THE WILLEY LONG RUNS. 95 



He could scarcely '^ Top a flight of rails/' " Skim 

 ridge and furrow/' or, charge a fence, however, with 

 Phcebe Higgs, who sometimes accompanied him. 



Phoebe, who was a complete Diana, and would 

 take hazardous leaps, beckoning Mr. Forester to 

 follow her extraordinary feats, led the Squire to 

 wager heavy sums that in leaping she would beat 

 any woman in England. With Phoebe and Moody, 

 and a few choice spirits of the same stamp on a 

 scent, there was no telling to what point between 

 the two extremities of the Severn it might carry 

 them. They might turn up some few miles from its 

 source or its estuary, and not be heard of at Willey 

 for a week. One long persevering run into Eadnor- 

 shire, in which a few plucky riders continued the 

 pace for some distance and then left the field to the 

 Squire and Moody, with one or two others, who 

 kept the heads of their favourites in the direction 

 E-eynard was leading, passed into a tradition ; but 

 the brush appears not to have been fairly won, a 

 gamekeeper having sent a shot through the leg of 

 the " varmint "as he saw him taking shelter in a 

 churchyard — an event commemorated in some 

 doggrel lines still current. 



Yery romantic tales are told of long runs by a 



