74 My First Stee fie- 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 the 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 man which must be bred 

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

 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 affording 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 the 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 

 off his "casualty nags," and occasionally to ride steeple-chases and 

 hurdle-races for him. And no one better fitted for the task ; for if 

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

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

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

 hunting song, who, 



" Spite of fells 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 



