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The top of the tunnel seemed ever so much farther from the line than they had expected, and it was like being on a bridge, but a bridge overgrown with bushes and creepers and grass and wild-flowers. "I KNOW the paperchase has gone long ago," said Phyllis every two minutes, and she hardly knew whether she was pleased or disappointed when Peter, leaning over the parapet, suddenly cried: "Look out.
"The paperchase is worth the climb," said Phyllis, "if we don't lose it. Let's get on. It's all down hill now." "I said that ten minutes ago," said Peter. "Well, I'VE said it now," said Phyllis; "come on." "Loads of time," said Peter. And there was.
"Yard by yard the ranks and lines of the Austrians were driven back, but the nearer their retreat brought them to the open country west of the wood the hotter was the contest waged. The last two kilometers of the woody belt are something incredible to behold; there seems hardly an acre that is not sown like the scene of a paperchase only here with bloody bandages and bits of uniform.
"If we go to the cutting," said Peter, "we shall see the workmen, even if we miss the paperchase." Of course it had taken some time to get the line clear from the rocks and earth and trees that had fallen on it when the great landslip happened. That was the occasion, you will remember, when the three children saved the train from being wrecked by waving six little red-flannel-petticoat flags.
"That's only in pictures. You never saw one really with letters round its neck." "Well, I have a pigeon, then; at least Daddy told me they did. Only it was under their wings and not round their necks, but it comes to the same thing, and " "I say," interrupted Bobbie, "there's to be a paperchase to-morrow." "Who?" Peter asked. "Grammar School.
I can quite understand Dandy's feelings; for if when one was just preparing for a paperchase, or anything of that sort, Baby Cecil trotted up and, flinging himself head first into one's arms, after his usual fashion, cried, "Baby Cecil 'ants Charlie to tell him a long, long story so much!" it always ended in one's giving up the race or the scramble, and devoting one's self as sedately as Dandy to his service.
It is true that two men have been killed in these chases; but although ladies have taken part in them since the early days when that fine horsewoman, Mrs. "Jim" Cook, set the example, I have not heard of any woman getting badly hurt. Mrs. Cook, who was known in India as the "Mem Sahib," holds the record of being the only woman who has won the Paperchase Cup when competing against men.
The hares ride over the fences, and by distributing their landmarks sparsely and in places where their pursuers can follow only in single file, they often make it difficult for the leading division to keep the line. Those who over-run the paper, of course imperil their chance of being among the first six, which is the number of "placed horses" in these paperchase records.
Murray was a most plucky rider, and made more than one good bid for the Paperchase Cup, which she well deserved to win. I had a very good Australian horse named Terence, by Talk of the Hills, which got placed in these chases, but when I hoped to do great things with him, I got typhoid fever and exchanged my residence to the General Hospital.
It was no uncommon sight to see a black man, with nothing on but a kummerbund, running away to his lair, with a stirrup leather, hat, or even a pair of spurs belonging to some dethroned sportsman. The horse ridden by Mrs. Saunders in the paperchase I have alluded to, was a powerful "Waler" which, according to his importer, Mr. Macklin, had won nearly all the jumping prizes in Australia!
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