FIRST COUNTRY BOOKS 135 



into it again. We cannot refuse the meanest portrait, so 

 it be true. For if life has not been truly drawn, how 

 shall we know whether it ought to be uprooted, or a cure 

 attempted, or haply imitated ? And however ugly and 

 troublous to delicate souls, human joy is not denied to 

 it, and even miserable things a true-hearted man shall 

 make the bearers of joy. The finest thing in the book 

 is probably the visit to the Sarsen public-house, and 

 then the coursing on the Downs with Dickon, the land- 

 lady's son, which some might think a trivial matter out 

 of low life. But hear it : 



' The talk to-day, as the brown brandy, which the 

 paler cognac has not yet superseded, is consumed and 

 the fumes of coarse tobacco and the smell of spilt beer 

 and the faint, sickly odour of evaporating spirits over- 

 power the flowers, is of horses. The stable-lads from the 

 training-stables far up on the Downs drop in or call at 

 the door without dismounting. Once or twice a day a 

 tout calls and takes his " grub," and scribbles a report in 

 the little back-parlour. Sporting papers, beer-stained and 

 thumb-marked, lie on the tables ; framed portraits of 

 ^rs hang on the walls. Burly men, who certainly 

 cannot ride a race, but who have horse in every feature, 

 puff cigars and chat in jerky monosyllables that to an 

 outsider are perfectly incomprehensible. But the glib 

 way in which heavy sums of money are spoken of conveys 

 the impression that they dabble in enormous wealth. 



'There are dogs under the tables and chairs; dogs in the 

 window-seat ; dogs panting on the stone flags of the 

 passage, after a sharp trot behind a trap, choosing the 

 coolest spot to loll their red tongues out ; dogs outside 

 in the road ; dogs standing on hind-legs, and painfully 

 lapping the water in the horse-trough ; and there is a 

 yapping of puppies in the distance. The cushions of 

 the sofa are strewn with dogs' hairs, and once now and 

 then a dog leisurely hops up the staircase. 



' Customers are served by the landlady, a decent body 

 enough in her way : her son, the man of the house, is up 



