pair, but they
will be less your own than your lady's, should you have one, and your
young gentry, should you have any; or, if you have neither, for madam,
your housekeeper, and the upper female servants; so you need trouble your
head less about them, though, of course, you would not like to pay away
your money for screws; but be sure you get a good horse for your own
riding; and that you may have a good chance of having a good one, buy one
that's young and has plenty of belly--a little more than the one has
which you now have, though you are not yet a gentleman; you will, of
course, look to his head, his withers, legs and other points, but never
buy a horse at any price that has not plenty of belly; no horse that has
not belly is ever a good feeder, and a horse that a'n't a good feeder
can't be a good horse; never buy a horse that is drawn up in the belly
behind; a horse of that description can't feed, and can never carry
sixteen stone.

"So when you have got such a horse be proud of it--as I daresay you are
of the one you have now--and wherever you go swear there a'n't another to
match it in the country, and if anybody gives you the lie, take him by
the nose and tweak it off, just as you would do if anybody were to speak
ill of your lady, or, for want of her, of your housekeeper. Take care of
your horse, as you would of the apple of your eye--I am sure I would, if
I were a gentleman, which I don't ever expect to be, and hardly wish,
seeing as how I am sixty-nine, and am rather too old to ride--yes,
cherish and take care of your horse as perhaps the best friend you have
in the world; for, after all, who will carry you through thick and thin
as your horse will? not your gentlemen friends, I warrant, nor your upper
servants, male or female; perhaps your lady would, that is, if she is a
whopper, and one of the right sort; the others would be more likely to
take up mud and pelt you with it, provided they saw you in trouble, than
to help you. So take care of your horse, and feed him every day with
your own hands; give him three quarters of a peck of corn each day, mixed
up with a little hay-chaff, and allow him besides one hundredweight of
hay in the course of the week; some say that the hay should be hardland
hay, because it is the wholesomest, but I say, let it be clover hay,
because the horse likes it best; give him through summer and winter, once
a week, a pailful of bran mash, cold in summer and in winter hot; ride
h