throughout england, and especially in leicestershire and northamptonshire, there are two descriptions of brooks. in one the water is about a foot or two below the level of the green fields through which it peacefully meanders. in the other, though deep enough to drown a man, it flows and occasionally rushes ten or twelve feet below the surface, between two loamy banks as perpendicular as the wall of a house. if a red, brown, or black coat, attended by a pair of leather, kersey, or corduroy breeches, ending in boots, plunge together into the first, they simply go in dry and come out wet. but, if a horse fails to clear the chasm, he is liable not only to fall backwards upon these articles of apparel, but afterwards, quite unintentionally, to strike their owner during the awkward struggles of both animals to swim.
now, although to some of our readers it may possibly appear that the act of riding over "a bit of water" of the latter description has no legal claim to be included in the schedule headed "the pleasures and amusements of man," yet it may most truly be said that in a good run, or even in a bad one, there exists nothing that gives an ordinary rider more intense pleasure than the sight, say a quarter of a mile before him, of those well-known willows that indicate to him the line of beauty of the brook he is shortly to have the enjoyment 55of encountering—provided always that he knows his horse to be, what is justly called, "good at water." on the other hand, it would be quite impossible to describe into how very small a compass the same man's heart would gradually collapse, as it approached the very same brook, on what is just as truly termed "a brute at water." in any other description of fence the rider, if he has not ruined his horse's courage by vacillation of hand or heart, may confidently rely that he will accomplish it for him if he can, and if it cannot be accomplished, that he will try to jump through or over it, or, generally speaking, a good deal more than humanity dares to ride at.
if the bull-finch be too strong, the hunter may stick in it, or forcing through it into the ditch on the other side, may leave his owner hanging like a bird's-nest in its branches. an ox-fence—composed of two ditches, a bank, a pair of hedges, and a stiff, low, oak rail—may altogether prove too broad to be cleared. timber also may be too high to be topped; yet, in all these cases, if the rider be but willing, the noble horse is always ready, ay, eager, to do his very best, and many a broken back and prostrate carcase, divested of its saddle and bridle, has been the melancholy result; and yet, with all this superabundance of high courage, almost every horse instinctively dislikes to jump water, an element which (until by a good rider it has been unbewitched) he appears to conceive to56 be forbidden to him to cross. for this reason, before a sportsman can ride with confidence at a brook, he requires not only a stout horse, but to know what sort of a heart lived beneath the waistcoat of the man by whom the animal was last hunted, for however badly bred he may be, he may have been made bold at water; while, on the other hand, however high-bred and handsome he may appear, however splendidly and cleverly he may throughout the run have been crossing single and double fences of every variety, yet, by an irresolute pair of hands, he may have been spoiled at water. accordingly, when a gallant fox, followed after a short interval by a pack of hounds and a large scattered body of men and horses, passing like the shadows of summer clouds over the beautiful green sward of northamptonshire, glide rapidly towards a brook, there occasionally appears among several of them a sudden transmigration of hearts and bodies, which to a foreigner, who did not understand the reason, would appear to be utterly inexplicable.
although ten or twelve horses, gallantly taking it in their stride, have proved the jump to be an easy one, two or three of the foremost riders are seen to pull up, apparently afraid. in like manner, as horses and horsemen who had been riding boldly approach, it becomes evident to the meanest capacity, that the peg that holds in their steam is getting—sometimes in the biped, sometimes in the quadruped, and sometimes in both—looser and looser57 as they advance. the gallop is observed gradually to faint into a canter, which, as they approach the water, gets slower and slower, until souse! souse! souse! they one after the other blunder into it.
while a horse here is swimming, and there is struggling, and while a human head with handsome aristocratic features and black lank hair looking like that of don quixote when drenched with curds and whey, is seen rising in agony from below, two little thick-set, short-thighed men in scarlet, who throughout the run had been shirking many a small fence, cross the brook with terrific courage. that thoroughbred-mare, which has been clearing everything, swerves, while the ugly brute in her wake bucks over what she had refused as if he enjoyed the fun, which he really does. see! at what a tremendous pace this splendid-looking bay horse is galloping towards his doom. both spurs are in his sides; the slight waving movement of the arms and shoulders of his fearless rider, and the firm grip of his hands, as he draws upon first one side of the bit and then the other, appear altogether to insure success. as soon, however, as the well-known rogue gets sight of the glare of the water, though his head is in such a vice that it is out of his power to swerve, and though his pace is such that it is utterly impossible for him to stop, yet, as if all his four legs were suddenly paralysed by fear, the high-bred sinner, all of a sudden, refuses to lift them, and accordingly, for thirty or forty58 feet, leaving behind a track like that of a railway, they slide along the wet, rich, loamy turf, until horse, and gallant, glorious charlie[d] dive together, head-foremost, into the brook! in a few minutes, men in coats of all colours, trotting up one after another, walk their horses cautiously to the edge of the chasm, crane over as if to gaze at the frightened frogs that inhabit it, and after thus losing more or less of time they can never live to recover, canter or gallop in different directions in quest either of a bridge or a ford.
