to take the curve of the animal’s mouth. I have never tried one, but the idea seems good, as based on the principle of comfort to the horse. When we can arrive at that essential, combined with power to the rider, we may congratulate ourselves on possessing the right bridle at last, and need have no scruple in putting the animal to its best pace, confident we can stop it at will.

We should never forget that the faster hounds run, the more desirable is it to have perfect control of our conveyance; and that a hunter of very moderate speed, easy to turn, and quick on its legs, will cross a country with more expedition than a race-horse that requires half a field to “go about;” and that we dare not extend lest, “with too much way on,” he should get completely out of our hand. Once past the gap you fancied, you will never find a place in the fence you like so well again.

CHAPTER IV.
THE ABUSE OF THE SPUR.

“You may ride us,
With one soft kiss, a thousand furlongs, ere
With spurs we heat an acre.”

Says Hermione, and indeed that gentle lady’s illustration equally applies to an inferior order of beings, from which also man derives much comfort and delight. It will admit of discussion whether the “armed heel,” with all its terrors, has not, on the race-course at least, lost more triumphs than it has won.

I have been told that Fordham, who seems to be first past the judges’ chair oftener than any jockey of the day, wholly repudiates “the tormentors,” arguing that they only make a horse shorten his stride, and “shut up,” to use an expressive term, instead of struggling gallantly home. Judging by analogy, it is easy to conceive that such may be the case. The tendency of the human frame seems certainly to contract rather than expand its muscles, with instinctive repugnance at the stab of a sharp instrument, or even the puncture of a thorn. It is not while receiving punishment but administering it that the prize-fighter opens his shoulders and lets out. There is no doubt that many horses, thoroughbred ones especially, will stop suddenly, even in their gallop, and resent by kicking an indiscreet application of the spurs. A determined rider who keeps them screwed in the animal’s flanks eventually gains the victory. But such triumphs of severity and main force are the last resource of an authority that ought never to be disputed, as springing less from fear than confidence and good-will.

It cannot be denied that there are many fools in the world, yet, regarding matters of opinion, the majority are generally right. A top-boot has an unfinished look without its appendage of shining steel; and, although some sportmen assure us they dispense with rowels, it is rare to find one so indifferent to appearances as not to wear spurs. There must be some good reason for this general adoption of an instrument that, from the days of chivalry, has been the very stamp and badge of a superiority which the man on horseback assumes over the man on foot. Let us weigh the arguments for and against this emblem of knighthood before we decide. In the riding-school, and particularly for military purposes, when the dragoon’s right hand is required for his weapon, these aids, as they are called, seem to enhance that pressure of the leg which acts on the horse’s quarters, as the rein on his forehand, bringing his whole body into the required position. Perhaps if the boot were totally unarmed much time might be lost in making his pupil understand the horseman’s wishes, but any one who has ridden a perfectly trained charger knows how much more accurately it answers to the leg than the heel, and how awkwardly a horse acquits himself that has been broke in very sharp spurs; every touch causing it to wince and swerve too far in the required direction, glancing off at a tangent, like a boat that is over ready in answering her helm. Patience and a light switch, I believe, would fulfil all the purposes of the spur, even in the manége; but delay is doubtless a drawback, and there are reasons for going the shortest way on occasion, even if it be not the smoothest and the best.

It is quite unnecessary, however, and even prejudicial, to have the rowels long and sharp. Nothing impedes tuition like fear; and fear in the animal creation is the offspring of pain.

Granted, then, that the spur may be applied advantageously in the school, let us see how far it is useful on the road or in the hunting-field.

We will start by supposing that you do not possess a really perfect hack; that desirable animal must, doubtless, exist somewhere, but, like Pegasus, is more often talked of than seen. Nevertheless, the roadster that carries you to business or pleasure is a sound, active, useful beast, with safe, quick action, good shoulders, of course, and a willing disposition, particularly when turned towards home. How often in a week do you touch it with the spurs? Once, perhaps, by some bridle-gate, craftily hung at precisely the angle which prevents your reaching its latch or hasp. And what is the result of this little display of vexation? Your hack gets flurried, sticks his nose in the air, refuses to back, and compels you at last to open the gate with your wrong hand, rubbing your knee against the post as he pushes through in unseemly haste, for fear of another prod. When late for dinner, or hurrying home to outstrip the coming shower, you may fondly imagine that but for “the persuaders” you would have been drenched to the skin; and, relating your adventures at the fire-side, will probably declare that “you stuck the spurs into him the last mile, and came along as hard as he could drive.” But, if you were to visit him in the stable, you would probably find his flanks untouched, and would, I am sure, be pleased rather than disappointed at the discovery. Happily, not one man in ten knows how to spur a horse, and the tenth is often the most unwilling to administer so severe a punishment.

Ladies, however, are not so merciful. Perhaps because they have but one, they use this stimulant liberally, and without compunction. From their seat, and shortness of stirrup, every kick tells home. Concealed under a riding-habit, these vigorous applications are unsuspected by lookers-on; and the unwary wonder why, in the streets of London or the Park, a ladies’ horse always appears to go in a lighter and livelier form than that of her male companion. “It’s a woman’s hand,” says the admiring pedestrian. “Not a bit of it,” answers the cynic who knows; “it’s a woman’s heel.”

But, however sparing you may be of the spurs in lane or bridle-road, you are tempted to ply them far too freely in the anxiety and excitement of the hunting-field. Have you ever noticed the appearance of a white horse at the conclusion of some merry gallop over a strongly fenced country? The pure conspicuous colour tells sad tales, and the smooth, thin-skinned flanks are too often stained and plastered with red. Many bad horsemen spur their horses without meaning it; many worse, mean to spur their horses at every fence, and do.

A Leicestershire notability, of the last generation once dubbed a rival with the expressive title of “a hard funker;” and the term, so happily applied, fully rendered what he meant. Of all riders “the hard funker” is the most unmerciful to his beast; at every turn he uses his spurs cruelly, not because he is hard, but because he funks. Let us watch him crossing a country, observing his style as a warning rather than an example.

Hesitation and hurry are his principal faults, practised, with much impartiality, in alternate extremes. Though half-way across a field, he is still undecided where to get out. This vacillation communicates itself in electric sympathy to his horse, and both go wavering down to their fence, without the slightest idea what they mean to do when they arrive. Some ten strides off the rider makes up his mind, selecting, probably, an extremely awkward place, for no courage is so desperate as that which is founded on fear. Want of determination is now supplemented by excessive haste and, with incessant application of the spurs, his poor horse is hurried wildly at the leap. That it gets over without falling, as happens oftener than might be supposed, seems due to activity in the animal rather than sagacity in the rider, and a strong instinct of self-preservation in both; but such a process, repeated again and again during a gallop, even of twenty minutes, tells fearfully on wind and muscle, nor have many hunters sufficient powers of endurance to carry these exacting performers through a run.

Still the “h. f.” would be nothing without his spurs, and I grant that to him these instruments are indispensable, if he is to get from one field to another; but of what use are they to such men as Mr. Gilmour, Captain Coventry, Sir Frederic Johnston, Captain Boyce, Mr. Hugh Lowther, and a host more that I could name, who seem to glide over Leicestershire, and other strongly-fenced countries, as a bird glides through the air. Day after day, unless accidentally scored in a fall, you may look in vain for a spur-mark on their horses sides. Shoulders and quarters, indeed, are reddened by gashes from a hundred thorns; but the virgin spot, a handsbreadth behind the girths, is pure and stainless still. Yet not one of the gentlemen I have named will ride without the instrument he uses so rarely, if at all; and they must cherish, therefore, some belief in its virtue, when called into play, strong enough to counterbalance its indisputable disadvantages—notably, the stabbing of a hunter’s side, when its rider’s foot is turned outwards by a stake or grower, and the tearing of its back or quarters in the struggle and confusion of a fall. There is one excellent reason that, perhaps, I may have overlooked. It is tiresome to answer the same question over and over again, and in a field of 200 sportsmen you are sure to be asked almost as many times, “Why don’t you wear spurs?” if you set appearances at defiance by coming into the hunting-field without them.

