CHAPTER XIV.
THE SHIRES 235
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."