Part 4

Throughout England, and especially in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, there are two descriptions of brooks. In one the water is about a foot or two below the level of the green fields through which it peacefully meanders. In the other, though deep enough to drown a man, it flows and occasionally rushes ten or twelve feet below the surface, between two loamy banks as perpendicular as the wall of a house. If a red, brown, or black coat, attended by a pair of leather, kersey, or corduroy breeches, ending in boots, plunge together into the first, they simply go in dry and come out wet. But, if a horse fails to clear the chasm, he is liable not only to fall backwards upon these articles of apparel, but afterwards, quite unintentionally, to strike their owner during the awkward struggles of both animals to swim.

Now, although to some of our readers it may possibly appear that the act of riding over "a bit of water" of the latter description has no legal claim to be included in the schedule headed "the pleasures and amusements of man," yet it may most truly be said that in a good run, or even in a bad one, there exists nothing that gives an ordinary rider more intense pleasure than the sight, say a quarter of a mile before him, of those well-known willows that indicate to him the line of beauty of the brook he is shortly to have the enjoyment of encountering--provided always that he knows his horse to be, what is justly called, "_good at water_." On the other hand, it would be quite impossible to describe into how very small a compass the same man's heart would gradually collapse, as it approached the very same brook, on what is just as truly termed "_a brute at water_." In any other description of fence the rider, if he has not ruined his horse's courage by vacillation of hand or heart, may confidently rely that he will accomplish it for him if he can, and if it cannot be accomplished, that he will try to jump through or over it, or, generally speaking, a good deal more than humanity dares to ride at.

If the bull-finch be too strong, the hunter may stick in it, or forcing through it into the ditch on the other side, may leave his owner hanging like a bird's-nest in its branches. An ox-fence--composed of two ditches, a bank, a pair of hedges, and a stiff, low, oak rail--may altogether prove too broad to be cleared. Timber also may be too high to be topped; yet, in all these cases, if the rider be but willing, the noble horse is always ready, ay, eager, to do his very best, and many a broken back and prostrate carcase, divested of its saddle and bridle, has been the melancholy result; and yet, with all this superabundance of high courage, almost every horse instinctively dislikes to jump water, an element which (until by a good rider it has been unbewitched) he appears to conceive to be forbidden to him to cross. For this reason, before a sportsman can ride with confidence at a brook, he requires not only a stout horse, but to know what sort of a heart lived beneath the waistcoat of the man by whom the animal was last hunted, for however badly bred he may be, he may have been made bold at water; while, on the other hand, however high-bred and handsome he may appear, however splendidly and cleverly he may throughout the run have been crossing single and double fences of every variety, yet, by an irresolute pair of hands, he may have been spoiled at water. Accordingly, when a gallant fox, followed after a short interval by a pack of hounds and a large scattered body of men and horses, passing like the shadows of summer clouds over the beautiful green sward of Northamptonshire, glide rapidly towards a brook, there occasionally appears among several of them a sudden transmigration of hearts and bodies, which to a foreigner, who did not understand the reason, would appear to be utterly inexplicable.

Although ten or twelve horses, gallantly taking it in their stride, have proved the jump to be an easy one, two or three of the foremost riders are seen to pull up, apparently afraid. In like manner, as horses and horsemen who had been riding boldly approach, it becomes evident to the meanest capacity, that the peg that holds in their steam is getting--sometimes in the biped, sometimes in the quadruped, and sometimes in both--looser and looser as they advance. The gallop is observed gradually to faint into a canter, which, as they approach the water, gets slower and slower, until souse! souse! souse! they one after the other blunder into it.

While a horse here is swimming, and there is struggling, and while a human head with handsome aristocratic features and black lank hair looking like that of Don Quixote when drenched with curds and whey, is seen rising in agony from below, two little thick-set, short-thighed men in scarlet, who throughout the run had been shirking many a small fence, cross the brook with terrific courage. That thoroughbred-mare, which has been clearing everything, swerves, while the ugly brute in her wake bucks over what she had refused as if he enjoyed the fun, which he really does. See! at what a tremendous pace this splendid-looking bay horse is galloping towards his doom. Both spurs are in his sides; the slight waving movement of the arms and shoulders of his fearless rider, and the firm grip of his hands, as he draws upon first one side of the bit and then the other, appear altogether to insure success. As soon, however, as the well-known rogue gets sight of the glare of the water, though his head is in such a vice that it is out of his power to swerve, and though his pace is such that it is utterly impossible for him to stop, yet, as if all his four legs were suddenly paralysed by fear, the high-bred sinner, all of a sudden, refuses to lift them, and accordingly, for thirty or forty feet, leaving behind a track like that of a railway, they slide along the wet, rich, loamy turf, until horse, and gallant, glorious Charlie[D] dive together, head-foremost, into the brook! In a few minutes, men in coats of all colours, trotting up one after another, walk their horses cautiously to the edge of the chasm, crane over as if to gaze at the frightened frogs that inhabit it, and after thus losing more or less of time they can never live to recover, canter or gallop in different directions in quest either of a bridge or a ford.

