'FOR SALE— A THOROUGHBRED NAG, 

 UNBROKEN.' 



I. 



The nag was a mare. Father bought her of a sharp horsey- 

 innkeeper in the neighbouring town, who had had her of a man 

 who had taken her in payment of a bad debt of Captain Pump- 

 kin, bankrupt. When she was brought home, with her foal of 

 three weeks trotting by her side, we all gathered round with 

 the warmest interest. Nobody could enough admire the beauty 

 of the pair. What a graceful deer-like creature was the foal ! 

 How clean and elegant were the limbs of the mother ! (' I could 

 break 'em wi' my boot,' cried little Bill, with a heroic look, deal- 

 ing an aimless kick into the air.) What spring and speed there 

 were in that long pastern, and this great muscle in the thigh 

 down to the hock ! ' And her tail,' remarked Sissy — (which did 

 not hang limp and nerveless between her hips, as is the habit of 

 most equine and vaccine tails, but which had a kind of defiant 

 cock) — ' her tail,' said she, standing back, with her head on one 

 side, 'has as fine a curve as an ostrich-feather.' 



'Well, Joe,' said my father, after smiling placidly on us all, 

 observing the old groom standing apart rubbing his nose in 

 quizzical silence, ' what do you think of her ?' 



Joe put his finger to his cap and came forward. He seized 

 her by the nostrils and the nether lip, and looked into her mouth. 



' Rising four-year-old, Joe,' said my father. 



' Umph !' grunted Joe. 



He stepped back, and ran his eye all over her for a moment, 

 as if for something he had lost ; then, again stepping forward, 

 he bent down and lifted her forefoot to tap the frog. With a 

 mischievous flash of the eye she turned her head, and seized in 

 her teeth the most obtrusive part of Joe's garment. Joe dropped 

 on his hands. We all laughed ; how could we help it ? Joe 

 rose in some perplexity, and turned to me quietly with ' SJie 

 ain't no good.' 



' Rising four, Joe,' said my father, ' and quite unbroken.' 



