434 
A VISIT TO MY UNCLE. 
failing good health, with every faculty of mind, save being 
somewhat “ hard of hearing,” in its pristine vigour, was from 
his youngest years bred up among horses, and has all his life- 
time been a true sportsman, fond of horses and dogs, and all 
appertaining thereto. He is, both by nature and taste, one of 
the old school, and, as one of the old school, has not a great 
deal to say in favour of the new. He endures transport by rail 
to any distance too great for his “ old mare’s” powers ; but 
wherever she can, pleasurably to her and himself, translate him, 
no railway or “ man-hutch” for him. He throws his leg across 
the old mare every morning after breakfast, and away they go, 
jig by jole, for their morning ramble. The old girl (though, by- 
the-by, she is not more than fifteen) never made a mis-step in 
her life, and was never known to shy, save at the report of a 
gun or the issue of smoke; she not having, any more than her 
master, any belligerent propensities. Talking of her after dinner 
one da}' — “ Ah !” says he, “ she’s a good bit of stuff ; and I 
came by her in rather an odd way. She belonged to a gentle- 
man who valued her very much, until she one day met with an 
accident in the stable by getting her fore leg over the halter 
rope, and injuring herself. At length she became so lame from 
this, that the gent, sent for his farrier; a cunning man, who 
informed him that harm was done to the ' shoulder’ inwardly , 
and that, if his ‘ oils’ did not work a cure, the case would prove 
incurable. This intelligence proved so vexatious to her master, 
who was on the eve of going on his travels, that he desired his 
coachman to dispose of her. I purchased her ‘for an old song,’ 
and, by having her carefully tended, soon got her right again, 
and was offered £20 for my bargain. But I wouldn't take a 
hundred for her!” — “Ah! there’s some good looks about the old 
mare, and I’ll be bound to say she inherits good breeding on 
one side. But, 1 think I heard you say that you have resided 
some years in France. What sort of horses are there in that 
country]” — “Why, in the country, for agricultural purposes, 
very indifferent, for they don’t half cultivate their land. I have 
seen them ploughing with asses, mules, or a sorry jade or two ; 
and as for digging, they absolutely do not know how to turn up 
the ground to freshen it ; and, when they have dug a plot of 
earth, they leave a wide trench at the end unfilled in.” — “ But, 
do they seem to know much about horses themselves ]” — “ Very 
little, I should say. They are — the fermiers and payans at 
least — altogether bad judges of horseflesh. Some of the best 
horses I saw in France belonged to the cavalry. They cer- 
tainly appeared — such of the regiments at least as I happened 
to meet with — to be well mounted, though still inferiority so to 
those of our own country.” 
