203 The Best F our te en-Han der in England, 



Russell's noted jump, which he had also witnessed and measured; 

 and this he considered wonderful for a pony. I borrowed a hat 

 and pea-jacket of the old man, and rode home in the evening on a 

 horse of his, leaving the little mare in his hands to see what he 

 could make of her, feeling confident in my own mind that / had 

 made a very bad day's work with my new purchase. 



Of course such an affair as this made a bit of a stir in a little 

 country neighbourhood, where people are dying for the want of 

 something to talk about ) and a pretty story they got up about me. 

 " Give a dog a bad name and you hang him," is an old and a true 

 saying 5 and as "casualty horses" generally prove to be casualty 

 horses in more ways than one to their owners, and as there was 

 generally a goodish deal of larking going on about us in those days 

 — in which, as in duty bound, I took my part — I was, as the police 

 would say, rather a marked man, and got the credit for many a lark 

 with which I had not the least to do. However, I could not deny 

 this last little freaky which no one was charitable enough to attribute 

 to its right cause — that of accident. Oh, no ! it was all planned at 

 old Jackson's ! After a champagne breakfast, I had backed my- 

 self to clear the turnpike-gate, and reach the village where the old 

 nabob lived, in so many minutes 3 and the poor vet. (who was as 

 innocent as a child unborn of any foreknowledge that I was even 

 going to ride the little mare on that day) was, as they said, stationed 

 in the lane to see that it was done. 



Such w^as the tale that got bruited about in the morning, and 

 which, of course, reached the ears of the old nabob and his daughter. 

 Little did I know what strictures were passed upon my conduct by 

 all the old gossips in the neighbourhood j and it is perhaps as well 

 I did not. No one was a bit surprised at my leaping the turnpike- 

 stile, for they all said I was just the sort of fellow to do it j but to 

 choose the Sunday ! of all days ! for such a feat, and just as every - 

 body w^as going into church — it was disgraceful — it was wicked — it 

 was scarcely to be bL4ieved ! 



In our little market-town we had a nasty little weekly paper 



