WILTS AND HORSES 317 



understand Lord St Vincent's feelings about 

 Lord Cliefdon as he related them to me, and his 

 shying at seeing the St Leger. Per favour of 

 Mr Sievier I went over the gallops — beautiful 

 going they are upon Salisbury Plain, where the 

 War Department holds fifty square miles — 

 inspected the favourite's fine roomy box ; saw 

 her fed ; made friend with the several dogs, who 

 can be very unfriendly ; noted the perfect 

 arrangements for keeping watch- and ward ; and 

 came away almost thankful that none of the 

 great responsibility was my portion, for I was 

 thinking all the time of how some of us have 

 felt before a twopenny-halfpenny athletic race, 

 and what we would have given to cut out a day 

 or two prior to the event. 



In my experience I never knew a less racy 

 village than Shrewton as harbour for a big 

 equine celebrity. You see none of the usual 

 signs ; the horsy, hanger-on class loitering 

 about the public-houses (of which there are as 

 many as usual in remote hamlets where much 

 sheep- or cattle-fairing goes on), the stable-boy 

 off duty, the general air of knowingness 

 resident locals assume — an attribute which, if 

 genuine, usually leads to their financial destruc- 

 tion, seeing that it is customary for such as 

 really do hold knowledge to back all the stable's 

 losers, and something else in the winning races 

 — the unmistakable touts adorning the telegraph 

 office, and the suspicious-looking strangers. 

 Shrewton is an out-of-the-way hamlet ten miles 

 from anywhere in civilisation, and eight from 

 the nearest railway station. So far from look- 

 ing like the home of a Derby favourite in whom 

 all the racing world was interested, it might be 



