72 The Life of Fred Archer 
father; and mother soon dropped into father's unpunctual 
ways when she was married. 
" Of course, some very untrue things were said about 
Fred. People have only to be celebrated in any way to 
get all sorts of tales told about them. Folks were always 
chaffing Fred about great ladies who admired him. There's 
that absurd cutting in the scrap-book saying that a sporting 
duchess proposed to Fred and he refused to marry her. He 
always said that the duchess was just like a good comrade to 
him, interested in the same things, and he took no notice when 
people told him he might be her second husband. 
" One day, when I was putting some things straight in 
Fred's bedroom, I found a letter lying about from a lady of 
very high degree indeed, and she was writing and asking Fred 
why he was so cold to her and all that — a married lady too ! 
Just then Fred came in and saw me with it in my hand. 
" Fred said : ' Well, then, you must just forget all about 
it, as if you hadn't read it at all.' And I promised, and I 
never, of course, said anything about it in his lifetime, nor 
have I ever told who it was ; but it just shows that Fred wasn't 
one to talk about people being silly over his riding. He had 
always associated wdth aristocratic people since he was quite 
a boy, and I think he had very good manners. 
" Mother lived with us after father died. She and Fred 
were both of them wonderfully sympathetic people. Fred 
was always more of a listener than a talker, but you always 
felt you could tell him things, and it was the same with mother. 
I never minded things much when I had her to talk them over 
with. We used to tease her because she would sit reading 
some novel or the Sportsman at an age when we told her she 
ought only to have sat and read the Bible. But she said : ' I 
can't be a hypocrite — I like the same things now I am old that I 
liked when I was young ; and as for racing, it has been my whole 
life ! ' 
" Father never was a betting man, nor a card-player, but 
