one, in the middle of a hunting country !

THE MAN WHO HUNTS AND NEVER JUMPS.
The British public who do not hunt believe too much in the

jumping of those who do. It is thought by many among the laity
that the hunting man is always in the air, making clear flights

over five-barred gates, six-foot walls, and double posts and
rails, at none of which would the average hunting man any more

think of riding than he would at a small house. We used to hear
much of the Galway Blazers, and it was supposed that in County

Galway a stiff-built wall six feet high was the sort of thing
that you customarily met from field to field when hunting in that

comfortable county. Such little impediments were the ordinary
food of a real Blazer, who was supposed to add another foot of

stonework and a sod of turf when desirous of making himself
conspicuous in his moments of splendid ambition. Twenty years ago

I rode in Galway now and then, and I found the six-foot walls all
shorn of their glory, and that men whose necks were of any value

were very anxious to have some preliminary knowledge of the
nature of the fabric, whether for instance it might be solid or

built of loose stones, before they trusted themselves to an
encounter with a wall of four feet and a half. And here, in

England, history, that nursing mother of fiction, has given
hunting men honours which they here never fairly earned. The

traditional five-barred gate is, as a rule, used by hunting men
as it was intended to be used by the world at large; that is to

say, they open it; and the double posts and rails which look so
very pretty in the sporting pictures, are thought to be very ugly

things whenever an idea of riding at them presents itself. It is
well that mothers should know, mothers full of fear for their

boys who are beginning, that the necessary jumping of the
hunting field is not after all of so very tremendous a nature;

and it may be well also to explain to them and to others that
many men hunt with great satisfaction to themselves who never by

any chance commit themselves to the peril of a jump, either big
or little.

And there is much excellent good sense in the mode of riding
adopted by such gentlemen. Some men ride for hunting, some for

jumping, and some for exercise; some, no doubt, for all three of
these things. Given a man with a desire for the latter, no taste

for the second, and some partiality for the first, and he cannot
do better than ride in the manner I am describing. He may be sure

that he will not find himself alone; and he may be sure also that
he will incur none of that ridicule which the non-hunting man is

disposed to think must be attached to such a pursuit. But the man
who hunts and never jumps, who deliberately makes up his mind

that he will amuse himself after that fashion, must always
remember his resolve, and be true to the conduct which he has

laid down for himself. He must jump not at all. He must not jump
a little, when some spurt or spirit may move him, or he will

infallibly find himself in trouble. There was an old Duke of
Beaufort who was a keen and practical sportsman, a master of

hounds, and a known Nimrod on the face of the earth; but he was a
man who hunted and never jumped. His experience was perfect, and

he was always true to his resolution. Nothing ever tempted him to
cross the smallest fence. He used to say of a neighbour of his,

who was not so constant, " Jones is an ass. Look at him now.
There he is, and he can't get out. Jones doesn't like jumping,

but he jumps a little, and I see him pounded every day. I never
jump at all, and I'm always free to go where I like." The Duke

was certainly right, and Jones was certainly wrong. To get into a
field, and then to have no way of getting out of it, is very

uncomfortable. As long as you are on the road you have a way open
before you to every spot on the world's surface, open, or

capable of being opened; or even if incapable of being opened,
not positively detrimental to you as long as you are on the right

side. But that feeling of a prison under the open air is very
terrible, and is rendered almost agonizing by the prisoner's

consciousness that his position is the result of his own
imprudent temerity, of an audacity which falls short of any

efficacious purpose. When hounds are running, the hunting man
should always, at any rate, be able to ride on, to ride in some

direction, even though it be in a wrong direction. He can then
flatter himself that he is riding wide and making a line for

himself. But to be entrapped into a field without any power of
getting out of it; to see the red backs of the forward men

becoming smaller and smaller in the distance, till the last speck
disappears over some hedge; to see the fence before you and know

that it is too much for you; to ride round and round in an agony
of despair which is by no means mute, and at last to give

sixpence to some boy to conduct you back into the road; that is
wretched: that is real unhappiness. I am, therefore, very

persistent in my advice to the man who purposes to hunt without
jumping. Let him not jump at all. To jump, but only to jump a

little, is fatal. Let him think of Jones.
The man who hunts and doesn't jump, presuming him not to be a

duke or any man greatly established as a Nimrod in the hunting
world, generally comes out in

a black coat and a hat, so that he may not be specially
conspicuous in his deviations from the line of the running. He

began his hunting probably in search of exercise, but has
gradually come to add a peculiaramusement to that pursuit; and

of a certain phase of hunting he at last learns more than most of
those who ride closest to the hounds. He becomes wonderfully

skillful in surmising the line which a fox may probably take, and
in keeping himself upon roads parallel to the ruck of the

horsemen. He is studious of the wind, and knows to a point of the
compass whence it is blowing. He is intimately conversant with

every covert in the country; and, beyond this, is acquainted with
every earth in which foxes have had their nurseries, or are

likely to locate them. He remembers the drains on the different
farms in which the hunted animal may possible take refuge, and

has a memory even for rabbit-holes. His eye becomes accustomed to
distinguish the form of a moving horseman over half-a-dozen

fields; and let him see but a cap of any leading man, and he will
know which way to turn himself. His knowledge of the country is

correct to a marvel. While the man who rides straight is
altogether ignorant of his whereabouts, and will not even

distinguish the woods through which he has ridden scores of
times, the man who rides and never jumps always knows where he is

with the utmostaccuracy. Where parish is divided from parish and
farm from farm, has been a study to him; and he has learned the

purpose and bearing of every lane. He is never thrown out, and
knows the nearest way from every point to point. If there be a

line of gates across from one road to another he will use them,
but he will commit himself to a line of gates on the land of no

farmer who uses padlocks.
As he trots along the road, occasionally breaking into a gallop

when he perceives from some sign known to him that the hunt is
turning from him, he is generally accompanied by two or three

unfortunates who have lost their way and have straggled from the
hounds; and to them he is a guide, philosopher, and friend. He is

good-natured for the moment, and patronizes the lost ones. He
informs them that they are at last in the right way, and consoles

them by assurances that they have lost nothing.