CHAPTER II TIPS, THE HORSE-BREAKER

“It’s a long business, a broken collar-bone,” I observed to Miss Lushington, as I sipped my tea comfortably in the arm-chair she had vacated for my use. “I am only thankful to be in such good quarters, and—and—in such pleasant company,” I added, with a little hesitation.

Miss Lushington smiled, showing all her white teeth, and shooting glances of consolation out of her bright eyes. “You must keep up your spirits, sir,” said she (she pronounced it sperits). “Patience and water-gruel is a cure for most diseases, and a broken collar-bone is less painful than a broken heart, and easier cured than a broken neck!”

An observation like the above, involving the two fertile topics of physical and mental suffering, was an opening to further confidences, of which I should, doubtless, have availed myself, had our tête-à-tête not been interrupted at this interesting juncture by the arrival of two fresh customers, one of whom walked into the bar with the air of an habitué of the place, whilst his companion, evidently about to be treated to “something to drink,” followed in a more diffident manner, and entered the snuggery, as it were, under protest.

“What shall it be, Tips?” said a cheery voice, in the loud, frank tones of a man who “stands treat,” but of which I could not see the owner, on account of a wooden screen interposing between his person and the corner where I sat. “What shall it be? Glass of sherry and bitters? Warm ale, with a stick in it? Brandy-and-water hot? Name the article, and Miss L. will measure it off for you, without a moment’s delay.”

“I’ll take a little gin-and-water, Mr. Naggett,” replied Tips, in a low hoarse voice. “Cold, if you please, Miss,” he added, with the utmost deference, as he drew the back of his hand across his mouth, in anticipation of his favourite beverage; to my mind the most comfortless of all potations.

Whilst Miss Lushington, like a Hebe in maturity, was supplying the nectar, I had an opportunity of studying the exterior of Mr. Tips, the horse-breaker, a public functionary of whom I could not have been long in the neighbourhood without hearing, but whom I had as yet had no opportunity of meeting, so to speak, in private life.

Crippled as I was, I may here remark, once for all, that I was solely dependent for amusement on the perusal of such characters as I met in the bar at the Haycock. Deprived of my hunting, not overfond of reading, here was a book laid open, so to speak, before me, of which I had not even the trouble to turn the page, whilst the peculiarities of these different visitors furnished an inexhaustible fund of amusement; their rapid succession preserved me from the dangers of prolonged têtes-à-têtes with Miss Lushington—interviews that could but have resulted in my total subjection by that seductive being, herself cold and unimpressionable as marble, experienced in the falsehood of our sex, and superior to the weaknesses of her own.

Off his horse, Tips was, to say the least, a very singular-looking person. He was a low, strong, broad-shouldered man, a perfect Hercules down to his waist, and with a length of arm and depth of chest that would have made him an ugly customer in the ring, an appellation to which his physiognomy also fully entitled him. Not that he had what is termed a “fighting nob;”—far from it. High features, bushy eyebrows, an aquiline nose, and a long, prominent chin gave him a sort of resemblance to a dilapidated Henri Quatre; but the nose had been smashed and thickened by a fall, the chin knocked on one side by the kick of a horse, and one of the eyes, rent and lacerated by a thorn, was disfigured by a ghastly droop of the lid, and a perpetual crimson in what ought to have been the white of the eye; very large, thick whiskers, of a rusty brown, framed this singular face, and a knowing, wide-awake leer in the undamaged eye, would have told an observer, without the aid of the blue-spotted neckerchief, that its proprietor was a “party concerned about horses.” Nevertheless, the man had a game, bold look about him, all the same,—that latent energy in his glance, which denotes physical courage, and without which a good judge of his species does not care to select one of the half-score he requires for the manning of a life-boat, the capturing of a gun, or the performance of any other dare-devil feat, that demands more boldness than brains. Had Tips been moulded in fair proportions, he would have been a heavy-weight; but below the waist, I must acknowledge, his limbs were more like those of a monkey than a man. His stomach seemed all to have gone up into his chest; and although his thighs were long, his thin shrivelled legs were absurdly short and small below the knee. He was made for a horseman and nothing else; nor, when you saw him at daybreak, exercising some lawless three-year-old, with its mouth full of “keys” and its dogged, sullen eye, prepared to take the slightest advantage of its rider, either to jump, kick, rear, or go backwards, could you help acknowledging that here, at least, was the right man in the right place. Of his early history I gathered some particulars from himself. I give them as an additional proof, if indeed any such were wanting, that in every grade and situation,
“There’s a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft,
To take care of the life of poor Jack.”

