42 RIDING FOR A FALL 



of clearing it. Mr. White made the attempt, and failed, 

 sticking fast in the hedge. 



" Get on ! " cried Mr. Smith. 



*' I can't," said White. 



" Ram the spurs into him," exclaimed Mr. Smith, 

 " and pray get out of the way ! " 



" D n it," replied the prisoner, *' if you are in 



such a hurry, why don't you charge me ? " 



Mr. Smith did charge him, and sent him and his horse 

 into the next field, when away they went again as if 

 nothing had happened. 



His fearless riding, and wonderful escapes from severe 

 falls, without broken bones or any apparent injury, 

 obtained for him, amongst the lower orders in his Hamp- 

 shire country, the well-earned and justly-applied appella- 

 tion of " The Hard Gentleman." 



I have ridden with him through many a hard run, 

 both with his own pack and in other countries, and 

 upon one occasion, when the hounds had slipped away 

 from him at starting, with a burning scent, and he had 

 to make up lee-way across a very stiffly enclosed vale, 

 with very heavy fences, I saw him encounter three such 

 falls in succession, within twenty minutes — ^his horse 

 being completely blown by the railway pace he had been 

 coming — as would have placed most men hors de combat 

 for the remainder of the day. Hurt he was certainly, 

 and most fearfully by the last, over a high five-barred 

 gate into a turnpike-road ; but his indomitable spirit 

 carried him through to the end of the run and the death 

 of the fox. 



On another day Mr. Smith and myself were riding 

 together side by side, in a sharp burst of thirty minutes, 

 with my own hounds, when a thick plantation of young 



