CHAPTER X.

FEEDING HORSES.--FORAGE-BISCUITS.--IRISH PEASANTRY.--A CUNNING IDIOT.--A CABIN SUPPER.--THE ROGUISH MULE.--A DAY AT COURTOWN.-- PADDY'S OPINION OF THE EMPRESS.

I said at the commencement of these pages that I should offer little or no discourse upon the general management of horses; yet, in one reserved instance, I may be permitted to break through my rule. If you want your hunters to thrive, do not let them have a single grain of raw oats. People have laughed at me when I said this, and have scarcely waited for the turning of my back to call me a mad woman; but a few of the scoffers have since come to thank me, and if you adopt my plan you will think that this little volume would have been cheap at a ten-pound note. There are, of course, times when raw oats must be given, for your horse may not always be in your own stable. At such times it is a good plan to mix chopped clover or grass through the feeding, taking care that grain and clover be thoroughly mingled. The judicious mixture of green meat will go far towards counteracting the binding effects which raw oats will be likely to have upon a horse not accustomed to it, and will also induce him to masticate his food, which an animal inured to softer feeding will otherwise be apt to neglect, wasting the corn by dropping it from his mouth in a slobbering fashion, making no use whatever of his grinders, and swallowing a certain portion without chewing it at all. I am, for various tried reasons, a thorough advocate for Mayhew's and Shingler's style of feeding upon cooked food, mingled, of course, with good sweet hay, or an admixture of the juicy grasses upon which the animal in its unfettered state would be prone to live.

In my stable-yard are a large boiler and an unlimited supply of good water. The groom boils sufficient oats to do for two or three days, and, when cool, mixes through it a small proportion of bruised Indian corn. On this the horses are fed as with ordinary oats three times daily, and so enjoy the feeding that not one grain is left in the mangers, which are placed _low upon the ground_. The surest proof of the efficacy of this excellent and economical feeding is that my horses never sweat, never blow, never tire. When other hunters are standing still, mine have not turned a hair; and, as prize-winners and brilliant goers, they cannot be excelled.

The principle I go on is this:--If I eat a cupful of raw rice, it certainly does me no good; but if I boil it, it makes three or four times the quantity of good, wholesome, digestible food, every grain of which goes to the nourishment of my body. And it is precisely so with the oats and the horse. In addition to this feeding, I give abundance of good, sweet, _moist_ hay, varied by green food in summer, substituting carrots in the winter-time, of which vegetable they are particularly fond. The carrots are given whole, either from my hand or put loosely in the manger. I never suffer them to be cut up, unless it be done _very finely_, either by myself or under my supervision, to induce a delicate feeder to taste his food through which the chopped carrots are rubbed. Grooms, with their accustomed ignorance, are almost always in favour of the "cutting up," but I regard it as a most dangerous practice. If the carrot be left whole the horse will nibble at it, and will bite off just such pieces as he knows he can chew and swallow, but there is more than one instance upon record of horses choking themselves with pieces of cut carrot, and very many who have nearly done so. I can feed my horses upon this system for very little more than half the sum which my neighbours are expending, with advantages which are certainly fourfold. I consider it an excellent plan to vary horses' feeding, as it tells quite as beneficially upon animals as upon ourselves;--and for this purpose there cannot, in my opinion, be anything better than the forage-biscuits, manufactured by Spratt & Co., Henry Street, London, ten of which are equal to one good feed of oats, and are so relished that not so much as a crumb is suffered to go to waste. They combine all the most nutritious of grains, with dates and linseed added in such proportions as experience has pointed out to the inventor to be the best. They are then baked, and thoroughly dried, so that they are entirely deprived of moisture, and will consequently keep good for any length of time. The baking process being complete, they are, when eaten, practically half-digested,--or, as I may say, they present the materials to the horse in the most digestible form in which it is possible to give them. There are certain chemicals used in very minute quantities in the manufacture of these biscuits, which are productive of highly beneficial effects upon animals thus fed,--improving their muscular development, and imparting to their coats a peculiarly healthy and brilliant appearance. One feed of the forage-biscuits three or four times weekly is the proper allowance,--and they should be given whole, as the same objection applies to the breaking of them as I have set forth in my dissertation upon the cutting up of carrots.

I now desire to warn you that if you hunt in Ireland you must be prepared for the laughable and most ingenious frauds which the poor people--alas! _how_ poor--will certainly endeavour to practise upon you. I can, and do most fully, commiserate their poverty, but with their attempts at imposition I have long since lost patience. Doubtless they think that everybody who hunts is of necessity a rich person, and conceive the idea that by fleecing the wealthy they will aid in blotting out the poverty of the land. Nothing delights the old cottage-woman more than to kill an ancient hen or duck on a hunting-morning, and then, when the hunt comes sweeping past her door, out rushes the beldame with the bird concealed beneath her apron, and throwing it deftly--positively by a species of sleight of hand--beneath your horse's hoofs, kicks up a mighty whining, and declares that you have "kilt her beauty-ful fowl!" I was so taken aback upon the first of these occasions that I actually stopped and paid the price demanded; but, finding that the same thing occurred the following week in a different locality, I ascertained that it was a trick and declined to be farther hocussed.

It is likewise a common thing for a man to accost you, demanding a shilling, and declaring that it was he who pulled your ladyship's horse out of the ditch or quagmire on such and such a day. You do not remember ever having seen his face before; but if you are a hard-riding lady you will be so frequently assisted out of difficulties that you cannot undertake to say who nor how many may have helped you unrewarded, and, being unwilling that any should so suffer, you bestow the coin, most likely in many instances, until you find that your generosity has become known and is consequently being traded upon.

