I must for a moment depart from my diary, and say a word about Faraway. He was an Irish thoroughbred, by Fairyland, purchased at Tattersall’s in 1880, from the stud of chestnuts sent up by Captain Amcotts, of the 5th Dragoon Guards. He was knocked down to me for fifty guineas. I followed him back to his box, and when I asked the groom why he had only two old shoes on, and what was wrong with the brute, he said, “Sure, he’s a grand hunter, and nothing wrong wid him; but ye can’t shoe him, clip him, or physic him.” Some years after I found that he had killed a blacksmith just before I bought him; he was quite capable of killing any number of that profession or any other--yet it was not temper, but fear and nerves, that made him dangerous. Fast as the wind, hard as nails, wild as a hawk, are all expressions that fitted him. His little failings were discourtesy--for he met strangers visiting his box on his hind-legs and sparred at them--and buck-jumping, at which he could beat anything I ever saw at the Wild West Show, refusing to let anyone hold his bridle or to stand still while being mounted. One great fault he had--he would not, when hounds ran, allow you to open a gate, always managing, if you did succeed in getting your hand out to reach the catch, to dive under your arm and whip round; while, if anyone opened the gate for you, he went through it like a bullet. But when once I had become familiar with his eccentricities, and abandoned all attempts to differ with his methods and manners, I found him one of the most delightful mounts I ever got across--all life, liberty, and whalebone, and impossible to tire. I counted him among the most precious of my possessions, till after a bad fall he nearly killed me, breaking a few of my bones, and making me literally sit up and spit blood. I then yielded to the solicitations of my friends, and sold him to Mr. James Darrell, who told me he had gone well in Leicestershire in other hands.