ioo My First Steeple-chaser. 



off and gone to another small gorse about twelve miles distant. 

 They casually observed that they had seen Tom j that the new 

 horse seemed to give him a good deal of trouble, and then they 

 rode off. Our dinner this day was a dullish affair, and it was not 

 till we had got fairly settled to our pipes that the old man began to 

 cheer up. He was just proposing to me that after this race, win or 

 lose, he would buy my share in the steeple-chaser, and settle, give 

 him to Tom, when a man, whom we both knew well, cantered up, 

 and, throwing himself out of the saddle, begged to see some of us 

 directly. We could tell by the expression of his face when he 

 entered the room that something was wrong. He was luckily a 

 man of few words, and did not keep us long in suspense by use- 

 less preface j he said a bad accident had happened to Tom ; his 

 horse had fallen at a flight of rails and broken his back j Tom had 

 been picked up insensible, and was now lying at a farm-lodge, 

 which was luckily close to where he fell, and that we had better 

 run over to him as soon as possible. It did not take us much time 

 to get ready, and, although the lodge was about eight miles distant, 

 we reached it well within the hour. I hardly think we exchanged 

 twenty sentences during the whole of that ride ; and the only 

 observation the old man kept making aloud to himself was, 

 " Strange that they should have taken him in there."" And strange, 

 indeed, it was, for the accident had happened close to the lodge 

 where the old gentleman lived whom I had noticed at the steeple- 

 chase with his daughter, and Tom's lifeless body had been carried 

 into the very house in which he had so strictly been forbidden ever 

 to enter while alive. His horse had rushed at a small flight of 

 rails leading out of this very farm into a lane which ran in front of 

 the house ; they both rolled into the ditch beyond ; the horse broke 

 his neck, and poor Tom, who fell under him, was dragged out on 

 to the bank a corpse ! (Strange, I have seen three fatal accidents in 

 the hunting field, and every one of them has been at a small fence 

 which the rider has taken carelessly and heedlessly, when the 

 hounds were not running, but going from one covert to another.) 

 They placed the body on a gate, and carried it up to the house. 



