Some countries never ride really deep. The shires, for instance, though often said to be deep, will seldom let a horse in to any great extent--the ridge and furrow drains the field so well; and in that sort of deep ground which is met with in Leicestershire a thoroughbred one will gallop and "stay" all day. But a ride in Braydon or in the Bicester "Claydons" will convince us that a stouter stamp of horse is necessary to combat a deep, undrained clay country.
We must now leave the sporting Thursday country of the V.W.H. and turn to Friday.
Eastcourt, Crudwell, Oaksey, Brinkworth, Lea Schools--such are some of Lord Bathurst's Friday meets; and the pen can hardly write fast enough in singing the praises of this country. Strong, well-preserved coverts, sound grass fields, flying fences, sometimes set on a low bank, sometimes without a bank, varied by an occasional brook, with now and then a fence big enough to choke off all but the "customers"--such is the bill of fare for Fridays. To run from Stonehill Wood, viâ Charlton and Garsdon, to Redborn in the duke's country, as the hounds did on the first day of 1897, is, as "Brooksby" would say, "a line fit for a king, be that king but well minded and well mounted."
Stand on Garsdon Hill, and look down on the grassy vale mapped out below, and tell me, if you dare, that you ever saw a pleasanter stretch of country. How dear to the hunting man are green fields and sweet-scenting pastures, where the fences are fair and clean and the ditches broad and deep, where there is room to gallop and room to jump, and where, as he sails along on a well-bred horse or reclines perchance in a muddy ditch (Professor Raleigh! what a watery bathos!), he may often say to himself, "It is good for me to be here!" For when the hounds cross this country there are always "wigs on the green" in abundance; and in spite of barbed wire we may still sing with Horace,
"Nec fortuitum spernere caespitem
Leges sinebant,"
which, at the risk of offending all classical scholars, I must here translate: "Nor do the laws allow us to despise a chance tumble on the turf."
Round Oaksey, too, is a rare galloping ground. Should you be lucky enough to get a start from "Flistridge" and come down to the brook at a jumpable place, in less than ten minutes you will be, if not in Paradise, at all events as near as you are ever likely to be on this earth. This is literally true, for half way between "Flistridge" and Kemble Wood, and in the midst of Elysian grass fields, is a narrow strip of covert happily christened "Paradise."
Would that there was a larger extent of this sort of country, for it is not every Friday that hounds cross it! The duke's hounds have a happy knack of crossing it occasionally on a Monday, however, and on Thursdays Mr. Miller's hounds may drive a fox that way.
This district is not so easy for a stranger to ride his own line over as the Midlands; it is not half so stiff, but it is often cramped and trappy. But then you must "look before you leap" in most countries nowadays. In this Friday country wire is comparatively scarce. The fields run very large on this day,--quite two hundred horsemen are to be seen at favourite fixtures. About half this number would belong to the country, and the other half come from the duke's country and elsewhere. These Friday fields are as well mounted and well appointed as any in England. And to see a run one must have a good horse,--not necessarily an expensive one, for "good" and "expensive" are by no means synonymous terms with regard to horseflesh. It is with regret that we must add that foxes were decidedly scarce here last season (1897-8).
On Saturdays the Cirencester brigade will hunt with Mr. Miller. Fairford, Lechlade, Kempsford, and Water-Eaton are some of the meets. Here we have a totally different country from any yet considered. It is a wonderfully sporting one; and last season these hounds never had a bad Saturday, and often a 'clinker' resulted. Here again one can never anticipate what sort of ground will be traversed; but the best of it consists of a fine open country of grass and plough intermingled, the fields being intersected by small flying fences and exceptionally wide and deep ditches. "Snowstorm"--a small gorse half way between Fairford and Lechlade stations on the Great Western Railway--is a favourite draw. If a fox goes away you see men sitting down in their saddles and cramming at the fences as hard as their horses can gallop. There appears to be nothing to jump until you are close up to the fence; but nevertheless pace is required to clear them, for there is hardly a ditch anywhere round "Snowstorm" that is not ten feet wide and eight feet or more deep, and if you are unlucky your horse may have to clear fourteen feet. On the other hand, there is absolutely nothing that a horse going fast cannot clear almost without an effort if he jumps at all. So you may ride in confidence at every fence, and take it where you please. The depth of the ditch is what frightens a timid horse and, I may add, a timid rider; and if your horse stops dead, and then tries to jump it standing, you are very apt to tumble in.