The Leather Plater, 387 



man in our parts^ save John Harrison, knew, nor did any one care 

 much to inquire. He had migrated to HoUiwell from the Yorkshire 

 "Wolds some eighteen years before, bringing with him the black 

 mare Plover, then in her prime, and his little daughter Annie, a 

 child of about a year old. It was soon evident to the hard-riding 

 crew, amongst whom he had so promiscuously dropped, that the old 

 man (for although he was scarcely fifty when he came to Holliwell, 

 he looked full sixty, and was never known from the first by any 

 other name than " Old Jack Radford") was as deep in the mysteries 

 of horseflesh as the best of them ; and his greatest detractors (for, 

 strange to say, not a man in the hunt or a farmer in tlie neighbour- 

 hood ever liked him from the first) could not help owning that a 

 better seat or hands on a horse they nev^er saw, and that Jack Rad- 

 ford on Plover was harder to beat than any man and horse in the 

 hunt. He owned but one hunter, and consequently rarely showed 

 with the hounds 5 but he always picked the best meets when he did 

 show, and never went home from a run without having done some- 

 thing to be talked about. The old man's day was before my time, 

 and I never saw him out ; but I have been told that it was a treat 

 to see him leading the field over our stiffest country — the old man, 

 with his jockey seat and hands down, sitting as still as if he were 

 part and parcel of his horse, his countenance grim as death, and the 

 old mare stealing along with a low, lurching stride, taking every 

 fence in her line without a mistake and apparently without any 

 exertion. The day was never too long or the country too stiff for 

 ojd Jack Radford and Plover. But he never boasted or talked 

 about either his own deeds 01 those of his favourite mare 3 he was 

 one of the most surly, taciturn men that ever lived, and if he did 

 answer a question, it was in so rough and uncivil a manner that 

 one hardly cared to risk a second rebuff. As years wore on, his 

 manners became even ruder and more unpolished -, the old man 

 began to get a little stiff in his joints, and it was really a rehef to 

 the whole hunt when at length he turned the old mare up, and was 

 no longer seen at the covert-side. Various were the surmises as to 

 what serious crime was weighing on old Jack Radford's mind, and 