Now, while this serio-comic picture is before the eyes of our readers, that very small portion of them who have never been actors in such a scene will no doubt be not a little astonished to learn that of all fences on the surface of the globe there is no one that is so easy for a horse to jump as water.

If the footmarks of a good horse that has galloped over turf be measured, it will be found that in every stride his four feet have covered a space of twenty-two feet. If, in cool blood, he be very gently cantered at a common sheep-hurdle, without any ditch on one side of it or the other, it will be found that he has cleared, or rather has not been able to help clearing, from ten to twelve feet. In Egypt, an antelope chased by hounds on coming suddenly to a little crack or crevice in the ground caused by the heat of the sun, has been observed at a bound to clear thirty feet, and yet, on approaching a high wall, the same animal slackens his pace, stops for a second, and then pops over it. Almost any horse, particularly a young one, if cantered at a small prickly furze-hedge, would probably with a little skip rather than a jump clear at least fourteen feet, which in water would form a "brook" that would stop more than half of the large field of riders who in Northamptonshire and Leicestershire follow the Pytchley, Quorn, and Cottesmore hounds. Indeed, it not unfrequently happens that a ditch of glittering water, not seven feet broad, over which every hound has hopped hardly looking at it, will not only stop a number of horses and riders, but in a few minutes will, to the utter disgust and astonishment of the latter, _contain_ several of them.

To prevent, however, this unnecessary and apparently discreditable botheration, all that is necessary is for the rider to overcome and overrule the instinctive aversion which his horse, and possibly he himself, have to jump water.

If, during a run with hounds, a young horse, that has never seen a brook, going a good pace, without receiving from the hands of his rider any tremulous check, arrives at, say a low hedge, on the other side of which he suddenly sees a wide expanse of water, he is quite sure to clear it; and having thus broken the spell, if he be afterwards only fairly ridden, he will probably require no other instruction. If, however, as but too often is the case, on arriving at water that can be jumped favourably at a particular place, a young horse is obliged to wait for his turn, and during that awful pause sees some hunters refuse, and others splash in and flounder, he naturally combines together theory and practice, and accordingly, when called upon, refuses to do what he has always instinctively considered to be wrong; and as, generally speaking, it is impossible at that moment to force him, the run is lost.

Under this state of the case, the master of the culprit on some fine non-hunting day, armed with spurs and a cut-whip, should conduct him to any ugly-looking little ditch, not above half a dozen feet broad (for it is the quality and not the quantity of the shining element that creates his fear), and then, carefully abstaining to excite his courage, ride him at it very slowly and timidly, on purpose to ensure his refusing it, which, of course, he is quite certain to do. After once again leading him into this trap, a duel, perfectly harmless to the biped, must be fought. It may last ten minutes, a quarter, half an hour, or possibly two hours; but, sooner or later, the little misunderstanding is certain to end in the rebel all of a sudden doing willingly, and then repeating five or six times, what, after all, was nothing at all for him to do; and from that moment, if he be only fairly "handled," he will remember, whenever he sees water, the lesson which taught him that it was made on purpose to be crossed.

To maintain and encourage this doctrine, on coming in sight of a brook, his courage, by very gentle touches of the spur, should be excited, while, by pulling harder and harder at the bridle, his speed inversely should be slightly diminished, until he arrives within about eighty yards, when, gradually relaxing the reins, and yet grasping them so firmly that it is impossible for him to swerve, his pace should _always_ be made to freshen as he proceeds, until on arriving at the brink it has attained its maximum. In short, in riding at a brook, a horse should be taught to feel that no choice will be given to him to go in or over, but that over he _must_ go, for want of time to jump in.

By this simple management a horse will very soon learn not only to rush at water, but to enjoy the very sight of it; and as his rider can then trust implicitly to his honour, we end as we almost began, by stating that, although there exists no obstruction in a run that creates so many sorrows as water, there is no fence that is so easy for a horse to jump, if he will but try; in fact on coming to it at the top of his speed, if he will only hop upwards a few feet, his momentum cannot fail to carry him across; whereas, if in approaching it he slackens his speed, nine times out of ten he may safely be booked to be "_in_."

[Footnote D: The Honourable C. C.]

