70 SKETCHES IN THE HUNTING FIELD. 



and criticise everything. For instance, it is well known 

 — everybody knows — that horses will not always run up 

 to their best form, and the fact that since Bullfinch lost 

 at Kenilworth, and passed into the hands of Leggitt, 

 the bookmaker, he has beaten his Kenilworth form by 

 a good deal — possibly by as much as two stone, as 

 Flutterton's friends angrily assert — is no reason why 

 those gallant Lancers should talk about the deadest case 

 of roping that ever was seen, should go so far as to vow 

 that Crossley tried to pull the horse into his fences, and 

 should complain of the remissness of the stewards in not 

 investigating the matter, 



I disbelieve these stories ; simply because, had Cross- 

 ley wanted to lose, I fancy he is quite good enough 

 jockey to stop his horse without making it apparent. 



The very likely looking bay aforesaid, on which 

 Crossley is this morning seated, seems fully to justify 

 his appearance by his style of going ; and it is to be 

 observed that when Crossley is on a good one he takes 

 care to make the circumstance generally evident. 



Here he has just one of those opportunities in which 

 he delights. 



Soon after getting away, we checked in a big grass 

 field, bounded straight ahead by a high, tough-looking 

 rail and a broad ditch, a sufficiently formidable sort of 

 jump to make the boldest cordially hope that we shall 

 not have to tempt our fate in that direction. The ditch 

 is not only broad, but deep, with a nasty sloping clay 



