166 SPORTING REMINISCENCES 



with dubious quietness, but always ready for a 

 plunge and a gallop. 



The child was bitterly put out. I looked at 

 Sandy, and said he might try with the man at his 

 head. 



For an hour and a half she trotted and cantered 

 and walked the little monkey, and he never stirred 

 with her. 



" Auntie, he's lovely," was all I heard as I 

 circled round terrified, for he never loves strangers. 



Cherry Boy, another eccentric, is my second joy 

 now, a big bay weight carrier, once a very hard 

 puller and with a will of his own, now the most 

 good-humoured of rides and the best hunter, next 

 to Blackie, I have ever had. 



Sandy flashes to the end of a hunt, accurately 

 or inaccurately as it pleases him. Cherry Boy 

 very seldom puts a foot wrong, and now he has a bit 

 he likes, a child could ride him. But he has his 

 ideas. He took a friend of mine through a twelve- 

 mile hunt and he declares he never got a pull 

 until they killed. He was also a demon in the 

 stable and is still to strangers. He has got an 

 extraordinary unsoundness, a stoppage I imagine 

 in the nostrils, because he neither whistles 

 nor roars but makes a noise at a trot, blowing 

 absolutely clear directly he is extended. But for 

 that I should not have him as he was twice sold 

 for high prices and spun. 



My big brown mare is going off for a charger, 



