"Show me a Tipperary or a Kilkenny woman till I lep on the shmall of her back," quoth she.
Every sportsman knows the delight of getting a good start and of keeping it. I was riding with the Tipperaries, when Eden jumped a tremendous big mearing (boundary); the others who faced it either fell or refused; and thus we got three fields ahead of the rest of the field, and ran the fox straight to ground in thirty-five minutes, Eden keeping right on the tail of the hounds the whole way. Two or three times I have got such a start and kept it, another occasion being in Leicestershire, when I was riding a horse belonging to my sister-in-law.
Once with the Meath I got a long start by seeing which way the wind was; and cutting a corner, I observed a man with a green collar doing the same, and we both kept our lead. A fortnight later, stag-hunting upon Exmoor, I got well away, when I saw a man ahead of me on my left. At the end of the run, I observed that he had a green collar, and found it was the same man. A curious coincidence.
Riding another of my Irish horses, Sea Queen, we were going down a by-road, the hounds being on the right, when we came to an iron gate, nearly 6 feet high. I was bending down to pull back the bolt, when the mare suddenly jumped. She got her fore-part over, and it took me half an hour to clear her. I was obliged to break the gudgeon of the gate.
Hunting at home at Curraghmore, I used to tell my brothers, all of whom were cavalry officers, that I would engage to pick a hundred seamen from the Fleet, who had never been on a horse, and to make them in six weeks as fine a troop of cavalry as any in the kingdom. Naturally they did not believe me, and chaffed the life out of me. But when my brother Lord William went to South Africa, to the Zulu war of 1879, he commanded three troops of irregular cavalry, the men of which had been recruited straight from the merchant service. His troop sergeant-major had been a mate. When my brother returned, he acknowledged that my boast was justified. The fact was that in the old sailing days, the sailor was so agile, athletic and resourceful a creature, so clever with his hands, and so accustomed to keeping his balance in every situation, that he could speedily acquire the seat and the skill which other men must as a rule learn in childhood or not at all. Anyhow, the seamen could stick on.
Many men never become easy on horseback. My experience in the hunting field taught me that a man who is always fussily shouting, "Where the devil are the hounds, sir?" and so forth, is always nervous. I have sometimes answered, "Keep calm, sir, keep calm. It's not a general action."
For a short time I was acting-Master of the Buckhounds, in place of my brother Waterford, when he was laid up with an accident in the hunting field, from which, poor fellow, he never recovered. As he was galloping through an open swinging gate, the gate closed on his horse as the horse was level with it. The jerk injured the base of the spine.
One day with the Buckhounds we were hunting a very twisting, slow stag, when, observing a charming country-woman of mine, I asked her if she had another horse out. As she said she had not, I advised her to go to a certain spot, where the deer-cart held another stag, wait there for me, and we would have a good run, and with luck we could get back to the station and catch a train. Sure enough, we had a splendid run, half an hour as hard as we could go; the stag ran into the lost property office in Slough railway station, and a train bound for London came in at the same moment: a prophecy fulfilled.
I was one of the original number that first played polo at Lillie Bridge, in the early days of polo in England. We played on little 13-hand ponies, with a bamboo root rounded off as a ball. I do not think that there are many of the original number now (1913) alive; but among them is Lord Valentia, who very kindly sent me the following account of the introduction of polo into England:
"The first polo match ever played in Europe was between the 9th Lancers and 10th Hussars at Hounslow, July, 1871, but the 10th had played polo for years then. The first game ever played was at Aldershot, on Cove Common, in 1870; where Colonel Liddell says in his Memoirs of the 10th Royal Hussars: 'The game was introduced into England by the officers of the 10th, from a description of the game as played by the Manipuri tribe in India which appeared in The Field newspaper. Lord Valentia, Mr. Hartopp, and Mr. George Cheape of the 11th attached to the 10th, were the originators.' I believe the Lillie Bridge Club was formed in 1872. I well remember a day at Lillie Bridge when I think you, Bill, and Marcus were playing, and your mother was looking on. Bill Was knocked out by a crack on the head, and carried into the dressing room, where he lay unconscious for a short time. Your mother was in the room with him, and heard Tom Fitzwilliam in the next room shouting out so that everyone in both rooms could hear, 'Oh, it's only Bill knocked out. No matter, you can't kill a Beresford!'"