154 Life and Times of " The Druid." 



some minutes, and then gets up as lively 

 as ever, The horse, indeed, looked in no 

 manner of form , to run four miles across 

 country ; as round as a hoop, and for all 

 the world as though he were going to 

 Horncastle Fair. They held Clasher up and 

 flung water in his face, and he won in the 

 last hundred yards from superior training. 

 Many didn't like Clinker, but I hardly ever 

 got on so good a steeplechaser. How hard 

 the Squire did ride that match-day, to be 

 sure ! I went up to call on him, when he 

 was an old man, in St. John's Wood, one 

 afternoon, and he pointed to the picture of 

 the finish hanging up opposite the fire-place, 

 and says to me, ' Dick, that Clasher and 

 Clinker day beat me a great deal more 

 than the two hundred miles against time at 

 Newmarket.' " 



Not forgetting the words printed at the 

 head of this chapter, it becomes me now to 

 return to the newspaper in which " The 

 Druid " first made his mark, and which he 

 held in sincere esteem until his dying hour. 

 I give the two subjoined articles from 

 the Doncaste?' Gazette as evidences of their 



