CHAPTER V 
Heath House was in every way a model training establish- 
ment. No boy was allowed to speak a sharp word to his 
horse. To use a stick was a criminal offence. Firmness and 
kindness were the means which had to be employed. At 
Heath House the moral welfare of the lads was as scrupulously 
cared for as were their domestic conditions. Long after Archer 
had become a famous jockey he had to join with the other lads 
in the services held by a chaplain paid by Mrs. Dawson, and 
he often used to say in after-life how much he owed to Mrs. 
Dawson's care and kindness and teachings. 
For his first few months away from his mother Fred was 
very miserable, and he used to send her most pathetic letters 
begging to come home. He was always delicate, and the 
elder boys bullied him, and Mrs. Archer was perfectly wretched 
and wanted to get him back. She would meet Mr. Ned Griffiths 
sometimes, and he would say : " Well, Mrs. Archer, and how's 
the boy getting on ? " And she would tell him all her troubles 
and talk things over with him, and feel better about every- 
thing. But after a time she ceased to have unhappy letters. 
The elder boys left off bullying the strange little bundle of 
contradictions from Cheltenham — the sensitive, highly-strung 
little boy who could jump the stiff est wall in the Cotswold 
country. 
And yet Archer, so Mathew Dawson is said to have once 
told Mr. Cecil Raleigh, used to cry because he had to go out with 
the horses in the morning, to such a pitch of excitement did the 
f 
