The Trotter. 



^S7 



night. He appeared to be in that frame of mind when drink takes 

 no effect upon a maiij for akhough he drank glass after glass with- 

 out any stint, he rose from the table as sober as any man in that 

 company. About eleven we all retired to our bedrooms, after 

 spending a very different evening from what I fancied I should have 

 done from all that I had heard of the doings at Ashby Grange. 



I slept on a sofa in Sam's study, and I think it would have taken 

 an auctioneer some time to appraise the miscellaneous contents of 

 that room. The shelves were filled with just such books as we 

 might have expected to find in such a man's library 3 and every 

 other article in the room bore some testimony to the sporting tastes 

 of the owner. His three favourite double-barrels hung in a bracket 

 on the walls 3 a case of *^ saw-handles," by Nock, stood on the 

 mantelpiece J while tandem whips, jockey whips, boots, spurs, 

 boxing-gloves, single-sticks, and even a battered policeman's hat, 

 with other articles "too numerous to mention," were stowed away 

 in every corner. 



I left the old Grange at about eleven the next morning, after re- 

 ceiving an invitation to repeat my visit, which I promised to do, and 

 which I certainly should have done j but I little knew, as I shook 

 hands with both Sam and his wife on parting, what a sad calamity 

 was threatening them 3 and I should have regarded that poor woman 

 with far deeper interest if I could only have known what would be 

 her fate within one short week from that day. 



As to my whip, the little boy, with the cunning peculiar to his 

 class, had hidden it away, and no one could find it ; but Sam gave 

 me another to keep as a remembrance of him, telling me that it 

 had been in good hands, for that " Sim" had won the Queen's 

 guineas with it at for him, on his old mare. Maid Marian. 



Jem was very pleased when he saw me come home so early, and 

 heard that I had so easily made the match on better terms than it 

 had expected. He would hardly believe m« when I told him what 

 sort of an evening we had spent, and opened his eyes with astonish- 

 ment when I said that the captain was now owner of old Morgan. 

 He could scarcely think it was all on the square, and was not 



