CHAPTER XVI. 



THE SCRATCH TEAM. 



As scratch teams consisted of horses put together 

 promiscuously, which had not previously been work- 

 ing in company, so I purpose in this chapter putting- 

 together short accounts of a few persons and circum- 

 stances which from time to time have come to my 

 knowledge, but have not been put together before. 



The first I will take is Green — which, I think, my 

 narrative will show is a most appropriate name — and 

 in order to distinguish him ^from his father, I will 

 call him ' Young Green.' But before proceeding 

 further I must state that the narrative is strictly 

 according to fact, merely mutato nomme, as mem-- 

 bers of the family, whose real name is by no means 

 common, would almost certainly be recognised by it. 



To proceed, then. Young Green was the second 

 son of the Rev. (I cannot do better than call him) 

 Very Green, a gentleman who shortly after leaving 

 Oxford became the rector of an extremely small 

 parish, some 120 miles down in the West of England, 



