132 The Trotter. 



of dandyism, all bespoke the English country squire. The low- 

 crowned hat covered a head as white as snow, and the tight-fitting 

 drab trousers sat close to a thigh and leg which a sculptor would 

 have longed to model. 



His old horse, Morgan Rattler, was a wonder a great raking, 

 upstanding brute, fully sixteen hands high, of a light dun-colour, 

 and though eighteen years old (for Sam had bred him) as quick on 

 his legs as ever he had been. A more savage, vicious horse was, 

 perhaps, never foaled j yet in his old master's hands (but in no one 

 else's) he was as quiet as a lamb. " There was nothing that old 

 horse could not do," as Sam used to observe, " except pay the turn- 

 pike-gates." He could live with the best horses in the hunt across 

 the stirTest country, could jump a gate standing, was a splendid gig 

 horse, and, stranger than all, was the fastest trotter in our county. 

 I have said that the old dun had been partner in many of his 

 old master's scrapes, and so he had ; and I dare say the Sandford 

 Lock, the Wooton toll-bar and the six-barred gate with the chevaux 

 de frise out of Norbury Wood, are still standing to bear witness 

 to this very day of some of the desperate leaps which the old dun 

 had carried his daring master over. He was a fine, handsome- 

 shaped horse, but had a drooping off ear ; and the way he got this 

 was curious. 



He was bringing his old master home in the gig one night from 

 a neighbouring fair. As usual, Sam was "market merry," and, as 

 was his accustomed wont, was sitting on the low cushion on the 

 near side of the gig, as being the easiest seat, and half asleep. 

 When in this state he always placed implicit reliance on the old 

 horse, who never made a mistake with him. Within about five 

 miles from Sam's house was a steepish hill, and here the old dun 

 pulled up into a walk. Luckily the stoppage woke up Sam, and 

 they were going gently up the rise, when, by the hazy indistinct 

 light of the young moon, he saw a man on the near side of the road, 

 apparently getting over a gap in the hedge. Sam took no notice of 

 this, for poachers abounded in those parts j but on reaching the 

 crown of the hill, he saw another man a little ahead of him standing 



