The Romany Rye / A Sequel to 'Lavengro'

by George Borrow

CHAPTER XXII

THE SINGULAR NOISE—SLEEPING IN A MEADOW—THE BOOK—CURE FOR WAKEFULNESS—LITERARY TEA-PARTY—POOR BYRON

I did not awake till rather late the next morning; and when I did, I felt considerable drowsiness, with a slight headache, which I was uncharitable enough to attribute to the mead which I had drank on the preceding day. After feeding my horse, and breakfasting, I proceeded on my wanderings. Nothing occurred worthy of relating till mid-day was considerably past, when I came to a pleasant valley, between two gentle hills. I had dismounted, in order to ease my horse, and was leading him along by the bridle, when, on my right, behind a bank in which some umbrageous ashes were growing, I heard a singular noise. I stopped short and listened, and presently said to myself, ‘Surely this is snoring, perhaps that of a hedgehog.’ On further consideration, however, I was convinced that the noise which I heard, and which certainly seemed to be snoring, could not possibly proceed from the nostrils of so small an animal, but must rather come from those of a giant, so loud and sonorous was it. About two or three yards further was a gate, partly open, to which I went, and peeping into the field, saw a man lying on some rich grass, under the shade of one of the ashes; he was snoring away at a great rate. Impelled by curiosity, I fastened the bridle of my horse to the gate, and went up to the man. He was a genteely-dressed individual, rather corpulent, with dark features, and seemingly about forty-five. He lay on his back, his hat slightly over his brow, and at his right hand lay an open book. So strenuously did he snore that the wind from his nostrils agitated, perceptibly, a fine cambric frill which he wore at his bosom. I gazed upon him for some time, expecting that he might awake; but he did not, but kept on snoring, his breast heaving convulsively. At last, the

noise he made became so terrible, that I felt alarmed for his safety, imagining that a fit might seize him, and he lose his life whilst asleep. I therefore exclaimed, ‘Sir, sir, awake! you sleep overmuch.’ But my voice failed to rouse him, and he continued snoring as before; whereupon I touched him slightly with my riding wand, but failing to wake him, I touched him again more vigorously; whereupon he opened his eyes, and, probably imagining himself in a dream, closed them again. But I was determined to arouse him, and cried as loud as I could, ‘Sir, sir, pray sleep no more!’ He heard what I said, opened his eyes again, stared at me with a look of some consciousness, and, half raising himself upon his elbows, asked me what was the matter. ‘I beg your pardon,’ said I, ‘but I took the liberty of awaking you because you appeared to be much disturbed in your sleep—I was fearful, too, that you might catch a fever from sleeping under a tree.’ ‘I run no risk,’ said the man, ‘I often come and sleep here; and as for being disturbed in my sleep, I felt very comfortable; I wish you had not awoken me.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘I beg your pardon once more. I assure you that what I did was with the best intention.’ ‘Oh! pray make no farther apology,’ said the individual, ‘I make no doubt that what you did was done kindly; but there’s an old proverb, to the effect, “that you should let sleeping dogs lie,”’ he added, with a smile. Then, getting up, and stretching himself with a yawn, he took up his book and said, ‘I have slept quite long enough, and it’s quite time for me to be going home.’ ‘Excuse my curiosity,’ said I, ‘if I inquire what may induce you to come and sleep in this meadow?’ ‘To tell you the truth,’ answered he, ‘I am a bad sleeper.’ ‘Pray pardon me,’ said I, ‘if I tell you that I never saw one sleep more heartily.’ ‘If I did so,’ said the individual, ‘I am beholden to this meadow and this book; but I am talking riddles, and will explain myself. I am the owner of a very pretty property, of which this valley forms part. Some years ago, however, up started a person who said the property was his; a lawsuit ensued, and I was on the brink of losing my all, when, most unexpectedly, the suit was determined in my favour. Owing, however, to the anxiety to which my mind had been subjected for years, my nerves had become terribly shaken; and no sooner was the trial terminated than sleep forsook my pillow. I sometimes passed nights

without closing an eye; I took opiates, but they rather increased than alleviated my malady. About three weeks ago a friend of mine put this book into my hand, and advised me to take it every day to some pleasant part of my estate, and try and read a page or two, assuring me, if I did that I should infallibly fall asleep. I took his advice, and selecting this place, which I considered the pleasantest part of my property, I came, and lying down, commenced reading the book, and before finishing a page was in a dead slumber. Every day since then I have repeated the experiment, and every time with equal success. I am a single man, without any children; and yesterday I made my will, in which, in the event of my friend’s surviving me, I have left him all my fortune, in gratitude for his having procured for me the most invaluable of all blessings—sleep.’

