little chap was never to leave me. Mat always
said he would lick him, if he stopped, but he
never did that I heard of; he was a kind-hearted
man. Blame, he would get little Matty home
after hunting, and nurse him like a woman.
Only such a blackguard— always bankrupt;
never out of that mess. I mind when George
the Third died, he put us both in mourning alike,
for he was a loyal sort of fellow with all his
coarse talk— new green suits with black buttons."

As to the terms for this tutoring of boy and
horse, it seems that Mat was more liberal than
the genteel people of delicate language who
advertise for governesses. "Five guineas a
week; board and lodging; lived as he did;
meat and drink, best as was." But the place
was no sinecure, for as he drove along he pointed
out "the fields where many a thousand times I've
been three hours before we went hunting."
Two or three tumbles regular before breakfast.
We had sometimes nine horses out; rode three
half way to cover, three for the other half, and
three when we got there, and jumped all the
way straight across country. But still we could
not get them ready fast enough for the gentle-
men."

Dick and little Mat, when hounds were going
best pace, must have been a sight to see, for,
"at the very howdacious places, poor little fellow,
he used to holler out, 'Where are you?' He
couldn't spy me for them bullfinches, thick blackthorn
hedges; he didn't know if I wur up or
down. We never turned the horses' heads, but
went bang at everything— lucky if we only got
three falls a day. He was so light he used to
bound up like a ball."

The process of young Mat's education seems
to have been so amusing to Meltonian celebrities
of that day, Captain White and Mr. Maxse,
that they used to plant themselves in convenient
situations, where "one of them regular stitchers"
was in the way, to see "Dick and Matty have it."
"But," says the tutor, " they served me that way
so often, that when I see them, I used to say
'Matty, here's a rum 'un afore us; take fast
hold of his head, and don't fear nothing,' for I
always put him on those (horses) I knew to be
perfect."

The poor child was not doomed to break his
neck. Dick, whose heart seems as tender as his
muscles are tough, would, had he read Milton
the poet, have quoted Death on the Pale Horse,
for he concludes with, "Nice little lad! he was
quite broke down with consumption, and he
only came for a very little bit the next season.
A frost came— I went with him as far as Northampton—
he said he'd 'never see me no more.'
I was grieved just! And he never did."

We can't quite make out whether it was
from humility or contempt for our legislators
that our veteran, when referring to an occasion
on which he particularly delighted the
mob by winning a race, says, "They panted
to chair me round the town; but I says, 'I'll
have none of that: I'm not a Parliament man;
it may do well enough for the likes of them.
Give me a bite of a apple.'"

Among his portraits is one Heycock, a yeoman
farmer, who seems to have been even
harder than our octogenarian, for Sir James
Musgrave, having a new horse, "Heycock comes
up to him out hunting, with 'How d'ye like
your new horse, Sir James?' 'Pretty well,'
Sir James says, 'only he makes me a little
nervous; he hits timber.' ' I'll tell you what to
do,' says Heycock; 'take him out by yourself,
quite private, and give him two or three heavy
falls over timber; I always do it.' There was
such a laugh! 'God bless me, Mr. Heycock!
you make my hair stand on end.' Them were
Sir James's words; and he was precious hard,
too, was Sir James."

The greater part of Dick's autobiography is
composed of sketches of celebrated runs, and
the gentlemen and the horses that figured in
them, suggested by scenes through which he
was driving. The stiff bullfinches about Ashby
Pasture remind him of his particular favourite,
Captain White, when "in old times we used
to go at these regular stitchers slapbang, hollering
like fun, to cheer up horses and men.
Captain White was a good 'un at that game—
how he would holler to be sure!" And Thrusserglen
Gorse reminds him of one of the Captain's
hollering days, when "Mr. Coke, who was
partickler fond of this Marigold mare" (that
did the big leap before described), "wanted
her to do something to be talked about, so he
sent her for me to ride at Six Mills, with orders
for me to wait for his directions. Up he comes,
and says he, 'I want you to do your best with
her. Go into the cover with the hounds, and
never leave them.' So in I went; blamed if he
wasn't waiting to see me come out— great dry
ditch, cut-and-bound fence— Marigold made
nothin' of it. 'Now, that's well done,' says he;
'go on, Dick, and keep with the hounds.' It
was the beautifullest run of an hour and a half.
They viewed him the last mile before they killed
him close by the water-mill. I never stopped
for gates or nothing, and beat them all clean
out. Captain White was about a field behind
me, hollering all the way, 'Go along, old fellows
Go and ketch him, gentlemen!' for he wa!
always for me, and kept hardening me on: I
don't think I'd ever have gone at such fences;
but he had such a pleasant way with him, I
couldn't help going a tickler.

"The gentlemen comes up when we'd killed,
and they says, ' Now, Coke, what do you think
of it?' He says, quite short, ' It's very satis-
factory, I think.' So there was something in it
I didn't know of."

We don't know what effect this sketch of
Dick's may have on our non-hunting readers, to
us it brings up the scene complete. The hounds
flying, almost mute from speed, dashing through
hedges and flying the gates. Dick racing behind
down the rolling, undulating fifty-acre brown
pasture fields, holding hard and going straight,
and cheering the hounds as he goes; the pleasant
captain a field or so behind, cheering Dick and
chaffing his fellow swells (they were dandies, not
swells, in those days); and a dozen good ones