Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

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“Well, a great race was to come off soon after this. My lord had taken the field twenty to one over and over ag’in against Custard for the steeplechase which was to be run on the following week, so he stood to win eight thousand if I could bring Custard in a winner, and that I felt I could make sure of.

“But I must tell you, however, that my lord and I, after being so nutty upon one another, all of a sudden on this morning began to wrangle. First he began teaching me how to ride. Well, I couldn’t stand that nohow.

“I’m for commanding a ’oss light in the mouth, riding him as with a silken rein as fine as a hair, and which you feel afraid to break. My lord, who was a yokel in the management of ’osses, though he was good at a-getting money on ’em, as you shall hear presently, always gave his lads instructions to hold their ’osses tight in racing.

“Now, if a ’oss bears on his rein in running it makes him open his mouth, and pulls his head up, which frets him, and causes him to jump with his forelegs open, and run stag-necked, locks his wind, and soon tires him. ’Osses that run sprawling, with a part of the rider’s weight in their mouth, can never win a race if at all matched. I, however, likes to keep a ’oss together with a good bridle hand, being careful not to pull on the rein, or he can’t rise to the fence when he gets up to it.