‘Dear me,’ said I, ‘how very extraordinary! Do you think that your going to sleep is caused by the meadow or the book?’ ‘I suppose by both,’ said my new acquaintance, ‘acting in co-operation.’ ‘It may be so,’ said I; ‘the magic influence does certainly not proceed from the meadow alone; for since I have been here, I have not felt the slightest inclination to sleep. Does the book consist of prose or poetry?’ ‘It consists of poetry,’ said the individual. ‘Not Byron’s?’ said I. ‘Byron’s!’ repeated the individual, with a smile of contempt; ‘no, no; there is nothing narcotic in Byron’s poetry. I don’t like it. I used to read it, but it thrilled, agitated, and kept me awake. No, this is not Byron’s poetry, but the inimitable ---’s [138a]—mentioning a name which I had never heard till then. ‘Will you permit me to look at it?’ said I. ‘With pleasure,’ he answered, politely handing me the book. [138b] I took the volume, and glanced over the contents. It was written in blank verse, and appeared to abound in descriptions of scenery; there was much mention of mountains, valleys, streams, and waterfalls, harebells and daffodils. These descriptions were interspersed with dialogues, which, though they proceeded from the mouths of pedlars and rustics, were of the most edifying description; mostly on subjects moral or metaphysical, and couched in the most gentlemanly and unexceptionable language, without the slightest mixture of vulgarity, coarseness, or pie-bald grammar. Such appeared to me

to be the contents of the book; but before I could form a very clear idea of them, I found myself nodding, and a surprising desire to sleep coming over me. Rousing myself, however, by a strong effort, I closed the book, and, returning it to the owner, inquired of him, ‘Whether he had any motive in coming and lying down in the meadow, besides the wish of enjoying sleep?’ ‘None whatever,’ he replied; ‘indeed, I should be very glad not to be compelled to do so, always provided I could enjoy the blessing of sleep; for by lying down under trees, I may possibly catch the rheumatism, or be stung by serpents; and, moreover, in the rainy season and winter the thing will be impossible, unless I erect a tent, which will possibly destroy the charm.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘you need give yourself no farther trouble about coming here, as I am fully convinced that with this book in your hand, you may go to sleep anywhere, as your friend was doubtless aware, though he wished to interest your imagination for a time by persuading you to lie abroad; therefore, in future, whenever you feel disposed to sleep, try to read the book, and you will be sound asleep in a minute; the narcotic influence lies in the book, and not in the field.’ ‘I will follow your advice,’ said the individual, ‘and this very night take it with me to bed; though I hope in time to be able to sleep without it, my nerves being already much quieted from the slumbers I have enjoyed in this field.’ He then moved towards the gate, where we parted; he going one way, and I and my horse the other.

More than twenty years subsequent to this period, after much wandering about the world, returning to my native country, I was invited to a literary tea-party, where, the discourse turning upon poetry, I, in order to show that I was not more ignorant than my neighbours, began to talk about Byron, for whose writings I really entertained a considerable admiration, though I had no particular esteem for the man himself. At first I received no answer to what I said—the company merely surveying me with a kind of sleepy stare. At length a lady, about the age of forty, with a large wart on her face, observed, in a drawling tone, ‘That she had not read Byron—at least since her girlhood—and then only a few passages; but that the impression on her mind was, that his writings were of a highly objectionable character.’ ‘I also read a

