nto the trench, and twice I thought the mare would land
herself and me on top of one of them. I don't wonder she was frightened.
I know I was. There was nothing between us and a hundred-foot drop but
this narrow trench and a low, rotten fence, and the fool behaved as
though she wanted to jump it all. I hope no one will ever erect an
equestrian statue in my honour; now that I have experienced the
sensation of ramping over nothing, I find I dislike it. I believe I
might have been there now, but just then a couple of hounds came up, and
before I knew what she was at, the filly had jumped down after them into
the trench as if she had been doing it all her life. I was not long
about picking the others up; the filly could gallop anyhow, and we
thundered on over ground where, had I been on foot, I should have liked
a guide and an alpenstock. At intervals we jumped things made of sharp
stones, and slates, and mud; I don't know whether they were banks or
walls. Sometimes the horses changed feet on them, sometimes they flew
the whole affair, according to their individual judgment. Sometimes we
were splashing over sedgy patches that looked and felt like buttered
toast, sometimes floundering through stuff resembling an ill-made
chocolate souffle, whether intended for a ploughed field or a partially
drained bog-hole I could not determine, and all was fenced as carefully
as cricket-pitches. Presently the hounds took a swing to the left and
over the edge of the hill again, and our leader Jerry turned sharp off
after them, down a track that seemed to have been dug out of the face of
the hill. I should have liked to get off and lead, but they did not
give me time, and we suddenly found ourselves joined to Robert Trinder
and his company of infantry, all going hard for the oak wood that I
mentioned before.

It was pretty to see the yellow horse jump. Nothing came amiss to him,
and he didn't seem able to make a mistake. There was a stone stile out
of a bohireen that stopped every one, and he changed feet on the flag on
top and went down by the steps on the other side. No one need believe
this unless they like, but I saw him do it. The country boys were most
exhilarating. How they got there I don't know, but they seemed to spring
up before us wherever we went. They cheered every jump, they pulled away
the astounding obstacles that served as gates (such as the end of an
iron bedstead, a broken harrow, or a couple of cartwheels), and their
po