VALOUR.
"He that would venture nothing must not get on horseback," says a
Spanish proverb, and the same caution seems applicable to most manly
amusements or pursuits. We cannot enter a boat, put on a pair of skates,
take a gun in hand for covert shooting, or even run downstairs in a
hurry without encountering risk; but the amount of peril to which a
horseman subjects himself seems proportioned inversely to the
unconsciousness of it he displays.
"Where there is no fear there is no danger," though a somewhat reckless
aphorism, is more applicable, I think, to the exercise of riding than to
any other venture of neck and limbs. The horse is an animal of
exceedingly nervous temperament, sympathetic too, in the highest degree,
with the hand from which he takes his instructions. Its slightest
vacillation affects him with electric rapidity, but from its steadiness
he derives moral encouragement rather than physical support, and on
those rare occasions when his own is insufficient, he seems to borrow
daring and resolution from his rider.
If the man's heart is in the right place, his horse will seldom fail
him; and were we asked to name the one essential without which it is
impossible to attain thorough proficiency in the saddle, we should not
hesitate to say nerve.
_Nerve_, I repeat, in contradistinction to _pluck_. The latter takes us
into a difficulty, the former brings us out of it. Both are comprised in
the noble quality we call emphatically valour, but while the one is a
brilliant and imposing costume, so is the other an honest wear-and-tear
fabric, equally fit for all weathers, fine and foul.
"You shiver, Colonel--you are afraid," said an insubordinate Major, who
ought to have been put under arrest then and there, to his commanding
officer on the field of Prestonpans. "I _am_ afraid, sir," answered the
Colonel; "and if you were as much afraid as I am, _you would run away_!"
I have often thought this improbable anecdote exemplifies very clearly
that most meritorious of all courage which asserts the dominion of our
will over our senses. The Colonel's answer proves he was full of valour.
He had lots of pluck, but as he was bold enough to admit, a deficiency
of nerve.
Now the field of Diana happily requires but a slight per-centage of
daring and resolution compared with the field of Mars. I heard the late
Sir Francis Head, distinguished as a soldier, a statesman, an author,
and a sportsman, put the matter in a few words, very tersely--and
exceedingly to the point. "Under fire," said he, "there is a
guinea's-worth of danger, but it comes to you. In the hunting-field,
there is only three-ha'p 'orth, but _you go to it_!" In both cases, the
courage required is a mere question of degree, and as in war, so in the
chase, he is most likely to distinguish himself whose daring, not to be
dismayed, is tempered with coolness, whose heart is always stout and
hopeful, while he never loses his head.
Now as I understand the terms pluck and nerve, I conceive the first to
be a moral quality, the result of education, sentiment, self-respect,
and certain high aspirations of the intellect; the second, a gift of
nature dependent on the health, the circulation, and the liver. As
memory to imagination in the student, so is nerve to pluck in the
horseman. Not the more brilliant quality, nor the more captivating, but
sound, lasting, available for all emergencies, and sure to conquer in
the long run.
We will suppose two sportsmen are crossing a country equally well
mounted, and each full of valour to the brim. A, to quote his admiring
friends, "has the pluck of the devil!" B, to use a favourite expression
of the saddle-room, "has a good nerve." Both are bound to come to grief
over some forbidding rails at a corner, the only way out, in the line
hounds are running, and neither has any more idea of declining than had
poor Lord Strathmore on a similar occasion when Jem Mason halloaed to
him, "Eternal misery on this side my lord, and certain death on the
other!" So they harden their hearts, sit down in their saddles, and this
is what happens:--
A's horse, injudiciously sent at the obstacle, _because_ it is awkward,
a turn too fast, slips in taking off, and strikes the top-rail, which
neither bends nor breaks, just below its knees. A flurried snatch at the
bridle pulls its head in the air, and throws the animal skilfully to the
ground at the moment it most requires perfect freedom for a desperate
effort to keep on its legs. Rider and horse roll over in an "imperial
crowner," and rise to their feet looking wildly about them, totally
disconnected, and five or six yards apart.
This is not encouraging for B, who is obliged to follow, inasmuch as
the place only offers room for one at a time, but as soon as his leader
is out of the way, he comes steadily and quietly at the leap. His horse
too, slips in the tracks of its fallen comrade, but as it is going in a
more collected form, it contrives to get its fore-legs over the
impediment, which catches it, however, inside the hocks, so that,
balancing for a moment, it comes heavily on its nose. During these
evolutions, B sits motionless in the saddle, giving the animal complete
liberty of rein. An instinct of self-preservation and a good pair of
shoulders turn the scale at the last moment, and although there is no
denying they "had a squeak for it" in the scramble, B and his horse come
off without a fall.
