"Dick is over now.—Hurra!—he has lost the skirt of his coat—Andy is gaining on him.—Two to one on Andy!"
"Down he goes!" was shouted, as Andy's foot slipped in making a dash at another ditch, into which he went head over heels, and Dick followed fast, and disappeared after him.
"Ride! ride!" shouted Tom Durfy, and the horsemen put their spurs in the flanks of their steeds, and were soon up to the scene of action. There was Andy roaring murder, rolling over and over in the muddy bottom of a deep ditch, with Dick fastened on him, pummelling away most unmercifully, but not able to kill him altogether for want of breath.
The horsemen, in a universal screech of laughter, dismounted, and disengaged the unfortunate Andy from the fangs of Dick the Devil, who was dragged from out of the ditch much more like a scavenger than a gentleman.
The moment Andy got loose, away he ran again, and never cried stop till he earthed himself under his mother's bed in the parent cabin.
The squire and Murtough Murphy shook hands, and parted friends in half an hour after they had met as foes; end even Dick contrived to forget his annoyance in an extra stoup of claret that day after dinner,—filling more than one bumper in drinking confusion to Handy Andy, which seemed a rather unnecessary malediction.
EPIGRAM.
On Easter Sunday, Lucy spoke, And said, "A saint you might provoke, Dear Sam, each day, since Monday last; But now I see your rage is past." Said Sam, "What Christian could be meek! You know, my love, 'twas Passion Week; And so, you see, the rage I've spent Was not my own—'twas only Lent." S. Lover.