1 86 THE HUNTING FIELD 



they are a sort of cross between a travelling tinker 

 and a stableman by Vulcan out of Pitchfork, or 

 something of that sort. They are almost all sports- 

 men or sporting men that is to say, they have a 

 turn for everything going, or can turn their hands to 

 everything. They like a hunt, and they like a race ; 

 they like a game at pitch and toss, are great at quoits, 

 can play at cards, dominoes, get up raffles, shoot 

 matches, jump in sacks, bait badgers, and don't care 

 if they go out coursing occasionally. Like the travel- 

 ling tinker, they generally have a turn for keeping a 

 horse. " Keeping," indeed, we can hardly call it 

 starving, starving a horse would be nearer the mark. 

 Bullwaist's pony is a sample of that. Its shape is 

 good, but it is long "overdue," as the bankers say, 

 only there is nothing on it to make soup of. Yet the 

 poor beast was in the coal cart all yesterday, and was 

 assisting at a moonlight flitting the night before. 

 Now it has seventeen stone, avoirdupois weight, 

 piled upon its back. Bullwaist is a hard task- 

 master. He never thinks he can get enough out of 

 a horse. 



The blacksmith's shop is to the country what the 

 saddler's is to the town, the grand emporium of news. 

 It is to the servants what the hair-dresser's is to their 

 masters, or perhaps their mistresses, for we will give 

 our sex credit for having something else to do than 

 gossip. When the Blacksmith combines the trade 

 of publican as well, it will go hard if he is not ac- 

 quainted with all the " inns and outs " of the country. 

 It will be odd if he does not know who was at the 

 castle last week, and who is expected next; nay, we 

 will be bound to say he can tell who supplied the 

 Dorking fowls, and what butcher sent the most beef 

 and mutton. He has a chronological chart in his 

 head of all the kings and queens that have reigned 

 there since the days of his boyhood; can tell what 

 butler king was most liberal with the beer, and what 



