"Ah! you will, I expect, at the first fence, without paying the money!" he grinned, as he turned away.
Murder was in my heart at that moment. I got on Dinah, and, feeling like death, rode down to the starting-post. Thoughts of a misspent youth, of home and friends and things, came o'er me. I seemed once more to see the little rose-covered porch, the——
"What on earth are you mooning about?" thundered the Blizzardian voice in my ear. "Take hold of her head tighter than that, or you'll be off!"
The next moment the starter yelled "Go!" and away, like a whirlwind, we sped across the first field, towards a huge, thick blackthorn fence, the one I had thought to see such fun with. Fun! I never felt less funny in my life, as we approached it at the rate of two thousand miles an hour! The mare jumped high, but I jumped much higher, and seemed for a brief moment to be soaring through the blue empyrean. Somehow, the mare managed to evade me on the return journey earthwards, and, instead of alighting on the saddle, I found myself "sitting on the floor." A howl—it might have been of sympathy, but it didn't sound quite like that—arose from the crowd, and then I thought that I would go home on foot, instead of returning to explain matters to Sir Hercules. As a matter of fact, I don't much care for associating with old Blizzard, at all events, not just now.
AMENITIES OF SPORT
Huntsman (to Whip, sent forward for a view.) "Haven't ye seen him, Tom?"
Whip. "No, sir."