74 My First Steeple-chaser, 



words can speak. A few strokes of our pen can describe the rider 

 after a fashion as we have already attempted with the horse, but it 

 would require the pencil of poor Leech to do tlie whole picture 

 justice. There he sits, as I have seen him scores of times before, 

 the very personification of " the right man in the right place." He 

 is certainly not one of the upper ten thousand, but there is a con- 

 fident, determined look about him which strikes the eye at once, 

 and a quiet sporting cut about the whole /nan which must be bred 

 in the possessor if he will wear it properly. Every member of the 

 hunt, from the noble owner downwards, has a cheery word to say 

 to him, and the quiet respectful manner which he assumes to his 

 betters proves that he knows his place as well as his business. 

 Originally a small farmer, but a far keener judge of the points of a 

 horse than a bullock, a constant attendant at every race meeting and 

 steeple-chase for miles round, his farm became neglected, and Tom 

 was perforce obliged to look to horses as a means of gaining a living, 

 instead of aflbrding him a noble amusement. A reckless, devil- 

 may-care, open-handed, open-hearted sort of a fellow, of whom the 

 worst that could be said was that he was nobody's enemy but his 

 own, he was a general favourite j and as he always rode as if he had 

 a spare neck in his pocket, and possessed a cool head, a firm seat, 

 and a fine though strong hand on a horse — tlie three best qualifica- 

 tions of a cross-country rider — he won the affections of a rich old 

 uncle, who had already made a fortune at the very trade which Tom 

 was only just commencing, who took him into his employ to show 

 oif his *' casualty nags," and occasionally to ride steeple-chases and 

 hurdle-races for him. And no one better fitted for tlie task j for if 

 he only did mean going — which was not, however, always the case 

 — no one harder to shake otf than Tom, however he might be 

 mounted. He was truly one of that sort immortalized in the old 

 hunting song, who, 



" Spite of falls and bad horses, undauntedly still. 

 Rode up to this motto, ' Be with them I will.' '* 



The whole appointments of both man and horse may perhaps 



