IN SEARCH OF A HORSE. 207 



dressing and feeding, when he arrives at an inn. I 

 never trust this to an ostler, nor even to my own 

 servant. I stand by, and watch the whole ceremony. 

 Good policy as well as humanity dictates this precau- 

 tion ; for of all the annoyances to which a traveller 

 is subject, none is more intolerable than to find 

 his horse disabled, probably by a chill (as it is tech- 

 nically called) at a dull country inn. Three days' 

 penance, gaping at a well-thumbed, greasy, provin- 

 cial newspaper, threading the dirty, smoky passages 

 from the coffee-room to the stable and back, in fever- 

 ish impatience for the hourly bulletin ; prosing con- 

 sultations on drenches, balls, and diuretics, with the 

 village cow-leech ; muzzing over a gloomy fire, amidst 

 fumes of stale tobacco, or the unsavory nose-bag of a 

 farmer's ordinary on market day ; fumbling the 

 fingers in the breeches pockets, in sad anticipation of 

 landlord's farrier's and ostler's fees absorbing all 

 their contents : — such are a few of the miseries, all 

 of which might have been saved by a little self-denial 

 in postponing your own dinner to your horse's, and 

 in attending to his animal comforts in preference to 

 yourself. 



It is not enough to order the corn, or even to ex- 

 amine its quality, and see it given ; the traveller 



