THE DRAG. 



329 



even to have seen them so rouses tlieir sinrits and temper that 

 they are ready for anything during the rest of the day. I re- 

 member an instance of this once in a young horse of my own. 

 I had bought him from Ireland, and a very grand hunter he 

 was, but without hounds I have seen many donkeys that would 

 have made pleasanter mounts, as, although not exactly restive, 

 he was of such a sullen, sluggish temperament, that to get him 

 along was harder work than thrashing before the invention of 

 machines, and it was only by the nicest handling that it was 

 accomplished, for as to "whacking" it out of him, the cham- 

 pion of England, with a cartload of ash-plants at hand, could 

 not have done it, and spurs were no more efficacious. 1 had 

 ridden him one day to meet the late Mr. Nevill's stag-hounds, 

 but the deer took refuge on the bank of a cutting where a rail- 

 road was in progress of construction, and refused to run, so in 

 reality our sport came to nothing, and I started homeward with 

 a neighbour who had some very fair steeplechasers, and at the 

 time happened to be riding a horse which had just previously 

 run a close race with Hall Court, second in the same year, if I 

 mistake not, to Alcibiade for the Liverpool. Whether my 

 neighbour's horse beat him a head, or was beaten a head by 

 him, I cannot now remember, but it was as near as that, so he 

 must have been in very fair form. As we had an open coun- 

 try before us, large fields, and light fences, we put our horses 

 into a gallop, and after a little time — why or how I can 

 scarcely tell — got to such a pace that it assumed the form of 

 " a good Yorkshire gallop." I could see that my neighbour M'as 

 going pretty nearly as well as he could, without actually calling 

 on his horse, and I knew that I did not dare to call on mine, 

 or I should very probably have caused him to put his ears back 

 and stick his toes into the ground at once. As it was, I had 

 to watch lest he savaged the other horse — a la Skirmisher in 

 his two -year- old days — and by never asking him to gallop, we 

 kept sailing along, I about a neck in the rear, but going quite 

 at ease — how much faster I could have gone will never be 



