2 52 THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER 



are on." " Yes, sir," said Dick in his blandest 

 manner ; " and I should say beauty was not by when 

 you were dropped ! " ' ^ 



The canny Scot is sometimes quite a match for 

 the Southron in horse-dealing : 



' An anecdote is told of a certain Scotch laird who 

 sold a horse to an Eng-lishraan, saying, " You buy 

 him as you see him ; but he's an Jionest beast." The 

 purchaser took him home. In a few days he stum- 

 bled and fell, to the damage of his own knees and 

 his rider's head. On this the angry purchaser re- 

 monstrated with the laird, whose reply was, " Well, 

 sir, I told you he was an honest beast ! Many a time 

 he has threatened to come down with me, and I 

 kenned he would heep his vjord some day.'' ' ^ 



The Irishman, according to tradition, should be 

 full of fun, even while taking in his best friend over 

 a horse. But the Irish of late years seem to have 

 either left oflP being funny, or they don't allow the 

 Saxon to enjoy any of their wit. Charles Lever's 

 horse-loving, hard-riding Irishmen were jolly good 

 fellows, and the individual of whom the following is 

 related must have been one of them ; 



' We had a rather humorous adventure here — the 

 plains of Roscommon abound with them. A cockney 

 sportsman was amongst us who had bought an 'oss 

 two days previous to the hunt. There was as bad a 



* Baihfs Mafjnz'Die, June 1874. 



2 Soort at Home and Abroad — Lord W. Lennox. 



