I never felt any charm at the gates in Cambridgeshire; they are quite insignificant compared with those in Yorkshire. Big timber was never my forte, but it would have been a very curious place that stopped me. I always found some way of negotiating an obstacle. I could go in and out, off and on, top a fence, kick back, bore through, and climb like a cat. I have trotted across a single plank over a stream, and jumped a stile at the end of it. I have followed my master on a single foot-bridge over a ravine, wriggling through a V-stile at each end, and could hold my own among the wild hills and moors of Cleveland, or in the most cramped of countries. I remember once in a run charging a bullfinch, which had on the far side a strong high post and rails, some nine feet from the fence. I knew I should have to make some sort of a try. It was too high to jump, there was no room, and I was not heavy enough to break it, so I just reared up, got my fore-end well over, and trailed my hind-legs after me, only leaving a few hairs on the top rail. After that, my owner always said that I could go anywhere where a man could get. In 1880, both my master and I considered our education complete, and with all the confidence of youth believed that no one could teach us anything. After twenty years, however, I expect we are both inclined to think that at the end of the longest life we can only hope to know a little of the world we live in. I have always regretted never having seen one of the big grass countries. I am sure I was fast enough and could “go on,” but I daresay my master was right in thinking me undersized (being only 15.3) for facing big fences continuously; and though I was able to jump big and wide, when it was necessary, I do not know that I could have kept it up, and have never considered myself as likely to be able to compete with real Leicestershire hunters. As soon as we went down from Cambridge, my master got married, and, towards the end of the following season, I was advanced to carrying his wife. This I did for four years, during the time as often carrying my master; and I can say that throughout those years I never once made a mistake or gave either of them a fall. I can boast that I am the only hunter my master ever possessed of which he could say this. At the end of my fourth season with the Cleveland, my fore-legs were beginning to show work. At last I fell on landing over a gate, and the week following on landing over an ordinary fence, so I was withdrawn from active service and had a year’s repose. I was then taken up again and did a month’s cub-hunting, and three days after the opening meet. But this was the end of my hunting career, for after a fifty minutes’ hard run, in which I was kept to the front, I was so lame that there was no choice but to superannuate me, as far as hunting was concerned.