Trials. 133 



On Seven Barrow Farm, in the dis- stockbndge 

 tance, all is life. A party of coursers, Racecourse, 

 with Alfred Day on Stonehenge in the midst of them, 

 are working themselves up into a state of frantic 

 excitement at twelve minute intervals, and then comes 

 dulness sublime. John Day bids good-bye to Mr. 

 Harry Hill (who turns his back contemptuously on 

 the long-tails, and cares only to catch the up train), 

 and then, after peering for a space at the edge of the 

 seeds, goes up to a score of yearlings, whose lads are 

 cutely contriving to combine both duty and pleasure 

 for the day. King Tom, Orlando, Andover, New- 

 minster, and Loupgarou have all some high-priced 

 youngsters in that infant school, which at his bidding 

 now wends its way home in Indian file up Chattis 

 Hill. That hill was " Grandfather Day's favourite 

 gallop." Five-and-thirty years ago it was a mere 

 mass of juniper bushes, and it was through the paths, 

 cut with all a backwoodsman's perseverance, that the 

 old man sent along the thick-winded Luzborough, by 

 his much-loved Williamson's Ditto, Foxberry, Hougo- 

 mont, and Escape. Crucifix was never tried, for very 

 good reasons, after two years old ; and Winchester 

 race-course, at four o'clock on a September morning, 

 was the venue, when in the presence of Lord George 

 and Mr. Greville, Dilly and old John met to put 

 Mango and The Drummer together at /lbs. '^Beggar 

 my limbs but we must know the worst,'' was John's 

 watchword at such a crisis, and three monkeys from 

 Lord George after the St. Leger, one to Dilly for 

 training, and the others to John and his son Sam for 

 trying and riding, proved that he had seen them "spun 

 out" to some purpose, and that it was not what in 

 after-years he contemptuously termed, as with his 

 clear-cut passionless face, he looked on by the Nev/- 

 market cords, "Another of those Danebury pots'' His 

 lordship and John must have taken very different 

 tackle over to Tedworth, or else they could hardly 



