kennel, eh? But let 'em show us a tit that can clear the ground like thee yet. No, no, thy best days are to come yet. Thou 'rt none of their flip-flap, rashy-washy bits of Arabians, that can be slipped out of their dandy wrappers and run over the course for ten minutes, and then into their jackets again, and all covered and cordialled and coddled up like a sick child, or an old woman with the ague. No, Bob; no, lad, thou 'rt all fair and above board, rough and ready, all steel and pin-wire, and wilt be jogging on thy ten miles an hour when many a showier thing is not fit to draw a babies' cart." And then he gives him a cut with his long whip, and makes him start and prance, crying-" See! what, he's no spirit left, has he? Isn't that action? What d'ye call that?

See the jockey thus on the pavement of the fair, in his long coat, his old boots, his great jockey whip, his hat that has no shape that mortal terms can describe-brown, slouching, without either roundness or squareness, corners or edges about it; and his stout waistcoat with its double rows of great buttons; see his ruddy, sunburnt face, and how he plants his leg, and puts out his hand as he is in the midst of his bargain-why, he would not thank the Queen to be his mother-he is a clever jockey-a rare hand at a raffle, and that is, in his eyes, the summit of existence.

And what a thing is a jockey's bargain! He would scorn to set a fair price on a horse, and sell it at once and quietly. There is no fun in that. No, even when he knows that his customer is up to the thing; knows the worth of it as well as he does, he'll ask at least a fourth more than he means to take, that he may have a chance by the force of his palaver to take in the knowing one a bit. It is at least the way to show his wit, his knowledge; to enjoy the luxury of a good hard fight. He is all tongue, all eyes, all ears. He has half-a-dozen bargains on the tapis at once, though he seems to be absorbed body and soul in an eager endeavour to convince some one person of the superlative qualities of some particular steeds; though all the while he is perhaps well satis fied that he shall not sell those very horses to this particular man; that the bidding is only to show off on the other side. And truly, a pretty contradiction of terms do you have about the same horse. The owner has not words to express all his virtues and beautiesthe bidder to express his astonishment at the strange defects of the creature. What a chest! what shapely buttocks! what an eye! what a beautiful head! what a set of handsome legs and neat feet! what fire and action he has! according to one,-and according

to the other, what a joulter head! what a pig back and bony hips! what incipient spavins, tetters, and glanders! He is, according to the bidder, liable to all sorts of diseases, colics, coughs, staggers, and heaven knows what. You wonder what he can want such a horse for. By his account it is too bad even for the dogs. But while the heat of contest goes on about this sorely praised and abused steed, the eye of the jockey is secretly aware of three or four other parties, that he knows are more likely to purchase, and far more easy to be taken in. Suddenly, he turns to a quiet clergyman-like sort of a person, and says-"That's a capital horse now, if you wanted one for a gig-sure-footed as the sun himself—goes like the wind, and is only rising four years old. He's been run for a year by Sir Toby Blaze, who would not have taken two hundred pounds for him, but Sir Toby was a little run out at the elbows, I reckon, and is off to France. I can let you have that a bargain;—all right and tight,—you'll never have the chance again.

"What's the price?"

"Price!-dog cheap-a mere old song. Seventy pounds." The clergyman-like, mild gentleman shakes his head, and is walking away.

"What will you give then, master? Name your price. I might possibly come down a trifle or so, to do business."

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I don't want a horse at more than fifty pounds," says the mild gentleman, softly.

But

I

"Fifty! oh, I can let you have a dozen at that price, at forty, thirty, ay, twenty-five, if you will. See here! and here! take my advice now, that is a bargain! that is a horse! tell you it is as well worth two hundred pounds to a gentleman as a penny loaf is worth a penny. But to make short on it, I'll say sixty-five! There! what do you say then?

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Say forty, Jem!" says an equally sharp-looking fellow of the same genus, "and let the gentleman go; you see he wants to be going to his dinner. Say forty; that's the real value of the tit. I'll bid it for him, come, done!

my

"Forty? forty devils! Do you think, Houndell, that I steal horses? or take the dog-flesh of the cavalry? No, the very least penny I'll take is sixty-three! Ah, neighbour! says he, suddenly bustling away to a farmerly-looking man, who is eyeing a pair of black colts-"Ah! you've some white in your eye, I You know a bit of good stuff when you see it, as well as

see.

any of your fathers did when they'd a mind to go a courting. Come, these will turn up your leas in style, and they 're yours for a fig's end-just five-and-thirty pounds apiece! What! don't that please you? as the old farmer looks at him with a "What's the matter now? Are horses of that stamp so thick on the ground here? Just look about you while I settle with this clergyman; and mind nobody whips the colts off before you can open your mouth."

sly roguish smile.

"Forty pounds!" says the man who bids as if self-appointed, for the clergyman-like gentleman. "Forty pounds, and no more. There is the brass-" holding out a lot of bank notes.

"Forty crabsticks!

"Forty! and not a bodle more!" "Well then it's of no use talking.

Ah! squire, that hunter season. There's bone and

will carry like a whirlwind this next sinew! There's figure and action! Put that horse out, Tom, show his paces," and the horse gets a cut behind, and is rattled over the stones at a rate that makes the fire fly from his shoes and the people out of his way in a jiffey.