Now it was pluck that took both these riders into the difficulty, but
nerve that extricated one of them without defeat.
I am not old enough to have seen the famous Mr. Assheton Smith in the
hunting-field, but many of my early Leicestershire friends could
remember him perfectly at his best, when he hunted that fine and
formidable country, with the avowed determination, daily carried out,
_of going into every field with his hounds_!
The expenditure of valour, for it really deserves the name necessary to
carry out such a style of riding can only be appreciated by those who
have tried to keep in a good place during thirty or forty minutes, over
any part of the Quorn and Cottesmore counties lying within six miles of
Billesdon. Where should we be but for the gates? I think I may answer,
neither there nor thereabouts! I have reason to believe the many stories
told of "Tom Smith's" skill and daring are little, if at all,
exaggerated. He seems admitted by all to have been the boldest, as he
was one of the best, horsemen that ever got into a saddle with a
hunting-whip in his hand.
Though subsequently a man of enormous wealth, in the prime of life, he
lived on the allowance, adequate but not extravagant, made him by his
father, and did by no means give those high prices for horses, which, on
the principle that "money makes the mare to go," are believed by many
sportsmen to ensure a place in the front rank. He entertained no fancies
as to size, action, above all, peculiarities in mouths and tempers.
Little or big, sulky, violent, or restive, if a horse could gallop and
jump, he was a hunter the moment he found himself between the legs of
Tom Smith.
There is a namesake of his hunting at present from Melton, who seems to
have taken several leaves out of his book. Captain Arthur Smith, with
every advantage of weight, nerve, skill, seat, and hand, is never away
from the hounds. Moreover, he always likes his horse, and his horse
always seems to like him. This gentleman, too, is blessed with an
imperturbable temper, which I have been given to understand the squire
of Tedworth was _not_.
Instances of Tom Smith's daring are endless. How characteristic was his
request to a farmer near Glengorse, that he would construct such a fence
as should effectually prevent the field from getting away in too close
proximity to his hounds. "I can make you up a stopper," said the
good-natured yeoman, "and welcome; but what be you to do yourself,
Squire, for I know you like well to be with 'em when they run?"
"Never mind me," was the answer, "you do what I ask you. I never saw a
fence in this country I couldn't get over _with a fall_!" and, sure
enough, the first day the hounds found a fox in that well-known covert,
Tom Smith was seen striding along in the wake of his darlings, having
tumbled neck-and-crop over the obstacle he had demanded, in perfect good
humour and content.
If valour then, is a combination of pluck and nerve, he may be called
the most valorous sportsman that ever got upon a horse, while affording
another example of the partiality with which fortune favours the bold,
for although he has had between eighty and ninety falls in a season, he
was never really hurt, I believe, but once in his life.
"That is a _brave_ man!" I have heard Lord Gardner say in good-humoured
derision, pointing to some adventurous sportsman, whose daring so far
exceeded his dexterity as to bring horse and rider into trouble; but his
lordship's own nerve was so undeniable, that like many others, he may
have undervalued a quality of which he could not comprehend the want.
Most hunting-men, I fancy, will agree with me, that of all obstacles we
meet with in crossing a country, timber draws most largely on the
reserve fund of courage hoarded away in that part of a hero's heart
which is nearest his mouth. The highest rails I ever saw attempted were
ridden at by Lord Gardner some years ago, while out with Mr. Tailby's
hounds near the Ram's Head. With a fair holding scent, and the pack
bustling their fox along over the grass, there was no time for
measurement, but I remember perfectly well that being in the same field,
some fifty yards behind him, and casting longing looks at the fence,
totally impracticable in every part, I felt satisfied the corner he made
for was simply an impossibility.
"We had better turn round and go home!" I muttered in my despair.
The leap consisted of four strong rails, higher than a horse's withers,
an approach down hill, a take-off poached by cattle, and a landing into
a deep muddy lane. I can recall at this moment, the beautiful style in
which my leader brought his horse to its effort. Very strong in the
saddle, with the finest hands in the world, leaning far back, and
sitting well down, he seemed to rouse as it were, and concentrate the
energies of the animal for its last half-stride, when, rearing itself
almost perpendicularly, it contrived to get safe over, only breaking the
top rail with a hind leg.
