ed, and answered that he had never been unkind
himself to horses, and he was glad that Boney bore no malice.

"They worked him, and often drove him about all night in the miserable
streets, and never let him have so much as a canter in a green field,"
said one of the women; "but he'll be all right now, only he has to
begin at the wrong end."

"What do you mean?" said Jack.

"Why, in this country," answered the old woman, "they begin by being
terribly old and stiff, and they seem miserable and jaded at first,
but by degrees they get young again, as you heard me reminding him."

"Indeed," said Jack; "and do you like that?"

"It has nothing to do with me," she answered. "We are only here to
take care of all the creatures that men have ill used. While they are
sick and old, which they are when first they come to us,--after they
are dead, you know,--we take care of them, and gradually bring them up
to be young and happy again."

"This must be a very nice country to live in, then," said Jack.

"For horses it is," said the old lady, significantly.

"Well," said Jack, "it does seem very full of haystacks, certainly,
and all the air smells of fresh grass."

At this moment they came to a beautiful meadow, and the old horse
stopped, and, turning to the blue-coated woman, said, "Faxa, I think I
could fancy a handful of clover." Upon this Faxa snatched Jack's cap
off his head, and in a very active manner jumped over a little ditch,
and gathering some clover, presently brought it back full, handing it
to the old horse with great civility.

"You shouldn't be in such a hurry," observed the old horse; "your
weights will be running down some day, if you don't mind."

"It's all zeal," observed the red-coated woman.

Just then a little man, dressed like a groom, came running up, out of
breath. "Oh, here you are, Dow!" he exclaimed to the red-coated woman.
"Come along, will you? Lady Betty wants you; it's such a hot day, and
nobody, she says, can fan her so well as you can."

The red-coated woman, without a word, went off with the groom, and
Jack thought he would go with them, for this Lady Betty could surely
tell him whether the country was called Fairyland, or whether he must
get into his boat and go farther. He did not like either to hear the
way in which Faxa and Dow talked about their works and their weights;
so he asked Faxa to give him his cap, which she did, and he heard a
curious sort of little ticking noise as he ca