In my personal recollection I can only call to mind one man who systematically abjured so essential a finish to the horseman’s dress and equipment. This was Mr. Tomline of Leigh Lodge, a Leicestershire farmer and horse-dealer, well-known some thirty years ago as one of the finest riders and straightest goers that ever got into a saddle. His costume, indeed, was not of so careful a nature that want of completeness in any one particular could spoil the general effect. He always hunted in a rusty, worn pilot-jacket, drab breeches with strings untied, brown-topped boots, and a large ill-fitting hat, carrying in his hand a ground-ash plant, totally useless for opening a gate if he did not happen to jump it. Yet thus accoutred, and generally on a young one, so long as his horse’s condition lasted, he was sure to be in front, and, when the fences were rougher than common, with but two or three companions at most.

I have not yet forgotten the style in which I once saw him coax a four-year-old to jump a “bottom” under Launde, fortified by a high post and rail—down-hill—a bad take off—and almost a ravine on the far side! With his powerful grip and exquisite handling, he seemed to persuade the pupil that it was as willing as the master.

My own spurs were four inches long, and I was riding the best hunter in my stable, but I don’t think I would have had the same place for fifty pounds!

A paradox, like an Irishman’s bull, will sometimes convey our meaning more impressively than a logical statement. It seems paradoxical, yet I believe it is sound sense to say that no man should arm his heels with spurs unless he is so good a rider as to be sure they shall not touch his horse. To punish him with them involuntarily is, of course, like any other blunder totally inadmissible, but when applied with intention, they should be used sparingly and only as a last resource. That there are occasions on which they rouse a horse’s energies for a momentary effort, I am disposed to admit less from my own experience than the opinion of those for whose practical knowledge in all such matters I have the greatest respect. Both the Messrs. Coventry, in common with other first-rate steeple-chase riders, advocate their use on rare occasions and under peculiar circumstances. Poor Jem Mason never went hunting without them, and would not, I think, have hesitated to apply them pretty freely if required, but then these could all spur their horses in the right place, leaning back the while and altering in no way the force and bearing of hand or seat. Most men, on the contrary, stoop forward and let their horses’ heads go when engaged in this method of compulsion, and even if their heels do reach the mark, by no means a certainty, gain but little with the rowels compared to all they lose with the reins.

There is no fault in a hunter so annoying to a man whose heart is in the sport as a tendency to refuse. It utterly defeats the timid and damps the courage of the bold, while even to him who rides that he may hunt rather than hunts that he may ride, it is intensely provoking, as he is apt to lose by it that start which is so invaluable in a quick thing, and, when a large field are all struggling for the same object, so difficult to regain. This perversity of disposition too, is very apt to be displayed at some fence that will not admit of half-measures, such as a rail low enough to jump, but too strong to break, or a ditch so wide and deep that it must not be attempted as a standing leap. In these cases a vigorous dig with the spurs at the last moment will sometimes have an excellent effect. But it must not be trusted as an unfailing remedy. Nearly as many hunters will resent so broad a hint, by stopping short, and turning restive, as will spring generously forward, and make a sudden effort in answer to the appeal. For this, as for every other requirement of equitation, much depends on an insight into his character, whom an enthusiastic friend of mine designates “the bolder and wiser animal of the two.”

Few men go out hunting with the expectation of encountering more than one or two falls in the best of runs, although the score sometimes increases very rapidly, when a good and gallant horse is getting tired towards the finish. Twenty “croppers” in a season, if he is well-mounted, seems a high average for the most determined of bruisers, but a man, whom circumstances impel to ride whatever he can lay hands on, must take into consideration how he can best rise from the ground unhurt with no less forethought than he asks his way to the meet or inquires into the condition of his mount. To such a bold rider the spur may seem an indispensable article, but he must remember that even if its application should save him on occasion, which I am not altogether prepared to admit, the appendage itself is most inconvenient when down. I cannot remember a single instance of a man’s foot remaining fixed in the stirrup who was riding without spurs. I do not mean to say such a catastrophe is impossible, but I have good reason to know that the buckle on the instep, which when brightly polished imparts such a finish to the lustrous wrinkles of a well-made boot, is extremely apt to catch in the angle of the stirrup iron, and hold us fast at the very moment when it is most important to our safety we should be free.

I have headed this chapter “The Abuse of the Spur,” because I hold that implement of horsemanship to be in general most unmercifully abused, so much so that I believe it would be far better for the majority of horses, and riders too, if it had never come into vogue. The perfect equestrian may be trusted indeed with rowels sharp and long as those that jingle at the Mexican’s heels on his boundless prairies, but, as in the days of chivalry, these ornaments should be won by prowess to be worn with honour; and I firmly believe that nine out of every ten men who come out hunting would be better and more safely carried if they left their spurs at home.

CHAPTER V.
HAND.

What is it? Intellect, nerve, sympathy, confidence, skill? None of these can be said to constitute this quality; rather it is a combination of all, with something superinduced that can only be called a magnetic affinity between the aggressive spirit of man and the ductile nature of the beast.

“He spurred the old horse, and he held him tight,
And leaped him out over the wall,”

says Kingsley, in his stirring ballad of “The Knight’s Last Leap at Alten-ahr;” and Kingsley, an excellent rider himself, thus described exactly how the animal should have been put at its formidable fence. Most poets would have let their horse’s head go—the loose rein is a favourite method of making play in literature—and a fatal refusal must have been the result. The German Knight, however, whose past life seems to have been no less disreputable than his end was tragic, had not

“Lived by the saddle for years a score,”

to fail in his horsemanship at the finish, and so, when he came to jump his last fence, negotiated it with no less skill than daring—grim, quiet, resolute, strong of seat, and firm of hand. The latter quality seems, however, much the rarer of the two. For ten men who can stick to the saddle like Centaurs you will hardly find one gifted with that nicety of touch which horses so willingly obey, and which, if not inborn, seems as difficult to acquire by practice as the draughtsman’s eye for outline, or the musician’s ear for sound. Attention, reflection, painstaking, and common sense, can, nevertheless, do much; and, if the brain will only take the trouble to think, the clumsiest fingers that ever mismanaged a bridle may be taught in time to humour it like a silken thread.

I have been told, though I never tried the experiment, that if you take bold chanticleer from his perch, and, placing his bill on a table, draw from it a line of chalk by candle-light, the poor dazed fowl makes no attempt to stir from this imaginary bondage, persuaded that it is secured by a cord it has not strength enough to break. We should never get on horseback without remembering this unaccountable illusion; our control by means of the bridle is, in reality, little more substantial than the chalk-line that seems to keep the bird in durance. It should be our first consideration so to manage the rein we handle as never to give our horse the opportunity of discovering our weakness and his own strength.

How is this to be effected? By letting his head go, and allowing him to carry us where he will? Certainly not, or we should have no need for the bridle at all. By pulling at him, then, with main strength, and trying the muscular power of our arms against that of his shoulders and neck? Comparing these relative forces again, we are constrained to answer, Certainly not; the art of control is essentially founded on compromise. In riding, as in diplomacy, we must always be ready to give an inch that we may take an ell. The first principle of horsemanship is to make the animal believe we can rule its wildest mood; the next, to prevent, at any sacrifice, the submission of this plausible theory to proof. You get on a horse you have never seen before, improperly bitted, we may fairly suppose, for few men would think of wasting as many seconds on their bridle as they devote minutes to their boots and breeches. You infer, from his wild eye and restless ear that he is “a bit of a romp;” and you observe, with some concern, that surrounding circumstances, a race, a review, a coursing-meeting, or a sure find, it matters little which, are likely to rouse all the tumultuous propensities of his nature. Obviously it would be exceedingly bad policy to have the slightest misunderstanding. The stone of Sisyphus gathered impetus less rapidly than does a horse who is getting the better of his rider; and John Gilpin was not the first equestrian, by a good many, for whom

“The trot became a gallop soon,
In spite of curb and rein.”

