CHAPTER V.
RUNNING AWAY.—THREE DANGEROUS ADVENTURES.—HOW TO ACT WHEN PLACED IN CIRCUMSTANCES OF PERIL.—HOW TO RIDE A PULLER.—THROUGH THE CITY.—TO A MEET OF HOUNDS.—BOASTFUL LADIES.—A BRAGGART'S RESOURCE.
In the event of a horse running away, you must of course be guided by circumstances and surroundings, but my advice always is, if you have a fair road before you, let him go. Do not attempt to hold him in, for the support which you afford him with the bridle only helps the mischief. Leave his head quite loose, and when you feel him beginning to tire—which he will soon do without the support of the rein—flog him until he is ready to stand still. I warrant that a horse treated thus, especially if you can breast him up hill, will rarely run away a second time. He never forgets his punishment, nor seeks to put himself in for a repetition of it.
I have been run away with three times in my life, but never a second time by the same horse. It may amuse you to hear how I escaped upon each occasion.
The first time, I was riding a beautiful little thoroughbred mare, which a dear lady friend—now, alas! dead—had asked me to try for her. The mare had been a flat-racer, and, having broken down in one of her trials, had been purchased at a cheap rate, being still possessed of beauty and a considerable turn of speed.
Well, we got on splendidly together for an hour or so on the fifteen acres, Phœnix Park, but, when returning homewards, some boys who were playing close by struck her with a ball on the leg. In a second she was off like the wind, tearing down the long road which leads from the Phœnix to the gates. She had the bit between her teeth, and held it like a vice. My only fear was lest she should lose her footing and fall, for the roadway was covered from edge to edge with new shingle. On she went in her mad career, amidst the shrieks of thousands, for the day was Easter Monday, and the park was crowded. Soldiers, civilians, lines of policemen strove to form a barrier for her arrest. In vain! She knocked down some, fled past others, and continued her headlong course.
All this time I was sitting as if glued to my saddle. At the mare's first starting I had endeavoured to pull her up, but finding that this was hopeless, I left the rein loose upon her neck. Having then no support for her head, she soon tired, and the instant I felt her speed relaxing I took up my whip and punished her within an inch of her life. I made her go when she wanted to stop, and only suffered her to pull up just within the gates, where she stood covered with foam and trembling in every limb.
Her owner subsequently told me that during the three years which she afterwards kept her she never rode so biddable a mare.
I must not forget to mention the comic side of the adventure as well as the more serious. It struck me as being particularly ludicrous upon that memorable occasion that an old gentleman, crimson with wrath, actually attacked my servant in the most irate manner because he had not clattered after me during the progress of the mare's wild career. "How dare you, sir," cried this irascible old gentleman, "how dare you attempt to neglect your young lady in this cowardly manner?" Nor was his anger at all appeased when informed that I as a matron was my own care-taker, and that my attendant had strict injunctions not to follow me in the event of my horse being startled or running away.