“What say you, Pea-blossom?” I continued, addressing my saucy bay mare.
“Stay?” replied Pea-blossom, tossing her head. “Certainly stay. You stopped a whole week at Chryston, and I thought I was going to be a lady for life.”
“And what say you, Corn-flower?” I continued, addressing my horse, who, by the way, is not quite so refined in his ideas as Pea-blossom.
“Which I’d stop anyw’eres,” said Corn-flower, taking an immense mouthful of clover, “where there be such feeding as this.”
Well, when both one’s horses, besides his Newfoundland dog and his servants, want to stay at a place for the night, compliance in the master becomes a kind of a virtue.
The Evening before the Games.
“Now rose
Sweet evening, solemn hour; the sun, declined,
Hung golden o’er this nether firmament,
Whose broad cerulean mirror, calmly bright,
Gave back his beamy image to the sky
With splendour undiminished.”
Mallet.
The village is all a-quiver to-night with the excitement of expectancy, and many an anxious eye is turned skywards.
“If the breeze holds from this direction,” says the landlord of the hotel, “it will be fine for certain.”
Poor fellow! little could he dream while he spoke of the dreadful accident that would befall him but a few hours after he thus talked so hopefully.