“I am the owner, I wish I could say the master, of the four best hunters I ever had in my life,” wrote one of the finest horsemen in Europe to a brother proficient in the art; and although so frank an avowal would have seemed less surprising from an inferior performer, his friend, who was also in the habit of riding anything, anywhere, and over everything, doubtless understood perfectly what he meant.

Now in equitation there can be no divided empire; and the horse will most assuredly be master if the man is not. In the interests of good government, then, beware how you let your authority literally slip through your fingers, for, once lost, it will not easily be regained.

Draw your reins gently to an equal length, and ascertain the precise bearing on your horse’s mouth that seems, while he is yet in a walk, to influence his action without offending his sensitiveness. But this cannot be accomplished with the hands alone; these members, though supposed to be the prime agents of control, will do little without the assistance of legs and knees pressing the sides and flanks of the animal, so as to urge him against the touch of his bit, from which he will probably show a tendency to recoil, and, as it is roughly called, “forcing him into his bridle.”

The absence of this leg-power is an incalculable disadvantage to ladies, and affords the strongest reason, amongst many, why they should be mounted only on temperate and perfectly broken horses. How much oftener would they come to grief but that their seat compels them to ride with such long reins as insure light hands, and that their finer sympathy seems fully understood and gratefully appreciated by the most sympathetic of all the brute creation!

The style adopted by good horsewomen, especially in crossing a country, has in it much to be admired, something, also, to be deprecated and deplored. They allow their horses plenty of liberty, and certainly interfere but little with their heads, even at the greatest emergencies; but their ideas of pace are unreasonably liberal, and they are too apt to “chance it” at the fences, encouraging with voice and whip the haste that in the last few strides it is judicious to repress. It seems to me they are safer in a “bank-and-ditch” country than amongst the high strong fences of the grazing districts, where a horse must be roused and held together that he may jump well up in the air, and extend himself afterwards, so as to cover the wide “uncertainties” he may find on the landing side. For a bank he is pretty sure to collect himself without troubling his rider; and this is, perhaps, why Irishmen, as a general rule, use such light bridles.

Now, a woman cannot possibly bring her horse up to a high staked-and-bound fence, out of deep ground, with the strength and resolution of a man, whose very grip in the saddle seems to extort from the animal its utmost energies. Half measures are fatal in a difficulty, and, as she seems unable to interfere with good effect she is wise to let it alone.

We may learn from her, however, one of the most effective secrets of the whole art, and that is, to ride with long reins. “Always give them plenty of rope,” said poor Jem Mason, when instructing a beginner; and he certainly practised what he preached. I have seen his hands carried so high as to be level with his elbows, but his horse’s head was always in the right place; and to this must be attributed the fact that, while he rode to hounds straighter than anybody else, he got comparatively few falls. A man with long reins not only affords his horse greater liberty at his fences, but allows him every chance of recovery should he get into difficulties on landing, the rider not being pulled with a jerk on the animal’s neck and shoulders, so as to throw both of them down, when they ought to have got off with a scramble.

Let us return to the horse you have lately mounted, not without certain misgivings that he may be tempted to insubordination under the excitement of tumult, rivalry, or noise. When you have discovered the amount of repression, probably very slight, that he accepts without resentment, at a walk, increase your pace gradually, still with your legs keeping him well into his bridle, carrying your hands low down on his withers, and, if you take my advice, with a rein in each. You will find this method affords you great control of your horse’s head, and enables you, by drawing the bit through his mouth, to counteract any arrangement on his part for a dead pull, which could have but one result. Should you, moreover, find it necessary to jump, you can thus hold him perfectly straight at his fences, so that he must either decline altogether or go exactly where you put him. Young, headstrong horses are exceedingly apt to swerve from the place selected for them, and to rise sideways at some strong bit of timber, or impracticable part of a bullfinch; and this is a most dangerous experiment, causing the worst kind of falls to which the sportsman is liable.

Riding thus two-handed, you will probably find your new acquaintance “bends” to you in his canter better than in his trot, and if so, you may safely push him to a gallop, taking great care, however, not to let him extend himself too much. When he goes on his shoulders, he becomes a free agent; so long as his haunches are under him, you can keep him, as it is called, “in your hand.”

There is considerable scope for thought in this exercise of manual skill, and it is always wise to save labour of body by use of brain. Take care then, to have your front clear, so that your horse may flatter himself he is leading his comrades, when he will not give you half so much trouble to retain him in reasonable bounds. Strategy is here required no less than tactics, and horsemanship even as regards the bridle, is quite as much a matter of head as hand. If you are out hunting, and have got thus far on good terms, you will probably now be tempted to indulge in a leap. We cannot, unfortunately, select these obstacles exactly as we wish; it is quite possible your first fence may be high, strong, and awkward, with every probability of a fall. Take your horse at it quietly, but resolutely, in a canter, remembering that the quicker and shorter his strides, while gathering impetus, the greater effort he can make when he makes his spring. Above all, measure with your eye, and endeavour to show him by the clip of your thighs, and the sway of your body, exactly where he should take off. On this important point depends, almost entirely, the success of your leap. Half a stride means some six or seven feet; to leave the ground that much too soon adds the width of a fair-sized ditch to his task, and if the sum total prove too much for him you cannot be surprised at the result. This is, I think, one of the most important points in horsemanship as applied to riding across a country. It is a detail in which Lord Wilton particularly excels, and although so good a huntsman must despise a compliment to his mere riding, I cannot refrain from mentioning Tom Firr, as another proficient who possesses this enviable knack in an extraordinary degree.

Many of us can remember “Cap” Tomline, a professional “rough rider,” living at or near Billesdon, within the last twenty years, as fine a horseman as his namesake, whom I have already mentioned, and a somewhat lighter weight. For one sovereign, “Cap,” as we used to call him, was delighted to ride anybody’s horse under any circumstances, over, or into any kind of fence the owner chose to point out. After going brilliantly through a run, I have seen him, to my mind most injudiciously, desired to lark home alongside, while we watched his performance from the road. He was particularly fond of timber, and notwithstanding that his horse was usually rash, inexperienced, or bad-tempered, otherwise he would not have been riding him, I can call to mind very few occasions on which I saw him down. One unusually open winter, when he hunted five and six days a week from October to April, he told me he had only fifteen falls, and that taking the seasons as they came, thirteen was about his average. Nor was he a very light-weight—spare, lengthy, and muscular, he turned twelve stone in his hunting clothes, which were by no means of costly material. Horses rarely refused with him, and though they often had a scramble for it, as seldom fell, but under his method of riding, sitting well down in the saddle, with the reins in both hands, they never took off wrong, and in this lay the great secret of his superiority. When I knew him he was an exceedingly temperate man; for many years I believe he drank only water, and he eschewed tobacco in every form. “The reason you gentlemen have such bad nerves,” he said to me, jogging home to Melton one evening in the dusk that always meets us about Somerby, “is because you smoke so much. It turns your brains to a kind of vapour!” the inference was startling, I thought, and not complimentary, but there might be some truth in it nevertheless.

We have put off a great deal of time at our first fence, let us do it without a fall, if we can.

When a hunter’s quarters are under him in taking off, he has them ready to help him over any unforeseen difficulty that may confront him on the other side. Should there be a bank from which he can get a purchase for a second effort, he will poise himself on it lightly as a bird, or perhaps, dropping his hind-legs only, shoot himself well into the next field, with that delightful elasticity which, met by a corresponding action of his rider’s loins, imparts to the horseman such sensations of confidence and dexterity as are felt by some buoyant swimmer, wafted home on the roll of an incoming wave. Strong hocks and thighs, a mutual predilection for the chase, a bold heart between the saddle-flaps, another under the waistcoat, and a pair of light hands, form a combination that few fences after Christmas are strong enough or blind enough to put down.

