Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/146

 long in proportion to the antiquity of the annals it records. Why must you never again become possessed of such a hunter as Tally-Ho? Did that abnormal animal really carry you as well as you think, neither failing when the ground was deep nor wavering when the fences were strong? Is it strictly true that no day was ever too long for him? that he was always in the same field with the hounds? And have not the rails he rose at, the ditches he covered so gallantly, increased annually in height and depth and general impossibility ever since that fatal morning when he broke his back, under the Coplow in a two-foot drain?

"You can't find such horses now? Perhaps you do not give them so liberal a chance of proving their courage, speed, and endurance.

"On the other topic it is natural enough, I dare say, for you to 'yarn' with all the