THE THISTLE DOWN. 23 



a private trainer. He liacl six hundred pounds a year, 

 with a capital house to hve in, and, even heyond this, 

 *^ farmed" the liorses and hoys for his employer at so much 

 a head. This scale, however, is considerahly heyond the 

 average. As a rule, a trainer is now a well-conducted, 

 comparatively well-educated man, witli, of course, the 

 occasional exception we find in every other rank and call- 

 ing*. But the ignorant cunning- sot, once too true a type 

 of his order, is dying- out with the old-fashioned hunts- 

 man, who got drunk as a duty when he had killed his 

 fox. 



Let us suppose that the laird of the Thistle Down, in 

 the pride of his heart, has pi'esented you v^-itli one of those 

 lamoi^s mares we disturbed hut now under the elms — 

 more fatal gift, may he, than that Trojan horse whereof old 

 Homer sung in fine, full flowing hexameter. The Dowager 

 Duchess is your own, and straightway your ambition is 

 fired to win the Derby. With good fortune, the year's 

 keep of the mare and other preliminary expenses, your 

 foal has cost you some seventy pounds by the day he is 

 born. Subsequently when weaned, there will be a year 

 and a-half of the idleness ot infancy, what time he is be- 

 ing* fed with corn, fondled and handled and half broken ; 

 and this will call for a full eighty pounds more. Then, 

 in the September previous to entering on his second year, 

 he goes up to school, where he gets board, lodging, at- 

 tendance, and teaching for somewhere about 50s. a week. 

 The customary charge in a high-class public stable is two 

 guineas a week, including the lad ; while to this must be 

 added the smith, saddler, physic, and other incidental 

 charges, to bring up the total. A year and a-half spent 

 thus with Mr. Dominie will add another item to the 

 account of one hundred and ninety pounds ; and as you 



