ne, which made every mile
got over without an accident almost a miracle. At last, after taking a
four-in-hand over a narrow bridge, at the bottom of a hill, pretty much
in the Olympic fashion--all four abreast--men got rather shy of any
expeditions of the kind in his company. There was little credit in it,
and a good deal of danger. First, he was reduced to soliciting the
company of freshmen, who were flattered by any proposal that sounded
_fast_. But they, too, grew shy, after one or two ventures; and poor
Hurst soon found a difficulty in getting a companion at all. He was a
liberal fellow enough, and not pushed for a guinea when his darling
science was concerned: so he used to offer to "sport the train" himself;
but even when he condescended to the additional self-devotion of
standing a dinner and champagne, he found that the closest calculators
among his sporting acquaintance had as much regard for their necks as
their pockets.

To this inglorious position was his fame as a charioteer reduced, when
Horace Leicester and myself, early in his third term, had determined
somewhat suddenly to go to see a steeple-chase about twelve miles off,
where Leicester had some attraction beside the horses, in the shape of a
pretty cousin; (_two_, he told me, and bribed me with the promise of an
introduction to "the other," but she did not answer to sample at all.)
We had engaged a very nice mare and stanhope, which we knew we could
depend upon, when, the day before the race, the chestnut was declared
lame, and not a presentable four-legged animal was to be hired in
Oxford. Hurst had engaged his favourite pair of greys (which would
really go very well with any other driver) a week beforehand, but had
been canvassing the last batch of freshmen in vain for an occupant of
the vacant seat. A huge red-headed north-country man, who had never seen
a tandem in his life, but who, as far as pluck went, would have ridden
postilion to Medea's dragons, was listening with some apparent
indecision to Hurst's eloquence upon the delights of driving, just as we
came up after a last unsuccessful search through the livery stables; and
the pair were proceeding out of college arm in arm, probably to look at
the greys, when Leicester, to my amusement, stepped up with--"Hurst,
who's going with you to B----?"

"I--why, I hardly know yet; I think Sands here will, if"----

"I'll go with you then, if you like; and if you've got a cart, Hawthorne
can come too,