252 THE HUNTING FIELD 



A looker-on would fancy he had half a dozen 

 spare necks at home, so little does he seem to care 

 for the one he is wearing. 



How amiable he is about his horses, how tender of 

 their reputation, how anxious to transfer their faux 

 pas to his own shoulders. We saw old staggering 

 Bill, as he is called, a big, bay, wooden-legged old 

 screw, give him a tremendous fall over a stone wall, 

 which the old beggar absolutely ran at without the 

 slightest attempt at leaping, and not content with 

 tumbling him over on the far side, the indolent 

 brute lay on his leg for some five minutes, which 

 agreeable time was spent by the Captain in alternate 

 exhortations to the horse to rise, and protestations 

 to the parties who came to compel him, that it was 

 " all his own fault ; the horse wasn't to blame in the 

 least." Another day he was riding a groggy old 

 grey in a sharpish burst over a roughish country, 

 where, as usual, the Captain was doing his best to 

 distinguish himself, when in crossing a field of wheat, 

 the veteran fell in a grip, and rolling heavily over 

 him, left the Captain distended for dead. It is a 

 painful sight to see a red coat and white breeches 

 lying full stretch on the land, a painfulness that was 

 increased in the present instance by the apparent 

 lifelessness of the body and the springing of the 

 young green wheat all around. There lay the 

 Captain, and it was not until he was stuck up on 

 end, and some brandy poured down his throat, that 

 he began to give any symptoms of returning 

 animation, when the first words he uttered, as he 

 stared wildly around, were, " Good beast as ever was 

 for all that'' 1 In short nobody ever saw the Captain 

 without an excuse for a horse, whatever he did. 



There are some people in the world, not many 

 certainly, who have no idea of improving an 

 opportunity indeed upon whom the temptations of 

 fortune are perfectly wasted, but the Captain is not 



