On one occasion I was very rudely made aware of this trait.  It was a fine fleet young boar we were after, and we had had a long chase, but were now overhauling him fast.  I had a good horse under me, and ‘Jamie’ and ‘Giblets’ were riding neck and neck.  There was a small mango orchard in front surrounded by the usual ditch and bank.  It was nothing of a leap; the boar took it with ease, and we could just see him top the bank not twenty spear lengths ahead.  I was slightly leading, and full of eager anxiety and emulation.  Jamie called on me to pull up, but I was too excited to mind him.  I saw him and Giblets each take an outward wheel about, and gallop off to catch the boar coming out of the cluster of trees on the far side, as I thought.  I could not see him, but I made no doubt he was in full flight through the trees.  There was plenty of riding room between the rows, so lifting my game little horse at the bank, I felt my heart bound with emulation as I thought I was certain to come up first, and take the spear from two such noted heroes as my companions.  I came up with the pig first, sure enough. He was waiting for me, and scarce giving my horse time to recover his stride after the jump, he came rushing at me, every bristle erect, with a vicious grunt of spite and rage.  My spear was useless, I had it crosswise on my horse’s neck; I intended to attack first, and finding my enemy turning the tables on me in this way was rather disconcerting.  I tried to turn aside and avoid the charge, but a branch caught me across the face, and knocked my puggree off.  In a trice the savage little brute was on me.  Leaping up fairly from the ground, he got the heel of my riding boot in his mouth, and tore off the sole from the boot as if it had been so much paper.  Jamie and Giblets were sitting outside watching the scene, laughing at my discomfiture.  Fortunately the boar had poor tusks, and my fine little horse was unhurt, but I got out of that orchard as fast as I could, and ever after hesitated about attacking a boar when he had got a bank or ditch between him and me, and was waiting for me on the other side.  The far better plan is to wait till he sees you are not pressing him, he then goes off at a surly sling trot, and you can resume the chase with every advantage in your favour.  When the blood however is fairly up, and all one’s sporting instincts roused, it is hard to listen to the dictates of prudence or the suggestions of caution and experience.

The very same day we had another instance.  My manager, ‘Young Mac,’ as we called him, had started a huge old boar.  He was just over the boar, and about to deliver his thrust, when his horse stumbled in a rat hole (it was very rotten ground), and came floundering to earth, bringing his rider with him.  Nothing daunted, Mac picked himself up, lost the horse, but so eager and excited was he, that he continued the chase on foot, calling to some of us to catch his horse while he stuck his boar.