Tips, then, began his career as a chimney-sweeper’s boy, and to this appointment in tender years, may perhaps be attributed the physical development of his upper man, and the malformation of his lower limbs. His promotion, or rather I should perhaps say, his descent into the saddle, originated in a manner as alarming as it was unexpected. The master chimney-sweeper’s wife was attacked with that malady which peoples this world and the next. The doctor lived three miles off, in the nearest market town. The pony that carried the soot was dead. Under such a concatenation of unfavourable circumstances, it is needless to observe that the master-sweep had taken refuge in inebriety. Beyond blessing the unborn, and cursing everything else above an inch high, he was incapable of any decided effort, and little Tips was started off in a hurry, on the back of a well-bred chestnut filly of the baker’s, to go for the doctor. The boy was fall of pluck, but deficient in practice. The filly full of corn, and quite well aware of the five stone of inexperience she carried on her back. It was not unnatural that her shambling trot should soon become a canter, which a desperate shy at a drove of pigs converted into a gallop under the most unfavourable circumstances. Little Tips, when she swerved, held on manfully by the bridle; the baker’s tackle was old and frayed; the head-band broke, and the bit came out of the filly’s mouth; no pleasant predicament for an urchin of nine years old, careering along a turnpike-road, on market-day, at top speed. He stuck to her, however, like a monkey, and devoutly hoped the gate at the town-end might not be shut.

Now it happened fortunately for Tips, that a certain old veterinary surgeon, the kindliest and best of sportsmen, was jogging into this very town on his thorough-bred mare, half a mile ahead of the runaway. The old man heard the clattering of hoofs, and looked back to see a child in imminent danger of its life. Quick-witted, cool, and sagacious, he bethought him at once of the winding streets, the slippery pavement, and the crowded vehicles. To enter the town at that pace would be certain death, and the child must be stopped somehow at all risks. There was a grass siding to the high-road, and nearly a mile farther to go.

The old man was not long making up his mind. Putting his own mare into a gallop, he allowed the filly to come alongside of him, and encouraged her little rider with voice and gesture. The child gathered confidence immediately, and sat cool and collected, as if racing. Edging him by degrees off the road, the old man at last jostled his companion into the fence, where the filly attempting to take it sideways, of course remained, pitching little Tips over her head into a soft grass-field.

“Be’ant hurt a mossel!” exclaimed the child in high glee, scrambling once more through the hedge, to assist his preserver in righting the filly, on whom, after properly securing the bridle, he again mounted to proceed on his errand, with unshaken nerve. The old man was so pleased with the coolness of the urchin that he begged him of his master, and took him into his own service, where Tips learned all of horses and horsemanship that he ever knew, and where he might have remained for life but that his employer died, and he was thrown upon the world once more, with nothing but his natural abilities to depend upon.

And here let me lift up my voice, to correct a very erroneous notion, rife amongst the unsporting portion of the community, to the effect that rough-riders and that class of persons are men of dissipated habits. Except in some rare instances, the very contrary is necessarily the case. No man can preserve that cool, clear-headed daring which we call nerve, if he addicts himself habitually to the use of stimulants. The sensitive fibres of the human interior, which when injured and irritated by alcohol, react upon the courage, spirits, and temper, exist equally in the rudest day-labourer as in the most delicate fine lady. When these are affected, the nerve begins to fail, and no man without that quality can pretend to tame unbroken, or to ride ungovernable horses. Practice will do much, and unquestionably the alarm created in the biped, by the hostility of the quadruped, is somewhat disproportioned to the real danger incurred; nevertheless, our own sensations and our daily observation of others cannot but prove to us, that there is much truth in the proverb which says, “He who would venture nothing, must not get on horseback!” However drunk some of these dare-devil equestrians may be willing to get on occasion, they are habitually men of temperate and abstemious habits; almost invariably early risers, and consequently sound sleepers during the night.

That a hardy, healthy habit of body is indispensable to such persons is obvious, when we consider the muscular exertion they have to go through, and the many hard knocks they are likely to sustain in their daily avocations. We all know that a prize-fighter, in training, is capable of receiving an amount of punishment without inconvenience, of which a tithe would knock the same man “out of time” were he not toughened and hardened against it by the severity of his preparation. The cutting blow that would raise a swelled and angry sore on the face or person of a man who had been indulging in gluttony and idleness, leaves but a slight red mark on the clear skin of the thoroughly purified athlete; and the latter rises rather refreshed than otherwise from a fall “over the ropes,” that would have stunned and stupefied the former for an hour, and given him a bilious attack for a fortnight.

