156 SPORTING REMINISCENCES 



could hold her. She lived to twenty -two, given a 

 home to do light work by a friend. 



The days of screws was with me then. I had 

 Jerry, a little thoroughbred with a broken bone 

 in his hock which had mended, with no forelegs 

 but an undaunted heart. He came from England 

 and flew every bank he conveniently could unless 

 the weight of years stopped him. He never came 

 down, and he was very seldom quite on his feet 

 over any fence, but he was fourteen when I got 

 him and gave out in two seasons. Nothing but 

 pace took his weak hock over a fence, and a jump 

 was flash and a thanksgiving as he staggered 

 to the far side. 



My dear mother had always promised me a 

 horse when she came into some money which she 

 expected. It came, and I got fifty to buy some- 

 thing young and good. 



With my fifty I bought a very handsome bay, 

 a slight whistler, a raking very well-bred horse 

 but ... I think a greater brute never looked 

 through a bridle. He galloped with his head on 

 the ground, and he never took one single fence 

 right from the day I first rode him. He got over 

 somehow until he gave me an absolutely crushing 

 fall just outside Fedamore gorse because he would 

 not look where he was going to at a tiny httle 

 ditch. Then in his flurry he rolled over me three 

 times, and if the mud had not been soft I should 

 not be here. As it was he crushed the bone of my 



