The Best F our te en-Han der in England. 195 



campaign as he had recommended. He could not find a fault or 

 flaw with the new nag j and the only thing that spoilt her in his 

 eye was that I had bought her of " that Joe Cox/' whom he hated 

 like poison. However, strict as was his examination, he was bound 

 to declare that he fancied she was all that Joe had said, and he only 

 trusted this latter worthy had come honestly by her, for he never 

 could believe, unless there was some fault which we were unable 

 to detect, that such a little beauty could have come into his hands 

 fairly. He saw no reason why I should not part with her at once, 

 as, however good she might be, he fancied the one we then had in 

 training was good enough to " lick her head off." However, on 

 one thing he insisted — that I should take the breaker's bit out of 

 her mouth, unless I wanted to ''crab" her off hand 3 and when 

 one of the lads led her round to the door after breakfast, she was 

 decorated in a neat new racing snaffle with a blue-and-white plaited 

 band on the forehead. The martingale was taken away, and then 

 she looked, as he triumphantly observed, a nag fit to be shown to 

 any lady, even if that lady was the Queen of England. 



Among his other tastes the old man was a bit of a florist, and 

 his tulips, carnations, anemones, and dahlias, when they were in 

 season, were the envy of all the gardeners round us. In front of 

 his house was a large round bed, divided into little squares, in which 

 his favourite flowers grew, and in the middle of which stood one of 

 the largest and handsomest rhododendrons I ever saw. This 

 bed was fenced off from the gravel walk which led round it by a 

 light iron fencing just high enough to keep a dog out, and treliised 

 with iron netting to prevent his game fowls from intruding 3 for, 

 like many of the old school, he had a strong penchant for ''the sod." 

 Beyond this bed was a lawn as soft as velvet and smooth as a 

 Turkey carpet, in the middle of which stood the old chestnut tree 

 to which I have alluded in a former sketch 5 and at the back of 

 this was a thick plantation of fir, hollies, laurel, and Spanish 

 che'stnuts, which screened the house from the road, from which the 

 plantation was divided by a deep, bricked '' haw-haw," flanked 

 with spiked slanting palings about three or four feet long. This 



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