I’m wondering how many foxhunters will identify with this escapade. Your editor certainly does. Though, thankfully, in the two experiences I have in mind, the rascals were at least honest enough—indeed more than enthusiastic enough—to jump the fences!
Illustration by Olive Whitmore
I knew by the wag of his head that he was a bit-of-a-lad. When I mounted him he flung his bit-bars in truculent resentment. When I jogged off, his jaws took a vice-like hold of the bit, his head poked sideways and, if horses wore hats, his would have been very definitely “on the Kildare side.” I soon discovered that it was a waste of energy to attempt to alter his head-position. His jaws were rigid, his neck inflexible, in fact, everything in front of the saddle seemed to be set in reinforced concrete. Reins are ornamental accoutrements on hobby-horses: mine were just as effective.
I had been told he was the heart and soul of a rascal, but as I have ridden, and occasionally fallen off, every conceivable brand of rascal, I felt I could forestall any equine acrobatics which he might have under consideration. His owner had given me the animal’s whole character; that is, of course, assuming that there was a shred of it left to give to anyone; and I had gladly accepted the offer of a day’s hunting, character or no character! Two stable companions had had a hard hunt the previous day, a third was lame and a fourth had a cough; so it was ride this old reprobate or nothing.
He had an amazing history, but it will suffice to say that his owner had forsaken any hopes he might have cherished of reforming him. I could understand the owner liking him at one time, as he was a great-looking animal with quality written all over him. At the present moment, however, the owner’s daily prayer was that some foreign army buyer would see his horse and there would be very little difficulty in disposing of him as an outstanding officer’s charger. What the unfortunate officer who would possess him eventually might think, is of course a different, and certainly unprintable, matter.
Had I arrived at the Meet in my pyjamas I couldn’t have drawn much more attention. I was a visitor hunting for the first time with this pack of hounds. I was a complete stranger to everyone present, yet I wasn’t long at the cross-roads till everyone seemed to know me. I soon discovered that it was not my own angelic countenance that held their interest; no, it was my conveyance: and when that same conveyance saw the hounds he seemed to look back sideways at me as much as to say: “I wonder what kind of a museum-piece is riding me to-day?” Everyone at the Meet seemed to be thinking somewhat similar thoughts: only they were too polite to put them so crudely. I sensed their sympathy, and that annoyed me slightly. I didn’t want their sympathy. They could keep it. If the rascal under my saddle had a habit of dislodging the previous occupiers of that lofty position well, he hadn’t done so in my case; at least, not yet, and before he would do so I swore silently that he’d have to try very hard.
The wood held a fox. Hounds were away in a flash. Horses raced crazily for a flying start, but none of them half so crazily as the maniac I bestrode. In the first hundred yards the field seemed to be chasing me instead of the fox. The Master’s astonishingly original vocabulary made me blush to the ears; but unfortunately it had no effect whatever on my pig-headed horse. Hounds were scrambling across a bank, in a few strides more I would jump clean into the midst of them, the bank loomed bigger and bigger, I was powerless…and then the villain swerved. I forgave the knowing smiles of the field as they swept past, but I didn’t forgive the cowardly culprit. I sent him at the bank again and was soon forging to the lead. The Master’s horse jumped a bushed-up gap in front of me; the whipper-in looked aghast as he saw me thundering at it. I swore that there would be no swerving this time; it would be over it or through it. Through it we went like a tornado, and carried the withered whitethorns half-way up the next field. The next gap was decorated by a stout ladder, but as this ladder evidently objected to tornadoes, we fell over it instead.
Remounting, I was again forging to the lead when I saw the Master skim over a wide-looking river. My horse seemed anxious for a drink, but began to change his mind when he discovered it wasn’t in a bucket. I drove him on all the harder when I sensed his indecision, and after futile efforts to swerve, he slithered into the middle of the swollen torrent. I think he was a great deal more surprised than I was, even though the water was lapping my knees, and I felt the biggest fool in Christendom. We scrambled out and galloped on and tried to pretend we didn’t mind; even though I felt like frozen mutton from the hips down. We then met a big wall and he swerved: but I didn’t. My brief solo flight ended in an abrupt, forced landing on the flood-waters of the adjoining field. The only difference between my past and present discomfort was that instead of my limbs and my ardour being only partially damp, both were now thoroughly sodden.
Doctors prescribe cross-country rambles for improved blood-circulation. I enjoyed my nice long walk home.
A selection from Echoes of the Hunting Horn, a collection of short stories by Stanislaus Lynch, illustrations by Olive Whitmore, The Devin-Adair Company, New York, printed in Ireland at the Talbot Press, Dublin, 1946.
Posted February 4, 2015