324 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



he fell and broke his knees on the road to Nantwich 

 fair. A few days after his disaster, he jumped out 

 of his paddock when he heard the hounds cub- 

 hunting in Delamere Forest, and ran loose by Joe's 

 side all day, as if inviting a closer acquaintance. 

 This was a Saturday, and he was caught amid the 

 scene of his future labours on Monday, at Whetnall 

 Wood, and soon found his way to the Cheshire Hunt 

 stables. He never gave Joe a fall during the eight 

 seasons he rode him ; and besides his endless bottom, 

 he always seemed able to make a second effort, an 

 invaluable knack in a horse who had to carry a 

 huntsman over the Vale of Chester, where the 

 doubles nearly all measure nine yards. It used to 

 be a saying in the Hunt, as the hounds trotted up, 

 " Ay ! look out ! here's Maiden on Fevorett !" and 

 there they were certain to be together, year after 

 year, at the Stamford Bridge fixture, which always 

 stood for the day after the Liverpool steeple-chase. 

 The late Lord Delamere thought so highly of the pair, 

 that he offered to run them for a thousand guineas a- 

 side against any man and horse in England four miles 

 over Cheshire. Still there were men in the Hunt 

 who could go with them, and Joe was fairly collared 

 one day by Mr. Wilbraham Tollemache (who always 

 loved rushing, pulling horses), just at the finish of a 

 very capital run from Combermere Abbey to near 

 Whitchurch. He had slipped all the rest of the field, 

 and finding that the chesnut mare was catching him 

 for speed, he dashed up a green lane, and jumped five 

 gates along it in succession. " 'Drat you, Joe ! you 

 thought to shake me off, did you ?" roared Mr. Tolle- 

 mache, as they landed almost together in a large 

 grass field, in the middle of which the hounds had 

 earthed their fox ; and, " Well, sir, I did ; but FU 

 have no more gates," was the rejoinder, as they 

 trotted up to the hounds, and decided that it was to 

 be a drawn match. Pevorett's day was over when 



