The others increase the pace, as the lie of the ground takes them a little downhill towards the brook. As they near it, you might cover them with a sheet; but, while the whole increase their velocity, Chance and Wood-Pigeon, the latter followed closely by Mr. Stripes on Luxury, single themselves out from the rest. All three get over in their stride; and a faint shout rises from the crowd on the distant hill. Egg-Flip jumps short, and remains on the further bank with his back broken, the centre of a knot of foot-people, who congregate round him in a moment, from no one knows where. Down-upon-’em struggles in and out again, striding over the adjacent water meadow as if full of running; but Brush is far more blown than his horse. His cap is off, his reins are entangled, he has lost a stirrup, and it is obvious that the Major’s chance is out. The race now lies between the leading three; and Crasher, who has great confidence in Chance’s pedigree and stoutness, forces the running tremendously. He and Sawyer take their leaps abreast, the latter riding very quietly and carefully, mindful of old Isaac’s advice, to “sit still.” Luxury is waiting close upon them. “That fellow has been at the game before,” remarks Parson Dove, eyeing Mr. Stripes through his glasses, and struck with admiration at the artistic manner in which that gentleman pulls his horse together for the ridge-and-furrow. The Parson is not far wrong. Few professionals would care to give Mr. Stripes the usual allowance of five pounds. [Illustration: “Wood-Pigeon ... chucks his rider into the field before him.”] Thus they near the “double”—the last obstacle of any importance. It consists of two ditches, and a strong staked-and-bound fence on a bank. No horse can fly it all in his stride, after galloping nearly four miles. Perhaps that is the reason why Stripes, who knows he is on a _quick_ one as well as fast one, shoots a little to the front, and comes at it at such an awful pace, seducing his two adversaries, by the force of example, into the same indiscretion. Crasher, who never “loses his stupidity,” as he calls his presence of mind, diverges for a rail that he spies where the ditch is narrowest, takes the chance of breaking that or being killed, and going at it forty-miles-an-hour, smashes it like paper, and succeeds, as Chance rises not an inch, in covering both ditches at a fly. He lands almost abreast of Luxury, who has struck back at the fence with the rapidity and activity of a cat.