j 64 DRIVING. 



youth of to-day would consider faultless, nor would their horses 

 all have fetched 3oo/. at the hammer ; but still, if after a hard 

 day's work liny managed to get home in time for mess, and 

 especially if, by some error of its own, a fox li.ul been killed, the 

 stories told of the chase and of individual deeds of daring horse- 

 manship would probably run those of the faultlessly divssrd and 

 mounted sabrcurs of to-day pretty close. Well, for the sake of 

 argument, let us say that for the sum above mentioned hard on 

 ten young sportsmen might possibly have gone a-hunting in 

 those merry days, and then we shall arrive at the useful class of 

 animal that was then prevalent in barracks and had far too 

 much to do and was generally too well ridden to indulge 

 in many eccentricities. There was, perhaps, a good deal of 

 analogy in the positions of the horses and their proprietors, 

 except that the masters were probably a great deal keener to 

 be always doing something than their mounts. That may 

 explain why it seemed so natural that if the master was not 

 riding his horse he should be driving him. It was not every- 

 one who was the lucky proprietor of a vehicle of any kind. If 

 he was, it was generally of the two-wheeled order in some 

 cases, an expert might have said a wheel and a half. But then 

 all were not experts, and unlimited confidence was as good as 

 half a wheel. 



Thirty years ago the journey from Woolwich to the west- 

 end of London was a tiresome and tedious affair, so that if 

 pleasure or business called one there, it was much simpler and 

 far more pleasant, in the absence of tramways, to drive at once 

 from point to point, and the Old Kent Road was worn by 

 the constant va-et-vient of the military einspanner. Now one 

 day it came into the head of a festive aide-de-camp who owned 

 two perfectly dissimilar quadrupeds, that, although he could not 

 ride them both at once, it was quite possible to utilise their time 

 by driving them together. The difficulty was, that the only 

 vehicle he possessed was a dogcart, and that to purchase any- 

 thing with four wheels and a pole was quite out of the question, 

 for several simple reasons. This preyed upon his mind, until 



