The Leather Plater. 291 



crimes, and going into his parlour to gaze upon a representa- 

 tion of our first parents in their original innocence, or the birth 

 of the infant Saviour! In this room, before the fire, with 

 his chair on the tilt and his feet cocked up on each side of the grate, 

 in true Yankee fashion, sat the owner of the black horse, smoking 

 a cigar and drinking a tumbler of thick, muddy-coloured brandy- 

 and-water. We looked each other over at the same moment. It 

 was not a long survey something like the glance which a detective 

 throws over a chap whom he fancies "is wanted j" but that survey, 

 short as it might be, was sufficient instinctively to tell each of us 

 that the other was "a party concerned about horses," and, with a 

 touch of the freemasonry which characterizes the craft, he drew his 

 chair a little on one side to make room for me at the fire (for April 

 at Holliwell was like February in any other part of the county), 

 and glancing at my dirty top boots and splashed appearance, he 

 opened the ball with " Any sport to-day, sir ?" I sat down by the 

 fire, informed him what we had done, and a desultory conversation 

 on horses, hunters, and the like took place, during which I had a 

 good opportunity of taking stock of my new acquaintance. He was 

 a peculiarly neat, dapper, good-looking little fellow, with an eye and 

 beak like an eagle' s; crisp curly hair and whiskers, both neatly 

 trimmed, as if the singeing-lamp had been slightly passed over them, 

 and both sparingly powdered with grey j wiry, but slightly built, 

 and whose riding- weight out of the saddle would not much exceed 

 nine stone. ITe was dressed in the orthodox sporting style of the 

 day, long-waisted pepper-and-salt single-breasted cutaway, looped up 

 in front with two fox's teeth j long- waistcoat to match ; tight-fitting 

 drab trowsers, roomy in the seat but tight at the bottom, stitched 

 and strapped all over in a most mysterious fashion ; and remarkably 

 neat round-toed Wellingtons. His scarf was white worsted with 

 black-currant spots, fixed in front with a large plain gold horse-shoe 

 pin. His very straight-brimmed hat stood on the table, and a plain 

 Molucca hunting cross and a pair of well-worn dog-skin gloves lay 

 by its side. There was no mistake about this man ; the stable, and 

 nothing but the stable, was his vocation ; but whether he was a 



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