OVER BANK AND TIMBER. 117 



him up to it while I opened it. When my whip 

 was down and I was in the act of unlatching it, 

 he wrenched himself round so suddenly that the 

 whip was pulled out of m}^ hand and remained 

 hanging on the gate. All my efforts were now 

 directed to recovering the whip, and this took 

 some time, though at last I accomplished it. It 

 was only at the end of a good half- hour that I 

 succeeded in opening the gate and getting Vales- 

 man through. Whether the old lady saw my 

 departure and realised that there had been some 

 method in my madness, I cannot say ; but from 

 that time Valesman never refused to go through 

 a gate, and gradually lost his fear of one. There 

 is no doubt that at some time he had had a gate 

 swing on him, and the terror it had occasioned 

 remained with him. 



Last, but by no means least, — at any rate in 

 the sense of proportion, — among the horses asso- 

 ciated with the sport of former years, was Tip- 

 perary Joe. This horse was, I think, one of the 

 ugliest animals I ever saw. He stood seventeen 

 hands, and had an enormous head with a Roman 

 nose, and a long thin tail, and to add to his 

 merits he w^as a whistler. Joe, like Tom, came 

 out of an Irish drove, and though we all despised 

 him, we were glad to fall back on him in stable 

 emergencies. My uncle bought him ; but as Joe 

 had a mouth of iron and was a hard puller, he 

 could not ride him, and in course of time made 

 him over to Campbell. Then my father had him 



