40 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



joinder, "he's taken to riding like the very devil.'' 

 Will did not fail to report to Robinson what Sam 

 had been saying of him, and he at once confessed 

 that he was quite right, and that a more decided 

 style of riding seemed to have flashed on him all at 

 once. In point of judgment and knowledge of pace, 

 there was little to choose between them ; but while 

 the one was more powerful, the other was more ele- 

 gant in his manner of finishing, and did not sit so 

 much back in his set-to. Sam's mode of drawing 

 his horse together, and then bringing it with his 

 unique and tremendous rush of nearly half a length 

 in the last three or four strides, was a picturesque 

 contrast to the exquisitely neat "short-head," by 

 which Robinson used to nail his opponents on the 

 post, and send Will Arnull, especially, growling 

 back to scale, with a maledictory " done me again, 

 Jim, by a head. 33 In the one case you saw the 

 whole, and wondered at the fearful concentration 

 of man and horse power with which the deed was 

 done ; in the other, you wondered how it could be 

 done so instantaneously that you hardly saw it. Poor 

 little Pavis used often to tell about a match which 

 he rode with Sam, and had his orders " never to 

 leave him/' Accordingly away they cantered, Pavis 

 lying about a length in front, and Sam lobbing be- 

 hind. When they had got about two hundred yards. 

 Sam slowly ejaculated, " Well, young -un, arnt you 

 going to make running ? better take a cigar at once 3 ' 

 Pavis took no heed, but cantered on till about a hun- 

 dred yards from the chair, when he took his mare 

 by the head, and dug the spurs into her. " There 

 was Clark's box close at hand, and I thought Fd 

 slipped him/' he used to add ; " No, no ! might as 

 well try to slip Old Nick : he was at my neck like a 

 flash of lightning, before I had got two strides ; my 

 mare swerved and cannoned him, but he pulled his 

 horse straight, and just beat me a head on the post. 



