Legends of his feats of strength in wrestling, boxing, horse-training and riding, were often recounted by the old men of the district as worthy examples of skill and prowess for their grandchildren to emulate, or to amuse their cronies in the taproom of the _Cherry Tree_. ‘Ah, when I thinks on that day of the Hunt Cup Steeplechase, thirty year ago!’ old Jerry Mogridge used to mumble over his jug of foaming ale. ‘The young Maister—he were the young Maister Dick in them days—entered his ’oss against some o’ the best blood out o’ Yorkshire, not to mention what our own county turned out, and we had some rare uns. We don’t have no such riding nor no such ’osses, I do believe, nowadays.’ Then Jerry would pause to reflect over departed glories, press down the ashes of his long clay-pipe carefully with his third finger and draw a long breath. ‘You was there, Jerry,’ his neighbour observed. ‘There I was, for sure. And there was Maister Dick with his horse Goggles that he was ready to back agin anything on four legs. It were a sight, I tell you. Nine on ’em started, and Goggles took the lead right away’—here old Jerry, with the stem of his pipe serving as a pencil, began to trace on the table the imaginary lines of the course—‘he cleared the water-jump pretty, and maybe half a dozen came after. On the flat they was nigh equal, but—Lor’ bless you—Goggles was only laughin’ at ’em. _He_ knowed as he could get away as soon as the Maister pleased to give him head. They was a’most abreast when they came near the ugly fence down by Farmer Tubbs’s land. Then Goggles got his way. He were as brave as a lion—or a unicorn, for the matter o’ that—and he took the fence at the nighest but the worst part. We see him rise in the air as it might be, and dip again. Then—well, then, if he didn’t roll right over, and Maister Dick turned a somersault into the ditch.’ There Jerry would stop again in order that his listeners might realise the full horror of the position, emitting half-a-dozen deliberate puffs of smoke from his mouth, and proceed with the pride of a bearer of good news. ‘But the Maister was on his feet again afore you could count your fingers. So was Goggles. The Maister give him a pat on the neck and, says he: “If you can do it Goggles, I’m game.” With that he jumps into the saddle and went tearin’ after them as was proud to think that he was out o’ the chase, and he caught ’em up, and when they were about a quarter of a mile from home, Goggles put on an extra spurt and came in first by a neck. But that weren’t the end on it, for while everybody was a-crowdin’ round about him, Dr Mauldon says: ‘“What’s the matter with your right arm, Dick, that it’s hangin’ so limp-like at your side?” ‘“Dunno what it may be,” says Dick; “but it’s been no use to me since we tumbled over the fence.” ‘“Broken, sure-ly,” says the doctor angry-like, “and you went on riding the race—you’re a fool.”