+Modes of Swimming a Horse.+

In England, a hunting man, in deference to the thermometer and for the love of his clothes, usually avoids forcing his horse to swim. In a warm climate, however, the operation is attended with no danger or inconvenience whatever. In riding gradually into deep water the animal, just before he floats, appears to step rather uneasily, as if on legs of different lengths; but the instant his feet take leave of the ground, or if at once he plunges out of his depth from a bank, as soon as his head comes up he proceeds as free from jolts of any sort as a balloon in the air, grunting and groaning, nevertheless, heavily, at the injustice of having a man's weight superadded to his own, the specific gravity of which but little exceeds that of the element into which he is striving not to sink. Instinctively, however, adjusting himself to the most favourable position, which throws the hind part of his body about a foot under water, he makes the best of a bad bargain, and then all the rider has to do is not to destroy the poor animal's equilibrium by pulling even an ounce at his bridle. Indeed, in crossing a broad stream, the most effectual way to prevent over-balancing him, and also to stop his grunting, is either to slip sideways from his back, and then, half-swimming, to be dragged alongside him by a lock of his mane firmly entwined among the fingers of the right hand, or, as is invariably practised by the red Indians, to be towed by his tail, in which case the man floating on the surface of the water is quite safe from the heels of the horse struggling many feet below him. By this plan, of course, the water, instead of the horse, sustains the weight of the man.

+Judicious Riding.+

In a closely-enclosed country, with slow hounds, a cold scent, and a fat huntsman, a good jumping nag is what is mainly required. But to follow fleet hounds across large grass fields, however excellent may be a horse's jumping, however clever at doubles, safe at timber, bold at water; and though to all of these accomplishments be added every qualification of hand, heel, head, and heart, which an experienced rider can possibly possess, "the tottle of the whole" must inevitably amount to "disappointment," unless the animal be able to maintain the requisite pace. And yet in a run it does not at all follow that the leading horse is the fastest, that the hindmost is the slowest, that a heaving flank is an indication of impaired lungs, or a still one of good wind. On the contrary, it is often but too true that the first ought to have been the last, and the last the first; so much depends on the manner in which the different horses have been ridden.

When a man, pursued by a detachment of cavalry, is riding to save his own life, or when, at the risk of his life, he is trying to take away that of a poor little fox, success in either case depends of course on the pace at which he can proceed. Now it is a very common mistake in both the instances we have named to endeavour to attain the desired object by maintaining, like the seconds-hand of a clock, an equable rate, whereas, just as a ship spreads out and unreefs all her canvas when the wind is light, and before a hurricane scuds away under bare poles, so should the pace which a rider exacts from his horse depend on the state or character of the ground he has to traverse; that is to say, he should hold him together and save him through deep-ploughed land,--race him across light, dry turf,--grasping the mane, go slowly up the last half of an ordinary hill,--spin him very fast indeed down every declivity,--and in jumping fences endeavour, by tranquillizing rather than exciting, to induce him to take as little out of himself at each, as is possible.

With considerate treatment of this sort, a warrior or a sportsman may go from a given point to another in a given time without distressing his horse, while the hot-faced man who, in attempting to follow him, has been straining through heavy ground, rushing up steep acclivities, restraining in going down hills, and galloping at every fence, large or small, has not only blown his poor horse, but as he sits astride his panting body and bleeding sides, fancies he has done so _by going fast_; and accordingly, when he sees afar off the fellow who, on an inferior animal, has outstripped him, he contemptuously wonders to himself how such a tortoise could possibly have beaten such a hare!

+Use and Abuse of Spurs.+

Buxtorff, in describing the horses, chariots, and riders of the ancient Egyptians, says that the word "_Parash_," or rider, is derived from the Hebrew root to prick, or spur.

In horsemanship there is no subject so worthy of consideration, most especially by any one wearing the name of a gentleman, as the use and the abuse of spurs. In riding horses that since their birth have been roaming in a state of nature, that have never tasted corn, and that have never been excited by men to race against each other, it would be impossible to induce them to exhaust in man's service the _whole_ of their strength except by punishment; for, as they have never obeyed any other will than their own, so soon as they become tired, they attempt not only to diminish their speed, but to stop altogether, and as their bodies have no value whatever, and as their riders have spurs with rowels an inch long, and no mercy, it might be supposed that, under such circumstances, an uncivilized human being would be very apt to inflict unnecessary punishment on the poor subdued animal beneath him. But it is mercifully ordained that it is the interest as well as the duty of man to husband the powers of the animals that serve him, and accordingly the wild rider, when carefully observed, is found to be infinitely more lenient in the use of his spurs than the comrade who calls himself civilized, simply because the former by his own and his hereditary experience has learned that the spur should be the _last_, and not the _first_ resource of any rider who desires to be carried a given distance in the smallest possible amount of time. Accordingly, to attain this object, the animal on starting, without any punishment, is restrained by his bridle, and encouraged, so long as it is possible to do so, in his zeal to advance: when that begins to flag, by working the bit in his mouth he is induced to proceed; when this fails, a very slight touch of one spur becomes necessary, to be increased only as required. When excitation on that side is found to have lost its effect, it is tried very gently on the other; and thus does the wild rider proceed, until he ends the distance by coming in violently spurring with both heels at every step of a gallop, that, from sheer faintness, has dwindled down to a rate of hardly six miles an hour.

