THE TROTTER. 



" Oh ! he's such a one to bend his knee and tuck his haunches in, 

 And to throw the dirt in flats' eyes, he never thinks a sin." OLD SONG. 



"!F there is one thing I ken du," a Yankee captain once drawled 

 out to me, "it is, sing our almighty national song, 'Yankee 

 Doodle;' " and if there was one thing I nattered myself, when a 

 young' un, I could du better than anything else, it was, sing the 

 then popular (at least among my set} song of "The Trotting 

 Horse," two lines of which head this chapter j and the way I learnt 

 it is worth telling. I took my singing lessons on the coach-box, by 

 the side of one of the patriarchs of the road, when a journey to 

 London from our remote parts occupied the whole day, thus 

 affording me ample time to practise my singing lessons my pre- 

 ceptor being a Jehu of the true old school, and after his fashion the 

 neatest dandy on our road. The old boy had once possessed a 

 beautiful voice, now, however, grown rather husky through age 

 and constant exposure to the weather. Still there were few to 

 beat him at this song ; and when the chairman at the little " free 

 and easies " which the members of his craft were wont to hold on 

 the Wednesday evening at the old Magpie and Stump, gave the 

 order " Attention, gentlemen ; Mr. Jarvis will oblige us with the 

 'Trotting Horse,' " the applause was, to use a popular phrase, 

 "unbounded." Unlike many selfish men, who, if they possess a 

 better knowledge of anything than their fellows, or a secret of any 

 kind, are only desirous of carrying it with them to the grave, nothing 

 seemed to give this old man greater pleasure than to find that I 

 improved under his tuition. He even tried to get me up in " A 

 southerly wind and a cloudy sky j" but, according to his quaint 



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