The Life of a Great Sportsman 



anxiety, and this difficulty we had only overcome by stuffing 

 the calf of each leg, after the boots were on, with newspapers. 

 It was quite clear that the paper had shifted, and out came the 

 leg. I can see Maunsell now, standing in the road ; a boot on 

 one leg, on the other only a sock ; his arm stretched to its 

 fullest extent, holding on to the reins, determination in his face 

 — in every line of his little body — as, nothing daunted, he 

 clambered back over the stubby hedge. I can see him remount- 

 ing, getting his stockinged foot into his enormous boot again, 

 and after taking his mount back to the required distance, 

 jumping in and out of the road, then racing after the first two 

 as hard as his pony could lay its feet to the ground. 



As far as my eyes could follow, I watched him galloping 

 along in the wake of the others, grimly determined to catch 

 them up. Then I made the best of my way back to the winning- 

 field, in order to see the finish. George Nelson came in first 

 on his brown horse, my brother Willie second half a length 

 behind, and Maunsell in spite of all drawbacks finished by no 

 means a bad third. Thus ended Maunsell's first steeplechase. 

 Possibly it was — who can tell ? — the most exciting race, in a 

 sense, he ever rode. In it he displayed, at ten years old, the 

 same extraordinary pluck and determination not to give in which 

 in later years stood him in such good stead. 



Indeed, I have often wondered, when, as Mr. Finch-Mason 

 relates in his record of my brother's racing career, given later 

 on in the book, he broke three stirrup leathers at the first fence 

 in as many important steeplechases, winning in spite of the way 

 he was handicapped, whether the thought of that faithless racing 

 boot that betrayed him in his childhood's first race, ever caused 

 him, not only an inward laugh at the recollection, but made his 

 determination the stronger to persevere to the bitter end ? 

 As I write this Memoir, one of those small glazed calico racing 



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