horseman," was found to
be a task not easily accomplished, and at length all was a trial of
speed with this dashing exhibitor. A glance which, when on the point
of one of his most desperate leaps, he threw back at me, seemed to be
a kind of challenge, and I rushed on at speed. The Irish hunter
matchless at "topping" stone walls, but his practice has not lain much
among rivers; and the English horse is sometimes his master at the
deep and rapid streams which, running between crumbling banks, are
perhaps the severest trials to both horse and rider. The majority of
the hunt pulled up at the edge of one of those formidable chasms, and
I was by no means unwilling to follow their example; but the look of
the strange rider had a sneer along with it, which put me on my
mettle, and I dashed after him. The hounds had scrambled through, and
we rode nearly abreast through a broken country, that mixture of bog
and firm ground which occurs frequently in newly cleared land, and
over which nothing but the most powerful sinews can make way. We had
now left every one behind us, were struggling on through the dimness
of a hazy day, sinking into twilight. Suddenly my mysterious rival
turned his horse full upon me, and to my utter amazement discharged a
pistol at my head. The discharge was so close that I escaped only by
the swerving of my horse at the flash. I felt my face burn, and in the
impulse of the pain made a blind blow at him with my whip. He had
drawn out another pistol in an instant, which the blow luckily dashed
out of his hand. No words passed between us, but I bounded on him to
seize him. He slipped away from my grasp, and, striking in the spur,
galloped madly forward, I in pursuit. The twilight had now deepened,
and he plunged into a lane bounded on both sides by steep hedges, and
which, from some former hunting in this quarter, I knew to be a
_cul-de-sac_. This doubled my determination to make myself master of
the assassin; and even in the hurry of the moment I formed some
conception of my having seen his face before, and that the attempt to
put me out of the way was connected, in some way or other, with public
affairs. This question was soon decided. He reached the end of the
lane, which was shut in with a wall of about the height of a man. His
horse shied at the obstacle. The rider, with an oath and a desperate
exertion, pushed him to it again. I was now within a few yards of him,
and arrived just in time to see the animal