Now the same argument holds good with men who are liable to be thrown and kicked by horses, or exposed to the disagreeable contingency of being rolled over or laid upon by their pupils, in that early education at their fences, which all young hunters must go through. A rider in perfect training, with his muscles developed into the elasticity and toughness of gutta-percha, without a pound of superfluous flesh on his ribs or an ounce of undigested food in his stomach, not only rides with coolness, quickness, and confidence—the mental result of this physical condition—but rises uninjured from the severe falls and violent concussions to which his daring must occasionally subject him; and should he even be unfortunate enough in some more than usually complicated “cropper” to break a bone or strain a sinew, is cured by dame Nature in so short a space of time as to astonish the attending doctor, who has sufficient presence of mind, nevertheless, to take the whole credit of the recovery on himself. Tips seemed to be made of iron. According to his own account, he never was hurt but once, and that was out of a gig. The circumstances were a little singular, and I had them from his own lips on the first evening of my convalescence, whilst he sipped his gin-and-water, by permission of Miss Lushington, inside the bar.

Mr. Naggett, whom I gathered, from his order of “Port-wine-negus, with a scrape of nutmeg and a slice of lemon in it,” to be of the genus “swell,” was summoned away in a hurry to a “gent who wished to see him on business,” as the waiter said, before he could put his own lips to the fragrant mixture or burst on my astonished sight from behind the wooden screen. Tips, accordingly, with the utmost diffidence, and at Miss Lushington’s earnest entreaty, came alongside of my arm-chair, where he remained standing, with his glass in his hand, shifting from one leg to the other, and stirring his gin-and-water with an unnecessary tea-spoon the while. He was dressed in wide cord breeches, leather gaiters, a brown cut-away coat, the thickest worsted waistcoat I ever saw, and the blue-spotted neckerchief, in which I believe he was born, and I am quite sure he will die.

“Sorry to see you laid on the shelf, sir,” observed he, with a dab at his forehead as if to remove an imaginary hat, for men of all nations who are much concerned with horses acquire a sort of knowing politeness.

I answered feebly that “it was a tedious accident, but, I should think, nothing in his eyes, who had probably broken every bone in his body.” And Miss Lushington smoothed the cushions while I spoke, and adjusted my arm in its sling.

The rough-rider shook his head, took a sip of his gin-and-water, and looked thoughtfully into his glass.

“Far from it, sir,” said he. “Far from it. Bones isn’t broke so easy as gentlemen think. Ask your pardon, sir; now how was it as your accident came about? Collar-bone, sir, warn’t it? Well, sir, it wasn’t a young horse as let you down that way, I’ll take upon me to—” swear, he was going to say, but, looking respectfully at Miss Lushington, Tips put his broad hand over his mouth, and rounded off his sentence with the word “suppose.”

I was forced to confess that the culprit Apple-Jack was by no means a young horse. In fact, he “owned” to ten; and, like seven-and-twenty in a woman, that is an age at which a horse remains for an indefinite period.

“That’s where it is, sir,” answered Tips. “Now, a young one will spoil your face sometimes, and strain you in the groin, and kick at you when you’re down; and I’ve even known of ’em breaking of a man’s ribs. But a collar-bone?—no. If you’ll excuse me, sir, I’ll tell you the reason why. When a man breaks his collar-bone, ’tis because him and his horse comes to the ground all of a heap; and a young one never falls all of a heap without he’s blown, and then he seldom gets to the far side of his fence at all.”

“You’ve ridden a good many young ones?” I asked, not without some little admiration of a man who seemed to consider an inexperienced horse the safest mount.

“Here and there a one, sir,” replied Tips, looking modestly downwards. “My old master, he bred a good sort; you don’t see many such nowadays. And I mostly had the schoolin’ of ’em, both with Sir ’Arry and the Squire. Bless ye, sir, the young ones isn’t the most troublesome as we have to do with. A young horse is very teachable, as I call it; and the sooner you get him, the easier it is to show him what you mean. A little timorsome perhaps they are at first, and frightened at what they’re about. I’ve seen the same with the women-folk.—[Here Miss Lushington coughed loudly, and frowned.]—But when they do go, they mean going, and no mistake.—[“Well, I’m sure!” said Miss L., gathering up her work, and preparing to draw some beer.]—I’d as leave ride a four-year-old, if he could have the condition in him, as a fourteen. If things don’t go cross with him at first, to my thinking, he’s the pleasanter mount of the two.”

