252 THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER 



are on." "Yes, sir," said Dick in his blandest 

 manner ; " and I should say beauty was not by when 

 you were dropped ! " ' l 



The canny Scot is sometimes quite a match for 

 the Southron in horse-dealing : 



6 An anecdote is told of a certain Scotch laird who 

 sold a horse to an Englishman, saying, " You buy 

 him as you see him ; but he's an honest beast." The 

 purchaser took him home. In a few days he stum- 

 bled and fell, to the damage of his own knees and 

 his rider's head. On this the angry purchaser re- 

 monstrated with the laird, whose reply was, " Well, 

 sir, I told you he was an honest beast ! Many a time 

 he has threatened to come down with me, and I 

 kenned he would keep his word some day." ' 2 



The Irishman, according to tradition, should be 

 full of fun, even while taking in his best friend over 

 a horse. But the Irish of late years seem to have 

 either left off being funny, or they don't allow the 

 Saxon to enjoy any of their wit. Charles Lever's 

 horse-loving, hard-riding Irishmen were jolly good 

 fellows, and the individual of whom, the following is 

 related must have been one of them : 



' We had a rather humorous adventure here the 

 plains of Eoscomrnon abound with them. A cockney 

 sportsman was amongst us who had bought an 'oss 

 two days previous to the hunt. There was as bad a 



1 B ally's Magazine, June 1874. 



2 Soort at Home and Abroad Lord W. Lennox. 



