I lo TJie PyfcJiley Hunt, Past and Present, [chap. m. 



i£ you put liim slantish, lie measures it for himself. 

 When Mr. A. Smith rode at timber^ he always went slap 

 at the post, because he said it made the horse fancy that 

 he had more to do than he really had.'' 



One of the most remarkable occurrences of this rouo-h- 

 and-ready horse-breaker's long life must have been the 

 one described by himself as follows : " Yes, I remember 

 Bill Wright of Uppingham. He was a good-hearted 

 chap, but used such very vulgar language. Bill and me 

 were partick'lar friends ; boys together in the racing 

 stable. We once quarrelled out hunting with Lord 

 Lonsdale. If we didn't get to whipping each other ! 

 for three miles straight across country, cut for cut. All 

 the gentlemen shouting, ^Well done, Dick! Well 

 done, Bill ! ' It pleased them uncommon. We took 

 our fences reg'lar. If he was first over, he waited for 

 me. If I had fell, he'd have jumped on me, and blamed 

 if I wouldn't have jumped smack on the top of him! 

 We fought back-hand \ any way we could cut. I was 

 as strong as an elephant then. We pulled our horses 

 slap bang against each other. He gives me such tinglers 

 on the back and shoulders, but I fetches him a clip 

 with the hook end of my whip on the side of the head, 

 such a settler, and gives him a black eye. Then I says, 

 ' Bill, will you have any more ? ' We were like brothers 

 a'most after that. It was all a mistake. He thought 

 I'd 'a-been crabbing a grey horse he wanted to sell. We 

 were the biggest of friends after that, Bill and me." 



It was not until after he had scored his eightieth year 

 that this hero of a thousand falls was laid beneath the 

 green grass over which he had galloped ten thousand thou- 

 sand times, and though in '^ Cap " Tomline and the well- 



