THE PARSON'S JOCKEY. 



He was not much like a jockey when I first made his acquaint- 

 ance. As lean as a rake, his skin puckered and wrinkled and 

 dried, till it was like shrivelled parchment, and with one of the 

 most painfully solemn faces I ever saw, he had yet an air of 

 portentous dignity about him which inspired all his neighbours 

 with respectful awe. He was invariably spoken of as Mister 

 Miller, while the Reverend Canon Grosesmith, his master, was 

 familiarly known and talked of as ' Grosesmith,' or ' Old Grose- 

 smith.' He occupied the proud position of coachman and bailiff 

 to that eminent dignitary. And when mounted on the box in 

 sable livery, driving at funeral pace the Canon's two sleek and 

 lazy bays, he looked quite as much a pillar of the Church as his 

 master. He was a rigid teetotaller and vegetarian ; defects in 

 his character which were partially redeemed by his inordinate 

 passion for tobacco, of which he consumed something like two 

 ounces per diem, and that of the strongest too. Who would 

 have dreamt that there was ever a time when this sober, dignified, 

 and solemn gentleman was known as a rollicking young spark, 

 as Bob, ' Mad Bob,' Miller? But it was so, and this is how I 

 came to know it. 



There was only one man breathing who had the assurance to 

 call him ' Bob' at the time when I knew him, and that was his 

 old ' pal,' Sergeant Wicketts, and even in his mouth the abbrevia- 

 tion sounded shockingly irreverent. The sergeant was an old 

 dragoon who had served in the Peninsular War. He had 

 ridden through a cavalry charge at the battle of Toulouse with 

 his right arm dislocated and his sword hanging by the sword- 

 knot from his wrist. He had rashly, as he explained to me, 

 given the first Frenchman he encountered ' the point,' and being 

 unable to extricate his weapon from the body of his enemy with 

 sufficient quickness, as his horse pressed on, his arm was dis- 

 located, and he rode defenceless through the charge, but, strange 

 to say, came to no further harm. Periodically Sergeant Wicketts 



