career closed with his succession to the earl-
dom), was no less distinguished for his daring
horsemanship than his tact in managing a
country, and his skill in hunting a pack of
hounds. That he showed less forethought in
risking a valuable life than in conducting the
government of an empire, we must attribute to
his personal courage and keen delight in the
chase, but that he humorously deplored the
scarcity of discretion amongst its votaries, the
following anecdote, as I had it from himself,
sufficiently attests.
While he hunted his own hounds in Kildare,
his most constant attendant, though on foot,
was a nondescript character, such as is called
" a tight boy " in Ireland, and nowhere else,
belonging to a class that never seem to do a
day's work, nor to eat a plentiful meal, but are
always pleasant, obliging, idle, hungry, thirsty,
and supremely happy. Eunning ten miles on
foot to covert, Mick, as he was called, would
never leave the hounds till they reached their
DISCRETION 139
kennels at night. Thus, plodding home one
evening by his lordship's horse, after an
unusually long and fatiguing run, the rider
could not help expostulating with the walker
on such a perverse misapplication of strength,
energy, and perseverance. "Why, look at the
work you have been doing," said his lordship ;
" with a quarter of the labour you might have
earned three or four shillings at the least.
What a fool you must be, Mick, to neglect your
business, and lose half your potatoes, that you
may come out with my hounds ! "
Mick reflected a moment, and looked up,
" Ah ! me lard," replied he, with such a glance
of fun as twinkles nowhere but in the Irish blue
of an Irish eye, "it's truth your lardship's spakin'
this night; 'av there was no fools, there' d be sorra
few fox-hunters ! ' :
Let us return to the question of Discretion,
and how we are to combine it with an amuse-
ment that makes fools of us all.
While valour, then, bids us take our fences
as they come, discretion teaches us that each
should be accomplished in the manner most
suitable to its peculiar requirements. When a
bank offers foothold, and we see the possibility
of dividing a large leap by two, we should pull
back to a trot, and give our horse a hint that he
will do well to spring on and off the obstacle in
accordance with a motion of our hand. If, on
140 BIDING RECOLLECTIONS
the contrary, his effort must be made at a black
and forbidding bullfinch, with the chance of a
wide ditch, or even a tough ashen rail, beyond,
it is wise, should we mean having it at all, to
catch hold of the bridle and increase our pace,
for the last two or three strides, with such
energy as shall shoot us through the thorns
like a harlequin through a trap-door, leaving
the orifice to close up behind, with no more
traces of our transit than are left by a bird !
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. Or it may
be, rejoicing to find ourselves on arable land,
that actually rides light, and yet carries a
scent,
" Solid and tall,
The rasping wall "
challenges us a quarter of a mile off to face it
or go home, for it offers neither gate or gap,
and seerns to meet the sky-line on either side.
I do not know whether others are open to the
same deception, but to my own eye, a wall
appears more, and a hedge less, than its real
height at a certain distance off. The former,
DISCRETION 141
however, is a most satisfactory leap when skil-
fully accomplished, and not half so arduous as
it looks.
"Have it!" says Valour. "Yes, but very
slow," replies Discretion. And, sure enough,
we calm the free generous horse into a trot,
causing him to put his very nose over the
obstacle before taking off ; when bucking into
the air, like a deer, he leaves it behind him
with little more effort than a girl puts to her
skipping-rope. The height an experienced wall-
jumper will clear seems scarcely credible. A
fence of this description, which measurement
proves to be fully six feet, was jumped by the
well-known Colonel Miles three or four years ago
in the Badminton country without displacing
a stone, and although the rider's consummate
horsemanship afforded every chance of success,
great credit is due to the good hunter that
could make such an effort with so heavy a
man on its back.
The knack of wall- jumping, however, is soon
learned even by the most inexperienced animals,
and I may here observe that I have often been
surprised at the discretion shown by young
horses, when ridden close to hounds, in nego-
tiating fences requiring sagacity and common
sense. I am aware that my opinion is singular,
and I only give it as the result, perhaps excep-
tional, of my own limited experience ; but I
142 RIDING RECOLLECTIONS
must admit that I have been carried by a
pupil, on his first day, over awkward places,
up and down banks, in and out of ravines, or
under trees, with a docility and circumspec-
tion I have looked for from the veterans in
vain. Perhaps the old horse knows me as well
as I know him, and thinks also that he knows
best. I am bound to say he never fails me
when I trust him, but he likes his head let
alone, and insists on having it all his own way.
