THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



fair, as I was turning him round to go again, at the corner of 

 New Street, up conies two as respectable-looking gentlemen as 

 a man should see in a score, dressed in top-boots and leather 

 breeches, and says to me, " What's the price of the young nag, 

 miller ? " " Thirty guineas," says I : you know I left a little 

 for bating.^ " Sound ? " says one. " Quiet ? " says t' other. 

 "Lord love you, gentlemen," says I, "why, father bred him. 

 There isn't a sounder nor a gentler creature on the face of 

 earth, as his mother, indeed, was afore him : and he's all over 

 a soldier, if not an officer, which father says he is." Now, 

 Master Raby, how do you think they sarved me ? " Any 

 objection, miller ? " says one of these chaps — devils, God for- 

 give me. Master Raby — (here Frank could scarcely refrain from 

 laughing) — " for me to throw my leg o'er the young one, for a 

 hundred yards or so, and you can hold my pony the while ? " 

 " None in the least, sir," says I ; " ride him, by all means ; 

 you'll say you never was on the back of a nicer nag in all your 

 life, and by the time he has been one month in the stable of 

 a gentleman like you, nobody wouldn't know him again." Well, 

 Master Raby, away goes this chap on father's nag, and away 

 rattles t' other all sorts of stuff to me, such as — how was wheat 

 selling in this country ? was father a freeholder, or some big 

 gentleman's tenant ? did we grind by wind or water ? and all 

 such questions as those. Howsomever, I soon found out that 

 father was ground out of his horse, clean enough ; for thinking 

 it a long time before the chap who was riding him came back, 

 I says to t' other chap — " Where can the gentleman be ? " " I'll 

 run up this street," said he, "and see"; and so he did, but I 

 see'd no more of our horse from that time to this, and all I've 

 got to show for him is this here pony (which they tells me is 

 glandered), that the second chap left with me to hold, when he 

 run up the street after t' other. Now, young gentlemen, if it 

 warn't for father and mother, nobody should have seen me in 

 the parish of Amstead again : I would have gone for a soldier, 

 along with father's colt ; for they tells me he will be at Bristol 

 by to-morrow night, and away to the army, in a ship, before 

 we could get there arter him.' 



Here this part of the scene closed ; and that which occurred 

 on the meeting between ' 'cute John ' and his father may be 

 imagined by all who have read that between the Vicar of Wake- 

 1 Twenty-five was the ultimvim price of troop-lior.ses. 



61 