And now please not to forget that soundest of maxims, applicable to all affairs alike by land or sea—“While she lies her course, let the ship steer herself.” If your horse is going to his own satisfaction, do not be too particular that he should go entirely to yours. So long as you can steady him, never mind that he carries his head a little up or a little down. If he shakes it you know you have got him, and can pull him off in a hundred yards. Keep your hands quiet and not too low. It is a well-known fact, of which, however, many draughtsmen seem ignorant, that the horse in action never puts his fore-feet beyond his nose. You need only watch the finish of a race to be satisfied of this, and indeed the Derby winner in his supreme effort is almost as straight as an old-fashioned frigate, from stem to stern, while a line dropped perpendicularly from his muzzle would exactly touch the tips of his toes. Now, if your hands are on each side of your horse’s withers, you make him bend his neck so much as to contract his stride within three-quarter speed, whereas when you carry them about the level of your own hips, and nearly as far back, he has enough freedom of head to extend himself without getting beyond your control, and room besides to look about him, of which be sure he will avail himself for your mutual advantage.

I have ridden hunters that obviously found great pleasure in watching hounds, and, except to measure their fences, would never take their eyes off the pack from field to field, so long as we could keep it in sight. These animals too, were, invariably fine jumpers, free, generous, light-hearted, and as wise as they were bold.

I heard a very superior performer once remark that he not only rode every horse differently, but he rode the same horse differently at every fence.

All I can say is, he used to ride them all in the same place, well up with the hounds, but I think I understand what he meant. He had his system of course, like every other master of the art, but it admitted of endless variations according to circumstances and the exigencies of the case. No man, I conclude, rides so fast at a wall as a brook, though he takes equal pains with his handling in both cases, if in a different way, nor would he deny a half-tired animal that support, amounting even to a dead pull, which might cause a hunter fresh out of his stable to imagine his utmost exertions were required forthwith. Nevertheless, whether “lobbing along” through deep ground at the punishing period, when we wish our fun was over, or fingering a rash one delicately for his first fence, a stile, we will say, downhill with a bad take-off, when we could almost wish it had not begun, we equally require such a combination of skill, science, and sagacity, or rather common-sense, as goes by the name of “hand.” When the player possesses this quality in perfection it is wonderful how much can be done with the instrument of which he holds the strings. I remember seeing the Reverend John Bower, an extraordinarily fine rider of the last generation, hand his horse over an ugly iron-bound stile, on to some stepping-stones, with a drop of six or seven feet, into a Leicestershire lane, as calmly as if the animal had been a lady whom he was taking out for a walk. He pulled it back into a trot, sitting very close and quiet, with his hand raised two or three inches above the withers, and I can still recall, as if I had seen it yesterday, the curve of neck and quarters, as, gently mouthing the bit, that well-broken hunter poised lightly for its spring, and landing in the same collected form, picked its way daintily, step by step, down the declivity, like a cat. There was a large field out, but though Leicestershire then, as now, had no lack of bold and jealous riders, who could use heads, hands, and beyond all, their heels, nobody followed him, and I think the attempt was better left alone.

Another clergyman of our own day, whose name I forbear mentioning, because I think he would dislike it for professional reasons, has the finest bridle-hand of any one I know. “You good man,” I once heard a foreigner observe to this gentleman, in allusion to his bold style of riding; “it no matter if you break your neck!” And although I cannot look on the loss of such valuable lives from the same point of view as this Continental moralist, I may be permitted to regret the present scarcity of clergymen in the hunting-field. It redounds greatly to their credit, for we know how many of them deny themselves a harmless pleasure rather than offend “the weaker brethren,” but what a dog in the manger must the weaker brother be!

I have never heard that these “hunting parsons,” as they are called, neglect the smallest detail of duty to indulge in their favourite sport, but when they do come out you may be sure to see them in the front rank. Can it be that the weaker brother is jealous of his pastor’s superiority in the saddle? I hope not. At any rate it seems unfair to cavil at the enjoyment by another of the pursuit we affect ourselves. Let us show more even-handed justice, if not more charity, and endeavour at least to follow the good man’s example in the parish, though we are afraid to ride his line across the fields.

It would be endless to enter on all the different styles of horsemanship in which fine hands are of the utmost utility. On the race-course, for instance, it seems to an outsider that the whole performance of the jockey is merely a dead pull from end to end. But only watch the lightest urchin that is flung on a two-year-old to scramble home five furlongs as fast as ever he can come; you will soon be satisfied that even in these tumultuous flights there is room for the display of judgment, patience, though briefly tried, and manual skill. The same art is exercised on the light smooth snaffle, held in tenacious grasp, that causes the heavily-bitted charger to dance and “passage” in the school. It differs only in direction and degree. As much dexterity is required to prevent some playful flyer recently put in training from breaking out in a game of romps, when he ought to be minding his business in “the string” as to call forth the well-drilled efforts of a war-horse, answering wrist and leg with disciplined activity, ready to “rein back,” “pass,” “wheel,”—

“And high curvet that not in vain,
The sword-sway may descend amain
On foeman’s casque below.”

Chifney, the great jockey of his day, wrote an elaborate treatise on handling, laying down the somewhat untenable position, that even a racehorse should be held as if with a silken thread.

I have noticed, too, that our best steeplechase riders have particularly fine hands when crossing a country with hounds; nor does their professional practice seem to make them over-hasty at their fences, when there is time to do these with deliberation. I imagine that to ride a steeplechase well, over a strong line, is the highest possible test of what we may call “all-round” horsemanship. My own experience in the silk jacket has been of the slightest; and I confess that, like Falstaff with his reasons, I never fancied being rattled quite so fast at my fences “on compulsion.”

One of the finest pieces of riding I ever witnessed was in a steeplechase held at Melton, as long ago as the year 1864, when, happening to stand near the brook, eighteen feet of water, I observed my friend Captain Coventry come down at it. Choosing sound ground and a clear place, for it was already beginning to fill with numerous competitors, he set his horse going, at about a hundred yards from the brink; in the most masterly manner, increasing the pace resolutely but gradually, so as not to flurry or cause the animal to change his leg, nearly to full speed before he took off. I could not have believed it possible to make a horse go so fast in so collected a form; but with the rider’s strength in the saddle, and perfectly skilful hands, he accomplished the feat, and got well over, I need hardly say, in his stride.

But, although a fine “bridle-hand,” as it is called, proves of such advantage to the horseman in the hurry-skurry of a steeplechase or a very quick thing with hounds, its niceties come more readily under the notice of an observer on the road than in the field. Perhaps the Ride in Hyde Park is the place of all others where this quality is most appreciated, and, shall we add? most rarely to be found. A perfect Park hack, that can walk or canter five miles an hour, no light criterion of action and balance, should also be so well broke, and so well ridden, as to change its leg, if asked to do so, at every stride. “With woven paces,” if not “with waving arms,” I have seen rider and horse threading in and out the trees that bisect Rotten Row, without missing one, for half a mile on end; the animal leading with near or off leg, as it inclined to left or right, guided only by the inflection of the rider’s body, and the touch, too light to be called a pressure, of his knee and leg. How seldom does one see a horse ridden properly round a corner. He is usually allowed to turn on his shoulders, with his hind-legs too far back to be of the slightest assistance if he slips or stumbles, and should the foothold be greasy, as may happen in London streets, down he comes flat on his side. Even at a walk, or slow trot, he should be collected, and his outer flank pressed inwards by his rider’s heel, so that the motive power in hocks and thighs is kept under his own body, and the weight on his back. In the canter it stands to reason that he should lead with the inner leg, otherwise it is very possible he may cross the other over it, and fall like a lump of lead.

I remember seeing the famous Lord Anglesey ride his hack at that pace nineteen times out of Piccadilly into Albemarle Street, before it turned the corner exactly to his mind. The handsome old warrior who looked no less distinguished than he was, had, as we know, a cork leg, and its oscillation no doubt interfered with those niceties of horsemanship in which he delighted. Nevertheless at the twentieth trial he succeeded, and a large crowd, collected to watch him, seemed glad of an opportunity to give their Waterloo hero a hearty cheer as he rode away.

