MY FIRST HUNTERS 19 



called the Old Berkeley, was told to get me a hunter. Tom sold 

 us a mare, neat enough to look at, but about as much of a 

 hunter as any ladykiller in London ; as bad a thing to mount 

 a young hand on as could well be selected. I rode her with 

 my brothers harriers for some time, and when she became 

 stumped up I got another. This was a thoroughbred horse, 

 called Hertford, with one eye, and with him I was out of the 

 frying-pan into the fire, for, regarding him as a hunter for a 

 beginner, he was ten times worse than the mare. He had the 

 peculiarity of always turning his tail to the fences, if checked to 

 let horse or hounds go before, and then, when the time came 

 for him to go, he shut his only eye, and, wheeling with a rush, 

 dashed at the spot where he imagined the fence was. Between 

 the mare and the horse I was completely cowed from riding, 

 and had not my brother Henry taken compassion on me, and 

 lent me a fine old horse, a terrible slug, but a capital fencer, 

 called Sultan, I think I never should have ridden to hounds. It 

 was so delightful to me to be on this horse, and to have to 

 put him at fences to go clean over them, and to rouse him to 

 his work, after the hot, fretful whirlwinds I had been on, who 

 always went through everything, that I soon could take a line of 

 my own. At length the harriers, after hunting occasional bag 

 foxes, hunted occasional fallow deer. We had a beautiful little 

 fallow doe that gave us several good runs, and then we had 

 some red deer. All this time I was assisting to whip-in, as we 

 could not afford to keep servants for the hounds, and my 

 passion for the chase increased. I bought a black horse soon 

 after I joined the Guards, of a gentleman at Datchet, near 

 Windsor, who carried me very well, and was a perfect fencer. 

 About this time I caught my first lesson in horse-dealing. I 

 had an animal I drove in my tilbury, and, wishing to change it, 

 Mr. Thorpe, of Chippenham, who was in the regiment with me, 

 took me to a dealer set up for a short time in Windsor. This 

 man's name was Everett, if I remember rightly, or some name 

 very like it. We exchanged horse for horse, and I gave him a 

 cheque on my banker in London for seven or ten pounds, I forget 



