care of your horse, and feed him every day with your own hands; give him three quarters of a peck of corn each day, mixed up with a little hay-chaff, and allow him besides one hundredweight of hay in the course of the week; some say that the hay should be hardland hay, because it is the wholesomest, but I say, let it be clover hay, because the horse likes it best; give him through summer and winter, once a week, a pailful of bran mash, cold in summer and in winter hot; ride him gently about the neighbourhood every day, by which means you will give exercise to yourself and horse, and, moreover, have the satisfaction of exhibiting yourself and your horse to advantage, and hearing, perhaps, the men say what a fine horse, and the ladies saying what a fine man:  never let your groom mount your horse, as it is ten to one, if you do, your groom will be wishing to show off before company, and will fling your horse down.  I was groom to a gemman before I went to the inn at Hounslow, and flung him a horse down worth ninety guineas, by endeavouring to show off before some ladies that I met on the road.  Turn your horse out to grass throughout May and the first part of June, for then the grass is sweetest, and the flies don’t sting so bad as they do later in summer; afterwards merely turn him out occasionally in the swale of the morn and the evening; after September the grass is good for little, lash and sour at best; every horse should go out to grass, if not his blood becomes full of greasy humours, and his wind is apt to become affected, but he ought to be kept as much as possible from the heat and flies, always got up at night, and never turned out late in the year—­Lord! if I had always such a nice attentive person to listen to me as you are, I could go on talking about ’orses to the end of time.”

CHAPTER XXVI

The Stage—­Coachmen of England—­A Bully Served Out—­Broughton’s Guard—­The Brazen Head.

I lived on very good terms, not only with the master and the old ostler, but with all the domestics and hangers on at the inn; waiters, chambermaids, cooks, and scullions, not forgetting the “boots,” of which there were three.  As for the postillions, I was sworn brother with them all, and some of them went so far as to swear that I was the best fellow in the world; for which high opinion entertained by them of me, I believe I was principally indebted to the good account their comrade gave of me, whom I had so hospitably received in the dingle.  I repeat that I lived on good terms with all the people connected with the inn, and was noticed and spoken kindly to by some of the guests—­especially by that class termed commercial travellers—­all of whom were great friends and patronizers of the landlord, and were the principal promoters of the dinner, and subscribers to the gift of plate, which I have already spoken of, the whole fraternity striking me as the jolliest set of fellows imaginable, the best customers to an inn, and the most liberal to servants; there was one description of persons, however, frequenting the inn, which I did not like at all, and which I did not get on well with, and these people were the stage-coachmen.