I remember one day, a couple of winters ago, when returning from hunting, I lost my way, and being desirous of speedily re-finding it, I accosted a ragged being whom I saw standing at a corner where four roads met, and inquired of him the most direct route to the point which I was desirous of reaching. The creature hitched his shoulders, scratched his collarless neck, pushed the hat from his sunburnt forehead, and, finally, looking down and rubbing the fore-finger of his right hand upon the palm of his left, thus delivered himself:

"I axed him for a ha'penny, and he wouldn't give it to me; but he put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a pinny, and gave it to me, and I took it in--ho, ho! and he gave me a letter to take up to Mrs. Johnston, and when I took it to her, she opened it and read it. Now, didn't I give her the letter?"

"Really," said I, "I know nothing about Mrs. Johnston nor her letter. I want to know the nearest way to Dunboyne station."

"I axed him for a ha'penny," began the man again. And then I had the whole story of the "pinny" and "Mrs. Johnston" repeated for me over and over, without a smile or any variation, until my vexation vanished, and I fairly roared with laughter. Guessing at once how the land lay, I produced a little coin with which I presented him, and which he immediately pocketed, and, touching his ragged feather, pointed down one of the roads, and said quite sensibly, "That's the right road, my lady." And so I found it. This man, I was subsequently informed, made quite a respectable maintenance by stationing himself at the cross-roads on daily duty, and informing every passer-by that he "axed for a ha'penny" but was generously treated to a "pinny," together with the story of Mrs. Johnston and her letter, accompanied by all the shruggings, and scratchings, and sniffings, which never failed to provoke the laughter of the hearer and to elicit the coveted coin.

The Irish, with all their little failings, are a hospitable people, and full of pungent wit. I was one evening wending my way to Sallins station, after a long and wearisome day's hunting. My tired horse was suffering from an over-reach, and I was taking him as quietly as I could, consistently with my anxiety to be in time to catch the train by which I desired to return to town. So utterly jaded were we both--I and my steed--that the way appeared very long indeed, and I asked the first countryman whom I met how far it was to Sallins. "Three miles," he told me, and I jogged on again. When we had traversed quite a long distance, and I thought I must be very near my journey's end, I ventured upon asking the same question of a farmer whom I met riding a big horse in an opposite direction to that in which I was myself going. It was a matter of about two miles, he told me, or mayhap three, but not more he thought, and I was certainly not going wrong; I was on the right road, and no mistake. I took out my watch. No hope for me now. I was undoubtedly late for the train which I had hoped to catch, and must wait two long hours for the next. A poor-looking little cottage was close at hand; to it I trotted, and looked in at the door. The family were at supper, all gathered about a narrow table, in the middle of which lay a pile of unpeeled potatoes and a little salt. The mule, upon which much of their fortune depended, was supping with them; thrusting his poor attenuated nose over the shoulders of the children, and occasionally snatching a potato, always receiving a box for so doing, to which, however, he paid no sort of heed. I was at once invited to enter, and gladly accepted the invitation, for I was cold and tired, pleased to ease my horse and get him a draught of meal and water. I sat down in the chimney-corner, thankful for the rest, but determined to withstand all entreaties to share the family supper, and my risible faculties were sorely put to the test, when my host, balancing a potato upon his fork and dipping it in the salt, presented it to me, saying, "Arrah! take it my lady, just _for the jig o' the thing_!" Of course I took it; and never have I enjoyed the richest luxury of an _à la Russe_ dinner more than that simple potato in a poor man's cabin, in company with the mule and the pigs. When I stood up to go I carefully inquired the distance, for it was dark, and I had long since lost the remainder of my party. The man offered to accompany me to the station, and I believe he was actuated solely by civility, and not by any hope of gain. My horse was sadly done up; he had stiffened on the over-reach, and limped painfully. We proceeded but slowly, and, sighing for the patient suffering of my dearly-loved steed, I made the observation that the miles were very long indeed. "They _are_ long, my lady," said the man, who was walking before me with a lanthorn; "but, shure and faith, if they're long they're narra'!" And with this most intelligent observation he closed his mouth, and left me to ponder upon it undisturbed until we arrived at the station.

One more anecdote, and I have done with them.

On one of last season's hunting-days the hounds met at Courtown, and great excitement was abroad, for the Imperial lady was expected to join the chase. She was, however, prevented through indisposition from attending, but Prince Liechtenstein and a very distinguished company came over from Summerhill. As we were trotting to the covert the country-folks were all on the alert, for not having heard of the disappointment respecting the Empress they were anxiously expecting her, and many were the surmises respecting her identity. I was riding close to the front, escorted by Lord Cloncurry, and as we swept past one of the wayside cottages, two men and a woman rushed out to stare at us and to give their opinions upon the "Impress." "Which is she?" cried the female, shading her eyes to have a good look,--"That must be _her_ in front, with his lordship. Oh! isn't she lovely? A quane, every inch!"

"Arrah! shut up, woman," said one of the men, testily interrupting her. "That's not her at all, nor a taste like her! _The Impress is a good-lookin' woman._" I need not say that this genuinely-uttered remark took the wind completely out of my sails, and that I have never since dreamed of comparing my personal appearance with that of any woman whom an Irishman would call "good-lookin'."