Perhaps the finest pair of hands to be seen amongst the frequenters of the Park in the present day belong to Mr. Mackenzie Greaves, a retired cavalry officer of our own service, who, passionately fond of hunting and everything connected with horses, has lately turned his attention to the subtleties of the haute école, nowhere better understood, by a select few, than in Paris, where he usually resides. To watch this gentleman on a horse he has broken in himself, gliding through the crowd, as if by mere volition, with the smoothness, ease, and rapidity of a fish arrowing up a stream, makes one quite understand how the myth of the Centaur originated in the sculpture and poetry of Greece.

In common with General Laurenson, whose name I have already mentioned as just such another proficient, his system is very similar to that of Monsieur Baucher, one of the few lovers of the animal either in France or England, who have so studied its character as to reduce equine education to a science. Its details are far too elaborate to enter on here, but one of its first principles, applied in the most elementary tuition, is never to let the horse recoil from his bridle.

“Drop your hands!” say nine good riders out of ten, when the pupil’s head is thrown up to avoid control. “Not so,” replies Baucher. “On the contrary, tighten and increase your pressure more and more, keeping the rebel up to his bit with legs and spurs if necessary, till he yields, not you; then on the instant, rapidly and dexterously, as you would strike in fly-fishing, give to him, and he will come into your hand!”

I have tried his method myself, in more than one instance, and am inclined to think it is founded on common sense.

But in all our dealings with him, we should remember that the horse’s mouth is naturally delicate and sensitive though we so often find it hardened by violence and ill-usage. The amount of force we apply, therefore, whether small or great, should be measured no less accurately than the drops of laudanum administered to a patient by the nurse. Reins are intended for the guidance of the horse, not the support of his rider, and if you do not feel secure without holding on by something, rather than pluck at his mouth, accept the ridicule of the position with its safety, and grasp the mane!

Seriously, you may do worse in a difficulty when your balance is in danger, and instinct prompts you to restore it, as, if a horse is struggling out of a bog, has dropped his hind-legs in a brook, or otherwise come on his nose without actually falling, nothing so impedes his endeavours to right himself as a tug of the bridle at an inopportune moment.

That instrument should be used for its legitimate purposes alone, and a strong seat in the saddle is the first essential for a light hand on the rein.

CHAPTER VI.
SEAT.

Some people tell you they ride by “balance,” others by “grip.” I think a man might as well say he played the fiddle by “finger,” or by ear. Surely in either case a combination of both is required to sustain the performance with harmony and success. The grip preserves the balance, which in turn prevents the grip becoming irksome. To depend on the one alone is to come home very often with a dirty coat, to cling wholly by the other is to court as much fatigue in a day as ought to serve for a week. I have more than once compared riding to swimming, it seems to require the same buoyancy of spirits, the same venture of body, the same happy combination of confidence, strength, and skill.

The seat a man finds easiest to himself, says the inimitable Mr. Jorrocks, “will in all humane probability be the easiest to his ’oss!” and in this, as in every other remark of the humorous grocer, there is no little wisdom and truth. “If he go smooth, I am,”[95-1] said a Frenchman, to whom a friend of mine offered a mount, “if he go rough, I shall not remain!” and doubtless the primary object of getting into a saddle, is to stay there at our own convenience, so long as circumstances permit.

But what a number of different attitudes do men adopt, in order to insure this permanent settlement. There is no position, from the tongs in the fender, to the tailor on his shop-board, into which the equestrian has not forced his unaccustomed limbs, to avoid involuntary separation from his beast. The dragoon of fifty years ago was drilled to ride with a straight leg, and his foot barely resting on the stirrup, whereas the oriental cavalry soldier, no mean proficient in the management of horse and weapon, tucks his knees up nearly to his chin, so that when he rises in the saddle, he towers above his little Arab as if he were standing rather than sitting on its back. The position, he argues, gives him a longer reach, and a stronger purchase for the use of sword and spear. If we are to judge by illuminated copies of Froissart, and other contemporary chronicles, it would seem that the armour-clad knight of the olden time, trusting in the depth and security of his saddle, rode so long as to derive no assistance whatever from his stirrups, sitting down on his horse as much as possible, in dread, may be, lest the point of an adversary’s lance should hoist him fairly out of his place over a cantle six inches high, and send him clanging to the ground, in mail and plate, surcoat, helmet and plumes, with his lady-love, squires, yeomen, the marshals of the lists, and all his feudal enemies looking on!

Now the length of stirrup with which a man should ride, and in its adjustment consists much of the ease, grace, and security of his position, depends on the conformation of his lower limbs. If his thighs are long in proportion to his frame, flat and somewhat curved inwards, he will sit very comfortably at the exact length that raises him clear of his horse’s withers, when he stands up in his stirrups with his feet home, and the majority of men thus limbed, on the majority of horses, will find this a good general rule. But when the legs are short and muscular, the thighs round and thick, the whole frame square and strong, more like wrestling than dancing, and many very superior riders are of this figure, the leathers must be pulled up a couple of holes, and the foot thrust a little more forward, to obtain the necessary security of seat, at a certain sacrifice of grace and even ease. To look as neat as one can is a compliment to society, to be safe and comfortable is a duty to oneself.

Much also depends on the animal we bestride. Horses low in the withers, and strong behind the saddle, particularly if inclined to “catch hold” a little, require in all cases rather shorter stirrups than their easier and truer-shaped stable-companions, nay, the varying roundness of barrel at different stages of condition affects the attitude of a rider, and most of us must have remarked, as horse and master get finer drawn towards the spring, how we let out the stirrups in proportion as we take in waistbelt, and saddle girths. Men rode well nevertheless, witness the Elgin marbles, before the invention of this invaluable aid to horsemanship; and no equestrian can be considered perfect who is unable in a plunge or leap to stick on his horse bare-backed. Every boy should be taught to ride without stirrups, but not till he is tall and strong enough to grasp his pony firmly between his knees. A child of six or seven might injure itself in the effort, and ten, or eleven, is an early age enough for our young gentleman to be initiated into the subtleties of the art. My own idea is that he should begin without reins, so as to acquire a seat totally independent of his hands, and should never be trusted with a bridle till it is perfectly immaterial to him whether he has hold of it or not. Neither should it be restored, after his stirrups have been taken away, till he has again proved himself independent of its support. When he has learnt to canter round the school, and sit firm over a leaping bar, with his feet swinging loose, and his hands in his pockets, he will have become a better horseman than ninety-nine out of every hundred who go out hunting. Henceforward you may trust him to take care of himself, and swim alone.

In every art it is well to begin from the very first with the best method; and I would instil into a pupil, even of the tenderest years, that although his legs, and especially his knees, are to be applied firmly to his pony’s sides, as affording a security against tumbling off, it is from the loins that he must really ride, when all is said and done.

I dare say most of us can remember the mechanical horse exhibited in Piccadilly some ten or twelve years ago, a German invention, remarkable for its ingenuity and the wonderful accuracy with which it imitated, in an exaggerated degree, the kicks, plunges, and other outrages practised by the most restive of the species to unseat their riders. Shaped in the truest symmetry, clad in a real horse’s skin, with flowing mane and tail, this automaton represented the live animal in every particular, but for the pivot on which it turned, a shaft entering the belly below its girths, and communicating through the floor with the machinery that set in motion and regulated its astonishing vagaries. On mounting, the illusion was complete. Its very neck was so constructed with hinges that, on pulling at the bridle, it gave you its head without changing the direction of its body, exactly like an unbroken colt as yet intractable to the bit. At a word from the inventor, spoken in his own language to his assistants below, this artificial charger committed every kind of wickedness that could be devised by a fiend in equine shape. It reared straight on end; it lunged forward with its nose between its fore-feet, and its tail elevated to a perpendicular, awkward and ungainly as that of a swan in reverse. It lay down on its side; it rose to its legs with a bounce, and finally, if the rider’s strength and dexterity enabled him still to remain in the saddle, it wheeled round and round with a velocity that could not fail at last to shoot him out of his seat on to the floor, humanely spread with mattresses, in anticipation of this inevitable catastrophe. It is needless to say how such an exhibition drew, with so horse-loving a public as our own. No gentleman who fancied he could “ride a bit” was satisfied till he had taken his shilling’s worth and the mechanical horse had put him on his back. But for the mattresses, Piccadilly could have counted more broken collar-bones than ever did Leicestershire in the blindest and deepest of its Novembers. Rough-riders from the Life-Guards, Blues, Artillery, and half the cavalry regiments in the service, came to try conclusions with the spectre; and, like antagonists of some automaton chess-player, retired defeated and dismayed.

