The Sport of Our <^ncestors 



is worthy of attention. Mr. Sawyer had been stuck by 

 some one with a flat-catching brute whom he called Mara- 

 thon — underbred, slow, sulky, and a dangerous, slovenly 

 fencer. Mr. Sawyer first of all allowed his friend the 

 Honble. Crasher, who had been kind to him, and who was 

 a gentleman to his finger-tips, to believe that Marathon 

 had actually beaten the Honble. Crasher's crack mare 

 Chance in a trial, when he knew that his rascal of a groom 

 had really won the trial on the galloping hack Jack-a-Dandy, 

 concealing the fraud by means of the early morning dark- 

 ness and a rug. Mr. Sawyer then rode the real Marathon 

 out hunting, and was rather avoiding the Hounds, not wish- 

 ing to expose the worthless animal, when they crossed his 

 front, and he nicked in and contrived by great good luck 

 to force the vulgar brute through a bullfinch and cut down 

 Mr. Crasher himself and some more of the first flight. The 

 Honble. Crasher, with the news of the false trial in his 

 mind, offered Mr. Sawyer £250 for Marathon then and 

 there. Ought Mr. Sawyer to have accepted the offer, 

 knowing that it was based upon the fraud perpetrated 

 by his groom quite as much as on the accident that man- 

 oeuvred Marathon through the bullfinch } An5rway he did 

 accept it, and the Honble. Crasher thought Mr. Sawyer 

 what is now called quite ' a card ' for having done so. In 

 fact, he actually complimented Mr. Sawyer on the trans- 

 action, though indeed he never knew about the trial. That 

 is the ugly part of it. The explanation of Crasher's atti- 

 tude is to be found in his unfailing good nature, and his 

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