The Trotter. 



155 



money owed to him was for money lost at cards at Sam's own table, 

 not one shilling of which could ever have been recovered in a 

 court of law. In an unguarded moment, the captain persuaded 

 him to sign a bill of sale to him of all his personal property as a 

 security " merely as a matter of form;" and from that moment he 

 had placed himself in the power of as unscrupulous a sharper as 

 ever existed. 



At rive we sat down to an excellent dinner. Sam did 

 the honours of the table with the manners of a true gentle- 

 man, which all the contamination of low habits and low asso- 

 ciates had not effaced. His wife seemed far more cheerful, 

 and her manner was much more cordial towards me than 

 when I had first met her in the garden. Sporting subjects 

 seemed avoided by tacit consent, and dinner passed off amid 

 a desultory conversation on general topics such as alt could 

 join in. But when we quietly settled down in Sam's little 

 sanctum (for there was a fireplace in the old summer-house 

 which rendered it very comfortable now the nights were begin- 

 ning to get chilly), we fairly opened. We were now joined by 

 Tom Woodcroft and a sporting friend. We talked of " horses and 

 hounds, and the system of Meynell." Sam gave us a graphic de- 

 scription of two or three famous runs in which he had distinguished 

 himself; and his account of the manner in which old Morgan 

 carried him over the lock pound and the spiked-gate out of Norbury 

 Wood, formed not the least interesting topics in that evening's con- 

 versation ; but not the slightest allusion did he ever make to any of 

 those little patches which adorned the walls, the history of which I 

 was longing to hear. In fact, as they observed, Sam was a cup too 

 low on this occasion. 



We passed a remarkably pleasant evening nothing like excess. 

 I was on my guard, but there was no occasion for it. Tom Wood- 

 croft could not drink, having just risen from a sick bed, to which he 

 had been confined for the last three weeks, by a broken collar- 

 bone and two broken ribs. The captain, like his craft, was careful, 

 and I followed suit, and there was no pressing. Sam merely ob- 



