Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/407

 'Look here, Kennedy, why don't you lift your horse at his fence?'

'Lift be d—d,' returned Neil in desperation; 'I've quite enough to do to hold on.'

Neil was utterly fearless, a sort of Berserker horseman, ready to ride any sort of horse at any manner of leap, of any height, breadth, or stiffness; but he was not famous for adherence to the pig-skin. Falls, many or few, made no difference in his willingness to try his luck again. If he did not break his neck, practice would make him perfect in time. So, accordingly, Neil faced the starter on a hard puller, full of faith in his star, and confident in future triumphs.

The first fence was wide and high, composed of brush-timber and more or less negotiable, so we sailed over in line in a gallant and satisfactory way. The next was reasonable. Then came our rasper, the dead-wood fence, a kind of wooden wall, raised to nearly five feet, and composed of logs, stumps, and roots of trees, piled horizontally after a compact and unyielding fashion.

Freedom, with Dick Rutledge up, leading by a dozen lengths, flew it without altering stride. Bob Craufurd was over next. Neil Kennedy and I racing for a place charged it, when his horse, hitting it hard, performed a complete somersault, balancing himself for a moment on the broad of his back, and sending Neil flying so far ahead that there was as little danger of his being crushed as likelihood of his being in the race afterwards.

The majority were fairly up at the finish: three made a creditable struggle for second place; but Freedom, a fast two-miler, won the race from end to end, and taking all his leaps without baulk or mistake was never challenged.

So ended the second day's sport. Sport indeed, was it not? How little the faint copies of recreation, misnamed pleasure, resemble it nowadays! As we went home the tide was in, the ford deep, with a fair swim in the midstream, which was the reason I chose to take the short cut I suppose, thus letting off the exuberance of youthful spirits as well as directing certain bright eyes towards myself and the mare as we breasted the broad water.

The remainder of the day but sufficed to see all the horses properly looked to, after their exciting day, in the loose-boxes