122 The Trotter. 



a deal more fun on our road ; and a drive on the old Regulator did 

 not wear the uniform monotony of railway travelling, for in those 

 days a journey up and down to London furnished us simple rustics 

 with incidents and matter to talk over for weeks after. 



I was very young and very green when I took my first singing- 

 lessons, and at that time did not even possess a horse of my own ; 

 it is true I had often been at the covert side on one of the old 

 carriage horses, and had been once or twice well up on an old pony, 

 who had a perfectly marvellous knack of scrambling and thrusting 

 through places which no horse in the world could get over. But I 

 had never seen the hounds on anything like a real hunter. How- 

 ever, the lucky day came at length, and, through the kindness of 

 the old coachman, I became the fortunate possessor of a little flea- 

 bitten grey, wall-eyed Irish mare, which the old man swore could 

 leap over anything on which she could lay her chin, and for whom, 

 as he emphatically concluded his little chaunt, no hounds were too 

 fast, no day too long, and no country too heavy ! 



She was standing at a public-house by the roadside, and one 

 afternoon we pulled up the coach to look at her. She was brought 

 out into the yard by a bare-headed, coatless, rough-riding lad, who 

 looked after her. A gate was set up in the yard, over which the 

 boy rode her bare-backed three or four times, much to the satisfac- 

 tion of the old man and a group of assembled horsekeepers. This 

 only caused us a delay of some ten minutes, but that was nothing 

 on our road. However, it made about our tenth stoppage that day, 

 with which the business of the coach had not the slightest concern j 

 and some of the passengers were " exceeding wroth," for they could 

 see our whole performance from the coach. There was only one 

 objection to my buying the mare, or I would have done so at 

 once, and this was, I had no money. I knew where I could 

 borrow a io/. note, but the price of the mare was 45 /. On stating 

 this difficulty to the old man, he generously agreed to let me have 

 the mare on receipt of this i o/., when I got it, and to trust me for 

 the rest. 



I was a nice weight then 5 and although I had, I fear, but little 



