'When you have got such a horse be proud of it--as I dare say you are of
the one you have now--and wherever you go swear there a'n't another to
match it in the country, and if anybody gives you the lie, take him by
the nose and tweak it off, just as you would do if anybody were to speak
ill of your lady, or, for want of her, of your housekeeper. Take care of
your horse, as you would of the apple of your eye--I am sure I would if I
were a gentleman, which I don't ever expect to be, and hardly wish,
seeing as how I am sixty-nine, and am rather too old to ride--yes,
cherish and take care of your horse as perhaps the best friend you have
in the world; for, after all, who will carry you through thick and thin
as your horse will? not your gentlemen friends, I warrant, nor your
housekeeper, nor your upper servants, male or female; perhaps your lady
would, that is, if she is a whopper, and one of the right sort; the
others would be more likely to take up mud and pelt you with it, provided
they saw you in trouble, than to help you. So take 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 a week; some say that
the hay should be hardland hay, because it is 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.
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