My First Steeple-chaser, loj 



The girl, who might have been Tom's wife, stood at the window 

 and saw him fall, and the stern old father met them at the door 

 with their lifeless burden. 



No time now for any display of passionate feelings. The faults 

 of the dead man were all forgotten in his sudden and violent death, 

 and the old man, with a faltering voice, bade them carry the body 

 upstairs, and hurried back into the parlour to endeavour to console 

 his only daughter, but wdth a heart nearly as heavy as her own. 

 What his feelings were at this moment it would be hard to say. 

 Did his thoughts recur to that fearful passionate scene, when with a 

 dreadful oath he bade the young man leave his house, and prayed 

 that God would strike his daughter dead before his very face, sooner 

 than see her become the wnfe of a man whom he designated as a 

 reprobate and an outcast ? Did he think of all the bitter anguish, 

 of the many sorrowful days and nights which the poor girl had 

 suffered since that fearful oath was recorded ? Or did he feel that 

 now the fatal curse had come home to him ? His only daughter 

 lying on the sofa insensible before him 3 the man upon whom her 

 sole affections w^ere placed, a corpse in the room above his head ; 

 himself a pow^erless, sorrows-stricken, grey-haired old man, w^ho 

 had tried to measure his strength, as it w^ere, against the Almighty 

 One^ and had failed. But we will draw the veil over this sad 

 scene. 



As the old uncle and myself galloped up to the door, the groom 

 who took our horses whispered to us that Tom was dead, and, as 

 the old father met us in the passage, he grasped our hands, and led 

 us upstairs without saying a word. On a bed, in the best room, lay 

 poor Tom, just as he had fallen. His death had been instantaneous, 

 and, apparently, painless ; at least the expression of his features was 

 unaltered, and his face wore the same determined look of resolution 

 which so well became it when living. A little blood had oozed 

 from his nose and mouth, but this had been carefully wiped away j 

 and no one who gazed upon that calm and quiet face, could have 

 guessed that he had died by a violent death some tw^o hours before. 

 Tt was painful to watch the countenances of the two old men as they 



