In less than half-an-hour George and the grey came trotting back, intact, and apparently on the best of terms with one another, although they were both very hot; the grey had lost two shoes, and his rider his cap. “He has no more mouth than a stone wall,” said George as he got off. “But he _can’t_ fall. He took Dooley’s boundary as if it were a cart rut. I’ve knocked the conceit out of him a bit; he was heading for the canal, but when he found it was all the same to me, he shut off steam.” “George, my dear boy, what a terrible horse!” cried Mrs. Malone. “I was sure you would have been killed, when he went at the gate.” “Yes, like the old lady I thought that ‘every moment would be my next,’ till I discovered that he could jump. He is all right, mother, he only wants exercise, there is no fear of me. And I mean to buy him.” “Your father was a splendid rider, George; no horse ever conquered him. You take after him, I see.” And she looked at her handsome, eager-eyed son with an air of melancholy pride. “What do _you_ say to him, Miss Betty?” he enquired. “You shall ride him if you like, some of these days, when he is better bitted, and broken.” “Betty is a nailer to ride. She’d back anything,” volunteered Denis in his gruff voice. “He is not a lady’s horse,” objected the Major, “though handling and exercise is all he wants. Only for this gout of mine I’d buy him myself, and have him as quiet as a sheep by the end of the week; it’s all hands, sir, hands--and I don’t think much of _yours_. Eh! what? what?” The Major was sorely vexed at George’s success, and the unmistakable admiration that his riding had evoked, from a notoriously critical class. The Major himself was no horseman; a lamentable exhibition in the saddle; he had a capital seat in a dog-cart, that was all. Presently, as the cowed and subdued grey was about to be led off to the stable, with drooping head and heaving sides, Cuckoo rushed at the groom excitedly, and said: “You have not told us his name. What is he called?” “Faix! the only name I ever heard put on him was Clancy’s mad colt, but I believe he was christened ‘Scatter Brains,’” replied the little man with a sly smile as he led his charge away, to have a rub down and a feed. That evening “Scatter Brains” was purchased by George Holroyd for seventy-five guineas, and a luckpenny to the groom, who received it, and a glass of whisky, with an expression of intense satisfaction--not to say relief. “You are not from this part of the world, are you?” enquired George by way of conversation. “No, your honour, I was formerly a native of Cork, and I would not tell your honour a lie.” “And of where are you _now_ a native?”