CHAPTER VII. 



AND A BELLE. 



The fox was hardly pulled to pieces, before up came, 

 in a long weary string, the boys on the second horses ; 

 but, instead of having ridden, as they ought to have 

 done if skilful and fortune-favored, the chord of an 

 arc or the hypothenuse of a triangle, they had unfor- 

 tunately on that day been thrown, by the singular 

 straightness of the fox's line, and the more remarka- 

 ble singularity of his one short angle, entirely on the 

 outside of the circle, and being thus forced to make up 

 leeway, instead of nicking in, and taking it easy, they 

 proved the truth of Matuschevitz's remark, about the 

 small advantage, if not disadvantage, possessed by 

 light weights over welter weights in a sharp burst. 

 For as they came streaming in over the upland, a long 

 straggling, panting line, it quickly became evident to 

 the chiefs of the hunt that the feather-weight young- 

 sters had taken more out of the second horses, than 

 had the welters out of the first, which had borne all the 

 brunt and burthen of the day. Osbaldiston gave a 

 low whistle, as a grand black horse by Jerry, came up 

 white with foam, and showing red clay marks of a 

 heavy fall — Jardinier swore hideously as bruising 

 Jem, his pet tiger, brought in a bright chesnut Comus 

 colt, staggering and dead-blown — Fairfax, also, saw 

 Thunderbolt, half-brother to Slasher, kicked up the 

 upland, with bellows to mend plainly written in his 

 distended nostrils, heaving flanks, and blood-shot eyes, 

 and evidently more distressed than either his half- 

 brother, Slasher, who had done miracles under the 



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