27 S The Leather Plater, 



and corners in the far country, beyond the screech and whistle of 

 the engine,, where one or other is still to be met with, whose jovial 

 landlord can remember the day when half a dozen London coaches 

 passed by his door, and when ten miles an hour, including stoppages, 

 used to be considered good going. 



Every man has some favourite hobby of his own which he is 

 never tired of riding, and my old friend John Harrison's hobby was 

 a singular one. Of course it was "horsey" — that was natural. 

 And yet I never heard that he bought a horse in his life 3 in fact, he 

 would not even horse a single stage of any one of the coachei 

 which changed at his own stables. But there was not a horse, 

 either in the hands of a gentleman or a farmer, within a radius of 

 ten miles from the Chequers, of which he did not know the value 

 and capabilities ; not a horse in the hunt that he did not appear to 

 know as much about as the man who rode him ; not a colt was 

 ever foaled in the neighbourhood but he had the pedigree of both 

 dam and sire at his fingers' ends -, and not a horse was for sale in 

 his part of the country that old John had not mentally appraised, 

 and whose buying and selling value he could not tell you to a five- 

 pound note. He had a good deal of leisure and time on his hands, 

 for, except the smoking and talking part of the business, his wife 

 managed the indoor concerns, and he was continually poking about 

 the country on a punchy, wall-eyed, weight-carrying old cob (John 

 rode sixteen stun, as he pronounced it) looking in at all the farm- 

 houses — where he was an especial favourite — just to see what sort 

 of a colt the last which the old mare threw was likely to turn 

 out 3 or up at the Hall stables, where his brother was stud groom, 

 to see how the horses were getting on. In fact, he seemed to have 

 the key of every stable in that part of the country 5 he used to be 

 here, there, and everywhere — and no telling, when you were riding 

 about the little lanes for which our country was noted, but old John 

 and the wall-eyed cob might turn up. His memory was remark- 

 able 3 he never forgot a horse when he had once seen it, and was 

 certainly an extraordinary judge of horseflesh, insomuch that he 

 became quite notorious 3 and the Chequers at length became a sort 



