10 WHIP AND SPUR. 



trotters, stout ponies, tolerable carriage-horses, 

 capital cart-horses, there were in plenty. But 

 the clean-cut, thin-crested, bright-eyed, fine-eared, 

 steel-limbed saddle-horse, the saddle-horse par ex- 

 cellence, — may I say the only saddle-horse 1 — 

 rarely came under observation ; and when, by ex- 

 ception, such a one did appear, he was usually so 

 ridden that his light was sadly dimmed. It was 

 hard to recognize an elastic step under such an 

 unelastic seat. 



Finally, in the days of my despair, a kind sad- 

 dler, — kept to his daily awl by a too keen eye 

 for sport, and still, I believe, a victim to his pro- 

 pensity for laying his money on the horse that 

 ought to win but don't, — hearing of my ambi- 

 tion (to him the most laudable of all ambitions), 

 came to put me on the long-sought path. 



He knew a mare, or he had known one, that 

 would exactly suit me. She was in a bad way 

 now, and a good deal run down, but he always 

 thought she " had it in her," and that some gen- 

 tleman ought to keep her for the saddle, — 

 " which, in my mind, sir, she be the finest bit of 



