PARK AND ROAD RIDING. 69 



±0 inquire, for my huge mount, clearing the 

 jump and ten feet beyond it, completely took 

 head, and bore me away from the field 



Over park, over pale, 

 Through bush, through briar, 



until my head fairly reeled, and I felt that 

 some terrible calamity must ensue. 



Happily he was a glorious fencer, or I must 

 have perished, for he jumped every obstacle 

 with a rush ; staked fences, wide ditches — so 

 wide that he landed over them on his belly — 

 tangled gorse, and branches of rivers swollen 

 by recent rains ; he flew them all. At length, 

 when my strength was quite exhausted and 

 my dizzy brain utterly powerless and con- 

 fused, I beheld before me a stone wall, a high 

 •one, with heavy coping-stones upon the top. 

 At this I resolved to breast him, and run my 

 chance for Kfe or death in the turn over, 

 which, from the pace at which we were 

 approaching it, I knew must be a mighty one. 

 In a moment we were up to it and, with a 

 <3ry to heaven for mercy, I dug him with my 

 spur and sent him at it. To my utter 

 iistonishment, for the wall was six and a half 