When his blood is really up, and the hero of a
hundred fights considers it worth while to put
forth his strength, I am persuaded he is even
bolder than his junior.
Not only at the fences, however, do we require
discretion. There is a right way and a wrong
of traversing every acre of ground that lies
between them. On the grass, we must avoid
crossing high ridge-and-furrow in a direct line ;
rather let us take it obliquely, or, if the field
be not too large, go all the way round by the
headland. For an unaccustomed horse there
is nothing so trying as those up-and-down
efforts, that resemble the lurches of a boat in
a heavy sea. A very true-shaped animal will
learn to glide smoothly over them after a season
or two, but these inequalities of surface must
always be a tax on wind and muscular powers at
best. The easiest goer in ridge-and-furrow that
we have yet seen is a fox. Surely no other
DISCRETION 143
quadruped has nature gifted with so much
strength and symmetry in so small a com-
pass.
Amongst the ploughs, though the fences are
happily easier, forethought and consideration
are even more required for the ground. After
much rain, do not enter a turnip-field if you can
help it, the large, frequent roots loosen the soil,
and your horse will go in up to his hocks ; young
wheat also it is well to avoid, if only for reasons
purely selfish; but on the fallows, when you find
a wet furrow, lying the right way, put on steam,
splash boldly ahead, and never leave it so long
as it serves you in your line. The same may be
said of a foot-path, even though its guidance
should entail the jumping of half-a-dozen stiles.
Sound foothold reduces the size of any leap, and
while you are travelling easily above the ground,
the rest of the chase, fox and hounds too, as
well as horses, though in a less degree, are
labouring through the mire.
When your course is intersected by narrow
water-cuts, for purposes of irrigation, by covered
drains, or deep, grass-grown cart-ruts, it will be
well to traverse them obliquely, so that, if they
catch the stride of his gallop, your horse may
only get one foot in at a time. He will then
right himself with a flounder, whereas, if held
by both legs, either before or behind, the result
is a rattling fall, very dangerous to his back
144 BIDING RECOLLECTIONS
in the one case, and to your own neck in the
other.
Valour of course insists that a hunter should
do what he is bid, but there are some situations
in which the beast's discretion pleads reasonably
enough for some forbearance from its master.
If a good horse, thoroughly experienced in the
exigencies of the sport, that you have ridden a
season or two, and flatter yourself you under-
stand, persistently refuses a fence, depend upon
it there is sufficient reason. The animal may
be lame from an injury just received, may have
displaced a joint, broken a tendon, or even
ruptured an artery. Perhaps it is so blown as
to feel it must fall in the effort you require. At
any rate do not persevere. Horses have been
killed, and men also, through a sentiment of
sheer obstinacy that would not be denied, and
humanity should at least think shame to be
out-done in discretion by the brute. A horse
is a wise creature enough, or he could never
carry us pleasantly to hounds. An old friend
of mine used to say: "People talk about size
and shape, shoulders, quarters, blood, bone, and
muscle, but for my part, give me a hunter with
brains. He has to take care of the biggest fool
of the two, and think for both ! "
Discretion, then, is one of the most valuable
qualities for an animal charged with such heavy
responsibilities, that bears us happy and tri-
DISCRETION 145
umphant during the day, and brings us safe
home at night. Who would grudge a journey
across St. George's Channel to find this desirable
quality in its highest perfection at Ballinasloe
or Cahirmee ? for indeed it is not too much to
say that whatever we may think of her natives,
the most discreet and sagacious of our hunters
come over from the Emerald Isle.
10
CHAPTER IX
"AN' niver laid an iron to the sod!" was a
metaphor I once heard used by an excellent
fellow from Limerick, to convey the brilliant
manner in which a certain four-year-old he was
describing performed during a burst, when, his
owner told me, he went clean away from all
rivals in his gallop, and flew every wall, bank,
and ditch, in his stride.