“But you don’t mean to say a young horse can jump as well as an old one!” I exclaimed, completely aghast at such an upsetting of all my preconceived notions; and recollecting, not without a qualm, how my banker’s book might testify to the value I placed on seasoned and experienced hunters. “Suppose you come to ‘doubles’! Suppose you come to timber! Suppose you want to creep quietly through a gap by a tree!”

Tips indulged in a pitying smile. “Have you never had a violent old horse, sir?” said he. “How many nags have you owned that you could trust after half-a-dozen seasons to do a gate to a certainty, or land clear of the second ditch, when they knowed nothing beforehand, or to go by a post in a hurry without jamming of your leg against it? Now a young one takes notice, as the women say of their babies.—You’ll excuse me, miss.—A young one is all for learning, for doing the best he can to please you—for going your way instead of his own. A young one may put you down quietly once or twice from ignorance, or because you won’t let him alone; and he hasn’t learnt yet to disregard your pulling him about, but he makes it up to you before the day’s over. And if I was a-going to ride for my life to-morrow over a country I’d never seen before, I’d ask for a four-year-old to do it on, if I was quite sure that he was a fast one, a bold one, and with a spice of the devil that he got from the mare that bred him!”

With this startling exposition of his theory, Tips swallowed his gin-and-water at a gulp, and then looked anxiously at the door, seemingly for the reappearance of Mr. Naggett.

As that worthy, however, did not return, I could but entreat the rough-rider to allow Miss Lushington to replenish his glass at my expense; and lighting a cigar myself, by that lady’s permission, I begged Tips to take a chair, and proceeded with my inquiries.

“Is there no sort of horse then,” I asked, “that you consider dangerous? or do you believe that whenever an accident happens, collar-bones or otherwise, it must be the fault of the rider?”

“Plenty of dangerous horses about, sir,” answered Tips, preparing to make himself comfortable—“plenty of ’em, more’s the pity, even for horse-breakers and such-like, as I am myself. We never get no credit of them. Even if we get them pretty handy, and return them as quiet to ride or drive, why as soon as they’re back in their own stable, they begin at their old tricks again. There was one as I had from Mr. Mohair, the draper in Waterborough; a grey he was, and up to all manner of games. Wouldn’t go by the milliner’s shop in the High Street, not at no price. Mrs. Mohair was just mad about it, sir, I can tell you. Well, they sent him over to me to break; and says the missus to me, says she, when I took him away, ‘Break the spirit of him, Mr. Tips,’ says she, ‘if whip and spur will do it. And don’t let me see of him backing and sidling into the windows of them bold hussies again,’ says she, ‘not if you cut him into ribbons for it!’ You see the ladies is mostly for strong measures,—asking your pardon, Miss,—’specially where there’s other ladies concerned. Well, I didn’t cut him into ribbons, I didn’t, because it’s not my way; but I coaxed and humoured of him, and once or twice when we did have a tussle, I showed him pretty plainly who was master: and I rode him backwards and forwards into Waterborough and what not, and he passed the milliner’s windows and took no more notice than if there hadn’t been a pretty girl in the whole shop, front or back. So I takes him to Mr. Mohair, and says I, ‘You may ride him anywheres now, sir,’ says I, ‘for if you do but shake a whip at him, he goes as quiet as a lamb.’ And I charged him for the horse’s keep, and a sovereign besides, and so thought no more about it.

“Well, sir, in less than a fortnight, I happened to be in Waterborough on market-day; and as I came out of the horse-market, I see a crowd of foot-people running towards the High Street, and I hear a precious stamping and scuffling, and clattering of horses’ feet just round the corner where the milliner’s shop stands; so I walk on to see what the disturbance is. A precious shindy I found too. There was a donkey-cart drawed on to the pavement, and a hamper of greens upset on the door-step, and a old apple-woman cursing awful, and the foot-people flying into the middle of the street; and in the heart of them all, there was the grey horse right up against the milliner’s front-door, with his head going one way and his body another, and his tail tucked down in his quarters as if he meant mischief enough for a week; and Mr. Mohair (he’s a timid gentleman, Mr. Mohair), sitting on his back as white as a sheet, pulling of him by the bridle, and kicking of him in the ribs, afraid to quilt him as he should have done by rights; afraid to stick to him handsome, and yet more afraid still to get off his back, for there stood Mrs. Mohair in her best black satin gown, with a shawl pulled over her head, a rowing of him tremendous, and all the pretty girls in the milliner’s windows laughing fit to break their hearts. Well, I caught hold, and led him back to his own stable for pity’s sake; and Mr. Mohair behaved quite like a gentleman; but he sold him to run in the ’bus, and never got on his back again.”