Now a civilized traveller almost invariably commits not only the unnecessary cruelty but the error of using his spurs the moment his horse, as he fancies, _requires_ them; by which means he for a very short time encourages, and then so completely discourages his poor weak animal that he often fails altogether to get to the end of the distance which his wild comrade, without the slightest desire to be merciful, has rapidly and scientifically accomplished.

In the management, however, of horses in England, the conditions of the case are totally different. Tied to mangers, in which they feast on dry oats, beans, and hay, no sooner do they leave their stables than the very sight of creation animates them; every carriage that trots by, and every rider that passes, excites them. When brought into condition, and then encouraged to compete against each other, their physical strength, though artificially raised to the maximum, remains far behind their instinctive courage and disposition to go till they die, in almost any service in which they may be employed.

Under these circumstances, the _use_ of the spur is to enable man to maintain his supremacy, and, whenever necessary, promptly and efficiently to suppress mutiny in whatever form it may break out. If a restiff horse objects to pass a particular post, he must be forced to do so. If he refuses to jump water, he must, as we have described, be conquered. But in every case of this nature a combination of cool determination, plenty of time, and a little punishment, invariably form a more permanent cure than a prescription composed only of the last ingredient; for as anger, in a horse as in a man, is a short madness, an animal under its influence is not in so good a state to learn and remember the lesson of obedience which man is entitled to impart, as when he has time given to him to observe that the just sentence to which he is sternly required to submit, is tempered with mercy.

But if the _uses_ of the spur are few, its _abuses_ are many. On the race-course, the eagerness and impetuosity of thorough bred horses to contend against each other are so great, that for a considerable time it is difficult to prevent them, especially young ones, from starting before the signal is given. As soon as they are "off," it becomes all that the best riders in the world can do merely to guide them: to stop them would be impossible. Occasionally their very limbs "break down" in their endeavours to win; and yet, while they are exerting their utmost powers and strength,--to the shame of their owners and to the disgrace of the nation, the riders are allowed, as a sort of show off, to end the contest by whipping and spurring, which, nine times out of ten, has the effect of making the noblest quadruped in creation do what is technically called "+Shut Up+," which means that the ungenerous and ungrateful punishment and degradation that have been unjustly inflicted upon him have cowed his gallant spirit, and have broken an honest heart!

But the ignorance as well as the brutality of unnecessarily spurring a hunter is even worse than that just portrayed. When a young horse that has never seen a hound, is ridden up, for the first time in his life, _not_ to a meet, at which the whole pack are to be seen, but merely to the side of a covert, which, hidden from view, they are drawing, it might reasonably be conceived that under such circumstances he could not have an idea of their past, present, or future proceedings--we mean, where they had come from, what they were doing, or what they were going to do. However, no sooner does a hound, from laziness, or possibly from feeling that he has been sufficiently pricked by thorns, briars, and gorse, creep out for a few seconds before him, than--"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!"--the young horse pricks up his ears, stares intently at him, holds his breath, and, with a heart beating so hard that it may be not only heard but felt by the rider, he breaks out into a perspiration, which, on the appearance of a few more hounds, turns into foam as white as soap-suds. On an old hound--by a single deep tone, instantaneously certified by the sharp, shrill, resolute voice of the huntsman--announcing to creation that the one little animal which so many bigger ones have been so good as to visit, is "at home," the young horse paws the ground; if restrained, evinces a slight disposition to rear; until, by the time the whole pack--encouraged by the cheery cry, "_Have at him!_"--in full chorus have struck up their band of music, he appears to have become almost ungovernable, and is evidently outrageously anxious to do--he knows not what; and accordingly, when a sudden shriek, scream, or, as the Irish term it, "screech," rather than a holla, from the opposite side of the covert, briefly announces, as by a telegram, the joyous little word "+Away!+" suiting his action to it, "_away_" the young horse often bolts with his rider, just as likely "away" from the hounds as with them. If he follows them, infuriated by ardour, which neither he nor his rider have power to control, he looks at nothing, thinks of nothing, until at full speed coming to say a stiff fence he disdains to rise at, a lesson is offered to him, which, however, he is a great deal too much excited to learn by heart; and so, before his rider has had time enough to uncoil himself from his roll, the "young 'un," without a thought or disposition to wait for the old gentleman, leaves him on the ground to think about the hounds; while with dangling stirrups, reins hanging loose on his neck, and outstretched neck and tail, he is once again "up and at 'em!"