The Best Fourteen-Hander in England. 215 



On leaving the stable, the old man whispered to me that " at 

 least the whole party were well matched." He rather regretted I had 

 anything to do with such a lot, but considered that I had acted very 

 prudently in trusting implicitly to the trainer ; and as to the mare, 

 she was the very sort to be a dead take-in, for all her racing 

 points were good, and he considered her head and tail the best 

 points about her in one respect for a man who had once 

 seen them would hardly think about looking any further j and 

 yet, he added, "do you see, I never knew a horse that went 

 on either of them." One thing was clear that if the mare 

 had a coarse, ugly head to carry, she had plenty of strength 

 to carry it with ; for although but fourteen hands high, she looked 

 big enough for 12 stone with any hounds in England -, and if we 

 could judge from her hind-quarters, her stride must be immense. 



At ten, the important ceremony of measuring took place in the 

 inn yard ; and it was worth going a hundred miles only to see the 

 little beauties which daintily stepped under the standard that 

 morning. Bessy Bedlam came last, and a roar of laughter an- 

 nounced her appearance. She came lounging up, with her great 

 head almost on a line with her withers, a round blinker over her 

 off-side eye, and her rat-tail sticking out like a postman's horn. 

 The clerk of the course declared that she could never pass under 

 the standard j but she did. I saw that it was rather an anxious 

 time just then with the trainer, who would not now trust her in 

 anybody's hands but his own : he spoke two or three words sharply 

 to her, and she flinched slightly as the standard passed over her 

 withers. My old friend was breathlessly watching the proceedings, 

 but though he made no remark, he gave me the slightest wink out 

 of one corner of his eye, which spoke volumes. The operation 

 had to be repeated three times before the clerk passed her ; and 

 then the owner of the Belper mare offered to lay ^o/. that if he 

 could measure her fairly and alone, she would stand 14.1. 



At twelve we proceeded to the racecourse, in a meadow about 

 half a mile from the town. Mr. Cox's match came off first, and 

 ended as such affairs usually do between such parties in a 



