80 SPORTING REMINISCENCES 



they were holding an inquest on, under the sofa 

 and kept the jury waiting downstairs until every- 

 one had left. 



I have put this in a book, and it is true. I could 

 give the well-known name of the man who sat on 

 the sofa, and little knew what his spurred heel 

 might have touched. The jury, needless to say, 

 gave it away afterwards to everyone they met. 



That Httle hotel, except the very tidy room in 

 which they give you tea is rather hke a rabbit 

 warren, an endless collection of painfully dirty 

 little rooms stacked with odds and ends of even 

 more painfully dirty furniture, but they can all 

 give you the best of tea, and buttered toast, and 

 it is better not to think of where it comes from. 



When I came over for a season I hired from 

 another keeper of hotels — they call them so — 

 a great sportsman, but the most inhumane man 

 with horseflesh perhaps, in the world. He had a 

 very nice black cob which has a happy home with 

 one of my cousins now, and this used to take the 

 mail car six miles and back in the morning, to have 

 the harness pulled off and be hired out. My mount 

 was a huge raw-boned bay, just not in the book. 

 He stood on a manure heap, it was cleaned about 

 every month or so, waste of straw his owner said to 

 be muckin' out every week. He carried me two long 

 days a week, and if I did not write to say I wanted 

 him, he did extra days with the Duhallows in 

 between just to freshen him up, this was if I 



