114 THE CONDITION OF HUNTERS 



Having ridden in the same race with her for some 

 Hunter's Stakes about three weeks before, I had 

 observed that she was looking remarkably blooming 

 and well, and when I met her in the road she was 

 but little altered in her condition. Her crest was up, 

 her muscles hard, her legs quite in place, her eye was 

 lively, and her skin was beautiful. When I saw the 

 same mare in the park, only nine weeks after I had 

 seen her on her road thither, I knew her, undoubtedly 

 because I expected to find her, but had I met her 

 anywhere else I certainly should not have taken her 

 for the same animal. Her crest was gone, her carcase 

 was swollen, her eye was dull, her action was languid, 

 and her colour, from having been an excellent chesnut, 

 was become (for I can compare it to nothing else) like 

 that of half-baked gingerbread, without the smallest 

 gloss on her coat, which lay hollow on her back ; and, 

 to sum up all, she looked as if she were rotten. 



Now it is by no means my intention to imply that 

 this mare was rotten, but I only wish to enforce the 

 striking contrast between her former and present 

 appearance ; but of this, however, I will not only 

 pledge my existence, but, what would be worse than 

 the loss of life, I will consent to be condemned to live 

 upon horse-flesh the rest of my days, if this mare, by 

 any skill of her groom, by any art, save that of magic, 

 can he reinstated in the condition in which she was when 

 I met her in the road, until hunting is over the ensuing 

 season. I should here observe that the rest of the 

 horses in this park looked equally bad as the mare I 

 have been speaking of. 



