The Life of Fred Archer 65 
prospect of the day's labours work up the highly-wrought little 
creature who was long-sighted about danger. He united nerves 
with the iron nerve of a Spanish bull-fighter ; he took his life in his 
hands over the Cotswold country and round Tattenham Corner, 
and yet always preferred company in the dark. 
Fred, during his five years' apprenticeship to Mathew 
Dawson, gave no trouble, apparently impressed with that 
immortal North-country proverb which ought to be written 
up in letters of gold over every racing-stable, and a good many 
less important institutions : " It's canny to say nowt," and 
he from childhood kept his eyes open and his mouth shut. 
Of Archer's career as a stable-boy and unknown to fame 
there is really httle to record except that from the first he con- 
formed to the patriarchal maxim : "Whatsoever thy hand findeth 
to do, do it with all thy might." No act of insubordination 
or disobedience is recorded against him, and he set himself 
with a will to acquire the rudiments of the difficult art which 
was to lead him to fame and fortune. He thus by degrees 
mastered every point of good riding, that of finishing well 
costing him more trouble than all the others put together. 
About a year or fifteen months after Fred went to Mr. 
Dawson's he came home for his holidays. Henry Parker was 
still one of the household at the King's Arms, and he said he 
could still see Freddie in a kind of tan-coloured stable suit, as 
he sat on the old black oak settle that stood by an old-fashioned 
fireplace they used to have in the kitchen. Fred recounted his 
experiences in the racing metropolis, and this news from head- 
quarters was listened to with interest and excitement at the 
time. 
It was very early in his apprenticeship, too, that Mr. 
VVilHam Villar saw Fred riding at an Agricultural Show held 
near the Oaklands, Cheltenham, where Bob Chapman lived, 
and the boy's feats of horsemanship amazed everyone. Bob 
Chapman was the " swell horsedealer," Lindsay Gordon's 
" hard riding Bob." The Cheltenham people said that King 