“Very awkward for all parties,” observed Miss Lushington, probably following out a train of ideas of her own.

Tips stared at her for a considerable period, winked solemnly with his damaged eye, and then subsided once more into his gin-and-water.

“Do you think these vicious horses, then,” said I, “the most dangerous customers you have to deal with?”

“No, sir, I don’t,” was the reply; “vice in a horse is the most troublesome fault of all to cure, because it’s always breaking out again, and because a vicious beast is sure to be a sensible beast too. The horse-riders, you know, sir—them as teaches horses to fire pistols, and make tea, and dance on the tight-rope, and what not—they always give the preference to what they call a restive one, because you see it’s the beast’s sagacity that makes him so difficult to break, if so be the breaker has begun with him the wrong way. It’s all humbug, sir, is horsemanship, that’s what it is; and the easier a horse is humbugged, the pleasanter he is to ride and drive. Now a real knowing ’un won’t be humbugged at no price, and so we come to forcing of him, which is always a difficult business, and then it’s ‘pull devil, pull baker,’ and if the baker pulls hardest, why we call him vicious. But he’s always got his wits about him, he has. He may be aggravating, very: but you can’t call him dangerous. He won’t put himself into a mess, not if he knows it, and so he’s bound to take care of you, so long as you don’t part company. I recollect of a nag, a very neat one, as belonged to a friend of mine, who says to me one evening, ‘Tips,’ says he, ‘I’ll sell you my bay Galloway,’ says he, ‘for seventeen sovereigns, there, and a glass of gin-hot, for I dursn’t ride him, and that’s the truth.’ ‘I’ll give you three five-pun’ notes and a bottle of French brandy,’ says I, ‘if it’s all on the square.’ ‘Done!’ says he. ‘Done!’ says I; ‘and now what’s his little game?’ says I, when I’d ordered the brandy. ‘Well,’ says my friend, ‘whenever I ride down wharf-side to my business, he makes a dash for the canal, and tries to plunge over head in the deep water.’ ‘Has he ever been in with you?’ says I. ‘Never!’ said he, ‘and I’ll take care he never shall. I’m a family man, Mr. Tips, and plagued with the rheumatics besides.’”

“So I brought the little nag home: and next day I took a sharp pair of spurs, and an ash-plant, and rode him down wharf-side quite easy and confidential. Sure enough he takes the bit in his mouth, and away he goes best pace for the canal. We came at it so fast I thought we must both have been in; and he stopped so short on the edge, if I hadn’t been ready for him, I must have gone clean over his head. Well, he fought and fought, but I couldn’t force him into it, till at last I got his hind legs close to the brink, and I slipped off his back, and with a jerk of the bridle, tipped him over as neat as wax. He had to swim for a hundred yards and more alongside the towing-path afore he could get out, and he never tried on that game agin, you may take your oath. He was a sweet cob as ever you see to carry fourteen stone, and I sold him to an old gentleman at Croydon for five-and-forty sovereigns, money down. But he didn’t want to go into the canal, bless ye; though once he was in, he swam like an otter.”

“I have always heard a frightened horse is worse than a vicious one,” I observed, hazarding the remark with a certain hesitation in presence of so high an authority.

