accommodations for summering them agreeably to the plan 

 he had adopted in the preceding spring, and which he 

 found to answer so well, they were in their old quarters at 

 Amstead, under the care of his head groom, who had 

 nearly convinced the Scotch steward that the expenses of 

 the preceding summer had not been thrown away upon 

 them, by the superior condition of the stud, and the way 

 in which they had stood their work, without disease of 

 any kind having attacked them. Let us, then, take a peep 

 into the coach-stables. 



The space of a few months, even with the aid of both 

 judgment and experience, is far too little for the selection 

 of such a stable of coach -horses as Frank Raby had got 

 together, consisting of seven greys for, like Camillus x of 

 old, that was his favourite colour one black, and two 

 chestnut piebalds, which gave him two teams, and two 

 horses to spare, called, on the road, "rest horses." 

 Indeed, no man can depend on having one team out of 

 four, or two out of eight horses ; and on these matters our 

 hero had been well tutored by Sir John Inkleton. Sir 

 John, indeed, had in part assisted him in the purchase of 

 those nags, as had also a celebrated London dragsman, who 

 selected some of them out of his employer's yard, money 

 hiving tempted him to part with them. And, in truth, 

 there is no much better method for gentlemen to adopt, 

 in purchasing horses for their own driving, than to select 

 them from regular road work, inasmuch as, in the first 

 place, their character can be tried for goodness ; and in 

 the next, they are thoroughly broken-in to face all kinds 

 of objects they may meet the want of which confidence, 

 in pleasure horses, is the cause of half the accidents which 

 occur. This being a period when horse-flesh was at a 

 premium, the above ten horses were considered not badly 

 bought at 900, especially so as there were three fancy- 

 coloured ones in the lot ; but had not four of them been, 

 to a slight degree, collar-marked, a larger sum would have 

 been required. Frank Raby, however, had remembered 

 the good advice his friend Sir John had given him, in 

 very young days ; and in this, as well as in most of the 

 future transactions of life, he looked to the main chance, 



1 History informs us, that Camillus gave great offence to the 

 Romans, by being carried through Rome in his chariot, drawn by 

 four grey horses, no general, either before or since, having done the 

 same ; grey horses were then held sacred. 