This must have lowered the leap by at least a foot, yet when I came to
it, thus reduced, and "made easy," it was still a formidable obstacle,
and I felt thankful to be on a good jumper.
Of late years I have seen Mr. Powell, who is usually very well mounted,
ride over exceedingly high and forbidding timber so persistently, as to
have earned from that material, the _nom de chasse_ by which he is known
amongst his friends.
But perhaps the late Lord Cardigan, the last of the Brudenells,
afforded in the hunting-field, as in all other scenes of life, the most
striking example of that "pluck" which is totally independent of youth,
health, strength, or any other physical advantage. The courage that in
advanced middle-age governed the steady manoeuvres of Bulganak, and
led the death-ride at Balaclava, burned bright and fierce to the end.
The graceful seat might be less firm, the tall soldier-like figure less
upright, but Mars, one of his last and best hunters, was urged to charge
wood and water by the same bold heart at seventy, that tumbled Langar
into the Uppingham road over the highest gate in Leicestershire at
twenty-six. The foundation of Lord Cardigan's whole character was
valour. He loved it, he prized it, he admired it in others, he was
conscious and proud of it in himself.
So jealous was he of this chivalrous quality, that even in such a matter
of mere amusement as riding across a country, he seemed to attach some
vague sense of disgrace to the avoidance of a leap, however dangerous,
if hounds were running at the time, and was notorious for the
recklessness with which he would plunge into the deepest rivers though
he could not swim a stroke!
This I think is to court _real_ danger for no sufficient object.
Lord Wolverton, than whom no man has ridden straighter and more
enthusiastically to hounds, ever since he left Oxford, once crossed the
Thames in this most perilous fashion, for he, too, has never learnt to
swim, during a run with "the Queen's." "But," said I, protesting
subsequently against such hardihood, "you were risking your life at
every stroke."
"I never thought of that," was the answer, "till I got safe over, and it
was no use bothering about it then."
Lord Cardigan however, seemed well aware of his danger, and, in my own
recollection, had two very narrow escapes from drowning in these
uncalled-for exploits.
The gallant old cavalry officer's death was in keeping with his whole
career. At threescore years and ten he insisted on mounting a dangerous
animal that he would not have permitted any friend to ride. What
happened is still a mystery. The horse came home without him, and he
never spoke again, though he lived till the following day.
But these are sad reflections for so cheerful a subject as daring in
the saddle. Red is our colour, not black, and, happily, in the sport we
love, there are few casualties calling forth more valour than is
required to sustain a bloody nose, a broken collar-bone, or a sound
ducking in a wet ditch. Yet it is extraordinary how many good fellows
riding good horses find themselves defeated in a gallop after hounds,
from indecision and uncertainty, rather than want of courage, when the
emergency actually arises. Though the danger, according to Sir Francis
Head, is about a hap'orth, it might possibly be valued at a penny, and
nobody wants to discover, in his own person, the exact amount. Therefore
are the chivalry of the Midland Counties to be seen on occasion
panic-stricken at the downfall or disappearance of a leader. And a dozen
feet of dirty water will wholly scatter a field of horsemen who would
confront an enemy's fire without the quiver of an eye-lash. Except
timber, of which the risk is obvious, at a glance, nothing frightens the
_half_-hard, so much as a brook. It is difficult, you see, to please
them, the uncertainty of the limpid impediment being little less
forbidding than the certainty of the stiff!
But it does require dash and coolness, pluck and nerve, a certain spice
of something that may fairly be called valour, to charge cheerfully at a
brook when we have no means of ascertaining its width, its depth, or the
soundness of its banks. Horses too are apt to share the misgivings of
their riders, and water-jumping, like a loan to a poor relation, if not
done freely, had better not be done at all.
The fox, and consequently the hounds, as we know, will usually cross at
the narrowest place, but even if we can mark the exact spot, fences, or
the nature of the ground may prevent our getting there. What are we to
do? If we follow a leader, and he drops short, we are irretrievably
defeated, if we make our own selection, the gulf may be as wide as the
Thames. "Send him at it!" says valour, "and take your chance!" Perhaps
it is the best plan after all. There is something in luck, a good deal
in the reach of a horse's stride at a gallop, and if we _do_ get over,
we _rather_ flatter ourselves for the next mile or two that we have
"done the trick!"