little of him in my boyhood,’ said a gentleman, about sixty, but who evidently, from his dress and demeanour, wished to appear about thirty, ‘but I highly disapproved of him; for, notwithstanding he was a nobleman, he is frequently very coarse, and very fond of raising emotion. Now emotion is what I dislike;’ drawling out the last syllable of the word dislike. ‘There is only one poet for me—the divine ---’; and then he mentioned a name which I had only once heard, and afterwards quite forgotten; the name mentioned by the snorer in the field. ‘Ah! there is no one like him!’ murmured some more of the company; ‘the poet of nature—of nature without its vulgarity.’ I wished very much to ask these people whether they were ever bad sleepers, and whether they had read the poet, so called, from a desire of being set to sleep. Within a few days, however, I learnt that it had of late become very fashionable and genteel to appear half asleep, and that one could exhibit no better mark of superfine breeding than by occasionally in company setting one’s ronchal organ in action. I then ceased to wonder at the popularity, which I found nearly universal, of ---’s poetry; for, certainly in order to make one’s self appear sleepy in company, or occasionally to induce sleep, nothing could be more efficacious than a slight pre-lection of his poems. So, poor Byron, with his fire and emotion—to say nothing of his mouthings and coxcombry—was dethroned, as I had prophesied he would be more than twenty years before, on the day of his funeral, though I had little idea that his humiliation would have been brought about by one, whose sole strength consists in setting people to sleep. Well, all things are doomed to terminate in sleep. Before that termination, however, I will venture to prophesy that people will become a little more awake—snoring and yawning be a little less in fashion—and poor Byron be once more reinstated on his throne, though his rival will always stand a good chance of being worshipped by those whose ruined nerves are insensible to the narcotic powers of opium and morphine.

CHAPTER XXIII

DRIVERS AND FRONT OUTSIDE PASSENGERS—FATIGUE OF BODY AND MIND—UNEXPECTED GREETING—MY INN—THE GOVERNOR—ENGAGEMENT

I continued my journey, passing through one or two villages. The day was exceedingly hot, and the roads dusty. In order to cause my horse as little fatigue as possible, and not to chafe his back, I led him by the bridle, my doing which brought upon me a shower of remarks, jests, and would-be witticisms from the drivers and front outside passengers of sundry stage-coaches, which passed me in one direction or the other. In this way I proceeded till considerably past noon, when I felt myself very fatigued, and my horse appeared no less so; and it is probable that the lazy and listless manner in which we were moving on tired us both much more effectually than hurrying along at a swift trot would have done, for I have observed that when the energies of the body are not exerted a languor frequently comes over it. At length, arriving at a very large building with an archway, near the entrance of a town, [141] I sat down on what appeared to be a stepping-block, and presently experienced a great depression of spirits. I began to ask myself whither I was going, and what I should do with myself and the horse which I held by the bridle? It appeared to me that I was alone in the world with the poor animal, who looked for support to me, who knew not how to support myself. Then the image of Isopel Berners came into my mind, and when I bethought me how I had lost her for ever, and how happy I might have been with her in the New World had she not deserted me, I became yet more miserable.

As I sat in this state of mind, I suddenly felt some one clap me on the shoulder, and heard a voice say: ‘Ha! comrade of the dingle, what chance has brought you into these parts?’ I turned round, and beheld a man in the dress of a postillion, whom I instantly recognised as he to

whom I had rendered assistance on the night of the storm.

‘Ah!’ said I, ‘is it you? I am glad to see you, for I was feeling very lonely and melancholy.’

‘Lonely and melancholy,’ he replied, ‘how is that? how can anyone be lonely and melancholy with such a noble horse as that you hold by the bridle?’

‘The horse,’ said I, ‘is one cause of my melancholy, for I know not in the world what to do with it.’

‘Is it your own?’

‘Yes,’ said I, ‘I may call it my own, though I borrowed the money to purchase it.’

‘Well, why don’t you sell it?’

‘It is not always easy to find a purchaser for a horse like this,’ said I; ‘can you recommend me one?’

‘I? Why, no, not exactly: but you’ll find a purchaser shortly—pooh! If you have no other cause for disquiet than that horse, cheer up, man; don’t be cast down. Have you nothing else on your mind? By-the-by, what’s become of the young woman you were keeping company with in that queer lodging-place of yours?’

‘She has left me,’ said I.

‘You quarrelled, I suppose?’

‘No,’ said I, ‘we did not exactly quarrel, but we are parted.’

‘Well,’ replied he, ‘but you will soon come together again.’

‘No,’ said I; ‘we are parted for ever.’

‘For ever! Pooh! you little know how people sometimes come together again who think they are parted for ever. Here’s something on that point relating to myself. You remember when I told you my story in that dingle of yours, that I mentioned a young woman, my fellow-servant when I lived with the English family in Mumbo Jumbo’s town, and how she and I, when our foolish governors were thinking of changing their religion, agreed to stand by each other, and be true to old Church of England, and to give our governors warning, provided they tried to make us renegades. Well, she and I parted soon after that, and never thought to meet again, yet we met the other day in the fields, for she lately came to live with a great family not far from here, and we have since agreed to marry, to take a little farm, for we have both a trifle of money, and live together till “death us do part.”