For this universal failure, one could neither blame the men nor the military system taught in their schools. It stands to reason that human wind and muscle must sooner or later succumb to mechanical force. The inventor himself expressed surprise at the consummate horsemanship displayed by many of his fallen visitors, and admitted that more than one rough-rider would have tired out and subjugated any living creature of real flesh and blood; while the essayists universally declared the imitation so perfect, that at no period of the struggle could they believe they were contending with clock-work, rather than the natural efforts of some wild unbroken colt.

But those who succeeded best, I remarked (and I speak with some little experience, having myself been indebted to the mattresses in my turn), were the horsemen who, allowing their loins to play freely, yielding more or less to every motion of the figure, did not trust exclusively for firmness of seat to the clasp of their knees and thighs. The mere balance rider had not a chance, the athlete who stuck on by main force found himself hurled into the air, with a violence proportioned to his own stubborn resistance; but the artist who judiciously combined strength with skill, giving a little here that he might get a stronger purchase there, swaying his body loosely to meet and accompany every motion, while he kept his legs pressed hard against the saddle, withstood trick after trick, and shock after shock creditably enough, till a hint muttered in German that it was time to displace him, put such mechanism in motion as settled the matter forthwith.

There was one detail, however, to be observed in the equipment of the mechanical horse that brings us to a question I have heard discussed amongst the best riders with very decided opinions on either side.

Formerly every saddle used to be made with padding about half an inch deep, sewn in the front rim of the flap against which a rider rests his knee, for the purpose, as it would seem, of affording him a stronger seat with its resistance and support.

Thirty or forty years ago a few noted sportsmen, despising such adventitious aid, began to adopt the open, or plain-flapped saddle; and, although not universal, it has now come into general use. It would certainly, of the two, have been the better adapted to the automaton I have described, as an inequality of surface was sadly in the way when the figure in its downward perpendicular, brought the rider’s foot parallel with the point of its shoulders. The man’s calf then necessarily slipped over the padding of his saddle, and it was impossible for him to get his leg back to its right place in time for a fresh outbreak when the model rose again to its proper level.

As I would prefer an open saddle for the artificial, so I do for the natural horse, and I will explain why.

I take it as a general and elementary rule, there is no better position for a rider than that which brings shoulder, hip, knee, and heel into one perpendicular line. A man thus placed on his horse cannot but sit well down with a bend in his back, and in this attitude, the one into which he would naturally fall, if riding at full speed, he has not only security of seat, but great command over the animal he bestrides. He will find, nevertheless, in crossing a country, or otherwise practising feats of horsemanship requiring the exercise of strength, that to get his knee an inch or two in advance of the correct line will afford such leverage as it were for the rest of his body as gives considerable advantage in any unusual difficulty, such as a drop-leap, for instance, with which he may have to contend. Now in the plain-flapped saddle, he can bend his leg as much as he likes, and put it indeed where he will.

This facility, too, is very useful in smuggling through a gap by a tree, often the most convenient egress, to make use of which, with a little skill and prudence, is a less hazardous experiment than it looks. A horse will take good care not to graze his own skin, and the space that admits of clearing his hips is wide enough for his rider’s leg as well, if he hangs it over the animal’s shoulder just where its neck is set on to the withers. But I would caution him to adopt this attitude carefully and above all, in good time. He should take his foot out of the stirrup and make his preparatory arrangements some three or four strides off at least, so as to accommodate his change of seat to the horse’s canter before rising at the leap, and if he can spare his hand nearest the tree, so as to “fend it off” a little at the same time, he will be surprised to find how safely and pleasantly he accomplished a transit through some awkward and dangerous fence.

But he must beware of delaying this little manœuvre till the last moment, when his horse is about to spring. It is then too late, and he will either find himself so thrown out of his seat as to lose balance and grip too, or will try to save his leg by shifting it back instead of forward, when much confusion, bad language, and perhaps a broken knee-pan will be the result.

Amongst other advantages of the open saddle we must not forget that it is cheaper by twenty shillings, and so sets off the shape of his forehand as to make a hunter look more valuable by twenty pounds.

Nevertheless, it is still repudiated by some of our finest horsemen, who allege the sufficient reason that an inch or so of stuffing adds to their strength and security of seat. This, after all is, the sine quâ non, to which every article of equipment, even the important items of boots and breeches, should be subservient, and I may here remark that ease and freedom of dress are indispensable to a man who wishes to ride across a country not only in comfort, but in safety. I am convinced that tight, ill-fitting leathers may have broken bones to answer for. Many a good fellow comes down to breakfast, stiff of gait, as if he were clothed in buckram, and can we wonder that he is hurt when thus hampered and constrained, he falls stark and rigid, like a paste-board policeman in a pantomime.

I have already protested against the solecism of saving yourself by the bridle. It is better, if you must have assistance, to follow the example of two or three notoriously fine riders and grasp the cantle of the saddle at the risk of breaking its tree. But in my humble opinion it is not well to be in the wrong even with Plato, and, notwithstanding these high authorities, we must consider such habits, however convenient on occasion, as errors in horsemanship. To a good rider the saddle ought to be a place of security as easy as an armchair.

I have heard it asserted, usually by persons of lean and wiry frames, that with short legs and round thighs, it is impossible to acquire a firm seat on horseback; but in this, as in most matters of skill, I believe nature can be rendered obedient to education. Few men are so clumsily shaped but that they may learn to become strong and skilful riders if they will adopt a good system, and from the first resolve to sit in the right place; this, I think, should be in the very middle of the saddle, while bending the small of the back inwards, so that the weight of the body rests on that part of a horse’s spine immediately behind his withers, under which his fore feet are placed, and on which, it has been ascertained, he can bear the heaviest load. When the animal stands perfectly still, or when it is extended at full speed, the most inexperienced horseman seems to fall naturally into the required position; but to preserve it, even through the regulated paces of the riding school demands constant effort and attention. The back-board is here, in my opinion, of great assistance to the beginner, as it forces him into an attitude that causes him to sit on the right part of his own person and his horse’s back. It compels him also to carry his hands at a considerable distance off the horse’s head, and thus entails also the desideratum of long reins.

The shortest and surest way, however, of attaining a firm seat on horseback is, after all, to practise without stirrups on every available opportunity. Many a valuable lesson may be taken while riding to covert and nobody but the student be a bit the wiser. Thus to trot and canter along, for two or three miles on end is no bad training at the beginning of the season, and even an experienced horseman will be surprised to find how it gets him down in his saddle, and makes him feel as much at home there as he did in the previous March.

The late Captain Percy Williams, as brilliant a rider over a country as ever cheered a hound, and to whom few professional jockeys would have cared to give five pounds on a race-course, assured me that he attributed to the above self-denying exercise that strength in the saddle which used to serve him so well from the distance home. When quartered at Hounslow with his regiment, the 9th Lancers, like other gay young light dragoons, he liked to spend all his available time in London. There were no railroads in those days, and the coaches did not always suit for time; but he owned a sound, speedy, high-trotting hack, and on this “bone setter” he travelled backwards and forwards twelve miles of the great Bath Road, with military regularity, half as many times a week. He made it a rule to cross the stirrups over his horse’s shoulders the moment he was off the stones at either end, only to be replaced when he reached his destination. In three months’ time, he told me, he had gained more practical knowledge of horsemanship, and more muscular power below the waist, than in all the hunting, larking, and riding-school drill of the previous three years.

