136 MAKING AN IMPRESSION. 



as I before said, in technical terms, in a fast pace, 

 " we don't give them time to fall ;" that is, if he does 

 make a mistake, his feet come to the ground again 

 before his body can overbalance. It is true, if a 

 horse does come down at speed, we get a regular 

 spinner ; but on the whole, it is perhaps as well to be 

 tossed a little bit farther and faster than we bargain 

 for, as to have the experiment tried as to how small 

 a compass our bodies can be squeezed into, our horse 

 playing the part of an animated cheese-press. 



A circumstance of this sort that once occurred to 

 myself gave rise to a little stretch of veracity on the 

 part of a friend of mine that I do not think Jonathan 

 has outdone. Riding at top speed at a bulfinch, 

 down came my horse in the next field, a regular 

 burster. I felt a momentary sensation, something 

 like what I conclude Mr. Jonas did when playing 

 leapfrog with the whale : this was my horse making 

 a momentary use of my body as a kind of spring- 

 board in performing his second summersault. Now 

 the cause of my fall, and also of my escaping unhurt, 

 was, he had landed in a very soft piece of wet, clayey, 

 ploughed ground. I had fallen somehow on my 

 face, and on getting up I found I had left a very 

 correct impression of my person in the clay ; in fact, 

 a clever fellow with a wheelbarrow-full of plaster of 

 Paris might have taken off some well-executed me- 

 dallions as souvenirs for my friends, one of whom, 

 who followed me, roundly swore (my nasal organ 

 being none of the smallest), that " he heard Harry's 

 nose give a suck as he drew it out of the clay, and 

 it left such a hole that his horse put his foot in it, 

 and nearly came on his head ! " 



Race-horses are conclusive illustrations of the fact, 



