66 A HUNTING STABLE. 



Those north country horses are almost always steady, 

 well-made hunters, and are both quick and clever at 

 their fences, but the countries of the packs you name, 

 especially Lord Harewood's, are very close and pewy, 

 and the fault of the horses is, that four-fifths of the 

 time, they have never learnt properly to gallop. Tho 

 enclosures there are so small that your horse is 

 scarcely over one rasper before he's getting ready to 

 rise at another." 



'' Well in that case, we must try to teach them, 

 duke," answered Fairfax, laughing; "but the worst 

 of that is we shall have first to learn ourselves." 



" I don't believe it will take you very long to do 

 that. But let us move round. Deuced clever bay 

 horse that, and I like that brown next to him, with 

 the cinnamon muzzle. He's not unlike Valentine 

 Magher's ' Slasher,' is he Ches ? — and if he is as good, 

 you'll not find fault with his carrying you through the 

 worst part of the valley." 



" He is devilish like him indeed. How is he bred, 

 colonel, and how old is he ? He might be ' Slasher's' 

 brother, easily enough." 



"He's by Smolensko, out of a Waxy mare, and 

 seven years old last grass." 



" Slasher is by Smolensko, too, but I don't know 

 what out of." 



" Out of Miss Liddy, my lord, by Sultan," said Ro- 

 berts, touching his hat. "This horse, we call him 

 ' Thunderbolt,' is bred by the same gentleman as 

 raised ' The Slasher,' and Miss Liddy she's half-sister 

 to ' The Slasher's' dam ; so that they're near akin, 

 at any rate. He's been ridden two seasons with the 

 Berkeley Hunt, and they call him a good one there, 

 and they used to know." 



" By Jove ! I thought I knew his cut," cried Beau- 

 fort. "He was Codrington's, was he not, colonel?" 