“That’s right, sir,” answered Tips with a smile, born of gin-and-water and approval. “It’s a frightened horse that will face anything and go anywheres. He’s a mad horse for the time, that’s what he is. So long as you see your horse’s eye standing out wild and red, you know that he’s half out of his senses with excitement and likely to astonish you above a bit; but still he keeps the other half pretty cleverly, and though he might jump a brick wall, he won’t run his head against it. But when you see his eye turn blue, then look out! Nothing will stop him now, and he’ll go overhead into the deep sea as soon as look at it. You saw that gentleman as came in just now, and went out again, sudden—Mr. Naggett? A very nice gentleman he is, and quite the sportsman: dogs, greyhounds, fancy rabbits, and game-fowl, Mr. Naggett he likes to have a turn at them all, and a kind friend he’s been to me besides—we’ll drink his health, sir, if you please. Well, sir, Mr. Naggett owned a well-bred, raking-looking sort of mare about two years ago, that he was uncommon sweet upon, but somehow he never could do much good with her. Tried her hunting, but she was a sight too rash and violent for that; then he thought he’d make a hack of her; beautiful action she had, stepped away like a cat on hot bricks; but she was so unaccountable nervous, he couldn’t get her along the roads at all, if there was much traffic, on market-days and such-like. At last he comes to me in this very shop where we’re sitting now. ‘Tips,’ says he, ‘what’ll you have to drink? I have been thinking about Fancy-Girl,’ says he. You see we called her Fancy-Girl on account of her skittish ways. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to put her in harness.’ ‘Better not, master,’ says I: ‘them Fancy-Girls is bad enough without putting them in traces, a-purpose to kick over.’ ‘You’re a old woman,’ says he; ‘you send for her first thing to-morrow morning, and break her nicely for me, single and double harness, teach her to be generally useful, make tea, and wait at table if required.’ I didn’t like the job, but trade’s trade, and if your own brother’s a undertaker, why he can’t refuse to measure you for a coffin; so the mare came home, and we had her in the break alongside of a steady one afore the week was out.

“Well, sir, I took uncommon pains with ‘The Girl’ as we called her, uncommon to be sure! I drove her in double harness, and I drove her in single, and I was as gentle as a lady with her, and as quiet as a mouse. Somehow I knew she’d play me a trick afore we’d done, and I never let any one touch her but myself.

“One afternoon Mr. Naggett he comes up to my place and wants to see the Girl in harness, and to drive her himself. I told him it wouldn’t be safe, not yet, at no price; but Mr. Naggett he’d been a-drinking, for things had gone cross at home, and he wouldn’t be satisfied without a drive. Well, I got him set down to take a bit of dinner with me at my place (it’s a poor place, sir, for gentlemen like you, but you’re heartily welcome when you are passing that way), and he sent out for some brandy, and made himself quite comfortable. After he’d smoked a pipe or two, I tried to persuade him to go home. ‘Home!’ says he, ‘I ain’t going home for a fortnight! while Mrs. Naggett’s blowing off her steam, I’m a-getting mine up,’ says he; ‘and if I don’t have a jolly good spree this week and the next, I’m a Scotchman!’ says he, ‘and that’s all about it!’

“So we went into the stables, and had the Girl stripped; and at last, if it was only to content him, I was forced to put her into the trap, and take him out for a drive; but I got him to promise he wouldn’t lay a finger on the reins, ‘for,’ says I, ‘if anything should happen,’ says I, ‘without doubt Mrs. N. will cast it up to you, as you should have taken her advice and stayed at home.’ He’s not an obstinate gentleman, Mr. Naggett, and this convinced him at once.

“The Girl went kindly enough for the first half-mile, and I wanted to turn back and go home afore worse came of it; but Mr. Naggett says, ‘We’ll just go down to the Silver Bells at Willow-tree, take a pint of purl, and come back to tea; so, as it’s a good wide road and not much frequented, I put the whip in the bucket, and drove steadily on.

“Well, sir, as luck would have it, we hadn’t gone a mile, before we came to some chaps at the road-side, cutting down a tree. There isn’t many trees along that line, and I wished there was none, or else they’d leave them all standing. Them countrymen isn’t over cute, and though I got by as quick as ever I could, the tree fell with a crash close behind us. The Girl gave a jump, that I thought would have taken her clean out of her harness, and away she bolted like a frightened stag. Bless ye! I’d no more power over her than a baby. There was a hill to go down a few rods ahead. I says to Mr. Naggett, says I, ‘Hold on, master; when we get to the old Barn, the trap’ll run on to the Girl, and we’ll be kicked out, so look for a soft place!’ Mr. Naggett didn’t seem to care about arguing the point, but he swore awful.

“It soon came off, sir. The Girl wasn’t going to keep us waiting. A shy at a heap of stones took us off the road, and the next stride brought us into the fence. At the pace we were going, Mr. Naggett shot clean over my head into a wheat-field, and got up quite sober and none the worse, but he had to destroy the Girl; and as for me, why the trap, you see, unfortunately turned on to me, and I broke three ribs and my collar-bone, put out my wrist, lost two-and-seven-pence out of my breeches-pocket, and had a concussion of the brain. But it might have been worse! Here’s Mr. Naggett coming back to speak for himself, and I wish you good-evening, sir.”