So much for parting for ever! But what do I mean by keeping you broiling in the sun with your horse’s bridle in your hand, and you on my own ground? Do you know where you are? Why, that great house is my inn, that is, it’s my master’s, the best fellow in ---. Come along, you and your horse both will find a welcome at my inn.’

Thereupon he led the way into a large court, in which there were coaches, chaises, and a great many people; taking my horse from me, he led it into a nice cool stall, and fastening it to the rack, he then conducted me into a postillion’s keeping-room, which at that time chanced to be empty, and he then fetched a pot of beer and sat down by me.

After a little conversation he asked me what I intended to do, and I told him frankly that I did not know, whereupon he observed that, provided I had no objection, he had little doubt that I could be accommodated for some time at his inn. ‘Our upper ostler,’ said he, ‘died about a week ago; he was a clever fellow, and besides his trade understood reading and accounts.’

‘Dear me,’ said I, interrupting him, ‘I am not fitted for the place of ostler—moreover, I refused the place of ostler at a public-house, which was offered to me only a few days ago.’ The postillion burst into a laugh. ‘Ostler at a public-house, indeed! Why, you would not compare a berth at a place like that with the situation of ostler at my inn, the first road-house in England! However, I was not thinking of the place of ostler for you; you are, as you say, not fitted for it, at any rate, not at a house like this. We have, moreover, the best under-ostler in all England—old Bill, with the drawback that he is rather fond of drink. We could make shift with him very well provided we could fall in with a man of writing and figures, who could give an account of the hay and corn which comes in and goes out, and wouldn’t object to give a look occasionally at the yard. Now it appears to me that you are just such a kind of man, and if you will allow me to speak to the governor, I don’t doubt that he will gladly take you, as he feels kindly disposed towards you from what he has heard me say concerning you.’

‘And what should I do with my horse?’ said I.

‘The horse need give you no uneasiness,’ said the postillion: ‘I know he will be welcome here both for bed and manger, and perhaps in a little time you may find a

purchaser, as a vast number of sporting people frequent this house.’ I offered two or three more objections, which the postillion overcame with great force of argument, and the pot being nearly empty, he drained it to the bottom drop, and then starting up, left me alone.

In about twenty minutes he returned, accompanied by a highly intelligent looking individual dressed in blue and black, with a particularly white cravat, and without a hat on his head; this individual, whom I should have mistaken for a gentleman but for the intelligence depicted in his face, he introduced to me as the master of the inn. The master of the inn shook me warmly by the hand, told me that he was happy to see me in his house, and thanked me in the handsomest terms for the kindness I had shown to his servant in the affair of the thunder-storm. Then saying that he was informed I was out of employ, he assured me that he should be most happy to engage me to keep his hay and corn account, and as general superintendent of the yard, and that with respect to the horse, which he was told I had, he begged to inform me that I was perfectly at liberty to keep it at the inn upon the very best, until I could find a purchaser; that with regard to wages—but he had no sooner mentioned wages than I cut him short, saying that provided I stayed I should be most happy to serve him for bed and board, and requested that he would allow me until the next morning to consider of his offer; he willingly consented to my request, and, begging that I would call for anything I pleased, left me alone with the postillion.

I passed that night until about ten o’clock with the postillion, when he left me, having to drive a family about ten miles across the country; before his departure, however, I told him that I had determined to accept the offer of his governor, as he called him. At the bottom of my heart I was most happy that an offer had been made, which secured to myself and the animal a comfortable retreat at a moment when I knew not whither in the world to take myself and him.

CHAPTER XXIV

AN INN OF TIMES GONE BY—A FIRST-RATE PUBLICAN—HAY AND CORN—OLD-FASHIONED OSTLER—HIGHWAYMEN—MOUNTED POLICE—GROOMING

The inn of which I had become an inhabitant was a place of infinite life and bustle. Travellers of all descriptions, from all the cardinal points, were continually stopping at it: and to attend to their wants, and minister to their convenience, an army of servants, of one description or other, was kept—waiters, chambermaids, grooms, postillions, shoe-blacks, cooks, scullions, and what not, for there was a barber and hair-dresser, who had been at Paris, and talked French with a cockney accent, the French sounding all the better, as no accent is so melodious as the cockney. Jacks creaked in the kitchens turning round spits, on which large joints of meat piped and smoked before the great big fires. There was running up and down stairs, and along galleries, slamming of doors, cries of ‘Coming, sir,’ and ‘Please to step this way, ma’am,’ during eighteen hours of the four-and-twenty. Truly a very great place for life and bustle was this inn. And often in after life, when lonely and melancholy, I have called up the time I spent there, and never failed to become cheerful from the recollection.

