THE THISTLE DOWN. 21 



quarterns to tlie bushel), often mixed with a few old 

 beans, and occasionally, as at Thistley Grove, with some 

 sliced carrots ; while he has hay " at discretion," regu- 

 lated either by his own delicate appetite, or meted out to 

 his too eager voracity. Then, with the horse left in quiet 

 to his meal, the boy begins to think of his own, which in 

 the summer is breakfast, and in the winter dinner. We 

 may be satisfied that, unless Jack is to have a n:ount in 

 the next Handicap, there is no use for tli3 muzzle here 

 either; and Mrs. Shepherd has a boy all the way from 

 the North Riding", whose prowess over suet pudding- is 

 something* marvellous to witness. Almost all the lads 

 are from a distance, for the cottager's wife cannot recon- 

 cile it to herself to see her dear Billy crying to come 

 home again ; and so surely as he begins to cry, so surely 

 does he go home. Mrs. Shepherd, however, is a good 

 mother to those who stay with her. They go to the vil- 

 lage church regularly every Sunday, and there is a chapel- 

 room at the Grove, which is a school-room every evening* 

 in the week, and a place of worship on the Sabbath. 



On the other side of the Thistle Down, four of Mr. 

 Dominie the public trainer's lads wear surplices as singers 

 in the church of one of the strictest clergymen in Down- 

 shire. They attend an evening-school, where the train- 

 er's son is a teacher, and Dominie himself is church- 

 warden. Had Holcroft lived in these days, he would 

 never have longed for life in London ; and Thafs your 

 sort ! would have been an echo rather of the green sward 

 ithan of the green room. Mr. Dominie makes it a condi- 

 tion when hiring a lad that he shall regularly attend a 

 place of worship, and some trainers walk in procession to 

 church with their boys, precisely as if the establishment 

 were an academy where the neighbouring youth were 



