"Vice! Why should he have vice, man? A child might ride him for that matter. I got him with the best of characters. But you'll never teach those lads to ride if you are always at their stirrup-leather, like this. Let them ride alone, and race together. Don't treat them like a brace of mollycoddles. Why, at their age, I could have backed any horse in Christendom without a saddle. I wonder you don't give Miss Marmaduke a leading-rein." The colour, which had faded from the lad's cheeks, returned to them again at this sneer; but Mr. Long only remarked: "If you had had a leading-rein yourself, Sir Massingberd, at seventeen, it would have been a great deal better for you," and rode on without the least consciousness, as I believe, of having made any such observation. When we had advanced about a mile, and had left the village quite behind us, my tutor expressed a wish to change horses with Marmaduke. "I want to try his paces," said he; and certainly, if he had been a horse-breaker by profession, he could not have taken more pains with the animal. He trotted, he cantered, he galloped; he took him into a field, and over some fences; he forced him by a wind-mill in full work; and, in short, he left no means untried to test his temper. In the end, he expressed himself highly satisfied. "Really," said he, "Sir Massingberd has got you a first-rate steed, with plenty of courage, yet without vice; he makes me quite dissatisfied with my poor old mare." The next day, and the next, we rode again without my tutor; and on the fourth day it was agreed that we should take an expedition as far as Crittenden, some ten miles away, where Mr. Long wished us to do some commissions for him. By this time, Marmaduke was quite accustomed to his recent acquisition; enjoyed the exercise greatly; and since Sir Massingberd was much engaged with his guests, passed altogether more agreeable days. On the afternoon in question, the Hall party were out shooting, and had taken with them all the stable domestics except a raw lad who scarcely knew how to saddle a horse. "I cannot think what is the matter this afternoon with 'Panther'" (we so called his skittish animal), exclaimed Marmaduke, as he rode up to the Rectory door. "I could scarcely get him to start from the yard, and he came here mostly upon his hind-legs. Is there anything wrong with his girths, think you? Ned did not know where to lay his hands on anything, and my uncle has taken William with him to 'mark.'" "Nay," said I, "I see nothing the matter. We will soon take off his superfluous energy over Crittenden Common."