CHAPTER IV. 



A TROT, AND A DINNER PARTY. 



The trotters were, indeed, as the duke liad said, 

 almost perfection; and although of a cut and charac- 

 ter not much understood, nor at that day very often 

 seen in England — for that matter a first-rate pair are 

 no common spectacle in the island to this day, the 

 style not exactly coinciding with the sporting tastes 

 of the people — were yet such as to attract very gene- 

 ral attention, and to be adequately appreciated and 

 admired by all good judges of horse-flesh. 



Standing about fifteen hands and an inch, with high 

 clean withers and sharp thin crests, they gave a con- 

 siderable show of blood, though of a very difierent 

 strain from that of the delicate-limbed, long-striding, 

 arch-necked thorough-breds by which they were sur- 

 rounded. Yet they had both the neat, small, well set 

 on heads, and one of them had the broad front and 

 hasin face, as it is technically termed, which is held 

 to imply the existence of an oriental descent. The 

 legs of both were as clean of hair, as compact of bone, 

 and as wiry of sinew, as if they had sprung from a 

 race that could number its ancestors backward in a 

 direct line, to Marske, Highflyer, Regulus, Eclipse, and 

 through them directly to the Godolphin Arabian, the 

 Byerly Turk, or the Darley Arabian, the only three 

 horses of Eastern origin, out of the many hundreds 

 imported, which are believed by the best sportsmen to 

 have really improved the English and thence the 

 American thorough-bred. 



Beyond this, however, they difiered considerably 



(61) 



