50 A HUNTING STABLE. 



fashion, witli ill-natured superciliousness, or yet more 

 impertinent condescension. "Well, Roberts, we have 

 come to look at your stud ; what sort of a lot have 

 you got this year ? I suppose I shall find some old 

 acquaintances among the count's, hey ?" 



"Why yes, your grace," replied the man, with the 

 quiet but unabashed civility of one of those yeoman 

 servants of England, who know thoroughly their own 

 station, and never presuming on it at all, yet appre- 

 ciate it fully. "Why yes — we've got pretty much all 

 the old ones, except old Reveller, for he never came 

 over that hard thing in the spring from the Coplow, 

 when he got into the Whissendine in a hot lather, and 

 the brook ice cold ; and the Rantipole colt, for he 

 threw out a spavin. We 've all the rest of the old 

 ones, and a prime young one or two, 'specially one 

 by Comus out of a Whisker mare, and a spanking 

 Blacklock out of Czarina. The Colonel has got a 

 fine lot, too, your grace ; one a silver-gray by Orville 

 from a Whalebone, that will fill your eye, I am cer- 

 tain. I mean to put you on the gray to-morrow, 

 colonel, if you please. The country is pretty deep, 

 and he is all right to go." 



" All right, Roberts," answered Fairfax ; " but let us 

 get in and see the cattle ; what sort of quarters have 

 you got for them ?" 



" Oh, you have no need to be uneasy on that score, 

 there are no better stables than these in the markets. 

 Master Roberts is a good judge of .that, besides these 

 have been the count's quarters, these — how many sea- 

 sons, Matuschevitz ?" 



" Seven or eight," replied the Russian ; " but I 

 have made them increase them, double them, in fact, 

 since you saw them. There are two separate menacjes 

 now, thirty stalls and six loose boxes to each. Come 

 in — come in — whose quarters are the first, Roberts ?" 



" Colonel Fairfax's, count," answered the groom, 