now, while this serio-comic picture is before the eyes of our readers, that very small portion of them who have never been actors in such a scene will no doubt be not a little astonished to learn that of all fences on the surface of the globe there is no one that is so easy for a horse to jump as water.
if the footmarks of a good horse that has galloped over turf be measured, it will be found that in every stride his four feet have covered a space of twenty-two feet. if, in cool blood, he be very gently cantered at a common sheep-hurdle, without any ditch on one side of it or the other, it will be found that he has cleared, or rather has not been able to help clearing, from ten to twelve feet. in egypt, an antelope chased by hounds on coming suddenly to a little crack or crevice in the ground caused 59by the heat of the sun, has been observed at a bound to clear thirty feet, and yet, on approaching a high wall, the same animal slackens his pace, stops for a second, and then pops over it. almost any horse, particularly a young one, if cantered at a small prickly furze-hedge, would probably with a little skip rather than a jump clear at least fourteen feet, which in water would form a "brook" that would stop more than half of the large field of riders who in northamptonshire and leicestershire follow the pytchley, quorn, and cottesmore hounds. indeed, it not unfrequently happens that a ditch of glittering water, not seven feet broad, over which every hound has hopped hardly looking at it, will not only stop a number of horses and riders, but in a few minutes will, to the utter disgust and astonishment of the latter, contain several of them.
to prevent, however, this unnecessary and apparently discreditable botheration, all that is necessary is for the rider to overcome and overrule the instinctive aversion which his horse, and possibly he himself, have to jump water.
if, during a run with hounds, a young horse, that has never seen a brook, going a good pace, without receiving from the hands of his rider any tremulous check, arrives at, say a low hedge, on the other side of which he suddenly sees a wide expanse of water, he is quite sure to clear it; and having thus broken the spell, if he be after60wards only fairly ridden, he will probably require no other instruction. if, however, as but too often is the case, on arriving at water that can be jumped favourably at a particular place, a young horse is obliged to wait for his turn, and during that awful pause sees some hunters refuse, and others splash in and flounder, he naturally combines together theory and practice, and accordingly, when called upon, refuses to do what he has always instinctively considered to be wrong; and as, generally speaking, it is impossible at that moment to force him, the run is lost.
under this state of the case, the master of the culprit on some fine non-hunting day, armed with spurs and a cut-whip, should conduct him to any ugly-looking little ditch, not above half a dozen feet broad (for it is the quality and not the quantity of the shining element that creates his fear), and then, carefully abstaining to excite his courage, ride him at it very slowly and timidly, on purpose to ensure his refusing it, which, of course, he is quite certain to do. after once again leading him into this trap, a duel, perfectly harmless to the biped, must be fought. it may last ten minutes, a quarter, half an hour, or possibly two hours; but, sooner or later, the little misunderstanding is certain to end in the rebel all of a sudden doing willingly, and then repeating five or six times, what, after all, was nothing at all for him61 to do; and from that moment, if he be only fairly "handled," he will remember, whenever he sees water, the lesson which taught him that it was made on purpose to be crossed.
to maintain and encourage this doctrine, on coming in sight of a brook, his courage, by very gentle touches of the spur, should be excited, while, by pulling harder and harder at the bridle, his speed inversely should be slightly diminished, until he arrives within about eighty yards, when, gradually relaxing the reins, and yet grasping them so firmly that it is impossible for him to swerve, his pace should always be made to freshen as he proceeds, until on arriving at the brink it has attained its maximum. in short, in riding at a brook, a horse should be taught to feel that no choice will be given to him to go in or over, but that over he must go, for want of time to jump in.
by this simple management a horse will very soon learn not only to rush at water, but to enjoy the very sight of it; and as his rider can then trust implicitly to his honour, we end as we almost began, by stating that, although there exists no obstruction in a run that creates so many sorrows as water, there is no fence that is so easy for a horse to jump, if he will but try; in fact on coming to it at the top of his speed, if he will only hop upwards a few feet, his momentum cannot fail to62 carry him across; whereas, if in approaching it he slackens his speed, nine times out of ten he may safely be booked to be "in."
[d]the honourable c. c.
