382 FOX-BOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



So my recipe shall be no slur upon your understanding, no 

 insult upon your resource — while, I answer for it, it shall be 

 found to meet the occasion. When the night is at its longest, 

 when dulness is unbearable, and the demon Fidget is pulling at 

 every nerve-string — ring up a light, prop yourself for action, 

 and have Jorrocks brought to your bed. Open the well- 

 thumbed pages at random, follow him through a lecture, 

 flounder with him in the forest, struggle with him over the 

 dreaded open, accompany him to dinner and ball, mark his 

 education of Benjamin, and join him in his daily occupations — 

 as sketched by Surtees and pictured by Leech — and, believe 

 me, the clock will gallop round, black night shall have its 

 solemnity scattered, and the grey dawn shall break upon a new 

 man — content to laugh on, or soothed to a gentle nap such a& 

 came from Beckford upon Benjamin. 



January 3, 1889. — As far as I can learn, the year went out 

 leaving every stable more or less crippled by the constant strain 

 to which it has been subjected, and by the trying ordeal of deep 

 ground. For some seasons past a cry has gone up against the 

 forced extravagance of keeping up a full stud when two or 

 three horses would have sufficed for all requirements. At the 

 present time a murmur, different but equally pronounced, is to 

 be heard, also on the score of extravagance. Every man is short 

 of horses. If the season resumes its swing at once, they must 

 have some more — or find pressing excuse for " business else- 

 where." Wet seasons more often bring sport, but they certainly 

 biing lame horses. To jump off a spring board is comparatively 

 a safe and easy process. To rise out of a slough is to court 

 sprains and blows, or punctured wounds ; for horses can neither 

 clear their fences nor jump in collected form. 



With a hard frost outside, and consequently little or no news 

 penetrating to the accident ward, my subject is naturally at a 

 standstill — even if the immediate look-out left me heart enough 



