275 



THE LEATHER PLATER. 



^* While knowing postilions his pedigree trace, 

 Tell his dam won that sweepstakes, his sire won that race, 

 And what matches he won to the ostlers count o'er. 

 As they loiter their time at some hedge alehouse door." 



It was the evening after the Hollerton Steeple-chase — a dull, 

 drizzly^ dark night in March — that I pulled up at the door of the 

 Chequers (a little roadside coaching inn, just half-way between the 

 steeple-chase course and our place) to wash my horse's mouth out 

 with a pailful of gruel, and my own with a glass of hot brandy-and- 

 water — of both which we stood *' very much in need," to use the 

 words of old Louis Philippe when he bolted from France, and, 

 landing an outcast at a small inn on the English coast, gave orders 

 to the landlord to procure him a new suit of clothes. 



I had ridden twenty miles over to the race in the morning, and 

 had never been off the horse's back save for an hour the whole day, 

 and, except a hasty snack at the race lunch, had not broken my fast 

 since breakfast. We had run in the day's steeple-chase a four-year- 

 old, who had never been out before, but who had promised great 

 things in his home trials j and although the field was strong, we 

 went in for the odd chance, and fancied it possible that he might 

 pull the race off for us. But it was not to be. He could only 

 manage to finish fourth, and probably would not even have secured 

 that place if a good many of the horses that started had not been 

 put hors de combat before they reached the distance flag. 



We had one of our best professional steeple-chase jockeys up, and 

 when I paid him, as he gave me back the jacket and cap after the 

 race, I had the satisfaction of hearing his opinion of the horse 

 delivered in the following candid terms : — that " of all the brutes 



T a 



