Those who had steeds took the hint, and a numerous field of horsemen joined in the pursuit of Handy Andy and Dick the Devil, who still maintained great speed. The horsemen made for a neighbouring hill, whence they could command a wider view; and the betting went on briskly, varying according to the vicissitudes of the race.
"Well done--there's a leap! Hurra! Dick's down! Well done, Dick!--up again and going."
"Mind the next quickset hedge--that's a rasper, it's a wide gripe, and the hedge is as thick as a wall--Andy'll stick in it--mind him--well leaped, by the powers! Ha! he's sticking in the hedge--Dick'll catch him now. No, by jingo! he's pushed his way through--there, he's going again on the other side. Ha! ha! ha! ha! look at him--he's in tatters! he has left half of his breeches in the hedge!"
"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 into the flanks of their steeds, and were soon up to the scene of action. There was Andy, rolling over and over in the muddy bottom of a ditch, floundering in rank weeds and duck's meat, 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 out of the ditch much more like a scavenger than a gentleman.
The moment Andy got loose, away he ran again, with a rattling "Tally-ho!" after him, and he never cried stop till he earthed himself under his mother's bed in the parent cabin.
Murtough Murphy characteristically remarked, that the affair of the day had taken a very whimsical turn;--"Here are you and I, squire, who went out to shoot each other, safe and well, while one of the seconds has come off rather worse for the wear; and a poor devil, who had nothing to say to the matter in hand, good, bad, or indifferent, is nearly killed."