I found the master of the house a very kind and civil person. Before being an innkeeper he had been in some other line of business, but, on the death of the former proprietor of the inn had married his widow, who was still alive, but being somewhat infirm, lived in a retired part of the house. I have said that he was kind and civil; he was, however, not one of those people who suffer themselves to be made fools of by anybody; he knew his customers, and had a calm clear eye, which would look through a man without seeming to do so. The accommodation of his house was of the very best description; his wines were good, his viands equally so, and his charges not immoderate; though he very properly took care of himself. He was no vulgar innkeeper, had a host of friends, and deserved them all. During the time I lived with him, he was presented, by a large assemblage of his friends and customers, with a dinner at his own

house, which was very costly, and at which the best of wines were sported, and after the dinner with a piece of plate, estimated at fifty guineas. He received the plate, made a neat speech of thanks, and when the bill was called for, made another neat speech, in which he refused to receive one farthing for the entertainment, ordering in at the same time two dozen more of the best champagne, and sitting down amidst uproarious applause, and cries of ‘You shall be no loser by it!’ Nothing very wonderful in such conduct, some people will say; I don’t say there is, nor have I any intention to endeavour to persuade the reader that the landlord was a Carlo Borromeo; he merely gave a quid pro quo; but it is not every person who will give you a quid pro quo. Had he been a vulgar publican, he would have sent in a swinging bill after receiving the plate; ‘but then no vulgar publican would have been presented with plate;’ perhaps not, but many a vulgar public character has been presented with plate, whose admirers never received a quid pro quo, except in the shape of a swinging bill.

I found my duties of distributing hay and corn, and keeping an account thereof, anything but disagreeable, particularly after I had acquired the good-will of the old ostler, who at first looked upon me with rather an evil eye, considering me somewhat in the light of one who had usurped an office which belonged to himself by the right of succession; but there was little gall in the old fellow, and, by speaking kindly to him, never giving myself any airs of assumption; but above all, by frequently reading the newspapers to him—for, though passionately fond of news and politics, he was unable to read—I soon succeeded in placing myself on excellent terms with him. A regular character was that old ostler; he was a Yorkshireman by birth, but had seen a great deal of life in the vicinity of London, to which, on the death of his parents, who were very poor people, he went at a very early age. Amongst other places where he had served as ostler was a small inn at Hounslow, much frequented by highwaymen, whose exploits he was fond of narrating, especially those of Jerry Abershaw, [146] who, he said, was a capital rider; and on hearing his accounts

of that worthy I half regretted that the old fellow had not been in London, and I had not formed his acquaintance about the time I was thinking of writing the life of the said Abershaw, not doubting that with his assistance I could have produced a book at least as remarkable as the life and adventures of that entirely imaginary personage, Joseph Sell; perhaps, however, I was mistaken; and whenever Abershaw’s life shall appear before the public—and my publisher credibly informs me that it has not yet appeared—I beg and entreat the public to state which it likes best, the life of Abershaw, or that of Sell, for which latter work I am informed that during the last few months there has been a prodigious demand. [147a] My old friend, however, after talking of Abershaw, would frequently add, that, good rider as Abershaw certainly was, he was decidedly inferior to Richard Ferguson, [147b] generally called Galloping Dick, who was a pal of Abershaw’s, and had enjoyed a career as long, and nearly as remarkable, as his own. I learned from him that both were capital customers at the Hounslow inn, and that he had frequently drank with them in the corn-room. He said that no man could desire more jolly or entertaining companions over a glass of ‘summat’; but that upon the road it was anything but desirable to meet them; there they were terrible, cursing and swearing, and thrusting the muzzles of their pistols into people’s mouths; and at this part of his locution the old man winked, and said, in a somewhat lower voice, that upon the whole they were right in doing so, and that when a person had once made up his mind to become a highwayman, his best policy was to go the whole hog, fearing nothing, but making everybody afraid of him; that people never thought of resisting a savage-faced, foul-mouthed highwayman, and if he were taken, were afraid to bear witness against him, lest he should get off and cut their throats some time or other upon the roads; whereas people would resist being robbed by a sneaking, pale-visaged rascal, and would swear bodily against him on the first opportunity; adding, that Abershaw and Ferguson, two most awful fellows, had enjoyed a long career, whereas two disbanded officers of the army, who wished to rob a coach like gentlemen,

had begged the passengers’ pardon, and talked of hard necessity, had been set upon by the passengers themselves, amongst whom were three women, pulled from their horses, conducted to Maidstone, and hanged with as little pity as such contemptible fellows deserved. ‘There is nothing like going the whole hog,’ he repeated, ‘and if ever I had been a highwayman, I would have done so; I should have thought myself all the more safe; and, moreover, shouldn’t have despised myself. To curry favour with those you are robbing, sometimes at the expense of your own comrades, as I have known fellows do, why it is the greatest—’

