Part 5

Children are taught to ride quite on the wrong principle. How can a child of three understand or appreciate a ride in a pannier on some fat Shetland's back? The age of eight years is quite soon enough for any child to begin; before that time it is impossible for them to control the smallest pony, and this very experience often destroys their nerve.

In buying a pony, be very sure that it is sound, with a nice light mouth; twelve hands is quite small enough. Most children's hands are spoilt by letting them learn to ride on a pony destitute of any mouth, the result is they learn to hold on by the poor thing's bridle, and anyone who does that can never ride well. Let girls first learn to stick on a cross saddle before putting them on a side saddle, it teaches them to sit straight, and is much better for them in every way.

Anyone with bad hands can never be a really good rider. You can go hard, be able to ride a horse that has bad manners, such as kicking, bucking, rearing, running away, for that is simply a matter of nerve; but a good rider means someone whose horse always goes nicely and kindly, who does not hang on his mouth, who knows how to make him gallop, and can ride really well at a fence. Half the falls out hunting come from putting your horse crookedly at the fence, and from losing your head when he has made a mistake.

Always endeavour--should your horse come down with you, and you have not parted company--to keep your presence of mind. Do not try to get off, as that will probably lead to a worse accident. Leave the reins alone, for nothing frightens a horse more when he is down than touching his mouth with the bit. Sit quite still, and it is more than likely that you will be able to continue your ride without the smallest mishap, or even a dirty back.

A great deal has been said on the subject of ladies' horses. One thing is quite certain--they cannot be too good, and for a side saddle a fine shoulder is indispensable; for, if you ride a horse without it, the sensation is most unpleasant. You feel as though you were sitting on his ears. Before mounting, always see that the saddle is not put on the top of the withers, but just behind them, so that the weight does not fall on the top of the shoulders. Besides being less likely to give a sore back, the rider is much more comfortable. The reason why ladies give a sore back so often is that they ride with too long a stirrup, and do not sit straight. Sit well to the off side, and, should you think your saddle is not quite straight, either get someone to alter it for you or go home, for anything is better than to have your horse laid up for a month with a bad back. I think a well-bred horse about 15·2, with a nice light mouth, is the nicest mount for a woman. For if one gets a really good fencer and galloper this size, he is far better than a big underbred horse that tires one out immediately. But, of course, everyone has to be mounted according to her weight. A nice light weight can see a great deal of sport on the back of a really good pony about fourteen-hands. It is wonderful the big fences many such ponies will contrive to get over, if they really mean business. The first pony I ever had was a little twelve-hand Welsh mare, and there was nothing that pony wouldn't jump or scramble over somehow. What was too high for her she would get under. She could crawl and climb like a cat, and gallop faster than most horses; and, when she was twenty years of age, was as fresh as a three-year-old. In fact, my brother won three races of five furlongs on the flat with her, against much bigger ponies. The best thing I can wish any of our readers is to have another, whether horse or pony, as good and as game as she was.

K. NEWCASTLE.

THE WIFE OF THE M. F. H.

BY MRS CHAWORTH MUSTERS.

If there is one calling in which a real helpmate can be of more use to a man than any other, it is in that many-sided and arduous undertaking called "hunting a country."

Not that it is to be desired that a lady should take an active part in the field management, like the well-meaning dame who is reported to have said to an offender, "If I were a gentleman I would swear at you." But without letting zeal outrun discretion, how much may a "mistress of hounds" (as we will call her for brevity's sake) do to promote sport and good feeling, besides deciding on the cut of a habit, and on who is to be invited to wear the hunt colours.

"I have been a foxhunter myself, and I know how selfish they are," was the remark once made to the writer by an old gentleman in Leicestershire, and it must, in candour, be admitted that there was some truth in his agreeable frankness.

Now, the mistress of the hounds should do all in her power to make hunting acceptable, by trying to counteract the overbearing egotism which no doubt is apt to be the effect of an absorbing pursuit on men's characters.

She should bear in mind that hunting was, after all, made for man, and not man for hunting, and that because some people are fortunate enough to be born with a taste for that amusement, combined (which is important) with the means of gratifying it, there is no reason why others less happily gifted should be despised and sent to the wall.

The cause of fox-hunting was never yet furthered by votaries, who appear to think everything else in the way of sport unworthy of thought or notice. "Give and take," should be their motto, as well as that of all conditions of men, in fact, "more so" considering that, in the present day, most followers of hounds are indebted to others for their fun, and do not own a yard of the land they ride over.