The expression, translated into English, would
seem to imply that he neither perched on the
grass-grown banks, with all four feet at once,
like a cat, nor struck back at them with his
hind legs, like a dog; and perhaps my friend
made the more account of this hazardous style
of jumping, that it seemed so foreign to the
usual characteristics of the Irish horse.
For those who have never hunted in Ireland,
I must explain that the country as a general
146
IBISH HUNTEES 147
rule is fenced on a primitive system, requiring
little expenditure or capital beyond the labour
of a man, or, as he is there called, " a boy "
with a short pipe in his mouth and a spade in
his hand. This light-hearted operative, gay,
generous, reckless, high-spirited, and by no
means a free worker, simply throws a bank up
with the soil that he scoops out of the ditch,
reversing the process, and filling the latter by
levelling the former, when a passage is required
for carts, or cattle, from one inclosure to the
next. I ought nevertheless to observe, that
many landlords, with a munificence for which
I am at a loss to account, go to the expense of
erecting massive pillars of stone, ostensibly
gate-posts, at commanding points, between
which supports, however, they seldom seem to
hang a gate, though it is but justice to admit
that when they do, the article is usually of
iron, very high, very heavy, and fastened with
a strong padlock, though its object seems less
apparent, when we detect within convenient
distance on either side a gap through which
one might safely drive a gig.
It is obvious, then, that this kind of fence,
at its widest and deepest, requires considerable
activity as well as circumspection on a horse's
part, and forbearance in handling on that of a
rider. The animal must gather itself to spring
like a goat, on the crest of the eminence it has
148 BIDING RECOLLECTIONS
to surmount, with perfect liberty of head and
neck, for the climb, and subsequent effort, that
may, or may not be demanded. Neither man
nor beast can foresee what is prepared for them
on the landing side, and a clever Irish hunter
brings itself up short in an instant, should the
gulf be too formidable for its powers, balancing
on the brink, to look for a better spot, or even
leaping back again into the field from which it
came.
That the Irishman rides with a light bridle
and lets it very much alone is the necessary
result. His pace at the fences must be slow,
because it is not a horse's nature, however rash,
to rush at a place like the side of a house ; and
instinct prompts the animal to collect itself
without restraint from a rider's hand, while
any interference during the second and down-
ward spring would only tend to pull it back into
the chasm it is doing its best to clear.
The efforts by which an Irish hunter sur-
mounts these national impediments is like that
of a hound jumping a wall. The horse leaps to
the top with fore-and-hind feet together, where
it dwells, almost imperceptibly, while shifting
the purchase, or, ''changing," as the natives call
it, in the shortest possible stride, of a few inches
at most, to make the second spring. Every good
English hunter will strike back with his hind
legs when surprised into sudden exertion, but
IRISH HUNTERS 149
only a proficient bred, or at least, taught in
the sister island, can master the feat described
above in such artistic form as leads one to
believe that, like Pegasus, the creature has
wings at every heel. No man who has fol-
lowed hounds in Meath, Kilkenny, or Kildare
will ever forget the first time, when, to use
the vernacular of those delightful countries,
he rode " an accomplished hunter over an
intricate lep ! "
But the merit is not heaven-born. On the
contrary, it seems the result of patient and
judicious tuition, called by Irish breakers "train-
ing," in which they show much knowledge of
character and sound common sense.
In some counties, such as Eoscommon and
Connemara, the brood mare indeed, with the foal
at her foot, runs wild over extensive districts, and
finding no gates against which to lean, leaps
leisurely from pasture to pasture, pausing,
perhaps, in her transit to crop the sweeter
herbage from some bank on which she is perched.
Where mamma goes her little one dutifully follows,
imitating the maternal motions, and as a charm-
ing mother almost always has a charming
daughter, so, from its earliest foalhood, the
future hunter acquires an activity, courage, and
sagacity that shall hereafter become the ad-
miration of crowded hunting fields in the land
of the Saxon far, far away!
150 EID1NG- BECOLLECTIONS
But whereas in many parts of Ireland improved
agriculture denies space for the unrestrained
vagaries of these early lessons, a judicious system
is adopted that substitutes artificial education
for that of nature. "It is wonderful we don't
get more falls," said one of the boldest and best
of lady riders, who during many seasons followed
the pilotage of Jem Mason, and but for failing
eye-sight could sometimes have gone before him,
"when we consider that we all ride half -broken
horses," and, no doubt, on our side of the Channel,
the observation contained a great deal of truth.
