198 THE ADVENTURES OF A GENTLEMAN 



for the field : but still he should be put through all 

 his paces. The effect of exercise is not merely to 

 prevent swelled legs and tender feet, but to insure 

 his ability to work when required. A man may 

 judge of this by his own experience. If he is fond 

 of shooting, he must have often found that for the 

 first week in September he returns home weary and 

 exhausted, fitter for his bed than his dinner: the 

 second and third week he recovers his powers, and 

 can converse all the evening, though he may have 

 followed his game with ardour all the day. A post- 

 horse, or a machiner, will often eclipse the per- 

 formances of the best-fed horse in a dealer's stables. 

 I recollect, at the age of sixteen, riding a post-horse 

 nearly as old as myself, above sixty miles in less 

 than nine hours, and he came in almost as fresh as 

 when he started. I felt ashamed of being seen on 

 the back of such a lath-like, worn out, famished hack ; 

 but it was a case of necessity, and I had no alterna- 

 tive. When he brought me home so gaily, I felt as 

 proud of him as I was before ashamed ; and I will 

 answer for it, that not one in twenty of the high-fed 

 cattle of our London stables would have done half 

 the work, simply for this reason — that they want 

 that vigor which exercise alone can impart. 