But not to follow all the bargaining with the squire; the jockey is now all vociferation with the farmer for the black colts, and as he huffs away from him and his offer

"Forty pounds, Jem!" says again the knowing fellow who is waiting beside the clergyman-like gentleman. "Forty! that's the very last word."

"Sixty, Houndell! sixty, man! I won't take a penny less if I must keep the horse till doomsday."

And away go the knowing one and the mild gentleman, looking through the rest of the horse-fair. But half an hour afterwards, you see them there again; and, spite of having vowed twenty times that he won't say another word, and the other protesting that this and that is the very last penny that he 'll take -they are now got to forty-four and forty-six! But here it hangs just as stiffly, and the fight is as hard, and the bargain seems as hopeless. In fact, away go the knowing one and the mild gentleman, as if for the last time, and in amaze at the jockey's obstinacy; but after some quarter of an hour, as they accidentally pass again, the knowing one shouts "What! that famous horse is still hanging on hand! Well, Jem, I'm still your man. I'll stand forty-four, now then-now or never!" -He is going

"Forty-five! Come, things are deuced slack to-day-there! take him-I lose twenty pounds by him, if I lose a penny." "Forty-four!" says the knowing one-"that's the pricehere it is, see- -Bank of England-forty-four!"

Well, forty-four then, and ten shillings for luck. There! there!"

"Well, I won't be hard,--forty-four, and five shillings for luck."

Here most people would think the matter pretty wellt a an end. But no such thing! If he were to pass a quarter of an hour afterwards, he would probably find them still hard at it for a split of the five shillings, or finally, whether the halter shall go with the horse.

The bargain made, the mild clergyman-like man pays down the money, and gives the knowing one a sovereign for his friendly, but unsolicited assistance; at which he looks with a smile, turning it over in the palm of his hand, and adding, "A trifle more, sir, should it not be? Why, bless me, it 's four hours that we've been higgling with that whitleather chap; a five pound note wouldn't, I think, be too heavy. Think what I've saved you. Here's a horse worth two hundred; nay, I won't say with Jem, worth quite two hundred pounds, but honestly worth one, and that for fortyfour pound five!"

The mild man gives the knowing one a couple of sovereigns, and his groom rides the horse home, where, in a month's time, they find that the creature is regularly made up; has a confirmed spavin, a touch in the wind, is subject to run away with the bit between his teeth, and, in short, is not worth a bunch of matches ;— the good-natured knowing one having been the jockey's accomplice.

Such is the strange trade of a jockey, amongst whom Jockey Dawes stood pre-eminent. In all the mysteries of making up, setting off, bargaining and buying, he stood unrivalled. He was known at all the fairs far round, but in his own neighbourhood he was a very byword for cunning and invincible fence of wit. Nay, his fame seems to have reached the poet Tennyson, for in his poem "Walking to the Mail," we find his name :

But let him go; his devil goes with him,

As well as with his tenant, Jockey Dawes.

In his youth he acquired great fame all amongst his class, and all over his own part of the country for a trial about the sale of a

horse, which he won. He had sold a capital-looking grey horse at a great price as a right sound, healthy, and useful dark grey horse. The purchaser found, as soon as he got home, that the horse was stone blind, though it was difficult to discover this by the look of his eyes. He sent it back, but Jockey Dawes refused to take it, saying he had sold it for a blind one. The purchaser denied this: the thing came to trial, where Dawes stoutly declared that he had sold it for a blind one; that his very warrantry was that he was "a right sound, healthy, and dark grey horse; at which the court being very much enlightened, and the jury convulsed with laughter, a verdict was given at once for Jockey Dawes; and his dark grey horse" became proverbial. Well might Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, define a jockey to be " man that deals in horses; a cheat, a trickish fellow."

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a

This worthy, as is the case with this genus, kept a publichouse near Langley Mill, on the edge of Derbyshire, and, of course, great was the resort to his tap when he was at home, and many the merry contests between the jockey and Dick Redfern. Dick was all lightness, thinness, and volatile, flashing merriment. The jockey, short, stout, and somewhat pursy, with a cool, sly manner, a quiet meaning smile, and pleasant inward chuckle. The stories of his feats are endless in the traditions of his neighbourhood; but we can only give a specimen.

Two raw fellows of the Peak of Derbyshire plagued the jockey for a couple of very cheap horses for the work of a very poor little farm. It was at a fair at Chesterfield. Jockey Dawes told them he had no such cattle; but, as if he could make them at will, they still continued to bore him for them. At length, as he saw that they were, according to the rhyme of the country,

"True Peakeril bred,

Strong i' th' arm and weak i' th' head,"

he said- ་ Well, well, come to my house. I've two tits there that will suit you to a hair. Two capital horses they are, though a trifle worse for wear; but all sound as timber and paint; sound wind, limb, and eye-sight. Hard as bricks they are; they'll just suit your cold country. I call them Wisk and Bob. Come then, and I'll sell you them both for a guinea."

The fellows caught eagerly at the idea-two horses, all sound as timber and paint for a guinea! They set off the next day, and walked there. It was at least twenty miles. Jockey