hat sum.' 'Stay,' said I, 'I will give you five pounds for
him, and take him with all his imperfections on his head, and on his
heels too.' I must say that the man was unwilling, but I carried my
point."

"And what on earth did tempt you to buy such a brute?"

"The fact was, the hunting season was over, and I wanted some
amusement, as I was rather in delicate health. India is severe on the
liver."

"Had you foreseen your circumstances, you might have brought a tiger
home with you. But how did you get the horse to Craigduff?"

"In the neatest and quickest possible way. I borrowed a rope from the
guard, and having made a temporary halter, I went to the back part of
the coach, and led him the whole way. It is forty miles, at seven
miles an hour, and he did the journey with ease. I was sure then that
I was possessed of a trump. But I must cut the matter short; for it
would keep you the whole day if I told you how we succeeded in
managing him. It was altogether by kindness, and a gradual discovery
of his little peculiarities. The pulley you inquired about, I look
upon as the greatest invention. It lets down the saddle upon his back,
and then, as I told you, he is quiet. It annually saves the life of a
man or two."

"I told you," said I, taking advantage of a momentary pause, "that I
had a great interest in the horses: pray tell, me, can you make any
use of him?"

"Any use of him! why he is the most useful animal in the world:--an
excellent saddle-horse; a first-rate jumper. He was not in my
possession three weeks when I won the five pounds he cost me. My
neighbour, Sir Edward, rode over here one morning on his famous horse
Thunderbolt, and he thought proper to call my new purchase
'Beelzebub.' This rather provoked me; and I offered to bet him the sum
I spoke of that I would pound him in twenty minutes; and this I did,
in half the time, by jumping his own park wall, which is near six feet
high. The horse must be ridden in a snaffle, as young Flixton could
tell you. He thought himself very wise, and insisted on having a
curb: the consequence was, that the very moment 'Units' felt it, he
started off right across the country, and his rider and he parted
company in the river below, near Mrs Vernon's house. Flixton was not
the least hurt; but a muddier, wetter, or angrier man you never saw.
Alice Vernon and I happened to be witnesses of the whole affair; and
she laughed,--how she did laugh!" (I will not display my horseman