The prophecy turns up.  Having skirted Fuller’s farm, the villain finds no place to hide; and in two minutes, or less, the canal appears in view.  It is full of craft, and the locks are open, but there is a bridge about half a mile to the right.  “If my horse can do nothing else he can jump this,” cries “Swell,” as he gathers him together, and prepares for the effort.  He hardens his heart and goes at it full tilt, and the leggy animal lands him three yards on the other side.  “Curse this fellow,” cries Jorrocks, grinning with rage as he sees “Swell” skimming through the air like a swallow on a summer’s eve, “he’ll have a laugh at the Surrey, for ever and ever, Amen.  Oh, dear! oh, dear!  I wish I durst leap it.  What shall I do?  Here bargee,” cries he to a bargeman, “lend us a help over and I’ll give you ninepence.”  The bargeman takes him at his word, and getting the vessel close to the water’s edge, Jorrocks has nothing to do but ride in, and, the opposite bank being accommodating, he lands without difficulty.  Ramming his spurs into his nag, he now starts after “Swell,” who is sailing away with a few couple of hounds that took the canal; the body of the pack and all the rest of the field—­except the Bromley barber, who is now floundering in the water—­having gone round to the bridge.

The country is open, the line being across commons and along roads, so that Jorrocks, who is not afraid of “the pace” so long as there is no leaping, has a pretty good chance with “Swell.”  The scene now shifts.  On turning out of a lane, along which they have just rattled, a fence of this description appears:  The bottom part is made of flints, and the upper part of mud, with gorse stuck along the top, and there is a gutter on each side.  Jorrocks, seeing that a leap is likely, hangs astern, and “Swell,” thinking to shake off his only opponent, and to have a rare laugh at the Surrey when he gets back to Melton, puts his nag at it most manfully, who, though somewhat blown, manages to get his long carcass over, but, unfortunately alighting on a bed of flints on the far side, cuts a back sinew, and “Swell” measures his length on the headland.  Jorrocks then pulls up.

The tragedy of George Barnwell ends with a death, and we are happy in being able to gratify our readers with a similar entertainment.  Already have the best-mounted men in the field attained the summit of one of the Mont Blancs of the country, when on looking down the other side of the “mountain’s brow,” they, to their infinite astonishment, espy at some distance our “Swell” dismounted and playing at “pull devil, pull baker” with the hounds, whose discordant bickerings rend the skies.  “Whoo-hoop!” cries one; “whoo-hoop!” responds another; “whoo-hoop!” screams a third; and the contagion spreading, and each man dismounting, they descend the hill with due caution, whoo-hooping, hallooing, and congratulating each other on the splendour of the run, interspersed with divers surmises as to what mighty magic had aided the hounds in getting on such good terms with the warmint, and exclamations at the good fortune of the stranger, in being able (by nicking,[4] and the fox changing his line) to get in at the finish.