THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 6r 



worth soldier's price, or a little more ! Well, gentlemen, 

 arter riding him only twice up and down the fair, as I 

 was turning him round to go again, at the corner of New 

 Street, up comes two as respectable-looking gentlemen as 

 a man should see in a score, dressed in top-boots and 

 leather breeches, and says to me, ' What's the price of the 

 young nag, miller ? ' ' Thirty guineas,' says I ; you know 

 I left a little for bating. 1 'Sound?' says one. 'Quiet?' 

 says t'other. ' Lord love you, gentlemen,' says I, ' why, 

 father bred him. There 'isn't a sounder nor a gentler 

 creature on the face of earth, as his mother, indeed, was 

 afore him : and he's all over a soldier, if not an officer, 

 which father says he is.' Now, Master Raby, how do you 

 think they sarved me? 'Any objection, miller,' says one 

 of these chaps devils, God forgive me, Master Raby (here 

 Frank could scarcely refrain from laughing) 'for me to 

 throw my leg o'er the young one, for a hundred yards or 

 so, and you can hold my pony the while 1 ' ' None in the 

 least, sir,' says I ; ' ride him, by all means ; you'll say you 

 never was on the back of a nicer nag in all your life, and 

 by the time he has been one month in the stable of a 

 gentleman like you, nobody wouldn't know him again.' 

 Well, Master Raby, away goes this chap on father's nag, 

 and away rattles t'other all sorts of stuff to me, such as 

 how was wheat selling in this country ? was father a free- 

 holder, or some big gentleman's tenant ? did we grind by 

 wind or water ? and all such questions as those. How- 

 somever, I soon found out that father was ground out of 

 his horse, clean enough ; for thinking it a long time before 

 the chap who was riding him came back, I says to t'other 

 chap ' Where can the gentleman be?' 'I'll run up this 

 street,' said he, ' and see ' ; and so he did, but I seed no 

 more of our horse from that time to this, and all I've got 

 to show for him is this here pony (which they tells me is 

 glandered), that the second chap left with me to hold, 

 when he run up the street after t'other. Now, young 

 gentlemen, if it warn't for father and mother, nobody 

 should have seen me in the parish of Amstead again : I 

 would have gone for a soldier, along with father's colt : 

 for they tells me he will be at Bristol by to-morrow night, 

 and away to the army, in a ship, before we could get there 

 arter him." 



Here this part of the scene closed ; and that which 

 1 Twenty-five was the ultimum price of troop horses. 



