8 TALES AND TRAITS OF SPORTING LIFE. 



coat and a bandaged leg, slie was put up, and knocked 

 down for fifty minus what I had orig-inallj paid over for 

 her on tlie gallant Captain's account. No matter, I was 

 married, and one propensity had to suffer for the other. 



;rf * * * * * 



"Whether 'twas the want of a race-horse or not, I won't 

 pretend to say ; but certainly, somehow or other, I seemed 

 to run on pretty well as a Benedick. Drank a little, 

 smoked a little, went to church a little, and o-ot the credit 

 for certain other small virtues of the same kind. So 

 well, indeed, did I behave, that, as if in return for the 

 couple of ponies I had sacrificed at the sale, aunty stood 

 " Sam " for a pair of Galloways — fourteen hands, even 

 steppers, swish tales, small heads, and all " commy fow." 

 These went a gTeat way towards pleasing every- 

 bod}^^ made my half- hunter a whole one outright, and 

 gave the ladies a taste for horse-fiesh I hoped might 

 improve. And so it did, for when the autumn came 

 again, and the races came ag-ain, they volunteered at 

 once for a drive to the course, and so of course to the 

 course we went. There's a very fine line to draw with the 

 world between going to a race and keeping a race -horse — 



" I tliougLt so once, but now I know it." 



'' Well, how d'ye do ? What's to win the Handicap ?" 

 Third race on the card, and the race of the day. Two 

 Newmarketers, an eleg-ant extract from Epsom, 

 another from Danebur}^, and, strange enoug-h, my old 

 venture, the Mountain Maid (now the property of a Mr. 

 John Jones), going for it. Even on Newmarket ; three 

 to one against John Day, and anything- you like to ask 

 from a pound of Goold to a pewter-pot about the plater. 



