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Transcriber's Note

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A list of corrections
is found at the end of the text. Oe ligatures have been expanded.




[Illustration: Frontispiece Page 123.]




  RIDING RECOLLECTIONS.


  BY
  G. J. WHYTE-MELVILLE.


  _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY EDGAR GIBERNE._


  FIFTH EDITION.


  LONDON:
  CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
  1878.


  [_All Rights Reserved._]




  LONDON:
  R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,
  BREAD STREET HILL.




Dedicated,

ON BEHALF OF "THE BRIDLED AND SADDLED,"

TO THE

"BOOTED AND SPURRED."




CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER I.                                PAGE
  KINDNESS                                     3

  CHAPTER II.
  COERCION                                    13

  CHAPTER III.
  THE USE OF THE BRIDLE                       34

  CHAPTER IV.
  THE ABUSE OF THE SPUR                       59

  CHAPTER V.
  HAND                                        72

  CHAPTER VI.
  SEAT                                        94

  CHAPTER VII.
  VALOUR                                     109

  CHAPTER VIII.
  DISCRETION                                 126

  CHAPTER IX.
  IRISH HUNTERS                              144

  CHAPTER X.
  THOROUGH-BRED HORSES                       163

  CHAPTER XI.
  RIDING TO FOX-HOUNDS                       180

  CHAPTER XII.
  RIDING _at_ STAG-HOUNDS                    203

  CHAPTER XIII.
  THE PROVINCES                              220

  CHAPTER XIV.
  THE SHIRES                                 235




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


                                                                    PAGE

  The Dorsetshire farmer's plan of teaching horses to jump timber      8

  "If he should drop his hind legs, _shoot_ yourself off over his
    shoulders in an instant, with a fast hold of the bridle, at which
    tug hard, even though you may not have regained your legs"        32

  "Lastly, when it gets upon Bachelor, or Benedict, or Othello, or
    any other high-flyer with a suggestive name, it sails away close,
    often too close, to the hounds leaving brothers, husbands, even
    admirers, hopelessly in the rear"               (_Frontispiece_) 123

  "Perhaps we find an easy place under a tree, with an overhanging
    branch, and sidle daintily up to it, bending the body and
    lowering the head as we creep through, to the admiration of an
    indiscreet friend on a rash horse who spoils a good hat and
    utters an evil execration, while trying to follow our example"   138

  "When we canter anxiously up to a sign-post where four roads meet,
    with a fresh and eager horse indeed, but not the wildest notion
    towards which point of the compass we should direct his energies,
    we can but stop to listen, take counsel of a countryman, &c."    193

  At bay                                                             208

  "'Come up horse!' and having admonished that faithful servant with
    a dig in the ribs from his horn, blows half-a-dozen shrill blasts
    in quick succession, sticks the instrument, I shudder to confess
    it, in his boot, and proceeds to hustle his old white nag at the
    best pace he can command in the wake of his favourites"          225

  "The King of the Golden Mines"                                     242




RIDING RECOLLECTIONS.



RIDING RECOLLECTIONS.


As in the choice of a horse and a wife a man must please himself,
ignoring the opinion and advice of friends, so in the governing of each
it is unwise to follow out any fixed system of discipline. Much depends
on temper, education, mutual understanding and surrounding
circumstances. Courage must not be heated to recklessness, caution
should be implied rather than exhibited, and confidence is simply a
question of time and place. It is as difficult to explain by precept or
demonstrate by example how force, balance, and persuasion ought to be
combined in horsemanship, as to teach the art of floating in the water
or swimming on the back. Practice in either case alone makes perfect,
and he is the most apt pupil who brings to his lesson a good opinion of
his own powers and implicit