AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
after-life were equally unfortunate, since he lost an opportu- 
nity of getting a rich wife, because, although he made three 
several attempts on as many days, he could never manage 
to get to church within canonical hours. 
Luckily, however, for Richard, as he was the last of his 
family in coming into the world, he contrived to be the last 
to go out of it, and consequently succeeded to the property 
of those of his brothers and sisters who had not resorted to 
matrimony as a mode of relieving the monotony of life; and 
thus it happened, that, while he was deliberating upon 
which of the professions he should adorn, he was saved the 
trouble of farther debate by being placed in easy circum- 
stances for life. ' Never was any man more rejoiced at being 
left to follow the bent of his own inclination; which, how- 
ever, he did as he performed every thing else, quite at his 
leisure. He was fond of hunting, and subscribed to a pack 
of excellent fox-hounds, but he could never contrive to be 
at the place of meeting in time to see them throw off ; so 
that, after an hour’s hard riding, he usually met them on 
their return to kennel. 
In a moment of extraordinary excitement, Richard was 
induced to ride a steeple chase — not for the sake of the 
wager, for he would not have ridden a third of the distance 
for thrice the money, but simply for the gratification of the 
whim of the moment. The idea of Dick’s riding a race of 
any kind was so utterly preposterous that it attracted the 
attention of the whole country, and innumerable were the 
bets to which it gave rise; since, although there were many 
who were ready to lay upon the acknowledged excellence of 
Richard’s horse, there were quite as many who would have 
staked their fortunes upon the dilatoriness of the rider; and 
among the latter were his two opponents, who it was sus- 
pected had engaged to share the profit or loss of the adven- 
ture. They had cunningly covenanted that they should start 
at a particular hour, and that they should not wait for each 
other’s arrival. The event justified their prudence in 
making this. proviso, for Richard appeared at the starting- 
post just two minutes after his antagonists had quitted it, 
puffing away, not from want of breath, but by reason of a 
cigar. “Good morning to you, Gentlemen,” said Richard 
to a host of persons who had gathered about the spot, as he 
quietly dismounted and began to tighten his saddle-girths, 
while his horse, deeming them tight enough before, showed 
its sense of Dick’s officiousness by a smart bite, which, if it 
had included cuticle as well as broad-cloth, might have ma- 
terially interfered with the comfort of his ride. 
“Make haste, my good fellow, or you’ll lose the race,” 
exclaimed a by-stander, who, having staked a round sum 
upon Richard’s horse, was almost frantic at beholding the 
owner’s imperturbable deliberation. 
263 
“Wait while I light another cigar,” responded Dick, igni- 
ting a piece of German tinder, which he began to blow with 
great energy, and looking upon the anxious faces around 
him with the greatest complacency imaginable. When, 
however, he got into the saddle, he appeared determined on 
making up for lost time, and set off in good earnest. He 
was an excellent horseman, and a bold one; but two minutes 
in a race, like an inch in a man’s nose, are no trifle. His 
horse, though, was a regular fencer; and, in the course of 
the next five minutes, cleared three quickset hedges, a 
market woman, and a gipsy’s donkey, and Dick was evi- 
dently gaining ground upon his precursors. But he was 
destined never to be before-hand in anything. There stood 
the steeple, within half-a-mile of him, and, midway be- 
tween, a rising ground which his rivals were just mounting, 
and soon disappeared behind it. Dick put spurs to his horse, 
and arrived on the summit of the hillock just in time to 
catch a glimpse of the foremost equestrian, who was show- 
ing him a “clean pair of heels,” the only visible part of 
him; and they, as in duty bound, were following his head 
and shoulders to the bottom of a deep and rapid river, of 
which the party in advance either were previously ignorant, 
or, like others who have taken the shadow for the substance, 
wergtois-led by the reflection of the desired steeple in the 
water, and determined to arrive at the gaol per saltum. 
While Richard, who was somewhat slow in comprehending 
matters, was wondering at the extraordinary feat, his eye 
glanced towards his other antagonist, who was practically 
explaining to him the mode in which it had been accom- 
plished, by sliding over the nose of his horse in the same 
antipodean fashion. Dick, however, who had already suf- 
fered from his proximity to his horse’s nose, pursued an 
opposite course, and pulling the animal up — that is, perpen- 
dicularly upon his hind legs — he slid over its tail, after his 
old habits of being always behind, and thus regained terra 
firma. 
Richard, who was a good-natured fellow, and had no no- 
tion of his opponents stopping short in the church-yard on 
their way to the steeple, hastily tied his horse to a tree, and 
proceeded to angle for them with the thong of his hunting- 
whip: but not succeeding in getting a bite, he tried the hook 
at the butt-end, and, at length fished them both out. Their 
horses had taken care of themselves, and were quietly 
grazing in a meadow on the opposite bank. Dick, like a 
good fellow as he was, stuck both his friends upon the back 
of his own nag, and led them to the nearest inn, where he 
left them with thirteen blankets on the outside of their 
bodies, and two stiff glasses of brandy and water within. 
Our hero, having previously fortified himself with a beef- 
steak and a tankard of home-brewed, walked oyer the rest 
