And very likely there are gates. Judging from statements in novels you
might suppose a gate to be a bright and simple piece of mechanism, swung on
by rosy-cheeked children and easily opened by Lord Hugo with his riding-crop
so that Lady Hermione may jog through it on her practically priceless
bay. That is quite wrong. It rests on the primary fallacy that gates are
meant to be opened, whereas they are really meant to be kept shut. What
actually happens when you want to open one is that you plunge halfway
through a deep quagmire, climb on to a slippery stone, wrestle with a piece
of hoop-iron, some barbed wire and some pieces of furze, lift the gate up
by the bottom bar and wade through the rest of the quagmire carrying it on
your shoulder.
If you are riding like Lord Hugo you hook the fastening of the gate with
the handle of your crop and make your horse shunt slowly backwards by
applying the reverse clutch with your feet. As the gate refuses to give,
you are, of course, drawn gently over the animal's head until you tumble
into the bog like a man whose punt-pole is stuck in the bottom of the
stream.
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