"On arriving at the end of the stage, however, my suspicions were confirmed. This was my old friend and favourite, Latch-key, and although we had been separated for more than two years, he remembered me better than I did him, and seemed anxious to renew all the pettings and caresses which used to pass between us." Not to weary my reader with a history of the whole life of this horse, there is still something so remarkable in the fact of a man having bred a horse, and then purchased him four different times, that I may be forgiven for giving a slight sketch of his antecedents--as far as they could be traced by my host. "Foaled in 1828. The dam, being blind, lost her way, fell into a ditch, and was fatally injured. The foal was reared by hand, chiefly upon ass's milk. Being a privileged member of the farmyard group, he became the constant companion of his foster-brother, the foal of the mare donkey which had supplied all his wants. These two grazed in the orchard, frolicked in the park, and were always to be found near the house together. The young ass was an adept at opening gates, and the colt had acquired a knowledge of the art to such perfection that no fastening short of a chain and padlock could keep him in. Thence he acquired the sobriquet of Latch-key. "At the age of two years he went to plough with other colts of his own age. The monotony of this work did not suit him, and hearing the hounds one day running at a short distance from his work, he was seized with a sudden determination to follow them, and after a severe and protracted kicking-match, having knocked two partners out of time, made his escape. Away he went, with part of his chains and a spreading-bar still hanging to him. These encumbrances caused him some awkward falls to begin with, which only served to increase the amusement he afforded to the field, as he quickly righted himself and resumed his place in the front rank. "The country was stiff and the field getting select when Latch-key joined the cry. The hounds had got a good straight-necked fox before them, and there was a rattling scent--one of those days when the only way to live with them was by galloping from parish to parish, and then only to find they were two fields before you. But I am digressing, and it is quite necessary to go straight in such an affair as I am describing. Taking every fence as it came, in company with the foremost riders, Latch-key held his own, and it was not till, at the end of forty-five minutes, the gallant fox saved his brush by getting into a rabbit-hole, that, with heaving flanks, distended nostrils, and dripping with perspiration, he received the commendations of the field as they came up on the line. "'Bravo, young 'un! I should like to have you at five years old.' "'Where does he come from?' etc. etc. "The fox had brought them over a distance of nine miles as the crow flies, and few witnessed the finish.