Grace is, after all, but the result of repressed strength. The loose and easy seat that seems to sway so carelessly with every motion, can tighten itself by instinct to the compression of a vice, and the “prettiest rider,” as they say in Ireland, is probably the one whom a kicker or buck-jumper would find the most difficult to dislodge. No doubt in the field, the ride, the parade, or the polo-ground a strong seat is the first of those many qualities that constitute good horsemanship. The real adept is not to be unseated by any catastrophe less conclusive than complete downfall of man and beast; nay, even then he parts company without confusion, and it may be said of him as of “William of Deloraine,” good at need in a like predicament—

“Still sate the warrior, saddle fast,
Till, stumbling in the mortal shock,
Down went the steed, the girthing broke,
Hurled in a heap lay man and horse.”

But I have a strong idea Sir William did not let his bridle go even then.

[95-1] J’y suis.

CHAPTER VII.
VALOUR.

“He that would venture nothing must not get on horseback,” says a Spanish proverb, and the same caution seems applicable to most manly amusements or pursuits. We cannot enter a boat, put on a pair of skates, take a gun in hand for covert shooting, or even run downstairs in a hurry without encountering risk; but the amount of peril to which a horseman subjects himself seems proportioned inversely to the unconsciousness of it he displays.

“Where there is no fear there is no danger,” though a somewhat reckless aphorism, is more applicable, I think, to the exercise of riding than to any other venture of neck and limbs. The horse is an animal of exceedingly nervous temperament, sympathetic too, in the highest degree, with the hand from which he takes his instructions. Its slightest vacillation affects him with electric rapidity, but from its steadiness he derives moral encouragement rather than physical support, and on those rare occasions when his own is insufficient, he seems to borrow daring and resolution from his rider.

If the man’s heart is in the right place, his horse will seldom fail him; and were we asked to name the one essential without which it is impossible to attain thorough proficiency in the saddle, we should not hesitate to say nerve.

Nerve, I repeat, in contradistinction to pluck. The latter takes us into a difficulty, the former brings us out of it. Both are comprised in the noble quality we call emphatically valour, but while the one is a brilliant and imposing costume, so is the other an honest wear-and-tear fabric, equally fit for all weathers, fine and foul.

“You shiver, Colonel—you are afraid,” said an insubordinate Major, who ought to have been put under arrest then and there, to his commanding officer on the field of Prestonpans. “I am afraid, sir,” answered the Colonel; “and if you were as much afraid as I am, you would run away!”

I have often thought this improbable anecdote exemplifies very clearly that most meritorious of all courage which asserts the dominion of our will over our senses. The Colonel’s answer proves he was full of valour. He had lots of pluck, but as he was bold enough to admit, a deficiency of nerve.

Now the field of Diana happily requires but a slight per-centage of daring and resolution compared with the field of Mars. I heard the late Sir Francis Head, distinguished as a soldier, a statesman, an author, and a sportsman, put the matter in a few words, very tersely—and exceedingly to the point. “Under fire,” said he, “there is a guinea’s-worth of danger, but it comes to you. In the hunting-field, there is only three-ha’p ’orth, but you go to it!” In both cases, the courage required is a mere question of degree, and as in war, so in the chase, he is most likely to distinguish himself whose daring, not to be dismayed, is tempered with coolness, whose heart is always stout and hopeful, while he never loses his head.

Now as I understand the terms pluck and nerve, I conceive the first to be a moral quality, the result of education, sentiment, self-respect, and certain high aspirations of the intellect; the second, a gift of nature dependent on the health, the circulation, and the liver. As memory to imagination in the student, so is nerve to pluck in the horseman. Not the more brilliant quality, nor the more captivating, but sound, lasting, available for all emergencies, and sure to conquer in the long run.

We will suppose two sportsmen are crossing a country equally well mounted, and each full of valour to the brim. A, to quote his admiring friends, “has the pluck of the devil!” B, to use a favourite expression of the saddle-room, “has a good nerve.” Both are bound to come to grief over some forbidding rails at a corner, the only way out, in the line hounds are running, and neither has any more idea of declining than had poor Lord Strathmore on a similar occasion when Jem Mason halloaed to him, “Eternal misery on this side my lord, and certain death on the other!” So they harden their hearts, sit down in their saddles, and this is what happens:—

A’s horse, injudiciously sent at the obstacle, because it is awkward, a turn too fast, slips in taking off, and strikes the top-rail, which neither bends nor breaks, just below its knees. A flurried snatch at the bridle pulls its head in the air, and throws the animal skilfully to the ground at the moment it most requires perfect freedom for a desperate effort to keep on its legs. Rider and horse roll over in an “imperial crowner,” and rise to their feet looking wildly about them, totally disconnected, and five or six yards apart.

This is not encouraging for B, who is obliged to follow, inasmuch as the place only offers room for one at a time, but as soon as his leader is out of the way, he comes steadily and quietly at the leap. His horse too, slips in the tracks of its fallen comrade, but as it is going in a more collected form, it contrives to get its fore-legs over the impediment, which catches it, however, inside the hocks, so that, balancing for a moment, it comes heavily on its nose. During these evolutions, B sits motionless in the saddle, giving the animal complete liberty of rein. An instinct of self-preservation and a good pair of shoulders turn the scale at the last moment, and although there is no denying they “had a squeak for it” in the scramble, B and his horse come off without a fall.

Now it was pluck that took both these riders into the difficulty, but nerve that extricated one of them without defeat.

I am not old enough to have seen the famous Mr. Assheton Smith in the hunting-field, but many of my early Leicestershire friends could remember him perfectly at his best, when he hunted that fine and formidable country, with the avowed determination, daily carried out, of going into every field with his hounds!

The expenditure of valour, for it really deserves the name necessary to carry out such a style of riding can only be appreciated by those who have tried to keep in a good place during thirty or forty minutes, over any part of the Quorn and Cottesmore counties lying within six miles of Billesdon. Where should we be but for the gates? I think I may answer, neither there nor thereabouts! I have reason to believe the many stories told of “Tom Smith’s” skill and daring are little, if at all, exaggerated. He seems admitted by all to have been the boldest, as he was one of the best, horsemen that ever got into a saddle with a hunting-whip in his hand.

Though subsequently a man of enormous wealth, in the prime of life, he lived on the allowance, adequate but not extravagant, made him by his father, and did by no means give those high prices for horses, which, on the principle that “money makes the mare to go,” are believed by many sportsmen to ensure a place in the front rank. He entertained no fancies as to size, action, above all, peculiarities in mouths and tempers. Little or big, sulky, violent, or restive, if a horse could gallop and jump, he was a hunter the moment he found himself between the legs of Tom Smith.

There is a namesake of his hunting at present from Melton, who seems to have taken several leaves out of his book. Captain Arthur Smith, with every advantage of weight, nerve, skill, seat, and hand, is never away from the hounds. Moreover, he always likes his horse, and his horse always seems to like him. This gentleman, too, is blessed with an imperturbable temper, which I have been given to understand the squire of Tedworth was not.

Instances of Tom Smith’s daring are endless. How characteristic was his request to a farmer near Glengorse, that he would construct such a fence as should effectually prevent the field from getting away in too close proximity to his hounds. “I can make you up a stopper,” said the good-natured yeoman, “and welcome; but what be you to do yourself, Squire, for I know you like well to be with ’em when they run?”

“Never mind me,” was the answer, “you do what I ask you. I never saw a fence in this country I couldn’t get over with a fall!” and, sure enough, the first day the hounds found a fox in that well-known covert, Tom Smith was seen striding along in the wake of his darlings, having tumbled neck-and-crop over the obstacle he had demanded, in perfect good humour and content.

If valour then, is a combination of pluck and nerve, he may be called the most valorous sportsman that ever got upon a horse, while affording another example of the partiality with which fortune favours the bold, for although he has had between eighty and ninety falls in a season, he was never really hurt, I believe, but once in his life.

