102 A SHARP BURST AND A HARD RUN, 



ihmcr pulling upon his horse a little, on the sound land, 

 with his eye riveted on Charity, the leading hound of 

 the pack up to this moment. 



Osbaldiston on the unrivaled Clasher, whom he 

 swung at it hard held, with a dig of the persuaders, a 

 cut of his whip across the haunches and a scream, 

 cleared the whole at a stride, drain, palings, bank and 

 man-trap, covering nine-and-twenty feet in length from 

 toe to heel prints. Magher purposely achieved what 

 Fairfax had by luck accomplished. Jack Stevens fol- 

 lowed suit, so Holyoke and Matuschevitz, but Good- 

 ricke, whose weight had told severely on his horse in 

 the bad ground, and Jardinier, who was watching the 

 Virginian instead of minding his own business, liter- 

 ally put their feet into it — in the ditch of course, and 

 rolled over and over it. The former with his welter 

 weight getting such a squelch as stunned both his 

 horse and himself for a moment or two, the latter with 

 genuine and characteristic pluck holding on to his 

 reins like grim death, and being again in his saddle 

 and under way within a minute after his downfall. 

 The others fared as they might, some baulked it alto- 

 gether, some got over safely, some were nabbed in the 

 squire trap, one unfortunate chested the palings with 

 a blown horse, and went backward into the train, and 

 thence home, with a lamed horse, a wet jacket, and a 

 sprained ankle ; but, save with the first flight, we have 

 nothing to say. 



Up to this moment the line of the run had lain con- 

 siderably to the left, or south-westward, of the point 

 whence the fox had broken, and the leading hounds 

 were looking up a full mile to the south-west of Billes- 

 don Coplow, the point for which every one had sup- 

 posed he must be making, so that every thing up to 

 this time had favored the party who, taking the west- 

 ern instead of the eastern end of Uckleby Gorse, 

 would so have been to a certainty thrown out had the 



