124 The Life of Fred Archer 
flower-beds are planned, of severity in the high polish of the 
brass-work on the door. There is nothing of the horse, 
horsey about this side at least of Heath House, and as the 
sound of a hymn, sung by youthful voices, catches the ear of 
the visitor he marvels whether the tales he has heard of New- 
market can be true. No sooner, however, does he cross Mat 
Dawson's threshold than he recognises that he is in a dwelling 
where the merits of the noble animal, very useful to man, 
are thoroughly appreciated. 
" Passing by a neat rack of whips, above which lies the 
famous whisk constructed of the tail of Thormanby, who won 
the Derby in a year of ' clinkers,' he enters Mr. Dawson's 
sanctum, with every inch of wallpaper covered with portraits 
of famous racehorses, and finds ensconced in comfortable 
armchairs the master of Heath House and his friend Mr. Harry 
Hall, by whose pencil most of the portraits in this equine 
Valhalla have been wrought. To them enters presently a 
tall, slender young man of some 22 years. His general 
costume is, like his manner, exceedingly quiet and unassum- 
ing. There is nothing horsey in his raiment, in the fashion of 
his dark hair, nor does he wear a scarf tied in a coaching fold 
with the almost inevitable fox-tusk pin, the place of this 
eminently sporting article of costume being filled by a sailor's 
knot. Nor is Fred Archer afflicted with the Newmarket air, 
the five to two carriage of the head so offensive in the suc- 
cessful lightweights of the old plunging days. It is odd that 
really great jockeys never wear a jaunty air, preferring to 
leave that sort of thing to the featherweights suddenly lifted 
to fame by the winning of a few handicaps. 
"As he enters, dressed in a suit of dark clothes, relieved 
only by the chain which holds the magnificent watch presented 
to him by Mr. Dawson when he was out of his time, with his 
overcoat thrown back and his billy-cock hat held in his left 
hand, Fred Archer might easily be taken for the rising young 
clerk in a thriving bank dropped in to take his chief's orders 
