AUNTY. 251 



persons will agree with me when I say there is no 

 purpose to which we put the horse where a proper 

 education is more necessary or more wanting than to 

 the horse intended for harness. It is quite true, that 

 in a proper carriage, with strong tackle on him and a 

 commanding bit, a coachman — that is, a workman in 

 this way — with plenty of nerve, will drive anything; 

 but as nine-tenths of the persons who do drive are 

 not workmen, many have not nerve, and very many 

 have not temper, the rendering a horse perfectly quiet 

 in harness is really a matter of vital importance. A 

 horse with a rider on his back can only kill or maim 

 that one rider, save and except sundry men, women, 

 children, porkers, muttons, King Charlie's spaniels, or 

 other as useless curs he may meet on the road ; but 

 the harness-horse has often the head and sometimes 

 the tails of a whole family entrusted to him, so he can 

 make wholesale work of it if he sets to, as an old fat 

 aunt of mine did when she sat doicn. 



I had a hen hatching some pheasant eggs for me, 



and I had put some of the hatched in flannel on a 



library chair beside the fire: in comes aunty, and 



down she plumps on the chair with a swash, such as 



I have heard and seen a boat make when lowered 



from a vessel's side. Though not a man of hasty 



temper, candour makes me confess I rapped out an 



oath against the offending part that she never forgot 



or forgave. She got up as quick as the tight fit 



would let her, and came out like a cork from a bottle. 



Expecting the next time she came she would seek the 



easy chair, I determined to make it a little more easy 



for her especial gratification, so I stuck a sharpened 



knitting needle in the cushion. She came again, but, 



confound her ! she would not go near the trap. 



