COACHING COMPETITION loi 



ostlers became hysterical with rage, onlookers gave 

 gratuitous advice, and had it hurled back in their faces 

 with opprobrious epithets. The only unmoved person in 

 the general pandemonium was the chief performer who 

 flatly refused to move for anything or anybody until he 

 was unfastened from the coach, then he at once got up 

 and returned in triumph to his stable. 



This horse's eccentricity was so well known that once 

 purchased it was by no means easy to dispose of him, 

 and he travelled about from one part of the country to 

 another. He got into Mr. Costar's stables at Oxford, de- 

 feated all his coachmen and was ordered to be sold. His 

 purchaser, a coachman named Cross, bought the horse 

 for j^io, and as he was perfedly sound, only six years old, 

 and in appearance well worth ^^35, he felt pretty sure 

 that he was possessed of a shady past. When he had paid 

 the money down for his new purchase, he was speedily 

 informed that as a coach horse he was useless as go in 

 harness he would not. 



Cross very soon found out that report spoke only too 

 true, for when the horse was harnessed he instantly 

 lay down in the Cornmarket at Oxford and refused to 

 move. Cross determined he would get the better of him 

 somehow and, in pursuance of a plan he had formed, he 

 obtained some straw and strewed it round the horse. If 

 the animal imagined this was a delicate attention he was 

 soon undeceived, for the coachman's next adl was to 

 set light to the straw. The horse lay till he was singed, 

 then with a bound he got to his feet, leapt over the burn- 

 ing straw, and immediately threw himself down again. 



