One precious whole afternoon off, a very rare event, I went out for a ride with Captain D. He rode "Baby," a little bay mare, and I rode a grey, a darling, with perfect manners and the "sweetest" mouth in the world. He was devoted to "Baby," and wherever she went he went too, as surely as Mary's little lamb. We struck off the road on to some grass and after cantering along for some distance found we were in a network of small canals--the ground was very spongy and the canal ahead of us fortunately not as wide as the rest. We got over safely, landing in deep mud on the other side, and decided our best plan was to make for the road again. We espied a house at the end of the strip we were in with a road beyond, and agreed that there must be a bridge or something leading to it. Captain D. went off at a canter and I saw Baby break into a startled gallop as a train steamed up on the line beyond the road. They disappeared behind the house and I followed on at a canter. I turned the corner just in time to see them almost wholly immersed in a wide canal and the gallant Captain crawling over Baby's head on to the bank! It was one of those deceptive spots where half the water was overgrown with thick weeds and cress, making the place appear as narrow again. The grey was of course hot on Baby's track. Seeing her plight I naturally pulled up, but he resented this strongly and rose straight on his hind legs. Fearing he would over-balance, I quickly slacked the reins and leant forward on his neck. But it was too late; that slippery mud was no place to try and regain a foothold, and over he came. I just had time to slip off sideways, promptly lost my foothold and collapsed as well. How I laughed! There was Captain D. on one side of the canal vainly trying to capture his "wee red tourie" floating down stream, and Baby standing by with the mud dripping from her once glossy flanks; and on the other was I, sitting laughing helplessly in the mud, and the grey (now almost brown) softly nosing my cap and eyeing his beloved on the further bank with pained surprise! To crown all, the train, which had come to a standstill, was by the irony of fate full of Scottish soldiers on their way up the line. Such a bit of luck in the shape of a free cinema show had rarely come their way and they were bent on enjoying it to the fullest extent. The fact that the officer now standing ruefully on the bank was in Tartan riding "troos" of course added to the piquancy of the situation. The woman had come out of her cottage by this time and kept exclaiming at intervals, "Oh, la-la, Oh, la-la," probably imagining that this mudbath was only a new pastime of the mad English. She at last was kind enough to open the gate; and thither I led the grey and then across a plank bridge beyond, previously hidden from sight.