“That is a brave man!” I have heard Lord Gardner say in good-humoured derision, pointing to some adventurous sportsman, whose daring so far exceeded his dexterity as to bring horse and rider into trouble; but his lordship’s own nerve was so undeniable, that like many others, he may have undervalued a quality of which he could not comprehend the want.

Most hunting-men, I fancy, will agree with me, that of all obstacles we meet with in crossing a country, timber draws most largely on the reserve fund of courage hoarded away in that part of a hero’s heart which is nearest his mouth. The highest rails I ever saw attempted were ridden at by Lord Gardner some years ago, while out with Mr. Tailby’s hounds near the Ram’s Head. With a fair holding scent, and the pack bustling their fox along over the grass, there was no time for measurement, but I remember perfectly well that being in the same field, some fifty yards behind him, and casting longing looks at the fence, totally impracticable in every part, I felt satisfied the corner he made for was simply an impossibility.

“We had better turn round and go home!” I muttered in my despair.

The leap consisted of four strong rails, higher than a horse’s withers, an approach down hill, a take-off poached by cattle, and a landing into a deep muddy lane. I can recall at this moment, the beautiful style in which my leader brought his horse to its effort. Very strong in the saddle, with the finest hands in the world, leaning far back, and sitting well down, he seemed to rouse as it were, and concentrate the energies of the animal for its last half-stride, when, rearing itself almost perpendicularly, it contrived to get safe over, only breaking the top rail with a hind leg.

This must have lowered the leap by at least a foot, yet when I came to it, thus reduced, and “made easy,” it was still a formidable obstacle, and I felt thankful to be on a good jumper.

Of late years I have seen Mr. Powell, who is usually very well mounted, ride over exceedingly high and forbidding timber so persistently, as to have earned from that material, the nom de chasse by which he is known amongst his friends.

But perhaps the late Lord Cardigan, the last of the Brudenells, afforded in the hunting-field, as in all other scenes of life, the most striking example of that “pluck” which is totally independent of youth, health, strength, or any other physical advantage. The courage that in advanced middle-age governed the steady manœuvres of Bulganak, and led the death-ride at Balaclava, burned bright and fierce to the end. The graceful seat might be less firm, the tall soldier-like figure less upright, but Mars, one of his last and best hunters, was urged to charge wood and water by the same bold heart at seventy, that tumbled Langar into the Uppingham road over the highest gate in Leicestershire at twenty-six. The foundation of Lord Cardigan’s whole character was valour. He loved it, he prized it, he admired it in others, he was conscious and proud of it in himself.

So jealous was he of this chivalrous quality, that even in such a matter of mere amusement as riding across a country, he seemed to attach some vague sense of disgrace to the avoidance of a leap, however dangerous, if hounds were running at the time, and was notorious for the recklessness with which he would plunge into the deepest rivers though he could not swim a stroke!

This I think is to court real danger for no sufficient object.

Lord Wolverton, than whom no man has ridden straighter and more enthusiastically to hounds, ever since he left Oxford, once crossed the Thames in this most perilous fashion, for he, too, has never learnt to swim, during a run with “the Queen’s.” “But,” said I, protesting subsequently against such hardihood, “you were risking your life at every stroke.”

“I never thought of that,” was the answer, “till I got safe over, and it was no use bothering about it then.”

Lord Cardigan however, seemed well aware of his danger, and, in my own recollection, had two very narrow escapes from drowning in these uncalled-for exploits.

The gallant old cavalry officer’s death was in keeping with his whole career. At threescore years and ten he insisted on mounting a dangerous animal that he would not have permitted any friend to ride. What happened is still a mystery. The horse came home without him, and he never spoke again, though he lived till the following day.

But these are sad reflections for so cheerful a subject as daring in the saddle. Red is our colour, not black, and, happily, in the sport we love, there are few casualties calling forth more valour than is required to sustain a bloody nose, a broken collar-bone, or a sound ducking in a wet ditch. Yet it is extraordinary how many good fellows riding good horses find themselves defeated in a gallop after hounds, from indecision and uncertainty, rather than want of courage, when the emergency actually arises. Though the danger, according to Sir Francis Head, is about a hap’orth, it might possibly be valued at a penny, and nobody wants to discover, in his own person, the exact amount. Therefore are the chivalry of the Midland Counties to be seen on occasion panic-stricken at the downfall or disappearance of a leader. And a dozen feet of dirty water will wholly scatter a field of horsemen who would confront an enemy’s fire without the quiver of an eye-lash. Except timber, of which the risk is obvious, at a glance, nothing frightens the half-hard, so much as a brook. It is difficult, you see, to please them, the uncertainty of the limpid impediment being little less forbidding than the certainty of the stiff!

But it does require dash and coolness, pluck and nerve, a certain spice of something that may fairly be called valour, to charge cheerfully at a brook when we have no means of ascertaining its width, its depth, or the soundness of its banks. Horses too are apt to share the misgivings of their riders, and water-jumping, like a loan to a poor relation, if not done freely, had better not be done at all.

The fox, and consequently the hounds, as we know, will usually cross at the narrowest place, but even if we can mark the exact spot, fences, or the nature of the ground may prevent our getting there. What are we to do? If we follow a leader, and he drops short, we are irretrievably defeated, if we make our own selection, the gulf may be as wide as the Thames. “Send him at it!” says valour, “and take your chance!” Perhaps it is the best plan after all. There is something in luck, a good deal in the reach of a horse’s stride at a gallop, and if we do get over, we rather flatter ourselves for the next mile or two that we have “done the trick!”

To enter on the subject of “hard riding,” as it is called, without honourable mention of the habit and the side-saddle, would in these days betray both want of observation and politeness; but ladies, though they seem to court danger no less freely than admiration, possess, I think, as a general rule, more pluck than nerve. I can recall an instance very lately, however, in which I saw displayed by one of the gentlest of her sex, an amount of courage, coolness, and self-possession, that would have done credit to a hero. This lady, who had not quite succeeded in clearing a high post-and-rail with a boggy ditch on the landing side, was down and under her horse. The animal’s whole weight rested on her legs, so as to keep her in such a position, that her head lay between its fore and hind feet, where the least attempt at a struggle, hemmed in by those four shining shoes, must have dashed her brains out. She seemed in no way concerned for her beauty, or her life, but gave judicious directions to those who rescued her as calmly and courteously as if she had been pouring out their tea.

The horse, though in that there is nothing unusual, behaved like an angel, and the fair rider was extricated without very serious injury; but I thought to myself, as I remounted and rode on, that if a legion of Amazons could be rendered amenable to discipline they would conquer the world.

No man, till he has tried the experiment, can conceive how awkward and powerless one feels in a lady’s seat. They themselves affirm that with the crutch, or second pommel on the near side, they are more secure than ourselves; but when I see those delicate, fragile forms flying over wood and water, poised on precipitous banks, above all, crashing through strong bullfinches, I am struck with admiration at the mysteries of nature, among which not the least wonderful seems the feminine desire to excel. And they do excel when resolved they will, even in those sports and exercises which seem more naturally belonging to the masculine department. It was but the other day, a boatman in the Channel told me he saw a lady swimming alone more than half a mile off shore. Now that the universal rink has brought skating into fashion, the “many-twinkling feet,” that smoothest glide and turn most deftly, are shod with such dainty boots as never could be worn by the clumsier sex. At lawn-tennis the winning service is offered by some seductive hoyden in her teens; and, although in the game of cricket the Graces have as yet been males, at no distant day we may expect to see the best batsman at the Oval bowled out, or perhaps caught by a woman!

Yes, the race is in the ascendant. It takes the heaviest fish,—I mean real fish—with a rod and line. It kills its grouse right and left—in the moor among the heather. It shoulders a rifle no heavier than a pea-shooter, but levels the toy so straight that, after some cunning stalk, a “stag of ten” goes down before the white hand and taper finger, as becomes his antlers and his sex. Lastly, when it gets upon Bachelor, or Benedict, or Othello, or any other high-flyer with a suggestive name, it sails away close, often too close, to the hounds, leaving brothers, husbands, even admirers hopelessly in the rear.