To enter on the subject of "hard riding," as it is called, without
honourable mention of the habit and the side-saddle, would in these days
betray both want of observation and politeness; but ladies, though they
seem to court danger no less freely than admiration, possess, I think,
as a general rule, more pluck than nerve. I can recall an instance very
lately, however, in which I saw displayed by one of the gentlest of her
sex, an amount of courage, coolness, and self-possession, that would
have done credit to a hero. This lady, who had not quite succeeded in
clearing a high post-and-rail with a boggy ditch on the landing side,
was down and under her horse. The animal's whole weight rested on her
legs, so as to keep her in such a position, that her head lay between
its fore and hind feet, where the least attempt at a struggle, hemmed in
by those four shining shoes, must have dashed her brains out. She seemed
in no way concerned for her beauty, or her life, but gave judicious
directions to those who rescued her as calmly and courteously as if she
had been pouring out their tea.
The horse, though in that there is nothing unusual, behaved like an
angel, and the fair rider was extricated without very serious injury;
but I thought to myself, as I remounted and rode on, that if a legion of
Amazons could be rendered amenable to discipline they would conquer the
world.
No man, till he has tried the experiment, can conceive how awkward and
powerless one feels in a lady's seat. They themselves affirm that with
the crutch, or second pommel on the near side, they are more secure than
ourselves; but when I see those delicate, fragile forms flying over wood
and water, poised on precipitous banks, above all, crashing through
strong bullfinches, I am struck with admiration at the mysteries of
nature, among which not the least wonderful seems the feminine desire to
excel. And they _do_ excel when resolved they will, even in those sports
and exercises which seem more naturally belonging to the masculine
department. It was but the other day, a boatman in the Channel told me
he saw a lady swimming alone more than half a mile off shore. Now that
the universal rink has brought skating into fashion, the "many-twinkling
feet," that smoothest glide and turn most deftly, are shod with such
dainty boots as never could be worn by the clumsier sex. At lawn-tennis
the winning service is offered by some seductive hoyden in her teens;
and, although in the game of cricket the Graces have as yet been males,
at no distant day we may expect to see the best batsman at the Oval
bowled out, or perhaps caught by a woman!
Yes, the race is in the ascendant. It takes the heaviest fish,--I mean
_real_ fish--with a rod and line. It kills its grouse right and left--in
the moor among the heather. It shoulders a rifle no heavier than a
pea-shooter, but levels the toy so straight that, after some cunning
stalk, a "stag of ten" goes down before the white hand and taper finger,
as becomes his antlers and his sex. 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.
Now, I hope I am not going to express a sentiment that will offend
their prejudices, and cause young women to call me an old one, but I do
consider that, in these days, ladies who go out hunting _ride a turn too
hard_. Far be it from me to assert that the Field is no place for the
fair; on the contrary, I hold that their presence adds in every respect
to its charms. Neither would I protest against their jumping, and
relegate them to the bridle-roads or lanes. Nothing of the kind. Let the
greatest care be taken in the selection of their horses; let their
saddles and bridles be fitted to such a nicety that sore backs and sore
mouths are equally impossible, and let trustworthy servants be told off
to attend them during the day. Then, with everything in their favour,
over a fair country, fairly fenced, why should they not ride on and take
their pleasure?
But even if their souls disdain to follow a regular pilot (and I may
observe his office requires no little nerve, as they are pretty quick on
to a leader if he gets down), I would entreat them not to try "cutting
out the work," as it is called, but rather to wait and see one rider, at
least, over a leap before they attempt it themselves. It is frightful to
think of a woman landing in a pit, a water-course, or even so deep a
ditch as may cause the horse to roll over her when he falls. With her
less muscular frame she is more easily injured than a man; with her
finer organisation she cannot sustain injury as well. It turns one sick
to think of her dainty head between a horse's hind-legs, or of those
cruel pommels bruising her delicate ribs and bosom. It is at least
twenty to one in _our_ favour every time we fall, whereas with her the
odds are all the other way, and it is almost twenty to one she must be
hurt.
What said the wisest of kings concerning a fair woman without
discretion? We want no Solomon to remind us that with her courage
roused, her ambition excited, all the rivalry of her nature called into
play, she has nowhere more need of this judicious quality than in the
hunting-field.