But in this respect our neighbours show more
wisdom. They seldom bring a pupil into the
hunting-field till the elementary discipline has
been gone through that teaches him when he
comes to his fence what to do with it. He may
be three, he may be four. I have seen a sports-
man in Kilkenny so unassumingly equipped that
instead of boots he wore wisps of straw called, I
believe, sooghauns, go in front for a quarter of an
hour on a two-year old ! Whatever his age, the
colt shows himself an experienced hunter when
it is necessary to leap. Not yet ?nouthed, with
unformed paces and wandering action, he may
seem the merest baby on the road or across a
field, but no veteran can be wiser or steadier
when he comes within distance of it, or, as his
owner would say, when he " challenges " his leap,
and this enthusiast hardly over-states the truth
IRISH HUNTERS 151
in affirming that his pupil " would change on
the edge of a razor, and never let ye know he was
off the Queen's high-road, God bless her, all the
time ! "
The Irishman, like the Arab, seems to possess
a natural insight into the character of a horse ;
with many shortcomings as grooms, not the least
of which are want of neatness in stable-manage-
ment, and rooted dislike to hard work, except
by fits and starts, they cherish extraordinary
affection for their charges, and certainly in their
dsalings with them obviously prefer kindness to
coercion. I do not think they always understand
feeding judiciously, and many of them have much
to learn about getting horses into condition ;
but they are unrivalled in teaching them to
jump.
Though seldom practised, there is no better
system in all undertakings than " to begin with
the beginning," and an Irish horse-breaker is so
persuaded of this great elementary truth that he
never asks the colt to attempt three feet till it
has become thoroughly master of two. With a
cavesson rein, a handful of oats, and a few yards
of waste ground behind the potato-ground or the
pig-styes, he will, by dint of skill and patience,
turn the most blundering neophyte into an
expert and stylish fencer in about six weeks.
As he widens the ditch of his earthwork, he
necessarily heightens its bank, which his simple
152 BIDING RECOLLECTIONS
tools, the spade and the pipe, soon raise to six or
seven feet. When the young one has learned to
surmount this temperately, but with courage, to
change on the top, and deliver itself handsomely,
with the requisite fling and freedom, on the far
side, he considers it sufficiently advanced to take
into the fields, where he leads it forthwith, leav-
ing behind him the spade, but holding fast to the
corn, the cavesson, and the pipe. Here he soon
teaches his colt to wait, quietly grazing, or staring
about, while he climbs the fence he intends it to
jump, and almost before the long rein can be
tightened it follows like a dog, to poke its nose in
his hand for the few grains of oats it expects as
a reward.
Some breakers drive their pupils from behind,
with reins, pulling them up when they have
accomplished the leap ; but this is not so good a
plan as necessitating the use of the whip, and
having, moreover, a further disadvantage in
accustoming the colt to stop dead short on land-
ing, a habit productive hereafter of inconvenience
to a loose rider taken unawares !
When he has taught his horse thus to walJv
over a country, for two or three miles on end,
the breaker considers it, with reason, thoroughly
trained for leaping, and has no hesitation, how-
ever low its condition, in riding it out with the
hounds. Who that has hunted in Ireland but
can recall the interest, and indeed amusement,
IRISH HUNTERS 153
with which he has watched some mere baby,
strangely tackled and uncouthly equipped, sail-
ing along in the front rank, steered with
consummate skill and temper by a venerable
rider who looks sixty on horseback, and at least
eighty on foot. The man's dress is of the
shabbiest and most incongruous, his boots are
outrageous, his spurs ill put on, and his hat
shows symptoms of ill-usage in warfare or the
chase ; but he sits in the saddle like a workman,
and age has no more quenched the courage in
his bright Irish eye, than it has soured the mirth
of his temperament, or saddened the music of his
brogue. You know instinctively that he must
be a good fellow and a good sportsman; you
cannot follow him for half a mile without being
satisfied that he is a good rider, and you forget,
in your admiration of his beast's performance,
your surprise at its obvious youth, its excessive
leanness, and the unusual shabbiness of its
accoutrements. Inspecting these more narrowly,
if you can get near enough, you begin to grudge
the siims you have paid Bartley, or Wilkinson
and Kidd, for the neat turn-out you have been
taught to consider indispensable to success.