Many a man is "put wrong" for life, and hastily designated as a "beastly vulpecide," who would have been pleased to find a fox for his neighbours now and then, though not caring for the sport himself, if he had been treated with the consideration generally shown in other matters. Therefore, the lady we have in our mind will do all she can to sympathise with the pursuits and amusements of others besides hunting people, and will do her best to destroy the idea that a fine horsewoman must necessarily be "horsey," or a lover of fox-hounds "doggy."

Since the extraordinary popularity of Whyte Melville's and Surtee's novels and songs, a generation has grown up, who have flattered themselves into the belief that the fact of riding after hounds at once makes heroes and heroines of them, and that they are almost conferring a benefit on their fellow-creatures by emulating Kate Coventry or the Honourable Crasher.

Formerly people went hunting because they liked it, now with many it is a means to an end, a passport to good society, a fashion rather than a taste.

In the true interests of fox-hunting this is to be deplored, but as it is impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff, a mistress must content herself with smoothing over difficulties, with trying to avoid collisions between those who live in a country, and those who hunt in it; and it will be her aim to make up for any roughness or seeming neglect on the part of those who follow her husband's hounds.

As Jorrocks told James Pigg, "There must be unanimity and concord, or we sha'n't kill no foxes."

A lady should herself set an example of courtesy when meeting at a country house by dismounting and paying her respects to the hostess, especially if the owner is not a habitual follower of the chase. She may also sometimes make an opportunity to call on her way home for a few minutes, not obviously with the desire of snatching a few mouthfuls, like a hungry dog, and then tearing out again, but in a neighbourly, pleasant fashion, for no one likes to be unmistakably made a convenience of.

These little amenities go a long way towards what is called "keeping a country together," and, when the lady at the head of affairs sets her face against rudeness and "cliqueishness" there is likely to be less friction between those whom a Melton sportsman once designated as the "cursed locals," and the sporting gentry who are only birds of passage.

Politeness in the field is, of course, part of our ideal lady's nature, and she could no more omit to thank the sportsman, farmer, or labouring man, who showed her an act of civility, than if he were her partner at a ball; though a story is told of a gentleman in a crack country, who said to a fair follower of the chase, that she was the forty-second lady he had held a gate for, and the first who had said "Thank you."

But let us turn to the farmer, who with his farmyard gate in his hand, is anxiously watching some young stock crowding against his valuable ewes in an adjoining field, while a light-hearted damsel is leading a select party over the wheat, so as to outstrip the riders who follow the headland, on their way to draw a favourite covert. Possibly that farmer in "a happier day than this," rode his own nag horse with the best of them, and talked cheerily to his landlord about the cubs in the big rabbit hole, and the partridge "nesses" in his mowing grass, but now neither he nor "the Squire" can afford nag horses or shooting parties. It is toil and moil, all work and no play, for the occupier; and very likely the landlord has had to let the pleasant acres on which he and his forefathers disported themselves, and feels shy of the tenants for whom he is unable to do all they have been accustomed to.

It is in these cases that "the lady" will come to the front, with all the tact and kindliness that is in her. Instead of rushing rudely past him, she will pull up and listen to the poor man's remarks, and, perhaps, help him to restrain his straying beasts. There are so many occasions in a day's hunting, when a few minutes more or less are of little importance, that it is a pity they should not be utilised in promoting good feeling and mutual understanding, instead of being wasted in grumbling at the huntsman, and abusing the sport he shows.

The mistress of the hounds can do something, surely, by precept and example, to discourage the outrageous lavishness coupled with meanness, which is the curse of modern life, and is nowhere more odious and out of character than in the hunting field.

People who spend every sixpence they can afford, and some they cannot, on their habits and boots and saddles, cannot, of course, produce one of those useful coins at an opportune moment, but if they could stint themselves now and then of an extra waistcoat or tie, they would find that the spare cash would go a long way towards mending a broken rail; to say nothing of the different feeling with which the advent of hounds would be regarded, if it meant money in the pocket, instead of out of it.

Munificence in the few, but meanness in the many, is, unfortunately, too much the rule among hunting men and women. They find it apparently much easier to write tirades to the Field on the subject of "wire" for instance, than to produce a few shillings and quietly get it taken down, as in some instances could easily be done. A wooden rail costs sixpence, a day's work half-a-crown, and it does seem rather pitiful, that, considering the three millions more or less annually spent on hunting in the United Kingdom, it should be found impossible, except in a few well-managed districts, to provide funds for fencing.

Our mistress might well turn her attention to this matter, and she may induce other ladies to look round their own neighbourhoods, and see what can be done in this way in a friendly spirit, without the formalities of committees and subscriptions.