His one great mission is to look after his horse,
for he is rarely called upon to do more. In the
summer he is with him by daybreak, if he do
not sleep at his heels, in a couch that looks
like a corn-bin, but which, with no "double
debt to pay," unrols into a bed and nothing
more. The attendant sprite of Aristophanes
sleeps over him; for that great horse might
contrive to cast himself in his box, or the bad
fairy might try to come in through the keyhole,
or something or other might occur that would
need the ready assistance of his body-guard.
Dressing his horse lightly over, and feeding
him, are amongst the first of Jack Horner's
duties, to be followed immediately by the morning
exercise—the walk on to the Down, the
gentle canter, the smart gallop, or the long four
miler that has now generally superseded "the
sweat." Horses are no longer loaded with
cloths and fagged and scraped, but they get the
same amount of work without the unnecessary
severity once general and fatal. Common sense
has of late years driven out much of the
conventional practice of the training-stable, and a
horse is now treated in accordance with his
peculiar temper and constitution. Some horses
are so nervous that they begin to fidget at the
mere sight of the muzzle with which a horse was,
as a rule, " set" the night before he ran; and
now, not one horse in fifty is ever " set." Other
horses know as readily, the intention with which
their manes are plaited into thick heavy tresses
—a part of the etiquette costume of the course
now by no means so carefully observed as of
yore—and some begin to " funk," as the schoolboys
say, so soon as the stranger Vulcan comes
to shift their light shoes for the still lighter
"plates." Some horses will almost train
themselves, without needing any clothing whatever,
while grosser animals require continual work.
The late Lord Eglinton's famous Van Tromp
was a very indolent horse, and took an immense
"preparation," two or three good racers being
solely employed to lead him in his gallops; and
his temper was so bad, that for the last year he
was ridden in a muzzle, to prevent his flying at
the other horses out. His yet more renowned
half-brother, The Flying Dutchman, went, on
the contrary, so freely, and pulled so much,
that he never had half the work of the other,
and usually galloped by himself. But he was
of a most excitable temperament, both in and
out of the stable.

This great business of galloping over, Jack
Horner brings his horse back in his own proper
place in the string, to the stable, where he is
dressed again far more elaborately, and when
"set fair," is fed. A horse in work will eat
in a day his six " quarterns " of corn (of
sixteen quarterns to the bushel), often mixed
with a few old beans, and occasionally, as at
Thistley Grove, with some sliced carrots;
while he has hay " at discretion," regulated
either by his own delicate appetite, or meted
out to his too eager voracity. Then, with
the horse left in quiet to his meal, the boy
begins to think of his own, which in the summer
is breakfast, and in the winter dinner. We
may be satisfied that unless Jack is to have a
mount in the next Handicap, there is no use for
the muzzle here either; and Mrs. Shepherd has
a boy all the way from the North Riding, whose
prowess over suet pudding is something
marvellous to witness. Almost all the lads are
from a distance, for the cottager's wife cannot
reconcile it to herself to see her dear Billy crying
to come home again; and so surely as he
begins to cry, so surely does he go home. Mrs.
Shepherd, however, is a good mother to those
who stay with her. They go to the village
church regularly every Sunday, and there is a
chapel-room at the Grove, which is a schoolroom
every evening in the week, and a place of
worship on the Sabbath.

On the other side of the Thistle Down, four
of Mr. Dominie the public trainer's lads wear
surplices as singers in the church of one of
the strictest clergymen in Downshire. They
attend an evening school, where the trainer's
son is a teacher, and Dominie himself is
churchwarden. Had Holcroft lived in these
days, he would never have longed for Life
in London; and That's your sort! would have
been an echo rather of the green sward than
of the green room. Mr. Dominie makes it a
condition when hiring a lad that he shall
regularly attend a place of worship, and some
trainers walk in procession to church with their
boys, precisely as if the establishment were an
academy where the neighbouring youth were
"genteely boarded." The economy of a public
stable is very similar to that of Mr. Shepherd's.
The lads get about the same wages, but seldom
with the addition of the suit of clothes; and
some, but not so many as their employers could
wish, are bound apprentice for four or five years
on first entering. A really clever child, when
so articled, may be turned to considerable profit,
for there is a continual demand for such light
weights, and of course the master can generally
make his own terms as to how they shall share
the fees received for riding races for other
people. To " hold his tongue," and " keep his
hands down," are the two golden rules of a
jockey boy's life, and the height of his ambition
to ride in public: should he be very successful
at first, he is apt to lose his head; and here the
indentures do him good service, by keeping him
in proper control until he has completed his
education. Should he then have outgrown the
stable in size and weight, he is still qualified to
make the best of grooms. To tend on the high-
bred horse that is, and not to look after a horse
and chaise, clean knives and shoes, dig in the
garden, wait at table, and help Mary Anne in her
airings with the double-bodied perambulator.

Jack Horner's early career has scarcely fitted
him for " a place " like this; but if you really
have need of a groom, the training-stable is as
the University for turning out a first-class man.
Of late years, private establishments have been
coming more and more into fashion, and, for a
gentleman with anything like a stud of his
own, there can be no other so satisfactory or