COACHING DAYS AND WAYS 



your watch. Only one minute allowed for it at 

 Hounslow, and it is often done in fifty seconds by 

 those nimble-fingered horse-keepers." ** You astonish 

 me — but really I do not like to go so fast." *' Oh, 

 sir ! we always spring them over these six miles. 

 It is what we call the hospital ground" This alarming 

 phrase is presently interpreted : it intimates that 

 horses whose *' backs are getting down instead of 

 up in their work" — some "that won't hold an 

 ounce down hill, or draw an ounce up " — others 

 ** that kick over the pole one day and over the 

 bars the next " — in short, all the reprobates, styled 

 in the road slang bo-kickers, are sent to work these 

 six miles, because here they have nothing to do 

 but gallop — not a pebble as big as a nutmeg on the 

 road ; and so even, that it would not disturb the 

 equilibrium of a spirit-level. 



*The coach, however, goes faster and faster over 

 the hospital ground^ as the bo-kickers feel their legs 

 and the collars get warm to their shoulders ; and 

 having ten outsides, the luggage of the said ten, and 

 a few extra packages besides on the roof, she rolls 

 rather more than is pleasant, although the centre 

 of gravity is pretty well kept down by four not 



22 



