THOROUGH-BRED HORSES. 169 



out of training, and brought him down to Pytchley, to 

 teach him the way he should go (and the way of Sir 

 Charles over a country was that of a bird in the air), he 

 found the horse restive, ignorant, wilful, and unusually 

 averse to learning the business of a hunter. The 

 animal, was, however, well worth a little painstaking, 

 and his owner, a perfect centaur in the saddle, rode him 

 out for a lesson in jumping the first day the hounds 

 remained in the kennel. At two o'clock, as his old 

 friend and contemporary, Mr. John Cooke informed me, 

 he came back, having failed to get the rebel over a 

 single fence. " But I have told them not to take his 

 saddle off," said Sir Charles, sitting down to a cutlet 

 and a glass of Madeira, ' after luncheon I mean to have 

 a turn at him again ! " 



So the baronet remounted and took the lesson up 

 where he had left off. Nerve, temper, patience, the 

 strongest seat, and the finest hands in England, 

 could not but triumph at last, and this thorough- 

 bred pair came home at dinner-time, having larked 

 over all the stiffest fences in the country, with perfect 

 unanimity and good will. Sir Marinel, and Benvolio, 

 also a thorough-bred horse, were by many degrees, 

 Sir Charles has often told me, the best hunters he 

 ever had. 



