DRIVING 149 



without any trouble or difficulty, His owner would not 

 take him back ao^ain, but gave him to me. A year or two 

 afterwards I refused sixty for him. It is a singular fact 

 that, for the first two years that I had him (he remained 

 with me nearly five), he would allow nobody to drive him 

 but myself. If other hands held the reins, he would swerve 

 and shy, and at last perhaps fairly bolt ; but in mine he 

 never committed a fault. I used to drive him with a sharp 

 curb, and a very little whip ; but my command of him was 

 so complete, that I have uro^ed him to his full speed, thrown 

 the reins on his back, and stopped him in an instant by 

 my voice ! The inference which I would draw is, that 

 a purchaser should always try a new harness horse for 

 himself, and not trust to the steadiness evinced while the 

 reins are in his owner's hands. 



I cannot dismiss my little horse without mentioning 

 another incident connected with him, to me particularly 

 interesting. Like most Cantabs, I acquired at college an 

 unlucky taste for tandem driving. I have driven my tandem 

 many thousands miles in safety, and used at times to exhibit 

 at once my folly and my skill by threading the narrowest or 

 most crowded streets in London. It is scarcely necessary to 

 add that eventually I broke my head ; though, in justice to 

 my skill, I must declare that the fault was not mine, but my 

 coachmaker's. The splinter-bar had been morticed into the 

 shaft at the very point where the latter was rendered un- 

 sound by a knot in the wood. One day, after a long journey 

 into the country, and within a hundred yards of my owu 

 door, the shaft broke, and I was precipitated over the shaft- 

 horse, under the heels of my old favourite. There I lay, in- 

 sensible. The awkward hands wlio came to render assistance 

 wanted (as I was afterwards informed by my servant) to 

 move the horse away from me, at the risk of putting his 

 heels upon my face ; but move he would not ; nor would he 

 allow a foot to be raised, till at last I was fairly lifted up 

 from under him, and then, though not till then, he readily 

 changed his position, and moved wherever they pleased to 

 lead him. I have no inference to draw from this, except a 

 caution even to the most experienced whips against tandems ! 

 I mention it as a tribute of gratitude to my poor horse, who 

 showed at least as much sense as his master. Young gentle- 

 men, however, who disregard my caution, as doubtless nine- 

 teen oat of twenty will, may thank me for a hint of which I 



