AN IMPROVING PUPIL. 123 



that something in his treatment had been wrong, and 

 that, bad as he was, he had been made worse. What 

 that wrong was forty-eight hours were sufficient to 

 show : he looked frightened to death, and in the stable 

 was ready with his heels the moment any one went 

 near him, as if he expected that whoever did intended 

 him some grievous bodily harm : in short, he had 

 been over-worked, got frightened at his work, and 

 equally frightened in the stable. The latter part of 

 the story I found out before he had been in the box 

 half an hour, from hearing the boy who brought him, 

 and was attempting to dress him, bullying him all 

 the time he was doing so. Thinks I to myself, if you 

 lived with me, I need not wish (for I know) you 

 would get it. I threw the horse totally out of work, 

 and gave him long walking exercise by himself, with 

 a particularly placid good- tempered boy on his back, 

 till he came to his appetite, and made the boy during 

 this time invariably give him his oats out of a 

 bowl from his hand. This brought them on good 

 terms with each other, and in one month this boy 

 could do any thing he pleased with him. I then put 

 him gradually to work, gave him but two sweats where 

 in his former hands he would have had a dozen. He 

 gained confidence in himself and with people ; I ran 

 him five times, taking care to put him where he 

 would only meet his own sort of company. He won 

 four times, and the fifth ran second, the good stew- 

 ards allowing a horse to start which had no business 

 there : but though he A\ r as proved disqualified, I was 

 chiseled out of the stakes ; at all events I never got 

 them. Now there was no ingenuity required about 

 this horse ; but it shows that if the head had been a 

 little more employed about him in his former training, 



