338 WHISPERS FROM FAIRYLAND. [vu

 

opponent behind, and passing the winning-post a full
yard and a half before him, amid the enthusiastic
cheering of the ‘ Dry-bobs’ and the warm congratula-
tions of his numerous friends. There were few boys
more popular than Ethelston, and no one whose
success would have given more general satisfaction.
Moreover it had been a fast as well as a closely con-
tested race, and everybody was pleased with the sport
which had been afforded. The crowd in the Field
slowly dispersed and straggled back to college.

For the rest of the day, at the dinner table, ‘ after
four’ and ‘after six,’ the events of the morning formed
an occasional topic of conversation; but the school
settled down to its work again as usual, and the steeple-
chase of that year ranked among the events of the
past. The two boys who had been competitors at
the last were thrown but little together during the
rest of their Eton career. Ethelston being so high
in the school, and Moore a ‘lower boy,’ it was only
accidentally that they came in contact ; and gradually
the memory of the race and its results died away, over-
shadowed and eclipsed in the mind of the Eton world
by other similar events and the varied excitement
of Eton life. Had anyone prophesied that the two
. heroes of that day would again be brought together
in another and still more desperate race, he would
probably have been laughed at asa dreamer of dreams,
and certainly so if he had described in imagination
that which really occurred. Nevertheless the events
of real life are oftentimes stranger than imagination
itself, and so it would have proved in this case.