You see that a horse may cross a dangerous
country speedily and in safety, though its saddle
be pulpy and weather-stained, with unequal
stirrup-leathers, and only one girth ; though its
bridle be a Pelham, with a noseband, and tvithout
154 BIDING BECOLLECTIONS
a curb-chain, while one rein seems most untrust-
worthy, and the other, for want of a buckle, has
its ends tied in a knot. And yet, wherever the
hounds go, thither follow this strangely-equipped
pair. They arrive at a seven-foot bank, defended
by a wide and, more forbidding still, an enor-
mously deep ditch on this side and with nothing
apparently but blue sky on the other. While the
man utters an exclamation that seems a threat,
a war-cry, and a shout of triumph combined, the
horse springs to the summit, perches like a bird,
and disappears buoyantly into space as if furnished,
indeed, with wings, that it need only spread to
fly away. They come to a stone-gap, as it is
termed; neither more nor less than a disused
egress, made up with blocks of granite into a
wall about five feet high, and the young one,
getting close under it, clears the whole out of a
trot, with the elasticity and the very action of a
deer. Presently some frightful chasm has to be
encountered, wide enough for a brook, deep
enough for a ravine, boggy of approach, faced
with stone, and offering about as awkward an
appearance as ever defeated a good man on his
best hunter and bade him go to look for a better
place.
Our friend in the bad hat, who knows what he
is about, rides at this "yawner" a turn slower
than would most Englishmen, and with a lighter
hand on his horse's mouth, though his legs and
" Like a bird, and disappears buoyantly into space."
Rilling Recollections.'] [Page
IBISH HUNTERS 155
knees are keeping the pupil well into its bridle,
and, should the latter want to refuse or " renage,"
as they say in Ireland, a disgrace of which it has
not the remotest idea, there is a slip of ground-
ash in the man's fingers ready to administer " a
refresher " on its flank. " Did ye draw now ? "
asks an Irishman when his friend is describing
how he accomplished some extraordinary feat in
leaping, and the expression, derived from an
obsolete custom of sticking the cutting-whip
upright in the boot, so that it has come to mean
punishment from that instrument, is nearly
always answered "I did not!" Light as a
fairy, our young, but experienced hunter dances
down to the gulf, and leaves it behind with
scarce an effort, while an unwashed hand
bestows its caress on the reeking neck that will
hereafter thicken prodigiously in some Saxon
stable on a proper allowance of corn. If you are
riding an Irish horse, you cannot do better than
imitate closely every motion of the pair in front.
If not, you will be wise, I think, to turn round
and go home.
Presently we will hope, for the sake of the
neophyte, whose condition is by no means on a
par with his natural powers, the hounds either
kill their fox or run him to ground, or lose, or
otherwise account for him, thus affording a few
minutes' repose for breathing and conversation.
"It's an intrickate country," observes some
156 RIDING RECOLLECTIONS
brother-sportsman with just such another mount
to the veteran I have endeavoured to describe ;
" and will that be the colt by Chitchat out of
Donovan's mare ? Does he * lep' well now ?" he
adds with much interest. " The beautifullest
ever ye see ! " answers his friend, and nobody
who has witnessed the young horse's performances
can dispute the justice of such a reply. It is not
difficult to understand that hunters so educated
and so ridden in a country where every leap
requires power, courage, and the exercise of
much sagacity, should find little difficulty in
surmounting such obstacles as confront them on
this side of the Channel. It is child's play to fly a
Leicestershire fence, even with an additional rail,
for a horse that has been taught his business
amongst the precipitous banks and fathomless
ditches of Meath and Kildare. If the ground
were always sound and the hills somewhat
levelled, these Irish hunters would find little to
stop them in Leicestershire from going as straight
as their owners dared ride. Practice at walls
renders them clever timber-jumpers, they have
usually the spring and confidence that make
nothing of a brook, and their careful habit of
preparing for something treacherous on the
landing side of every leap prevents their being
taken unawares by the "oxers" and doubles
that form such unwelcome exceptions to the
usual run of impediments throughout the shires.
IfilSH HUNTERS 157