>c CATCH HIM WHO CAN." 173 



ordered to be saddled for myself, and a very fair 

 useful kind of hunter that I drove in my buggy, 

 being a bit of a trotter, for my friend. However, 

 more from joke than any thing else, he would mount 

 the thorough-bred. Having but six miles to go, this 

 did not matter ; but, on coming to the meet, our 

 horses were not there: my friend's groom being a 

 stranger, and the boy who took my horse having 

 lately come to me, they had mistaken the meet. 

 This we did not know, so expected momentarily their 

 arrival. The hounds found immediately, and went 

 off; when, to my utter dismay, off went my friend on 

 my little bit of blood, and, though I conclude he had 

 never seen a fence before, I can only say, having got 

 the start of me, with all the exertion I could make 

 over four miles of fair country, I never could catch 

 him. It is true he had a man on him who would 

 drive a horse either through, in, or over anything; 

 but to see one that I should never have thought 

 of hunting with my weight going such a bat with 

 sixteen stone satisfied me what blood will do. I do 

 not mean to say the horse could have carried him as a 

 hunter; but he had had such a specimen of the little 

 one's game and powers, that he bought and constantly 

 rode him hack ; and, when I saw him two years after- 

 wards, he had not a windgall on any leg. 



I should have thought our ancestors had a tolerable 

 insight into the weight race-horses can carry, when 

 they saw the Beacon Course run over by one carrying 

 eighteen stone in not above a minute and a half more 

 than it usually takes to do it with eight. Some people, 

 having heard of such things, are apt to carry them 

 too far, and, when told what blood will do, go and 

 buy some weedy bad-const it utioned wretch, and then 