‘So it is,’ interposed my friend the postillion, who chanced to be present at a considerable part of the old ostler’s discourse; ‘it is, as you say, the greatest of humbug, and merely, after all, gets a fellow into trouble; but no regular bred highwayman would do it. I say, George, catch the Pope of Rome trying to curry favour with anybody he robs; catch old Mumbo Jumbo currying favour with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Dean and Chapter, should he meet them in a stage-coach; it would be with him, Bricconi Abbasso, as he knocked their teeth out with the butt of his trombone, and the old regular-built ruffian would be all the safer for it, as Bill would say, as ten to one the Archbishop and Chapter, after such a spice of his quality, would be afraid to swear against him, and to hang him, even if he were in their power, though that would be the proper way; for, if it is the greatest of all humbug for a highwayman to curry favour with those he robs, the next greatest is to try to curry favour with a highwayman when you have got him, by letting him off.’

Finding the old man so well acquainted with the history of highwaymen, and taking considerable interest in the subject, having myself edited a book [148] containing the lives of many remarkable people who had figured on the highway, I forthwith asked him how it was that the trade of highwayman had become extinct in England, as at present we never heard of anyone following it. Whereupon he told me that many causes had contributed to bring about that result; the principal of which were the following: the refusal to license houses which were known to afford shelter to highwaymen, which, amongst many

others, had caused the inn at Hounslow to be closed; the inclosure of many a wild heath in the country, on which they were in the habit of lurking, and particularly the establishing in the neighbourhood of London of a well-armed mounted patrol, who rode the highwaymen down, and delivered them up to justice, which hanged them without ceremony.

‘And that would be the way to deal with Mumbo Jumbo and his gang,’ said the postillion, ‘should they show their visages in these realms; and I hear by the newspapers that they are becoming every day more desperate. Take away the license from their public-houses, cut down the rookeries and shadowy old avenues in which they are fond of lying in wait, in order to sally out upon people as they pass in the roads; but, above all, establish a good mounted police to ride after the ruffians and drag them by the scruff of the neck to the next clink, [149] where they might lie till they could be properly dealt with by law; instead of which, the Government are repealing the wise old laws enacted against such characters, giving fresh licenses every day to their public-houses, and saying that it would be a pity to cut down their rookeries and thickets, because they look so very picturesque; and, in fact, giving them all kind of encouragement; why, if such behaviour is not enough to drive an honest man mad, I know not what is. It is of no use talking, I only wish the power were in my hands, and if I did not make short work of them, might I be a mere jackass postillion all the remainder of my life.’

Besides acquiring from the ancient ostler a great deal of curious information respecting the ways and habits of the heroes of the road, with whom he had come in contact in the early portion of his life, I picked up from him many excellent hints relating to the art of grooming horses. Whilst at the inn, I frequently groomed the stage and post-horses, and those driven up by travellers in their gigs: I was not compelled, nor indeed expected, to do so; but I took pleasure in the occupation; and I remember at that period one of the principal objects of my ambition was to be a first-rate groom, and to make the skins of the creatures I took in hand look sleek and glossy like those of moles. I have said that I derived

valuable hints from the old man, and, indeed, became a very tolerable groom, but there was a certain finishing touch which I could never learn from him, though he possessed it himself, and which I could never attain to by my own endeavours; though my want of success certainly did not proceed from want of application, for I have rubbed the horses down, purring and buzzing all the time, after the genuine ostler fashion, until the perspiration fell in heavy drops upon my shoes, and when I had done my best, and asked the old fellow what he thought of my work, I could never extract from him more than a kind of grunt, which might be translated: ‘Not so very bad, but I have seen a horse groomed much better,’ which leads me to suppose that a person, in order to be a first-rate groom, must have something in him when he is born which I had not, and, indeed, which many other people have not who pretend to be grooms. What does the reader think?