One of the most useful things for a woman to learn, is to be able to get on her horse off the ground by herself. If you cannot do this, you are so utterly dependent on the kindness of the long-suffering man. It is very easy to learn, if you have any spring in your body. You simply put your left foot in the stirrup, catch hold of the cantle of your saddle with your left hand, and the pommel and reins in your right, and up you go. Be careful, however, not to knock up the flap over the stirrup bar, if it be a safety, in doing this, or out it will come, and down you will flop again. Of course the main thing is, that your horse should stand still and allow you to mount. A horse is generally so tactless about this, he will fidget and dance and never give you a chance, but, by taking the off reins up short in your left hand, you have at least so much control over his curvetting, that by pulling his head away, you make him turn his body and saddle towards you. But mind in doing this he does not trample on your toes, which he is very likely to do.
Of course you should always try to get your horse on lower ground than yourself, and if he is still too high, you must let down the stirrup until you can reach it. Always try and sandwich your horse between yourself and a fence or house, so that he cannot revolve round and round, as they are so fond of doing at the critical moment. Try, also, not to tickle or kick him with your toe, after it is in the stirrup, as that will probably induce him to kick you off before you are safely on.
It is really a marvel how few men can jump a woman on to her horse properly, and how few women go up as they should. The operation is quite easy, if only the man can be persuaded to stand still and merely give his hand a little heave upwards. The majority of men who do not know, no sooner feel the foot on their hand than they count hard and run backwards towards the horse's head, carrying the unfortunate woman's foot with them. Thus, instead of sending her up, dragging her down till the whole thing ends in a wild struggle, she clinging round the pommels with her chest, chin, and arms. Too degrading an exhibition. If the man will stand still and take it quietly, and if the woman will just spring off her right leg and straighten her left knee, she will arrive in her saddle gracefully and lightly, and the man will not have felt her weight at all. It is best to come to a thorough understanding with the man before you begin, as to when he expects you to spring. If this is to be when he counts three, or as soon as your foot is in his hand? Do not in any case allow him to have hold of the hem of your skirt with your foot. Unless this is free it will hold you down, and a sort of Jack-in-the-box-performance will begin. You spring and the man's hand remains inert, then he jerks up your left foot when you are standing stolidly on the right, and generally the end of all is that you arrive in a heap on your saddle, and finish by kicking the man in the face.
How to have a quick eye to hounds? Yes, how? But I do not know. It is a gift which few have, and most people have not. To keep looking out for the hounds in front and all round if you are not seeing them, and to keep your eye on the leading hounds if you are in that lucky position, to notice every turn and be quick to turn with them, to cut off the corners and go the shortest way, a sort of anticipation without anticipating, that is all I can say about it. Never ride exactly behind the hounds, as if they check you are thus sure to hustle them on over the line and incur the wrath of the huntsman besides spoiling your own sport and everybody else's. Ride either to one side or the other of the pack, down wind for choice, about forty yards in their wake, so as to give hounds plenty of room to swing or stop, should they come to a check.
As there is hardly one woman in fifty or a hundred who can go her own line and pick her way all through a run—or perhaps it would be more courteous to say I do not know many who, if put down in a country on an ordinary hunter alone with the hounds, could find their way into and out of ten fields in succession; it is as well for most women to have a pilot. First, though, ascertain that the man is willing to accept this onerous position. Then be careful to give him room, not to ride in his pocket or get in his way, and above all things to give him time at his fences to land or fall without jumping on him.
MISS SERRELL ON COLLEEN.
When you have once chosen your pilot, obey him. If at a gate or in a crowd, or for any other reason, even if you do not understand it, he should want you to go first, Go! Nip through quickly and quietly, and don't keep others waiting whatever you do. Take your turn whenever it comes, and take every chance that offers without hanging back, which hinders other people, and without hustling, which annoys them. In fact, if after you have achieved being quiet out hunting you succeed in being quick, you will have begun to grasp the situation.