376 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



it ?" " We must have it/* he says. Mr. Lumley 

 he comes up between us, and at it he goes. He 

 jumped the water, but he couldn't get through the 

 bulfinch on the other side : backards he comes. I 

 couldn't see him or the horse. Sir James shouts, 

 " He'll be drowned, Dick/' when up he comes again. 

 I catched his horse, and out he wades, as wet and as 

 black as my hat. Well, he gets on to his horse as plucky 

 as ever, just as he was ; off he gets, runs back again ; 

 I didn't know for my life what he was at. Blame 

 me, if he didn't dive in, head foremost, to find his 

 right stirrup ; he fishes it out of five-feet water, 

 buckles it on, and over he goes again. He got 

 through the bulfinch that time, and they killed the 

 fox at Colston Bassett. Well, some of the gentlemen 

 gave him their flask, and they persuaded him to 

 gallop back to Belvoir, and change. That'ull be nigh 

 twenty years since; I met him some four years 

 after, when Mr. Foljambe's hounds met at Grove, 

 and I says, "Do you recollect the Smite, sir?" 

 " That I do ; I should like such a ducking again." 

 So I told all the gentlemen about it : how amused 

 they were ! I never saw such a thing in my born 

 days. Well, I can't beat that, so I must go now ; 

 they'll be waiting up for me. If I think of anything 

 more, I'll send and tell you. And with these words 

 the Professor and I parted. 



And so our history of horn and hound, the racer 

 and the starting-post, and their countless devotees of 

 every shade and hue, has come to an end at last. A 

 moral would have been out of place, and hence we 

 felt that we could not wind up better than by the 

 above characteristic combination of precept and anec- 

 dote, and trust that our rare old Centaur of a lec- 

 turer will not be forgotten in his old age by the 

 foxhunters of England. 



LONDON : PBINTED BY ROGEKSON AND TUXFOKD , 246, STRAND. 



