FAWSLEY, A FIRST, AND NOTABLE, EXPEDIENCE. 147 



my treasured stead. On the latter point it is needless to say 

 I was full of sympathy as he could possibly desire though on 

 what grounds he should have expected me to be responsive to 

 reiterated allusions to his " wife and four children " I am at a 

 loss to conceive. He brought these in with an almost entreating 

 pathos when he came to the episode of his shivering a high 

 white gate into match boxes. But I ask you, reader, was it 

 more than human nature that my thoughts altogether refused 

 to quit my favourite and his four legs, or that I should then 

 and there have broken off his tearful story, to rush into the 

 stable and examine my belongings after their recent danger? 

 Ah me \ it is not through the terrible oxers and raspers of 

 penmanship that we and our horses come to grief. Our 

 vicissitudes of horsemanship occur often enough, and seriously 

 enough, but are seldom due to over- valour or anything like 

 culpable rashness. If we hurt ourselves, it is over a gap, or, 

 maybe, only a rabbit-hole. If THE horse of our life dies in the 

 middle of a season, it is because lockjaw has followed the prick 

 of a thorn or the misdirection of a shoe-nail, or because he 

 missed his footing at a two-foot ditch. You and I have 

 perhaps more than once grinned in pain over a fractured 

 limb, the while our daily comrades were riding gaily and safely 

 in the full swing of sport. But was it ever because we had 

 made a bolder venture than they, or because we had, on that 

 unfortunate day, tried our mount too high ? 



How often we hear, in reference to a new purchase, " I dare 

 not ride him at timber because he has never been taught it, or 

 at water because I don't know that he will face it." When 

 such doubts and fears present themselves, depend upon it there 

 is something wrong ; it may be in the stable, it may be in the 

 cellar, or it may be even in the baccy-box ; but, believe me, the 

 screw that is loose is far less likely to be found in the system of 

 the quadruped than in that of the biped. I remember (no 

 matter when or where) a very excellent rough-rider, in the 

 employ of a worthy dealer himself a man of iron nerve, 

 ready at any moment and for any trial to displace the show- 



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