THOROUGH-BRED HORSES 



the first day the hounds remained in the kennel. 

 At two o'clock, as his old friend and contemporary, 

 Mr. John Cooke, informed me, he came back, 

 having failed to get the rebel over a single fence. 

 " But I have told them not to take his saddle off," 

 said Sir Charles, sitting down to a cutlet and a 

 glass of Madeira ; " after luncheon I mean to have 

 a turn at him ao^ain ! " 



So the baronet remounted and took the lesson 

 up where he had left off. Nerve, temper, 

 patience, the strongest seat, and the finest hands 

 in England, could not but triumph at last, and 

 this thorough-bred pair came home at dinner- 

 time, having larked over all the stiffest fences in 

 the country, with perfect unanimity and good- 

 will. Sir Marinel, and Benvolio, also a thorough- 

 bred horse, were by many degrees. Sir Charles 

 has often told me, the best hunters he ever had. 



Shuttlecock, too, immortalised in the famous 

 Billesdon Coplow poem, when 



'• Villiers esteemed it a serious bore. 

 That no longer could Shuttlecock fly as before," 



was a clean thorough-bred horse, fast enough to 

 have made a good figure on the racecourse, but 

 with a rooted disinclination to jump. 



That king of horsemen, the grandfather of 

 the present Lord Jersey, whom I am proud to 

 remember having seen ride fairly away from a 

 whole Leicestershire field, over a rough country 



i6i 



