Of course in the hunting-field he is the veriest impostor that ever got on a horse, never, if he can possibly help it, leaving the glorious safety of the hard highway. Yet the description of the run as told by him in the evening fairly takes your breath away, and, supposing you to be a stranger, makes you feel that you have come into a country the like of which you have never seen.
Sheep-hurdles are (according to Mr. Story) five-barred gates, the smallest ditch a veritable river; and as he turns to some one or the other guest at his table and says: "Did you notice that horse I was riding to-day? Deuced clever animal, I can tell you. Jumped a double post and rails with about twelve foot of water on the far side, and made nothing of them, 'pon my honour!" you wonder whether there are many fences of the same species to be encountered, or many horses with the same supreme contempt for them to be picked up in Bullshire.
Once in his life he did jump a brook, and it is even betting that before you have been long in his presence he will tell you all about it, though his version of the occurrence differs slightly from that of those who saw it.
They had been having a very slow hunting-run on a cold scent, barely out of a trot most of the time, the hounds picking it out inch by inch, and at last they came to a dead lock in a field, round two-thirds of which ran the Marston brook. Mr. Story, who had been as usual very prominent in the centre of the road, which ran conveniently adjacent, thought he might as well turn into the field through the gate, which he did.
Unfortunately for him there was a bull in the corner, which neither he nor anyone else had noticed, and just as the gate swung to and latched again, the hounds hit off the line and went over the brook. At the same moment the bull, having lashed himself into a rage, and maddened by the cry of the hounds, singled out Story's red coat and charged down on him. This startled his gallant steed. Away he went, followed by the bull, and, to everyone's intense astonishment and amusement, Story was seen on his horse's neck well over the water.
He himself will tell you that he cut the whole field down--"Pounded them, sir, on my honour, at the brook;" but the real facts of the case are those I have just narrated.